Mystery Writing Prompts

You lost your sight - along with everyone else on Earth - in The Great Blinding. Two years later, without warning, your sight returns. As you look around, you realize that every available wall, floor and surface has been painted with the same message - Don't Tell Them You Can See.

It's 3 AM. An official phone alert wakes you up. It says "DO NOT LOOK AT THE MOON". You have hundreds of notifications. Hundreds of random numbers are sending "It's a beautiful night tonight. Look outside."

You're Barack Obama. 4 months into your retirement, you awake to find a letter with no return address on your bedside table. It reads "I hope you've had a chance to relax Barack...but pack your bags and call the number below. It's time to start the real job." Signed simply, "JFK."

We finally get men on Mars and they discover an old Soviet flag placed down decades ago. The Soviets won the space race but for whatever horrifying reason didn't say anything.

Your father left your family when you were a child to "go buy a pack of cigarettes". It is 10 years later and you're a teenager when your father walks back in, wearing the same clothes he left in, and insists he has only been gone half an hour.

"Is is true that you can only see three basic colors?", the alien being asked "It is." "So, how do you communicate with the Ghoosha?" "With whom?", I responded confused. "The other major race on your planet."

You are the world's greatest detective. With your near superhuman intellect, you have never failed to solve a case before. But one day, you finally meet your match: a criminal so unbelievably stupid that you cannot possibly comprehend and predict what he's going to do next.

You often pick up pennies you find on the ground, inspecting them for date, markings, etc. One day, you find a penny from 2044. Even more shocking, it's your face on the front.

When you kill someone, their remaining life span is added to yours. Archaeologists have just found a cavern, apparently sealed off for thousands of years, with a single person living inside.

Your father leaves the house to buy milk, 50 years later he comes back with milk in hand and hasn't aged a bit.

A billionaire hands you a unique and intricate coin. "In an hour," he says, "I will tell the world what I have given you. In a week, I will leave my inheritance to whoever returns it to me. I will not accept it before then."

You get invited by an eccentric classmate to join the "Conquest Club." You think it may be a video or board gaming club, and decide to check it out. During your first meeting you realize the group is actually planning to conquer the world, and somehow, they seem to have the resources to do it.

You were blinded in an accident years ago, your family took care of you ever since. One morning you wake up and your sight has returned, you pretend to stay blind until you figure out who the people in your house are and what happened to your real family.

After a SpaceX mission, Elon Musk suddenly closes down all his businesses and disappears. Eight years later, an old Musk owned factory begins to operate again. You find a lucky golden ticket, inviting you for a tour of the factory.

You wake up to find yourself on a train with a note in your pocket saying "What ever you do, don't get off this train untill you arrive at the very last stop". Its been nearly 20 years and the train still hasn't arrived at the last stop yet.

You put your 5-year-old daughter in an elevator by herself, and run to the next floor to make her laugh when the doors open. You get there, the elevator arrives and a 20-year-old woman steps out. "Hello Dad. We have a lot to talk about"

You're throwing a ball around with your dog and he's loving it. Then, he stops dead still. He takes a quick sniff and looks up at you and says "I'm not supposed to do this, but you need to get inside right now". He looks off into the distance, "They're coming".

A close friend of yours can read minds. It was their dream to work for the FBI or CIA to catch bad guys. You accompanied them to their first interview, but instead they walk straight back out. They whisper to you to walk calmly out to the car and not to say a word or make eye contact, act calm.

Your butler has served you faithfully for twenty years, working hard, offering sage advice and never complaining. One day, you see his bank balance. He's a billionaire.

Human blood turns darker with every evil deed and you've just murdered your wife. You never admitted to doing it, but you were the only suspect in the case. Imagine everyone's surprise when they found out that your blood is still milky white.

A murder mystery where every character believes themself responsible for the death, and tries to cover it up.

“Beware of an old man in a profession where men usually die young.”

About three years ago, your sister fell off the roof and stopped in mid-air. She was the first known victim of the Pause. As of today, almost 97 percent of the world’s population is Paused.

You lose a dare at an airport and are forced to ask an employee for a ticket to the farthest destination. To your surprise, they quietly nod and give you a single ticket with letters you don't recognize.

A team of researchers in a submarine are caught in a huge storm. The submarine submerges until the storm passes. When they resurface, they can’t get a fix on their location or find land. When night falls, there are two moons in the sky and the constellations are completely unfamiliar.

You discovered the ability to time travel. You go 30 years into the future expecting to meet your future self only to discover that you've been missing for 30 years.

Your dad tries to toughen you up by dumping you in the middle of the forest with just a pocket knife and a compass. After wandering around utterly lost you come across a stranger claiming to be your dad's first child.

An assassin has finally retired after getting enough money to last him 50 lifetimes, but being only 30, he still enjoys the thrill. He joins the police force and is immediately recruited for his skill in all Fields. But when he is assigned to hunting down himself for his past, he must be smart

You're a financial advisor. In 1994, you get a weird phone call from a man asking you if he can get any Bitcoin below $200k, and the call cuts off before you can ask him what Bitcoin was. Years later you get a call again from the same man, claiming he's calling back seconds after disconnection.

Your mother was a Centaur, your father; a Minotaur. You are a horse, but with human intelligence. The recent crime spree? Definitely not you, no one ever suspects the horse.