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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#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” by Allie Erickson

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 lifelon...

119 comments 119 WINNER 🏆
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⭐️ Shortlisted

“Reaper and the Moon” by Kimberly Close

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 w...

28 comments 28 SHORTLIST ⭐️
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“Chicken Scratch” by Cindy Strube

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 fou...

42 comments 42 SHORTLIST ⭐️
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“The Clue of the Forgotten Claw” by Jennifer Chan

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 do...

13 comments 13 SHORTLIST ⭐️
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“Lytton Blood” by Ann Martin

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 ...

13 comments 13 SHORTLIST ⭐️
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This week's prompts

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

Teens – 99 stories

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

Character – 48 stories

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

Horror – 38 stories

Set your story in a nameless world.

Kids – 27 stories

Write a story titled ‘The Locked Door.’

Dark – 77 stories

Stories

“A Man's Man” by Allie Erickson

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 lifelon...

119 comments 119 WINNER 🏆
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“ID” by Kathleen Fine

“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 y...

54 comments 54
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“Marked for Failure” by Deidra Whitt Lovegren

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 wil...

59 comments 59
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“Dresden” by Alex Sultan

Warin believed he could fix anything. He'd repair any gadget he could get his hands on. Watches, radios, toys. His neighbours brought him their broken trinkets—he would take them apart and put them back together, good as new. When his mother found him an electronics magazine, he thought he could be the next great inventor. He couldn’t fix the dead body of his brother, returned home in a coffin. - - - Emeline adored her bakery. It had belonged to her grandfather, passed down to her father, ...

51 comments 51
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“Reaper and the Moon” by Kimberly Close

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 w...

28 comments 28 SHORTLIST ⭐️
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“The Locked Door” by Nandini Prakash

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.

61 comments 61
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“Chicken Scratch” by Cindy Strube

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 fou...

42 comments 42 SHORTLIST ⭐️
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“Trapped in Heaven” by Kendall Defoe

“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 accid...

22 comments 22
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“By Any Other Name” by Howard Halsall

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 wa...

15 comments 15
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“Solid Grounds” by Thom Brodkin

“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 placeme...

20 comments 20
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“Cloaked Heart” by Ismail El Ouazzani

Between the horns of the still lifeless head, the forest laid beautifully in its shades of green and tinted by the mingled flowers' coloures. My hands against the lungs of the creature ceased to move up and down as he reached the stillness of death. My soul that almost escaped my body in horror, grabbed pride and waved it at the face of the faceless crowd. It was my first trial alone.I grabbed the stubborn head to where I camped, under the shadow of a thickly built Sycamore tree, surrounded by ...

34 comments 34
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“The Locked Door” by Emerald Lace

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 ambula...

22 comments 22
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“Heaven Sent” by PJ Aitken

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’...

16 comments 16
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“Hello, Goodbye.” by Lemon Boy

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. <...

10 comments 10
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“The Sapphire Hour” by Hannah Barrett

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.” ...

35 comments 35
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$250

Prize money

289

Contest entries

183

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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