Do you want to write a novel that is for a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or another sexual orientation audience? Do you need some ideas for a plot?
Take a look at the following 21 unique LGBTQ+ writing prompts!
Contemporary Fiction
1. Friends don’t let friends lie.
A teenage group of childhood friends realize one of them doesn’t identify with the gender they started as. The friends band together to help the transgender friend become their true self with the rest of the world, supporting them through the ups and downs encountered along the way.
2. Love can come from anywhere.
A bisexual woman falls for another woman, who brings her into a reverse pansexual harem of different genders. The story is about her trying to navigate a relationship like this for the first time, exploring how to communicate with each other respectfully and overcoming the feelings of jealousy that might arise at any time.
3. Fight for what you believe in or risk losing it all.
A triad falls apart when one member dies, and the government says the other two have no right to the life they built together. The remaining couple become activists for acceptance and recognition of their love, hoping to prevent other triads and reverse harems from experiencing the loss they have.
4. A teacher should be based on their teaching alone.
At an all-boys’ college-prep school, one of the most popular teachers is discovered to be gay. When his job is threatened, the staff and students rally together to defend him, and his lifestyle, to the outdated school board and parents.
5. We never know where the secrets lie.
The ‘perfect’ lesbian couple comes to a halting stop when one of them dies in a car accident. While picking up the pieces, the remaining woman discovers her late partner led a whole separate life from her that she didn’t know existed. The protagonist struggles to reconcile what she thought she knew about her partner and their life together with what she discovers along the way.
6. Can there really be a LGBTQ president one day?
A gay man climbs the political ranks without ever coming out of the closet publicly. When he tips his hat in the ring to run for President of the United States, his private life must become public knowledge. The story is about him coming to terms with how to do that respectfully to his partner without damaging his campaign for President in an age when none of that should really matter.
7. Hate crimes are the worst crimes.
A serial killer targeting the LGBTQ community comes to the attention of the police after a letter bragging about the murders is delivered to the station. The detective leading the investigation happens to be lesbian herself and feels personally invested in bringing the perpetrator to justice.
8. Love can be found everywhere.
A pansexual journalist travels the world to write their memoir. The story reads like a travel journal of the adventures they have with the different people they meet and love.
9. It’s natural to fight it all to save your own life.
After breaking down in a backwoods, small town, a transgender person is held hostage by a secret cult who prey on outsiders. They must find a way to escape to safety, using whatever methods they can.
Historical Fiction
10. Greek women learned to lean on each other.
After a woman is ousted from her community in Ancient Greece, she is taken in by a group of other female outcasts. The story is about her learning to love herself as much as falling in love with her newfound female friends.
11. Emily Dickinson was full of love.
There is a prevailing theory that the poet Emily Dickinson had a sexual relationship with her sister-in-law, Sue Gilbert, the one who eventually published her work. This story would be a fictionalized account of their story together: how they met, how they lived with their love, how Gilbert felt after Dickinson’s death and her decision to publish Dickinson’s work.
12 Apparently, you can hide something from the Spanish Inquisition.
1545, Spain: the Spanish Inquisition reigns supreme, hunting down anyone who doesn’t follow the Catholic religion and its dogma. One of its members struggles with their growing feelings of love for another Spanish Inquisitor and tries to reconcile these feelings with their devotion to the Catholic religion.
13. Those who fight together, love together.
Two Viking men fall in love with each other while pillaging but must return to their ‘normal’ lives when they return home to their wives and children. They struggle to remain true to each other as well as their heteronormative culture.
14. If science is magic, then magic is life.
During the Crusades and witch hunts of medieval Europe, a non-binary medicine person is targeted for acts against the church. They must decide whether to run or fight against the unlawful accusations to protect themselves and others in the village like them.
15. Love will travel across every line to survive.
Just prior to the American Civil War, a white Northern man falls in love with an escaped black slave man. The escaped slave is recaptured and returned to a plantation in the South; when the war breaks out, the Northerner joins the fight in an effort to find his lost love and save him.
Science-fiction and Supernatural
16. Love can overcome any restriction.
In a dystopian future where the government decides which male marries which female, the protagonist is married to a person they come to realize is queer. The queer partner introduces the protagonist to a whole community of LGBTQ+ people, living and loving without the government’s knowledge or constraint. But what would happen if the government ever found out?
17. On other planets, there are no limits to love.
When a human astronaut lands on another planet and meets their intelligent life, they discover a world where gender is an unknown construct; their people are just people who fall in love with whomever they fall in love with. The astronaut falls in love with a native and brings them back to Earth, where they encounter resistance to their love.
18. Can you love AI?
AI has developed far enough to replicate human interaction at almost every level. After developing a female-leaning AI for work, the female protagonist finds herself falling in love with her AI partner, leading her to question her own sexuality and the capabilities of AI itself.
19. Spying is easy when you can change who you are.
A gender fluid spy can change their physical sex at will, depending on the needs of the mission. After nearly being assassinated, the spy uses this supernatural ability to hunt down their would-be assassin and the terrifying secret society they work for.
20. Robots don’t stand a chance.
When robots try to take over the world, a gay scientist couple go underground to plan how to fight back. The story is about the ups and downs their relationship endures while they struggle to take back planet Earth.
21. Time-travelling doesn’t change who we really are.
A pansexual time-traveler jumps into different time periods, meeting different people and falling in love with historical and future people. They must navigate how their actions impact the history, and future, of the world as we know it.