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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

“A MOTHER'S GIFT” by Bobbie Wigginton

Submitted to Contest #28

It was the night of what would have been my mother’s 55th birthday and I was in my kitchen washing dishes crying my eyes out that she wasn’t here to celebrate. I could no longer call her or hear her voice wishing me a Happy Birthday as my birthday is 4 days before hers. My heart was aching and I could not find any relief from the pain. Only to bow my head and sob uncontrollably.Mom was so full of life that even in her sickest days, she would say to us never give up hope. She had a smile that would go for days and to look at her you couldn’t ...

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“Wishing Upon a Shooting Star” by Renae Schwemmer

Submitted to Contest #28

Rejection always burns, stinging your pride, and reassuring your insecurities. I remember clearly that feeling in high school when my crush of three years rejected me on Valentine’s Day my senior year. I had never imagined how that embarrassment would feel being told someone wasn’t interested in you the same way. I just wanted to go home and cry into my pillow, wallow in my own heartache for a guy that I placed too high on a pedestal of what I thought I wanted. The cool guy, the popular guy who caught the attention of all the girls we hung o...

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“When heartbreak turns into growth” by Helena Bosch

Submitted to Contest #28

After being cruelly rejected by the person I had loved since I was 12, I decided to stop looking for love. I spent a lot of time with friends, mostly guys who were older than me. I became some sort of little sister to them, they protected me, took me to parties appropriate for my age, made me laugh, helped me with homework…Soon, I became very close with one of the guys. Incredibly smart, an incredibly talented musician, weird, funny and gorgeous. He was simply the right person for me. When I look back to my diaries, I actually cringe because...

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“In My Dream” by Victoria Alewel

Submitted to Contest #28

As I woke up from my nightmare, in a sweat, I was taken back by what I had experienced in the middle of the night; a dream left for only me to believe. This particular dream had happened more than once, each time becoming, less and less, scary, and more of a comfort, for me. Have you ever had a loved one visit you in a dream? I have.See, it all started in my quiet days of highschool; time when I was shy, without a lot of friends, but an ability to learn and understand what was being taught. This particular gentleman could carry a conversatio...

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“Forbidden” by Margo Harris

Submitted to Contest #28

How do I even begin to tell someone that they mean everything to me, when to them I mean nothing at all? It’s the cruelest reality to live in and sadly, it’s mine. Since the moment I laid eyes on him, I knew he was everything that I needed to have in my life. I knew I was in love. How crazy is it to know you’re in love when you’ve only known someone for a moment, but one that feels like an eternity? I’ve tried to tell him, I have, but I’m never able to get the right words out - strange for a writer, I know. What he doesn’t know i...

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“The baby no one knows I lost” by Chelsea Daroski

Submitted to Contest #28

Her name was going to be Alexandria May Daroski. She would have been beautiful. She would have been loved. But then tragedy struck a 16 year old girl. This girl was a junior in high school. She had a boyfriend. But her boyfriend wasn't the baby's father. She snuck out and went to a party one night. There she got drunk and passed out. She was raped that night. He was a senior and she couldn't fight him off. He drove her home afterwards and just left her in the yard for her parents to find. Six weeks later, she felt weird. She couldn't keep an...

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“Knight in Tarnished Armor” by Stephanie Ricketson

Submitted to Contest #28

I wasn’t looking for anyone new. I promise. I was trying, so hard, to be a good wife. Trying to do what I had never done… be faithful. Trying to live up to the promise I had made, not only to myself, but to my husband. I tried. I really did. After being separated for nearly ten years by circumstances, I came home. There my husband was, waiting for me, faithful and true. If he had strayed, I would not have ever blamed him. How could I? I wasn’t a saint. I wasn’t the good and faithful wife I had promised I would be. But he hadn’t, and I commen...

