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!

#134: Look Up

This Friday, the 18th of February, marks the 92nd anniversary of Pluto being discovered — and though it’s no longer considered ‘big enough’ to be an official planet, it will always have a big place in our hearts. With it’s hot-to-cold cycles and snow-capped mountains, this almost-planet almost looks like home. (That said, we still wouldn’t recommend it for your next vacation!)

To mark the occasion, this week’s prompts are a love letter to our favorite forgotten planet, and the spirit of discovery in general.

This week's prompts

Your character, by chance or habit, peers through a telescope. They see something unusual — what is it?

Dystopian – 53 stories

Set your story beyond our own world.

Science Fiction – 50 stories

Write about a character who has a ‘hot and cold’ personality — or is affected by someone like this.

Character – 30 stories

End your story with a character looking out on a new horizon.

Narrative – 63 stories

Write from the POV of someone, or something, that experiences gravity differently.

Science Fiction – 27 stories

Stories

“Name is Monk, Mames Monk” by Happyflix Movies

Submitted to Contest #134

EARTH: Year 2055 We people were so bloody busy destroying our homes with extra-ordinary capabilities in torturing each other’s communities and putting blames on others, that we often neglected the forthcoming dangers for existence of human species on planet Earth. Blinded with craziness for more power, we created the biological problems that even the smartest community of scientists were unable to address, forget about finding the solution to earlier blunders we committed. Yet, some of our own species have had a good heart and soul, w...

Read story

“Almost Like Home” by Taria Karillion

Submitted to Contest #134

Almost Like Home (1001 w) “Commander? Permission to enter the bridge?” Cool, odourless wafts pulsed through the doorway like sighs from the console-filled room, along with ponderous, mechanical, hum. “Yes, Doctor, do come in - it seems we’ve entered orbit just in time.” He smiled down at her. “Are you well? Has the morning sickness worn off yet?” “Yes, thank you, Sir. I’m … fine.” she nodded, following him to the huge viewscreen. The circular room resonated beneath their feet as the Commander spread his long, gloved arms ...

Read story

“The Men Are Dead” by Patrick Juhl

Submitted to Contest #134

The men are dead. Strangled. In their sleep. Gods-be-damned if I know how to pilot a ship–not out here, in the vastness of the stars. I could do it en-atmos, where there are landmarks, but out here... blue hells, the stars all look the same. “What about that one there, sir,” Errol asked, pointing to a pinprick of light that looked like all the others in the velvet blackness of eternity. “What about it?” I didn’t look at him. My stomach, it already flipped and swam like a roiling pot of water, and the skin… the skin dangling from lieutenan...

Read story

“The Secret Of The Primordial Flame” by LaKeisha Hart

Submitted to Contest #134

Morriell Meadowsweet stepped out the back entrance of the Trixie Pixie into the crisp night air, adjusting the straps of his satchel more securely onto his back. The relief of quitting time was almost intoxicating; he breathed in the cool, sweet air, and exhaled hard, letting the tension from a ten-hour day over a hot stove drain away. The Trixie Pixie was the most popular nightclub in Faewyne Village. It attracted ‌all denizens, male and female, far and wide, from all walks of life. There was anything for anybody inside those walls, as well...

Read story

“The Planet That is No Longer a Planet” by Tasha Tolson

Submitted to Contest #134

“Look! Look! Lay Lay, I see Pluto!” squeals my little brother from the cockpit. I peer up from my research. Jimmy is standing on the stepstool with his tiny hands against the window. Eyes glued on a speck in the distance. His excitement is palpable, but I just cannot seem to grasp his level of exuberance. I rise from my work desk and walk over to see what he sees. I say, “Yes, I see it. It looks so tiny from here huh?” I push one of his blonde curls off his forehead to give him a light kiss. My own blonde curls fall into his face. He giggles...

Read story

“Left for Ruin” by Ashley Porter

Submitted to Contest #134

Eighteen years old and I've never killed a person. An outrage, many would call it. Others would argue and call it quite an accomplishment. I call it life. You live with it, you deal with it, you're stuck with it, and you eventually die with it. Or, in other words, you're killed with it. The only way anyone can survive a day in Vildran is if they don’t trust anyone and don’t give anyone a possibility to betray them. There are hardly any young people because parents don’t want another possible traitor. The few exceptions a...

Read story

“I belong to him ” by Hannah Free

Submitted to Contest #134

He didn’t mean to, he never did. I stared deeply into the mirror, wincing at the figure that gawped back at me from the dirty glass. My fragile frame was ever so slightly hunched over. My eyes wide, alert yet holding very little life behind them. Dark red satisfaction spilled from my nose and the paint of my own mistakes formed a halo of blacks and blues around my left eye. I no longer felt disappointment in him, this feeling had long moved on from him and onto myself. Yet again, I’d let myself down. Shame loomed over me in the same way he d...

