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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#29: Bildungsroman

Often, the stories we read in our youth end up sticking with us well beyond adolescence. We vividly remember our first encounter with imaginative Anne Shirley, the nail-biting rumble between the greasers and Socs in The Outsiders, the fierce camaraderie shared by the Harry, Ron, and Hermione trio, among many other memorable moments from the young adult books we read in our formative years.

This week, all five prompts feature popular elements that are frequently at play in coming-of-age novels. While you are certainly free to write a short young adult story, you can also choose to incorporate these prompts into any other type of fiction.

If you want to revisit some classic YA fiction to get your creative wheels spinning, check out our freshly published list of some of our favorite young adult books!

This week's prompts

Write a story about someone dealing with family conflict.

Nonfiction – 82 stories

Write a story about someone discovering something new about themselves.

Nonfiction – 52 stories

Write a story about two best friends.

Teens – 73 stories

Write a story about someone falling in love for the first time.

Romance – 80 stories

Write a story about a character struggling to decide how to handle a problem that is morally gray.

Short Story – 41 stories

Stories

“Forgotten, yet still Festering” by Noname Last

Submitted to Contest #29

"You step one more toe out of line, I swear to God I will kill you!"The woman's angry words rang with a stern tone of frustration that rose up peculiar feelings inside of me. I looked up from the napkin I was scribbling and scratching the points of my speech on.Sure enough. The words were not directed at me but they were familiar all the same.At this time of the day, there weren't all that many passengers on this particular bus and from where I was sitting, I had a good view of a red faced woman spouting words of apology while frantically di...

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“Childish Things” by Amanda Thompson

Submitted to Contest #29

The December air stings my hands and bare knees, icy pain crawling up my body like a vine up a tree. I kick up some of the fallen leaves and watch as they flutter back to the ground in a tattered mix of browns and reds. The glow of sunset bathes the world in a sheen of warmth despite the cold and reflects on the stream’s surface beside me.I’m turning eighteen tomorrow. No one will notice. I can’t blame them. Lucas is coming home tomorrow, and that’s quite the big deal.I don’t want to think about it. I crouch and twirl a leaf stem between my ...

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“A strange day in July” by Sneha Chakrabarti

Submitted to Contest #29

Characters:Park Jimin: 19 years old boy, studies with JungkookJeon Jungkook: 18 years old boy, studies with JiminMin Yoongi: 19 years old boy, just finished school but is still friends with Jungkook, Jimin and JinKim Seok-Jin: 19 years old boy, just finished school but is still friends with Jungkook, Jimin and YoongiIsabelle: unknownJungkook P.O.V. “Yoongi, you need to start walking a bit faster.” I called out, groaning in frustration. Jimin, Jin and I stopped, waiting for Yoongi to catch up. Maybe we should’ve left him at home. After s...

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“Little Lost Lizzie (or The Boy Who Wanted to be a Hero)” by Nick Dalrymple

Submitted to Contest #29

Little Lost Lizzie or The Boy Who Would be a Hero Little Lizzie, Joe, Pat, Barb and their mother had to move to the Poor Farm because their daddy had to go to war and they needed to be near those that loved them and could help take care of them. Now, if you know anything about poor farms you might think living at the Poor Farm would be a sad thing for four children, but you would be wrong. The Poor Farm was wonderful for these children because their grandma and grandpa ran the poor farm and Aunt Helen and Emma lived there too...

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“It's Important” by Karen Avizur

Submitted to Contest #29

“If I’m turning to go run a few times a month and have to deal with this shit at school-” “Language, Allison!” Lillian Thatcher exclaimed. “…I have to deal with this stuff at school,” Allison amended. “And it’s a gigantic part of my life, so why shouldn’t I be allowed to march in the Pride parade? I understood when I was too young to even turn, but I’m thirteen now.” She turned to her mother. “You agree with me, ...

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“A False Utopia” by J J

Submitted to Contest #29

My whole life I had been taught how to live. How to dress. How to act. How to talk and how to fit in. How to be just like everyone else. And that was just how it was for us. Our community believes in absolute equality. That everyone should be treated the same. Call us what you will: a faction, a group, a Utopia, but we were much more than that. We are Uforanderlig. Uforanderlig is not just the name of our home. It is the belief that there is an ultimate and universal truth, and that there are objective and unchanging moral standa...

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“Keep Running ” by Fatimah Gomez

Submitted to Contest #29

“Bet you can’t beat me in a race to that tree,” I smirked at my best friend Reece. He frowned, eyeing the distant tree at the end of the sidewalk with his soft, dark eyes.“Bet I can.”“Yeah right,” I shrugged off my backpack and dropped it on the grass. We were takingthe usual shortcut home from school through our neighbourhood park. “You’re gonna lose. Youalways do.”“Maybe not this time,” he argued and dropped his bag next to mine. He was three yearsolder than me at sixteen, but a lot of the time I felt like I was older than him. We were tig...

