Writing Prompts for Pride

June. Is there a sweeter (and hotter 🔥) month? The parties, the long days… it’s all just so… gay!

This June has certainly been a busy one here at Ellipsus. In addition to the launch of Plus, we’ve been hard at work on making improvements to the tool, some of which will be rolling out very soon.

But we want to pause (as we do every year!) to remember who we are, and why we’re here; to honor the communities that we belong to and love. Celebrating queerness; honoring each other; loving our differences with compassion, honor, and joy—this is what Pride is all about.

And we don’t have to tell you that right now—when so much of the world is trying to silence queer voices, explicitly erase queer experience, and shut queer stories and histories out of public life—telling and uplifting our stories is an act of resistance.

So here’s a collection of writing prompts for Pride that we hope help you deepen your queer stories and characters. Go explore some queer themes and possibilities, and reflect on what it means to be queer… in all our messy and magnificent multiplicities!

Write about a character becoming more fully themself. What part of them has been waiting to emerge? Is it a sudden revelation or gradual; or a choice they must make again and again?

Revisit a scene where your character makes an important choice. Can you build up the stakes of this decision? What’s the cost of making the wrong decision?

Flesh out what it means for your character to live authentically. What does it share with, and differ from, from the other lives around them?

What (or who) does safety, refuge, or comfort look like to your character(s)?

Picture your character in a space of safety. What do they learn about themselves, the world, or other people?

Your character encounters something that makes them recognize themselves—a story, an image, a conversation, a person, etc.—giving shape to something they couldn’t name. How does it change them?

Write a scene where your character receives recognition from someone important to them.

One character finally allows another to care for them. Why is accepting care difficult? What finally breaks through their defenses?

Write the conversation that happens after the dramatic scene is over. After the kiss, the argument, the coming-out, or the reunion… what do the characters say or do after?

Write an intimate scene experimenting with new images or novel language.

Write a scene of your character waking up after their first queer experience. It’s the morning after—who are they with, and what happened last night? How do they feel?

Your character enters a queer space for the first time. What did they expect? What surprises them? What (or who) makes them decide to stay?

First times are exciting, scary, and often messy. Write or revisit a first experience bringing these various dimensions into play.

Write the first moment your character imagines a future for themselves. Did that future come true?

Imagine your character in the future. What’s different about them? What’s the same? What have they learned by living a queer life?

Reflect on what queer utopia(s) look(s) like to you.

What does your character want to change about themselves or their social environment? Write a scene where these desires shift, intensify, or transform.

Re-imagine your story or characters through a another era. How do the period’s risks, politics, communities, and possibilities reshape them? Who do they interact with?

Your character becomes acquainted with a significant queer personality (through their work, in the flesh, etc). Write a scene exploring this encounter.

Write the moment a group of people becomes a family. What keeps them together?

Write about a rift or drama that threatens the group’s dynamics. What wounds and loyalties exist within the group? How does it resolve?

Your character experiences a moment of true belonging. What does it feel like?

Take one of your underdeveloped characters and fill in their past. What does queerness mean to them? Who first offered them recognition, possibility, etc.? And what did they inherit from that history?

How do two (or more) of your characters relate to queerness? Write a scene exploring the differences between identities.

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