ONC Prompts Through the Years

By OpenNovellaContest

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Are you wondering what prompts we've used in past ONCs? You can find them in this book as we gathered all the... More

2018
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2021

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By OpenNovellaContest

1. "You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain." - from The Dark Knight

2. During a Zombie apocalypse, you and your party are surrounded by zombies. In a Hail Mary move, you bite a zombie, and to your surprise, it turns back into a human.

3. When the world's superheroes are struck down with a deadly and mysterious illness, it's time for the next generation of heroes to save the day.

4. You're a weapon, and weapons don't weep.

5. There is a terrible drought ravaging the land, but when the waters recede from the local lake/reservoir, they reveal something no one expected to find.

6. Your job is to track down vigilantes and infiltrate their groups, with the aim of gathering information and turning them into the authorities. You're successful at your job, until one day, a group of vigilantes changes everything.

7. When the siblings found a lost fairy in the garden shed, they decided to help her find the way home. They were in for an adventure.

8. Being the new kid in a new school is intimidating. That is until a new friend offers a hand to the secret treehouse right behind the schoolyard. And...is that a unicorn?

9. "Dragons are not real, but you're too young to understand," the child's older sibling insisted. But they knew better. After all, they were best friends with a dragonette.

10. The child hated the new, prescribed glasses, sure everyone would laugh and tease them. But when putting the despised glasses on for the first time, a magical surprise waited.

11. The child was afraid of the monster under the bed. Until the monster needed help.

12. When they begged their aunt for a bedtime story, they had no idea they would end up in a magical kingdom

13. A storm is raging outside, but you're cozy at home reading a good story. When the lights go out, you figure it's the result of the storm, but when they come back on, you've been transported into the alternative aftermath of the book you finished reading. Where are you and what happens?

14. You wake up in the middle of a battle of your favorite game. Who are you fighting and how does the game end?

15. Imagine a forgotten character written out from your favourite book/movie/show. Write their perspective about being cast out of the story.

16. The story is finished. The end! Now everyone can go home. By that, there's a world where all the characters live, and guess what? You, dear creator, have stumbled upon it. Now, what's your tale?

17. Your main character is in an idyllic relationship. Your task? Make - then break - the ship.

18. A job application results in you becoming embroiled in the very real lives of the characters of your favourite fandom.

19. Being a fan of a band shouldn't come with this much bad luck. Like being stranded in the middle of a foreign city when one is supposed to be at the concert of the said favourite band!

20. Born under a special star, you're destined to end a reign of terror. But now that you're an adult, you realise that's not who you want to be and that you have become the one responsible for the terror

21. A new dating app, matching magical beings with ordinary folk, takes the world by storm.

22. On occasion, an accusation of witchcraft has the power to set one on a wonderful, dangerous path.

23. Under the blue moonlight, the elves come out. For a transient moment, let there be peace and harmony.

24. You ask the faerie to let you and your loved one, who happens to be royalty, be together "happily ever after." 500 years later, with neither of you having aged a day, you learn that, when it comes to magic contracts, wording matters.

25. The war has ended, and thus the immortals return to their natural state: forgotten, hiding in the shadows until humankind is in need of them once more. They did not expect to be stumbled upon by a young farm apprentice.

26. You are hiking in the woods and decide to explore a cave. The stalactites and stalagmites are amazing! One cluster of stalagmites has holes in the center and looks like a set of giant pipes growing out of the floor. Just for laughs, you blow into one. The chamber echoes with the sound, and then...

27. You crack a math problem that has stumped experts for decades. The only problem is: you're only an undergrad and you stumbled across the problem while snooping in your professor's office while waiting for your appointment to start.

28. You're never without your playlist, so much so that it dictates every aspect of your life.

29. "I am in the mood to dissolve in the sky." - Virginia Woolf

30. Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself. -Rumi

31. "Just curious, how do I exit this game?"

32. "All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream." - Edgar Allan Poe

33. When a loved one dies, the person is lost. Until they find a jar of 'fortune notes' which leads them to read each one every day. How does the journey start and end?

**Disclaimer: Since the 'each one every day' part of the prompt has caused some confusion, we encourage you to interpret this part as you wish to.**

34. Strange and unlikely circumstances lead to someone's pet iguana becoming the most feared and respected Captain, during the Golden Age of Piracy.

35. "Please tell me that is not the codex our chief has mentioned earlier."

36. You are Death, and you are obligated to roam the Earth for one week every hundred years to learn about what the humans are up to these days. The problem? You get stuck on Earth during 2020. Definitely not a social hour.

37. "Catch that chocolate thief!" And it was shouted at a pumpkin with tiny legs and hands.

38. The fact that the planet is nothing more than a zombie-infested wasteland, a harsh and unforgiving place, doesn't mean that true love doesn't exist.

39. Hello welcome to The Sanctuary - Oh, you wish to leave? Why are you pressing the x button? Why, are you trying to 'exit'? Why - no, you'll stay with us forever.

40. If only you knew you'd meet them, you'd have dressed a bit better. Especially since the only thing you can think of since you've seen their smile is 'Oh shit!

41. A writer has a vision of a distant future and is ridiculed by their peers, cast out by society when that vision is published.

42. In the early-Neolithic (around 10,000 BCE) a young individual perfects the recipe for ale, leading to a life beyond their wildest imagination.

43. You've traveled into the past, but you're not sure how. Somehow, you must make it back to the present without disturbing the timeline. However, that's made a little difficult when a character of a historical legend starts to take an interest in you.

