Collaborative Stories for the Collective Imagination

Story Prompts

July 2025

Every month, we release new creative writing prompts to help you launch your next collaborative fiction journey.

This month’s theme: Ice

(Bonus: Write with someone in your life from another country.)

1

​O​ne summer over 5,300 years ago, a​ neolithic man was murdered​ in the Italian Alps and preserved naturally in ice until he was discovered accidentally by two German hikers in 1991. ​"The Ice Man" had 61 tattoos, a deep cut to his right hand, a flint arrowhead stuck in his left shoulder, and an innovative copper axe.​ Write the backstory behind the real-life murder of this glacier mummy named "Ötzi".

• Contributed by Switch-Lit
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2

I waited until the last ice cube melted in my glass, and then made my move.

• Contributed by Switch-Lit
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3

She always ordered one scoop of vanilla ice cream with crushed salt and vinegar chips as a cool reminder.

• Contributed by Switch-Lit
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4

Write a short play or parable about two lovers separated by a wall of ice broken only by their confessions to one another.

• Contributed by Switch-Lit
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5

In a world where undocumented people are barred from dreaming and sleep cycles are policed by the state, a compliant worker in the forensics division of the "Imagination Corrections and Enforcement" (I.C.E.) department sorts through contraband dream fragments and suddenly discovers one with her in it.

• Contributed by Switch-Lit
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You can also continue without a prompt and start a story on your own.

Start without a prompt