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!

#151: Back to the Reboot

This past week we’ve been inspired by Lightyear, Top Gun: Maverick, and all the prequels, sequels, and reboots hitting our screens lately. For many of us, reboots inspire a sense of nostalgia, or déjà vu. But how do you interpret them? Do you welcome new creatives and their reimaginings of the past, or do you crave something fresh in its own right?

Of course, repetition can be creepy — and it can even become boring — but it can also open the doorway to improvement and growth. However you feel about the ever-rebirthing media cycle surrounding us, we hope you’ll find inspiration in these week’s prompts:

This week's prompts

Write about a character who wakes up in their past life, or as a future reincarnation of themself.

Fantasy – 54 stories

Write about somebody breaking a cycle.

Narrative – 42 stories

Write about a character who keeps ending up in the same place.

Sad – 40 stories

Repeat the same line of dialogue, from the same character, three separate times.

Middle School – 58 stories

Write about a character who’s expected to follow in someone’s footsteps.

Kids – 38 stories

Stories

“Mining for Gold” by Marty B

Submitted to Contest #151

Brinnng!!The shrill ringing echoed across the fairway as Bill went into his back swing. He swung through and watched his drive go straight and true down the fairway. “Damn, that worked!” Bill said, walking back to the cart in his matching branded golf shirt and pants. Older than me by 10 years he had the easy athleticism of someone 20 years younger.“That helped more than this club.” He threw his custom made Calloway driver in his bag. “I told you, sometimes, you need a distraction to break a habit. Gives you something els...

Read story

“She's gone” by Glenn Holt

Submitted to Contest #151

They say the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and over and expecting something to change. Truth be told Anthony always hated that saying because it made him feel broken. He wanted to quit feeling the way he did but it seemed too soon. Ever since his wife died a year ago, getting up seemed purposeless. It felt as if a giant weight pressed against his heart everyday and every night. He moved slowly and deliberately as if two bricks were on his feet and dumbbell weights were around his wrists. He could only move whe...

Read story

“"The P Word"” by Robin Gadsden

Submitted to Contest #151

"Please, don't do it!" P said."You're right," I said. "I don't feel like it!"It stared at my notepad then I glimpsed at my MacBook Pro. I wanted to write. I have so many ideas. I look at my lamp. But P is there looking at me."Of course, you cannot do it," he said, his long, dark curly hair exacerbated my problem. He's gorgeous! He's a combination of every handsome, dark-haired actor past and present: Valentino, Power, Clooney.He laid there on my bed, his white shirt opened down to his navel, a sort of Fabio lite with his tight trousers and k...

Read story

“Wild Renewal ” by Valerie Vince

Submitted to Contest #151

She knows I don’t want to die alone so she will come and that’s the long and short of it. Maura thinks about Jane before she's fully awake. She pulls on the baggy jeans strewn across the chair next to the bureau, laces her arms into a blue flannel shirt and heads to the kitchen to make tea. The sun’s just up. She peers out the window into the yard to see if Betta and Troop, her mama goat and kid, are stirring. Maura doesn’t need to be thinking about dying, because she’s perfectly healthy. In her early sixties, she lives a simple outdoorsy ...

Read story

“The Purging Pond” by Karen Leidy

Submitted to Contest #151

The Purging Pond: An Aquatic Odyssey I was profusely sweating. Severely dehydrated. Wholly depleted of energy. Hiking for over an hour in the southwestern desert at midday in August will do that. No, I am not a masochist. I do not enjoy pain and suffering. Just the opposite: I am a dyed-in-the-wool hedonist. So what was I doing in such a hellish place? many of you are wondering. Believe me, upon my awakening this morning, I didn’t plop my feet on the floor and yawn and stretch and say, “I think I’ll traipse through the desert today until I...

Read story

“The Pool Of Chronos” by Kenneth Allan

Submitted to Contest #151

The Pool Of Chronos Tony and Marge went on their honeymoon, hiking along a trail that followed the mountain ridge, a fourteen day hike. It may have seemed a strange way to spend their honeymoon, but they were both enthusiastic outdoor people and spent many holidays in the mountains. They had been on the trail for two days when they came upon the signpost. ‘To the pool of Chronos.’ “Let’s go look at that,” said Marge, and they set off on the trail. It seemed an eternity before the two exhausted honeymooners reached the pool, but it was wo...

