I really had some fun creating my last list of writing prompts, so I decided to try some sci fi writing prompts this time around.
NaNoWriMo is coming up and these could definitely be some great inspiration—but they’d work just as well for a short story or novella or full-blown novel any time of the year. Like the last set, these are available under a Creative Commons license, so share and share alike.
- A young lawyer graduates into a world where, for the first time, brain scans can accurately detect lies.
- A group of scientists discover a cheap, renewable energy source that when put into place across the world further destabilizes the oil-dependent Middle East.
- An army general leads a squad of aliens that have come to earth to assist the Allies during WWII in their fight against Hitler.
- “I can smell dark matter.”
- A man wakes to find himself trapped in a Holodeck-like virtual reality simulator. The thing is, he’s not sure he wants to leave.
- A civilization faces its destruction as one of its moons breaks orbit and plunges toward the planet.
- Mass hysteria hits 1950s New York after a report of a Martian spotted atop the Empire State Building.
- An elderly man creates the first ever artificial life form just before he dies—and it’s a copy of his 20-year-old self.
- It’s 2030, and the newest trend is to have one’s eyes replaced with implants that record and upload everything you see for all the world to watch
- A young inventor plans to step into a matter-energy transporter he just invented, for the first time.
- “I have to deactivate you. I’m sorry.”
- The crew of Earth’s first deep space vessel discover an area of space where Earth’s laws of physics don’t apply.
- A Captain sets off on a mission to negotiate an interplanetary alliance, but he’s warned it could lead to Earth’s destruction.
- A fishing vessel near Antarctica pulls what appears to be a new, humanoid species up in its net—and it turns out to be very, very smart.
- “Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need roads.”
- Faced with a new ice age, Earth’s major civilizations have moved into Arcologies—massive, city-sized buildings that stretch high into the sky and hold millions of people.
- A test pilot returns to Earth after the first-ever faster-than-light space flight.
- A scientist races against time to hide his latest invention from the government: a devastating antimatter bomb that he fears will start World War III.
- A group of FBI agents assigned to weird cases discover a parallel universe intruding into our own.
- A rift in spacetime allows an alien that looks an awful lot like a dragon to escape into the sky over New York City.
- A woman and her boyfriend are out for a night on the town, only to discover they’re trapped in a pocket universe where everything is the opposite of what it should be.
- “Resistance is futile.”
- In the not-so-far-future, smartphones have been reduced to the size of microchips that are implanted in wrist bones, accessed through glowing displays in and holographic projections from the skin.
- A hacker creates a virtual currency that quickly becomes the dominant system of money on the entire planet.
- A corporate created computer virus disables every device with a microchip on the planet, except for those that are protected with their high-priced security software.
- An alien race chooses a young boy with autism for first contact with humans because the unique pathways in his brain are perfect for their preferred style of communication: telepathy.
- A man invents cybernetic legs to help his dog walk again after three of them are cut off in an accident.
- “I’m from another planet. Let’s just say we’re neighbors.”
- An alien race makes contact—with King Tutankhamun in ancient Egypt.
- The only child aboard a space station saves the day when its crew is plagued by a debilitating illness that only affects adults.
30 Sci Fi Writing Prompts by Justin McLachlan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
