History That Never Was

We’re already to the last weekend of May, which means it’s time for the June 2026 writing prompts!

This month, the first column comes from Doodlewash’s June 2017 World Watercolor Group prompt list. This list is very themed toward summertime and very normal. But it could be interesting to think about what this modern world things might be in a fantasy, sci-fi, or even horror setting!

The second column is Drawing Idea Prompts’ Junebug prompt list. These have some incredibly evocative images created from combing insects and situations. Many of them will fit better with a fantasy setting, but I’m certain you can tweak them to fit other genres as well.

Finally, we have @flancortes’ Kaijune prompt list from 2025. Kaijune is meant to be kaiju themed, but you can also just take the words as they are without that theme.

There’s a bit of overlap amongst the lists, mainly where it comes to summertime insects, but there are also a few other random coincidental overlaps. I’ve placed asterisks on those entries. (And I realized that some people might not understand why I have “lightning bugs” marked. Where I grew up, we used “lightning bugs” instead of “fireflies,” but they’re the same thing. My husband, who grew up on the West Coast, hadn’t seen actual fireflies until he was in my hometown one summer. We don’t get them out here!)

Check back on the last Friday of each month (or occasionally the first day of a new month, when that falls on a Friday) for my History That Never Was writing prompts!

Day	Word 1	Word 2	Word 3
1	Cold drinks	Jewel beetle armor *	Serrated
2	Seashells	Firefly lights *	Armor *
3	Tomatoes	Camouflaged cricket *	Behemoth
4	Flip flops	Hive mind *	Invasion
5	Sunglasses	Mantis in motion	Camouflage *
6	Water	Monarch on the move	Hive *
7	Park bench	Dragonfly wings *	Mecha
8	Seagull	Bee collective	Nightmare
9	Hamburger	Golden scarab	Frozen *
10	Lightning bugs *	Spider web symphony	Eternal
11	Canoe	Ladybug landing	Feast
12	Sand	Insect parade	Ooze
13	Shadows	Butterfly storm	Life cycle
14	Ice cream	Glowworm tunnel	Sunken
15	Dandelions	Tiny traveler on a leaf	Void
16	Salad	Cicada song at sunset	Chromatic
17	Pool	Leaf umbrella explorer	Extinct
18	Watermelon	Coffee cup crawler	Cyber
19	Sailboat	Raindrop hideout	Temporal
20	Bubbles	Insect reflection in water	Seance
21	Grass	Ant teamwork in action	Mythic
22	Frozen treats *	Garden gossip bugs	Cataclysm
23	Hats	Lacewing dreams	Wing span
24	Squirt gun	Bumblebee disco	Slumber
25	Ice cubes *	Insect in a matchbox	Canine
26	Dragonfly *	Shield bug knight	Offspring
27	Cucumbers	Bug fashion runway	Crater
28	Roller coaster	Firefly constellation map *	Omen
29	Snowcone	Insect throne room	Arch angel
30	Fireworks	Beetle traffic jam	Emperor

Tags: fun for friday, inspiration, june, junebug, kaiju, kaijune, writing prompts

This entry was posted by dawn.vogel on Friday, May 29th, 2026 at 6:00 am and is filed under For Fun. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.