12 Comedy Prompts: Ideas for Writing Funny Short Stories

Here are some writing ideas and story starters to get you into the process of comedic story writing. If you aspire to write comedy short stories that literally make readers laugh out loud, or if you just want to write a short story with a whimsical point of view, here are some prompts to get you started on the best comedy stories you’ve ever written.

1. 1. A bored employee takes over the social media accounts of the dentist they work for, determined to become an online celebrity.
2. 2. A high school nerd pranks the principal but frames the Latin teacher for the crime.
3. 3. A 30-year-old hipster meets a previously unknown family member: a young boy who, through an unlikely series of marriages, is legally his uncle.
4. 4. A middle school gym teacher with no sense of humor starts a serious podcast that is unintentionally hilarious.
5. 5. A string of inside jokes between the president and secretary of defense leads to an accidental missile attack on Stonehenge.
6. 6. An author writes the best story of their life, but the main character is an obvious stand-in for their best friend. When the book becomes a bestseller, the friend comes to them for a cut of the profits.
7. 7. A scientist manages to reanimate a 300-year-old werewolf that he finds in a tomb, but the werewolf turns out to be nebbish and timid and riddled with insecurities.
8. 8. A woman dials a phone number that she chooses at random and asks the person who picks up: “Do you want to meet me for coffee?”
9. 9. A man visits Hollywood for the first time. On the first day of his trip, he gets cast in a major soap opera role when a casting director spots him on the street.
10. 10. A college student beats every level of a seemingly impossible superhero video game. The next day, the game’s designer appears at the student’s front door and proposes marriage.
11. 11. A woman wins an award at an open mic comedy contest and gets hired by an eccentric billionaire who wants to be taught how to be funny.
12. 12. A regional sales manager laces his motivational speech in so many business school clichés that the employees think he can’t possibly be human. When a gasket suddenly shoots out of his ear, they realize he is actually a robot.

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