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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write from the point of view of a character writing a letter to their past or future self.

Posted in Character on Oct 26, 2022

Submissions are closed

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✍️ 70 stories

“To Influence the Past and Save the Present” by Dayton Lavigne

Submitted to Contest #146

Dear Elliot Zion. I know that when this reaches you, it will not make sense. These words will only ignite your curiosity; that ambition to learn and discover is what will eventually make you become a master practitioner of the arcane arts. From the moment you found your latent power, both you and I recognized that you were destined to become a mage; I want to tell you how far you take that ambition and warn you of the darkness you may face. The elements of fire and ice are your tools of both destruction and creation. The earth you walk a...

2 comments 2
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“My Bitter Sweet Selves” by Valerie Vince

Submitted to Contest #146

Letter to my younger selves,No need for our covert operation anymore, boys, I’m shining the light on the whole damn story. This is my healing. It’s taken me three years to drudge this up from deep inside my cells and set it down on paper for the both of you. It’s written to you, Dave, as an infant, a child, a teen and a mature man. Dan won’t admit to reading it anyways. I might ramble and skip across decades but you’ll both follow. A scene that comes to mind is the first time Dan showed up at Mae’s place eight years ago, wrecked after a...

3 comments 3
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“Dear Fifteen,” by Shawn Wier

Submitted to Contest #146

TW: implied death, suicidal ideation, depression, child sexualization, body dysphoria, disordered eating, implied abuse. Get ready for the beginning of every past-self letter ever written: If only you'd known. First: You're autistic and have ADHD. Read about how those things affect girls specifically. Talk with Mama and Daddy and Dr. Pat about it. I often wonder how much pain could have been avoided if I'd known why I felt so out of place; how much I wouldn't have had to give up on if I'd known to approach it from a different perspective...

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“Dear: Past Self ” by Josie Tibbo

Submitted to Contest #146

Dear past self,This is your future self writing to you about what you have to look forward to in the years ahead. It’s been a wild ride so far, hasn’t it? It gets wilder, but don’t be daunted. Here’s what I want you to know. I know you might be confused right now, feeling like the world is flying around you, but trust me- you are going to figure it all out. I want to tell you to have more faith in yourself and to spend less time worrying and more time being proud of how far you have already come. You are probably curious about where your edu...

2 comments 2
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“Larry's Letter” by Anna Gering

Submitted to Contest #146

Few of us write letters anymore. But there are great benefits to writing a physical letter. There is something reassuring about the physical presence of the paper, the personality of the inked handwriting. A letter can make you feel close to someone who is far away. Let’s consider the case of a man named Larry. Larry was the man whom everybody liked. He was charming, sweet, and funny. He could make almost anyone laugh. He had a gift for making funny faces. He was easy going and got along well with other people. Yet the truth was, under this ...

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“Dear Harold” by Kat. L Haywood

Submitted to Contest #146

“Come on, Harold. One more spoonful. You’ve got a busy day ahead.” The woman says, and again I wonder, with fleeting familiarity, who is Harold and what cause he has to be so damn busy. But the thought becomes unsteady, teetering, before it slides into the abyss of stray thoughts that never seem to gain purchase. Then I’m a drop in a pond of the half-imagined, and everything beyond that is grey and unimportant. “Here,” fingers curl my own around a long silver instrument. “Eat up.” Though the sensation of holding a thing is absent, the blunt ...

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“Dear Me” by Cynthia Newby

Submitted to Contest #146

Dear Me Written by Cynthia Newby Kimmy sat in her rocking chair in her bedroom with her faithful companion and best friend, Luna. Luna slept in her dog bed not far from Kimmy. She just returned to the house after she retrieved the mail. She didn't like going outside much, but no one else was home. Something inside her nudged her to check the mailbox. She noticed that the letter was addressed to her. She had no idea who would write her. She almost threw it away as she thought it was just someone playing a prank on her, taunting her, or bull...

