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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

“The Wedding, The Icon, and Me” by Sue Marsh

Submitted to Contest #28

The Wedding the Icon and Me &nb...

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“A Letter To My Love” by Unknown User

Submitted to Contest #28

I wish everything had turned out differently. From the first time I saw you, you drew me in like a young child to the bounty that lies under the tree on Christmas morning. There was so much to uncover. I took all my time peeling and ripping each layer off of the present, in the hopes that I would find that which I so desperately wanted on the inside. Little did I know, the only thing inside of you was a cold, dead heart. I was mesmerized by you. You seemed so untouchable, undefeatable, undeniably strong. I hoped that by hanging around you, I...

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“Agony Aunt Land” by Deborah Mercer

Submitted to Contest #28

I’ve always had my idols, and come to that, in my middle age, I still do, though it’s not the kind of thing you’re supposed to admit to, at least not when it’s someone who makes a lot of people – I don’t want to say “normal people” – groan, on a TV panel show or someone who isn’t even that brilliant at a sport a lot of people aren’t interested in. I’ve always prided myself on my slightly quirky choices, even though they come unbidden and it’s not just perversity. I like the bit of a maverick, the bit of an underdog, but genera...

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“Goodnight turned out to be goodbye” by Carrol Halliwell

Submitted to Contest #28

Goodnight turned out to be goodbye by Carrol Halliwell I could hear the clinking of dishes being scraped and stacked in the dishwasher. We had just finished dinner at my father and stepmother's house. While everyone was busy in the kitchen, I took the opportunity to put Eric to bed. I loved how he looked at me intently as I changed his nappy. He frowned as he looked directly into my eyes. I thought to myself, "He looks so wise like he knows something that I don't. He has probably been here before". Nine weeks prior,...

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“You First” by Kevin Schenk

Submitted to Contest #28

A broken heart hurts. I still remember the weekend when my heart shattered. I had been, I presumed, romantically pursuing a colleague from my workplace at the time. She was leaving the company so I figured it would be even better to pursue the romance. I write pursue, for it was not an equal dance of two partners, it was a chase. Every step I took towards her, I could sense that she took two back, looking back. At the time of course I was head over heels and ignored any signs, all the signs.That weekend the signs were clear as day, though I ...

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“My First Love” by Lynette Lavigne

Submitted to Contest #28

A secret. Something we all have; often, something we have more than one of. Some we are able to talk to a select few about, some we are only able to reveal after time, and some we take to the grave. Some we don’t acknowledge because we hope that it’ll disappear, and some that never seem to die to us. The worst secret is the secret you keep from someone you’re in love with, the one secret that breaks your heart in the dark while you text them that you’re fine. The secret that eats away at you slowly until you break under the strain, and...

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“Disco Bus Discovery” by Mike Vreeland

Submitted to Contest #28

Disco fever was in full swing in the spring of 1979 at SUNY Cortland when I was an 18 year old freshman. Once a month, the Student Activities Board, of which I was a member, hosted a Disco Bus. The chartered bus would take a group of students to a disco in another city, sometimes to Binghamton, Ithaca, or Syracuse.On this occasion, the bus would be going to one of the hottest clubs in Syracuse, the Orpheus. Lauren, my then girlfriend, and I had made a date. It was going to be awesome. I’m sure we weren’t the only ones looking forward to a cl...

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“That One Boy” by Jessica Xie

Submitted to Contest #28

The dramafest started on the first day of preschool.I was crying and begging my mom to let me go back home and watch The Simpsons. We maneuvered through the halls and stopped at a small door.Mom opened the door and I stopped sobbing immediately. The room, although small, was full of joy. There were about twenty other small children. Most of them were still crying, but there were a few who were playing happily with others. Along one wall were stacks and stacks of wooden letter blocks, lined neatly on a shelf. In a corner were pots of finger p...

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“The Third Sunday in November, 2008” by Deborah Mercer

Submitted to Contest #28

Of course it was not the first sign. Even someone with my capacity for self-delusion had to know. Had to notice. My Mum had dementia. That thief had broken in and had not yet started running riot and ransacking, and upending and vandalising. The thief was sneaky, subtle, lulling and stilling into a sense of false security. For a while now, I’d had to tell her the same thing twice and three times over. Sometimes I was patient. Sometimes, and thi...

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“Unexpected First Date” by Dawn Mandzik

Submitted to Contest #28

The year was 1967. The town was Northport, New York, and I was fifteen years old. It was soon to be the ‘Summer of Love’ in San Francisco and about to be just another summer in my town. Except when I remember that first date. That summer of sexuality and that first date. Remembering that summer makes me think of the “Me Too Movement” and what responsibilities women have, what part do we play? Do we inadvertently seduce the men? Do we ‘sometimes ask for it’? Ultimately the answer is no...

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“It Was A Really Nice Vintage Jumper” by Jemima Forrester

Submitted to Contest #28

I was leaving my boyfriend’s house when I felt his hand snake around my arm. I smiled, thinking that he was about to show me an unexpected moment of affection. We’d been together for almost three years at this point, on and off, and since we’d had a blow-out argument at my twenty-first birthday party, a couple of weeks prior, things had been better. It was feeling like a slow recovery, building the foundations for us to settle into adult, post-university stability. His house looked out onto a suburban park, a neat rectangle of grass lined wi...

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“The Feelings She Never Confessed ” by Amelia F

Submitted to Contest #28

There he is, standing in front of her. He is holding a big bouquet of flowers to give to her. “What could this mean? Does he love me?” she is thinking to herself. Their relationship has really been going anywhere, so this is a big step for him and her. “The flowers are so pretty, Thank You,” she says to him and gives him a hug. They then both walked to the back where they were having the cast party. She went to hang out with her friends and he helped with the striking of the set. She smiles bigger then she has s...

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“Mine shotgun (wedding) sheep push hilly herd round the wool, wide web.” by Matthew Harris

Submitted to Contest #28

Preface, (albeit poetically pockmarked titled):Oy gevalt - moi ongepotchket married life,I immediately did kvetchsince sorry excuse for sex pistolmade successful pollination obligatory mandateconcealed within thatched vetchcombining guaranteeing harvesting top notch wretch.Rutting season (24/7/365 days) touted me beingbiologically, effectively, and irresistibly virile - yayonce thy future spouse (Abby Robin)found herself in the family waywith what would turn out to be oy veythe first of our two daughters – I do saydetermined and sealed the s...

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“Blessed Matrimony, Cotton Eye Joe, and An Ungodly Amount of Wasps” by Kathleen M.

Submitted to Contest #28

I suppose in order to start this story, we must go back to the very beginning, where some fool crossed the ocean to settle in the royal colony of Virginia. The other half came from Germany and settled in Wisconsin, explaining why everyone but my father is a Packers fan. The bloodline culminated in my two cousins, both in their twenties, my brother, and me. Now, the eldest cousin, we’ll refer to her as the bride, had a child with her boyfriend and at some point decided to get married. The act itself is not strange, seeing as many people have ...

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“WHERE THERE'S AN ENDING, THERE'S A NEW BEGINNING ” by Annie Ruhangakiza

Submitted to Contest #28

09.02.2019'Delete his number, texts , unfollow him on all social media. Find happier people like us. Watch a movie, go out and breathe, get silly. Just try to forget about him okay." said Tinah my best friend." you know you are better off without him. Know your worth and I know you deserve better than him" chimed in Diana my other best friend.What on earth would I do without them. I felt slightly better amidst my puffy cheeks and red eyes. I'd cried all night cause I simply couldn't imagine it was over. The long talks, walks the sticky notes...

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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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