101 Genre-Blend Story Prompts

Do you want to write a genre script but need help conjuring compelling different takes through a creative genre-blend? Sometimes reading simple genre story prompts is the easiest way to get those creative juices flowing.

We get our ideas from many sources:

• News headlines, novels, television shows, movies, our lives, our fears, our phobias, etc.
• A film or series sometimes leaves scenes or moments unexplored.
• Single visuals entice the creative mind, planting a seed that grows and grows until the writer is compelled to finally put it to paper or screen.

They may inspire screenplays, novels, short stories, or even smaller moments that you can include in what stories you are already writing.

With that in mind, here are 101 genre-blend story prompts to get your creative juices flowing.

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101 Genre-Blend Story Prompts

1. Zombies in a space station.
2. Vampires in a space station.
3. Werewolves in a space station.
4. A planet full of vampires that has only one hour of sunlight.
5. Dracula awakens after hundreds of years of sleep.
6. Top Gun in space.
7. Top Gun with Navy Seals.
8. A noir mystery set in the future.
9. A noir mystery set on a space station.
10. A Wild West gunslinger faces off against an alien.
11. A Wild West gunslinger is transported to the future.
12. A musical set in space.
13. Titanic in space.
14. Boots on the ground war movie set on another planet.
15. A heist film where a team must venture underwater to steal something from a submarine.
16. A robotic society creates the "first" organic human intelligence.
17. A romantic comedy set in a spaceship.
18. Romeo and Juliet with a human male and alien female.
19. A frontier movie set on a fantastical planet.
20. A slasher movie set in the Old West.
21. An alien invasion movie where humans are the invaders of another planet.
22. A buddy movie where the hero and villain must work together.
23. A space rescue team must deal with human settlers that have become cannibals.
24. A disaster movie set on another planet.
25. A gangster movie set on a desert planet.
26. A found footage time travel movie.
27. A world of superheroes where everyone has lost their powers.
28. A space-traveling human boy gets deserted on an alien planet and befriends an alien boy and his family.
29. Die Hard on a spaceship.
30. Die Hard on a space station.
31. Die Hard in an Old West town.
32. A courtroom drama set in the Old West.
33. Space travelers stumble upon a planet that resembles Earth's fantasy stories with knights, dragons, wizards, etc.
34. A road movie in space.
35. A road movie set in the Old West.
36. A haunted spaceship or space station.
37. A whodunnit murder mystery set on a space station or spaceship.
38. George Lucas's Star Wars universe is actually based on a place he visited.
39. Ghostbusters meets the Old West.
40. Peter Pan is the monster villain.
41. A historian discovers that Dracula was real.
42. Dracula immigrated to the United States and is a criminal underground boss.
43. Van Helsing was actually the villain in the Dracula story.
44. One of the greatest treasures is hidden within Dracula's castle, protected by vampires and werewolves, and pursued by treasure hunters.
45. A historian discovers that Dr. Frankenstein was real.
46. Frankenstein's Monster was actually never killed. He lives in the mountains to this day, with Dr. Frankenstein's kin continuing to replace him with new body parts.
47. A man named Frank Stein realizes he is the great, great, great-grandson of Dr. Frankenstein himself. He's a loser in life and tries to hilariously recreate the work of his ancestor.
48. A contemporary retelling of The Phantom of the Opera set on a Broadway stage.
49. A contemporary retelling of The Phantom of the Opera set within a high school production of the play, with a teenage outcast as the Phantom.
50. A contemporary retelling of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with the story set within the world of politics.
51. A man discovers that his grandfather was the original Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, and he's beginning to experience the same split personalities.
52. A contemporary retelling of the story with a female lead called Dr. Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde.
53. An archeologist discovers proof that King Arthur—and Excalibur—were real.
54. High school students studying abroad find Excalibur.
55. The Knights of the Round table found the Holy Grail, attained immortality, and still roam Earth fighting for the greater good.
56. A space opera version of the King Arthur and Knights of the Round Table story.
57. A contemporary version of the Robin Hood story set within the world of Wall Street and high-stakes trading.
58. A bank robber robs the rich and gives to the poor—later referred to as Robin Hood.
59. An Old West version of the Robin Hood story.
60. A version where Robin Hood is the villain and the Sheriff of Nottingham is the hero.
61. A space version of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
62. An animated feature version of Sherlock Holmes focusing on Sherlock Holmes's dog as he solves pet-life mysteries.
63. A serial killer is reenacting murders from the Sherlock Holmes stories.
64. An aging Sherlock Holmes in his twilight years must solve one more case.
65. A sequel story to The Wizard of Oz where Dorothy's descendant is sent to Oz.
66. Grandchildren discover that their grandmother was Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz stories.
67. When Dorothy is taken by the twister, someone from Oz is left behind.
68. The Wizard of Oz where Oz is another planet.
69. An Old West gunslinger is taken up inside a twister and left in Oz.
70. A contemporary retelling of the Tarzan story set after a castaway is found thirty years after disappearing.
71. A family traveling across space crash lands on a planet, leaving only the male son as a survivor. He is raised by an alien race.
72. A female version of the Tarzan story.
73. A grandchild discovers that their outdoorsman grandpa is actually Tarzan.
74. A little girl from a broken home creates a fantasy world inspired by Alice in Wonderland—or is it real?
75. Grandchildren discover that their grandmother is the Alice from the stories, and she leads them down the rabbit hole for an adventure.
76. An aging Alice is visited by her friends from the rabbit hole. They need her help.
77. A horror story version where Peter Pan is a serial killer that steals children.
78. Peter, having chosen to live life as a mortal, is dying and wants to find a way back to Neverland.
79. The mother of Peter Pan tries to find her son.
80. Pinocchio, all grown up, is beginning to show signs of turning back into wood.
81. A sequel story where a teenage Pinocchio wants to create a companion.
82. The forty thieves from Arabian Nights are bank robbers that the FBI is trying to track down.
83. A grandmother with dementia claims to have previously been a mermaid—and she wants to return to her undersea home.
84. A group of contemporary kids is transported back to the 1980s.
85. A rom-com set in a retirement home.
86. A buddy cop movie with a contemporary detective paired up with Sherlock Holmes.
87. A buddy cop movie with a contemporary detective paired up with an old grizzled Wild West-era sheriff.
88. A buddy cop movie with a contemporary detective paired up with a vampire.
89. A contemporary detective teams up with a movie character detective ripped from the big screen in a buddy cop movie.
90. A coming-of-age movie set within a space colony where a pre-teen child wants to go back to his parents' home planet of Earth.
91. A coming-of-age movie set on future Earth where a farm boy wants to join the space marines to fight for the planet in an intergalactic war.
92. A woman falls in love with her robot trainer.
93. An author falls in love with his female protagonist that has come to life.
94. An author falls in love with her swashbuckling male protagonist that has come to life.
95. A bank robbery story set within the Old West, telling the story of the first bank robbery.
96. A heist flick set on a space station.
97. A Special Forces unit enters a fantasy world filled with dragons, orcs, wizards, knights, kings, queens, and other fantastical beings.
98. A team of warriors from different time periods must kill an alien.
99. A team of warriors from different time periods must face off against each other in a sadistic time traveler's game of death.
100. A time traveler travels through time periods robbing historical artifacts.
101. A time traveler comes back to the 2020s to work the stock market based on the information he has from the future.

