100 (More) Terrifying Horror Writing Prompts

Typically I must shake out of my routine. And to try this, I like to only scour over writing prompts and determine if they’re going to work for me. I attempt to put my very own riff on them and add them into different concepts and break them down, and actually simply pull aside what I feel works and does not.

These workouts assist me break a narrative, give you new concepts, and simply get me again on observe.

So at present, I made a decision to dump 200 horror writing prompts out so that you can play with. I hope they lead you down a darkish and scary path into your subsequent novel or screenplay.

Let’s dive in.

Horror Writing Prompts

‘Crimson Peak’

Credit score: Legendary

Psychological & Existential Horror

1. You get up, and your reflection within the mirror will not cease screaming.
2. You discover a diary you do not keep in mind writing. It particulars the subsequent week of your life, together with your homicide.
3. Everybody on the earth all of the sudden has the very same face. You are the one one who remembers what they used to appear like.
4. You are a therapist whose new affected person’s delusions are beginning to manifest in your individual life.
5. You begin receiving packages at your door containing your individual enamel, one after the other.
6. You start to suspect your doppelgänger is not simply attempting to interchange you; it is attempting to enhance you.
7. A reminiscence that is not yours seems in your thoughts. Then one other. And one other.
8. You’re the solely one who can see the enormous, silent figures that stand over individuals’s beds whereas they sleep.
9. After a head harm, you’ll be able to hear the ideas of inanimate objects. The previous ones are filled with rage.
10. You are satisfied you died yesterday. Nobody else appears to have observed.

Supernatural & Paranormal

11. The true property agent “forgot” to say that the earlier house owners of your new home did not go away—they have been absorbed by it.
12. A baby’s imaginary pal is frightened of one thing else that lives in the home.
13. Each mirror in your house exhibits a mirrored image that’s barely out of sync together with your actions. Final night time, it waved at you.
14. The final particular person to die in your loved ones does not go away. They turn into a silent, watchful guardian, however their presence slowly drives the residing mad.
15. You’re a ghost, attempting to warn the brand new household concerning the different factor that haunts your home.
16. The vintage music field you purchased solely performs when somebody within the room is about to die. It simply began enjoying your favourite tune.
17. A séance goes flawed, not as a result of it summons a spirit, however as a result of it banishes one of many contributors to an unknown realm, leaving an empty chair.
18. You discover an previous Polaroid digital camera. The images it takes present the scene moments after a horrible tragedy happens. You simply took a selfie.
19. The native church is not for worshipping a god; it is for holding one thing placated within the crypt under.
20. The shadow within the nook of your room is not yours, and it is getting bigger.

Physique Horror & Medical

21. You discover a unusual new mole in your pores and skin. It has an ideal, repeating geometric sample.
22. After a minor surgical procedure, you discover the stitches underneath your pores and skin do not feel like thread. They really feel like they’re wriggling.
23. A brand new “miracle” weight-loss drug works, however the place does the mass really go? You discover out once you hear a scratching from inside your closet.
24. You begin coughing up issues that should not be inside an individual: soil, rusted nails, and beetle carapaces.
25. Your bones start to ache and shift, slowly rearranging themselves into a brand new, unfamiliar skeleton.
26. You get up with an ideal surgical scar in your chest that wasn’t there once you went to sleep. You’re feeling one thing lacking inside.
27. The dentist finds a second row of enamel rising behind your individual, like a shark. They don’t seem to be human enamel.
28. A brand new species of fungus can completely mimic human flesh. You simply found a patch of it rising in your associate’s again.
29. You donate blood and get a name from the blood financial institution. They let you know to by no means, ever donate blood once more, and refuse to clarify why.
30. Your fingernails begin rising at an alarming fee, coiling like rams’ horns and changing into exhausting as metal.

