Creative Nonfiction Prompts

1. Explore a scene or story from your memory by reimagining it from an alternate perspective.
Write the event from the point of view of a passing bystander, another person close to the
event, a pet, or even an inanimate object. When choosing your narrator, pay attention to
how objective they would have been, what they would have paid attention to, and what
sort of background knowledge they would have had about the scene.
2. Tell the nonfiction story that you don’t want your mother to read. You know the one. Don’t
censor yourself.
3. Recall a moment in which you felt a strong spiritual or unidentifiable energy. Describe the
scene in vivid detail, with special attention to the senses. Connect that scene to your
relationship with your own religious beliefs or lack thereof. Examine how you incorporated
that experience into your worldview.
4. Create a timeline of events depicting your life by using newspaper headlines. Try to focus on
events that didn’t involve you directly, but connect them to the pivotal events in your life.
5. Tell the story of one of your family holiday gatherings. Identify any of your family’s common
trademarks, such as your one aunt that seems to tell the same joke at every Christmas, or
your two uncles that always hide from the rest of the family by doing the dishes. Explore
how you are linked within this family dynamic, and how these little quirks evolved and
changed over the years.
6. Tell the story of a location. Possibly one that is very close to your heart that you already
know well, or a new one that inspires your curiosity. Pay particular attention to your own
connection to the location, however small or large that connection may be.
7. Chose a location that you’ve come to know as an adult. Compare how you interact with this
setting now to how you interacted with similar settings when you were a child. How has
your perspective changed?
8. Describe a time in which you expected or wanted to feel a religious or spiritual moment, but
couldn’t. What were you hoping would happen? How do you choose to interpret that?
9. Recall a key lesson that parents or family members tried to impart onto you as a child. For
example: “live with a healthy mind and healthy body,” or “put others before yourself.”
Revisit that lesson as an adult and connect it to how you have come to interpret it as you
grew up or in your adult life. Feel free to pick a less serious lesson and have a little bit of fun
with it.

10. Revisit a special birthday from when you were younger. Describe specific details, with
emphasis upon the senses. Now that you have years of context, how do you feel about
 what your parents and family did or did not do for you? What does that event mean to you
now?
11. Choose an event in your life that someone else remembers differently. Describe both
memories and debate the differences. Who do you think is right? Why do you think you
remember it differently?
12. Choose a strong emotion and think of two memories associated with it. What are the links
between those two memories?
13. Think of a lesson you learned recently and apply it to a memory. How would your behavior
have changed if you had applied the lesson back then?
14. Choose a commonplace or otherwise unremarkable memory and describe it in the most
dramatic and absurd way possible. For inspiration, I’m leaving you with some quotes from
Douglas Adams. “The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.” “He
leant tensely against the corridor wall and frowned like a man trying to unbend a corkscrew
by telekinesis.” “It was a deep, hollow malevolent voice which sounded like molten tar
glurping out of a drum with evil on its mind.”
15. Have you seen those bizarre Illuminati videos in which some automated voice tries to prove
that Arch Duke Ferdinand is actually alive and has a monopoly on the world’s dairy farms?
For this prompt, think of people in your life who have believed in crazy conspiracy theories,
and write about the time they first shared them with you. Think of how your beliefs might
seem naïve to them, and explore the tension between the competing versions of history.
What do you want more than anything in your life? Write about the burning hot core of
your desire, and how that desire has changed over your life.
16. What do you want more than anything in your life? Write about the burning hot core of
your desire, and how that desire has changed over your life.
17. Recall what stressed you out most as a child. Was it the creaking stairs leading to the
basement? Or being lost at the store? Explore your current relationship to that stressor. Did
you ever move past that fear or anxiety? How do you interact with it now?
18. What relationship in your life has caused the most pain? Write the key scene in that
relationship, when everything was at stake.
19. Write about a road trip you took, and about where all your fellow travelers ended up in life
versus where you ended up. Are you glad you didn’t end up where they did, or are you
jealous?

