101 Best Horror Story

Ideas (With a Twist): Scary

Writing Prompts

Neel Rana | September 9, 2020 | Horror Writing |

18 mins read

Writing a great Horror story is all about creating

terror and excitement in your reader’s mind while
they are reading your scary story and if you are
struggling to get a horror story idea for your
horror story then you have landed at the right
place.

We have created the best horror story ideas

along with some Plot Twist to help you start
writing your scary story with these amazing and
terrifying horror story writing prompts along with
101 horror vocabulary as a successful Scary
Story can’t be written effectively without the use
of best horrific words.

Related: How to Write a Horror Short Story

Use the below writing prompts to write your

scary short story, flash fiction, horror fiction
or and other work related to the horror genre
or gothic fiction.

Admirers of Two Sentence Horror Story can

also enjoy the below list.

101 Best Scary Story Ideas

with Plot Twist and Horror
Vocabulary
Horror

Writing Prompt on Horror- Lilly loved reading

fiction, novels and buying antique books, but
everything in her life got changed when one day
she brought an old 1890 horror novel from an
auction.

Plot Twist: Some days later, Lilly’s whole

family started experiencing some
paranormal activities in the house and after
a week her grandmother suddenly died with
an unknown illness, but one day when Lilly
was reading the 1890 novel she got shocked
to find her grandmother Angelina as a
character in the old book.

Gothic

Writing Prompt on Gothic- Tim wanted to visit

the Gothic cathedral of the town which said to be
built on a graveyard and people say the place
was the gateway for spirits and one could see
his dead relatives and acquaintance roaming
outside the old cathedral and Tim wanted to see
someone.

Plot Twist: For the first time after his death

Tim saw his classmates who also had got
trapped in the burning school bus that day.

Demon

Writing Prompt on Demon- Every day the

demons tried hard to harm the Phillip’s family.

Plot Twist: But the demons didn’t know that

Philip was not a normal being but the blood
of a demon, a half demon half human

Horrific

Writing Prompt on Horrific- After spending the

first horrific night at their new house, the Potter
family decided to leave the place as soon as the
sun shines.

Plot Twist: The next morning the neighbors

found the whole potter family lying dead in
their backyard.

Related: 500 Words Flash Fiction Stories

Haunted

Writing Prompt on Haunted-Rick and his

friends planned the birthday party at a haunted
hotel for the excitement but soon at night, they
realized that they made the biggest mistake of
their life.

Plot Twist: The next day Rick and his

friends got shocked to see their own dead
bodies lying in the hotel lobby, then they
realized what had happened to them last
night.

Supernatural

Writing Prompt on Supernatural-Jacob never

believed in supernatural things until he crossed
the path with a shadow which got vanished into
the room soon.

Plot Twist: One day Jacob again saw that

shadow and started following it which took
him to a hidden door in the basement which
was the way to the other world.

Paranormal

Writing Prompt on Paranormal– After everyday

experiencing the paranormal activities at the new
apartment, eventually when Jason and his
girlfriend talked to the owner they got shocked
by the answer when he said that the previous
renter had committed suicide in their apartment.

Plot Twist: When Jason saw the picture of

the dead renter, he got shocked as he said
he sees her every day in the subway.

Devil

Writing Prompt on Devil- No one exactly knew

how the devil gets powers, but some say they
are fed on our fear to survive in a place.

Mysterious

Writing Prompt on Mysterious– The

mysterious man behind all the killing found out to
be dead years ago.

Castle

Writing Prompt on Castle- The brother of the

former king and now the new king of the kingdom
got frightened when he heard from his guards
that the spirit of the former dead king, yet roam
in the castle and will take the revenge of his
death from his brother who was the main
conspirator.

Related: Best Short Story Examples

Basement

Writing Prompt on Basement- Sam had warned

Rebecca not to go into the basement.

Plot Twist : One day while playing Rebecca

went into the basement and found his
father, Sam talking with her mother who had
died years ago.

Enchanted

Writing Prompt on Enchanted- On the way to

the old tomb, the troop found a glowing
enchanted tree.

Plot Twist: The tree was the home of the

spirits protecting the hidden tomb, but
suddenly someone threw a stone on the
enchanted tree and woke all the spirits. .

Vampire

Writing Prompt on Vampire- Every vampire

hates the sunlight, but Christopher was different.

Gloomy

Writing Prompt on Gloomy- It was a gloomy

night when Eric was driving the car to his home
and saw someone standing beside the road but
when he reached there he found no one.

Plot Twist: Soon after a while he realized

that he was not in the car alone, when he
looked back, he got shocked to see Anna,
his girlfriend whom he had killed years ago.

Afterlife

Writing Prompt on Afterlife– Smith in his

laboratory created a pill to experience the
afterlife and every night he took it which made
him dead for several hours and he could see his
body.

Plot Twist: One day he ate all the pills

Skeleton

Writing Prompt on skeleton– While playing

Jacob discovered a skeleton and called his
father, but when Adam came, he they found
nothing.