Read story

“Breathe.Hold.Release.” by Cheryl Anderson

Submitted to Contest #134

“What kind of person stands over their mother’s casket crying in relief that she's dead?” I brushed away tears trying to rid myself of the shameful thoughts. But they kept coming. “I’m so sorry dear,” came a voice and soft hand on my shoulder. It was one of mama’s high school friends. I gave her a hug without uttering a word and turned back to mama’s lifeless body. I’m supposed to honor my father and mother. Since daddy died a few years ago my trips home became less frequent. I knew the pandemic would mean less going out for her so I returne...

Read story

“Things are looking up” by Ramona Powell Poole

Submitted to Contest #134

The buzzer on Briana’s desk phone went off. “Briana, can you come into my office please?” said the voice on the other end. “Yes, just a minute”, Briana answers. She pushes herself back from her desk, grabs her notepad, and heads into her boss Mark’s office. When she enters the room, she notices that Mark has a disheveled look about him. She sits in front of his desk and asks if he’s okay. Mark brushes his hand across the top of his head, scuffing up his hair more than it already was. “Mark, what’s wrong?” asks Briana. Mark looked...

Read story

“Redolence” by Kenley Ellis

Submitted to Contest #134

Marianne insists on taking me to the party even though I don’t want to go. Marianne, like that old song, and Marianne is more than a feeling. She lives for all the feelings. She doesn’t care about a lot of things but she likes to play with people’s minds because it makes her feel guilty, and excited, and fearful, and she gets a real kick out of it. She tumbles right into some conversation with some people that I’ve never heard of, and she hands me a drink absentmindedly that tastes just like orange juice but I know it isn’t because my...

Read story

“Dakota Bound” by Kristine Bone

Submitted to Contest #134

-Dakota Bound- Chicago, July of 1875 - Clutching my valise to my body tightly, I cautiously stepped forward to board the railroad car along with the many others gathered on the wooden platform. The humid air gave me cause to wipe my forehead of sweat and then place the handkerchief in front of my nose to block the chocking fumes. This smoking monster, the Chicago and Northwestern train, would be taking its passengers away from this hot Midwestern city today. Traveling west from my Chicago home to unknown Fort Abraham Lincoln in the Da...

Read story

“A Morning Person” by Kat Sencen

Submitted to Contest #134

TW: Sickness, deathI watch as the sun rises up from its sleeping place, far beneath the ground. Maybe the sun is tired of always having the same cycle, each day, over and over again. For an infinite amount of years and then some. Orange streaks fill the sky, closing out the darkness. It’s a sight that I’ve always loved, like a change in time, an end to the dark. I watch from my roof as a dazzling beam lifts itself up out of the earth. I have to squint to look at it.I watch the sunrise every day, but it never gets old. I enjoy watching t...

Read story

“Emotional Baggage” by R. B. Leyland

Submitted to Contest #134

Stamping furiously towards the monolith of a building in front of her, Agrile drew the eyes of the many passers-by with her bedraggled look. The first time She had sent one of them out in years, and it had to be on a bloody day like this. She had a sense of humour, it seemed. That didn’t even break a smile on Agrile’s face as an icy tendril of water slid down the back of her collar, courtesy of the cheap umbrella she had bought as the storm had set in. Weighing her down as always, her anger fuelled her forwards and kept her feet on the groun...

Read story

“Anos, The Starlight Beast” by Ravea LaGeorge

Submitted to Contest #134

The party started softly; in each home along the river, they lit their fires and started their music, filling the small village with light and sound. Slowly, as the moon rose in the sky above, the sounds and lights from the village grew. Louder and louder, the merriment sounded, filling the evening skies with laughing and joyful singing. This was a celebration that only happened once in a lifetime, and not a single soul in all of Sanctum Reach would have missed it.Carson Faraday was a young man and a captain to a small team of men. They foll...

Read story

“Peering through a Telescope. ” by Professor Alan Dale Dickinson

Submitted to Contest #134

PEERING THROUGH A TELESCOPE By Professor Alan Dale Dickinson (Copyrighted) Wow! There it was just like she said it would be! It, was something, very, very unusual, to say the least. Dr. Lynn K. Graham, the national Director of the world famous ‘Griffith Park Observatory,’ which was located very close to the famous Hollywood sign in L.A. (Los Angeles), California. The quite lovely and very old, Observatory Looked down upon the ‘City of the Angels,’ and looked up into the Galaxy, of which our little Earth, was but a speck on the never-endin...

Read story

Load more stories

$250

Prize money

223

Contest entries

128

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Feb 25, 2022 EST

Won by Story Time 🏆

Title: The Hovering Age

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 ⭢