100 What If Scenarios (Fun, Deep & Weird) to Spark Stories

Every story you love started as a hypothetical. What if a boy found out he was a wizard? What if the toys came alive when no one was looking? What if you could erase someone from your memory? The question is small. What it opens up is not.

The what if lists that rank well tend to be party games: "what if the sky was purple?" That is fine for a quick laugh, but a lot of those questions end the moment someone answers. The scenarios below are written so they keep going. Each one changes something specific, so there is a person it affects, a problem it creates and a scene you can picture.

They are all original and free to use for a dinner table, a classroom, a writing session or a short film made on your phone.

What makes a good what if scenario?

The difference between a question people answer in one word and one they argue about for twenty minutes usually comes down to three things.

• It changes one rule, not everything. "What if magic were real?" is too big to hold. "What if magic were real but only worked on Tuesdays?" gives you something to push against.
• It touches ordinary life. The best hypotheticals land in a kitchen, a bus, an office. Your listener immediately imagines themselves there.
• It has a cost. A superpower with no downside is a wish. A superpower that costs you something is a dilemma, and dilemmas are what make people talk.

Everyday what if scenarios

1. What if every door in your home opened onto a different city once a week, and you never knew which one?
2. What if your phone started showing texts you were going to receive tomorrow?
3. What if the grocery store only accepted payment in compliments?
4. What if every elevator in the world stopped at a floor that is not on the buttons?
5. What if your name changed every morning, and everyone else remembered the new one?
6. What if your commute took the same time no matter where you lived, even across an ocean?
7. What if each person could only say 500 words a day?
8. What if the last song you heard before sleep decided what you dreamed?
9. What if lost items were delivered back to you, but always a year late?
10. What if your house kept a diary, and you found it?

Funny what if questions

11. What if pigeons unionized and demanded a cut of every sandwich?
12. What if your inner monologue played out loud whenever you were nervous?
13. What if every sneeze teleported you three meters to the left?
14. What if cats could leave online reviews of their owners?
15. What if all adults had to wear a sign showing their current mood in one honest word?
16. What if your fridge refused to open until you explained your life choices?
17. What if every argument had to be settled by a dance-off?
18. What if your reflection was one second late and clearly judging you?
19. What if socks that went missing in the laundry were starting a new life somewhere?
20. What if your GPS gave directions like a disappointed parent?

Superpower hypothetical scenarios

21. What if you could fly, but only when no one was watching?
22. What if you could read minds, but only the minds of people who dislike you?
23. What if you could stop time, but you aged twice as fast while it was stopped?
24. What if you could talk to any object, and they all had strong opinions?
25. What if you could undo the last 10 seconds, once a day, and had to choose when?
26. What if you were invisible to everyone except children and dogs?
27. What if you could borrow any skill from another person, but they lost it while you had it?
28. What if you were the strongest person alive, but only while telling the truth?
29. What if you could see exactly how much time every person has left?
30. What if your superpower only activated when you were bored?

Fantasy what if scenarios

31. What if dragons were real and worked as the postal service?
32. What if every town had one guardian spirit, and yours just quit?
33. What if magic existed, but you needed a license, and the exam was brutally hard?
34. What if every lie you told became true for someone else?
35. What if a bakery sold bread that let you taste other people's memories?
36. What if the moon had a night market once a month, and you got an invitation?
37. What if trees could walk but only did it when it rained?
38. What if you inherited a library where every book was a door?
39. What if fairy tales were history, and historians were arguing about Cinderella's shoe size?
40. What if you could trade one year of your life for one wish, and the shop was on your street?

Science and future what if scenarios

41. What if humans needed only one hour of sleep a week?
42. What if gravity got 10 percent weaker every year?
43. What if we discovered a signal from space, and it was a recording of Earth from 200 years ago?
44. What if every city floated, and you could move yours like a ship?
45. What if memories could be backed up, and one day yours were restored from the wrong file?
46. What if robots got bored of work and started taking up hobbies?
47. What if the ocean dried up overnight and we found a city at the bottom?
48. What if everyone got a message from their future self on their 18th birthday?
49. What if the internet went offline for a year and never explained why?
50. What if the last human job was deciding what the robots should dream about?

Time travel and history what ifs

51. What if you woke up every morning one day further in the past?
52. What if you could visit any year, but only as a stray cat?
53. What if a time traveler got stuck in your town and needed a job?
54. What if you found a photo of yourself in a newspaper from 1920?
55. What if you could fix one small mistake in your past, and it changed the person you love most?
56. What if every century got one day to visit the next?
57. What if your grandmother was a famous spy, and you found out at her funeral?
58. What if clocks started running backward in one small town?
59. What if your ten-year-old self showed up and was disappointed in you?
60. What if history textbooks updated themselves overnight whenever someone changed the past?

Animal and nature what if scenarios

61. What if your dog could talk for exactly five minutes a year?
62. What if seasons happened at random instead of in order?
63. What if whales could carry houses on their backs, and some people lived that way?
64. What if every species on Earth elected a representative to a council?
65. What if crows remembered every favor, and one owed you a big one?
66. What if it snowed upward?
67. What if all houseplants could vote?
68. What if a forest near your home grew one new tree for every secret whispered to it?
69. What if you swapped bodies with your cat for a day?
70. What if a storm arrived every year on your birthday, and only in your town?

Relationship and friendship what ifs

71. What if you could hear what your friends really thought of you, just once?
72. What if everyone had a visible counter showing how many people love them?
73. What if your soulmate's name appeared on your wrist, and it was your rival's?
74. What if you had to live with your ex for a month to break a curse?
75. What if two strangers kept meeting in each other's dreams?
76. What if you could relive one ordinary day with someone who is gone?
77. What if a fake dating arrangement came with a real contract?
78. What if your best friend from childhood became a famous villain?
79. What if you could only speak to your neighbor through notes left in a shared mailbox?
80. What if every first date came with a narrator only the two of you could hear?