Sci-Fi & Cosmic Horror

31. You’re the sole survivor of a deep-space mission. The ship’s AI will not let you know what occurred to the crew, but it surely retains buzzing a lullaby their captain used to sing.
32. The primary message from an alien civilization is simply two phrases: “Be quiet.”
33. Astronomers uncover that the moon is not a pure satellite tv for pc. It is an egg, and it is beginning to hatch.
34. A terraforming undertaking on a brand new planet awakens one thing historical and hungry that was sleeping beneath the mud.
35. Your new sensible house is designed in your each want. It has now been determined that in your personal security, it’s best to by no means go away once more.
36. The celebs are disappearing one after the other.
37. A analysis crew on the South Pole finds a brand new coloration, one which the human eye should not be capable to understand. it causes instantaneous, violent insanity.
38. You are an archivist digitizing previous audio information. You discover a recording of a numbers station that stops broadcasting numbers and begins pleading for assist.
39. Humanity makes it to Mars, solely to seek out a precise reproduction of your childhood hometown ready for them.
40. A black gap begins broadcasting a sign. It’s a single, repeating heartbeat.

Creature & Monster

41. The monster underneath your mattress is afraid of the factor that lives in your closet.
42. You are a park ranger in a nationwide forest the place the “lacking individuals” posters aren’t for individuals who bought misplaced, however for individuals who have been taken as tributes.
43. The scarecrows within the native fields get nearer to the highway each night time.
44. A deep-sea expedition discovers a brand new species. Within the footage, you’ll be able to see it has crafted instruments from the bones of the earlier expedition’s crew.
45. The “stray” animal you introduced dwelling does not eat the meals you give it. It eats your dangerous reminiscences, leaving you a cheerful, hole shell of an individual.
46. One thing has been searching the pigeons within the metropolis. Now, it is beginning to hunt for greater prey.
47. The folklore concerning the native woods is true. Do not whistle at night time. Do not step on a mushroom ring. And by no means, ever say its identify.
48. A brand new type of termite does not simply eat wooden. It eats bone.
49. On a tenting journey, you understand the chirping crickets have been changed by a sound that’s nearly, however not fairly, human whispering.
50. Your cat retains bringing you lifeless issues, however they’re issues that should not exist—animals with too many legs, birds with human-like eyes.

People Horror & Isolation

51. You win a free trip to a distant, idyllic village. The residents are pleasant, however they refuse to allow you to go away. It is nearly time for the harvest competition.
52. The cave work in a newly found cavern do not depict animals; they depict an in depth historical past of the longer term. The final panel exhibits the cave’s entrance collapsing on you.
53. You are stranded in a city the place nobody is older than 30. While you ask the place the previous persons are, they simply smile and level to the crops within the fields.
54. Each 27 years, a small island city sends a ship out to sea. It at all times returns with a full crew, however they’re by no means the identical individuals who left.
55. The kids within the remoted village play a recreation referred to as “Feed the Roots.” You’ve got simply been chosen to be the “seed.”
56. A lighthouse keeper slowly realizes the sunshine is not meant to information ships away from the rocks, however to lure one thing particular in direction of them.
57. In a city shrouded by perpetual fog, the locals have realized to navigate by the shapes they see transferring inside it. You’ll be able to’t see the shapes.
58. The previous nicely within the middle of city is claimed to grant needs. It does, but it surely takes one thing of equal worth from you later, once you least count on it.
59. You inherit a farm in a rural valley. The contract has an odd clause: you will need to go away a bowl of recent milk on the porch each night time for “the neighbors.”
60. The attractive corn maze has a secret: it’s a labyrinth designed to lure a sacrifice for a bountiful harvest.

Trendy & Technological Horror

61. Your GPS reroutes you down a darkish, unfamiliar highway. It declares, “You’ve gotten arrived.” There’s nothing there. The doorways lock.
62. You get a pal request on social media from somebody you already know for a truth is lifeless. Their current posts are images of you, sleeping.
63. A brand new social media filter can present you what you’d appear like as a ghost. For you, nothing modifications.
64. You be a part of a video name for work, however you see your self in two of the home windows. The opposite “you” begins mouthing the phrases “HELP ME.”
65. An AI artwork generator begins creating photorealistic photographs of against the law that hasn’t occurred but. The most recent picture is of your lounge.
66. Your kid’s new speaking doll generally says issues in a voice that is not its personal, sharing secrets and techniques it could not probably know.
67. You discover a forgotten folder of movies in your pc. They’re all recordings of you, filmed from an angle inside your individual monitor.
68. The “reside” feed out of your new child monitor exhibits an previous girl singing to your youngster. While you rush into the room, it is empty.
69. You obtain a meditation app that guarantees that will help you discover your inside voice. It does, however the voice is just not pleasant.
70. A telephone recreation goes viral. It makes use of the participant’s digital camera to create augmented actuality monsters. The monsters do not disappear once you shut the app.

