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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#28: Narratively Takeover

This week is a special edition of the Reedsy Prompts contest because our friends at Narratively are taking it over with their own theme and prompts! We'll let them take it from here...

Narratively is a media platform that celebrates the diversity of humanity through authentic storytelling. At Narratively, we know that truth is sometimes stranger (and more interesting!) than fiction, so we’re switching things up this week and asking for your TRUE stories. For this week’s prompts, we’re looking for your very best creative nonfiction — the fascinating true story that only you can tell, the one incredible tale you just have to share with the world.

We like stories that surprise and delight us, and that are full of dramatic, active scenes with lots of colorful moments.

To that end, each of our prompts for this week takes on an issue that never goes out of style… love.

The winning story will be considered for publication on Narratively.

This week's prompts

Write about someone (or something) you loved that you shouldn’t have.

Nonfiction – 90 stories

Write about a date that was so terrible you’ll never forget it.

Nonfiction – 46 stories

Write about your most unique experience at, or in, a wedding.

Nonfiction – 34 stories

Write about a time when a broken heart led to something you’d never have expected.

Nonfiction – 58 stories

Write about a secret that you’ve never told to the person you love.

Nonfiction – 41 stories

Stories

“Aisle Fourteen” by Jubilee Forbess

Submitted to Contest #28

All I really wanted were the plantain chips. That was the reason my father and I were at Walmart in the first place. It was almost nine o clock on a Saturday night; my father had just gotten home from visiting my grandparents and he was ready to settle in his armchair for the night. Only... I didn't think that would be possible because to my knowledge it was still very illegal for me to drive alone and also I really, really wanted plantain chips. They were amazing and I couldn't have chocolate and I was having a rough week anyway. Who would ...

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“The Crap That Will Never Happen” by K. M. Carpenter

Submitted to Contest #28

The Crap That Will Never Happen #1: Any of these delusional fantasies will ever come true. The Crap That Will Never Happen #2: You will find out about any of these delusional fantasies.The Crap That Will Never Happen #3: You don't know me. We pass, walking on the sidewalk of a busy street. You see my shirt. You say, "Cool shirt. I like Fall Out Boy, too." That's it. That's all. The Crap That Will Never Happen #6: I finally get up the courage to talk to you. I ask for your number. The Crap That Will Never Happen #7: You give it...

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“I Was Fifteen” by Kate Le Roux

Submitted to Contest #28

I was fifteen. When I think back on it now I need to remind myself that I was an actual child, sleeping at night in my pink bedroom, writing in a secret journal with a lock on it, teddy bears arranged on my bed. And what the heck, I have to ask myself, could a fifteen-year-old child know about love? I know the answer now, and it is this: depending on how you look at it, either nothing or everything. And anyone who has loved with the blinding purity of youth knows that those are almost the same thing. It is summer, still school holidays...

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“The Human Washcloth” by Angela Palmer

Submitted to Contest #28

I was standing on the third step of a brownstone stoop, late on a work night, with a man licking my face. I wasn’t quite sure how I got there. That morning was a typical mundane Monday. I trudged to work, answered phones, made marketing collateral, chatted with friends online about where we would go drinking later that night. The morning was hazy in my memory and I couldn’t connect the dots to determine what went so tragically wrong. The man who was furiously lapping my lips, (and my chin and my nose…) was a coworker, Dan. He was the t...

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“Dear You” by Natalie Frank

Submitted to Contest #28

Dear you,No, dear lover,Is that too forward?I just get so tired of being scared all of the time. Scared of my looks, scared of my thoughts, scared of you. The possibility of you.Dear you,Hello. I am in love with you. I am not hopelessly in love with you, I don’t experience those cinematic butterflies when I sit with you on the floor of my bedroom. Does that mean I don’t love you?No. It means something much simpler, yes, because you are my best friend. You live 908.3 miles away, but it feels like three million. I forget to call. I’m sorry. I’...

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“I'm Sorry” by Jessie Winterspring

Submitted to Contest #28

I’m fated to embarrassed myself in front of my crushes. The most horrible was in fifth grade. I was eleven and a transfer student in Negros Occidental, Philippines. At this stage everyone has already established friendship with everyone, and it was awkward being the transferee. I become subject for bullying, but I’m no damsel in distress. Oh, I fight back like a tiger. I was a tomboy, but that didn’t stop me from crushing at the most popular boy in class. Ian. I developed a crush on him too because he defended me from the Gera...

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“THE DATE” by Melanie Emm.

Submitted to Contest #28

THE DATE Against my better judgment, I accepted the offer of a date from a guy called Shane. I simply did not want to go. I’d known him since I was six and he was eight. Our mothers were best friends, our parents socialized. Well, as much as my parents did so with other couples. They both worked very hard, and of an evening it was all they could manage to come home, have dinner, and collapse onto the sofa or into a recliner and watch a cop show flit by on the television. I went through school with Shane, and witnessed him go f...