Deep what if questions

81. What if you knew for certain there was no afterlife? What would you change today?
82. What if everyone got one do-over in life, and you had already used yours without knowing?
83. What if you could know the one decision that defined your life, but not what it was yet?
84. What if happiness could be measured, and yours was public?
85. What if you lived forever, but everyone you met would forget you after a year?
86. What if the people you judged most harshly could see your worst memories?
87. What if every choice you made split the world, and you could visit the other versions?
88. What if you met the person you would have been if you had made the braver choice?
89. What if no one could lie, starting tomorrow?
90. What if you had to write your own obituary today, and it would be read aloud tomorrow?

Eerie and mystery what if scenarios

91. What if the last train of the night stopped at a station that was not on the map?
92. What if your town's statues moved slightly every night, and only you noticed?
93. What if every photo you took showed one extra person in the background?
94. What if a radio in your attic played tomorrow's news?
95. What if you woke up and every clock said the same time, and it never changed?
96. What if everyone in your building started having the same dream?
97. What if letters addressed to someone who died years ago kept arriving at your door?
98. What if your GPS insisted there was a road that did not exist, and one night it did?
99. What if the ending of a mystery novel changed every time you reread it?
100. What if your house had one more room at night than during the day?

AU what if scenarios for your characters

Writers who already have characters often search for a different kind of what if: an alternate universe, or AU, that drops the same people into a new situation and makes them talk. The trick is to change the setting but keep what each character wants, so their old dynamic shows up in new clothes. These ten work with any pair or small group of original characters.

• Stuck together. What if your two characters were snowed into a roadside diner overnight, and the only working phone had one call left?
• Swapped roles. What if the rivals had to switch jobs for a week, and each kept leaving notes for the other?
• Coffee shop AU. What if one runs a tiny late-night café and the other is the customer who orders the same thing at 2 a.m. every night without saying why?
• Fake dating. What if they had to pretend to be engaged for one dinner with a family who asks very specific questions?
• Memory loss. What if one of them woke up with no memory of the last year, and the other had to decide what to tell them?
• Time loop. What if the same awkward conversation kept restarting until one of them said the thing they never say?
• Different century. What if your modern characters were a lighthouse keeper and a shipwrecked stranger in 1890?
• Body swap. What if they woke up in each other's lives on the morning of the most important day for one of them?
• Heist crew. What if the whole cast had one night to steal back something that was taken from the quietest member?
• Last message. What if a phone that can send one text to the past showed up, and they had to agree on what to write?

To make them talk, open on a line of dialogue instead of a description, and give each character a different answer to the same problem. If you have a what if scenario of your own and want to see it play out, the last section below shows how to turn it into scenes. Keep the characters original rather than borrowed from an existing show or book, especially if you plan to share the result.

How to use these hypothetical scenarios

The same list works differently depending on where you use it.

• As conversation starters. Pick from the funny and relationship sections for friends or coworkers. Ask a follow-up: "and what would you do first?" The second answer is always more interesting than the first.
• In a classroom. The science, animal and history sections work well for discussion because they have a cause and effect you can reason through. Ask students to predict three consequences, then pick the most surprising one.
• As writing prompts. Any of them can seed a short story. The eerie and deep sections tend to produce the strongest endings. Our list of 60 story ideas by genre goes one step further and gives each premise a conflict and a twist.
• As a branching story. What ifs are natural starting points for a choose-your-own-adventure, because the change forces the character into decisions right away. See how to write a choose-your-own-adventure story for structures that keep branches under control.

How to turn a what if scenario into a story

A what if is a premise, not a plot. It becomes a story when someone wants something and the new rule gets in the way. Four questions get you there.

Step	Question to answer	Example (scenario 91)
1. Who	Who does this change affect the most?	A tired night-shift nurse who takes the last train home every night
2. Want	What does that person want right now?	To get home in time to see her daughter before school
3. Problem	What does the change make hard?	The train stops at an unmapped station and will not move until someone gets off
4. First scene	What is the first moment they notice?	The doors open onto a platform lit by old lamps, and the announcer says her name

Once you have those four, you have an opening scene and a reason to keep going. If you are stuck on step 3, make the change cost the character something they care about. If you are stuck on step 4, write the most ordinary moment of their day and let the strange thing interrupt it.

Turn a what if into a short animated film

If you would rather watch the scenario than write it, that is what we built FICT: AI Movie Maker for. The app, from SecondEarth AI, Inc., launched in September 2026 on iOS and Android, and it starts from exactly this kind of prompt.

1. Type the what if. Paste any scenario from this list, or your own. Add a protagonist, the world, the mood and an art style such as anime, watercolor or 3D.
2. Watch the first scene. FICT generates a 5 or 10 second animated scene with narration or dialogue.
3. Choose what happens next. Pick one of three suggested actions or write your own. Choices are permanent, so the film keeps the path you took.
4. Keep going until it feels finished. There is no fixed length. When you stop, the film replays from the beginning.

A 5-second scene costs 10 credits and a 10-second scene costs 20. New players get 20 free credits, and a free sample film, "The Last Train," shows what a finished film looks like before you spend anything. There is no login and no public feed, so your films stay private. If you want to see how this compares with text-based tools, read our guide to choose-your-own-adventure AI.

Scenario 63, a whale carrying houses, is the one in the illustration at the top of this page. Pick your own, and see where it goes.