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“A night to remember” by Shifa Asif

Submitted to Contest #29

To feel a vague, sweet gladness, and he was aware of wild yearnings and stirrings for he knew not what. Sometimes he pursued the call into the forest, looking for it as though it were a tangible thing, barking softly or defiantly, as the mood might dictate. He would thrust his nose into the cool wood moss, or into the black soil where long grasses grew, and snort with joy at the flat earth smells; or he would crouch for hours, as if in concealment, behind fungus-covered trunks of fallen trees, wide-eyed and wide-eared to all that moved and s...

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“Trinity” by Sumayah Y.

Submitted to Contest #29

Mother said she liked Emma best. Emma was the nice one. The one gifted with manners that could make a monarchy jealous— with a voice so sweet, it could draw in the bees. I told her Emma was the sort of girl who skipped in fields of barley, and lay beneath the sun’s rays until it rained. Then dance for a while, until she arrived home with her dress sheer, and sticking to her skin. In secret, I envied her. She was everything I was not. While she was full of life, I was miserable in mine. Where she saw colours, I saw grey. I wished I could...

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“A Night Along The Mississippi” by Robyn Welborne

Submitted to Contest #29

“Where are we going,” asked fourteen-year-old Jasmine Lockworth to herself. She twirled her thick braids around her fingers and stared out the window of the large school bus. “How much farther until we reach the campgrounds?” She grew restless on the long drive through Mississippi. Jasmine turned around in her seat and tapped Trina Jones on the shoulder. Jasmine and Trina were best friends since elementary school. The two of them grew up together in every grade. It was the last week of summer camp and the bus was headed to a recreational cen...

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“No Idea” by Beth McGrath

Submitted to Contest #29

For five years Lucy and I were inseparable. We’d stay up for hours editing videos, uploading photos on our joint Tumblr account, watching scary movies that we shouldn’t. Once we racked a phone bill of sixty pounds up by prank calling 118 247; the information line advertised by the funny men in little red shorts. We saw each other through horrors and feelings of isolation. We’d never have to go anywhere or face anything alone, because it was a given that the other would be there; another half to make one whole. She used to do my art homework ...

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“Choking on Skittles” by Jazmin Bogarín

Submitted to Contest #29

Oh, how wonderful it is to give lollipops to little kids in order to make life harder for their parents when the sugar kicks in! Oh, how wonderful it is to feed chocolate to the broken-hearted teenagers like me who need something sweet in their life! Oh, how wonderful it is to watch the messes babies make on their face when you give them something sweet! I'm telling you, being the queen of diabetes is the most enjoyable experience in life. Except for when diabetes gets to the human blood and you have to suffer from the thought of...

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“Wendy” by Sarah Bennett

Submitted to Contest #29

We would run down the lane behind her house. After the rain, when the potholes were filled with water. Flecks of mud stuck to our legs and dried that way. I flicked them off in the bathtub before Dad got home; it’s always that way with fathers, isn’t it? No matter how kind and forgiving and gentle they can be with their children, there are some things you just can’t tell them. You know they won’t always react the way you need them too.“What are you getting?” Alison’s voice is unravelling, the thread of a sweater well-loved but unable to surv...

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“Outrageous” by Eunice Amero

Submitted to Contest #29

Eunice Amero2,433 words OUTRAGEOUS! “So, all of it was just a lie?” Lucy shouted in anger. “Yes, but don’t worry about it, you’ll go crazy,” Harry spoke pointing his finger in Lucy’s face. Lucy slapped his finger away from her. He never did care if she ever found out his plan or not and today it happened. He did anything, and went anywhere he wanted to go, and though he still cared for Lucy, his thoughts were a lot on himself. He didn’t care if Lucy thought he was going crazy, because he was still building his plan. A plan he hope...

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“The girl who smoked” by Lizzie S

Submitted to Contest #29

John Green once said, "The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive." I used to live by that. I used to not want to hold someone against actions that they committed that brought me sadness. I used to think that quote was pure. Then I realized it was bull. It was bull because even if you do in fact forgive those who do cause you harm, sometimes you can't forget. And if you can't forget, how is one suppose to even leave the labyrinth? The labyrinth of suffering is suppose to be a place wher...

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$50

Prize money

328

Contest entries

0

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Feb 21, 2020 EST

Won by Megan Dang 🏆

Title: Time Bomb

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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