40 Creative Story Writing Prompts For Kids

From once upon a time to “keep running out of the fog”, whichever your child or student wants to start their piece by saying, just know they are working towards creative storytelling. Watching my students express themselves through writing has been one of the most exciting journeys to watch as an educator. You can see they’re adding in all the details, how meaningful specific characters become, how the plot can resemble their lives or be in complete fantasy land. I watch in awe. I see my students' imagination surpass anything I can imagine myself. It’s a process where you’ll see your kid’s bright ideas unfold and mold into something they can become proud of. 

In this article, we hope to be a source of inspiration for story writing ideas to ignite kids’ imagination and enhance their writing skills. 

Fun and Creative Writing Prompts for Kids

Sometimes kids may feel they have no idea what to write about; it's like a faucet needing a little help before creative ideas flow. Creative writing prompts help get those gears turning and juices flowing.

Story Writing Prompts for Children

For PreK Kids:

• Imagine it snowed overnight. How would you spend the next day having fun in the snow?
• Draw and describe your favorite animal. What fun things do you do together?
• If you could be any animal for a day, which one would you be and why?
• Imagine you are a superhero! What is your superpower and how do you use it?
• One morning, you wake up and your toys can talk! What do they say, and what adventure do you go on together?
• A friendly dragon lands in your backyard. What happens next?
• You plant a magic seed in your garden. The next morning, something amazing has grown! What is it?
• Imagine you’re a pirate sailing the seas. What treasure do you find?
• One day, you find a tiny door hidden in your house. When you open it, where does it lead?
• A rainbow appears in the sky, and you decide to slide down it. Where do you land?

For Elementary Kids:

• Magic Backpack: Imagine what magical items are in your backpack and write a story about your adventures.
• Your pet suddenly gains the ability to talk for one day. Write about the conversations and adventures you share.
• Imagine you found a magic lamp. What three wishes would you make, and how do they change your life?
• Imagine you’re a detective solving a mysterious case. What clues do you find?
• If you could design your own spaceship, where would you travel in space?
• You wake up and discover you’ve turned into your favorite animal. What happens next?
• One day, you open your lunchbox and find a secret note with a riddle. Who sent it, and what does it mean?
• You visit a mysterious library where books come to life as you read them. What story do you step into?
• A door that wasn’t there before appears in your classroom. You open it and step into another world. What do you see?
• One morning, you wake up with a tiny pair of wings. What do you do first?

For Middle Schoolers:

• Your bicycle has the ability to travel through time. Write about the historical period you visit and what happens there.
• You find a dusty old book in an attic. As you read it, the characters start appearing in real life. What happens next?
• Write a suspenseful story set in an abandoned building rumored to be haunted.
• If you could trade places with a character from your favorite book, who would it be and why? What happens in the new version of the story?
• One night, you hear whispers coming from your mirror. You take a closer look and realize it’s not your reflection speaking back.
• A strange new student arrives at school, but something about them isn’t quite right… What’s their secret?
• You and your friends discover a hidden underground tunnel in your town. Where does it lead?
• You wake up in a world where all the adults have disappeared. What happens next?
• A package arrives at your doorstep with no sender’s name. Inside, you find something that changes your life. What is it?
• You receive an anonymous text message that simply says, “Don’t trust them.” What happens next?

For High Schoolers:

• You wake up one day to find that you’ve switched lives with your past self from five years ago. What do you do?
• Two strangers meet at a bus stop. One of them knows a secret that could change the other person’s life forever. Write their conversation.
• You are the last person on Earth. What happened, and what do you do now?
• A scientist has discovered a way to bring historical figures back to life. You are chosen to interview one of them—who do you choose, and how does the conversation go?
• You find an old diary hidden inside your family’s home. As you read it, you realize it was written by someone who predicted the future—including something that happens tomorrow.
• A famous painting in a museum winks at you. When you return to look at it again, the figure in the painting is missing. What happens next?
• One night, every screen in the world displays the same eerie message: “We are coming.” Who sent it, and what does it mean?
• You receive a letter from your future self warning you about something. Do you follow the advice or ignore it? What happens?
• A scientist invents a machine that lets people experience their dreams as if they were real. You decide to try it, but something goes wrong.
• Your best friend reveals that they have a supernatural ability, but they need your help. What is their ability, and what do you do?

