70 Dystopian Writing Prompts for Teen Writers

Dystopian fiction is one of the most powerful genres to teach and write. It invites young writers to question authority, examine injustice, and imagine what happens when societies break, bend, or quietly fail. Whether students are reading 1984, The Hunger Games, or The Giver, or learning how to write a dystopian novel of their own, dystopian writing offers a clear framework for exploring big ideas through fiction.

These dystopian writing prompts are designed to support teen writers as they develop original dystopian stories, plots, and characters. Inside this collection, you’ll find dystopian story ideas, speculative fiction writing prompts, eerie opening lines, picture-based inspiration, and flexible story starters that help students practise narrative structure, tension, and worldbuilding. The prompts work equally well for creative writing warm-ups, full lessons, homework tasks, or independent writing projects, with no prep required.

If you’re looking for dystopian writing prompts for KS3 or KS4, ideas for writing dystopian fiction, or inspiration to help students plan dystopian story plots, this collection gives them a place to start — and the freedom to take their ideas further.

.If you’re looking for more genres, tropes or seasonal collections, you can browse the full master list of 2000+ creative writing prompts here.

1. Plot Hooks

These story-based prompts give students just enough to run with. Each one imagines a broken or twisted version of the world they know, where power, control, or truth has shifted. Perfect for sparking deeper thinking while still leaving plenty of creative freedom.

1. Write a story set in a society where everyone must wear a colour-coded badge showing their IQ, but yours is wrong.

2. Write a story set in a place where books are banned, but you’re part of a secret group trying to recreate one from memory.

3. Write a story where every teenager must pass a loyalty test, but you failed yours on purpose.

4. Write a story where children are assigned to parents by the state, and you just found out yours were not chosen for you.

5. Write a story in which students earn their grades by watching propaganda, but your main character is starting to question the rules.

6. Write a story about a city controlled by drones.

7. Write a story about a society in which silence is rewarded, but you have just found your voice.

8. Write a story about a job interview that turns out to be a government test of loyalty, and failure means exile.

9. Write a story in which everybody disappears at the age of 30, but nobody knows where they go.

10. Write a story about a society in which emotions are considered dangerous, and yours have just been exposed on a live broadcast.

2. Title Prompts

Title prompts are perfect for sparking curiosity without giving too much away. They work especially well in dystopian writing because so much is built on suggestion, metaphor, and tone. These titles can be used as standalone tasks, first-line generators, or anchor points for deeper narrative writing:

1. The Silence Was Compulsory

2. Exit Code 17

3. We Were the Last to Remember

4. The Ministry of Hunger

5. The Rulebook

6. The Day the Sky Changed Colour

7. Her Smile Was State Property

8. Eyes Forward at All Times

9. When the Clock Hits Zero

10. The Children Voted First

3. Opening Lines

A strong opening line drops students straight into the world, no explanations, no build-up, just tension. These lines are designed to be strange, unsettling, or quietly off. Perfect for building atmosphere, starting timed writes, or anchoring longer creative pieces.

1. The sky looked normal.

2. We were told not to ask what happened.

3. It started with a list and a curfew.

4. They scanned our voices before they let us speak.

5. You didn’t notice the missing ones at first.

6. Mum said we were lucky, I remember that much.

7. I forgot my ID badge just once.

8. At school, they teach us how to disappear politely.

9. The alarms didn’t go off this time

10. Our town got its new name today.

4. Closing Lines

A dystopian ending doesn’t have to be loud, sometimes the quietest endings hit hardest. These closing lines are designed to linger. They leave space for ambiguity, despair, hope, or resistance - perfect for students to write toward or use as reflective inspiration:

1. And still, nobody spoke.

2. The broadcast ended, but this time the screen stayed on.

3. We burned the book and buried the ashes where the cameras couldn’t see.

4. I used to dream about freedom, but now I just dream about sleep.

5. They promised the power would come back on, but it never did.

6. We didn’t win, but we remembered.

7. My name wasn’t on the list.

8. I wasn’t afraid anymore.

9. And for the first time, nobody noticed.

10. Tomorrow, I’ll make sure I lie better.

5. Character Ideas

In dystopian fiction, characters often live in fear, silence, or resistance, sometimes all three. These character ideas are designed to spark internal conflict, moral dilemmas, and a strong narrative voice. They can help create a full story or be dropped into an existing world to cause disruption:

1. A teenager who writes secret coded poems in the margins of official documents.

2. The youngest child in a family of law enforcers, who is starting to question the rules.

3. A neighbour who reports others to the state, until their own family member breaks the rules.

4. A student with perfect behaviour, because they’ve never spoken a word.

5. A nurse tasked with erasing memories, but keeps her own record of them.

6. A tech support worker who starts getting messages from a banned account.

7. A young adult who has spent their life inside a bunker and has been told the world outside is gone, until somebody knocks on the door.

