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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#165: The Blame Game

Blame-shifting, finger-pointing, and messenger-shooting are among our worst impulses — but we’re all guilty of them. It can be hard to accept the roles we play in our own or others’ misfortunes, but it’s also vitally important to our growth as people. 


With that in mind, this week’s contest is all about the blame game. Whether your characters are taking the fall for someone else, or finally getting their deserved comeuppance, we’re talking about guilt, responsibility, and justice with this week’s prompts.

This week's prompts

Begin your story with somebody getting (or taking) the blame for something they didn’t do.

High School – 41 stories

Write a story that includes the phrase “This is all my fault.”

Adults – 97 stories

Write a story where a murder occurs — and the suspects are all pointing the finger at one another.

Mystery – 26 stories

Write a story about a corrupt politician trying to avoid blame at all costs.

Adults – 10 stories

Start your story with a character telling their best friend that their spouse is having an affair, only for their friend to “shoot the messenger”.

Dramatic – 29 stories

Stories

“A Tear in the Sky” by Shawn Wier

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #165

[CW note: cursing, potentially offensive commentary on religion]I've never heard so many sirens. Sure, I've been a passerby of some pretty gnarly car wrecks - the ones that close four-lane highways and require half the emergency responders in the county - but this is something else entirely. Maybe some federal intelligence agency already has a plan or something, but we're not prepared for it, at least not here in Oklahoma. Typical of tornado alley residents, I'm on my front porch staring at it rather than figuring out whatever it is I'm...

7 comments 7
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“Ronald” by Kaila Janae

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #165

The last contents of the wine bottle slipped down my scorching throat as the doorbell rang. I looked down at my legs hanging limply over the arm of the sofa. In this hazy moment, it puzzled me how these flesh stumps could carry my body weight–not that I was particularly heavy. Thin? Hell no. But obese? Far from it. Ronald would have disagreed. The doorbell rang again, this time followed by a knock. Time to put these weird things to work. I swung them to the ground. When my feet connected to the carpet, it tickled the bare skin, causing a ...

5 comments 5
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“Flamingo ” by Suma Jayachandar

Submitted to Contest #165

This was all my fault. To be born as a disappointment, to have lived a dishonest life, and then to have died as a discontent being. Yes, this was all my fault. You see, when I was born, I was dressed in pink, and placed in a blue crib in a blue-walled room. I cried in suffocation. It was my fault. As soon as I started waddling in my diaper and started joining the dots of what people said to me, about me, and after me, I sensed I wasn’t welcomed into this world with a happy heart. I was held half-heartedly by those who would have loved to dre...

16 comments 16
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“Not My Son” by S. Faxon

Submitted to Contest #165

Note: This story includes sensitive content, including references to murder, substance use, and child and animal abuse.My world ended when the police slipped the photos across the table to me.There was no way my son, my boy, could have committed the terrible, atrocious scenes they were showing me. The ones forever scarred into my mind. These crimes had to have been committed by someone else, anyone else, just not my son.The photographs deafened me to the questions the even-toned investigator asked. All I could hear were a thousand voices scr...

2 comments 2
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“The Detective and The Droid” by Graham Kinross

Submitted to Contest #165

TW: Murder, swearing, shooting, David Bowie.Detective Arthas Jacques knelt to see the strangulation bruises around the victim’s neck.            “It doesn’t make any sense,” said the freight hauler’s manager, Kyle. “Paul was the only one on board. He couldn’t have strangled himself, could he?” The man in the red and orange boiler suit was sweating profusely.            “No. This isn’t an elaborate suicide,” said Jacques. “I...

24 comments 24
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“The Drunk” by Kendall Defoe

Submitted to Contest #165

This is all my fault. She did not try very hard. The bottle she had in her hand was vodka and very expensive (first mistake); she tried to sit between Robert and Kerwin (second); she felt upset when one of them picked it up – that very overpriced booze – to see what it was she was drinking. “Don’t touch my fucking drink!” Number three. Everyone heard that one. I heard it from the other room and slowly moved away from a girl I was chatting up to see the damage. Kerwin and Robert heard it more than most. I saw Robert put the bottle down and th...

2 comments 2
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“Memento Mori” by Sherri Moorer

Submitted to Contest #165

Aylsia stared out of the window at the rings of Saturn glowing into the space station, mindlessly fumbling with the small, square device in her hands.What’s that? Braxton smiled impishly. “It’s a device driver that overrides station systems. I can control everything with it.” Her eyes glittered. “How?”“I can get these computers to do whatever I want. Hack into secure files, monitor communications, jam communications, override system commands, change the kitchen menus, add to supply orders, open and close secure doors and ports, whatever I wa...

