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#42 End of Story

Reaching the end of a story is a bittersweet thing. Upon reading the final word of a particularly good piece, you’re often hit with a sort of story-hangover: the ache of wanting to stay in the world of the tale, yet knowing there’s no more story to be read.

A truly excellent ending can mitigate that pain — which is why, as a writer, it’s crucial to nail the end of your own stories! Of course, this can mean different things for different pieces. A great ending might underscore a story's theme, or it might pose more questions than it answers; it all depends on context and execution. For more info, check out our tips for crafting a memorable ending here, and then dive into our ending-themed prompts below!

p.s. — We're hosting a Live Copyediting Workshop! On May 20th, Editors Tracy Gold and Julie Artz will take to YouTube to copyedit passages submitted by writers like you! For a chance to have your writing featured, click this link to register for the event and you'll receive submission instructions by email.

🥇 Winner

The Firebird's Answer

Phoebe Barr

Winner of Contest #42 🏆

It’s a long way down. So long that looking down feels like falling, and looking out you can’t quite tell which way is up, and looking up you might as well be adrift in an ocean the size of the universe. My toes curl at the sight, a vain attempt to make the worn-out soles of my sneakers grip harder on the polished stone. “Do I really have to?” I say. My guide chuckles. He’s a large, lumbering sort of man, broad-shouldered and deep-voiced, and the chuckle sounds like two boulders crashing together. He introduced himself to me as the spir...

260 likes

⭐️ Shortlisted

A life in silence

Marte Van Der Linden

Shortlisted for Contest #42 ⭐️

Only three people came to his funeral.One was the nurse who had looked after him during the last weeks of his life. She knew his name, or thought she did, but always referred to him as “the grumpy old dear in room 21A”. He had died alone while she was tending to Mrs Dahl in 13B, and she thought the least she could do was come to his funeral.The second person was one of his old neighbours, a tiny woman with grey hair pulled into a tight bun. Mr Halvorsen, as she knew him, had always kept himself to himself. She hadn’t known him, not really, b...

36 likes

Hollow Winds

Iris Koga

Shortlisted for Contest #42 ⭐️

Min woke to the wind whistling through the cracks of the window panes and shuddered under the thin blanket, his feet numb in heavy hiking boots. Feeble rays of the sun leaked through the dense clouds heavy with the threat of rain. He shifted on the concrete floor, ignoring the aching in his joints. The layers of sweaters he had scavenged from abandoned buildings that once were clothing stores provided little warmth through the night, and since the temperature had been dropping as winter approached, he had been venturing further from the ligh...

27 likes

Sweaty Hands and Date Plans

Aqsa Malik

Shortlisted for Contest #42 ⭐️

We sit side by side, not holding hands, but not not holding them either. It was that awkward stage in our relationship where actions were tacit, but still primitive enough to be carried out with extreme caution. God forbid one party made the wrong move, and everything ended as quickly as it had begun.So we sit, our hands slightly touching, one brushing the top of the other. Enough to create sparks, but not entirely enough to trigger a full-fledged hormonal awakening. Eesha's eyes flit to our hands, barely illuminated by the neon lights flood...

20 likes

Shadow of a Doubt

Shortlisted for Contest #42 ⭐️

Shadow of a Doubt I’d heard the rhetoric before. I’d see it on television how men in overly starched suits, wearing too much expensive cologne laid out phrases of words that hardly meant anything at all. I had thought I knew what to expect. Now it felt too real. He was a man, not much older than I was. Maybe twenty-five, a few years out of college working a starter job in an office somewhere that had business casual as the dress code. He kept tugging at his red tie as if he wa...

16 likes

The Odds of Logical Failure

Shortlisted for Contest #42 ⭐️

I never knew there were this many shades of green. From the light shade of grass that’s pressed against my feet to the dark emerald of the trees towering over my head, colors dance through every moment, every movement, every breath of life. A quiet creek bubbles at my toes, spitting at me as it jumps over the tiny mountains of pebbles. Great branches sweep down to caress the vines crawling up their trunks. Blue sky pierces through the cracks in the canopy of leaves, sending soft light down to illuminate the grou...

11 likes

Mama Moon

Shortlisted for Contest #42 ⭐️

Mama said I have the moon under my skin. That the day I was born she could see the moonbeams dance, soft and silver, under my chest and belly. They spread into my arms and legs, split into my fingertips and toes. Mama said it was a sign of good things to come. I used to stay up all night talking at the moon, my second mother. She’d cradle me in waves of silver light, and whisper things in my ear. She’d send lightning bugs to my window, and crickets to my backdoor. She told me to paint my windowsill blue so bad spirits couldn’t cross, a...