All of the prompts I have provided serve similar purposes:

• Develop strong characters and unique situations
• Build a clear plot
• Use descriptive language and details
• Incorporate dialogue and internal conflict (mostly for older kids)
• Include a moral of the stories
• Encourage creativity and thinking outside the box

Interactive Storytelling Activities

It’s important to create activities that spark imagination and help your kid feel inspired to start writing. Activities such as story cubes, picture prompts, story chains, etc. The beauty of these activities is that they can be done at home or in the classroom. 

Activities to Spark Imagination:

• Story Cubes: You can use dice with different images to create story elements. Have your kid roll the dice a few times to get inspired to write. 
• Picture Prompts: Select random images and craft a story around them. You can create notecards or buy notecards with various pictures to inspire storywriting. 
• Story Chains: Start a story and have each kid add a sentence to continue it. For example, “Today Maya went to the park…” 

Developing Characters and Settings

• It’s useful to build strong foundations for your characters, settings, and plot. 
• Have your kid spend some time working on character profiles, setting exploration, conflict, and resolution.

Character Profiles: 

• Create detailed profiles and identities for main characters. 
• Try to develop your character by thinking about what they like, what they don’t like, what matters to them, what they look like, etc.

Setting Exploration: 

• Describe the world where the story takes place. As we want to build our character, we want to build our world too. 
• Questions to think about: Where does your character live? How does the setting affect what’s going on in the story?

Conflict and Resolution: 

• Introduce challenges for characters to overcome. 
• A story needs challenges for your characters to solve to develop an interesting plot. 
• Questions you can think about to help: What could go wrong in the story? How does the character solve the problem? Does the problem hurt all the characters or just the main character?

Story Structure and Plot Development

Similar to characters, settings, conflict, and resolution, we want to make sure our plot is organized, compelling, and has a twist. Elements to focus on: beginning, middle, end, plot twists, and climax and resolution. 

Beginning, Middle, End: 

• Teach the basic structure of a story. We always need a beginning, middle, and end to help organize the writing. 

Plot Twists: 

• Introduce unexpected events to keep the story interesting. 
• We want to keep our reader interested, the rule of thumb I use with my students is if you read your story and you're bored, then your reader is also bored–add some twists. 

Climax and Resolution: 

• Build up to the story's peak and conclude effectively. The way I explain this to my students is by using a mountain where the peak of the problem is the top and the resolution is going down the mountain.

Need Some Extra Help with Writing? Genie Academy Can Help

At Genie Academy, we don’t do one-size-fits-all learning. Your child moves at their own pace, mastering reading, writing, and composition with workbooks to stretch their creativity across different genres. We make writing exciting, keeping kids engaged and motivated and actually looking forward to learning (yes, really!).

And the results? Our Success Stories say it all. Many of our students have earned spots in specialized programs, won awards, and even published their own work—including one standout student who took home a Writing Award for a literary masterpiece!

With six locations in New Jersey – Plainsboro, East Brunswick, South Brunswick, Hillsborough, South Plainfield, and Marlboro, Genie Academy is where young minds go to shine. If your child has big potential, we help them unlock it—because talent deserves the right place to grow. 

Conclusion 

At the end of the day, kids are incredibly creative with stories to tell, and different ways of sharing them. We want to make sure we nurture this and help assist with writing ideas. As an educator, I’ve seen kids at age 9 tell me I can’t do it, which is so far from the truth and concerning that I can feel so fixed in that mentality. It’s very important that we work to cultivate our kids' confidence by getting them inspired again. 

I hope this article provides a helpful toolkit of ways to inspire story writing ideas for kids. By providing writing prompts per grade levels, activities, and anticipated challenges and solutions, hopefully this can ignite the excitement to write again! If you ever need additional support, Genie Academy is here to help and discover the genius your child was born to be.