The One Hidden Object That Can Change Your Whole Story

Why bother with symbolism prompts at all?

Imagine reading two versions of the same scene.

In the first, a character thinks: “I’m afraid of losing my father.” Clear, honest, on the nose.

In the second, the same character stands in a hospital gift shop, turning a snow globe over and over, watching the fake blizzard swallow a tiny house. He almost buys it. Then he puts it back, walks out with empty hands, and pretends he never wanted it.

Both versions tell you something. But the second one lets you feel it. You’re invited in, asked to connect the dots. That’s what symbolism does: it gives your reader something to do. And a lot of readers actually like that.

Symbolism prompts are basically writing dares: “Tell the truth, but only through this one object, color, weather pattern, or habit.” You’re not decorating your story. You’re building a second layer of meaning that runs underneath the plot.

And honestly? It’s best well-suited for days when you’re stuck. Instead of staring at a blank page, you give yourself a weird rule: everything important has to show up through one symbol. Suddenly your brain has something to chew on.

How does a simple object turn into a symbol?

It usually starts with a tiny, almost boring choice.

A mug.
A pair of shoes.
A dead plant on a windowsill.

On day one, it’s just there. Background. On day two, you bring it back. On day three, you change it slightly. By day four, it’s quietly telling the reader what your character can’t admit.

Take Sam, for example. Sam is in his thirties, recently divorced, and pretending he’s fine. You decide his symbol is a house key.

At the start, Sam wears his old house key on his keychain even though it doesn’t open anything anymore. He keeps forgetting to take it off. Every time he unlocks his new apartment, that useless key rattles.

Later, he finally removes it… but instead of throwing it away, he hides it in a drawer. Out of sight, but not gone.

Near the end, he’s packing for a move to a different city. The key falls out of his pocket in the elevator. He leaves it on the floor.

You never once write: “Sam was finally ready to move on.” You don’t need to. The key did the talking.

That’s the heart of these prompts: pick something small, repeat it, let it change.

Symbolism prompts that push you past the obvious

Let’s walk through some styles of prompts and how to make them actually work on the page.

1. The one object that keeps showing up

Instead of: “Write about grief.”

Try: “Write about a character who keeps finding the same type of object wherever they go: a red scarf, an old coin, a paper crane, a library checkout slip.”

Maybe Nora keeps stumbling across abandoned coffee mugs. On park benches, on bus stops, on the hood of her car. You decide those mugs stand in for conversations that were never finished.

At first, she just notices them. Then she starts collecting them, filling her sink at home with strangers’ cups. By the time she finally calls the brother she hasn’t spoken to in years, she washes every single mug and donates them.

The prompt forces you to ask: What does this object mean to her? How does that meaning shift as the story goes on? The symbol becomes a little barometer for her emotional weather.

2. Weather as a mirror (or a liar)

Weather is classic symbolism territory, but it doesn’t have to be cliché.

Instead of: “Write about a breakup.”

Try: “Write a breakup where the weather refuses to match the mood.”

So you get Eli, who’s being dumped in a parking lot under aggressively cheerful sunshine. Not a cloud in sight. The asphalt is shimmering, the sky is obnoxiously blue. The whole world looks like a commercial for cold soda and beach towels.

The mismatch becomes the symbol: the universe is not going to give him the dramatic storm he thinks he deserves. He’s just one person having a terrible day under a perfect sky.

Or flip it. The relationship is quietly, calmly ending… but the city is drowning in rain. They’re sitting in a car, windshield wipers working overtime, having the most peaceful, honest conversation they’ve ever had. The storm outside underlines how much chaos they used to live in together, compared to the strange calm of letting go.

The prompt here is simple: “Pick a weather pattern and make it say something about your character that they won’t say themselves.”

3. Colors that won’t leave your story alone

Color symbolism can get heavy-handed if you’re not careful, but used lightly, it’s actually fun.

Try this: “Give your story one color that keeps returning in different forms.”

Take blue. At the start, Maya is wearing a blue hoodie she stole from her ex. Then she’s working late under the cold blue light of a computer screen. Later, she’s standing in front of a blue door she’s scared to knock on. Finally, she’s watching blue fireworks on a rooftop with someone new.

The color threads the scenes together, but it doesn’t have to mean just one thing. Early on, blue might feel lonely and cold. Later, it might feel open and full of possibility. The prompt nudges you to let the symbol evolve as your character does.

If you want to get nerdy about it, you can read up on color psychology (for example, the American Psychological Association sometimes discusses color and emotion in their articles: apa.org). But honestly, your personal associations matter more in fiction. If yellow, for you, means hospital corridors, use that.

4. Habits as secret symbols

Not all symbols are objects. Sometimes the symbol is a repeated behavior.

Prompt it like this: “Give your character a small habit that changes meaning over time.”

Take Jonah, who always straightens picture frames when he walks into a room. At first, it’s just a quirk. Then you reveal he grew up in a chaotic household where fixing small things was the only control he had.

Later, when he visits his sister in rehab, he walks past a crooked frame and leaves it that way. That tiny choice hits harder than any speech about acceptance. The habit itself became symbolic of his need to control everything, and the moment he stops doing it says more than a page of interior monologue.

