100 dystopian writing prompts

100 dystopian writing prompts

Imagine chilling futures where emotions are suppressed, memories are hacked, nature is walled-off, and totalitarian regimes control everything from relationships to the weather. Welcome to our 100 dystopian writing prompts. 

Let your creativity run wild envisaging sinister agencies, social manipulation, banned contraband, restricted freedoms, underground resistance, and daring escapes.

Buckle up for a thrilling ride into menacing speculative worlds where you’ll encounter thought police, memory black markets, mandated cryogenic freezing, sinister surveillance, climate totalitarians, and other dystopian threats.

In this comprehensive prompt collection, you’ll find 100 disturbing, tantalizing scenarios captured through cliffhanger “write about…” cues guaranteed to spark new realms of suspense, conflict and tension.

From emotion-suppressing drugs to memory-recording devices gone wrong, mandated matchmaking by genetic compatibility to expiring at a certain age, these prompts zoom in on rebellious individuals fighting corrupt power structures for a second chance at passion, self-determination and a future they define.

Let these dystopian sparks ignite stories of defiant resistance, dangerous flaw-exposing exposés, tense psychological operations, off-the-grid escapes into the wild, and other bold tactics to undermine oppression. Can truth and justice prevail? That’s for you to decide…

Now, enter these speculative dystopian worlds and let your imagination run wild! Where will these 100 dystopian writing prompts take you?