Discovered Footage & Epistolary

71. You purchase a used camcorder at a thrift retailer. The final tape left inside is the ultimate, frantic recording of its earlier proprietor. What they have been operating from is now in your home.
72. You are a 911 operator. You obtain a panicked name from your individual quantity. On the opposite finish, you’ll be able to hear your individual terrified respiration.
73. A sequence of letters from a Nineteenth-century sailor describes his journey to a newly found island, the place the crew slowly turned on one another underneath the affect of an odd, fixed sound.
74. You discover a USB drive labeled “EVIDENCE.” It incorporates audio logs from a researcher describing a newly found parasite that spreads by way of eye contact. The final file is a video. The researcher seems straight on the digital camera.
75. A police proof locker incorporates a group of journals from a dozen completely different individuals, all of whom vanished. The ultimate entry in every journal is identical, single, cryptic sentence.

Miscellaneous & Oddities

76. The worth of immortality is that you just slowly neglect everybody you ever beloved.
77. You’re employed the night time shift at a morgue. One night time, a physique arrives with a recent tattoo that reads, “Do not bury me. I am not performed.”
78. All of the clocks on the earth cease at 3:33 AM. They begin once more a minute later, however one thing is completely different. One thing is lacking.
79. You’re the solely one who remembers that the sky was blue. Everybody else insists it has at all times been this sickly, crimson coloration.
80. A clown performs for a youngsters’s hospital. He is by no means seen arriving or leaving, however the sickest youngsters at all times appear to get higher proper earlier than one other youngster disappears.
81. The town’s mannequins have began transferring to completely different storefronts in a single day. They’re slowly gathering in a single place.
82. You are a lucid dreamer, however you end up in a dream you’ll be able to’t management. Another person is dreaming you.
83. The Tooth Fairy is actual, however she wants the enamel for a horrible goal.
84. On the subway, a matted man palms you a crumpled be aware that claims, “Do not belief the one who seems similar to you.” You search for and see your actual double sitting on the different finish of the automobile.
85. The rain in your city hasn’t stopped for 40 days and 40 nights. The water is rising, and also you’re beginning to see issues transferring within the floodwaters.
86. Each ebook on the earth all of the sudden has a brand new, similar last chapter. It describes the top of the whole lot.
87. The viewers on the magic present is mesmerized by the “disappearing cupboard” trick. They do not understand that the magician’s assistants by no means reappear backstage.
88. You’ll be able to all of the sudden perceive what birds are saying. They’re scouts, reporting on human exercise to one thing older and bigger.
89. Each night time, somebody hangs a brand new, intricately woven dreamcatcher exterior your window. Each morning, you get up with a brand new scar.
90. The sound of your individual heartbeat is not your individual. It is beating in a rhythm that is not fairly proper.
91. You discover a map that results in a spot that does not exist. The map is a tattoo on the within of your individual pores and skin.
92. The census taker visits your home. After asking the usual questions, he asks, “And what number of souls reside right here?” He isn’t smiling.
93. A brand new restaurant opens with a secret menu merchandise. Those that eat it are by no means unhappy once more. They’re by no means something once more.
94. All of the canine within the neighborhood begin barking on the similar empty spot on the road nook at nightfall.
95. You’re a skilled cleaner for crime scenes. Someday, you are referred to as to a scene the place the one blood belongs to somebody who has been lifeless for 50 years.
96. An previous playground rhyme, when sung backward, is definitely an incantation. A gaggle of kids simply found it.
97. The mannequins in a clothes retailer are comprised of a brand new, hyper-realistic materials. They really feel heat to the contact.
98. You pull a unfastened thread in your sweater, and it does not cease. As you pull, a part of the world round you begins to unravel with it.
99. The previous household recipe ebook has an ingredient listed you have by no means seen earlier than. You discover it on the market on-line, but it surely’s listed underneath “human stays.”
100. On the finish of your life, you might be given a selection: heaven, hell, or the possibility to hang-out the one that wronged you most. You select the third choice, solely to seek out your self standing behind your new child youngster.

Let me know what you assume within the feedback.