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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#141: Everyone's a Critic

Like it or not, everyone gets criticism sometimes. And while a dose of reality can be healthy once in a while, it’s important to not get stuck in a rut of viewing the world, or yourself, too critically.

This week’s prompts examine criticism from a range of angles, from professional hole-pickers, to well-intentioned advisors, to the ones on the receiving end.

This week's prompts

Write about someone who critiques things for a living, or acts like they do.

Character – 35 stories

Start your story with someone receiving a one-star review.

Dark – 52 stories

Write a story about someone struggling to swallow some harsh (but fair) constructive criticism.

Middle School – 26 stories

Set your story in the lowest rated restaurant in town.

Fluff – 52 stories

Write about a character named after one of our contest’s judges.

Fiction – 12 stories

Stories

“Inside This Mind” by Daria White

Submitted to Contest #141

Warning: Mild Language Hey, Writing! Hey, yourself. The first review for the novel is in. And? One star. So? One. Star. From who? Leonard Bowman. It’s one critic. What Pulitzer-winning masterpiece has he written? He’s the top critic for the New York Review. His reviews are where the Next Big Things go to become the Next Big Things…or go to die. What did he say about us? My prose is infantile. The characters lack depth and personality. Had he even been mildly interested in the protagonist, his arc would have actually...

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“Baloney” by John Minnaar

Submitted to Contest #141

Write a story about someone struggling to swallow some harsh (but fair) constructive criticsm Baloney So it was! Jake sat with his head in his hands leaning with elbows on his knees. The shock death, of his father, had just assailed his conscious awareness with penetrating reality. He was 18 years old, had just started a new job at the factory of a British consortium as a laboratory technician. The loss drained thought, leaving a mighty vacuum ….. not knowing how to take the next step…. without that stable, solid refer...

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“Me (or not) by Madelaine Roberts” by Madelaine Roberts

Submitted to Contest #141

I knew I should listen, if only to myself, to the signals my own body was sending me if not to the cacophony of well meaning ‘friendly advice’ bombarding me from all directions. Apparently, my children are being appallingly let down … I am setting a bad example, I am being selfish with our limited finances, I am making their lives infinitely more difficult due to the embarrassment of having me as a mother, I am unable to adequately cater for their needs. When this angle of attack does not seem to provide the requisite emotional (...

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“Cold Reception” by James Grasham

Submitted to Contest #141

Warning: This story contains an instance of strong language. The entrance hall of the Warrior’s Guild was much the same as Luthar remembered. The dark grey stone was reassuringly constant, as were the weather-beaten windows which looked out. Smoke rose from the chimney as fires were lit inside to protect against the first chills of autumn. Heaving his bag onto his shoulder, Luthar stepped forward and pushed open the door into his home. Forever reliable, Terence sat at his desk, taking a gulp of something from a flask. The wind disturbed ...

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“No Reply Needed” by B Serra

Submitted to Contest #141

I thought I put this baby to bed already. A writer, he had wanted a manuscript assessment of his 70k word novel. We sent him an offer. A week later he wrote again, noncommittal, asking for our qualifications, our 'fields of literary interest' and a wordcount of the manuscript assessment we would provide. A time-waster, we thought, who'd take forever making up his mind and ask a ton of questions in the meantime. We aren't stuck for clients at the moment; everyone and her granny has written a novel in Corona times, and all in need of improveme...

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“Reveries, Dreams And The Talking Book” by Kate Kilbee

Submitted to Contest #141

I was feeling jaded. For the first time ever, writing held little interest for me. The steady flow of words I'd relied on for years had slowed to a trickle over the last few weeks and had now stopped. I'd tried everything I could think of to get the trickle to turn back to flowing again, word games, prompts, reading, lots of reading. I'd listened to happy songs, sad songs, even so-called true life songs but it was as if my brain was as dry as a desert. Also, I seemed to travel under a dark cloud lately and I felt like all my positive...

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“Bobo's Bistro” by Debra Koffski

Submitted to Contest #141

My Aunt Barbara (aka Bobo) always wanted to have her own small cafe where she imagined would be crowded every day with locals enjoying their day with good food and friends. For years she hosted Sunday dinner and everyone always said the food was so good she needed her own restaurant. She beamed at those words, and literally took them to heart. The thing you should know about our family was this. They were liars, all of them. They wouldn't agree with that statement because they didn't consider it lying. They told themselves that they wer...

