Menu

Menu
Prompts
Contests
Stories
Blog
Directory
Contests
Magazine
FAQ

Center your story around a character’s personal exploration, whether it's trying a new hobby, visiting an unfamiliar place, or learning something completely new.

Posted in Character on Apr 19, 2024

Submissions are closed

Make sure you don't miss our next contest by creating your free Reedsy account.

Sign in with Google
Sign in with Facebook

Or use an email address:

Why not check out our active contest?

✍️ 87 stories

Big Ugly Dish

Submitted to Contest #247

This wasn’t my idea. My mom pulled hard on my hand to keep me from looking at the tufts of grass that poked through the sidewalk cracks like hair on a straggly dog. She was always rushing me. This time we were visiting our “new neighbors” who lived in this old tired house on the top of the hill. We moved from a suburb in Columbus out here because they thought it would be a better place to raise me. I didn’t have a say in all this, as you’ve probably guessed. Eleven-year-old girls don’t get to decide where the family moves. My dad works as a ...

13 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

Art for Beginners

Submitted to Contest #247

Room 19, level three. It would have been a lot easier for Jessica to find if the architect of the campus hadn’t seemingly been channelling M. C. Escher tripping on mind-warping hallucinogens. Or if the interior designers had been more direct with their signage, instead of littering the place with vague arrows. Was that one pointing to the stairwell, or around to the left? She’d finally given up when she’d found herself in the dusty basement, where a sour-faced janitor snapped out a route for her. “At least I’ve achieved my aim of speaking t...

12 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

Maternity Leave Goals - Learning Something New

Submitted to Contest #247

Sabrina stretches her spine tall in her desk chair and nervously feathers her unkempt bangs with her left hand. She hasn’t showered in three days and she feels bad about it. She feels greasy even with the dry shampoo she loaded into her hair.Her dominant hand grasps a freshly sharpened pencil and she taps it nervously on the crisp notepad she bought from the store yesterday. She felt proud for making it out of the house.Her chair teeters and totters on the uneven parquet floors in her makeshift office that is really just a corner in her emba...

12 likes 7 comments 7
Read story

Descent Into Vengeance: A Mother's Reckoning

Submitted to Contest #247

***Trigger Warning for sensitive content including bullying, suicide, child loss.***I don’t kill because I enjoy it. No. Everyone would misunderstand if they knew me. But they don’t know anything, because I’m invisible. They don’t even see me anymore. For all they see, I’m just hands slinging sloppy joes day in and day out. But they’re not invisible. Not at all. I see every single cruelty the bullies dish out. And it may be the last thing they ever see, but eventually I’m not invisible anymore.Not that I mind living my life unseen. I wear my...

12 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Sliding Home

Submitted to Contest #247

Charlie O’Brien thought he heard the bell. He wasn’t sure; his hearing wasn’t very good anymore. A bell would mean it was 3:00 p.m. Not that it mattered. His internal clock was accurate. That clock told him school was out. At the janitor’s closet, his inner sanctum, he extracted the waxing machine. It had been there almost since he’d started working and worked like a charm, that heavy aluminum buffer. The old gal could still polish up a mirror finish. He’d replaced the pads more times than he could remember. Wool they were, origina...

11 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

City of Light, Angel of Darkness

Submitted to Contest #247

The day after their wedding, Paul and Léonie Barry set out on their Honeymoon voyage to Paris, not to return to the USA. For Paul, it was the adventure he’d been anticipating for half his life and for Léonie the return she’d been longing for since her family had immigrated and settled in Manhattan three years earlier.Paul had insisted that they only take two suitcases each, because they could buy everything they needed for their new life when they arrived. Léonie didn’t have any difficulty putting everything she owned in two valises, with th...

11 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

That Space Trip

Submitted to Contest #247

I tried to make it work.How hard can it be when you don’t believe that time exists? Think of it. Here I am a (for lack of a better word) librarian responsible for late earth culture and whatnot, trying to process what exactly?That time does not exist.We are not far removed from the idea that existence is not real—except, of course, it is. Most people give up at this point, but not me. I have a job to do.I guess it is time for minutia. He is right before me while my mind is in the clouds. A simple question?“Mister, I heard that people visited...

11 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

The Musical Odyssey of An Amateur Pianist

Submitted to Contest #247

As the final school bell rang, Celeste sprouted up from her seat. Excitement ran its course through her veins, and she couldn’t contain the eager expression on her face as she headed out of her biology class. God, I hate that class, she always thought when she was in the clear to think such a thing. Ms. Smith was evil, according to Celeste and the rest of her grade, and her lack of mind reading powers had yet to be proven. She couldn’t help but stress over the test they just wrote, the test she likely failed. She had studied what she thought...

