Seedance prompt examples: a Vibe Creating library by scenario

The fastest way to learn how to prompt a directed video model is to read prompts that work. This is a library of Seedance prompt examples, grouped by scenario, each written in the Vibe Creating style — expressing intent and feeling rather than spelling out lenses and shot numbers.

Use it as a swipe file. Find the scenario closest to what you're making, see the kind of prompt that gets there, and adapt the shape to your own subject. If you want the method behind these examples first, start with how to write Seedance prompts: the Vibe Creating method — every prompt below is really just the four layers (anchor, action, mood, theme) doing their job. Seedance 2.0 is available on OmniArt, so you can run any of these as you read.

Cinematic emotion

The hardest thing to prompt is a feeling. The trick is to build the emotion out of the scene itself — scale, emptiness, a single gesture — instead of naming it.

Loneliness

Prompt: "An alien intelligence transmits an abstract signal to humankind. A lone woman — a scholar in a sleek deep-space suit — stands before an enormous gaseous signal suspended in a gray-blue sky, reaches up to touch the drifting vapor of light, and murmurs, 'Does the universe still…'"

Waiting and longing

Prompt: "Ink-wash style. A mother stands beneath the old locust tree at the village entrance, looking down the mountain road that winds into the distance. The fields are empty, the sky bare, only withered yellow leaves on the ground. She waits until dark, then turns back, her figure dissolving into the dusk."

Micro-expressions

Some moments live or die on a tiny change of face. Vibe Creating prompts name the gesture and let the model find the flicker.

The candy moment

Prompt: "Animation style. A classroom; the teacher is talking at the blackboard. A girl quietly slips a candy to the boy at the next desk. He looks down — and his ears turn red."

Light, texture, and empty shots

Not every shot needs a story. Some of the most usable clips are pure atmosphere — light, material, and one small motion to mark time.

Wind over an old piano

Prompt: "A single lit candle stands on the lid of an old piano. Cold wind from the window makes the flame sway wildly; wax pools into white-gold drops on the black lacquer. The reflected light trembles across the surface — as if someone is playing a tune you can't hear."

Snow on an empty bridge

Prompt: "Eastern ink-wash. Heavy snow falls on an empty stone arch bridge, the drifts already deep. The river runs slow beneath, carrying a few withered leaves. A crow on the railing shudders and knocks a clump of snow into the water — soundless."

Surreal and dreamcore

This is where Vibe Creating shines, because the goal is a feeling rather than a plot. Ask for the texture of memory or the dread of scale, and let the model interpret.

A fading childhood memory

Prompt: "A 15-second stream-of-consciousness short. The theme is a fast-fading childhood summer: old rooms, white daylight, a fan, worn furniture, a child's silhouette flickering past. Don't tell a complete story — make it a re-remembered, half-lost summer: blurry, washed-out, quiet, impossible to hold onto."

Giant-object dread

Prompt: "A truck driver eases down a fog-wrapped mountain road, visibility low. Suddenly he slams the brakes: a gray-brown 'giant wall' with a rough surface blocks the road ahead. Thinking a landslide has come down, he climbs out, walks up to the 'wall,' reaches out to touch it — and finds the surface is…"

Knowledge, myth, and history

Seedance carries a lot of cultural and physical knowledge, which makes idioms, myths, and historical scenes surprisingly easy to render faithfully.

Adding the eyes to the dragon

Prompt: "A confident young painter is asked to restore a damaged dragon scroll. Everyone doubts his skill. That night, as lightning lights the ink, he finally adds the last stroke — the eyes — and the painted dragon seamlessly comes alive off the silk."

Film pre-visualization

Before you commit to an expensive shot, you can previz the blocking and the look. These are tests, not finals — and that's the point.

Big-scene blocking

Prompt: "The fire-attack at Red Cliff. On the great river, hundreds of warships are chained bow-to-stern. As the southeast wind rises, the first fire-arrow finds the nearest sail; flame races along the chained hulls, and within a few breaths the whole river is a single ribbon of fire — a burning dragon seen from far above."

Auditioning a style

Prompt: "The same street, rendered as two versions side by side. On the left, glittering cyberpunk — flying cars, ads projected onto the rain. On the right, medieval dark — wet cobblestones, candlelight through Gothic windows. Along the seam, elements of the two worlds bleed into each other."

Literary atmosphere and memory

Prose adapts beautifully, especially the move where past and present collide in a single shot.

A revolving-lantern flashback

Prompt: "In a daze, he seems to slip back to a midsummer noon of ease and plenty — the same boy in silk, riding the old mule into town, the street lined with glossy candied haws, a vendor calling after him unheard. Then a cut back: he's crouched in a cracked field, a fistful of sweat-soaked mud in his hand…"

How to adapt these to your own work

The examples above aren't templates to copy word for word — they're shapes. To reuse one:

1. Keep the structure (an anchor, one action, a clear mood, a stated style) and swap in your own subject.
2. Resist re-adding the lenses, shot numbers, and color temperatures. The examples work because they leave them out.
3. Preserve any hard constraints of your own — dialogue, narration, music, sound effects — exactly as written.

For more on the technique, see the Vibe Creating method and the deeper dive on visualizing literature with Seedance. When you're ready, open the video workspace, pick the scenario closest to yours, and start from one of these shapes.