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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

“True Story” by Jeannette Miller

Submitted to Contest #165

This is all my fault. I mean, not really, unless praying with every fiber in my being that the worst, and yet best, case scenario of how this story would end is then, I guess, it is my fault. To be fair, he didn’t have to emotionally cheat on me with three other “women”. I use the term loosely because when you read the text messages, the woman are clearly cat-fishers only saying what they need to say to pump up some weak-minded man’s ego in order to extort money. But he did. At least three times. Over the course of the last 10 months. That...

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“Lunch Time” by Carol Styron

Submitted to Contest #165

Lunch TimeEvery Saturday afternoon for the last fifteen years, they have been meeting for lunch once a month. That’s a lot of lunches, but for best friends that met in college and hit it off instantaneously, it was not enou...

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“Smoke and Fire.” by Frederic Aurelien

Submitted to Contest #165

Metal tines stabbed against the soft body of the baked bluefin tuna, the most desired taste, in Yokohama, Japan. Arai watched his wife wipe the brown ponzu from their son's lips, her jet black hair wrapped up in a single bun, her brown eyes gleaming against the chandelier’s yellow light. “Tomoe… Benjiro, how did you like the food?” Benjiro’s eyes lit up with excitement as he raised his fork in the air and proclaimed “It was tasty! Really, really tasty! thank you, daddy, thank you, mommy!” Tomoe smiled and brought the plates into the kitchen ...

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“Arachnophobia Comes To Cleveland” by Murray Burns

Submitted to Contest #165

Arachnophobia Comes to ClevelandThey promised Billy a pet when they dragged him away from his friends in Omaha.“You are going to love it in Cleveland. They’ve got the Browns, the Indians and a Great Lake. And we’ll have our own house. You’ll have your own room, and you can have that pet you’ve always wanted.”“What’s so great about the lake?”Moving is tough on an eight year old kid. The pet idea was just one of the many carrots Fred came up with to induce Billy to give Cleveland a try. The younger children, Carri and Matt, were less attached ...

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“Who Dunnit?” by Howard Seeley

Submitted to Contest #165

Everyone jumped as Marcus slammed the phone down. Silence followed the drama, then whispering turned to chatter. As police headquarters returned to its normalcy, Marcus continued to brood. A simple DNA test is all I asked for, and what do I get? Delays and excuses! Don’t they realize the longer it takes, the longer the murderer is loose? It took all his willpower not to pick up the phone and throw it across the room. Instead, he took a deep breath and replayed the recorded statements from the three suspects. It was a strange way to calm one’...

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“Undeserving” by Nikki Potgieter

Submitted to Contest #165

TW: Allusion to trauma, abuse, neglect. Most people who have been through a traumatic event, have a tendency to blame themselves at one point or another. More often than we care to count, we utter the phrase, “This is all my fault.” It reverberates through our actions and thoughts, like ripples on a pond. These ripples distort what is true, what we think is real. This is natural and, luckily, we stop taking responsibility for things beyond our control that happened to us… hopefully. What happens when there is a seemingly unending series of...

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“who should I trust?” by Karla Morales

Submitted to Contest #165

“Why are you telling me this?” I am at the sports bar where I usually meet with Holly, we have known each other since we were 4 years old, in fact I cannot remember a single happy memory of my childhood and teenage years where Holly isn’t there to share it with me. Which makes it that much harder to understand what she is saying to me right now. “Hello!? Emma, do you hear yourself? You should be asking who it is. Why are you not screaming or storming out of here to talk to him?” By now I can feel Holly’s exasperation in her voice but my br...

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“The Day the Girl Went Mad” by Madalyn Chevalier

Submitted to Contest #165

“This is all my fault” the young girl moaned into her hands. Though she did not look up, she was certain that everyone around her nodded their heads in agreement. Of course, it was. She was always the misfit, the weirdo, the one who people suspected of doing strange and unnatural things. She looked the part. Her hair was dyed an obscene green that even she hated. Her nose was too big, her ears too small and her body too awkward to be considered beautiful. No one ever believed a beautiful person capable of fault. She was capable...