6 likes

The Book of Dreams

Barry Litherland

Shortlisted for Contest #42 ⭐️

Erin slipped from between the leaves of her book and into the midnight street. She was late already - but for what, you must ask yourself - and she knew he would be waiting for her - but who was he, you must wonder - and they had little time left - but to do what?Erin knew that lives depended on her.Listen with her. You can hear a distant siren, the cry of a child in a tenement block, and the bark of a lonely dog. In the distance, weaving between the coal-stained factories, you hear a train rumble closer. Look now, where her eyes direct...

5 likes

This week's prompts

Write a story that ends with the narrator revealing a secret.

Mystery – 159 stories

Write a story that ends in the past.

Teens – 68 stories

Write a story that ends with a character asking a question.

Narrative – 259 stories

Write a story that ends by circling back to the beginning.

Short Story – 213 stories

Write a story that ends with one character waiting for the arrival of another.

Kids – 199 stories

Stories

The Firebird's Answer

Phoebe Barr

Winner of Contest #42 🏆

It’s a long way down. So long that looking down feels like falling, and looking out you can’t quite tell which way is up, and looking up you might as well be adrift in an ocean the size of the universe. My toes curl at the sight, a vain attempt to make the worn-out soles of my sneakers grip harder on the polished stone. “Do I really have to?” I say. My guide chuckles. He’s a large, lumbering sort of man, broad-shouldered and deep-voiced, and the chuckle sounds like two boulders crashing together. He introduced himself to me as the spir...

260 likes

Your Story

A. Y. R

Submitted to Contest #42

This is how your story begins. You read that correctly. YOUR story, and yes, this is the beginning - with you reading my words. There was nothing else before this. Your world, your universe, begins with my words, and you. You've come into this world reading my words. This is the truth - your life before this has been a lie. A lie which I crafted. You could try proving me wrong. You could confirm with your friends and family that the events you experienced did indeed happen. But I've just written their memories too, so what's ...

139 likes

A Mother's Leverage

Cynthia Prokarym (Scott)

Submitted to Contest #42

Shimmering rays of hope traverse the Tucson horizon where hundreds of thousands will soon awaken to greet the new day. In a few moments, daylight edges its way underneath the coffee-colored curtains of the modestly-furnished hotel room where a beautiful but shattered woman is lying in bed, tissue in hand. Moments pass. The determined rays of light begin to banish some of the darkness in the room. The brightness of this new day's advance seems a striking contrast to the despair evident in Danielle's amber eyes. Her eyelashes are glistening wi...

67 likes

Joe

Yoomi Ari

Submitted to Contest #42

Us youngsters put our feet forward. We want recognition. I’m not the person to speak for fame, attention and publicity, I do this for life. I am speaking out. We may think this is our own life, but really we live for everyone. And so, I would also like to take this moment to thank every person on this very planet during this time. From famine to homelessness, we have all been there; now we must do the same, always.We may not like the judgements and choices of such people, but we must stand by them to save ourselves. Politics are not nee...

64 likes

story of a lifetime

Sadia Faisal

Submitted to Contest #42

I was born in a poor family. Below average. I was a topper in my class. Always secured 1st position. Always got medals and always was the prominent one in school.But I was beaten up badly almost everyday by my family members mainly because my thoughts were different from them. My actions were not exactly the same, they were expecting.My Father holds the top rank in beating me.Second award goes to my older brother.Third to uncle and sometimes Mother also used to contribute to this religious deed. (She’s no more among us. May her soul res...

63 likes

CHANGED

Ajayi Joy

Submitted to Contest #42

As a growing child I never believed in love seeing the way my parents lived and treated each other, to me love was a fantasy. I had this crazy idea of never letting a guy close to my heart till I was sure he was the one and so I discarded close communication with guys. Any guy who told me he liked me I would shun. Yeah, it was that bad. Everything started to change when I entered college. I was this quite, mind my own business type of person. I had never really been exposed to the outside world that much as my parents never believed the worl...

63 likes

Made of Fear.

Avery Mason 🍍😇🤩

Submitted to Contest #42

Made of FearAre you ready? Good, let us begin. We are talking about you right now, not me, you. You are born to fear, that is what you are made of. Oh, you didn’t know that? You think of your life as perfect, but it is as fragile as a snow globe. Yes, your life is like a snow globe. A small, perfect, compact house, as you see it. The snow that is swirling and billowing around, your small, perfect, compact house, is fear. Your mother taught you the art of fear when you were born. She taught you to be scared of spiders, and humans. Scared of y...

