37 Adventure Writing Prompts

It’s time to spark the creative process, and what better way than to get thrown into a dramatic adventure story setting.

What I love about this is that it works so well for the full spectrum of writers from young to old – and reluctant to unstoppable wordsmiths.

An exciting adventure premise for your story is a fantastic place to get started writing, and it just right away allows the creativity to take over and weave the tale…

How should I use these adventure story ideas?

Well firstly, let me just say that they certainly don’t have to inspire just writing stories about adventuring!

While many do throw you into the midst of an adrenaline pumping action story moment, the most important thing in my opinion is that the writer is inspired to start writing immediately.

This is where the power of prompts lies, as right away you have a kernel around which to let the story unfold.

The flexibility of using story starters like this also means that a writers can get underway whether you are coming to it just looking for a daily writing challenge, or a teacher whose students are all getting randomly assigned their own story topic from the list below!

Using prompts in the classroom

For those teachers and homeschoolers most interested in how to go about using these with kids writing in your class, I’ve actually used a few different methods, as follows:

1. The hat

Print them out and let the kids pick their random topic out of a hat. This one always get a good reaction – and that heightened excitement around the writing activity I think is a good thing!

2. The choice

Put the whole list up on screen or otherwise, and let your class have the whole list, and allow them free-reign over what story starter they choose.

3. The assigned

Of course another option is just to hand out a topic to each student to write about – and it is worth noting that there is actually something to be said for the challenge of being handed a starting point of a story and needing to develop it.

4. The same

Or if you’d like to mix it up a bit, why not select one writing prompt and give that to the entire class? You and the class will have fun hearing how many different stories emerged from the same single starting point!

The Writing Prompts:

  1. The ice axe struck the craggy wall, and seemed to be holding…
  2. The hot air balloon drifted higher and higher, until the town below could barely be seen…
  3. The roar of the crowd in the street was deafening, as the bulls came stampeding around the corner…
  4. Then suddenly through the dense jungle, there was a sound…
  5. The churning water of the rapids swirled around the kayak…
  6. The walls of the log cabin were strong, but so was the bear she could hear lumbering around outside…
  7. One foot in front of the other, his heart racing he stepped out onto the tightrope which spanned the chasm…
  8. Ahead lay the desert dunes, stretching off over the horizon, but it was the only way…
  9. The crashing waves wrenched her from her deep slumber, how many days and nights had passed…
  10. From this mountain top he could see from one side of the island to the other, all the way to the shimmering sea on either side ..
  11. The sides of the tent moved in the night, rustling quietly as the forest around him creaked in the wind…
  12. The Huskies barked and yipped excitedly as the dog sled started moving more quickly…
  13. The axe thudded into the tree once again, and with a great cracking sound it started to fall…
  14. Their guide was experienced, and they’d seen far more animals on this safari than they’d expected, but nothing had prepared them for this…
  15. They had been trekking through the jungle for days, and now here it was in front of them, the towering lost temples that had been swallowed up by the dense vines…
  16. The wind roared in her ears as her bike flew down the twisting mountain road, the wheels hub whirring loudly as she went faster and faster…
  17. The ankle was not broken, thank goodness, but she could not put any weight on it. How was she going to get out of this one she wondered…
  18. The alligator was enormous, curling through the water behind his canoe as he made his way through the murky swamp…
  19. Her fingers clung to the rocky ledge, as she looked back down to see how far she’d climbed…
  20. The air near the rim of the volcano was acrid, and stung the nostrils…
  21. The torch began to flicker, the only light he had so far down in this cave system…
  22. She followed the arc of the Zipline, scanning across to the distant cliff where it ended…
  23. The scuba mask gave her a clear little window into the underwater world she was visiting, and she kicked her fins to dive deeper towards the shipwreck…
  24. The hangglider flapped quietly above him, the only noise he could hear so high up above the earth…
  25. The sharks were getting closer now, bumping and jostling the cage she was in beneath the ocean surface…
  26. Stepping out on stage, her heart was racing as the crowd roared, but she knew this was the moment she had been working so hard to get to…
  27. Adrenalin pumped through her veins as she prepared to jump out of the door of the tiny plane, her parachute strapped to her back…
  28. He could feel a gentle downward slope in the tunnel that they’d been exploring, but just how deep underground was it taking them…
  29. Looking up into the sky he could see the giant eagle circling above him…
  30. They could smell smoke and see the first embers starting to fall around them, the forest fire was getting closer and they had to go…
  31. The ship rose and fell with the icy ocean, and the polar bears turned and watched as we drifted closer to shore…
  32. The howling of wolves in the mountains behind our cabin made the sturdy door and roaring logfire feel all the better…
  33. I’d never felt as alive as I did in that moment…
  34. This morning I’d walked out my front door not expecting anything outside the ordinary, and yet here I was just a few hours later, looking around me and astonished at what I saw…
  35. I pulled the rug from the middle of the room, and there as the mysterious stranger had told me, was an ancient trapdoor…
  36. The painting of my ancestors hung on the wall, towering above us, and when I pulled at the side, it swung open to reveal a locked safe…
  37. I woke before dawn, slung my pack over my shoulder and set off on the adventure of a lifetime…

Enjoy writing your story!

I really enjoy hearing from our community about all the creative things that have stemmed from what we make available here.

You might also like our winter writing prompts or our fantasy story prompts.

Make sure you check back often as we are adding several new things each week for you to use for free 🙂

If you’ve got any requests for types or topics of more story starters, let me know!