70 Fairytale Prince Writing Prompts: Cursed Princes, Royal Quests & Enchanted Heirs
Fairytale princes rarely get to remain comfortably inside their castles.
Sooner or later, there is a dragon to face, an enchanted forest to cross, an impossible task to complete or a curse that turns the unfortunate prince into something considerably less princely. He might be the celebrated heir to a magnificent kingdom, the overlooked youngest of three brothers, a foolish prince determined to prove himself or a mysterious stranger whose true identity is revealed only after the story has already begun.
And, of course, not every prince needs to be charming.
Your prince could be vain, kind, cowardly, reckless, clever or spectacularly unprepared for life beyond the palace gates. He might set out intending to rescue a princess who has already rescued herself, discover that the monster he was sent to kill deserves saving or realise halfway through his quest that becoming king is the last thing he actually wants.
These 70 Fairytale Prince Writing Prompts explore princes from every corner of the storybook world, from cursed princes and heroic heirs to youngest sons, wicked royals, enchanted princes and reluctant future kings. Rather than giving you 70 versions of the same royal adventure, the prompts are divided into plot hooks, title ideas, opening lines, closing lines, character ideas, setting ideas and picture prompts, giving you different ways to begin building your own fairytale.
Use them to inspire traditional fairytales, fractured tales, retellings, children's stories or completely original enchanted worlds. Take a single prompt and build an entire story around it, combine several ideas together or use them as starting points for creating princes who feel very different from the familiar handsome stranger arriving on a white horse.
For more enchanted royalty, magical kingdoms, traditional story motifs and folklore-inspired inspiration, explore the Fairytales & Folklore Hub. You can also visit Fairytale Story Sparks for more fairytale writing prompts and story ideas, or browse the Creative Writing Archive for hundreds of character, setting, worldbuilding and storytelling resources.
Because sometimes the prince rescues the kingdom.
Sometimes the kingdom needs rescuing from the prince.
And sometimes he gets halfway through the enchanted forest, loses his horse and has to work out the rest of the fairytale for himself.
1. Plot Hooks
A prince gives you plenty of ways to begin a fairytale. He might be sent on an impossible quest, discover a secret about his inheritance, fall victim to a curse or leave the palace expecting to become a hero and find something very different waiting beyond the kingdom's borders. Use these plot hooks as starting points for complete stories, or combine several ideas to create a larger royal adventure.
A prince is sent to rescue a princess from an enchanted tower, only to discover that she escaped years ago and the creature imprisoned at the top has been waiting for him.
The youngest of three princes is laughed at when he chooses an old, limping horse for his quest. The horse waits until they are beyond the kingdom's borders before revealing that it can speak — and that it once belonged to the prince's missing grandfather.
Every prince in the royal family is cursed to become a different animal on his eighteenth birthday. When the youngest prince wakes on his birthday apparently unchanged, the entire court begins to panic.
A famously selfish prince refuses food to an old woman outside the palace gates. She curses him so that everything he owns disappears whenever he refuses to share it, beginning with his crown and ending, piece by piece, with the kingdom itself.
A prince has been promised since birth to a princess from a neighbouring kingdom. When he finally travels to meet her, he finds an abandoned castle covered in roses and a single note warning him not to search for her.
Seven princes set out to find the golden bird stealing fruit from the king's enchanted orchard. Six return with magnificent treasures. The seventh returns empty-handed and insists the bird must never be captured.
A prince defeats a terrible dragon and returns home expecting a hero's welcome. Instead, he discovers the creature was the only thing preventing an ancient curse from crossing the mountains.
A wicked prince steals his older brother's identity and takes his place as heir to the throne. His deception is perfect except for one problem: the royal family's ancient talking mirror refuses to call him by his brother's name.
A prince who has spent his entire life waiting to become king discovers a hidden clause in the kingdom's oldest law: before he can inherit the crown, he must spend one year living anonymously among the people he intends to rule.
A prince is cursed to sleep inside a forgotten castle until someone completes three impossible tasks to wake him. One hundred years later, he opens his eyes to discover nobody completed them. The curse simply expired.