Read story

“What Fresh Hell Is This?” by Ava Raim

Submitted to Contest #151

“Oh hell no,” Rahul muttered to himself, taking in his surroundings. The nauseating heat that came off the walls so cloyingly he felt he couldn’t breathe, the floor beneath the soles of his feet so blisteringly hot he worried he might not be able to lift them without losing a few layers of skin in the process hinted at where he’d arrived, again. But the most telling clue to his whereabouts was the figure he could see in the distance, flinging about a whip that Rahul could swear he’d seen in the trendy sex shop next to his loft in Brooklyn. H...

Read story

“No Place Like Home” by Johanna Parry

Submitted to Contest #151

Her eyes startled open. Sweat palpable; damp sheets, damp pillow. Taking a deep inhale through her nose, she could almost feel the color of the fragrance. Jasmine. Heavy eyelids flutter and close. A muffled snore rises into the air, followed by a quiet wheeze. Like the vine itself, and the star-like white with ever so slightly pink trim, the petals tickled her nostrils. Her dream-hand brushed the vine from her face. Her sleeping body rolled onto its side. Woozy from labored breathing, she drifted more deeply into her night sleep. Again...

Read story

“The Man in the Mirror” by Nic Silvestris

Submitted to Contest #151

The Man in the Mirror He saw not himself in the mirror’s reflection but the man he was afraid he’d become. From the corner of the glass pane, he could see her stirring from her sleep, grasping at the empty space in the bed. A few years earlier he would still be laying down, holding her in his arms. The vicious cycle of womanizing had built up scar tissue over his compassion and left a cold spirit in its wake. What he lacked in empathy he made up for in dry wit. A fair trade ...

Read story

“Serpentine” by Carlos R.

Submitted to Contest #151

Inside a quiet, clean home. It is well taken care of and shows that Vincent is doing well financially. The front door swings open. A scrawny size male, brown hair with glasses and a fashion sense of gunge era teen is revealed. Katie, brown skin and a smile combined with big eyes that could draw even a married man to think twice, followed. “...then that's when my dad decided it would be funny to push me into the deep end.” Vincent takes a ste...

Read story

“No, Wait...” by Cliff Henderson

Submitted to Contest #151

“It’ll only hurt for a second. Really! See that picture?” I turned to look and said “Where?” That’s when the nurse jabbed me. “Oowww” was the only thing I could think to say. But her skilled hands made the procedure so quick that it really didn’t hurt at all. I instinctively went to rub my arm and she stopped me. “First things first” she said with an accent that could only come from the West Indies, and she had a small bandage over the puncture. Then she sat back in the examination chair, crossed her arms and looked at me with an expressi...

Read story

“Promises” by Abigial Scibiur

Submitted to Contest #151

“I promise. It is just around these shrubs.” Lucus walked around the hedge and held his hands out like he was presenting a new, state-of-the-art all-in-one dishwasher-refrigerator-toaster. Maria’s reaction was that of a grandma towards her wayward son's latest get-rich scheme. Skeptical and disappointed. Maria folded her arms and glared from under her manicured eyebrows. “Really? That looks like the same stupid-donkey fountain we’ve circled five times.” Maria held...

Read story

“'Can you kill someone with a butter knife?'” by Sharon Williams

Submitted to Contest #151

‘Can you kill someone with a butter knife?’ ‘Take that child home immediately!’ The words had unintentionally escaped seven-year-old Jeremy. Once a month, he accompanied his parents on their duty visit to Grandmother. He endured four hours of boredom, sitting wedged between Mother and Father on her lumpy sofa. He was allowed to take a book to read, but no other form of entertainment. The adults prattled on about people and events that he had no interest in, whilst he was expected to sit there silent and still. ...

Read story

“Hippocampus” by Robert Lang

Submitted to Contest #151

“Are you lost?” Gwen kicked her bare feet onto the dashboard, she was short enough to do so comfortably.“No, I remember it being this way.” Terry turned on the high beams to light up the road in front of them. Trees and startled deer on either side of the road. “Pretty sure we’re late for the party.” Gwen picked up her phone and squinted as she was blinded by the screen. She turned down the brightness to get a good look at the time. &nbs...

Read story

“Realize Me” by Gwen H

Submitted to Contest #151

“Son, you can go ahead and state your name,” The senator with thick, square glasses used his pointer finger to make a tapping motion towards the mic in front of me. I noticed that his accent was much stronger than mine was, it having worn thine over the years of increasingly longer absences from home. “Oh, alright,” I said leaning to far forward so “alright” was shouted into the room. Leaning back a ways I spoke again. “Woody Spencer, former lead guitarist of the band Doggerel, globally renowned country western sensation.” I looked up at th...

Read story

Load more stories

$250

Prize money

232

Contest entries

108

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Jun 24, 2022 EST

Won by Kelsey H 🏆

Title: The Lake

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 ⭢