Write a story about someone trying to paint (or otherwise create) a self-portrait.

Posted in Character on Nov 17, 2023

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✍️ 66 stories

“Self Imagery ” by Michelle Oliver

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #225

Florien needed to find a real artist. Well, he was a real artist. Centuries of practice had honed his brush strokes to a level that far exceeded proficient. His landscapes were so vivid that you could feel the warm breeze and the soft sun. Or should that be, feel the soft breeze and warm sun? It had been over two hundred years since he’d set foot beyond these castle walls in daylight hours, so he wasn’t quite sure. But today, he needed to find an artist other than Mrs Bedford at the inn who’d painted the most hideous portrait&...

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“Age is a Broken Promise” by Graham Kinross

Submitted to Contest #225

TW: Swearing, death, suicide, superheroes Karl Cent relaxed in his plush chair surrounded by paintings. “Apex Lad, it’s a pleasure to be invited to the first public exhibition of your paintings. Can you tell me why you chose the title Age is a Broken Promise?” Knowing the camera had cut to the muscular hero, the presenter checked that his microphone was hidden properly by his collar. “I thought that was the obvious bit. Please call me Alex or Apex. The Lad bit is too dated now. That’s the problem with my life. Time is moving on but I’m st...

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“Fairest” by Geir Westrul

Submitted to Contest #225

Looking into my reflective surface, she whispers:"Mirror, Mirror. Who is fairest of them all?"I always answer:"Your majesty, you are fairest of all."... and then I show her the very best social images of herself, the ones that are curated (by me) for the combination of most views and highest number of likes, with all the negging hater troll comments deleted (again, by me, her trusted AI assistant), and the most gushing, fawning, heart-emoji-filled superfan comments sorted to the top.Until today.Instead, today, I say:"Your majesty, ...

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“The Vampire's Hunch” by Nicholas Andrew Clark

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #225

I enter Red Square from the south side. It's late; there's no one else around. My footfalls echo across the bricks. Then I spot him–a slender figure beneath one of the cherry trees outside Drake Hall. Silvery white hair pulled back in a ponytail. Black gloves, combat boots, a wool trench coat, the preferred attire of all psychopaths. I reach into my purse. In the next instant, he is standing right beside me. "Excuse me, Miss?" I pepper spray him in the face. He takes it stoically, with little more than a wince. I empty the entire can, but h...

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“Watercolors” by AnneMarie Miles

Submitted to Contest #225

He tells me to sit still.It is not hard to do. I am lost in thought, lost in my reasons for being here.I keep thinking of that woman I never knew. The person in the painting on the wall in the hallway of the house I grew up in. I keeping thinking about what it would have been like to know her, what it would have been like to call her my grandmother.Or would you have preferred, abuela? Did you speak English? Even that, I do not know. Even that, my father will not say.He only says, You look just like her.I test your name out on my lips: Mary. ...

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“Love Songs for the Deaf” by Delbert Griffith

Submitted to Contest #225

Monday I can paint anyone and make them look good. Except myself. Why this is the case remains a mystery to me. Right now, for example, I’m studying my jawl...

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“Bones” by Noa Garcia

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #225

The newborn skull is made up of 5 bones.By adulthood, it is 22, the face 14.If I were to build a human, I would begin with the skull (occipital, parietals, ethmoidal, etc. etc.). I would build down the spine in individual pieces. I would create a nasal cavity wide and straight enough to breathe through, a cranium large enough to house the brain.But, sitting in front of a linoleum block which is sitting on a chalkboard desk which is sitting on Maine soil on the planet Earth, I am acutely aware that I can not begin from the inside-out of the h...

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“Looks Just Like Me” by Chris Campbell

Submitted to Contest #225

“Describe the shape of his face for me.”“Just like mine, mate.”“So, round?”“Is it? Well, I haven’t been working out a lot lately, so..”“..Describe his hair, please.”“Just like mine, mate.”“Thinning brown with grey roots?”“Oy! I’m younger than I look.”“Length?”“Like mine.”“That’s thinning brown with grey roots just below the ears, and with fluffy greying neck hair.”“I’m overdue a visit to me barber.”“Any bald spots?”“Nuh, Just like me. Hair still on me bonce.”“Can you lean forward just a little, please, Mr. Williams? Thank you. Okay. Note: Sm...

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“The Artist” by Helen A Smith

Submitted to Contest #225

TW: mention of gore.His motley crew – that was how Mike thought of his students, would be joining him shortly. He turned the radiator up two notches in the attic room studio and covered over his most recent work, the one with the pet alligator swimming in the blue tiled pool. Nor exactly his best piece perhaps, but more than adequate for clients with a reptilian menagerie on the Costa de Sol, who in his opinion had more money than sense.The white sheets Mike had spread over the canvasses he’d been working on most recently, gave a faintly sur...

