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#51 Two Hundred!

It's the 200th edition of the Reedsy Prompts newsletter! This means that we've officially sent out 1,000 short story ideas over the last couple of years, inspiring tens of thousands of stories. (Speaking of which, did you know that before our contest was hosted on our current site, we used to publish the winning stories on our Medium blog? Find over 100 older winning entries here!)

 

To celebrate, we've decided to revisit the most popular prompts of the last year. We hope they prove equally as inspiring the second time around. And here's to the next 1,000 prompts! 🎉 

This week's prompts

Write a story that begins and ends with someone looking up at the stars.

Middle School – 403 stories

Write about someone who has a superpower.

Kids – 146 stories

Write a story that involves a mystery — it doesn't need to be crime-related, it should just include something that remains unexplained until the end.

Mystery – 204 stories

Write about someone who returns as an adult to a place they last visited as a child.

Character – 235 stories

Write a story about someone who's haunted by their past.

Character – 252 stories

Stories

The secret of power

Submitted to Contest #51

Nobody noticed Jake's absence during the English class in the only college in the city. Jake loved technology. So, he took the computer science stream. Mrs. Norwich, the English lecturer for the class, had switched on the television in the class when a college staff member came and whispered something. She was a tall, young woman with black hair and large spectacles.The news flashed,"The Big Jumper is having another encounter with the Trapshot"."Wow!", shouted the excited students. The Big Jumper was a hero in that small city and could ...

218 likes 277 comments 277
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Of Jasmines and Viridescent

Submitted to Contest #51

Without my eyewear, the sky above belongs in a museum of modern art right alongside Van Gogh's starry night. The light radiates from every star and my distorted lenses twist it into gleeful patterns. Returning the starry night to constellations of pin-pricks is simple, but my glasses stay right in my pocket while I take in the sky above. The grass on my soles is soft on soft, warm on warm, a gentle tickle as each giving strand forms a cushion of green. Each strand moves in the summer breeze as easily as my hair, the waves and rustling as ali...

196 likes 190 comments 190
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Rebel Prince

Submitted to Contest #51

    I just didn’t get it.   Like, at all.   I mean, I tried to understand the thought process of everyone in Tyala—my father especially—but I always wound up in the same place:   100% confuzzled.   Okay? So sue me for not understanding why everything anybody ever wanted was to be plain and normal. To fit in.   I’m not going to do some big speech, or sing some big song like Belle in The Beauty and The Beast about how everybody is mediocre compared to me.   I can’t sing and I can’t judge. Because I’m jus...

189 likes 216 comments 216
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The Grave of Joseph Hanson

Submitted to Contest #51

A cemetery is never a place that someone wants to be in, especially not when you are visiting the grave of a child. I stroll along the rows of tombstones of members of the Woodside community. There was an old lady that passed last week, her name was Margret Wilson. When she was young, she was one of the most beautiful women in the community. Though, this is not who I am here to visit.At the back of the cemetery, next to a tall oak tree was a tombstone less extravagant compared to the rest. Withered flowers lay in front of the stone, and they...

175 likes 81 comments 81
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Red, Blue, White

Submitted to Contest #51

To Bella,   Red was the colour of your favourite flower, roses. The first flower that I bought for a girl. The flower that you always liked to receive, regardless of the situation.   Blue was the colour of your skirt, your junior high school uniform. The one you wore when we first met at the entrance test for the high school that we attended.   White reminded me of the packaging of your favourite soft drink. The fizzy drink that tasted weird, the beverage that I hated. The only thing that we couldn’t seem to agree on.   Y...

172 likes 247 comments 247
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A Poem By A Star (No, Literally)

Submitted to Contest #51

Author’s note: This story has the same characters as my first short story, Rebel Prince. This isn’t a part two, so you’ll understand it just fine on it’s own, but you might want to read Rebel Prince first to gain better understanding and enjoy this more! I stared up at the stars. They were so beautiful, so peaceful, so awe-insp—“ACK!” I hollered as my dog, Maya, jerked forward. Therefore, her leash jerked forward. Meaning my hand jerked forward, followed by my body.“What was that for, Maya?” I groaned as I wiped the mud off my knees and han...

169 likes 99 comments 99
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The World Is Your Playground

Submitted to Contest #51

Author’s Note: Mikka in this story is pronounced “Meeka”. Hi. My name is Kasey Robertson, and my life is food and swimming. For now, let’s focus on ‘swimming’.I love to swim. I’ve been swimming since I was 2–meaning 16 whole years of going to the public pool every day after school. I used to swim for fun, but at age 14, I quit school to do competitive swimming. My job: do what I love, and win money.I was about to go train at the pool when my phone started vibrating in my pocket. I sighed, set down my towel, and picked up my phone. Then picke...