100 dystopian writing prompts

1. A device is invented that allows the government to control people’s thoughts and actions. Write about someone trying to escape this fate.
2. Strict laws are passed limiting how many children families can have. Tell the story of a family faced with an impossible decision.
3. A catastrophic event wipes out most of humanity. Write about a small group of survivors banding together.
4. All books and writings from history are burned. Write about an effort to preserve or recreate knowledge.
5. A virus spreads causing infertility. Follow individuals desperate to have children in this dire world.
6. The population is segregated into zones based on genetic engineering marks. Write from the perspective of someone yearning for the outside world.
7. Water becomes extremely scarce. Write about the lengths one teen goes to in order to save their community.
8. A company develops AI androids used for manual labor. Tell the story of an android developing forbidden aspirations for freedom.
9. Citizens’ use of language is restricted and simplified. Write about a group secretly communicating in metaphors and code.
10. Memories and dreams are recorded as digital data. Write about a hacker who accesses people’s intimate memories illegally.
11. The government mandates that certain emotions must be suppressed. Write from the perspective of someone struggling with this.
12. Time travel is invented but strictly forbidden. Write about someone risking it all to change past atrocities.
13. The population is herded into city centers while the wildlands are off limits. Write from the view of someone escaping to experience natural life.
14. A virus spreads that removes facial features. Write about the fear and identity issues that arise in afflicted society.
15. The government replaces school with endless VR propaganda simulators. Write about an underground effort to preserve free thinking.
16. A strict rating system quantifies each citizen’s worth. Write about someone striving to boost their rating or hide their true selves.
17. The population is forced to take pills that alter perceptions of reality. Write about someone slowly realizing the deception.
18. Strict beauty standards are set by genetic modification. Write about someone pursuing dangerous underground procedures for a boost in status.
19. The elderly are exiled once past working age. Write about someone hiding an elderly relative.
20. A curfew is set banning unauthorized night activity. Write about a group of youths planning secret late night events.
21. Population growth is restricted through mandated cryogenic freezing at certain ages. Write about someone fighting the system or going on the run as their freeze date approaches.
22. A pandemic requires protective gear covering the body and face, removing unique identifiers. Write about someone desperate to see a loved one’s uncovered face before they are frozen.
23. The government tracks every move of citizens through mandatory chips. Write about a man who tries to live off the grid, undetected.
24. A tiered citizenship system is based on serving in civil or military duties for years at a time. Write from perspective of a low-tier citizen dreaming of elevation in status.
25. Failure to take your mandated medications results in banishment to lawless outlands. Write about someone hiding mental clarity without chemicals.
26. The natural landscape outside congested urban centers is off limits behind walled boundaries. Write from the perspective of someone who escapes to experience freedom in nature.
27. A company owns the patent to a synthesized formula needed for human health and jacks up the prices, causing suffering. Write about activists trying to recreate it.
28. The government controls the weather and all climate conditions. Write about a group that wages weather terrorism demanding natural variability.
29. Corporations run sovereign city-states. Write about a skilled worker trying to break their never-ending contract.
30. A virus makes most animals extinct. Write about underground efforts to save remaining species.
31. The government mandates matchmaking based on genetic compatibility. Write from view of someone struggling when they fall for the “wrong” match.
32. The ability to reproduce has become allocated to only certain designees. Write about a black market for illegal conceptions.
33. A pandemic requires everyone to live in isolated pods. Write about someone fighting sensory deprivation to stay sane.
34. Lifespans are significantly cut short at a certain age through mandated termination procedures. Write from view of someone approaching their expiry trying to fight it.
35. Write about the invention and consequences of a device that can record and play back memories.
36. Only ultra high-IQ individuals are allowed in leadership roles. Write about identity struggles for a character judged unintelligent by mandated measurements.
37. Write about teams competing in a post-apocalyptic city for scarce resources needed to survive decaying conditions.
38. Write from the perspective of a hacker who works to take down an authoritarian technocracy from the inside.
39. Write about someone forced to become an “information specialist” manipulating news and data feeds to serve ulterior motives.
40. Write about a pandemic leading to development of advanced robotic caregiver technology that goes awry.
41. Write about a protest against emotion-suppressing drugs led predominantly by teenagers seeking freedom and passion.
42. Write about a survivor banding groups together to restore culture in a controlled dystopia that has erased past artifacts and identity.
43. Write about black market dealers who smuggle banned physical books to those yearning for lost knowledge and history.
44. Write about a student who discovers long-suppressed writings revealing troubling truths about their society’s history.
45. Write a conversation between an elder and a young person who yearns to experience fundamental rights and choices stripped from society, like childbearing.
46. Write about a small group that escapes into the wilderness and attempts to build an equitable utopia outside dystopian constraints.
47. Write about someone fighting the system through graffiti symbolizing hope and metaphorical messaging to incite revolution.
48. Write a debate between a rebel faction leader and authoritarian regime loyalist on freedoms vs order.
49. Write a prison narrative about inmates alternating virtual reality experiences to mitigate their sentences through psychological manipulation.
50. Write a tale of genius inventor who creates wondrous technology in secret that could undermine authoritarian control or elevate freedom if revealed.
51. Strict sleep quotas are enforced via brain implants that monitor REM cycles to maximize productivity. Write from the perspective of someone suffering from sleep deprivation who secretly changes their schedule.
52. In order to improve worker compliance, the government has developed a chemical to make citizens enjoy menial labor tasks. Write about a janitor who loves their job a disturbing amount.
53. A powerful caste system has formed among humans after rampant genetic experimentation. Write from the perspective of an oppressed “inferior” caste dreaming of a better life.
54. Most animals have gone extinct except for those pets approved by the Environmental Ministry. Illegal pet ownership is severely punished, but a thriving black market exists.
55. In a bid to reduce crime, the government now requires parents to screen embryos for a variety of physical and psychological illnesses. However, many families now feel pressured to produce the “perfect child”.
56. Due to food shortages, restaurants and grocery stores have been outlawed. All meals are now supplied by the Nutritional Distribution Bureau’s ready-made, cost-effective food products. However, a speakeasy dedicated to actual cooking has opened.