2. Title Ideas
A good fairytale title can suggest an entire story before you know exactly what happens in it. These prince-inspired titles draw on familiar fairytale ingredients including royal brothers, enchanted animals, mysterious kingdoms, impossible tasks, curses and troublesome crowns. Choose one that immediately catches your imagination and work backwards to discover the story hiding behind it.
The Prince of Thorns
Seven Brothers and a Golden Bird
The Prince Who Would Not Be King
A Crown for the Youngest Son
The Boy Beneath the Bearskin
Winter's Heir
The Prince, the Fox and the Road That Wasn't There
Three Impossible Things Before Sunrise
When the White Horse Came Home Alone
The Foolish Prince
3. Opening Lines
The first line of a fairytale can open a castle door, introduce an impossible problem or tell us immediately that something has gone terribly wrong. These opening lines place princes at the beginning of curses, quests, mysteries and adventures, giving you a ready-made starting point while leaving the rest of the story completely open.
The prince had been warned never to follow the white stag into the forest, which naturally made him wonder where it went.
On the morning of his eighteenth birthday, Prince Edmund woke with feathers growing from his hands.
Everyone in the kingdom agreed that the youngest prince was useless, including, on most days, the youngest prince himself.
The horse spoke for the first time three miles beyond the castle gates.
There were twelve portraits of princes in the western corridor, although the king had only eleven sons.
The princess took one look at the prince who had supposedly come to rescue her and locked the tower window.
By sunset, Prince Felix had traded away his horse, his sword and half his supper for three things his brothers considered completely worthless.
The old woman at the roadside asked the prince for nothing more than a piece of bread, and that was where all his trouble began.
Nobody knew why the dragon returned Prince Arthur's sword every morning, carefully polished and laid outside the palace gates.
The prince arrived at the ball wearing someone else's face.
4. Closing Lines
Sometimes it is easier to discover a fairytale by beginning at the end. These closing lines hint at the prince who has changed, the quest that has ended and the strange events that brought him there. Choose an ending that intrigues you, then work backwards to decide what had to happen for your prince to reach it.
And so the youngest prince returned without the golden crown, but with something none of his brothers had thought to look for.
He placed the crown on the table between them and, for the first time in his life, walked away from it.
By spring, nobody remembered there had ever been a prince inside the beast at all.
The fox bowed once, flicked its white-tipped tail and disappeared between the trees.
Only when the palace gates closed behind him did the new king realise his shadow had remained outside.
They never discovered where the prince went after midnight, although every winter a white swan returned to the palace lake.
The princess offered him her hand, but the prince only laughed and asked whether she would rather have a horse.
And that is why, even now, no prince of that kingdom wears a golden crown.
His brothers had returned with jewels, swords and promises of glory; the youngest prince came home carrying an old woman's basket.
The storybooks said the prince lived happily ever after, but they never mentioned that he did so three kingdoms away from the throne.
5. Character Ideas
A fairytale prince does not have to be handsome, heroic or particularly charming. He might be an overlooked youngest son, a spoiled heir, a reluctant future king, a prince hiding forbidden magic or a royal child who has spent most of his life disguised as something else. Use these character ideas as foundations, then add relationships, flaws, secrets and desires of your own.
The youngest of seven royal brothers has received almost no preparation for life as a ruler because nobody expects the succession ever to reach him. He knows the servants, kitchens, stables and hidden corners of the castle better than the council chamber — knowledge that becomes unexpectedly useful when his entire family disappears.
A handsome, polite and accomplished prince appears to be everything Prince Charming should be. In reality, he has spent so long performing the version of himself expected by his family and kingdom that he no longer knows what he actually likes, wants or believes.
A spectacularly sheltered prince has never cooked, cleaned, travelled alone, carried his own belongings or encountered anyone unimpressed by his title. His first journey beyond the kingdom leaves him without servants, money or the faintest idea how ordinary life works.
A quiet young prince becomes a white swan from sunrise until sunset. He has lived with the enchantment for so many years that he is beginning to wonder whether breaking the curse and becoming permanently human is truly what he wants.
A celebrated royal tournament champion has been raised to believe courage and strength can solve almost any problem. His greatest challenge begins when he encounters an enchantment that grows more powerful whenever someone attempts to fight it.