11 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

War with Mighty Waters

Submitted to Contest #247

The phone jolted me from my lazy Sunday afternoon slumber, beep beep and I groggily answered, expecting the usual mundane inquiries about church events or maybe even a wrong number. It was Reverend Jane on the line, her voice vibrated with energy and excitement. "Kaoli, my dear, we're going with you on an adventure to the Victoria Falls with Julius!" she exclaimed as if I had already agreed to go.The legendary Victoria Falls I heard was a marvel of nature so grand, it seemed like Mother Nature herself decided to show off her waters. I google...

11 likes 1 comment 1
Read story

Creation

Submitted to Contest #247

         Victor’s entire body jerked, and when he opened his fluttering eyes, he discovered that he was teetering on the edge of his mattress. He rolled onto his back and turned his head, staring quizzically at the figures on the shelves across the room. A variety of creatures looked back at him. He threw back the comforter, stretched, and tumbled to the floor with a thump. Fully awake now, he stood and lumbered over to the shelves while running his fingers through his disheveled, raven locks.&nbs...

11 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

Marathon Runner

Submitted to Contest #247

Just put one foot in front of the other. How could it be so difficult, to do something so simple? It had sounded so doable the night before, lying awake in bed at 2 AM, unable to fall asleep, yet again. Ellie really needed to stop drinking coffee so late in the day. That was the problem. She plodded along, trying to concentrate on the soreness in her legs rather than the sloshing cramp in her stomach that she knew would really be her limiting factor. Half a mile down, one and a half to go. Why did she ever think this was a good idea? She wa...

11 likes 1 comment 1
Read story

Abandoned Places

Submitted to Contest #247

Nola and I stayed in the shed for three nights. On our second night, I cut and dyed her hair. We burned her homemade clothes in the park shelter's outdoor fireplace. We watched YouTube videos to learn how hikers pack for the Appalachian Trail to minimize the amount of stuff we'd need to carry from place to place. We decided if anyone asked, Granola and Rags wouldn't cut it for names. So, in honor of our first meeting, Granola became Nola Parks, and I decided on Sarah Ragsdale.  We embarked on a risky adventure on our third and final nig...

11 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

Choices

Submitted to Contest #247

Choices Short Story My cell phone rang. “Detective Kirra Stirling, dead body found at Oakwood Hills Cemetery. Please report.” “Acknowledged. I’m on my way.”A dead body in the cemetery, how original, I thought to myself. Those St. Paul police dispatchers are such comedians.As a kid I remember being in the car with my parents and siblings on a sizzling summer day. As we drove past a cemetery in our old Ford wagon, I asked, “Mom, how many people are dead in there?”“Oh dear, I can’t say.”“I do, ” I chirped, “all of them.” The car filled with lau...

10 likes 1 comment 1
Read story

Thing

Submitted to Contest #247

The Charlottes live in a quaint farmhouse with peeling white paint. They are surrounded by grassy fields and forest, their only neighbors a married couple around their age (Mr. and Mrs. Hermann) living just across the street—although just across the street is at the end of a snaking dirt driveway a little over a mile long, and subsequently another similarly lengthy driveway.The vast fields are ideal for crops, as implied by a barn with nothing but a well and a bit of storage inside and an empty chicken coop built alongside the farmhouse, but...

10 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Doubt rhymes with Workout

Submitted to Contest #247

Alyssa put her hair up into a ponytail, got out of her car, and walked toward a place she never thought she would ever allow herself to enter.  A gym.  Twenty-five years old and overweight, Alyssa had promised herself a long time ago to never focus on the weight on the scale, to eat the foods that made her happy, to accept her body for what it could do. She went on leisurely long walks to enjoy nature, but refused to go to the gym because it held no interest for it. Why would she want to exercise in a dull place?  But onc...

10 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

🌟 Similar prompts

Write a story in the form of diary entries, written by an explorer as they make their way through what they thought was an untouched location.

Adventure – 66 stories

Set your story on a spaceship exploring the far reaches of space when something goes wrong.

Science Fiction – 32 stories

Imagine a world where exploration is forbidden, and write a story about a character who defies this rule to satisfy their innate curiosity.

Dystopian – 59 stories

Write a narrative about a group of scientists exploring the deepest parts of the ocean.

Adventure – 13 stories

How to Write a Novel

Join Tom Bromley for a writing master class and finish your first draft in 3 months. Learn more →

How to Write a Novel