Dystopian Writing Prompts & Story Ideas

16 dystopian writing prompts to start with

Every one can go straight into the AI story generator: tap "Write it" to see one way the story could go, then write your own version.

1. Write about a junior censor at the Ministry of Joy who finds their own name on the list of people who no longer exist.Write it
2. Write about a smuggler of seeds who must choose which memory the state will delete.Write it
3. Write about a teacher in a school with no history lessons who learns the lottery that keeps the city fed is rigged.Write it
4. Write about a citizen with a perfect compliance score who meets the person who designed the system and finds them afraid.Write it
5. Write about a ration-office clerk who discovers the outside world is not poisoned after all.Write it
6. Write about a teenager on the eve of their sorting test who notices the curfew bell rings a minute earlier each day.Write it
7. Write about a former propagandist who is told their happiness score is falling.Write it
8. Write about a city gardener who is promoted for reporting a neighbour they never reported.Write it
9. Write about a border guard who is assigned to write the new official version of their childhood.Write it
10. Write about a librarian of banned books who finds a working radio in a city where music is banned.Write it

What-if ideas

• What if citizens were ranked by how much others liked them?Write it
• What if water could only be bought with good behaviour?Write it
• What if every adult had to give up one emotion at eighteen?Write it
• What if the government rewrote the weather report to match the mood it wanted?Write it
• What if books were legal but reading aloud was not?Write it
• What if children chose which parent to keep?Write it

Tips for dystopian writers

Start from today

Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale both grew from real history. Root your rules in something real.

Show daily life

The horror of a dystopia is in its routines: forms, queues, curfews, school.

Give the hero something to lose

Rebellion matters more when the character has comfort or family at stake.