2 comments 2
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“Reminiscence and Pixie Dust” by Cyan Villanueva

Submitted to Contest #146

A woman in her late twenties with shoulder length dark brown hair, sits down at a worn mahogany desk in her study. A desk that once belonged to her father, the one he used to work on when writing his stories for his publisher. The one she’d sit on as a child and enjoy hearing those same stories read to her, because he always valued her opinion. A large window is behind her, which shows a forest shrouded in moonlight and shadows. She’s surrounded by bookcases on either side of her. A small white table sits in the corner a little ways away, a ...

2 comments 2
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“Dear Future Me Hopefully” by Anthony Fecondo

Submitted to Contest #146

Dear future me, Hopefully, you are reading this. The way life is going right now, I'm scared you may have already made your own peace. Today was hard. Not in the sense that anything particularly bad happened, but rather that the weight of life felt heavier. Maybe it is always this heavy, but my awareness was more acute. Either way, the burden I carry which normally only constitutes a minor inconvenience, today threatened to crush me. The simplest task, like getting out of bed, was a mountain that required the full force of my will to c...

1 comment 1
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“Dear Future Self” by Judi Wallower

Submitted to Contest #146

Dear Future Self,           I know I didn’t always make the right life choices, but that’s in the past and the past cannot be changed no matter how hard I wish for it.I wasn’t the most responsible, I spent money I did not have, I loaned money to people who I knew weren’t going to pay me back. I bought beer for underage kids, and I didn’t care what happened. I took partying to the very limits, drinking all I can every weekend. Challenged others to drinking contests until we passed ou...

2 comments 2
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“Memories in Ink” by R W Mack

Submitted to Contest #146

I couldn’t hear as much as experience it, feeling like I could be a part. The grand orchestra of existence sang around as much as inside me. It was so much more than sound. Moreso the spirit of symphonic resonance through my being. If someone told me that music was eternity, I would’ve washed in it and never thought back. It took two months of speech therapy to regain my voice. Twice as long to read again. Aphasia wasn’t nearly as frustrating as years of regaining my own body through physical therapy and that paled in comparison to the impa...

1 comment 1
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“Futurerama” by Marcia H.

Submitted to Contest #146

Dear Future Self: It’s me Journey. I am sitting here in the present looking out of my living room window at the blanket of black crows which have gathered on my front lawn. They are making noise talking to each other and eating my seeds I put on the lawn so the lawn would grow. I knew that was a mistake as soon as I looked out of the window this morning. But, nonetheless, there they are and here I am.  I wish that sometimes I had a crystal ball. I would look into it from time to time to see what the future held and if I didn’t like ...

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“We're OK Now” by Shalon Atwood

Submitted to Contest #146

Hi. It’s me. Again.  We turn 30 this week. Whaaaaat? I know, I know, where does the time go?  They say it flies when you’re… working, paying bills and trying to figure out what the fuck is wrong with you, right? No, that can’t be it. As you know, it obviously hasn’t been all sunshine and roses, but lately it hasn’t been a complete pile of dog shit either. So, progress? For starters, I drove a car for the first time in 10 years. OK, that one time that mom cut off her finger chopping potatoes does not count. I was certainly havin...

4 comments 4
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“Dear Blake” by Andrew Audibert

Submitted to Contest #146

[This story contains descriptions of depression and suicidal thoughts] Dear Blake, I know what you’re thinking. Don’t do it. I’ve been with you here before, in the bathroom, sitting on the toilet, holding mom’s bottle of Ambian, and shaking, hesitating…just…just waiting to commit. You’re sad. I know it. Downright despaired! Nobody cares about you enough to notice anything’s wrong. They’re too busy with their own lives to give yours any credence. Honestly, they probably wouldn’t notice you were gone until you started to stink up the pla...

2 comments 2
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“Two feet, One ball, Zero Target” by Kel Bickford

Submitted to Contest #146

Two feet, One ball, Zero Target Dear Myself, We were was lost to the sea, our body I mean. As you know, we are a human who loves to travel the world, longing for somewhere we can call home and reside at for the rest of our life; this is still the case but everything has changed now. One day when we were walking in the vast woods of Aokigahara, up in Mount Fuji, when a bird flew past. I am now going to describe to you the story of how it all happened. It was a yellow bird, with yellow feathers, a black beak, and black feet. It flew past ...

3 comments 3
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