100 story starters to write together

100 first lines for starting a story with friends, grouped by mood: mystery, adventure, heartfelt, funny, spooky, fantasy, science fiction and everyday magic.

The hardest part of writing a story together is the first line. Once something is on the page, everyone knows what to do next: answer the question, open the door, find out who knocked.

Here are 100 first lines to start a story with friends, family or a class. Pick one, write the next paragraph, and pass it on. They are all original to marie, and you are welcome to use them for anything.

How to use them: read a few out loud and let the group vote. Or give everyone the same line, let each person write a short continuation alone, and then continue the favourite together. If you are using marie, a new empty book offers three of these to tap.

Mystery

A question the next writer has to answer.

1. The letter arrived forty years late, and it was addressed to me.
2. Nobody in the village would say why the lighthouse keeper had stopped lighting the lamp.
3. There was one more chair at the dinner table than there were people in the family.
4. The photograph had been taken from inside our house, the night before we moved in.
5. My grandmother left me her recipe book, and every recipe had one ingredient crossed out.
6. The train stopped at a station that was not on any map.
7. Every clock in the house had stopped at 3:17, and none of them were broken.
8. The new neighbour knew my name before I told her.
9. Someone had been reading my diary, and they had started writing back.
10. The key fit no lock in the house, so we started looking outside it.
11. At the bottom of the lake, the divers found a car with the engine still warm.
12. The museum had one painting nobody remembered hanging.
13. I was the only one who noticed that the bridge had one fewer arch than yesterday.

Adventure

Somewhere to go, and a reason to hurry.

14. We had one map, four bicycles, and exactly one summer to find the river’s source.
15. The boat was too small, the sea was too big, and we had already untied the rope.
16. The mountain pass would close at the first snow, and the clouds were turning grey.
17. My uncle’s will said the treasure was real, and the lawyer said it was mine if I could find it by Friday.
18. The bus broke down in a town whose name we could not pronounce.
19. We were told never to open the gate at the end of the garden, so of course we did.
20. The kite pulled harder than any kite should, and then my feet left the ground.
21. There were three of us on the raft when we set off, and four when we woke up.
22. The last ferry left at midnight, and we were still two islands away.
23. Grandpa said the cave went all the way under the hill, and he had the rope to prove it.
24. The desert road had a sign that said “Last water for 200 miles”, and our bottle was empty.
25. The old car had never been driven further than the shops, until tonight.

Heartfelt

Small, true moments that matter.

26. It was the summer the river forgot its name, and the summer we stopped being strangers.
27. My father never said he was proud of me, but he kept every drawing I ever made.
28. We met at a bus stop, and I missed four buses that afternoon.
29. The house was sold on a Tuesday, and on Monday night we all slept in the empty living room.
30. She taught me to ride a bike by letting go before I was ready.
31. There is a bench in the park with my best friend’s name on it now.
32. We promised to write every week, and for the first three years we did.
33. The last thing my grandfather taught me was how to fold a paper boat.
34. I found my mother’s old diary, and the girl in it was braver than I am.
35. Every year on the first snow, my brother and I made the same terrible snowman.
36. The wedding was small, the cake was lopsided, and nobody stopped smiling.
37. He moved away when we were ten, but he still sends a postcard every birthday.
38. The hospital corridor was quiet, and then the baby cried.

Funny

Trouble the next writer has to make worse.

39. It started when the goat ate my exam results.
40. I only meant to borrow the neighbour’s ladder, not the whole roof.
41. The cake said “Happy Retirement”, but the party was for a baby.
42. My cat has started leaving me notes, and the spelling is getting better.
43. The wedding was going perfectly until the ring bearer swallowed the ring.
44. We booked the cheapest hotel in the city, and it was a submarine.
45. Nobody told me the cooking competition was on live television.
46. My aunt’s parrot knows every family secret, and it has started talking.
47. The GPS told us to turn left into the lake, and Dad trusted it.
48. I accidentally became the mayor of a very small town.
49. Our school play was supposed to be Romeo and Juliet, and then the dragon arrived.
50. The robot vacuum has learned to open the fridge.

Spooky

Just enough dread to keep reading.

51. The voice on the baby monitor was not the baby’s.
52. Every night at midnight, the piano downstairs played one note.
53. The scarecrow had moved closer to the house again.
54. My reflection blinked a second after I did.
55. The last page of the library book was handwritten, and it described my bedroom.
56. The power went out, and the music box kept playing.
57. There were footprints in the snow leading to the house, and none leading away.
58. The old phone in the attic rang, and it was not connected to anything.
59. The children in the painting were facing the other way this morning.
60. We counted the steps down to the cellar: thirteen going down, fourteen coming up.
61. The dog would not go into the guest room, no matter what we did.
62. The tour guide described the house’s history perfectly, but the house had no tour guide.

Fantasy

A world with one rule that is different.

63. In our town, everyone is born with a shadow, except me.
64. The dragon arrived on the morning of my exams and asked for directions.
65. Every apprentice gets a wand on their twelfth birthday; mine was a spoon.
66. The map grew a new island every time someone in the kingdom told a lie.
67. My grandmother’s garden grows one impossible thing each spring.
68. The kingdom had run out of wishes, and the well was taking complaints.
69. Books in the royal library have to be fed, or they forget their own endings.
70. The night the stars went out, the fishermen pulled one from the sea.
71. I inherited a castle, a curse, and a very rude talking cat.
72. Rain in our valley falls upward on Thursdays.
73. The last unicorn worked at the post office, and she was tired of being asked.
74. Every door in the house opened somewhere new after sunset.
75. The wizard’s spell worked, just not on the right person.

Science fiction

A future, a machine, a question.

76. The colony ship had been flying for three hundred years, and someone had just knocked on the hull.
77. My phone started showing tomorrow’s messages.
78. The first message from the stars was a single word: “Sorry.”
79. Gravity in the city turned off for exactly one minute every day at noon.
80. The robot that raised me was being recalled by the manufacturer.
81. We built a machine to talk to dolphins, and they asked us to stop.
82. Everyone on Earth woke up remembering the same dream.
83. The moon was a little closer every night, and only the children had noticed.
84. My twin from a parallel world needed to borrow my life for a week.
85. The last human library was on Mars, and it was closing for good.
86. Our town was chosen to test the new weather, and it was not going well.
87. The AI running the city had started writing poetry, and the traffic lights were affected.

Everyday magic

Ordinary life with one strange twist.

88. The coffee shop on the corner only appears when it rains.
89. My grandmother can tell the future, but only about the weather and other people’s love lives.
90. Every lost sock in the world ends up in our laundry basket.
91. The bookshop owner always knows which book you need, even before you do.
92. Our family dog has been eleven years old for thirty years.
93. The streetlight outside my window turns on whenever someone tells the truth.
94. Every umbrella I lose comes back to me, carrying a story.
95. The bakery sells bread that makes you remember your happiest day.
96. Our old car only drives to places it likes.
97. The bus driver on route 9 has never let anyone off at the wrong stop, even when they asked.
98. My mother’s garden grows exactly what the neighbours need.
99. The town fountain grants small wishes, but only on Wednesdays.
100. Whatever you write on the café’s chalkboard comes true by morning, a little bit.