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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#10: Peanuts

On October 2, 1950, the Peanuts comic strip by Charles M. Schulz made its debut in nine American newspapers. Bringing beloved characters like Charlie Brown and Snoopy into our lives, Peanuts is one of the most popular comic strips ever published. In fact, with 17,897 strips published during its lifetime, it's been credited as "arguably the longest story ever told by one human being."

To celebrate Charlie Brown and his gang, this week's writing prompts are all inspired by characters from the comic. Can you guess who?

🥇 Winner

“To Suffer For One's Art” by Andrew Grell

🏆 Winner of Contest #10

“Buy a girl a drink, Picasso?” Lucille was two-stepping on the line between being annoying and being flirtatious. Neither was effective. “I’m working.” John Jaspers was desperately attempting to maintain focus on the new style. “You know, Dali, if a man loved a woman, you’d think he’d fix her a drink, wouldn’t you?” “My hands are covered in cadmium red. There’s a bottle of Jameson’s on the breakfront between the bicycle helmet and the bobble-head dog. Glasses are in the kitchen, there’s a bottle of seltzer in the ice...

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⭐️ Shortlisted

“Wolf Aaron and the Wild Sceptre” by Zilla Babbitt

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #10

He was a stranger, and he was strange. He had thick black hair and spiky handwriting and he stuttered.He was an odd one out, and he didn’t know if he was loved.His name was Aaron.Aaron was young, with strong fingernails and a typing score of two hundred words a minute. He didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. He was in the tenth grade and he was a shunned oddball.Poor Aaron. He did not talk very much. He had red, scarred fingers from a long-ago fire, and though he was smart, not many of the kids knew it, because he kept his mouth s...

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“The Great Bunny Heist of '97” by Jessica C

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #10

It was summer. More specifically, it was the first summer we were truly free. We had graduated just a few days before, and now we were in limbo between childhood and adulthood. A cool, sweet smelling evening breeze hit my bare arms as I lay in the dewy grass of Fulton’s front yard. Beside me, Fulton sprawled listlessly, contemplating the starts. Trixie the old beagle howled mournfully from her back yard kennel. The David house loomed above us at the base of the mountain. Mr. David swore that it was hau...

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“Peanuts” by Unknown User

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #10

I had a dream last night. I was sixteen again, hunting the muskeg swamps around Blackduck in search of the huge white snowshoe hares that hide there. Peanuts was with me, sniffing his way through the brush and the saw grass, rooting out those giant rabbits that were easily as big as he. We were having a great time. I lost the dream, though, when the bed suddenly started to sag and jiggle as something climbed over the mattress, turned around three times and lay down. Peanuts hadn't done that in at least four years...

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“Desperately Seeking Naomi” by Amy Wannenburgh

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #10

Matthew pushes open the door of the tiny apartment. Naomi’s leaning over a hamster cage by the far window, and she’s still in her nightgown, with her hair a tangled mess on her shoulders. Matthew frowns. “Door’s unlocked. You know that, right?” She shudders, and he sees the tears on her cheeks. “Naomi? Are you alright?” “It’s – it’s my hamster. Was.” “Was.” “My hamster died.” She mutters something under her breath and stands up briskly, seizing the cage by the handle. Matthew stands awkwardly in the doorway. “Well come in,” she says, an...

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“Therapy” by Shannon Meyers

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #10

It was the birds that woke me. Every morning at five, the brown sparrows that lived in my vent screeched. I lived on the third floor and sometimes rain or the occasional unlucky egg would fall from the vent and onto my bookshelf. I put a towel there so the wood wouldn’t get damaged and after the third egg I bought a tiny brush-the kind that girls use to put that pink stuff on their cheeks. I would brush the unborn birds into a paper towel and leave them wrapped up in the bushes outside my complex. Dead or alive, birds don’t belong inside. Th...

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“Touching the sky” by Fran Tracey

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #10

‘It’s a sign.’Lucy pointed towards the white feather fluttering to the ground, narrowly avoiding Freya’s coffee and landing on the table. It rested for a moment or two, rocking gently. Both young women watched as a slight gust of wind lifted it up, carrying it onwards.‘It’s not a sign. It’s those two pigeons, up there, look, on the balcony. It’s biology. They’re, well, he’s ruffling her feathers, so to speak, and…’‘Too much information,’ Lucy said, holding up what could have been either a conciliatory or peremptory hand. ‘It’s no wonder a fe...

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This week's prompts

Write a story about a character who remains resilient even when things feel like they're constantly going wrong.

