Menu

Prompts

Contests

Stories

Blog

Menu

✕

CONNECT

Editing Design Marketing Publicity Ghostwriting Websites

BLOG

Success Stories

APPS

TOOLS

Book Promotion Sites Book Review Blogs Booktube Channel Guide Book Title Generator Character Name Generator Independent Publishers Literary Agents Literary Magazines Pen Name Generator Plot Generator Publishers Directory Short Story Ideas Writing Contests Writing Exercises Writing Scholarships

ABOUT

About Reedsy Terms Privacy

CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#127: Gut Feelings

Most people know December 31st as New Year’s Eve, but did you know it’s also Make Up Your Mind Day? Unfortunately for many of us, making your mind up is more easily said than done. I always want to make a considered decision, but oftentimes wind up relying on gut instinct alone.

This week's prompts are all about intuition, and the strange way we sometimes know what to do without understanding how we know it. Whether you believe intuition is a sign sent from the universe, or the workings of your own subconscious, it’s time to trust your creative instincts and get writing for the very first contest of 2022. Happy New Year!

This week's prompts

Begin your story with a character having a gut feeling they cannot explain.

Thriller and Suspense – 75 stories

Write about a character whose intuition is always right — until one day it isn’t.

Horror – 22 stories

Write a story about a problem with no good solutions.

Angst – 32 stories

Write about a character learning to trust their intuition.

Character – 27 stories

Your character makes a living faking psychic powers. One morning, they wake up with real ones.

Fantasy – 64 stories

Stories

“The Setup” by Haider Rizvi

Submitted to Contest #127

Riz couldn’t understand why his parents were making such a big deal. A co-worker of Riz’s father was coming over for dinner with his family. Taha…Bakri, Riz believed. He hadn’t paid much attention when his parents had told him over a week ago that they would be having guests, but now he wish he did; maybe he had misheard and there were much more people coming, because his mother was in shambles trying to make sure the house looked perfect. Even Riz’s father, who usually helped but with a much calmer demeanor, was panicking as much as hi...

Read story

“Trust Your Intuition ” by Angie N

Submitted to Contest #127

It was 7 am and Crystal was getting ready to go on her blind date. She sprayed perfume that smelled like roses. She took a long hot shower and put on a scintillating dress covered in sliver. She took her time so that she could look pristine. She did not know much about her blind date other than the fact that his name was Jonathan, he was 28 years old and had a business master’s degree.As Crystal was about to leave, she had felt something in her gut, it was befuddling and tingly. It made her uncomfortable and much more inquisitive about the m...

Read story

“Selling crime” by E. Roux

Submitted to Contest #127

I feel a knot in my stomach as I approach the door to Mr. Russo’s office. This can’t be good, but I cannot back down at this point. He already knows I’m here. For the past ten years since I took command of the weapons’ dealings department in Calabria, that knot has saved me many times. Say it’s a warning signal from universe, say it intuition, this thing has served me well and I have no good reason not to trust it. And its presence now starts to worry me. I met Valentino Russo about a month ago at a gala held in a manor house in the out...

Read story

“Blame” by Connie Elstun

Submitted to Contest #127

I ain’t never forgave my Ma for selling my pony; like she ain’t never forgiven me for not telling her sooner bout’ my brother’s injury. I hate to say this, but I’m missing that pony more than my little brother, but Pawpaw said it just ain’t right to feel that way.By the way, my name is Abigail Holts; I go by Abby. I’m twelve years old, and I now live on my Pawpaw’s Hereford Cattle Ranch thirty miles east of Wild Horse, Colorado. If you don’t know, that’s pretty much close to nowhere and HELL. Pardon my French; Pawpaw doesn’t like me saying H...

Read story

“Dreaming of saving Lillivale” by Emerald Lace

Submitted to Contest #127

She stood barefoot on the scorched ground trying to take a clean breath through the rancid, billowing smoke and watched as the last of the monsters fell into a pile of ash at the end of a fiery blade. The warriors should be thrilled, as they had won the night, but she felt deep in her soul that something was coming for them all. Rampage, her most trusted follower, came to stand next to her. He wiped a soiled hand across his forehead, smearing the savage evidence of war ...

Read story

“Incomprehensible” by Channa Brown

Submitted to Contest #127

It’s a feeling, one I’m not sure I could or should explain. I don’t think feelings are meant to be explained; they are sacred to the heart, not the tongue. Still, this feeling begs to be understood, articulated to its fullest extent and depth. I lack not the motivation, merely the ability. How could I put in words the symphony your eyes conduct when they meet mine? How could I make fathomable the sincerity of my love? I’ve spent all these years trying to make sense of what it is you inspire in me, but I’ve come to the desperate conclusion th...

Read story

“The Transformation of Rupert Sweet” by John Simes

Submitted to Contest #127

The Transformation of Rupert Sweet a short story by John Simes ‘Snow blanketed the landscape, it muffled sound and hid the roads.’ Rupert Sweet stared bleakly at the sentence. Same old crap. Of course, the sodding snow muffled sound and hid the sodding roads. What else would it sodding well do? Always the same. Amanda Tempest (aka Lavinia Stoate) always started her nauseatingly sanctimonious so-called novels with the same kind of opening sentence. If it wasn't snow, it would be a row of benighted willow trees, tossing their branches ...

Read story

“Midnight Mayhem” by Chris Campbell

Submitted to Contest #127

"I AM NOT GOING DOWN THERE!"Lisa looked at me with an amused expression bordering on ridicule."It's an alley," she replied mockingly.Nervously, I surveilled the dimly lit, damp, brick and stone passageway. A wall on one side and a large group of old headstones on the other caused me to hesitate.“It just passes through the church grounds,” she added.Darting across the other end of the alley, I thought I spotted someone running towards the church in a red suit with horns on their head - a trailing cape fluttering in the breeze. The sound ...