A miller's apprentice has no idea he was born a prince. The old silver pendant he has worn since infancy is his only connection to his past, until royal soldiers arrive searching for an heir believed to have died seventeen years ago.
A beautiful, vain prince is accustomed to receiving anything he requests. After insulting a mysterious old traveller, he wakes in a tiny cottage where nobody recognises him and discovers that every comfort he once took for granted must now be earned.
A gentle prince is mocked by his brothers for spending more time with horses, birds and woodland creatures than members of the royal court. What his brothers do not realise is that the animals understand human speech — and have overheard almost every secret whispered throughout the kingdom.
A prince has spent years quietly hoping his older sister will inherit the throne. When an ancient law unexpectedly declares that only he can become the next ruler, the siblings decide to discover who created the law and what they were trying to prevent.
A royal child born with horns, claws and strange golden eyes has been hidden from the kingdom since infancy. His parents insist ordinary people would fear him, but as he grows older, the prince begins to suspect that fear is not the real reason nobody is allowed to know he exists.
6. Setting Ideas
Where a prince lives can shape the entire direction of his story. Send him into a snowbound castle, along an enchanted road, through a forbidden forest or into a kingdom where something is deeply wrong with the royal succession. These settings can become the prince's home, the destination of his quest or the strange place he discovers after leaving everything familiar behind.
An enormous old palace where seven royal brothers occupy seven separate towers, each filled with rooms reflecting the personality of the prince who lives there. An eighth tower has remained locked for generations, although candlelight has recently begun appearing in its highest window.
A winding road between two kingdoms where every traveller encounters three impossible tasks before reaching the other side. No two travellers receive the same challenges, and turning around simply brings them back to the beginning.
A pale stone castle trapped beneath permanent snow, where fires burn day and night and an enchanted prince sleeps inside a frozen chamber that nobody can enter without turning to ice.
A crumbling royal hunting lodge deep inside an ancient forest, abandoned after a young prince vanished there decades ago. Nobody has lived inside since, yet fresh bread appears on the table every morning and smoke rises from the chimney after sunset.
A prosperous kingdom where no royal heir has survived beyond their eighteenth birthday for a hundred years. The palace has gradually filled with unused coronation robes, unfinished portraits and empty bedrooms belonging to princes who never became kings.
A walled garden hidden behind the royal palace, filled with flowers gathered from enchanted kingdoms, trees bearing golden fruit and plants that whisper after dark. At its centre stands a locked glasshouse the prince has been forbidden to enter since childhood.
A magnificent royal palace lies beneath a perfectly clear lake, its towers and courtyards still visible from the shore. According to local stories, the prince and his entire court remain alive inside, waiting for someone to discover the entrance.
Three roads begin at a crossroads immediately beyond the king's lands. One is paved with silver, one disappears beneath ancient trees and the third appears to lead nowhere at all. Every royal heir must choose one on their twenty-first birthday, and nobody is permitted to tell them where the roads lead.
A magnificent but strangely empty castle where meals appear on tables by magic, fires light themselves before dusk and unseen musicians play in the ballroom every evening. Nobody ever sees the prince who owns it during daylight.
A tiny white castle stands at the summit of an impossible mountain. Princes have travelled from kingdoms across the world attempting to reach it for generations, although nobody now remembers what the original quest required them to find there.
7. Picture Prompts
A single fairytale image can raise enough questions to begin an entire story. Look closely at each prince, setting, object and unexplained detail, then imagine what happened immediately before the scene and what might happen next. You might begin with the prince himself, follow another character visible in the image or use one tiny background detail to take the story somewhere completely unexpected.
Go Deeper Into Fairytale Prince Writing
Once you have your first idea, start looking beyond the crown. Fairytale princes become much more interesting when their title creates expectations they cannot easily meet, and when the familiar ingredients of royal quests, enchanted animals and impossible tasks reveal something about the person attempting them.
◆ Give your prince a clear place within the royal family. An eldest son raised to inherit will approach an adventure very differently from the overlooked youngest of seven brothers.
◆ Decide what he thinks being a prince means. He might believe he must be brave, charming, wealthy, obedient or destined to rescue people — then build a story that challenges that belief.
◆ Give him an impossible task with a hidden solution. Retrieving the golden bird may appear to require strength or cleverness, when the real test is whether he shows kindness to someone he meets along the road.