20. How has your identity changed over the course of your life? Write a scene from your
teenage years that epitomizes the type of person you were, and then write a scene from
recent life that shows how you’ve changed.
21. What event in your life has angered you the most? Write the scene where it happened, and
tell us what you would do if it happened again.
22. What single experience most shaped who you are? Describe the experience in a single, vivid
scene.
23. Who was your first friend to die? Write about how you learned of their death, and how you
and their other friends mourned them.
24. Choose a happy or comfortable memory and write it in a way that makes the memory
creepy or eerie to the reader. Don’t change the basic facts of the event, only select different
facts and present them differently.
25. Show yourself in a scene pursuing the thing you want most in the world. Try to show the
reader, without telling them, about your character flaws.
26. If you could throw five items into the fire, what would they be and why? To be clear, by
throwing them in this fire, there would be no trace of them left anywhere, even if it’s
something on the Internet or a memory. This is a very powerful fire. What would the
consequences be?
27. What physical object or family heirloom ties together your grandparents, your parents, and
yourself? Describe this object in great detail, and what it has meant to generations of your
family.
28. Tell a story from your life in inverted chronological order. Start with the end, then
backpedal to the middle, then tell the beginning, and then fill in the rest of the gaps.
29. Write about your favorite trip or journey, and how that high level of happiness was
eventually threatened.
30. Look at some photographs of your childhood. Look at the pictures of your old room, the
clothes you wore, and the places you had been. Try to remember a friend from that time
period, and describe the first memory of a time when they pressured you or made you
uncomfortable or angry.
31. Take a small, boring moment that happened today and write as much as you can about it.
Go overboard describing it, and make this boring moment exciting by describing it in intense
detail with ecstatic prose. Eventually connect this small, boring detail with the grand
narrative of your life, your bigger purpose and intentions.
32. Describe the best meal you ever ate. Then describe a conflict you had with the people you
shared it with, one that happened before, during, or after.
33. Recall an individual that you particularly hated. Describe their cruelty to you, and try to
write yourself into an understanding of why they might have done it.
34. What was the best/worst letter you ever received or wrote? Write about the situation
surrounding that letter, and why it was so important.
35. Recall a name you’ve given to a toy, a car, a pet, or a child, and tell us the story of how you
and your family selected that name. Who fought over the name? What was the significance
of that name? What happened to the animal or thing you named?
36. Write about experiencing the craziest natural event you’ve ever seen — tornado,
earthquake, tsunami, and hurricane. Dramatize the physical danger of the natural event as
well as the tension between you and the people you were with.
37. Tell the story of the most important person that has shaped your town and its culture (you
might have to do some research). How did the activity of that person influence the way you
grew up or live currently?
38. Scientists have wondered for years how nature and nurture plays into the development of
human minds and their choices. Explore where you and your siblings are today and the
choices that brought you there. Would you like to trade places with your sibling? Would you
be happy living in their shoes? How have your personal choices differed over the years?
39. Write a scene of a time when someone older than you gave you advice, and write about
how you followed it or ignored it and the consequences.
40. Write a single, three-paragraph scene when your sexual desire was thwarted by yourself or
someone else.
41. Describe a scene when you were stereotyping someone. Did someone challenge you, or if
you only felt guilty by yourself, how did you change your behavior afterwards?
42. Describe the biggest epiphany of your life, then backtrack and tell the lead-up to that scene
or the aftermath. In the lead-up or aftermath, show how the epiphany was either overrated
or every bit as valuable as you’d previously thought.
43. Write about a fork in the road in your life, and how you made the decision to go the
direction you did.
44. Explore an addiction you had or currently have. Whether the addiction is as serious as
alcohol or cigarettes, or something much more mundane like texting, video games, or
internet usage, describe in vivid detail the first time you tried it. If you quit, tell the story of
how you quit.
45. Recall a scene in which you chose to remain silent. Whether it was your boss’s racist rant, or
just an argument not worth having, explore the scene and why you chose not to speak.

46. Revisit a moment in your life that you feel you will never be able to forget. What about that
moment made it so unforgettable?
47. What makes you feel guilty? Revisit a moment that you are ashamed of or feel guilty for and
explore why that is. Describe the scene and the event and communicate why you feel this
way.
48. Write about a moment in which you acted selflessly or against your own benefit. What
motivated you to do so? What were the circumstances? How did you feel after words?
49. Write about the most pivotal scene in a relationship with someone in your extended family
— Uncle, aunt, cousin, grandmother. Describe the tension or happiness you shared, and
how that came to affect your relationship from that point onward.
50. If all else fails, try a writing-sprint. Set an alarm for 5, 10, or 15 minutes and write as much
as possible within that time span. Even if you begin with no inspiration, you might be
surprised with what you come up with by the end.