You know the characters. You know the ship. What you don't have is the situation that finally gets them in the same room with nowhere to go. Most fic writers get stuck there, and it's why prompt exchanges are so popular across fandoms.
These 76 prompts are sorted by trope and written with A and B in place of names, so they work with any fandom and any pairing, romantic or not. When you want prompts built around your actual characters, the Fanfiction Prompt Generator takes the fandom, the characters and a trope and writes new ones.
How to Use These Prompts
- Swap in your characters and ask what each one would do first. Their personality should change the plot.
- Combine two prompts. Fake dating plus a time loop is a story nobody has written for your ship yet.
- Change the ending. Every prompt below can go fluffy, angsty or both.
- Tag honestly on whatever archive you post to, especially for the hurt/comfort section.
Enemies to Lovers Prompts
The most popular trope for a reason: the tension is already built in.
1.A and B are forced to share a single hotel room at a conference where they're presenting rival proposals.
2.A gets hurt protecting B in a fight, and B can't work out why A would do that.
3.They're both hired to plan the same wedding, and the couple refuses to choose between them.
4.A has been leaving anonymous insulting reviews of B's bakery. B has been leaving anonymous insulting replies. They've been flirting for months without knowing.
5.B saves A's life and immediately says 'you owe me,' and A spends the rest of the story trying to pay it back.
6.A and B are rival candidates in an election. A scandal forces them to campaign together.
7.Handcuffed together during a mission gone wrong, with the key on the other side of a locked door.
8.A is assigned to guard B, the person A has spent years trying to defeat.
9.A and B get trapped in an elevator during a blackout. It's four hours before anyone comes.
10.B learns A has been quietly covering for B's mistakes all along.
Fake Dating Prompts
11.A needs a date to a sibling's wedding and B owes A a favor.
12.To get a crowd of admirers off their back, B announces A is their partner. A has not agreed to this.
13.A and B pretend to date to make their exes jealous. The exes get together instead.
14.Undercover mission: A and B pose as a married couple at a couples' retreat full of trust exercises.
15.A's grandmother is sick and wants to meet 'the partner' A invented years ago. B volunteers.
16.They agree on rules: no kissing, no falling in love. They break rule one by chapter three.
17.A and B fake a relationship for social media views, and the fans start shipping them harder than they ship anything canon.
18.The fake relationship ends on schedule. Neither of them can stop acting like it didn't.
Coffee Shop and Other AU Prompts
Take your characters out of their world and see who they are underneath.
19.Coffee shop AU: B writes a different wrong name on A's cup every day. A starts answering to all of them.
20.Bookstore AU: A keeps leaving notes in books for a stranger. B is the stranger, and also the shop owner.
21.Flower shop and tattoo parlor AU: the two shops share a wall and a very thin truce.
22.College AU: A and B are assigned as roommates and have opposite sleep schedules.
23.Office AU: A and B work in rival departments and share the only good printer.
24.Baking show AU: A and B are contestants on the same season and keep being paired for team challenges.
25.Neighbors AU: A's music is too loud and B's cooking smells too good.
26.Road trip AU: A and B are the only two passengers on a cancelled flight and decide to rent one car.
27.Modern AU for a fantasy cast: the chosen one works retail and the dark lord is the regional manager.
28.Small town AU: A comes home for the holidays and B is running the family business A walked away from.
Not sure which AU suits your characters? The Fanfiction Idea Generator suggests full story concepts, AU setting included, from a fandom and pairing.
Time Loop Prompts
29.A relives the same day until they figure out how to keep B alive.
30.A and B are both stuck in the loop and only realize it on day 40, when they recognize each other's tells.
31.The loop resets every time A says 'I love you.' A has said it 300 times.
32.B uses the loop to learn everything about A, then has to decide whether that's romantic or creepy.
33.The same terrible first date, again and again, until they get it right.
34.A breaks the loop, but B doesn't remember any of it.
35.Every loop A tries a different way to apologize to B for something B hasn't done yet.
36.The loop is a year long, and A has to watch B's whole year go wrong again.
Soulmate AU Prompts
37.Your soulmate's first words to you are written on your wrist. A's say 'Get out of my way.'
38.You see in color only after meeting your soulmate. A has been seeing color for years and has no idea who did it.
39.Whatever your soulmate writes on their skin shows up on yours. B is a doodler. A is a lawyer with court tomorrow.
40.A countdown timer shows when you'll meet your soulmate. A's hit zero during a fight with B.
41.Soulmates share injuries. A keeps getting mysterious bruises and starts worrying about their match.
