Story Ideas for Teens

Fiction Story Ideas for Teens — Teaching fiction writing to teens is a much different endeavor than teaching any other type of writing to any other age. Use these 35 story ideas for teen and fiction writing prompts to inspire your teens as they author their own original works. Oh yeah!

Fiction Writing for Teenagers

Though younger kids simply want interesting plots and larger-than-life characters from their fictional works, high school students are looking for something more.

They want meaning and emotion and significance and weight—in short, they want works that reflect life and all of its many varied experiences. With that in mind, we’ve put together a unique set of fiction writing prompts for teens that are designed especially to bring their attention to what’s happening in media res—in the middle of the story.

Now…

Each new fiction writing prompt can be interpreted in a myriad of different ways, offering endless possibilities for your class’s completed works.

For best results, ask your students to include the sentence prompt somewhere in their completed pieces of fiction—but it’s up to each of them to decide whether the sentence fits best at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of their stories. They can choose any length, from short stories to novels, and they can write in any genre, from science fiction to romance, thriller to fantasy stories!

Take a look at and use the fun listing shown below of teen fiction topics and story writing ideas for teens. Enjoy!

35 Fun, Story Writing Ideas for Teens

The clock seemed to slow as I thought of her. I knew what she would say.
It was the kind of night I knew I would remember for the rest of my life.
As he stepped off the train, a wave of panic seized him.
“I’m afraid there’s nowhere else to go from here,” he said.
“I see so much of myself in you,” she said quietly. “It frightens me.”
The car skidded to a stop, and she threw open the door angrily. “Well, that was a colossal waste of time.”
No one made a sound. Angela was certain she’d never heard a silence so silent before.
“Where are you going?” he asked. “Anywhere that isn’t here,” she said.
David hadn’t lied, per se, he reasoned… he’d simply massaged the truth.
She opened the door and stepped inside. There was no going back now.
The old man’s hand was leathery and worn. His fingers bore the deep crevices and cracks that only come with age.
She click-clack-clicked down the hallway, each step echoing out a cry of “I am here! I am here!”
Sometimes when I was young, I would sit and wonder where the stars went when each night ended. When I learned that they never truly go away, I realized the answer I’d really been searching for all along.
His eyes lit up like the Fourth of July. “Let’s go!”
“This isn’t the right time,” I said. “Will it ever be?” she asked.
He stepped in the room, and the crowd immediately began to cheer. He knew it was the greatest feeling he would ever experience.
“Take a right at the first turn, then go another two miles and take a left when you see the big willow tree,” he said. “Go another half mile or so, and it will be on your right. You’ll know when you’re there.”
As we walked down the street and turned the corner, I suddenly knew that we’d made the right choice.
“Well,” Morgan said with a smile. “I guess there’s only one way to find out!”
I’d never gone out of the country before—and this was hardly an ideal way to start.
“I hope you don’t think this is a game,” I said roughly. “Because it’s far from it.”
With the way the street looked that night as the stars shone down, I almost felt like I could learn to love living there forever. Almost.
Her eyes grew wider as she scanned each word on the page. It couldn’t be true. She started at the top and began to read it again.
It wasn’t the worst injury James had ever suffered… but at the moment, he was having a hard time remembering one that had hurt worse.
As Sarah looked back at her reflection in the mirror, she could only think of the words her mother had said to her so many years before.
“This will be a long shot, for sure,” Skylar said. “But there is one more thing we can try.”
“Where are we to go when we’ve run out of people to trust?” I asked. “What are we to do?”
Her smile was child-like and her laughter was unburdened and light. She drew people in and they orbited around her.
“I like to live life at the edges,” he said. “There’s so much more to do there.”
“If you would be so inclined, I would very much appreciate the help,” the old woman said.
The rain falling outside reminded me of a movie I’d once seen.
When we were together, none of those things mattered. He was truly the greatest friend I’d ever had.
“Well, if you don’t want to use it, I will,” she said.
“Would you look at that?” he said. “This might be the first time we’ve ever agreed on anything.”
Everything paused around me—the people, the sky, the trees—and I just stood there, motionless. Absolutely completely still.

Inspiration for finding their best new YA protagonist can be found almost anywhere – they can be based on any of the following “characters” that they may have in their own lives:

your best friend
a freshman who is new to the school
the football coaches for your high school football team
the barista at your favorite coffee shop
a close (or distant) family member

The magic of story starters, short story ideas, and writing prompts is that they bring your creative juices to life. Create a fantasy world with unexpected plot lines or write your life story from a different perspective – the new worlds you can explore in your creative works are endless when you keep on writing!