Grandparent's Unfinished Diary
You find an old diary in your attic that belonged to your grandparent when they were your age. The diary entries stop abruptly with a mystery that was never solved. Armed with your wits and the diary, you decide to solve the mystery that puzzled your grandparent decades ago.
Suggested length: A middle grade story: 2,000 to 5,000 words
Start the clock
Pick a sprint, press start and keep going until it stops. Momentum beats polish on a first draft.
Make it yours
Three ways to take this prompt somewhere nobody else will.
- Keep it to one problem and one place.
- Let the child solve the problem, not a grown-up.
- Name the feeling the character has, simply and honestly.
Writing middle grade books
Ages 8 to 12: friendship, family and figuring out who you are.
Middle grade novels are written for readers around 8 to 12, with heroes usually 10 to 13. The stakes are huge to the characters, the focus stays on their world, and any romance stops at a crush.
What readers expect
- A hero aged about 10 to 13
- Family, friends and school
- Humor and heart
- Hope, even in hard stories
A tip before you start
Kids read up. Make your hero as old as your oldest readers, or a little older.
More Middle Grade prompts
- The Talking Dog's TreasureYou invent a gadget for your science project that can translate animal thoughts into human language. After hooking it up to your pet dog, you're…
- The Pencil Every Child GetsPicture a world where every child gets a magical pencil at the age of 10. Whatever they draw becomes real for one day. Write about the drawing that…
- The Scrap-Built Flying MachineEvery year, your town holds a legendary race where competitors use homemade flying machines. This year, you and your friends decide to enter with a…
- The Attic Game WorldDescribe an adventure of two friends who discover an old, dusty board game in their attic. When they start playing, they realise the game is magical…
Fifteen minutes in? Keep going.
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