BOO! Halloween is right around the corner—what better day to write some spooky stories? Sharpen your pencil and take a stab at one of these Halloween writing prompts!
Scary Stories Connect With Readers in Big Ways
You write to get a reaction out of your readers. No matter the genre, you want your reader to feel something when they read your writing.
For horror writers, that feeling is fear. But it's also so much more.
Great horror stories take the everyday creepy and turn it into something even more creepy (and often become a condemnation of injustices in society). The great thing is, horror stories teach you that those creepy things can be beaten. That's what keeps bringing the readers back.
And that's why horror writers keep churning out the fear.
Maybe you love writing scary stories. Maybe you don't, but I hope you'll give it a try, just for practice (we're fans of that around here!).
Just like reading outside your genre is valuable to mastering the writing craft, so is writing a scary story.
This story doesn't have to be long, it could be a short story. Try for something you can write in one sitting, like 1,500 words.
To get you started, use one of the Halloween writing prompts suggested in this article. Then let loose, and have fun!
Creepy Story Writing Prompts
1. It's late at night, and you hear footsteps in the cellar, but you're definitely home alone…or so you thought.
2. You've put that doll in the cabinet, in the closet, in the attic, but no matter where you tuck it, it always shows back up on the sofa. On Halloween night, you find it watching you…
3. A bad-tempered businessman is driving home after a long day of work. He thinks he sees his kids trick-or-treating and stops to pick them up but those aren't costumes.
4. It's Halloween night and you and your friends think it would be fun to visit the local town's annual corn maze. But when you're inside it, someone inside the maze doesn't look like an actor in a costume. And shortly after, your friends start to disappear one by one.
5. You don't believe in the rumors that say a certain scary book is cursed—and that anyone who reads it will meet their maker by the end of the week. So naturally, you read it. And then things start going wrong…
Monster/Ghost Story Writing Prompts
6. A young woman goes to her grandmother's house for tea on Halloween night. They have a wonderful time together, sharing stories, joy, and the best times of family. The next day, the woman learns her grandmother has been dead for a week and no one could get ahold of her to tell her.
7. A little boy is lost in the woods, but at least his faithful dog is with him. As they look for the way out, the dog defends his master against terrifying monsters and animals. But the closer they get to the escaping the dark forest, the more apparent it is that they'll need to face the person, or thing, releasing these monsters in the first place.
8. A farmer who dreams of being a scientist experiments on this year's pumpkins, hoping to enlarge them. He has a lot of success, until one of his potions is tampered with, and the cute pumpkin in his patch morphs into a monster that eats anyone who stumbles over its vines.
9. Your girlfriend/boyfriend brings over your favorite treat on Halloween, but when you eat it, you transform into a giant, poisonous snake that kills anyone who touches you. What do you do next?
10. You wake up on Halloween night, look outside your window, and see your sister sleep walking away from the house. You chase after her but can't catch her until she plunges into a dark lake, where there's a mysterious song that starts to pull you deep below the surface.
Not-So-Spooky Story Writing Prompts
Not all people love scary stories. If this is you but you'd like to try to write a scary story—and have a fun time writing it—try tackling a (not-so) scary story prompt that could turn a potentially scary tale into something that is fun (even funny):
11. You hate clowns, which makes it even worse when your husband secretly decides to hire a clown for you son's birthday party—which just happens to be on Halloween.
12. Aliens have just landed on Earth and boy, did they pick a weird day to come. How do they respond to Halloween, supernatural or otherwise? Do they decide this place is just too bizarre and get the heck out, or do they stick around and join in the fun?
13. On Halloween night, lovers get to come back and spend the evening together one more time. One couple from the Roaring Twenties decides to come back from the grave to help their extreme nerd great-grandchild or the kid will never get married.
14. You decide that this year you're going to crash the ten top costume parties in town—and prank each one while you're at it.
15. A mad scientist determined to destroy the world falls hopelessly in love with a not-so-wicked witch. As hard as he tries, he can't impress her.
