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Small towns are great settings for horror stories, so here are some small time horror writing prompts

• ·       A tree in a small town square has another body hanging from it every morning and no one knows where they are coming from.
• ·       Mr. Killdeer has run the same candy store for more than fifty years and never seems to age a day, maybe it’s in what he eats, what is it anyway? Is that, oh my God I think it’s….
• ·       John Mayview was the town drunk, that is until Cletus and the boys bullied him to death, but he’s back and stone cold sober and bent on revenge
• ·       The town’s water tower is putting out slightly funky water, everyone who’s had a drink so far this morning has eaten their own pets and is looking for more
• ·       An epidemic of missing children strikes tiny Pineburg, until only Penny is left. Every night, the children return to play in the park, but they are not really the children, Penny longs to join them

Large cities have lots of creepy stories to share as well, here are some big city horror writing prompts

• ·       The mayor is possessed and even skeptics are beginning to sense it, but the worst part is, his evil seems to be contagious
• ·       A trail of human body parts leads investigators to an abandoned shopping mall, where the skeletal remains of at least 20 victims are found, forming a macabre sculpture, and you think you did it
• ·       A high rise apartment is haunted by the man who was killed to obtain the land it was built on and he’s not letting you out
• ·       A ghost train has appeared in the city’s subway, suddenly materializing and crushing construction workers, working on reopening an old abandoned line
• ·       A virus spreads through the city, but rather than creating zombies, it awakens its victim’s minds to the fact that the city is a prison and they are helpless to escape as their bodies continue life as usual. 

Next up some classic monsters! Here are some horror writing prompts with ghouls and goblins.

• ·       A dragon has lain dormant under the city for millennia, but now its awake and it’s very hungry.
• ·       When a pair of bigfoot children are found and captured, mom comes to town and seeks revenge
• ·       An invisible monster is striking fear into the town’s residents as it has dismembered two city council members, in public
• ·       The new school teacher has a secret, she’s a vampire, but she only feeds on children
• ·       You discover your shape shifting abilities when you become wolf on the full moon. How will you protect those you love?

Ghost stories are one of my favorite kinds of horror, here are five ghostly horror writing prompts

• ·       A police detective is haunted by his dead partner to get him to confess to his murder before someone else gets put to death for it
• ·       This dead librarian is deadly serious, she wants her overdue books returned and she’s killing to get it done
• ·       The town’s first family has a secret, they’re not who they say they are and the ghost of the man whose name they stole has come to reclaim it
• ·       An optimistic teacher wants to launch a new kind of academy and she’s gotten an old school building to rehab to house it,one problem, she’ll have to get the dead principal’s ghost to leave first
• ·       The ghost of a civil war evangelist is back and anyone who won’t come to Jesus will be sent to meet him in person

Magical items often play a big part in horror, here are some horror writing prompts surrounding trinkets and gizmos

• ·       An antique pair of sunglasses reveals dark secrets from the past and the former owner haunts the new wearer demanding justice
• ·       When Lucy inherits her grandmother’s farm, she also becomes the protector of a powerful weapon and evil forces are determined to take it
• ·       When susan took a job as a museum attendant, she hadn’t imagined guarding the treasure of an actual mummy’s tomb, now one particular knife is calling out to her and she’s going to answer the call.
• ·       Reshelving books I the school library was a horrible detention for Rachel, she hated books, then one catches her attention, “How to Get Even, 7 Ways to deliver revenge they will never see coming.
• ·       A mysterious crate is delivered to your house. You open to discover you’ve unleashed the evil of…

Creepy little kids are the bane of most adult horror readers, here are some kid-sized horror writing prompts

• ·       Little Jack is a brat,  and when the neighbors complain, his parents punish him harshly, then the neighbor girl disappears and Jack is the only suspect
• ·       A kid you knew in grade school drowned in your backyard pool and now a kid that looks just like this kid is showing up everywhere staring at you, unblinking.
• ·       A child born blind, takes advantage of the sympathy of others until she develops a kind of psychic gift for getting others to do her dirty work for her
• ·       You awake to find yourself trapped inside a child’s body and you cannot convince your new parents of who you actually are and that their child is gone
• ·       The children of a community come together and decide it’s time for them to mete out the punishment, led by a ruthless child whose abuse has led him to believe that all grownups are pure evil

Crazy lovers abound in horror, here are some horror writing prompts for those star crossed lovers

• ·       You’ve found the perfect soul mate, you love the same things, enjoy the same people, but you begin to suspect that your lover is not really alive and may in fact be a ghost
• ·       You have fallen in love and you want to earn your beloveds affection, but in order to do so,  they’ve asked you to slaughter their family so they can be free to be with you
• ·       A crazy girl you literally smiled at once in the grocery store is stalking you, she’s scaring away dates, friends, even your mother, then you hear a weird noise coming from your attic
• ·       You’ve given yourself over to a passionate romance unlike anything you’ve ever experienced, but your lover is extremely jealous and demands you voluntarily become their slave, never to leave your cellar prison again
• ·       Two sisters want the same man and are willing to destroy everything in each other’s lives to keep the other from having him, what happens when he reveals he doesn’t want either? 

Haunted places are another staple of horror stories, here are five horror writing prompts set in haunted locales

• ·       When a farmer’s field becomes the scene of a horrific plane crash, 300 angry ghosts haunt the surrounding countryside looking for their killer.
• ·       A large box home improvement center comes to town and is haunted from the beginning, by a man whose family hardware store was driven out of his business and he’s determined to kill the competition
• ·       When children come home from the town pool with increasingly creepy behavior, investigation uncovers the fact that over 100 children have been intentionally drowned in its waters,
• ·       A car dealership is haunted by the ghost of a jealous husband, whose wife shacked up with the lot’s charismatic salesman, then killed him to be with the car salesman
• ·       Strange things happen at the town library, people go in and come out knowing things that they read,  but were never printed in the books

Technology goes wrong and humanity runs in fear of its creation, horror writing prompts featuring scary bad tech

• ·       A network appears mysteriously on cable, broadcasting stories that air everyone’s dirty laundry in a small town, what happens when people decide to use the information to settle scores?
• ·       You begin receiving video phone calls from beyond the grave
• ·       A device like Amazon’s Alexa chooses sides in a contentious marriage and begins to ruin the husband’s life, until he eventually snaps and comes after his wife, believing it is her fault
• ·       The internet of things begins working against you, as everything from your phone, to your car, to your coffee maker begins conspiring to end your life
• ·       People  photographed with your smart phone begin disappearing, then you discover, they are stuck in another dimension, with your phone as the only exit, and you just donated it!

Animals provide some of the more terrifying horror, here are some horror writing prompts for pet lovers

• ·       Your gold fish is an evil psychic mastermind, turning your other animals against you, you have to flush it before it’s too late,  but your 200 lb mastiff says otherwise
• ·       Picture Hitchcock’s “Birds”  but in a park filled with squirrels that madly attack everyone in site
• ·       You once ran over the neighbor’s golden retriever as a teen, and buried it to hide the evidence. Now the dog’s ghost sits at the foot of your bed growling every night, without sleep, you’re going mad
• ·       You are trapped in the body of a stray dog, who will be euthanized in two days.
• ·       You wake up to your large dog having dragged a human arm into your bed, what do you do?