This kind of prompt works well if you like character-driven stories. You’re basically asking: “What’s one small thing they do, over and over, that secretly tells us who they are?”

How to avoid turning your story into a puzzle no one wants to solve

Symbolism can go off the rails pretty fast. You’ve probably read something where everything felt like it was trying to “mean” something and nothing was allowed to just… be.

A few guardrails help:

Let the story come first

If you ever find yourself thinking, “How do I force this symbol into the scene?” that’s your cue to back off. The symbol should serve the story, not the other way around.

Start with: Who wants what? What’s in their way? What changes?

Then ask: Is there one image or object I can repeat that will quietly echo that change?

Use repetition, but not copy-paste

If your symbol shows up only once, readers might not even notice it. If it shows up the same way every time, they’ll get bored.

Bring it back. Twist it slightly.

The cracked phone screen that never gets fixed.
The song that keeps playing in the background in different places.
The plant that goes from overwatered to thriving.

Each appearance should either deepen the meaning or show that the meaning is shifting.

Don’t explain it to death

The moment your character thinks, “The dead bird on the windowsill perfectly represented my lost innocence,” the spell breaks.

Trust your reader a little. They’re smarter than you think. You can let a symbol stay slightly mysterious. Not every reader has to interpret it the same way, and that’s actually part of the fun.

If you want to sanity-check yourself, there are some good general writing resources from places like Purdue OWL (owl.purdue.edu) that talk about figurative language and literary devices. But you don’t need a textbook to pull this off. You need curiosity and a willingness to rewrite.

Walking through a symbolism prompt from start to finish

Let’s build one together so you can see the whole arc.

Prompt: “Write about a character going through a major life change. The only rule: a single pair of shoes appears in every important scene.”

You decide on Lena, who’s about to leave her hometown for the first time.

At the beginning, the shoes are new, still in the box. Her mother bought them “for the interviews you’ll have someday.” They don’t quite fit, but Lena pretends they do. She leaves them in the closet.

Next, she wears them to a local job fair she doesn’t want to attend. They rub her heels raw. She spends most of the day sitting down, wishing she were anywhere else. The shoes are now a symbol of the life she’s being pushed toward.

Later, after a fight with her parents, she throws the shoes into the trunk of her car. They ride with her through three states as she drives toward a city she’s only seen in movies.

In the final scene, she’s late for her first real interview. She’s standing in a tiny apartment, torn between the old shoes and a pair of worn-in sneakers. She chooses the sneakers, shoves the formal shoes under the bed, and runs.

You’ve just used one object to track her relationship with expectation, obligation, and self-trust. No long speeches required.

That’s what symbolism prompts can do: they give you a spine to build your scenes around.

Quick symbolism prompt ideas you can steal

Here are a few you can play with, all built around that “one thing carries extra meaning” idea:

• A character keeps receiving anonymous postcards from the same place they’ve never visited.
• Every time someone lies in the story, a specific song is playing somewhere nearby.
• A family passes down a recipe, but one ingredient is always missing or changed.
• A neighborhood tree appears in three different decades of the same street’s history.
• A character refuses to replace a broken watch, even though they’re always late.

You can drop any of these into whatever genre you like: horror, romance, sci-fi, quiet literary slice-of-life. The symbol will bend to fit.

FAQ: Symbolism in writing prompts

Do I need to know exactly what my symbol “means” before I start?

Not really. You can start with a hunch: “This object feels connected to their fear of change,” or “This weather pattern feels like their denial.” As you draft, you’ll see patterns you didn’t plan. On revision, you can lean into the ones that work and cut the ones that feel forced.

How obvious should my symbolism be?

Somewhere between “invisible” and “neon sign.” If no one notices it, you’ve just written about a random object. If everyone notices it and rolls their eyes, you’ve gone too far. A good test: if you removed the symbol, would the story lose some of its emotional punch? If yes, you’re probably in a good zone.

Can I use more than one symbol in a short piece?

You can, but it’s easy to overdo it. In shorter work, focusing on one strong recurring symbol usually lands harder than sprinkling ten tiny ones everywhere. In a novel, you have more room to weave in multiple threads, but even then, it helps to have one or two that really anchor the rest.

Is symbolism only for “literary” fiction?

Not at all. Mystery writers use symbols all the time as clues and misdirection. Horror leans on symbolic spaces and objects constantly. Romance often uses shared objects or places as emotional anchors. Symbolism is just another tool in your kit, whether you’re writing about ghosts, spaceships, or suburban PTA drama.

How can I get better at using symbolism?

Read with that lens on. Notice how your favorite authors repeat certain images, objects, or places. Ask yourself what changes each time they show up. You can also look at general reading and literature guides from places like the Library of Congress (loc.gov) to see how classic texts are analyzed for recurring motifs. Then, steal the technique, not the symbol.

In the end, symbolism prompts are really just a game: “What if this one small thing mattered more than it seems?” Once you start writing with that question in the back of your mind, even a lost umbrella can carry an entire story on its handle.