**Please note: Prompt #43 specifically means historical-based legends/myths only, not real-life people/events. The historical legend aspect of this prompt can not be altered.**

44. When a raid on an enemy encampment goes awry, a child is taken in and raised by those they were brought up to believe were vile and monstrous.

45. The war has begun and soldiers are needed. You have two choices: serve as a soldier, or defy the call and disguise yourself as a shepherd

46. It's Saturday night, and you have no plans to go on a date. You're all alone and decide to re-watch the Shakespearean tragedy 'Romeo and Juliet', torturing your already broken heart. The next morning, you find that it's the late 16th century, the time when Shakespeare was still writing the play, and you spot the incomplete manuscript of 'Romeo and Juliet'.

47. A mysterious statue of an eye appears in a sleepy town. Nobody knows where it came from, but it seems to change locations every night when nobody is watching. One day, it appears on your front door.

48. Everyone who survived assumed the Zombie Apocalypse was the worst thing they would have to live through. Boy, were they wrong?!

49. 'Your safety is of utmost importance to us' is displayed on the handwritten parchment letter thrown in your hands previously. "Yeah, sure, except there is someone that just died a few minutes ago!"

50. From dusk until dawn you're human. During daylight hours, you are a creature straight out of even the most hardened individual's worst nightmares.

51. I've been doing my Latin homework for three hours, and the only thing that comes out for me is this huge chunk of demonic goo instead of whatever should be put on paper due tomorrow.

52. The day it started raining venomous spiders, we knew we were in trouble.

53. When wildlife starts rampaging, all the humans are forced underground. However, they come to a terrible discovery that being underground is no safer than being on the surface.

54. You get a mysterious message on your phone stating, Agent 23, you have been activated. You guess it's a bad time to have amnesia.

55. Three childhood friends on vacation tell stories from their past while trapped inside one rainy day. As the stories become more and more convoluted, they realize there are things in their past they have been suppressing all this time.

56. You can see the future by looking into people's eyes. However, if you tell them about it, it won't come to fruition. One day, you lock eyes with yourself in the mirror.

57. Death has records of everyone's existence. Except - according to Death - your records don't exist.

58. "This is fun." Your friend says. "Seriously? We're hiding a body!" You respond.

59. "Man, I could kill for a good beer," you say. The bartender looks both ways before leaning towards you. "Do you mean that? Because there is someone I would like...disposed of."

60. Rumours of a mysterious dark force under the earth have spread around the city. You are sent to investigate.

61. I would've lived longer if it weren't for Lorraine. There's only one issue... who's Lorraine?

62. Waking up to an omen of death on your doorstep isn't exactly how you pictured your Monday morning.

63. You, a magic wielder, accidentally stole the most fearsome supernatural family's relic

64. What should have been a simple task for a trio of ghost hunters quickly becomes something for which the term 'Worst Case Scenario' is the mother of all understatement.

65. "Really? Of all the things you decide to bring on our underground excursions you bring salt?"

66. When you die, you come back. But you never come back the same, there's always a price to pay for resurrection.

67. "What? Why are you looking at me as if I grew horns?"

68. Haunted by the ghosts of your future, you go to great lengths to do what you can to ensure your life doesn't turn out as they predict.

69. When music becomes a way to communicate no words could compare.

70. You haven't received a letter in a month from your loved one. You know exactly how long it takes to arrive from them. You start to pace. Check the mail. And here it is! You open it but there's something different about it. The date on the top right corner -- it's in the future. A hundred years into the future.

71. "This is our last dance, my dear." They said, to which you reply, "Then make it the best dance, my love."

72. You met the love of your life at a music festival, but after that weekend you never saw them again. Twenty years later, that changes.

73. In a group chat, you reply to a message that was not aimed at you and yet inadvertently start something new with your crush.

74. Thanks to your parent's last will and testament, you find yourself living out in the English countryside with the grandmother you'd never met before and an apparent servant whose only goal is to make you fall in love with them. The problem here is that this grandmother has already promised your hand in marriage to a noble in line for the throne.

75. The planet has succumbed to climate change, depleting our resources and pushing humans to the verge of extinction. When a new continent surfaces with fresh resources, Earth's survivors discover something they never dreamed of.

76. There are two things keeping this world operating: The clockwork system, and the dimension-traveler.

77. In the shadow of a dying star a new civilization rises, a new civilization that has the potential to change everything.

78. Earth and all that comes with her is put up for auction, with several incredibly wealthy intergalactic conglomerates competing for the prize.

79. The Virtual Implant was supposed to be a revolutionary breakthrough; for a time, it was.

80. In an alternate reality the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event never happened. The asteroid that created the Chicxulub crater instead skimmed Earth's atmosphere and passed harmlessly by.

81. Scientists have discovered a 'dark liquid' that is really at the base of the universe's continual expansion. What happens when your team isolates some of this mysterious dark liquid in your lab?

82. Age and wisdom are certainly not mutually exclusive, but when a case of mistaken identity results in a teen taking charge of a small nation, who knows what might happen!

83. "This assignment requires us to behave like adults. I have never been this stressed."

84. This academy isn't a typical boarding school. No, it's where kids train to become villains - if they pass the entrance test, that is. Nobody at the academy knows you're descended from heroes, and that's the way you'd like it to stay.

85. "This prom is not my cup of tea. I would rather be up on my roof, watching the stars."

86. The whole school thinks the most popular person in the school hierarchy and the hottest football player are together, but in reality, they have the most epic friendship.

87. With the Kingdom Heir coming-of-age celebration fast approaching, the search for a match begins. It is decreed a dance will be held; an anonymous masked ball.

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