This spark is a very simple one:

An abandoned playground.

Koalas have fingerprints nearly indistinguishable from humans. What happens when a koala’s fingerprints are the only ones found at a crime scene?

Your neighbour’s partner passes away, and you go over to pay your respects. You notice that all the mirrors in the home are covered with red cloth. It’s a tradition, they say, to give the departed soul some peace. 

Now that you think about it, you’re not sure how long those mirrors have been covered. Also, did one of those cloths just move?

A young person is murdered. There aren’t many clues and the authorities are stumped. The key piece of evidence is a note that the victim wrote shortly before their death. The problem is that it seems to change every time someone reads it.

Your new partner has a room in their home with a collection of chains in it. One day, you come over to find them wearing the chains and a startled expression.

“I can explain,” they say.

You’re having an ordinary day when a disheveled man rushes up to you and presses a small wooden bird into your hand. He tells you it’s important that you keep it with you, looks over his shoulder, and rushes off again. 

An accident results in a terrible head injury. You are told that you may not be able to recognise faces any more, that the part of your brain responsible for connecting faces to names has been damaged beyond repair. 

As you recover, you find the doctor’s warnings come true: you don’t recognise anyone around you. Not at home, not at your occupation, not even your neighbours. You know their voices, but the faces are wrong. Can you trust the doctor’s explanation?

The writing sparks are back! Here is a prompt to get your writing started today. Hope you have fun with it!

There has been a skull in your family home since you can remember, sitting on a shelf. You suspect it has been there generations. There were stories about it when you were a child, but that was some time ago now. 

One night, you hear a voice coming from the room where the skull’s shelf is. You go in, but there’s no-one in there. Just the skull, sitting on its shelf, watching as always.

Eight murders have taken place in your character’s town: once a week, on the same day, at the same time. When your character gets abducted, they have only a few hours to discover why this is happening and how to get free.

Your character has gone through life believing that love is a choice and they have always chosen ‘no’. But an argument with a stranger changes this belief.