25 Writing Prompts to Start 2025

(I Could Go With More But I’ll Stick To These)

Happy 2025 to everyone! Hope that it is a wonderful year for all. In addition to New Year’s goals and resolutions, many may be entering this year with a mixture of emotions and dispositions. Some may have an attitude of hope, excitement, and optimism while others may have quiet trepidation or a saddened overwhelming anxiety. Whatever your goals or dispositions, writing is always such an amazing medium to balance things out. Let’s get started with some writing prompts for 2025. There could be a whole unlimited array of possible directions to go here, but to start 2025 we’ll just stick to 25 prompts.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

1. Go ahead and jot down some of your New Year’s resolutions(which may be repeating for many). How do you hope to keep on track with these over the coming year?
2. What was a New Year’s resolution you made that backfired? Why was it not successful?
3. What national and world events give you cause for hope and optimism in 2025? What events are reasons for anxiety or caution?
4. It is hard to believe that years like 2020 and 2015 were already 5 and 10 years away. In truth, decades like the 1960s through 2000s were really not that long ago. What period sticks out most clearly in your mind? Compare and contrast that time period to now.
5. Think back to the new year that occurred not even one year after you were born(could be as long as 364 days or as short as 0 days). What dreams or hopes do you think your parents had?
6. Humanity is now a quarter-century into the 21st century with countless advancements and discoveries made. What advancements and discoveries would you like to see over the next 25 years, 50 years, and 100 years?
7. Imagine the turn of the new year in a previous era. Maybe 1900, 1800, or even 100 AD. What might be the thoughts or views of a person reflecting on that change of year?
8. What online streaming series or programs would you recommend for our new year 2025? Why would you offer these?
9. You have been given the chance to travel back to any year of your life and change 10 things. What year would you choose and what ten things would you change and why?
10. Related to prompt 7, would you be in the camp of people who would go back and change anything at all? Why or why not?
11. The famous New Year’s carol goes “Should old acquaintance be forgotten and never brought to mind?” How will you make sure not to forget the people, places, and experiences of past years as new times spring forth?
12. Related to prompt 9, have you ever experienced being a “forgotten old acquaintance?” Maybe an old friendship or relationship was dissolved just by the passing of time or people changing? How did such an experience feel?
13. Related to the topic of not forgetting, take some time to come up with five people, events, or experiences from your past that you may have forgotten about. Is it too late to bring these into 2025, and how would you go about doing so?
14. A mysterious portal opens in your home that allows you to send a letter to anyone in your past to be delivered at a certain point in time. Who do you write this letter to and when will it be delivered? What does it say?
15. Related to prompt 12, would you not desire to write any letter at all? Why is this?
16. New Year's calls for exploring new domains and recognizing unlimited possibilities. What is something unique or quaint you would love to explore more? Possibly an unconsidered sport like handball or an unrealized area of research like the history of neon signs. Do some research on such a topic and write a piece about it.
17. Imagine you are the ball dropping at midnight. What is your experience, and what message do you have to New Year celebrants?
18. You are the news announcer covering for a national news station as the ball drops at midnight. Write the speech you will give on camera.
19. Write a series of sonnets commemorating the new year(and the old year passing).
20. You are given the chance to direct which songs to play around the midnight hour on New Year’s Eve. Which songs do you choose and why?
21. You are in charge of entertainment for a New Year’s party. A mixup occurs in the variety show lineup. Instead of a jazz pianist, comedian, and male barbershop quartet, you find a bassoon player, meme, and group of Elvis impersonators have shown up. What happens next?
22. Change prompt 21 to a list of unimaginable acts accidentally showing up for a New Year’s party variety show lineup. What would they include and how would the night go?
23. Imagine you are the custodial staff cleaning up the ballroom of a hotel on January 2 after the New Year’s festivities. What rare or shocking items do you find? Could a short story evolve from this?
24. New Year’s celebrations reveal numerous customs and beliefs around the world. What cultural, spiritual, or national customs do you most strongly connect to the New Year?
25. Imagine one year in the future and now it is January 2026. What goals do you hope you’ll have reached in 2025? What discoveries have you made? How might this be different from the goals you started 2025 with?

So, here you go my fellow New Year’s celebrants! 25 New Year’s writing prompts are a great starting point to help you keep the confetti flying and streamers floating long past January 1. This is hardly scratching the surface, of course. What prompts or questions might you feel most called to write about in this brand new year? How might you use writing to help make this new year amazing and memorable? How are you going to live this year to the fullest?

Photo by Joshua Woroniecki on Unsplash