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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?

🥇 Winning story

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

Submitted on 10/09/2019

“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 bicycl...

18 comments 18 WINNER 🏆

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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.

General – 45 stories

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

General – 39 stories

Write a story about someone who is unexpectedly wise.

General – 21 stories

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

General – 16 stories

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

General – 28 stories

Stories

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

Submitted on 10/09/2019

“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 bicycl...

18 comments 18 WINNER 🏆

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“It Will be Okay.” by Cam Croz

Submitted on 10/06/2019

"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 ...

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“The Fall” by Mable Varghese

Submitted on 10/08/2019

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 ...

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“Wolf Aaron and the Wild Sceptre” by Zilla Babbitt

Submitted on 10/04/2019

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 ...

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“Luck be a Lady” by Alexander Ferrick

Submitted on 10/05/2019

“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 w...

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“Villain, viper” by Marte Van der linden

Submitted on 10/09/2019

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 ...

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“Going in a Circle” by Amy Foster

Submitted on 10/11/2019

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...

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“Inseparable” by Twilight Bee

Submitted on 10/07/2019

“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, ‘...

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

Submitted on 10/09/2019

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...

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“Somersault with Einstein” by Zilla Babbitt

Submitted on 10/04/2019

Well, he was a failure. Yeary knew that.And not just his artistic ability. He knew that was a failure as well. His most recent piece, Somersault with Einstein, featured bits of tissue paper twisted into a shape resembling Einstein slightly—or maybe it was a penguin—or a blobfish—and glued onto an enormous canvas. Then he’d pencil-drawn the Embodiment of Somersault, somersaulting around Einstein’s head. It wasn’t just that. Not j...

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“Its a mental struggle that wins the physical” by Viney Kirpal

Submitted on 10/11/2019

Kenny was lifting the ball cleverly with his foot and sending it speeding across the wet football field but not letting it fall into opponent hands.

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“jUst rIght” by Sakura Nakamura

Submitted on 10/09/2019

“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...

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“Piecewise” by Zilla Babbitt

Submitted on 10/04/2019

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 ...

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“Of Peace & Quiet” by Elliott Laurence

Submitted on 10/12/2019

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 build...

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“You Know I'm Trying” by Anna Luksha

Submitted on 10/06/2019

The silence woke her. What happened to the crashing waves inside her head, and the gunshots ringing through her ears? The usual war going on that she couldn't show anyone, and the screaming regret and pain? Sweat and tears poured down her face and stung her eyes. She saw the book thrown across the floor from her kicking and running through her nightmares and sat up to close it. The cover read, "It's All In My Head. How to rid yourself of the demons taking over your mind." For years she had fel...

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$50

Prize money

184

Submissions

Ended on 23:59 - Oct 11, 2019 EST

Won by Andrew Grell 🏆

Title: To Suffer For One's Art

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