Does your novel fall under Young Adult fiction? If you need some ideas for your story, we’ve included 11 original Young Adult writing prompts for you in this post. Read on!
1. A 16-year-old girl has just lost her eldest sister in a drowning accident. Her mother has become overprotective, imposing curfews, controlling who she gets to hang out with, but worst of all is – she has forbidden her from rejoining her school’s swimming team in her sophomore year, even though she is a budding star on the team. How does the girl deal with both the loss of her sister, and her mother’s overprotectiveness?
2. Two twin brothers have to move to a different city. Things are better – their house is bigger, and they have separate rooms instead of sharing bunk beds. One of them is quiet, introverted, and interested in technology. The other one was on the school’s sports team and was popular. In the new city, the quiet one quickly finds a computer club to join and makes easy friends. The one who used to be popular now finds himself sitting alone at lunch – and the school doesn’t have a sports team. How is the relationship between the two brothers affected? What do each one learn as they find their own place in the new school?
3. A young girl’s mother has just remarried for the third time. The girl and her mother have moved into a beautiful mansion. She now gets driven to school by a driver, her meals are made by a professional chef, and her mother’s new socialite friends have daughters who are her own age and go to her school. While these girls treat her nicely at the dinner parties held at the mansion, they subtly bully her at school, masking it all as good fun.
Her mother doesn’t listen to her and forces her to be friends with them, as their parents are important for her new stepfather’s business. The other teens at school avoid her as she is part of a “blueblood” clique. How does the girl deal with the situation, her mother, and the frenemies she has at school? What are the reasons the other girls have to be so mean and cruel?
4. A teenage boy’s mother, who is a grifter and a con artist, has fallen into prison, and he himself has been taken to live in a group home for boys after living on the road, and from motel to motel, for years. There are strict rules imposed by the house’s attendants, children from all ages, and a lot of fights – some started by him when protecting the younger kids. The boy tries to do well – stays away from fights, goes to school, and finds an after-school job. He feels that he has stability for the first time in his life. He is mostly successful, and has made friends with some of the other kids. However, his mother escapes from prison, and wants to take him on the road with her – as he has always been her assistant in her cons and doesn’t want to let him go. What choice does the boy make in this situation?
5. A teenage girl and her brother lose their parents. They then move in with their father’s sister, her husband, and her two young children. As time passes, she notices the bruises on her aunt, and the way her young cousins flinch when their father touches them. When she sees her uncle hitting her brother and tries to protect him, her uncle hits her and threatens her with kicking them out on the street if she rebels. How does the girl deal with the situation? Does she escape with her brother, go on the road? Does she stay and try to help her aunt and her two young children?
6. A teenage girl is in love with her best friend, but he seems to only have eyes for the most popular girl at school, who has the best grades and is a cheerleader. One day, he asks the cheerleader out, and she agrees, so they start dating. Now, the teenage girl’s best friend is coming to her for advice on how to impress his new girlfriend. Does the girl remain friends with him, despite her own suffering? Or does she confess to him, possibly ruining their friendship for good?
7. A teenage boy seems to have it all – good grades, rich parents, many friends. He is also the champion of the chess club. When a new girl comes to the school, she turns out to be almost as good – if not better – than him at chess. Only one can participate in an inter-school chess competition, so he decides to seduce her as a ploy to make her give up her spot for him. However, his charms do not seem to work on her and he needs to work hard – but he still gets her to like him. Even worse, the more he gets to know her, the more he starts to fall in love for real. Finally, he is the one who gets the spot – his ploy was too successful, but he no longer wants the spot himself. Now he is the one who has to make a choice – tell her the truth, let her take the spot she deserved, and lose her for good, or, keep his silence and compete.
8. A teenage girl’s father has remarried – and now she has moved to a new house, a new city, goes to a new school, and has a new stepsister, who is by all means a very nice person. The stepsister helps her with making friends at school. Then the teenage girl meets a young boy who she really likes. There is only one problem – he is her new stepsister’s ex-boyfriend. Who does the girl choose? Her newfound love, or her newfound stepsister?
9. A 17-year-old girl sneaks out with her friends and they go to a bar with fake IDs provided by one of the girls in her friend group. They get drunk at the bar, and when it is time to go, their friend who provided the fake IDs has gone missing. The girl decides to go looking for her, asking questions at the bar, and soon enough, it seems like someone is stalking her – sending her messages to drop it. What happened to the girl who provided the fake IDs? Who is the stalker?
10. When a family moves to a new house in the mountains, a teenage girl and her younger sister explore the house with excitement. The house is mysterious, with doors that lead to hidden passages where one can hear everything going on in the house – even when their parents are arguing over their failing marriage. But, something sinister seems to be hiding in the house. Food goes missing, there are dead birds in the lawn, and the family dog seems to bark at empty walls. What do the girl and their sister discover when they go in the basement?
11. A 17-year-old boy wakes up in a hospital after being in a coma for two years. He has no memory, and doesn’t even remember his own name. His parents and friends try to help him to get his memory back, but to him, they do not feel like his parents. One day, he digs in the attic and finds pictures of himself, with a man and a woman who hug him like a mother and father would – only they do not look anything like his parents. Who is the boy, really, and what happened to the people in the photo?
Are you writing in a different genre and need some writing prompts? Take are look at the articles below:
Contemporary Fiction Writing Prompts
Science Fiction Writing Prompts