Plot Twist: The next day Adam found a

skeleton on Jacobs bed and his son was
missing.

Flesh

Writing Prompt on Flesh- The unknown

creature loved eating the flesh of their victims
with great fear.

Goosebumps

Writing Prompt goosebumps– Hearing the

whispering from behind the curtains Elizabeth
started feeling goose bumps.

Do Read: How to Name Your Main Character In

60 Seconds

Monster

Writing Prompt on Monster- An unknown

monster creature was only targeting the kids with
some disabilities in the town.

Zombie

Writing Prompt on zombie– When Steve

reached his home, he found that his parents had
also got infected and turned into zombies.

Witch–

Writing Prompt on Witch- Rebecca didn’t know

that her twin sister was a witch until she followed
and saw her going into the woods alone.

Scream

Writing Prompt on Scream– Ben was in a deep

sleep until he heard a scream from his children’s
room.

Plot Twist: When he reached, he saw the

window was broken and a man looking like
he was taking the kids into the woods.

Terror–

Writing Prompt on Terror- The terror of the

mysterious shadow was so much that no one
slept that night.

Plot Twist: The next day Adam confessed

that it was the spirit of his dead mother who
comes to meet him every day since
childhood.

Graveyard

Writing Prompt on Graveyard- Peter was yet

terrified with the horrible memory of last night
when he was crossing from the graveyard at
night and felt someone sitting in his car back
seat.

Raven

Writing Prompt on Raven- Whenever the

killings were happening there was a raven
following the victims, and now it was following
Alex.

Plot Twist: When Alex killed the raven it got

turned into a shadow of his dead servant.

Quiver

Writing Prompt on Quiver- Jena started

quivering with fear when she saw a car honking
outside her house with no one inside.

Related : Famous Horror Short Stories

Black Cat

Writing Prompt on Black Cat –The black cat in

the Rick house was very strange as she used to
stare at us like humans.

Plot Twist: One day Rick told everyone that

he believes that the black cat is his sister
who had died while saving her cat in the
fire.

Bat

Writing Prompt on Bat- That night the bats

were flying all over the sky before the incident
had happened.

Ghostly

Writing Prompt on Ghostly- Many people at

night saw someone sitting at the ghostly bench
in the park which witnessed a murder.

Eerie

Writing Prompt on Eerie- Maya got so much

frightened when she saw an eerie glowing light
coming from her basement, but when she tried to
go closer to the light it vanished.

Plot Twist: She installed a camera in her

basement and one day when the light again
emerged, she got shocked to see the
footage of a portal which was the doors for
the spirits coming into this world.

Shivery

Writing Prompt on Shivery- Everyone suddenly

started shivering in the room with fear of an
unknown shadow standing on the stairs. Soon
the number of shadow started increasing and all
the doors get closed itself and the lights went
off.

Panic

Writing Prompt on Panic- John said his wife

not to create panic when someone was
continuously knocking very heavily at their door
at the midnight.

Grave

Writing Prompt on Grave- Some

nights Rebecca had a nightmare of seeing
himself in a grave.

Plot Twist: One day it again happened, but

this time she found that it was not her
dream, but her adoptive parents were doing
some black rituals on her while putting her
into a grave in their backyard.

Ugly

Writing Prompt on Ugly– Nobody liked the ugly

staring painting handing in the Jasper’s house,
but yet he never removed it.

Yelling

Writing Prompt on Yelling– The yelling sound

stopped when Bill chanted God’s name with a

cross in his hand. One day at night again the
yelling started, Bill couldn’t find his cross and the
sound of yelling started coming closer to him

Priest

Writing Prompt on Priest- After doctors unable

to cure the peculiar behavior of Demi, her mother
called the priests .

Plot Twist: Demi killed all the priests and

told her mother that if she wants to see
Demi alive than let her live in his daughter’s
body.

Peculiar

Writing Prompt on peculiar- A sudden chain of

bad events started happening when Alex brought
a very peculiar painting home which he had
bought in the auction.

Bogeyman

Writing Prompt on Bogeyman- People in the

neighborhood got so frightened with the
bogeyman that they stopped going out at night.

Plot Twist: One day all children of the

neighborhood went missing.

Wrecked

Writing Prompt on wrecked- Everyone in the

neighborhood was curious to know about the
voices coming from the abandoned wrecked
house .

Dreadful

Writing Prompt on Dreadful- Smith tried hard to

forget the dreadful night which he spent alone in
the office.

Death

Writing Prompt on Death- All the unfortunate

events started after the death of the Normy black
pet cat.

Hallucination

Writing Prompt on Hallucination- The weird

stranger sitting next to Rebecca on the bus tried
to hallucinate her.

Creepy

Writing Prompt on Creepy- Mark got scared

when someone unknown called him at midnight
and just saying hello in a very strange and
creepy voice ended the call.