Happy Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month!
AAPI is observed from May 1st to May 31st every year, but can, and should, be recognized past the month of May. We encourage you to take some time to learn more about important figures...
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You are welcome to use these prompts outside this contest. Our hope is to expand Asian and Pacific Islander literature on Wattpad.
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Fantasy & Science Fiction Prompts
Don't know enough about Asian Mythology & Folklore? We recommend checking out APIFantasy's mythology & folklore anthology here!
1. Your world is flipped upside down when you transmigrate to a place inspired by Polynesian mythology, where two warring clans struggle to see eye to eye. Which side will you choose? The Sun Clan or the Moon Clan?
2. You get your first official job as a zookeeper at one of the biggest zoos in Vietnam, only to discover the exhibits are filled with mythical creatures from Vietnamese mythology!
3. As an archaeologist, you travel to Thailand to explore some of their most popular caverns and caves. However, nothing could prepare you for discovering an ancient clan of Nagas.
4. While you're in Japan, you come across a mysterious bookstore. However, every time you open the door, you discover it leads to a different world filled with Japanese mythological creatures
5. Visiting the unvisited place for the first time, you, being a journalist, come across a legendary creature. You don't know whether it's a Naga, Bhoota, Dayan, or a divine deity, but you are destined to find the root of it.
6. You realize that you are a reincarnation of a South Asian Prince/Princess and the present life is just repeating in front of your eyes about what happened in your past life. Will you be able to turn the tables in this life?
7. The Arabian Desert holds many mysteries. What secret kingdom lies beneath the sand?
8. Pick an Asian fairytale and retell it by changing three elements of the story.
Romance Prompts
9. After your partner passes away, you discover their presence still lingers in nature. You embark on a journey of self-discovery, learning to love again.
10. Write a poem based on the following quote: "Falling feels like flying until the moment you land."
11. It's the day of your death. This day has been stuck on repeat ever since you fell in love with a crown prince. Just as you close your eyes for the tenth time, a benevolent goddess approaches you, having seen your story end tragically many times. Your only hope to survive your eleventh life is to seek help from an unlikely ally.
12. Your Desi household doesn't understand the importance of love marriage. So you try a trick to convert it into somehow an arranged marriage of love, to be together with your lover.
13. Create a ghazal (an Arabic poem that consists of five couplets, with the second line of every couplet ending with the same word) about a love transcending time and withstanding all of life's trials and tribulations.
Historical Fiction Prompts
14. You've read about time travel and the crazy predicaments everyone ends up in when they awaken in their new life. But it seems someone is determined to test you as they send you to past Melanesia. By day, you are a turtle foraging for food and dodging predators. By night, you are human.
15. You are a nurse in the 1700s when Myanmar (then Burma) and Thailand (then Siam) were at war. After you are selected to heal the wounded on the battlefield, you stumble across an enemy soldier, only to fall in love with them. In a time of war and struggle, how will you maintain your romance?
16. An unprecedented, terrible thunderstorm is raging in your hometown, threatening to uproot everything and everyone. Who would have thought a strike of lightning would make you transmigrate to the body of a Korean Crown Princess during the Joseon era?
17. You have time-traveled to one of the past civilizations era through your dream. This time you have promised yourself to complete what was unfinished.
18. When you transmigrate into the world of a sacred Asian epic, you discover your presence is needed to keep the world from falling apart. How will you save the deities undergoing trials and tribulations? Note: You are welcome to use classic texts like the Ramayana, Mahabharata, Book of Dede Korkut, etc. Whatever you choose must be designated as an Asian epic as identified.
Paranormal/Horror Prompts
19. During your latest voyage to the Polynesian islands, you end up shipwrecked on an unmarked island. There, you discover a never-ending trail of secrets you wished stayed buried.
20. While you are touring everything the Philippines has to offer, you come across an abandoned manor. Despite all warnings, you enter the house and discover it's no haunted house, but the lair of a mambabarang, an evil sorceress, who is seeking their successor to carry out their ultimate revenge.
21. When your paths cross with a shinigami (Japanese Gods of Death), you start seeing the spirits and people from the world of the dead.
22. During a vacation, you find that the hotel you are staying in is full of spirits. You want to escape, but a fortune teller lets you know that you are the cause of it.
23. You're back at home in Kyrgyzstan visiting family when you occasionally hear music and laughter in the groves.
Mystery/Thriller Prompts
24. You got a package at work with the words "trust and family" written on it. It made you feel like you're living in a mystery novel. You suspect your loved ones are hiding something from you. Now, it's up to you to solve the mystery before everything falls apart.
25. Something strange is happening in a small town in Indonesia. People are disappearing and it's up to you to find the culprit and why.
26. Despite the rules forbidding you from visiting the eastern sea, you couldn't resist your adventurous spirit and spent a thrilling night there. Amidst your escapade, you discovered a forgotten mystery of East Asia. Will you have the courage to uncover its secrets?
27. An unusual incident is supposedly happening for the past few days in every state of your country, which is being said to originate from Nepal. You, along with your peers, decide to travel to Nepal to search the matter in depth.
28. You have been invited to a family celebration steeped in custom and tradition. However, things take a strange turn when you come face to face with a relative who everyone believed was dead. You sense that something is off about this person and that they are not who they appear to be. Would one night be enough to uncover this deadly secret?