8. An elderly neighbour who remembers how the world used to be, and wants to share their stories.

9. A factory worker wth fingerprints that don’t seem to match any system.

10. A new student with no official record, and a scar that no one will explain.

6. Setting Ideas

Dystopian settings twist the familiar into something unsettling. These aren’t meant to be alien planets, instead, they’re schools, streets, or cities just a little too quiet, too controlled, or too broken. These settings help students create atmosphere, tension, and world-building that feels real:

1. A school where each hallway is monitored by motion sensors and microphones.

2. A crumbling tower block divided by floors, the higher you live, the more rights you have.

3. An underground train system that never stops, and each carriage is home to a different underground community.

4. A town surrounded by electric fences, but nobody remembers why they were put up.

5. A testing centre where students are assessed weekly on obedience, not knowledge.

6. A museum filled with things from “before”, but nobody is allowed to ask what they are.

7. A neighbourhood where loud noises are illegal, and silence is enforced by drones.

8. A marketplace underground where banned items, like books, mirrors, and musical instruments, are sold in secret.

9. A walled city where it’s always light, and no one has seen true night in decades.

10. A classroom with no teacher, just a screen, but today the screen doesn’t turn on.

7. Picture Prompts

A single image can spark an entire dystopian world. These picture prompts are designed to immerse students in the atmosphere, tension, and the unsettling beauty of a broken system. From uniformed crowds to glitching skylines, each one holds a story waiting to be uncovered. Use them for creative writing, descriptive tasks, or world-building warm-ups, and watch students step straight into their own speculative futures.

Go Deeper into Dystopian Writing

To push dystopian writing beyond surface-level “bad governments” and apocalyptic settings, encourage writers to focus on systems, consequences, and quiet resistance. The most effective dystopian stories are often restrained rather than explosive, revealing control through everyday details rather than dramatic rebellion.

◆ Ask students to identify one rule or law in their dystopian world and explore how it affects ordinary, daily behaviour rather than major plot events.
◆ Experiment with perspective by writing from the viewpoint of someone complicit in the system — a clerk, broadcaster, monitor, or record keeper — rather than a rebel.
◆ Use fragmented storytelling: reports, announcements, censored letters, or recovered documents to reveal truth indirectly.
◆ Rewrite a scene twice — once using official language or propaganda, and once showing what is actually happening beneath the surface.
◆ Focus on silence, omission, and redaction. What is missing from the narrative, and who benefits from that absence?

For writers who want to explore dystopian fiction through documents, hidden narratives, and authoritarian systems, The Silent Directive offers a natural next step. Inspired by classic and modern dystopian literature, this immersive writing experience invites writers to build stories through propaganda, classified files, erased testimonies, and smuggled messages — encouraging deeper thinking about power, censorship, and resistance. With no fixed storyline and no instructions, The Silent Directive is ideal for developing longer dystopian narratives or complex classroom discussions rooted in control, truth, and voice.

Final Thoughts

Dystopian writing gives students permission to ask the biggest questions — about power, freedom, truth, and what happens when systems stop serving the people within them. At its best, the dystopian genre isn’t just about bleak futures or broken worlds, but about choice, resistance, and the moral cost of survival.

These dystopian writing prompts are designed to support that deeper thinking. Whether you’re teaching a full dystopian unit, pairing creative tasks with novels like 1984 or The Hunger Games, or weaving short writing moments between texts, the prompts offer structure without limiting imagination. They help students practise tension, worldbuilding, and cause-and-effect storytelling while exploring ideas that genuinely matter.

If you’re looking to extend this work further, you’ll also find additional dystopian writing resources in my store, including a full Dystopian Writing Bundle, a dedicated Dystopian Writing Book, and Famous First Lines: Dystopian Writing Prompts — ideal for warm-ups, extended writing units, revision tasks, or independent creative projects.

Whatever version of the future your students imagine, I hope these prompts help them write it with clarity, tension, and purpose.

For a wider range of genres, holidays, and monthly themes, you can explore the full master list of 2000+ creative writing prompts for teens here.

And if you’d like a fresh writing spark every day, the Daily Writing Prompts subscription delivers 365 themed prompts with optional teacher slides — perfect for building consistent creative writing routines across the year.

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