Write Your Spooky Stories
Writing a scary story can be a fun exercise to give your students (regardless of age, elementary students to college graduates) around this time of year. It also can stir some exciting writing ideas in any writer, whether or not they're part of an entire class or their personal writing group.
As mentioned above, writing scary stories can also push you to better your creative writing skills, even if it's not normally in your genre lane. Bestselling author Neil Gaiman has some great insight about why this is true:
Fairy tales are more than true: Not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.
You don't have to love horror stories to write one, but you will learn about protagonists who face trialing, often life or death, situations when writing them. Challenge students or writers to become better at their writing craft by pushing them to write a short scary story with one of the writing prompts in this article.
Sit down with your favorite candy or flavor of candy corn and get ready to write. Pluck it from the list, and let your imagination free!
What is your favorite Halloween writing prompt from this list? Why did it stand out to you? Let us know in the comments.
“Damn, I hate those busy bodies. Auditors, they call themselves. Pains in the ass is what they are.” said Joe aloud to no one who could hear. The radio blasted the nightly news and told a grisly story about three kids poisoned by bad candy. Joe, shaking his head from side to side and mumbling,
“For crying-out-loud. They’re just kids. Who in their right mind would do that to kids?”
The traffic became lighter and Joe took the off ramp to his street. As he drove toward his house, he saw his children walking down the sidewalk trick or treating. After hearing the news about the poisoning, he wanted his kids to go home. He stopped the car and walked over to them.
“Jeremy, Julian, why are you out here alone. Your mother was supposed to wait until I got home?”
He stood over the children waiting for an answer. When none came, he grabbed an arm, one child in each hand, and marched them to the car. He opened the back door and demanded they get in.
“In the car. Don’t stand there, get in… I’ve had a rough day, keep this up and you’ll get a Halloween to remember.”
Jeremy, the cutest little goblin, turned to Joe, jumped on top of him, opened his enormous mouth, and swallowed Joe whole. Julian, danced around Jeremy singing
“Remember, remember, a Halloween to remember, A-tishoo! A-tishoo! We all fall down”
To the children passing by, the song sounded familiar. They started to sing,
“Ring-a-round the rosie, A pocket full of posies, Hush! Hush! Hush! Hush! We’ve all tumbled down.”
William – I enjoyed your story. Nicely developed in such a short span.
Great lead-in to the story as a way to introduce taking his kids home. One suggestion in the first paragraph … not sure you need “from side to side” after “shaking his head”, and you could modify it to ” Joe, shaking his head, mumbled, …” or “Joe shook his head and mumbled, …”
While it could be viewed as too abrupt (I didn’t think so), I love how Jeremy “the cutest little goblin” got right down to business and “jumped on top of [Joe], opened his enormous mouth, and swallowed Joe whole”, with Julian dancing and singing along. Those two lines plus Julian’s clever integration of “Remember, remember, a Halloween to remember” made for a ghoulishly delightful twist.
Thanks for the Halloween treat.
– Susan
Thanks Susan. I already made the change (Joe, shaking his head, mumbled). It reads much better.
William
Hi thanks for writing this story it gave my students some ideas to write about since halloween is coming up
Thanks for the Halloween treat, Ruthanne. Great prompts.
I love prompt #4 with the grandma, I was devastated when my grammy died…. this will be good to write about.
Harold Saggerbob loves Halloween. Has his very own Pumpkin Club. But while the ‘pumpkins’ on his shelf, might be round, they are certainly not orange. And every Halloween, several kids disappear near his home…
It’s not really creepy but I tried it with my characters. English isn’t my first language so if you see any mistake, please let me know:
“Aymeric was eating alone in the kitchen. He didn’t have much appetite and spent more time looking at the dark sky through the window than eating. He sighed. He wished he had company. But that wouldn’t happen. Rose was back to his home and was probably already sleeping – flowers go to sleep with the sun, after all.
The sky was covered in dark clouds so thick he couldn’t even see the Moon – and it was definitely up somewhere. He could feel it.