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“Breaking Bread” by Thomas Auen

Submitted to Contest #141

Every summer since turning six, Phil spent time with his grandmother on her Nebraska farm. The beginning of these pastoral seasons would send his mind dancing as he watched from the window of his parents’ sedan. The trek from Minneapolis took them down twists and turns as cornfields swallowed up the horizon while they inched farther from suburbia and into the rolling rural hills. Once there, he become “nana’s” Philly, her sidekick and student. He would rise early with her to assist in the daily rituals. There were kitchen duties in t...

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“Chips on everything... and with” by Richard Woods

Submitted to Contest #141

EVERYONE knew it as the greasy spoon. But it wasn't fair. It had a five star hygiene rating for a start. And never did I get a spoon that was greasy. Not clean perhaps but never greasy. Even that is probably unfair since I do not recall complaining. And I would have. Bert, we all knew him as Bert. So far as I know he was 153 years old and had been running this East Anglian caff (sorry but it did not deserve an 'e' never mind an acute accent) with its surprising name for most of those years. Without changing the menu. Oh yes, that name – Mons...

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“Another Time” by Freya Matheson

Submitted to Contest #141

"Is your soup any good? We can send it back if it's bad." "No, it's fine! I really like it, actually." There's a blob that resembles chicken nestled in the broth, but I decide to ignore it. People don't know how to deal with vegetarians on first dates. I get it. Especially because this guy really looks like he wants a burger. "So tell me about your family. Like, where are they from? Where are you from, I mean?" I fucking hate this question. "Oh, I'm actually from New York. Queens." Maybe my smile doesn't look as suicidal as I think...

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“You Wait” by Frank Duryea

Submitted to Contest #141

You sat at the table waiting for me. When the candlelight in front of you blew out from a wayward gust of wind through the window, you weren’t mad. The white overhead lights filled the room enough that the candle of faint scent hadn’t mattered. You were mad that I was late. The waiter came over to you for the second time. And he said, “You should-a move, I-a swear. Or at least-a order.” So you stared at him. After processing the fake accent, you looked around. You knew that there was no one to take the table if you left, the only othe...

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“The Rice Bowl” by Mattea Wise

Submitted to Contest #141

Carla put her elbows on the counter and rested her head in her hands. She blew out a breath and hoped no one was around to see her frustration. Or her desperation. She knew no one would see, because only she and the children were still in the restaurant. Yang Li, her chef, and Sun Yin, her waitress, had gone home for the evening. She’d had to let the other staff go, so it was just the three of them running the place now. With The Rice Bowl gaining a reputation as the worst restaurant in town, there wasn’t enough business to support the fifte...

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“The Storm Within” by Rochelle Miller

Submitted to Contest #141

A blue sky is a joy to experience, a dark cloud a sight to behold. As far as the eye can see, an eternity of water surges in the Atlantic Ocean. In the vastness, there is a breeze; the breeze - she wants to be bigger and stronger, purposing to raise her wings to draw down gusts, propelling herself toward the shore. Back on land, there was an artist who, while sitting in his studio, lost himself in a landscape of hibiscus and zephrlilies and creeping indigo, his daydreams taking him to a most spectacular horizon. Imagining the ne...

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“Winnie's Letter” by Daniel Barnhart

Submitted to Contest #141

Winnie's letter John made a policy to never respond to the authors complaints after he gave them a negative review in the magazine. When he was a young journalist, he would make it a point to respond to every gripe, complaint or editorial mistake. Nothing he said would ever seem to calm anyone down. Heavy Is the Man Who Wears the Crown was a trusted magazine for pseudo-intellectuals to bond over the newest craze. Pseudo-intellectual people have always needed an intercessor to help them understand high concepts. Where the Israelites had Moses...

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“Mar's Movie Critique” by J. M

Submitted to Contest #141

Hey Movie Aliens! Welcome back for another installment of Mar’s Movie Critique. Unfortunately, I have some bad news for you all today: The HeroMan movie was garbage. But before you go and add me to the list of people who believe I don’t know what I’m talking about just because I don’t get the hype around a new movie in a beloved franchise, just hear me out. Well, I went to see this movie the day it was released (last Friday) with my now ex girlfriend. We were under the impression that this would be the movie that gave mor...

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$250

Prize money

177

Contest entries

111

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Apr 15, 2022 EST

Won by Hannah P. Simmons 🏆

Title: The Lonely Color

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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