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“Questioning what it means to fly ” by Kari Hyp

Submitted to Contest #28

There are always the consequences for those who fly out of their cages.If there was one thing that birds have, its wings. Duh. Wings that come in all shapes, colors, textures: all differences but all have the common reason of…. Flying. UGH. There I go again, being super cheesy using dope pickup lines-that seem effective- like those you see in depressing young adult-teens- novels. Welp. At least I DID its purpose: to give you the fucking feels. The feels that wrap around you like a homemade quilted blanket. And-still- give you the i...

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“The Jump” by Marte Van Der Linden

Submitted to Contest #28

Everyone has scars and every scar tells a story. My brother caused a number of mine. I don’t mean that he was violent or anything like that. But he tended to instigate events which always seemed to leave me with scratches and bruises and worse. My most obvious scar is a dent in my forehead. I got it when he convinced me that the bathtub was a waterslide, which resulted in me hurtling face-first into the tap. I think I was four or five. There are other scars, other injuries, that have faded away and are no longer visible on the outside. It’s ...

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“Opening the Snick” by Deborah Mercer

Submitted to Contest #28

Look, I don’t want anyone to run away with the misconception that I’m a brave person. I have an impressive list of fears and phobias, including spiders, lifts, doctors, mushrooms (let me qualify that, I could be perfectly calm in a room with nothing but fungi for company as long as nobody expected me to eat it), the theme tune to The Archers (so far as I know it has no particular traumatic associations) and bubble wrap. Or at any rate when people start popping it. Anyway, you get the message. But when I tell people (and ...

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“Hitchhiker of the Heart” by John K Adams

Submitted to Contest #28

I knew her immediately. “Pam?” She looked great. “Hi, John. What’s it been, twelve… fifteen years?” I had been hitchhiking. Pam could have driven by and I never would have known. But instead, she pulled over to give me a ride.In middle school, infatuation was my M.O. My love for Pam became desperate. We could have been the next Romeo and Juliet – good luck with that scenario. A grade behind me in middle school, I saw Pam as my ‘raven-haired beauty’. But I didn’t know that phrase then. Unself-conscious, unaffected and real, her musical laugh ...

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“What I Could Never Say” by Sage Henry

Submitted to Contest #28

Pain has always provided me with a moment of clarity. Depending on the cause, the clarity could last only moments or a few days. When my head was muddled beyond comprehension, I turned to pain to clear the waters. As far as coping habits go, it’s a pretty awful one, but years later I still haven’t kicked the habit. Though it has evolved over the past six years, the purpose and damage hasn’t changed very much. When I was fourteen, I was introduced to the concept of cutting, a practice where you took a sharp object and dragged it across your s...

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“The Wrong Date” by Charlie Murphy

Submitted to Contest #28

“Man, you suck!” I said.“Yeah, well, if someone hadn't bumped my arm while I was playing, I would have beaten your ass!” Kevin Goodkind replied.“Yeah, right… excuses are are like hamsters; no one wants them.“Huh?”“Hamsters are a pain to take care of; always having to clean their cages…”“I like hamsters though; they’re goofy!”“Whatever, bro.”“Why do you think hamsters—““Wanna go on a date?” Kevin interrupted.“A date? With who?”“My sister's friend, Lizzy Truhart.”“Why?”“Her boyfriend just broke up with her and she's devastated.”“And I care… Wh...

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“One Last Time” by Samantha Sabio

Submitted to Contest #28

This is it. This is the last time. I mindlessly ran a finger over the lip of my coffee cup as I repeated the phrase to myself over and over, hoping somehow the repetition would help it stick in my stubborn skull. You can’t keep doing this. You can’t keep loving him like this. The drops of rain tapping on the metal roof had woken me up in the early hours of the morning — not that Ben and I had been doing much sleeping to begin with. I’d finally decided to squeeze my way out of his tight grasp when it became clear I had too much on my mind to ...

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“Love, Skin Deep” by Bree Kokiri

Submitted to Contest #28

I watched as Rosie curled her near-perfect auburn hair, smoothing each piece as she went. Every Friday night, since we’d gotten together three and a half years ago, I’d sit in her bathroom and chat with her while she got ready for date night. I never admitted it, but I loved watching her get ready. Watching her confidence climb with every stroke of mascara and spritz of hairspray. I’d tell her she didn’t need it, but it was a moot point. The sunny disposition she got from getting dolled up wasn’t worth deflating with stereotypical ideology. ...

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$50

Prize money

269

Contest entries

0

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Feb 14, 2020 EST

A winner will be announced soon.

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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