1 comment 1
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“Dumped” by PJ Aitken

Submitted to Contest #165

Teddy mobyBabe, hope your having a nice day.Tanya mobyYeah not bad – cant wait to see u l8r.Teddy mobyWell that’s what I’m texting you for. I’ve been talking to the boys and I think we need to cool things down.Tanya mobyYou wot?Teddy mobyI’ve enjoyed our time togevver but I’m feeling like trapped whatever so want to slow it down.Tanya mobyAre you havin a laff? It’s been two years. How slow do you want it? Is this you breaking up wiv me?Teddy mobyBabe… I want to make it work but I’m feeling like I’m in a box and need to be free.Tanya mobySo w...

8 comments 8
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“The Only Dog I Know” by Kendall Defoe

Submitted to Contest #165

“Mildred, we need to talk.” This was a real surprise. Usually, we would have our tea and scones at a local café – D’Angelo’s; please try their quiche and sauces if you have a chance – and there would be a lot of talk about our families, children, the problem of housekeeping and housekeepers, and what the weather was like as we stared out across the neighbourhood. That day, the weather was quite beautiful, and we found the perfect spot on that beautifully tiled patio with a table that did not wobble, chairs that still had the padding on – per...

10 comments 10
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“All Your Love Is Gone” by AnneMarie Miles

Submitted to Contest #165

TW: Sex, violence, and strong language. We used to make love to The Doors. It wasn’t even my favorite band or my go-to music genre, but something about Jim Morrison’s voice in Riders on the Storm was insanely sexy when I climbed onto my husband’s lap and invited his mouth onto my breasts; We weren’t really the type of couple that had exotic, acrobatic, or porn-esque kind of sex, but having been together for nearly 15 years, the very fact that we could both still excite the other, laughing and moaning and biting, always made...

23 comments 23
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“Barb and the Beast” by Barb Taub

Submitted to Contest #165

The roar started as a vague grumble, seeping under tables and chairs before creeping higher in a sound cloud of threatening menace and pain. "Treasurer's Report." Among the cluster of committee members’ video chat windows, Tim's little image on the screen before me glowed around the edges as his flat, tinny voice stopped for a bit of self-important throat clearing. It wasn’t my computer’s speakers; he sounded that way in person too. "As you recall from our last minutes…" I flicked a finger, turning off my camera and muting my microphone....

13 comments 13
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“Eddy and Tom - Part II” by Mustang Patty

Submitted to Contest #165

[This story includes gay romance.]The long black hand on the living room clock crawled, marking time as it marched past the minutes. Eddy didn’t think he’d ever seen it move this slow. Funny thing, though…hands on a clock in any of his classes seemed to race around when he took a test.He waited for the hand to set off chimes in the old grandfather clock, sitting sentry over the living room. Eddy knew it was safe to talk on the phone in here. Neither his mother nor father entered this room on any regular basis. The furniture here was formal, ...

19 comments 19
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“Kissing the Messenger” by Delaney Howard

Submitted to Contest #165

Danny Morton and I became best friends on the first day of kindergarten. We were both 5 years old. Even then, I knew we’d be friends for a long time because when I stumbled up the bus steps, he didn’t laugh like everyone else, including the driver. He simply held out a little hand with long fingers, helped me up, and then made room for me on the green vinyl seat next to him. He was kind, gentle, and sweet. He never lied or tried to hurt me. So, why was Danny doing this to me today when the pile of files on my desk weighed more than I did, an...

8 comments 8
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“Troubled kids and silent neighbours ” by Maria Alexandra

Submitted to Contest #165

“It’s mine” The yelling and the thumping stop and he turns around and fixates me with a stupefied look, only just realizing that I was in that room too. “It’s mine, I mean it,” I say again, not sure if it was him who needed more persuasion, or me. “I didn’t mean to cause any trouble”.His jaw clenches, as if he’s disappointed that it was me who brought the pot, and not his son. His left temple is twitching and the look in his eye sends shivers down my back. It evinces violence and for the first time, I feel lucky to be a girl. From every...

9 comments 9
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“Death by Misadventure” by Munira Lokhandwala

Submitted to Contest #165

Death by Misadventure 1 The last thing that I remember – and I do not use this metaphorically – is struggling for breath under a pillow. There was far too much whisky in my system for my resistance to have any effect but alcohol or not, the memory of my struggle is real and not imagined as some of the detective theorists may have thought. Ah, hell, I am jumping the gun. Wait, let me rewind a little to the night of my murder. Hi, I am Ria Chattopadhyay or Chats as my friends call me. As of right now, I am ephemeral – in a decidedly un-yash-ch...

6 comments 6
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$250

Prize money

203

Contest entries

106

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Sep 30, 2022 EST

Won by Scott Christenson 🏆

Title: Liability in Lingotto

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!

Prompts | Many Hands | 2024-09

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Prompts | Many Hands | 2024-09

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