57. In an effort to increase efficiency and national unity, a universal language with strictly monitored vocabulary and grammar standards is imposed. Those who fail language tests are penalized by social restrictions.
58. The Life Extension Agency provides age rejuvenation treatments, but primarily to the social and financial elite. The poor struggle with shortened life expectancies, leading some to join radical insurgent groups.
59. An innovative new Direct Neural Interface allows people’s brains to connect directly to a vast online network. However, hacking into someone’s mind is now disturbingly easy.
60. In order to prepare youth for the harsh, dangerous streets, local Fight Clubs are organized to systematically toughen up teens and channel aggression effectively.
61. Due to rampant unemployment, the government now drafts citizens into mandatory civil or military service positions for 10-15 years. Failure to accept an assignment results in imprisonment.
62. In a bid to improve public safety, petite auditory assistants called “Shoulder Angels” are issued to all citizens to provide helpful guidance. However, their advice is not always ethical, wise or in one’s best interest.
63. In order to improve citizen health and longevity, the ingestion of all non-synthetic foods and beverages is highly restricted. However an underground movement of “Whole Food Rebels” persists.
64. Due to widespread infertility, prospective parents are only allowed children via cloning, therefore insuring a continuous labor force. However, a generation of identical offspring creates disturbing identity issues.
65. In order to eliminate homelessness and unemployment, all citizens must work as general labor at massive collective Farms that supply the nation with food and textile materials. The division of labor is demanding but fair.
66. Rigid rules dictate what colors, textures and styles of clothes that citizens may wear depending on their age, profession and social status. Fashion diversity is forbidden, with black market clothing trends continuously emerging.
67. Due to rampant hacking, personal data devices have been outlawed and removed. However an illegal group of elite hackers known as “The Archives” still uncovers and leaks confidential information.
68. Write about a future in which a volcanic eruption blots out the sun for years, killing crops and plunging society into chaos, violence and despair.
69. Write about an agency that pushes invasive brain implants that allow video recording of memories and forced data sharing against people’s will.
70. Write about a future where dreams can be bought and sold on a black market operated through tapping into people’s minds as they sleep to steal visions.
71. Write about a divided territory where selected wealthy elite live safely in utopian cities while the remaining majority survive dystopian wastelands of pollution and scarcity.
72. Write about those battling a law requiring registration with Social Harmony Agency that tracks emotions and punishes discord deemed damaging to psychological unity.
73. Write about resisters fighting against authoritarian rules forbidding casual relationships, friendships or non-approved personal connections in order to boost productivity.
74. Write about an uprising against an enforced caste system that assigns professions, living quarters, resources access and more based on DNA-based hierarchies.
75. Write about rebels secretly trying to instill history, art and free thinking in younger generations raised in a neutered, whitewashed and overly structured world.
76. Write about someone from an agency assigned to manipulate records to maintain historical propaganda narratives confronting their buried conscience.
77. Write about teachers secretly providing banned materials, intellectual freedom and emotional nurturing despite rigid restrictions on permitted lessons and development.
78. Write about twin siblings torn apart by diverging citizenship tiers granted to each one, leaving the other in oppressive conditions they try escaping.
79. Write about time travelers tasked with altering past mistakes and unintentionally fracturing reality through over-corrections of history.
80. Write about nature rebels trying to preserve plant life needed for clandestine botanical experiments to undo genetic disasters humans have caused through manipulation.
81. Write about librarians archiving confiscated artifacts, art and documents on the black market struggling to preserve cultural history for future generations.
82. Write about a hacker leaking scandalous secrets of upper-crust elite, revealing their criminal hypocrisy and oppression behind friendly public facade.
83. Write about investigators tracing early warning signs of current totalitarian injustice back many generations to disturbing past historical events.
84. Write about rebels secretly planning targeted infrastructure sabotage or disruptive hacks of controlling surveillance systems to enable societal chaos that disrupts tyranny.
85. Write about scientists furtively trying to revive extinct species in a controlled environment before authorities crush their unauthorized genetic efforts.
86. Write about youth experiencing forbidden cultural artifacts like non-digitized photographs, physical vinyl records or ancient paper books for the first time, feeling awakened.
87. Write about a team planning a high stakes escape mission to lead refugees from border detention camps to safe international territory.
88. Write about hackers digitally falsifying citizen records to manipulate assignment of soul-crushing undesirable labor mandates.
89. Write about activists utilizing hidden shortwave radio signals, coded language newspaper ads and other old-fashioned techniques to secretly coordinate resistance.
90. Write about rebel scientists planning risky psychological experiments challenging theories that current authoritarian rule is an inevitable consequence of innate human society dynamics.
91. Write about smugglers obtaining prohibited goods like sugar, caffeine or alcohol from foreign black markets to cater to restricted domestic population demands.
92. Write about resisters launching independent radio broadcasts challenging state-sanctioned news propaganda to circulate suppressed truths.
93. Write about rebel journalists using old-fashioned typewriters, printers and paper materials to publish and distribute banned insider exposés anonymously.
94. Write about a team capturing footage of dystopia oppression via hidden shoulder cameras to make viral videos awakening outside world to atrocities.
95. Write about citizens banding together under pretense of harmless community sport team as disguise to enable secret seditious coordination.
96. Write about defectors and infiltrators leaking confidential information regarding government-sponsored experiments trying to control or manipulate citizens’ minds.
97. Write about a duo discovering shocking classified files revealing orchestrated crisis events used as pretext to justify implementing incremental totalitarian measures.
98. Write about activists utilizing public wall art, performance protests, symbolic clothing and defiant slang phrases to express seditious messages under the radar.
99. Write about rebel families harboring unauthorized pregnancies in concealed rooms or underground spaces, despite harsh penalties if newborns are discovered.
100. Write about defiant hackers digitally attacking key infrastructure in Vendetta-like psychological operations to expose regime corruption, undermine authority and awaken masses.

I hope you enjoyed our 100 dystopian writing prompts, and I hope they inspire you to write something great. If you write something you want to share, please leave it in the comments. Also, please remember we have many other writing prompts on our site you might find helpful.