164 likes 64 comments 64
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The Red Bat

Submitted to Contest #51

       “Don’t do it that way. You’re going to strip the screw.” Dad corrected as he pushed up from his chair to retrieve the tool out of mom’s hands. They were replacing the screens in the kitchen windows, the last home improvement project of the summer. Winged insects buzzed in and out into the night air. My mother handed the tool over, the familiar look of defeat in her eyes, and went back to the stove to stir the boiling pot of pasta. Her eyeglasses slipped to the end of her nose from the moisture i...

157 likes 73 comments 73
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Fragments of The Past

Submitted to Contest #51

They come to me in snippets. Every moment of that day, of that incident, flashes behind the lids of my closed eyes. I plaster a smile on my face in the hopes that my darling sister is always reassured that my battle to stay in the here and now was won many years ago.I am fine. I have no more panic attacks; no more random moments of panic where nothing but pure fear of the past seeping into the future consumes me. The flashbacks stopped as soon as I stopped seeing my therapist years ago, I swear.All of these unspoken words are communicated to...

141 likes 103 comments 103
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The Killer Behind the Door

Submitted to Contest #51

The sweet smell of morning dew rushes into my lungs as I gather a deep breath of the cool air surrounding me. Conner’s friends live here, I think to myself. Conner lives here. As I perch on the top step of his front porch, my legs ache from pumping on the pedals of my bike, the sounds of his mother’s cooking filling my head. Behind me, the screen door creaks open, and Conner joins me on the porch. He does nothing for a while, nothing but stare up into the cloudless sky, crouching with his arms resting on his slightly grass-stained knees. His...

138 likes 35 comments 35
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What Feels Like Foreign Territory

Submitted to Contest #51

I waited for maybe a minute before I opened the taxi door. I had momentarily forgotten where I was until the taxi driver looked at me through the glass and communicated everything that I could almost hear it come out of his mouth: “Why you de look me? You no get hand?” I was now in Lagos, a place where doors weren’t opened for you if it wasn’t the person’s job to. I sighed.As I opened the taxi door and my feet hit the ground, I was hit almost instantly with the Lagosian air I had once loved and now grown to resent. I had no luggage because t...

138 likes 45 comments 45
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The Urn

Submitted to Contest #51

Fire. Glitches of fire, then it was pitch black with just a small beam of light on a simple brown urn. It felt cold and empty like this was what loneliness felt like, only it was for an eternity. Then there was another glitch and in the distance, a man was hunched over, but it was facing to where you could only see its back. You could hear it, the aggressive breathing like someone was suffocating through a gas mask.Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.You could also hear in the distance, murmuring. It was like someone, or something, was screaming,...

131 likes 60 comments 60
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Haunted in an Ocean of Memories

Submitted to Contest #51

"Hello." I said, giving her a small smile. Today was to be no different. She was back, yet again. I met her when I was six or seven, starting either kindergarten or first grade. I forget which, but I know that it was one of the two. She couldn't speak, for some reason. Back then, I didn't know why. Everyone seemed to ignore her, like she didn't exists or something. But, unlike others, I saw that she was there. It took me a while to find out what she really looked like, because I would only get a glance at her before she vanished from my...

124 likes 61 comments 61
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Her Dark Brown Eyes

Submitted to Contest #51

Her dark brown eyes seemed emptier than the dried-up lake that sat in the middle of the desert outside the dingy wooden windows, yet they were shining bright with panic and pain. A false religion was not the only thing hidden under her light grey scarf, but also a thousand knots of curls over raging red bruises. Two pairs of parched greyed lips parted at intervals, then were sealed shut by an invisible force seen only by her. She brought her scarred fingers to those lips forgetting there were no nails left to chew, then brought them down as ...

120 likes 102 comments 102
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Olive Green Eyes

Submitted to Contest #51

It has been three years since I last saw you. I can still feel you touching my skin like nobody ever could; making me disappear in the world with just you and me. With such care and love, you knew how to handle me when I would be at my worst points. Every word that I would say you would predict as if you knew me before I knew myself. I can still remember your smile; how could one forget such a beautiful smile? Your amber-coloured eyes still haunt me to this day. Your soft lips visit me in my dreams making me jealous that they are stolen from...

117 likes 59 comments 59
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