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“Oh who is he.....? ” by Smilenotfound404 Smile

Submitted to Contest #165

HeartbreakGeorge’s DayI was walking to Clay’s house when I spotted Gemma, his girlfriend. Before I could alert her to my presence, I noticed she is with a guy, who is not Clay. At first, I did not think much of it, but then they started kissing. I was shocked at that sight and panicked. Then I slowly reached out for my phone to take a picture of them, which I could show to Clay later. “Surely, he will want to know”, I thought to myself.I was no longer walking; I have started to run to Clay’s house. Once there, I barged in as I have the key t...

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“The Fall of Mr. Baxter” by J L Jones

Submitted to Contest #165

CONTENT WARNING: Death“This is all my fault” a single tear slid down Lana’s flushed cheek. “It was me. I did it. I am so sorry…” She trailed off, tears now dropping like heavy raindrops, sobs racking her chest.Tori had no idea what Lana was doing. She knew Lana couldn’t be to blame, so why was she insisting on pointing the finger at herself? Tori gazed at her, confused, but Lana didn’t notice. They were together all weekend. It would have been impossible for her to have anything to do with this. Besides the fact that it simply wasn’t in Lana...

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“Your Mouth is Cashin’ Checks Your Gun Hand Can’t Deliver” by Michael Jefferson

Submitted to Contest #165

White Oaks, New Mexico 1887 Clancy Cooper spits a long stream of tobacco juice into a nearby spittoon, cocking his eye at a dark-skinned man at the end of the bar. The man in the black suit and wide-brimmed hat glares back at the scruffy farmer with greasy, shoulder-length hair. Clancy runs his finger across his bushy mustache, nodding knowingly at the man. “I tell you, Trey, that’s him.” Hoping to avoid drawing attention to himself, Trey Akin, a baby-faced, thirty-two-year-old farmer, quickly glances at the man. “Maybe it ain’t…” “Wh...

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“Busy Beans” by Anta Olpenn

Submitted to Contest #165

The video was unfocused and blurry. It shook around for a bit, with muffled voices coming in and out. Eventually, it evened out and refocused on a freckled face. It quickly moved back to reveal a girl in paint-splattered overalls, with a red bandana securing her auburn hair. She smiled at the camera before turning to look at someone out of frame. “Is it running?” she asked, motioning to the camera. Someone off-screen mumbled a vague affirmative, and she jumped around back to the video. “Hello! Um, My name’s Emma, and this is the very first v...

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“Messy” by Frog Gun

Submitted to Contest #165

As I put on my white dress I anxiously wait for his return. I flock around the house all day cleaning and taking care of my two daughters. All the while thinking about the twist of the doorknob and his slow tried footsteps creeping through the door. I love him very much but he’s been acting quite strange lately, staying at work for late hours and coming home very timid and disconnected. When he walks in the door he doesn’t burst into his talkative self. He slithers through the house mumbling angrily and he makes his way into his office and ...

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“Rambutan” by Dao Huy Kien

Submitted to Contest #165

Mai was a well-known beauty blogger who was considered a KOL (key opinion leader). The 30-year-old lady lived with her Israeli husband in a luxury apartment in district 7, Saigon. Her life had been smooth until the fourth Covid wave broke out in Saigon originating from the Revival Ekklesia Mission. Like all other people, she supposed the wave would be quickly contained like the three previous ones. However, after two months, the situation was getting worse and worse, which resulted in a stricter lockdown of the city. Meanwhile, her husband w...

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“In The Event” by MB Campbell

Submitted to Contest #165

In the EventFirst, it was the phone in the study. They both ignored it. To answer it was to surrender or worse to agree. Then it was the siren and flashing lights coming from the alarm panel in the hallway. That continued for minutes until something had to be said. “What did you do?” Leona yelled from the kitchen.“I didn’t do anything,” Leonora replied, as she came down the stairs. “What did YOU do?”“You were here with that creep with the weird face.”“You were here, too. How else would you know?”Had they been able to cooperate they migh...

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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!

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