◆ Use the rule of three. Three brothers, three roads, three riddles, three nights or three magical objects immediately give your story a traditional fairytale rhythm.
◆ Let small acts matter. Sharing bread with an old woman, freeing a trapped fox or showing mercy to an enemy can become the seemingly insignificant decision that determines whether the prince succeeds later.
◆ Give him a magical helper he initially underestimates. A talking horse, troublesome frog, tiny bird or scruffy woodland creature may understand the rules of the fairytale far better than he does.
◆ Think carefully about his relationship with the throne. Your prince might desperately want to become king, assume the crown is automatically his or secretly hope somebody else inherits instead.
◆ Complicate Prince Charming. He can be genuinely kind without being perfect, outwardly charming but deeply selfish, or so determined to behave like the ideal prince that he has no idea who he is beneath the performance.
◆ Let him make mistakes. A prince who ignores good advice, chooses the glittering object, breaks a magical rule or trusts the wrong stranger gives the story somewhere to go.
◆ Use his brothers and sisters. Royal siblings can be rivals, companions, protectors or the people your prince must rescue. They can also allow you to explore why one child succeeds where another fails.
◆ Take away the advantages of royalty. Remove his crown, horse, servants and money, send him beyond his father's borders and see what remains when nobody has any reason to obey him.
◆ Turn the prince into something unexpected. Swans, bears and frogs are only the beginning — transformations can reveal something about his personality, his family or the mistake that caused the enchantment.
◆ Make the curse come with rules. Perhaps he becomes human only after sunset, cannot speak his own name, must never be seen eating or will remain transformed forever if someone discovers his secret.
◆ Question the rescue. The princess may already have escaped, the dragon may not be the villain or the supposedly imprisoned person might have an excellent reason for remaining inside the tower.
◆ Make the kingdom part of the problem. An unjust law, ancient royal bargain, dangerous succession tradition or secret buried by the prince's ancestors can turn a personal adventure into something much larger.
◆ Give magical objects consequences. A sword that always wins, crown that reveals lies or cloak that makes its wearer invisible becomes more interesting when using it demands something in return.
◆ Remember that foolish does not mean useless. The prince everyone laughs at may succeed precisely because he asks obvious questions, trusts unusual people or refuses to behave as a sensible royal supposedly should.
◆ Let the journey change him. The prince who returns to the castle should understand something the prince who left did not — even if that means he no longer wants the life waiting for him there.
◆ Decide what happily ever after actually means for him. Marriage and a crown are possibilities, not requirements. His ending might be becoming king, refusing the throne, remaining enchanted, choosing adventure or discovering that the life he wanted was somewhere beyond the palace gates all along.
Final Thoughts
Fairytale princes have never really been just handsome young men waiting at the end of somebody else's story. They are youngest sons sent down unfamiliar roads, foolish heirs making terrible decisions, enchanted men trapped inside animal skins, ambitious royals chasing crowns and ordinary boys who discover that the blood in their veins is considerably more royal than anyone realised.
That gives you plenty of room to play.
Start with the familiar ingredients — a prince, a horse, a castle, a crown — and then ask what could go wrong. Let the horse talk. Make the castle impossible to reach. Give the crown a curse. Send three princes on the same quest and allow the least impressive brother to be the only one who stops to help the old woman beside the road.
You can embrace traditional fairytale patterns or turn them completely upside down. Your Prince Charming can genuinely be charming, or he can be vain, foolish, frightened, selfish or desperately tired of performing perfection. The princess can need rescuing, rescue him instead or have left the tower long before he arrives. The monster can be defeated, befriended or revealed as the only creature telling the truth.
For more enchanted royalty, magical kingdoms, folklore and traditional story inspiration, explore the Fairytales & Folklore Hub. You can also visit Fairytale Story Sparks for more fairytale writing prompts and story ideas, or browse the Creative Writing Archive for character inspiration, setting ideas, worldbuilding resources and creative writing prompts across every genre.
Most importantly, give your prince something that being royal cannot solve.
Because once the crown stops helping, the horse starts talking and the road disappears behind him, you finally get to discover what kind of prince he really is.
Choose Your Next Adventure