Character – 42 stories

Write a story about a character who is trying to create art but is constantly interrupted.

Funny – 38 stories

Write a story about someone who is unexpectedly wise.

Character – 18 stories

Write a story about someone who believes they are an extremely good judge of character.

Character – 16 stories

Write a story about two friends who have a knack for understanding each other better than anyone else.

Character – 26 stories

Stories

“Wolf Aaron and the Wild Sceptre” by Zilla Babbitt

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #10

He was a stranger, and he was strange. He had thick black hair and spiky handwriting and he stuttered.He was an odd one out, and he didn’t know if he was loved.His name was Aaron.Aaron was young, with strong fingernails and a typing score of two hundred words a minute. He didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. He was in the tenth grade and he was a shunned oddball.Poor Aaron. He did not talk very much. He had red, scarred fingers from a long-ago fire, and though he was smart, not many of the kids knew it, because he kept his mouth s...

Read story

“To Suffer For One's Art” by Andrew Grell

🏆 Winner of Contest #10

“Buy a girl a drink, Picasso?” Lucille was two-stepping on the line between being annoying and being flirtatious. Neither was effective. “I’m working.” John Jaspers was desperately attempting to maintain focus on the new style. “You know, Dali, if a man loved a woman, you’d think he’d fix her a drink, wouldn’t you?” “My hands are covered in cadmium red. There’s a bottle of Jameson’s on the breakfront between the bicycle helmet and the bobble-head dog. Glasses are in the kitchen, there’s a bottle of seltzer in the ice...

Read story

“Piecewise” by Zilla Babbitt

Submitted to Contest #10

The water was black. Feathery fingers of swill rested atop the clear black waves, rushing along to the south and bringing their familiar stench to the city with it. Wrecked boats, bloody rags, a whale’s worth of dead leaves from upriver, old clothes, wreckage from long-gone houses; everything ended up in the river at least once in its lifetime. Edward Piecewise stared down at the water. He contemplated his reflection, or at least what forced its way back up to him through the garbage that obscured the water. His face rippled, and anyway it ...

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“It Will be Okay.” by Cam Croz

Submitted to Contest #10

"Vroom!" The bright young child said, mimicking the sound of a car engine as she slid her neon green race car across the plush carpet."Vroooom!"Cars were her favorite, and the little girl just couldn't wait till' she turned 16 would finally be able to drive one...Legally anyway.Just the mere idea of cars fascinated her tiny mind. They moved you from place to place with the push of a button and could always be relied on to get you wherever you were going in record timing. Much better than her rickety old bike anyway. Although the girl's bike ...

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“jUst rIght” by Maybe Jupiter

Submitted to Contest #10

“Okay, thank you all for choosing me as your artist of the year this year! I thank you very much, and now let me just tell you-”I sigh, and throw the pencil that I have tapped nearly a thousand times with onto the ground. It lands with the usual tut, and lay there still. I watch the pencil for a while, and study all of the teeth marks and scratches from anxiety through the previous few years. Not that there is much to study. I have looked at it the same way yesterday. And maybe the day before. And maybe… I scream in frustration, fingering my...

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“The Fall” by Mable Varghese

Submitted to Contest #10

Fall-Fail rhymes,right?As if they have similar meaning.Falling in love and then failing in love are not rare.Also Falling in negative and then failing in life too.Our hero,Eddie, had gone through both.Eddie was an energetic,active,talented guy,but being fallen while facing the life,made him negative.He had already forgotten the value of enjoying the 'moment'.Instead started rewinding the past and anticipating the future,which made him more and more depressed.He is alone,away from his family,running a toy shop in London.Being gone through bre...

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“Inseparable” by Yoomi Ari

Submitted to Contest #10

“You are beautiful, You are brave, You are the best person I’ve ever met, I love you!” Those were the words I would have loved to hear, but instead I heard words that were horrible, nasty and take away your self-motivation. It‘s like your drowning and the people you care for, let you, it makes you build a steel wall in which your thoughts are the only things that can help you. It’d wrap you up into its embrace and comfort you, then it backstabs you and instead goes back to the horrible side, ‘mental and physical torture’ they call it but I c...

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“Villain, viper” by Marte Van Der Linden

Submitted to Contest #10

The snotty-nosed kid from next door rang the doorbell for the seventeenth time in three weeks. David knew it was her before he’d wrenched the door open. No one else rang SOS in Morse code.“Hello mister! I’m sorry to bother you but -”“You kicked your ball onto my balcony.” David stood back and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Go get it then.”“Thank you!”The kid bounded down the hallway and returned a moment later with a ball and a grin plastered onto her freckled face. After some blithe assurances that she’d be more careful, she was gone. Dav...

