Writing prompts and story starters for every genre

We all have an innate love of stories. They spark magical thoughts and improve willingness to communicate feelings, thoughts and experiences. A good story stays with you and can shape understanding, language development and writing motivation.

When writing stories, the difficult part is often getting started. That's where story starters or writing prompts come in. Story starters spark children's imagination, helping them to imagine the plot, the setting, or the characters and then build their own story around them.

When we launched Pobble, we didn’t know just how popular it would become. Now, we have a community of hundreds of thousands of teachers around the world logging on to find our free, daily writing lesson ideas to inspire their young writers.

Every day, we give teachers access to a free engaging image, with a story starter, questions and writing activities for your class. You can save these lessons to use later, edit t best suit your needs and easily share in a number of ways.

Here are some of our favourites for your class, whatever genre you’re looking to teach:

Adventure

“As the bear trudged up the steep mountain path, his mind raced with excitement for the adventure that lay ahead.”

Can your class continue the story?

See all 6 writing activities that accompany this image.

Fantasy

“She had been following the trail of clues for days, and she had finally reached her destination. Were the stories true?”

Can your class continue the story?

See all 6 writing activities that accompany this image.

Fairytale

“Hidden behind the maze of branches stood a minuscule, enchanted castle. It was so easy to miss among the towering trees. Only the truly lucky noticed the tiny turrets..."

Can your class continue the story?

See all 6 writing activities that accompany this image.

Mystery

“This beach was cursed, no one knew why. For years now, whenever the sun glowed orange, a wreckage of a ship would wash up along the isolated stretch of sand...”

Can your class continue the story?

See all 6 writing activities that accompany this image.

Science fiction

“They had arrived out of the blue, catching everyone completely unaware...”

Can your class continue the story?

See all 6 writing activities that accompany this image.

Myths and legends

"Ulrik grew up to be the best blacksmith in the whole country. Anything you wanted making, he could make it! That was until a fateful evening on a snowy night when he was visited by a darkly-cloaked, mysterious man…”

Can your class continue the story of The Blacksmith?

See all 6 writing activities that accompany this image.

Looking for a different genre? You'll find it on Pobble!