October Writing Prompts

Holly J Woods
3 min readOct 4, 2021

Lots of articles on Medium are praising the practice of writing a story each day. But what if you don’t have enough ideas to last through October?

In this post I will share with you 31jumping off points that should spark an idea or two. Even if you aren’t committed to writing each day it can be easy to run out of ideas, particularly when you write personal essays and have seemingly ran out of Interesting Things That Happened To Me.

Answering these prompts quickly in a journal might spark off ideas for fiction too, or maybe even send you down a rabbit hole of investigating something new for a non-fiction piece as well.

These are 31 prompts separated into 10 October themes and so run a little dark, spooky, and should hopefully whet your appetite for some intrigue and mystery.

  1. Haunting

Are you haunted by someone who isn’t dead yet?

What’s a road you didn’t travel but now wish you could, like moving house or choosing a university?

Who has thought of you today? Who is thinking of you right now?

2. Betrayal

What’s the worst betrayal you’ve ever suffered?

Or the worst betrayal you’ve ever witnessed?

Or, worst of all, what’s the worst betrayal you’ve ever committed?

3. Pumpkin

What’s something you really like that you wish people wouldn’t look down on?

Have you ever refused to try something (like pumpkin spice) because you didn’t want to be associated with the group who likes it? What happened when you tried it?

What have you tried recently that you found to be overrated?

4. Trick

What’s the best or worst prank you’ve been involved in?

Have you ever been tricked into a cult? They are more prevalent than you think — consider MLMs, overly-involved church groups and fitness gyms that seemed a bit intense but your friend NEVER shuts up about.

When’s the last time you felt conned or swindled?

5. Treat

What’s a desire that you would never tell anyone about?

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Holly J Woods

I write romance and ghost stories, and sometimes I also write useful things about thriving with ADHD.