Welcome, annoyed authors and frustrated fabulists! I’m back again to help you banish writer’s block with this collection of weird writing prompts and strange story ideas!
Have you ever wanted to write a character that eats bugs, but can’t figure out how to fit it into a story? Or have you’ve written so many bug-eating scenes that you’re starting to run out of ideas? No? You would never have either of these problems and it’s weird to ask? Well, I wrote a list for you anyway. You’re welcome!
While you might find these ideas too silly or too icky to use as they are, my hope is that they will get your creative gears turning and spark a new idea that fits your own unique writing style. Maybe in your story, the bugs eat people. Or instead of bugs, maybe you’ll come up with an idea for a monster that eats worms, or rats, or politicians.
Before we get to the writing prompts, it’s important to note that real people all over the world eat insects. There are an estimated two billion people on earth who eat insects, spread across eighty percent of the world’s countries. Insect eating should never be used to disparage a person’s culture.
These ideas recontextualize an otherwise normal activity into something strange. There’s nothing wrong with eating a different kind of food, just like there is nothing wrong with wearing a hockey mask, dressing like a clown, or taking a walk at night. It’s the specific context in a horror story or other creepy fiction that turns normal activities into symbols of a character’s strange or even monstrous nature. Whether the character is thrust into an unfortunate situation, struggling with an inner compulsion, or adjusting to their new normal, it’s the context that makes the story interesting.
Writing prompts about bug-eating characters:
- They are a foodie and an adventurous eater, and always brag to their friends that they are willing to try any dish, no matter how unusual. Their friends have dared them to try everything on the menu at the new All-You-Can-Eat “Bugffet” in town.
- They just got turned into a vampire and want to experiment with killing, starting with something that won’t make them feel guilty.
- They are a young dragon working their way up the food chain until they feel brave enough to attack a castle and eat the knights and princesses.
- They are a UTBM (Under The Bed Monster) trying to convince the OTBK (Over The Bed Kid) that they are super scary.
- They are a tiny, bug-eating monster being sold at a pet shop as a cuddlier alternative to Venus Fly Traps. They are purchased by a grocery store manager to defend the store’s fresh food from insects, but when the monster tries its first banana, it decides fruit is tastier than flies.
- They are a Regular Human Baby who is absolutely not half-demon, no matter how many bugs, mice, or household pets it eats. The tail and horns? That’s totally normal. Loads of Regular Human Babies have those. Nothing to see here!
- They are a colonist on a new planet, and the only meat available is the cattle-sized mantises being raised on their bug ranches.
- They are auditioning to work for a super villain and they want to kill something to prove how evil and/or creepy they are.
- They are a group of friends are driving across country when their car breaks down. They are stranded in the desert, with no cell phones or way to call for help. After the supply of insects runs out, they start getting hungry enough to do something desperate.
- They are an alien disguised as a Human, and the local bugs are the closest thing to the creatures they eat on their home world.
- They are a Human attempting to blend in with a group of otherworldly monsters, and since they forgot to wear their fake tentacles, they decide to try eating a few bugs.
- They are a robot designed to turn biomass into fuel, and they have been tasked with eating mosquitoes or other potentially disease-causing insects.
- They have been convinced to join the cult of the Lizard God. To prove their devotion, they have to adopt a lizard-like lifestyle, starting with eating insects.
- They are a super hero who defends the city against giant monsters by turning into a hundred-foot snake demon. Unfortunately, the longer they spend in their demon form, the stronger their urge to devour their defeated enemies.
- An artist is legendary for his weird and eccentric performances, including meals of live insects. After a show, a reporter secretly follows him home and is shocked to discover that he’s horrifyingly normal. When the artist realizes he’s being watched, he tries to prove his artistic integrity by being weirder than he’s ever been before.
- They are a scientist who used bird DNA to give themselves wings so they could become a super hero, but now, they have a strange urge to eat bugs and worms and to perform a mating dance whenever they see the cutie who works in the lab down the hall.
- They are an intelligent, insectivorous plant on an alien planet. When these tiny creatures show up in a spaceship, the plant wonders if they taste as good as the local bugs. Maybe if it could get their helmets off and get to the soft meat inside?
- The characters are trapped down in an underground bunker, after a war or other disaster, and their stored food has run out. After discovering insects in the bunker, the characters realize eating bugs is their only shot at survival. However, the insects are strange, apparently mutated by the radiation or chemical weapons used on the surface. Will eating them be worth the side effects?
- They are an arrogant royal who was cursed by an angry fae to only be able to eat insects. The rest of the royal family tries to hide their insect-eating relative from the public, but they are soon discovered.
- They are infested with an alien stomach parasite, and develop a craving for bugs. They have a strange feeling that if they stop these disgusting meals, the parasite will take over, and their condition will get far, far worse.
- They are a group of fairy soldiers battling the insect army threatening their tiny village. As the fairies begin to lose the war, they resort to the most powerful weapon at their disposal: fear.
- They are a zombie that still remembers their human life and is reluctant to eat intelligent creatures. However, as their hunger grows, they may soon be forced to do the unthinkable.
- They are a Human working on an alien spaceship, and insects are the only food on board.
- They are a farmer who has been shrunk to only a few inches tall, and insects are their new livestock.
- They are a hideous creature called a “Hooman” rampaging across the countryside on an Insect Planet. Even the bravest Insectoids are too scared to face this monster, with its bizarre endoskeleton and mouth-based breathing. And did you hear they shed bits of dead skin everywhere? Weird!
There you go! Good luck on your next tasty tale!
Need more writing prompts? Check out my huge story idea collection here. Are you writing an insect-eating story? Do you have a favorite bug-based tale? Leave a comment below!