It felt as if he had a knot in his throat. He covered his plate and put it in the fridge. He would eat it later, when he’d be hungrier.
Suddenly, he stilled. He had heard footsteps. He closed the fridge slowly, careful not to make any noise. It wasn’t some kind of rodent. They were scared of lycanthropes. And Aymeric was able to recognize footsteps from rodents. With a hearing like his, no one could fool him. He put his fork and his knife in the sink, shrugging. It wasn’t as if the intruder could mess with his stuff unnoticed, anyway.
What bothered him was that he didn’t heard the intruder enter. It was definitely strange. He didn’t know what or who it was but he’d better be careful. He grabbed a dagger and followed the noise. It definitely came from the cellar.
He barged in there, determined to end all this quickly. The moon was rising and waxing, anyway, so he shouldn’t have any problem dealing with whoever it was.
What he saw still surprised him.
A tiny body in the middle of the room. Thick wavy blond hair, long ears, big grey eyes. Aymeric recognized the child immediately. When the little elf saw him, he rushed into his arms.
“Hey, what’s wrong, champion?”
He didn’t expect the kid to reply. The elf only hugged him tightly. Aymeric could feel his relief and his fear.
The ability they had to travel between spaces and times was really something he couldn’t get used to…”
Noah was waking up. He had been knocked down while he was chased by a group of teens.
It was Halloween. Noah left his home with Oscar his dog. He headed to park across the street where his friends were waiting for him for trick or treating around the neighborhood.
As they got treats from the third house Noah and his friends headed for the next house. Suddenly a huge dark figure appeared and almost grabbed one of Noah’s friends. The group was actually chased by teenage boys who looked hideous beasts in their costumes. Noah and his friends were dispersed. Some managed to stick together, some made it back home. Noah lost the sense of direction and was running for a while now. Suddenly he stumbled and tripped over. He knocked his head hard on something and passed out.
After he got up he could see dark figures with blazing eyes staring down at him. Noah jumped to his feet and fled into the woods that were the only easy hideout he could access fast. Oscar was behind him growling and barking at the dark figures that followed them into the woods.
As he went farther it got more and more dark. The only thing that kept him going was Oscar who was right behind him keeping the dark figures at a distance.
Noah saw bushes and managed to hide within. Oscar had stopped barking now and there was a deadly silence. Noah was panting and was trying to calm down. He was about to lie down when he saw a huge hand trying to grab him from within the bushes. Noah screamed in panic when Oscar jumped in between just in time to save him.
Noah was running fast when suddenly he saw light piercing through the darkness. He ran towards the light fast. When he came near he couldn’t believe his eyes. The sun shone bright and there were beautiful flowers and trees. Far away he could see children playing. He quickly entered the garden as he had no better choice to escape the dark figures.
Oscar slowly paced back and ran all the way home where Noah’s parents were mourning his death.
He wasn’t an unreasonable man or boss. He understood that there would be some excitement around the office, and he could deal with the morning meeting being fifteen minutes late so that they could put up even more decorations than they had already put up weeks before, decorations that he knew, despite their eagerness to put them up, would not be taken down until well into November. He could deal with his employees’ frequent trips to the break room to grab generous helpings of candy corn and sugar cookies shaped like bats and ghosts brought in by some of their more festive coworkers. He liked cookies too, after all, and though the bright orange color was a bit off-putting he enjoyed a splash of pumpkin flavored creamer in his morning coffee as much as the next guy. What really set him off was that no one seemed to remember that it was just a workday. Deadlines don’t cease to exist just because it’s October 31st. They were just starting work on the annual report, the most important presentation of the year, and everyone was so busy talking about costumes and parties that he might as well have given them the day off with the amount of work they got done.
Still his frustration was slowly subsiding as he turned onto the exit that led to his house. It was just past 5:30 and his wife was already out with the kids. It was their tradition. He was never home early enough to go trick or treating so he would take care of dinner. Once they got home the kids would change into Halloween Pj’s that changed every year, this time it was a jack-o-lantern patterned dress for Kate and matching flannel pants for Ethan. They would let the twins stay up an extra hour and all eat in front the tv and watch “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.” He allowed these thoughts to pull him in and his hands began working on auto pilot, driving the same route he did every day.
