Fanfic Prompt Generator

The Fanfic Prompt Generator hands you one scenario at a time from a list of 318 prompts, with a copy button so you can drop it straight into your notes. The prompts are deliberately fandom-neutral: they say "your characters" or "character A and character B" rather than naming anyone, so the same list works for a Marvel pairing, a K-pop RPF, Harry Potter, Star Wars or your own original characters. Most of them are two-person scenes with some kind of tension, romantic or otherwise, which is what most fic actually runs on.

What kind of prompts are in the list

We read through the whole list while writing this page, so here is an honest map of it. About 65 of the 318 are labelled AUs, alternate-universe setups such as coffee shop, bakery, amusement park, carnival, college tour, 1920s flapper and American Horror Story seasons. The rest are situations and beats rather than settings:

• Forced proximity. Both cars break down at a creepy gas station overnight; sharing a train car cross-country; huddling for warmth; stuck in the same psychiatric hospital.
• Hurt/comfort. The hero shows up bleeding on the villain's doorstep saying "didn't know where else to go"; one character thinks the other is dead; one loses their sight or hearing and the other helps them adjust.
• Small physical beats. Brushing hair away from a face, checking for a fever with a hand on the forehead, cutting the other's hair, one falling into the other's lap, wearing each other's clothes.
• Comedy and meet-cutes. The barista worried about a customer's caffeine intake, the kiss cam at a game, laser tag with a kiss-then-shoot, fake proposals at restaurants for free dessert until one is real.
• Trope one-liners. "And they were roommates", "make them touch foreheads", "have them finish each other's sentences", a flirty palm reading made up on the spot.

Prompts run from a five-word nudge to a full paragraph of setup; the average is around a hundred characters. There's no filter by trope, rating or length. Click again if the first one isn't for you.

Turning a prompt into a fic

The prompts describe a situation, not a plot, so the useful first step is to decide what each character wants in the scene and why they can't just say it. A "huddle for warmth" prompt is a different story depending on whether the two are strangers, exes or long-time friends who've never talked about it. Three ways writers use the generator:

• Drabble practice. Draw a prompt, set a timer for 20 minutes, and write the scene without editing. The one-liners work best here.
• Prompt-fill exchanges. Pull five prompts and post them for a friend or a Discord server to claim; the copy button makes the list quick to assemble.
• Getting unstuck mid-fic. When chapter seven has stalled, a random beat ("one of them gets home way too late and the other has been pacing") often suggests the missing scene.

Sample prompts from the list

Related generators

If you want a scene that isn't ship-shaped, the Random RP Scenario Generator and Random Scenario Generator give broader situations, and the Random Setting Generator supplies a place to put them. For a physical beat to open a scene, the Action Generator gives a single verb-driven prompt. If you'd rather have a whole draft written for you from a premise, the AI Story Generator does that. Everything else for writers is under all writing & AI tools.