Read story

“Undetected” by Jalissa Cooper

Submitted to Contest #127

It was an odd feeling I had when I woke up that day. Something in my very core that conveyed to me, this was the day. What day? I asked myself as if some obscure part of my brain could answer me. I shook the feeling off as I slipped out from under the warmth of my bed covers.Seconds later, I peered out my bedroom window and instantly knew what had me feeling so on edge; It was only last week the detectives had found my neighbors dead body and the mere thought of it chilled me to the bone.Not even I was aware of when or who had committed such...

Read story

“Gut Feelings Can Come True” by John Steckley

Submitted to Contest #127

Greg woke up early in the morning with an impatience that he could neither resist nor explain. It was the first morning of the new year, one of the few days in which he allowed himself to sleep in late. But that wasn’t going to be the case on this day. No sleeping position that he tried worked. Neither did ever diminishing bottles of beer on the wall that ‘happened to fall’. So he got upGregg was experiencing a gut feeling that he should be somewhere soon. He just didn’t know the location or why he should want t...

Read story

“Sweetheart” by Christine Badiian

Submitted to Contest #127

“Oh God! I’m so hungry! I’m so afraid! I have to take care of myself if I want to have my babies live but how can I do that? I’m so hungry! I’m so afraid!” She was frantic. Living on the streets by herself had been difficult. During her first heat at only six months of age, she had gotten pregnant. Now she had four kittens to take care of. Finding enough food for herself had been a challenge, now her needs were so much greater. Every day she went out to scrounge for whatever she could find, usually only garbage and not nearly enough. She...

Read story

“The Orb has spoken” by Dragos Marcean

Submitted to Contest #127

The room was dark. Two human-shaped shadows were dancing on the walls to the song of flickering candles. The glow of the Magical Orb shed some light on the focused and serious face of Lady Magdalena Florea. The smoke machine she installed under the small, round table added to the eerie atmosphere in The Chamber of Mystic Vision, as it was called by the Mystic Lady. The back wall was decorated with a big black carpet with red and yellow flower motifs, flanked by two paintings of the Eye of Horus and above this triad, reigned an icon o...

Read story

“The Wind” by Zea MindWerl

Submitted to Contest #127

Cai opened her dark eyes and stared up at the moonlit ceiling. She had just had a dream. Something about it felt very familiar, like the smell of her grandmother's house, or the feel of summer rain on your face. And yet she couldn’t remember it at all. All that remained was this lingering feeling. She lay there letting the warm feel of familiarity settle around her, trying to gently coax the dream to come back. But dreams are fickle beasts and this one it seemed had tramped away for good.The wind came then and blew her green curtains through...

Read story

“The Walk” by Douglas J. Veverka

Submitted to Contest #127

Carol shot up in bed. She was covered in sweat and gasping for air as stiffened arms held her up. It felt like a python constricted around her chest while her stomach spewed lava into her throat. She looked straight ahead into the blurry darkness, listening, hoping for silence, but it came again. The sound penetrated her ears and she knew there was no avoiding it. She knew it was the darkness bringing her greatest fear. Her lips quivered as she blurted out the words, “Jeff! Jeff! Get up! Now! Get up!” Blonde hair rustled o...

Read story

“This is the thing” by Ainslie Caswell

Submitted to Contest #127

My grades have always been fine. They're fine. They're good. Good. Just good. What else could they be? It's elementary school. There's nothing else but good. There is either good or failing, and failing means they put you in the downstairs classes. And we all know what that means. What I'm saying is: everyone's grades are good. If they're not good, you go away. I'm not sure where else you go except the downstairs classes. I'm sure there are other places. Otherwise, you stay in the regular classes. That's where the regular kids stay...

Read story

Load more stories

$250

Prize money

220

Contest entries

135

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Jan 07, 2022 EST

Won by Dena Linn 🏆

Title: The Problem Is

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!

Explore more writing prompt ideas:

Adults Writing Prompts ⭢

Adventure Writing Prompts ⭢

Angst Writing Prompts ⭢

Character Writing Prompts ⭢

Christmas Writing Prompts ⭢

Dark Writing Prompts ⭢

Dialogue Writing Prompts ⭢

Dramatic Writing Prompts ⭢

Dystopian Writing Prompts ⭢

Fall Writing Prompts ⭢

Fantasy Writing Prompts ⭢

Fiction Writing Prompts ⭢

Fluff Writing Prompts ⭢

Funny Writing Prompts ⭢

Halloween Writing Prompts ⭢

High School Writing Prompts ⭢

Historical Fiction Writing Prompts ⭢

Holiday Writing Prompts ⭢

Horror Writing Prompts ⭢

Kids Writing Prompts ⭢

Middle School Writing Prompts ⭢

Mystery Writing Prompts ⭢

Narrative Writing Prompts ⭢

Nonfiction Writing Prompts ⭢

Novel Writing Prompts ⭢

Poetry Writing Prompts ⭢

Romance Writing Prompts ⭢

Sad Writing Prompts ⭢

Science Fiction Writing Prompts ⭢

Short Story Writing Prompts ⭢

Spring Writing Prompts ⭢

Summer Writing Prompts ⭢

Teens Writing Prompts ⭢

Thanksgiving Writing Prompts ⭢

Thriller and Suspense Writing Prompts ⭢

Valentine's Day Writing Prompts ⭢

Vampire Writing Prompts ⭢

Winter Writing Prompts ⭢