Read More: 200 Heroic and Villainous Character Traits

'Phantom of the Paradise' (1974)

Why You Should Write Genre-Blend Screenplays?

Hollywood is in the business of making money. And they do that (largely) by giving people more of what they crave: entertainment. But that doesn't mean that Hollywood is content to follow the same blueprint over and over again. They're always looking for new trends. Why? Because new trends can make a lot of money.

That's where genre-blending comes in. When you blend genres, you're bringing in more audiences to the same concepts:

• Audiences love it because familiar concepts provide comfort, especially when they're handled in new ways.
• And, yes, Hollywood loves that because audiences love that, which leads to more tickets and streaming subscribers.

The trouble with following genre trends is that you never want to write a conventional screenplay. Hollywood is flooded with them. So beyond creating a purely original concept—which is very difficult to come by these days—screenwriters can play with genres by blending them:

• Horror comedies
• Dramedies
• Sc-fi thrillers
• Crime dramas
• Fantasy comedies

'Alien' (1979)

These hybrids let screenwriters separate themselves from the crowd of generic screenplays in the Hollywood spec market mill. They don't reinvent the process of storytelling with all new ingredients. They simply combine seemingly disparate elements—like zombies and romance (yes, "zom-coms" are a thing) to create something new. Just like chocolate chip cookies with a touch of caramel, people love the taste of something new mixed with the warmth and comfort of something they love.

• Ghostbusters blended SNL alumni-style comedy with science fiction and horror.
• Back to the Future blended science fiction time travel with comedy and adventure.
• Alien blended the horror of a monster flick with brilliant science fiction landscapes and technology.
• Aliens added the action element of hardcore space marines into the mix.
• Pan's Labyrinth wonderfully blended war drama with fantasy and horror.

What original genre blends haven't we seen in movies and television? Have we seen a romantic horror movie, a crime drama in space, or a slapstick comedy-thriller? What genre blends can you conjure to get you and your writing noticed?

Please note: Because we’re all connected to the same pop culture, news headlines, and inspirations, any similarity to any past, present, or future screenplays, novels, short stories, television pilots, television series, plays, or any other creative works is purely coincidence. These story writing prompts were conceived spontaneously, without any research or Google search for inspiration.

WANT MORE IDEAS? TAKE A LOOK AT OUR OTHER STORY PROMPTS!

Try our Genre Notes and get matched with a reader with relevant industry experience!

Ken Miyamoto has worked in the film industry for nearly two decades, most notably as a studio liaison for Sony Studios and then as a script reader and story analyst for Sony Pictures.

He has many studio meetings under his belt as a produced screenwriter, meeting with the likes of Sony, Dreamworks, Universal, Disney, and Warner Brothers, as well as many production and management companies. He has had a previous development deal with Lionsgate, as well as multiple writing assignments, including the produced miniseries Blackout, starring Anne Heche, Sean Patrick Flanery, Billy Zane, James Brolin, Haylie Duff, Brian Bloom, Eric La Salle, and Bruce Boxleitner, the feature thriller Hunter’s Creed, and many produced Lifetime thrillers. Follow Ken on Twitter @KenMovies and Instagram @KenMovies76.