Horror Story Prompts for Writers

Stuck for an idea? These forty original prompts are starting points: take one, twist it and make it yours. They’re sorted by theme, with a few craft tips at the end.

Technology

1. Your phone’s photo app suggests a new album: “People you’ve met.” You don’t recognize anyone in it, but they’re all standing in your house.
2. A smart doorbell records someone knocking every night at 2am. The footage shows no one, but the knocking is getting louder.
3. A navigation app offers a faster route home. It adds a stop you didn’t choose.
4. Your late father’s email account sends you a message: “Did you find it yet?”
5. A voice assistant starts answering questions nobody asked.
6. Every video call now has one extra participant with their camera off.
7. The fitness tracker says you took 4,000 steps last night while you slept.

Home

8. The new house has a room that’s locked from the inside.
9. Every morning, one piece of furniture has moved an inch towards the front door.
10. The previous owners left a note: “Don’t answer if it uses your voice.”
11. The heating clanks in a pattern. It’s the rhythm of a song your grandmother used to sing.
12. You find a second staircase behind the pantry wall.
13. The dog won’t go into the kitchen anymore. It sits at the door and whines at the fridge.
14. A child’s drawing on the fridge shows your family, plus one more person, standing behind you.

Small towns

15. Everyone in town leaves their porch light on one night a year. Nobody will tell you why.
16. The town’s population sign changes by one each morning.
17. A lake is drained for repairs, revealing a street, with lights on in the houses.
18. The local radio station broadcasts tomorrow’s news.
19. A new family moves in, and everyone else starts to forget the family that lived there before.

Family

20. Your twin insists you had an older sibling. Nobody else remembers them.
21. Grandma’s recipe book has a final page, written in fresh ink.
22. Your child’s imaginary friend knows things about your childhood you never told anyone.
23. At a family reunion, everyone agrees on a story that never happened.
24. Your reflection in old family photos is getting older.
25. A wedding guest nobody invited appears in every picture.

Travel

26. A hotel has a thirteenth floor. Only you can see the button.
27. On a night train, the same station keeps coming around, each time a little darker.
28. A campsite’s guestbook includes an entry signed with your name, dated next week.
29. Your flight lands in a city where everyone is expecting you.
30. The rental car’s previous driver left the radio on a station that knows where you’re going.
31. You take a wrong turn on a mountain road and pass your own car, broken down, with you inside.

First lines

32. “The knocking stopped, which was worse.”
33. “We moved in on the one day of the year the house was empty.”
34. “My sister came home from the woods, but she came home wrong.”
35. “Nobody in the photograph was smiling, except the one who wasn’t supposed to be there.”
36. “The last thing Dad said before the lights went out was, ‘Don’t count them.’”
37. “Every town has a rule. Ours is: never whistle after dark.”
38. “The snow was falling upward.”
39. “I was the only one who remembered the fourth floor.”
40. “Mom said the scarecrow had been in the field for a hundred years. It hadn’t been there yesterday.”

Tips for building dread

For examples of these techniques in action, read The Last Passenger or our creepy stories that feel true. When your story is ready, see how to submit a story to Terrible Stories.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use these prompts for my own stories?

Yes. They’re free for anyone to use as starting points for original work.

How long should a horror story be?

As long as it needs to be. Micro-horror can be one sentence; most short horror stories work well under 3,000 words.