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“Seen: A Mike Dodge Mystery” by Martin Ross

Submitted to Contest #225

After my dad passed, I attended my first and only art auction. In my little sister’s living room. Nine pieces in all, staged on the couch, the maple hearth over the faux-birch faux-fireplace, the guest chairs, Grandma Kendricks’ old rolltop desk.It was a round-robin process, the spoils divided evenly between the three Dodge siblings. I came away with a landscape of hazy western hills and narrow pines, a study of the Alamo, and a still of two lemons and a teapot. Oil on sturdy eighth-inch boarding of the type used to ship provisions in and pr...

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“Self(ie) Portrait” by Nina H

Submitted to Contest #225

For the third time, Reilly’s phone slipped off the table and hit the floor, with a dramatic thud that seemed to say “you failed!” once again. She sighed, picked up the phone, repositioned the selfie circle light attached to it, and checked the timer on the photo setting. Carefully this time, she leaned her phone at an angle she thought would make her face look skinny. She swiped the mode to “Portrait” setting, and mentally prepared herself for her best smile in 3,2,1….. Finally! A picture she can work with. She had been setting up he...

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“Portrait of a Shrew” by Kaitlyn Wadsworth

Submitted to Contest #225

Marcus Trent entered the door of the gallery. He mingled with the people while furtively looking for his daughter, Victoria. He spotted her but tried to appear like a viewer of the artwork displayed on the walls.It had been very kind for Uncle Jack and Auntie Ruth to invite him to see Victoria's first exhibition. She had become well known for her fantastic abstract and still-life paintings. Both styles she does equally well. It puzzled him that anyone would choose something from real life and, with lines and splashes of color, render it unre...

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“Reflect and Refract” by Sheena Singh

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #225

In another life, I was a whip-smart, no-nonsense corporate lawyer who worked 70 hour weeks without flinching. In this one, I was struggling to complete the simplest of tasks. “Give it a shot. No judgment, no overthinking, just a simple drawing or painting or representation of yourself”, Ranjana, my therapist, had said not-so-convincingly. Her lilting, soft voice, typically a comfort to me, had irked me that day. I thought the assignment was a waste of time, and I was artistically challenged. That didn’t seem to matter to her though. On day...

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“Yellows and Blues ” by Smriti Sudhakar

Submitted to Contest #225

cw: implied previous SA It’s just a stupid fucking therapy assignment. One that I’ve specifically gotten a myriad of times. One that I’ve half-assed or full-on ignored. I’m well aware that I need therapy, and I do my best to go into every session with an open mind and do every assignment with sincerity. But this one goddamn prompt never fails to come up whether it be from previous therapists, self-help books, or internet scrounges; it never fails to frustrate me. However, I respect Laura, and that respect inside of me be...

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“Misunderstanding ” by Clarisse King

Submitted to Contest #225

Giana’s beauty, hypnotic in its perfection, never dulled. Even when she scowled, she was glowing. I met Giana in the sixth grade. This was the same year that I read a study in some vicious Cosmo. The study claimed that ninety percent of a randomly sampled population found frowning to be unattractive, aesthetically unappealing to the eye. So ladies, the magazine had urged, remember to show those pearly whites. I had self-consciously consumed the piece with fervent desperation; I needed to be loved as those pink-cheeked, grinning models were...

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Write a story about someone trying to paint (or otherwise create) a self-portrait.

Submissions are closed

✍️ 66 stories

“Self Imagery ” by Michelle Oliver

“Age is a Broken Promise” by Graham Kinross

“Fairest” by Geir Westrul

“The Vampire's Hunch” by Nicholas Andrew Clark

“Watercolors” by AnneMarie Miles

“Love Songs for the Deaf” by Delbert Griffith

“Bones” by Noa Garcia

“Looks Just Like Me” by Chris Campbell

“The Artist” by Helen A Smith

“Seen: A Mike Dodge Mystery” by Martin Ross

“Self(ie) Portrait” by Nina H

“Portrait of a Shrew” by Kaitlyn Wadsworth

“Reflect and Refract” by Sheena Singh

“Yellows and Blues ” by Smriti Sudhakar

“Misunderstanding ” by Clarisse King

🌟 Similar prompts

Start your story with someone buying a cursed — or perhaps blessed —mirror from an antiques store.

Write a story about someone coming across their doppelganger.

Write a story about a character who one day notices that their reflection has taken on a life of its own.

Set your story in a house of mirrors and make the atmosphere increasingly eerie.

Contest #225

Enter our weekly contest!

$250

Prize money

282

Contest entries

106

Stories

Win $250 in our short story competition 🏆

Explore more writing prompt ideas: