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#130 What's in a Name?

This week, I’ve been thinking a lot about names: our names, and the names we give to stories, and the way they shape people’s expectations. So I’ve decided to try something new: as you’ll see, two of this week’s prompts let you play around with our Title Generator and Character Name Generator to spark ideas — and the rest explore what the implications of titles and names can be. Have fun!

🥇 Winner

A Man's Man

Winner of Contest #130 🏆

Content warning: Language They knew I wasn’t cut out for war the moment they stuck an M4 Carbine in my hands. I had lady fingers while the soldiers around me had hands made to strangle and calluses that grated their rifles into submission. To die for my country, surrounded by the sweaty men it rounded up into its service, was not a lifelong goal of mine. To be fair, I didn’t have a lifelong goal. A younger version of myself had been set on teaching preschool, or kindergarten—didn’t matter really. I just loved kids. That dream was doused ...

178 likes

118 comments 118

⭐️ Shortlisted

Reaper and the Moon

Shortlisted for Contest #130 ⭐️

Content Warning: Car accident and DeathTwo things in life remained certain- the inevitability of death and the peaceful falling of night.Scott sat among the evergreen, listening to the stray cars pass on the highway as he looked up to the moon. It was the time of night when traffic was nearly nonexistent. A few long-haul semis and the occasional car humming by. Not the car he was waiting for though. Not yet.He could feel it getting closer. A sort of soft buzz in his blood told him that the SUV neared, and with it, his assignments.It wouldn’t...

52 likes

Chicken Scratch

Cindy Strube

Shortlisted for Contest #130 ⭐️

Chicken Scratch Squinting in the bright sunlight, a small boy scanned the yard. He watched the chickens doing their left/right kick-kick, kick-kick dance, sending up little puffs of fine dust as they scratched for edibles. He liked watching them, and he also knew that their antics occasionally turned up interesting swag. Once, a long time ago - when he was four - he’d picked up a tiny soldier. Grandma took it away because she was afraid it could poison him, which he didn’t understand. Later, she gave it back to him all shiny and told...

47 likes

The Clue of the Forgotten Claw

Shortlisted for Contest #130 ⭐️

cw: references to WWIIThe hour was late, and although the candle on David’s bedside table was nearing the end of its life, the boy couldn’t care less. It was a Sunday night, and on Sunday nights, Mr. Otto always paid him a visit. Tonight was no exception. “Now what story do you want to hear this evening?” Mr. Otto asked as he pulled up a chair next to David’s bed. He was a tall man, Mr. Otto, David thought. Not that he had met many grown-ups in his lifetime. “We’ve already done Mystery of the Mute Porter and Sign of the Painted Sta...

28 likes

Lytton Blood

Ann Martin

Shortlisted for Contest #130 ⭐️

LYTTON BLOOD Ann Martin My publisher told me it would only be a small print run and she wasn’t kidding. But at last I found it. Are Those Skeletons in My Closet? Written and illustrated by Pansy Lytton-Fosse. Not one, but six copies, in a tiny bookshop attached to a café just a couple of streets back from the seafront. It was under Humour and I’d been looking in Biography. When I thought about it, that made sense. I gazed with a motherly pride at my own cartoon cover of assorted eccentrics, con-artists and fruit loops peering out from ...

24 likes

This week's prompts

Create a title with our Title Generator, then write a story inspired by it.

Teens – 96 stories

Write about a character whose name you got from our Character Name Generator.

Character – 45 stories

Start your story with someone finding an object labeled with their name.

Horror – 36 stories

Set your story in a nameless world.

Kids – 27 stories

Write a story titled ‘The Locked Door.’

Dark – 74 stories

Stories

A Man's Man

Winner of Contest #130 🏆

Content warning: Language They knew I wasn’t cut out for war the moment they stuck an M4 Carbine in my hands. I had lady fingers while the soldiers around me had hands made to strangle and calluses that grated their rifles into submission. To die for my country, surrounded by the sweaty men it rounded up into its service, was not a lifelong goal of mine. To be fair, I didn’t have a lifelong goal. A younger version of myself had been set on teaching preschool, or kindergarten—didn’t matter really. I just loved kids. That dream was doused ...

178 likes

118 comments 118

ID

Submitted to Contest #130

“Gina Fortier? Here’s your new New York State license, ma’am” the lady sitting behind the glass at the DMV slides Gina’s new license under the partition. Gina lets out her breath, not realizing she was holding it. She picks up the shiny new driver’s license. New York State. Gina Fortier. Sex: F. Eyes: BL. HT: 6-02. Gina wipes tears away from her eyes and rereads. Gina Fortier. Sex: F. For the last 14 years her ID said something different. SHE was someone different. When she came into this very same DMV at the age of sixteen, she was a yo...

71 likes

Marked for Failure

Deidra Whitt Lovegren

Submitted to Contest #130

Twenty years earlier, Chaoxiang’s mother had held her newborn son, weeping with joy. Of all the auspicious names to choose from, his mother picked the Chinese name for “expecting fortune.” As an undocumented kitchen worker at AmeriCasino’s Shanghai Buffet in Reno, Chaoxiang had learned to temper his expectations. In the midst of chopping endless mounds of broccoli, mushrooms, onions, and peppers for a pittance, Chaoxiang paused mid-slice, knee-deep in parings, to watch the cheery twinkle lights blink. Outside, they clicked wildly agains...

60 likes

Reaper and the Moon

Shortlisted for Contest #130 ⭐️

Content Warning: Car accident and DeathTwo things in life remained certain- the inevitability of death and the peaceful falling of night.Scott sat among the evergreen, listening to the stray cars pass on the highway as he looked up to the moon. It was the time of night when traffic was nearly nonexistent. A few long-haul semis and the occasional car humming by. Not the car he was waiting for though. Not yet.He could feel it getting closer. A sort of soft buzz in his blood told him that the SUV neared, and with it, his assignments.It wouldn’t...

52 likes

The Locked Door

Nandini Prakash

Submitted to Contest #130

Kiddo and I were sitting in our attic room prattling excitedly about nothing. We do that a lot. It is our thing. Kiddo is my brother. He’s five and I’m eight. He thinks he can catch up and race me to ten. He’s silly like that, but he’s my best friend. We are happy, just the two of us getting lost in the myriad of worlds that we create. We live in the attic of the house in which my mother works. She cooks, cleans, shops, and takes care of the master’s house. He doesn’t like it that we call him that, but our mother insists. The house is ...

52 likes

Chicken Scratch

Cindy Strube

Shortlisted for Contest #130 ⭐️

Chicken Scratch Squinting in the bright sunlight, a small boy scanned the yard. He watched the chickens doing their left/right kick-kick, kick-kick dance, sending up little puffs of fine dust as they scratched for edibles. He liked watching them, and he also knew that their antics occasionally turned up interesting swag. Once, a long time ago - when he was four - he’d picked up a tiny soldier. Grandma took it away because she was afraid it could poison him, which he didn’t understand. Later, she gave it back to him all shiny and told...

47 likes

Trapped in Heaven

Submitted to Contest #130

“I don’t think that I’m supposed to be here, sir.” Peter looked up from his ledger and stared at the young boy in front of him. “I’m sorry. What did you say?” “I am sorry, but I think that I don’t belong here.” It had been a very easy day so far. Most of the ones who appeared before him belonged here. A flustered housewife who did try to reach her neighbour at work and was in a very bad accident was very sweet about it. The two twins who were on their first ski trip and ended up using the one broken seat on the lift were completely unp...

40 likes

Solid Grounds

Submitted to Contest #130

“Can I get you anything else?” the wannabe barista asked, not having the courtesy of coming out from behind the counter. Juliet didn’t ignore the question—she just didn’t hear it. Her preoccupied eyes, red and moist, darted from the container in her right hand to the door in front of her and then back again. The cup had Juliet Lamb written in sharpie near the top. She wasn’t sure why she had given her full name when she ordered, maybe she thought it would make her bigger, like a blowfish under attack.The height and placement of the table wer...

38 likes

The Locked Door

Emerald Lace

Submitted to Contest #130

Megan had no reason to believe she’d ever end up bloody and beaten in an ambulance speeding down the freeway. But here she was. Her head pounded and every slight bump of the vehicle only caused more pain to shoot through her battered body. She would cry but found the tears couldn’t escape through her swollen eyes. It’s not the first time he’d beaten her, but it was the first time he’d called the ambulance in a panic. He’d been afraid that he’d killed her. She wished he had. The embarrassment of allowing a man to hurt her like this a...

38 likes

By Any Other Name

Submitted to Contest #130

I don’t believe anyone living before 2025 imagined how much human existence would alter due to the virus’s proliferation and mutation. In that innocent period before nations experienced wide scale loss of life, world leaders lured their naive citizens into believing the pandemic was manageable. The populace queued ad nauseam for their vaccinations, and cowering behind their paper masks, they chanted the government’s hocus-pocus mantra ‘hands face space’.#Within a decade, the entire nation was reduced to nameless communiti...

36 likes

Heaven Sent

PJ Aitken

Submitted to Contest #130

Heaven Sent Replies (reply@heavensent.god)To: Matt Matheson (mmatheson@inlook.com) Hey son, Please don’t panic and I know this is going to sound ridiculous but it’s your Dad here. I’m writing to you from beyond the pearly gates. Not sure how I managed it but it’s true, the big guy let me in! Apparently they let all the new arrivals contact one (and only one) of their nearest and dearest to let them know they’re safe and sound in the afterlife so here we are. Now I know what you’re thinking because I’d be thinking the sa...

36 likes

Pripovjedač

Lina Oz

Submitted to Contest #130

“How are you, Ginger? It’s been too long!”The plump orange cat stares back at me blankly. Perhaps a little annoyed, even. Truthfully, I can’t blame her. I never have any food for her.“Really? Nothing?”I tentatively reach out my hand toward the open window where she's perched on the sill. When my fingers are mere inches away, she quickly rises, stretches, and jumps to the ground below. For a moment, it looked like she even rolled her dark green eyes.“So much for making friends,” I scowl after her. She'll be back when I’m making dinner, of cou...

34 likes

Hello, Goodbye.

Lemon Boy

Submitted to Contest #130

She was dead. She was bleeding on the ground, and I didn't know what to do. Her pretty, red blood coloring the white, shiny snow. The light of the moon light up her cold, inanimate body. For a moment I wished I never had met her. Then maybe, just maybe she shouldn't have been laying dead in her garden, under the beautiful willow tree, next to the snow-covered flowers. But let's start from the beginning. It was a starry night. I was the only one in the ski resort. I was going down the slope when I first saw you. You were standing in the ...

33 likes

The Sapphire Hour

Submitted to Contest #130

The Great Conjunction, Jupiter and Saturn – December 21, 2020 I hug my elbows tight into my sides and slide my hands as deep into my pockets as they'll go. It's freezing tonight. “I think it should be acclimated by now. We can start with the globular cluster in Lepus if you want,” he says. I laugh. “You always start with the globular cluster in Lepus.” It's an eight-inch Dobsonian telescope, no frills, nothing fancy. Except the tube, which is a deep metallic red and glitters softly in the corner of our bedroom when it's not under the...

31 likes

Made in Texas

Scout Tahoe

Submitted to Contest #130

There is no snow on the Small Uphill Cemetery in Grand Prairie, Texas. Probably from global warming or something. The long-dead grass crunches under your feet like your abuela’s famous Chocos Fritos, or fried cuttlefish will in your mouth. This salty-fried, home-baked thought caused your lips to tremble and your mouth to water. You’d kill for a good cuddle right now. Your hands are bare and becoming numb, so you cup them around your face and keep trudging beside the graves. The cemetery is empty. Gravestones stand with their porpoise ...

30 likes

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Contest #131

This contest has ended. Thank you for your submissions.

$250

Prize money

278

Entries

179

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Jan 28, 2022 EST

Won by Allie Erickson 🏆

Title: A Man's Man

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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