He didn’t even realize what he was doing when he slammed the breaks. Acting out of pure instinct it wasn’t until the tires stopped squealing and his heart was almost back to its normal rhythm that he fully processed the situation. About three feet from where the car had stopped were two children in costume. They continued to stand motionless and silent, completely reactionless to what they had just narrowly avoided. This at least allowed Will to get a good look at the kids. One wore a dark red cape with a hood that swallowed most of her face. In the dark only her bright gray eyes were visible. The other was a young boy with a pair of pointed perched on the top of his head. Will could just make out that his arms and legs had been covered in fur. These were the same costumes that had been laid out on his kitchen table that morning.
“Kids? What the hell are you doing in the middle of the road?”
he yelled through a cracked window. He looked around for their mother, but the street was empty. After no answer from either twin, he demanded they get in so he could take them home. The children remained silent, but obediently piled into the backseat. As Will used the car’s Bluetooth to call his wife he was torn between anger and worry. He and Kelly had had a discussion just last night about if the kids, who had just turned nine, were old enough to go out on their own this year. The funny thing was that Will had been the one advocating for it. Their neighborhood consisted of a large cul-de-sac and was mostly families with elementary-aged children of their own, but with Kelly it was a non-starter. He had been driving slowly and cautiously keeping in mind other little trick or treaters who might be roaming the streets, but after his second call was declined, he pumped the gas, anxious to get home and figure out what had happened.
Ethan and Kate were uncharacteristically quiet. The two were known for constantly chattering to each other, there had even been a few notes sent home from school about it. But, Will’s mind was far too preoccupied to read into it and he assumed it was out of disappointment.
“Look I know it’s early and you guys were excited about trick or treating, but you scared me to death, and I need to talk to your mother. I’ll tell you what, we can order pizza tonight and I’ll let you watch that movie that your mom said was too scary.”
Just as he finished speaking, they hit a stop sign and he took his eyes off the road for a moment to look at his children. Both were staring straight forward with a completely blank look on their faces. Their baskets had been haphazardly dropped and the small amount of candy they had gotten before their father showed up was spilling onto the floor. Kate had wanted to add a little edge to her Little Red costume and had just heard the uncensored version of the story, where she slices the wolf open. Kelly had acquiesced and gotten her one of those big fake knives, which Kate now held in a death grip. Something about it put a knot in Will’s stomach, but they were only a block away from home and he turned all of his efforts to getting there as fast as possible. Though he continued to look out for children and parents out for Halloween he never saw one, the streets emptier than he had ever seen before.
He continued to sneak glances at the twins in the rear-view mirror, but their unsettling expressions never changed. He felt some semblance of relief when he could finally see his street sign, but as he moved to turn Ethan’s hand grasped his forearm from the backseat. His “big bad wolf,” costume was accentuated by a pair of claws. They were plastic and flimsy, repurposed from an old Wolverine costume. At least they were, but now they dug into Will’s flesh, blood welling up around each razor-sharp talon. Meanwhile Kate’s knife had also become very real, and she plunged it into the back of the driver’s seat. Thankfully, the knife was only long enough to barely come out the other side and leave only a shallow gouge in his back.
Pain blinded him as he managed to rip his arm away from his son’s claws. He scrambled backwards and managed to undo his seatbelt and open the door, falling and landing hard on the cold pavement. He was still struggling to get to his feet with his one good arm when the twins appeared in front of him. Any notion of fighting back left him as he looked at their faces. They weren’t his kids anymore he knew that. He could see it in their eyes. But, he couldn’t bring himself to hurt them either. As he resigned himself to his fate and awaited the next attack a familiar tone interrupted. His phone had fallen with him and was lying face up only a few inches away. It was an alarm. The notification read,
Kids Home Soon Start Dinner