42.A red string connects soulmates. A's string goes through a wall, then another, then into B's apartment.
43.A has no soulmate mark and decides to choose someone anyway.
44.Soulmates hear each other's music. B has had the same song stuck in their head for a week, and A won't stop playing it.
Found Family Prompts
45.A group of misfits ends up spending a holiday together because none of them can go home.
46.A reluctantly takes in a younger character after the canon-typical disaster.
47.The team's first real family dinner, and nobody knows how to act.
48.A gets sick and finds out how many people show up.
49.A birthday nobody knew about, discovered at 11pm, celebrated with whatever's in the fridge.
50.The group holds an intervention for the one who always takes care of everyone else.
51.Five times the team protected A, and one time A let them.
52.Years later, the found family all show up at A's door with no warning.
Hurt/Comfort Prompts
Tag these clearly. Some readers seek them out, and others need to avoid them.
53.A comes back from a mission injured and refuses help from anyone except B.
54.B has nightmares and A starts staying up just to be awake when they happen.
55.A loses their memory and B has to decide what to tell them about their history.
56.A tries to hide an illness from the group. B notices first.
57.After a canon loss, A and B grieve the same person in completely different ways.
58.A panic attack in a public place, and the only person who knows what to do is the one A least expected.
59.B stitches A's wound by candlelight and they finally talk about the thing they've avoided.
60.A is too proud to admit they're exhausted until B simply refuses to leave.
Canon Divergence and Fix-It Prompts
61.The character who died in canon survives. Write the first week after.
62.A different character makes the big choice at the climax.
63.A and B met five years earlier than canon says. What changes?
64.The villain wins. Write the story of the people who are left.
65.One conversation that never happened in canon finally does.
66.A side character's point of view on the main plot, start to finish.
67.The series finale, but everyone gets to keep their happy ending.
68.Swap two characters' roles in the story and follow the consequences.
Only One Bed and Other Classic Tropes
69.Only one bed: the inn is full, it's snowing, and both of them insist on taking the floor.
70.Mutual pining: everyone else has a bet going on when A and B will notice.
71.Secret identity: A has a crush on B's alter ego and can't stand B's real self.
72.Accidental marriage: A and B wake up after a celebration with rings and no memory.
73.Letters: A and B fall for each other through letters before ever meeting.
74.Body swap: A and B wake up in each other's bodies the morning of an important event.
75.Forced proximity: a quarantine, a storm or a broken-down ship leaves A and B alone for a week.
76.Five plus one: five times A almost confessed, and the one time A finally did.
From Prompt to First Draft
A prompt is only the first line. Our step-by-step guide on how to write fanfiction with AI covers outlining, keeping characters in voice and editing a draft. If you want to see a scene drafted from your prompt, the AI Fanfiction Writer will write one you can rewrite in your own voice.
Prompts for an original romance rather than a fandom? Try our 50+ romance writing prompts. And if you're writing a modern AU where your characters meet on a dating app, our guide to free AI dating tools shows what real bios and openers look like, which helps those scenes feel believable.
When you've used up this list, the Fanfiction Prompt Generator writes new prompts for your fandom, characters and trope.
AI Fanfiction Prompt Generator
Prompts for your fandom, characters and favorite trope.
AI Fanfiction Idea Generator
Full story concepts with an AU setting and a plot hook.
AI Fanfiction Writer
Turn a prompt into a first-draft scene you can edit.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a fanfiction prompt?
A fanfiction prompt is a short setup, usually a situation or a trope, that you drop existing characters into. It gives you a starting point without deciding the whole plot. Many fandom communities run prompt exchanges where writers fill each other's prompts.
What does AU mean in fanfiction?
AU stands for alternate universe. The characters stay the same, but the setting changes, for example a coffee shop AU, a high school AU or a modern AU for a fantasy series. The fun is seeing which traits survive the move.
What are the most popular fanfiction tropes?
Enemies to lovers, slow burn, fake dating, only one bed, hurt/comfort and found family are among the most tagged tropes on fan archives. Time loops and soulmate AUs are also popular for plot-driven stories.
Can I use AI to write fanfiction?
You can use AI for brainstorming prompts, plot outlines and scene drafts. Many archives ask you to tag or disclose AI involvement, so check the rules of the site you post on. The writing that feels most like the characters still comes from knowing the source material.
Pick one prompt, swap in your pairing, and write the first scene tonight before you can talk yourself out of it. If none of these fit your characters, open the Fanfiction Prompt Generator and tell it who they are.
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