Are you looking for cool writing prompts for fiction to have your students write creatively? My go-to tool is a roll-the-dice writing prompt sheet! It provides students with 4 times 6 options to choose or to roll-the-dice on and write a story with those prompts. In round one, they must roll for the main character; round two they must roll for the setting; round three for an object; and round four for an exclamation. All four must have their role in the story. Watch your students get super creative with their stories! Try my freebie out to see if you like it.
Creative writing with your students
I love to teach creative writing! It’s actually my own passion too, but it wasn’t until I was provided with some awesome writing prompts for fiction that I became better at it. When I had just started teaching, I just asked students to ‘write me a story’ without any other guidance. How could I expect them to just come up with something out of thin air? I wasn’t able to do it myself, and now I was expecting my students to do it. It didn’t work. Now I know I have to give them prompts to get their creative juices flowing. I give them some pointers to build their stories around and watch them go off. It works so well!
Do you have this same problem that your students don’t know where to start or what to write about? Do they need options when they write creatively? Then hear me out!
Writing prompts for fiction short stories
Every good story has a main character, a certain setting that the story takes place in, and something that complicates things. Or at least, these three make for an interesting story to tell. So, I include 6 options for each in my roll-the-dice sheet. In my sheets, I also like to include an exclamation to spark some creativity within the student to choose the topic of the story. It gets the students to think about where the story should go. It’s super easy to set up, and students will enjoy the process of getting inspired and writing their story.
It’s super easy to set up: all you have to do is come up with a set of 6 characters for students to choose from. These can range from celebrities to people with certain jobs, to well-known people or creatures in pop culture or literature, to people that students actually know in their daily lives. Then choose some settings: any country in the world, any city, and type of landscape, and any fictional country from pop culture or literature makes for an excellent choice.
Next, choose an object that speaks to the imagination: think of appliances or furniture you use around the house, school supplies, objects people use outside or at work, anything goes. Last, choose an exclamation you’d find in different types of stories: scared or suspenseful exclamations for thriller or horror, funny ones for comedy, romantic ones for romance, or excited ones for action. Or choose famous movie quotes. This is your own chance to get creative too!
Fiction writing prompts for middle school
Although I think roll-the-dice writing prompts still work really well for high schoolers, because they too love to write fun stories, as my 15-year-olds often demonstrate, I think they work amazingly well for younger kids. Younger kids still have that joy for writing fun stuff, and an open mind for crazy stories. My 11 to 12-year-olds have a blast each time we use the sheets. But maybe that’s because they can use dice as well, anything with dice is good 🙂
You should really give roll-the-dice writing prompts a try! You’ll really enjoy watching your students go off on a little adventure with their stories. It’s easy to make these sheets yourself, but if you want some ready-to-print-and-use ones, I have already done that for you! I have separate ones for the seasons, holidays, etcetera, but I made a great big bundle of them so that you can switch it up throughout the year. Check them out in my store here.
However you’re going to try roll-the-dice writing prompts out, have so much fun with them! I know your students will thank you for it!
If you like to learn more tips on how to teach and practice writing skills, check out my other posts on the topic.
One Response