Fanfiction ideas: 80 fanfic prompts for any fandom

Fanfic terms to know

• Canon: the official source material.
• AU (alternate universe): the characters, placed in a different world or situation.
• Fix-it: a story that changes an event you wish had gone differently.
• Missing scene: something canon skipped or happened off-screen.
• Crossover: characters from two different fandoms meet.
• OTP: "one true pairing," your favorite couple.
• Hurt/comfort: one character is hurt, another cares for them.

For roleplay and fandom abbreviations, see our roleplay terms glossary.

Alternate universe (AU) ideas

1. Coffee shop AU: one character is the barista who always misspells the other's name, on purpose.
2. Bookstore AU: they keep reaching for the last copy of the same book.
3. Hospital AU: two rival surgeons forced to share a night shift.
4. Royalty AU: one is a prince or princess; the other is the new royal guard who won't bow.
5. Small-town AU: a big-city character inherits a failing diner in the other's hometown.
6. Office AU: two coworkers competing for the same promotion.
7. College AU: grad students sharing a cramped lab.
8. Band AU: the lead singer and the sound engineer who can't stand their music.
9. Soulmate AU: the first words your soulmate will say to you appear on your wrist, and theirs are deeply rude.
10. Fantasy AU: modern characters reimagined as a knight, a witch and a dragon who hate being cast as the villain.
11. Space AU: the crew of a slightly broken cargo ship.
12. Regency AU: a ballroom season, an inconvenient engagement and a duel no one wants.
13. Mafia AU: rival families, a forced alliance and a wedding that has to look real.
14. Supernatural AU: one character is a vampire who just wants to run a quiet night bakery.
15. Reality-show AU: they're contestants on a baking, dating or survival show.
16. Fake-dating AU: one needs a date for a wedding; the other owes them a favor.
17. Neighbors AU: thin apartment walls and very different music tastes.
18. Magic school AU: rival houses, shared detention.
19. Detective AU: a cynical detective and the overly cheerful consultant assigned to them.
20. Time-loop AU: the same day keeps repeating, and only two characters remember.

Missing scene ideas

1. The night before the big battle, told from the side character's point of view.
2. What happened in the time skip canon never showed.
3. The first meeting, years before canon begins.
4. The car ride home after the episode's biggest fight.
5. The funeral canon skipped.
6. The conversation after the confession, which canon cut away from.
7. A quiet morning between two characters who never get a quiet morning.
8. The villain's version of the climax.
9. The first time a character tells someone their secret.
10. The letter one character wrote and never sent.

Fix-it fic ideas

1. The character who died lives, and has to deal with everyone's grief for a death that didn't happen.
2. The breakup never happens because one person says the thing they should have said.
3. The betrayal turns out to have been a plan the reader didn't see.
4. The finale goes differently: rewrite the last scene.
5. A character makes the opposite choice at the turning point.
6. The rescue arrives five minutes earlier.
7. Two characters who never shared a scene finally meet and change everything.
8. The villain gets a redemption arc canon denied.
9. Canon's time skip is undone: show the years in between, and fix one thing.
10. A minor character survives and becomes the lead.

Romance trope ideas

1. Enemies to lovers: two characters who clash in canon are stuck on a week-long mission together.
2. Friends to lovers: a best friend realizes they're in love during the other's engagement party.
3. Slow burn: three years, ten near-misses, one rainy night.
4. Second chance: exes meet again at a mutual friend's wedding.
5. Forced proximity: a snowstorm, one cabin, one bed.
6. Grumpy-sunshine: canon's most cheerful character is assigned to the grumpiest one.
7. Secret relationship: they've been together for months and no one has noticed.
8. Marriage of convenience: a political alliance, a contract, a rule against falling in love.
9. Pining: told entirely through one character's unsent messages.
10. Bodyguard: one is assigned to protect the other, who thinks they don't need protecting.

The romance tropes list explains each trope, and our enemies to lovers roleplay ideas go deeper on one.

Hurt/comfort and angst ideas

1. One character loses their memory and the other has to decide what to tell them.
2. A fever, a cramped safehouse and a confession neither will remember.
3. A character returns from a long absence, changed.
4. One character takes the blame for the other's mistake.
5. Survivor's guilt after a mission goes wrong.
6. A character finally breaks after holding everyone together.
7. The two of them have one night before one leaves forever.
8. One character reads the other's journal by accident.
9. A long-lost family member returns and wants something.
10. After the war is won, no one knows who they are without it.

Crossover and genre-swap ideas

1. Two fandoms' leads compete in the same tournament.
2. A fantasy character wakes up in a modern city.
3. A detective from one fandom investigates a crime in another.
4. Rewrite a canon scene as a gothic horror story.
5. Rewrite a canon romance as a romantic comedy.
6. Characters from two worlds swap places for a day.
7. A villain from one fandom becomes the mentor in another.
8. Put a canon cast in a heist plot.
9. Turn a canon adventure into a murder mystery at a country house.
10. One fandom's characters have to survive another's apocalypse.

Lighthearted and fluff ideas

1. The whole cast goes on a disastrous camping trip.
2. One character tries to bake a birthday cake, badly.
3. A holiday party with a gift exchange that goes wrong.
4. A pet adopts one of the characters.
5. Two characters get stuck in an elevator with a third who won't stop talking.
6. Everyone finds out about the secret couple at once.
7. A cooking competition between the two worst cooks.
8. A character is forced to plan a wedding they're not in.
9. Karaoke night.
10. The quiet epilogue: ten years later, where is everyone?

Tips for writing your first fanfic

• Know what you want to change. Every fanfic answers "what if?" Start from the question.
• Keep characters recognizable. Readers come for characters they love. Changing their world is fine; changing who they are without a reason feels off.
• Tag honestly. On AO3, tags and content warnings help readers find your story and avoid what they don't want.
• Start small. A one-shot of one scene is easier to finish than a novel-length series.
• Use an OC carefully. If you add an original character, give them flaws and a reason to be there; see our OC ideas.

Is fanfiction legal?

It's a gray area. Wikipedia notes that fanfiction is rarely authorized and that whether it counts as fair use is disputed. The Organization for Transformative Works, which runs AO3, argues that non-commercial fanfiction is transformative and therefore fair use. Some authors welcome fanfiction and others oppose it, and disclaimers have no legal effect. Don't sell fanfiction, and check the original creator's stated policy.

Frequently asked questions

What should I write my fanfic about?

Start with a "what if": a scene canon skipped, an ending you'd change, or your characters in a different world (an AU).

What is an AU in fanfiction?

An alternate universe: the canon characters placed in a different setting or situation, such as a coffee shop, a high-fantasy kingdom or a modern office.

Where can I post fanfiction?

Archive of Our Own (AO3), run by the Organization for Transformative Works, and FanFiction.Net, launched in 1998, are the best-known sites.

What are the most popular fanfic tropes?

Enemies to lovers, slow burn, fake dating, forced proximity and hurt/comfort are some of the most common fanfic tropes.

Sources

• Fan fiction — Wikipedia; definition, terms, sites and legal status; checked October 25, 2026.

Related articles

• OC ideas: 100 original character ideas for roleplay and stories
• Writing prompts
• Romance tropes list: 21 tropes, what they mean, and how to use them