Plot Generators: Sci-Fi, Horror, Fantasy & Romance
Genre is not a box; it’s a playground. These plot generators give you a complete story prompt for horror, scifi, fantasy, or romance, because no matter if you are building a world of rogue robots, battling eldritch horror crawling out of otherworldly dungeons, questing for magic or drafting the perfect love story, every story starts with a single idea. It does not even have to be a spark that anyone else would notice; it just speaks for you. It is also fun to just write without thinking of the prompts, and that practice helps you come up with new ideas easily.
Each terminal below is tuned to the specific tropes and rhythms of its genre. Scroll down to choose your generator; Horror, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, or Romance. Our D&D story tool is based on the 5th edition SRD and is found on a separate page.
Sci-fi prompts
The edge of the unknown
We write on the thin line between “to the galaxy and beyond” and the bleak terror of the vastness of space. We are small and left uncomfortably with questions: What lies in the stars? Is it hope and salvation, new frontiers, or a cold impersonal void that will swallow us in deep space? Are we alone? Are there aliens, friendly or not? These and many others are the central questions of sci-fi, an allegory really of what being human is, and that is the deepest question of sci-fi, a mirror we hold up to examine who we are.
Or, perhaps you just want to write a spaghetti space romp; these prompts cover almost everything.
Horror prompts
Things that go bump in the night
Along the edges of our regular lives, there are lurking shadows—or at least, maybe the probability of their existence. It is the shiver, the worry, and the enjoyment of being scared; the wondering if there is more than the mundane that drives us. After all, from the first humans, Gilgamesh onward, that we know of, early man most likely knew the value of a good scary story. A lurking beast, dark bumps in the night, or the terrors of our own technologies gone rogue, morality mixed with good vs. evil: we enjoy it.
Science fiction and horror both rely on the unknown. One looks at the promise and perils of technology; the other looks at the normal world—no longer safe and tame, but wild, where humans are the hunted.
Fantasy prompts
A quest of brave adventurers
Magicians, spells, clerics, potions, dragons, fighters, fair maidens; a whole universe in itself, just waiting for us to peek in. We can find our better selves in these stories, and the world can be just as immersive as our own. Why do we like fantasy? Perhaps we all desire adventure, and inside all of us is the will to join a battle of good and evil, to be the one that fights evil, to be the adventurer who slays the dragon and gathers treasure. Perhaps it is the belief that we have it in ourselves to be brave, to persevere through terrible conflict and peril, and to grow through the experience into someone strong and triumphant.
It also can be immersive and enjoyable and just fun; the prompts below get you started.
Romance prompts
To love, perchance to dream
What could be sweeter than true love? Love is, after all, the final goal of many, to be with someone who sees us as an extension of themselves, who would die for us and create a new family and go forward into time. Romance can be fun, a silly good beach read, or it can be a tearjerker that leaves us with a broken heart. In either direction, romance and love are books of hope and heartbreak at the same time.
These prompts can get you started on your next true love story.