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“Luck be a Lady” by Alexander Ferrick

Submitted to Contest #10

“You’re gonna regret this,” she said. I smiled a little. “Sam,” I said, “I’m sorry, but this just isn’t working out. You’re a great girl, and I’m sure you’ll find someone. That someone just isn’t me. Not right now.” She left in a huff, and that was the last time I ever saw Samantha Luck. That was a few months ago, and since then things have been… weird. Not like… alien invasion weird, but like… pretty weird, y’know? It’s hard to explain, but I’ll give you an example. I woke up this morning drenched in sweat, because my A/C wen...

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“Of Peace & Quiet” by Laurentz Baker

Submitted to Contest #10

How much does it cost to give us peace and quiet? Do we act the fool when you’re working? No. Do we scream and holler at the television at 2:00 A.M.? No. So what is the problem? We’ve asked on several occasions. But you don’t seem to get it. Other people have a life to live as well. I get it. You need to kick back and enjoy your downtime. I enjoy mine while you’re painting. Why can’t you enjoy your downtime while I’m writing without utterly disturbing me and the whole building? Use headphones you say. You simply want to watch television and ...

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“Going in a Circle” by Amy Foster

Submitted to Contest #10

I have always felt as though strings were attached, like I was life's marionette. My name is Ivy, and I’m fifteen. I have medium colored brown hair, hazel eyes, and two older siblings. I’m your typical, yet somehow, not typical fifteen-year-old. Since I was around four, I have had very present medical issues: heat strokes, chronic tonsillitis, and even a dormant form of epilepsy. Not only do I have all these medical issues, I have social problems as well. In Pre-K, I started being bullied for the why I smiled, the way my hair was cut, ...

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“In the end, Friendship won...” by Rucha Pantoji

Submitted to Contest #10

It's been 6 years since Kim left Manhattan. After the death of her parents in a car accident, she went to live with her grandma in Philadelphia. It wasn't too far for Kim to come and visit her old school friends, but she couldn't. She was too afraid to face that city who took her parents away from her. She was too afraid to face the beautiful memories she had with her parents in that city. She was trying to move on in her life and she was winning in all this moving on stuff. But the truth was, she was missing her best friend Rachel. Rachel,...

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“The Split” by John K Adams

Submitted to Contest #10

`David knew big kids eat lunch with big kids. David was a little kid. That’s why his sisters didn’t lunch with him.When he became a big kid, little kids would eat with little kids.And anyway, girls don’t eat with boys, no matter what size they are. It’s the way things work. Those are the rules. David’s mother, Debra, didn’t get it. She worried about David being stuck in a wheelchair. He rarely thought about that. When making their lunches for the day, Debra always said, “Hey kids, I know you trade and share. But be sure to get something good...

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“Parallel Lines” by Gayatri Varma

Submitted to Contest #10

I see them walk every day, slow at first then pace up, Vicki with her dog, and Little Raj, holding his mother’s hand. There is a distance of five feet between but they always walk in parallel. My daughter talked about parallel lines, ‘they never meet’ she said with a sad face. The thought two lines not meeting dismayed her. I saw her draw two parallel from the living room to the kitchen trying her best to make them meet. She sat down next to me and placed her on my lap. Her soft smooth hair curls around my hand, her face so innocent that my ...

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“Masterpiece” by Lee Kull

Submitted to Contest #10

Knock, knock, knock.Tell me I didn't hear that coming from upstairs. Not right now. I'm too busy to bother with nonsense.Knock, knock, knock.Ignore it, I tell myself. Maybe they'll go away and bother somebody else. Wouldn't that be nice?Bang, bang, bang."Coming! Jeeze, I'm coming already."My feet pound up the stairs as I go to get the door. Why can't they leave well enough alone? It always happens. People are always coming around when I don't need them, and when I do need them they're nowhere to be found. Right now, I need to focus. There is...

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$50

Prize money

140

Contest entries

0

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Oct 11, 2019 EST

Won by Andrew Grell 🏆

Title: To Suffer For One's Art

Submissions must be between 1,000 - 3,000 words and will be approved and published on Reedsy Prompts within 7 days of the contest closing.

Read the full terms & conditions or check out the FAQ if you have any questions!

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