62 likes

The Hope in Our Stars

Kelechi Nwokoma

Submitted to Contest #42

The first time I see one of them on another of my hunting trips, she’s looking up at the stars. I’m confused as to what a pretty girl like her is doing in the woods in the dead of night, alone.“Where do you come from?” I ask her. She says nothing. “Where are you going?” Nothing. I shift uneasily on my feet and Dog gets restless as we stand there aimlessly. “Do you need help?” No reply. I sigh in frustration and I’m about to leave her where Dog and I found her when I notice a teardrop making its path down her cheek, stopping on her chin, and ...

61 likes

Truth or Dare

Submitted to Contest #42

"Truth or dare," she asked, rosy lips curling over newly straightened teeth in the pale moonlight."Truth", the boy says, snickering while moonlight catches honeysuckle hair and eyes that glinted like sapphire."Hmph," The girl says, thinking of a worthy enough question to send the boy into a frenzied state. "What is your biggest fear."He smiled shyly before speaking "Oblivion.""Oblivion?" The girl questioned, a playful smile tugging at her lips "Why fear oblivion?"He shrugged simply before rubbing his hands over a stained carpet. He clasped t...

58 likes

Pride in profession

Sadia Faisal

Submitted to Contest #42

Being a nursing student in the Philippines is very hard. You have to deal with the thought that after graduation, you will be among thousands of others who will be competing for limited employment slots. Many nursing graduates end up un- or underemployed. Sadly, this has led to stigmatization. Every time people ask me what my course is and I answer Nursing, they would shake their heads. Many are already starting to poke fun at my profession. One time, I heard my friends joke around saying, "You train for 4 years and what? Wash bed pans after...

53 likes

Unfriendly waiting

Sadia Faisal

Submitted to Contest #42

Best friends are things you come by only once in your lifetime... Or are they? I've had a lot of "best friends" during my life and I don't think I'm still friends with any of them. They have all ended for the normal reasons; growing up, moving on, changes. One of my friends, though, that is a different story.It all started after we graduated high school. I was just finding out that I was unable to go to a writing college in New York due to how expensive it was and since my family was just my mother, my sister, and I on a very low income - it...

52 likes

In the wake of Death

Submitted to Contest #42

The landline was the first one to wail. It had last spoken a few years back, of that old grandma, in a far-away village, who could still recall those 7 digits of her nephew’s home phone. The grandma could no longer call from where she was now, and yet the landline broke its silence once again that morning. It was the mother who picked it up. Soon, her body dropped to the floor and she gave a loud, painful shriek... one that would reverberate and haunt the neighborhood for a long long time....It was really a chilly morning in November, made c...

51 likes

Medium Lemonade With Extra Ice

Lata B

Submitted to Contest #42

It happened. It happened quietly and fast. It happened to me. I strolled down 15th street into a small coffee shop called Midleap Express. Which is my usual hang out place. I like it because it's never too busy. The door chimes as I walk in and I get a whiff of coffee and cool air. I can hear someone shout “Welcome! I'll be right there” from the back of the store. The floorboard creaks as I walk to a table closest to the window. I wait a couple of seconds before a middle-aged woman comes out with a smile on her face. She scans the...

48 likes

Sarang

Rhondalise Mitza

Submitted to Contest #42

My footsteps slow as I reach the end of the hall. I know you’re there. I can hear you breathing every so softly. I stop in front of your door and reach for the knob, but I don’t pull it open quite yet. I’m waiting for you to sense me and say, “Come in, I’ve been waiting for you.” I’m waiting to hear your wonderful voice, clear as a bell and also wavering in and out of existence. When I’ve waited for over five minutes and still haven’t heard you say anything, I push the door open and walk in. You’re sleeping. I sit down by the bed and watch y...

47 likes

Murderer

BRoOkE HAs A COwBoY HAt

Submitted to Contest #42

Murderer, by Brooke D.I woke up to my alarm beeping. I turned it off, got up, and walked over to my closet. I got dressed, brushed my teeth, and then walked first to the second floor and woke up Xavier, and then to the third to wake up Xander.Once they were awake, I was able to go downstairs and start getting their breakfast ready, along with my lunch."Xavier! Xander! What kind of cereal do you want?"I called."Cinnamon Toast Crunch, duh!"Xavier yelled."Fruit Loops please!"Xander screamed. Xander was on the third floor, so he always had to ca...

45 likes

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Contest #42

This contest has ended. Thank you for your submissions.

$50

Prize money

898

Entries

0

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - May 22, 2020 EST

Won by Phoebe Barr 🏆

Title: The Firebird's Answer

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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