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“Rubik's Cube” by Cheza Vidal

Submitted to Contest #28

He was a Rubik's cube.I realized that when he told me those five dreadful words that I'd never forget: "It's not you, it's me."I could only solve one part of a Rubik's cube. Solving one color was enough. The rest was a waste of time. And he reminded me of it. What I saw in him was basically just one side, one color. I never knew he had other colors that he hid really well or colors that I failed to see.It's so ironic that we humans have eyes to see, but sometimes end up not using them in situations like these. We become blinded by pleasure, ...

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“The On-Again, Off-Agains” by Grace Shelton

Submitted to Contest #28

We are wandering through a Hobby Lobby at six o’clock. Aisle after aisle stretches in every direction, creating a disfigured checkerboard of craft supplies. Christian music glides through the surround speakers as if you could walk through the doors in the back and straight up to the pearly gates. On one rack, one can find every print of duct tape imaginable. On another, there are picture frames of all shapes and sizes for any artwork or photo one might wish to frame. A long rectangular aisle sports a vast array of stickers—textured and not. ...

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“Broken Love Story of My Life” by Averi Carlson

Submitted to Contest #28

I never should have fallen for him. He was too perfect, too far out of my league. But I couldn’t help myself. The way his eyes sparkled in the sunlight, and how his messy blonde hair seemed to fall just right. He was good at everything he tried and I just didn’t think I could live up to that, and I was right. We lived in the same neighborhood and went to the same school. He was a grade ahead of me but we still had one class together. Every time he came into the classroom my heart would pound and I felt like I wanted to run and wrap my a...

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“Chameleon” by Havah P

Submitted to Contest #28

I met her at age eleven. My mom had been taking me to church for three years before then, and I hated it. I was still in fifth grade, so I wasn’t old enough to be in the church’s Sunday youth group. Sunday school was about the most boring thing I’d ever experienced - and spending two hours with a room full of third-graders wasn’t exactly my scene. But in the summer between fifth and sixth grade, Mom finally made me go into the church’s youth group. “Alright, Havah,” Mom said. “I’m going to go ahead and sign you in as a sixth-grader, and then...

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“I STOPPED BY TO SEE MY MOM” by Nancy Richards

Submitted to Contest #28

I STOPPED BY TO SEE MOMI was a mess. I’d taken college prep courses through my junior year, but when I sat down with my Mom to pick courses for my senior year, I had a surprise. “I can’t send you to college, ask your Dad, but you better take some secretarial courses this year. Why’d you ever think I could send you to college?”I asked my Dad. “College? No. I’ll send you to beauty school. Your sister’s doing good there.”“But you sent John to college!”“He’s a boy, you are just a girl.”I got a D in typing, topp...

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“Something Wrong” by Amelia Coulon

Submitted to Contest #28

The bright pink stain moved rapidly across the window of the wand, smearing a line across the control box and a glaring addition symbol in the test area. I stared at it for about three seconds before I thought, The box says this takes a full minute to work. What is happening here?I took the stick and left the bathroom, my eyes wide and stunned. My soon to be ex-husband sat on “our”” king-sized bed, staring at me with curiosity.“Well?” he said.“It's positive,” I revealed. I sat down next to him, test in hand, which indicated how in shock I wa...

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“Night of the Potato” by Smudge Himmel

Submitted to Contest #28

It was my play. I wrote it. I'd watched it, every performance so far.Super Spud.Seems innocent enough, so why the 13+ rating? Graphic violence, it said. Around scene five even I felt when the audience suddenly realized that things were not going to turn out well. That drop in the stomach. The silence. Dread. A ruined potato town, followed by an eye gouging scene, followed by an endgame reverence that probably hit most people a bit two close to home, and topped off with the bad guy eating yam fries when we'd just watched potatoes we'd thought...

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“Thoughts in the Jeep...” by Alex Bacon

Submitted to Contest #28

Nights like this, I love to sit in my Jeep Wrangler and just reflect on my life. On this particular night, though, my mind wandered down the path that I swore I would never go down again. Like an obstacle in my way, “she” stands in front of me; though, her face was blurred out, her arms were wide open as if to embrace me and engulf me in her sea of deception once more. This succubus…Was she someone whom I’ve actually had interactions within this lifetime?“Why d...

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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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