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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#63: Autumnal

It’s finally fall in the Northern Hemisphere. While the leaves are being slow to change out my window this year, the air is crisp and the pumpkin spice products are out in full force. Time to break out the sweaters!

Beyond all the colorful trappings, though, fall is by definition a season of change. So as you craft your stories this week, try to think about how the events you’re writing will change your characters' lives, whether fundamentally or just a little. After all, even a seemingly mundane afternoon can be the turning point of your entire life…

And if you want to drink some apple cider or a pumpkin spice latte while you write, more power to you!

This week's prompts

Set your story in a coffee shop that’s just introduced a new line of autumnal drinks.

Fall – 161 stories

Start your story with the line, “By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire.” (Whether this is a literal fire is up to you.)

Teens – 324 stories

Write about a character making fall decorations out of construction paper.

Kids – 45 stories

Write a story from the perspective of a bird migrating for the winter.

Winter – 128 stories

Write about two characters going apple picking.

Fall – 249 stories

Stories

“She was wearing a yellow dress” by Sam Schneider

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. The warm orange glow that I felt on my face was something that I didn’t feel for a long time. The pressure that I felt was finally gone, and I felt like I could take my first real breath in hours. Although I could very well imagine that people wouldn’t find this calming. The sight of these beautiful yellow leaves on fire looked sad, existing for no other reason than to exist. In my hand, I was still holding the letter that she wrote to me. The letter that I found on my pillow two ...

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“Hearts Don't Forget” by Grace Estano

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside Starbucks to try their pumpkin spice latte, the leaves were on fire. The leaves of the trees had turned to red and gold. The beauty and splendour before me was something I have seen only in postcards and brochures. My heart fluttered as I began clicking away, completely immersed in what I was doing when,,,oops! My step faltered. I had stumbled on a piece of rock."Aray!" I cried aloud, hoping nobody had heard or seen what happened or I would have been embarassed. But I was wrong. Somebody did see me."Are you all ...

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“My own hero” by Esperanca Blare

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. The smoke doing nothing to help my already dry throat. I was not worried. I still had time to escape and this time I only carried my weight on my shoulders. If I had to die by fire, I would die knowing that I had done justice to the children that once walked the halls of the looking glass. Both dead and alive. When I brought up the escape plan, everyone thought I was crazy. But they listened because I was the oldest and we all knew that it was our only chance of survival. If w...

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“Where there's autumn, there's fire” by Tammy Pieterson

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire, and those that were not, consumed the ground they fell on. Charred bodies in the distance, sunk into the crispy heaps, the cloudy sky engulfed in red and an eeriness in the air, so thick, so unsettling, you could almost feel it pressed up against your cheek. There was no other explanation, no other possible cause. It was here, it was finally here, and it was looking for me… I threw my bright red scarf around my neck and tightened the straps on my backpack. I ran down the library stair...

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“A Autumn Day” by Catherine Schaade

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. And I don’t mean literally as some may assume by reading this. I mean fire only Mother Nature herself could create. The reds and oranges swirled together against the autumn sky making the trees seem ablaze. As I stepped, wrapped in my soft fleece throw, onto my porch, I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, allowing the smells to center me in that perfect moment. I opened my eyes and sighed softly, a small smile playing on my lips as I gazed across my lawn littered with the leaves from my...

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“What did that add to the narrative?” by Pepe Bellerin

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. It wasn’t a convenient time for them to be ablaze as I hadn’t yet adjusted to this narrative. I was stood on the doorstep of a building I wasn’t yet familiar with, looking ahead at a road that stretched straight on into the distance. This road was flanked on either side with these strange tall trees - willow trees I think (an impressive deduction to make within a minute of existing if I do say so myself). And yes, the leaves were on fire. It wasn’t a warm fire, from what I could te...

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“My sister's keeper” by Julianne Baldiga

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. The copious amounts of burgundy, crimson, and gold that splashed across the forest took me by surprise. The trees were standing upright and strong. On front center stage, they boldly displayed their colors. After a long summer that focused on hot rays of the sun and blue skies, the expanding color palette of the leaves cued the forest it’s his time to shine. The last time I stepped foot outside these prison walls, there was still a cold wet chill in the air. The sky was g...

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“Love's Old Song” by Sophie Marin

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. Mama liked to take the short way out. She burned our front yard to its bare bones, dousing the beautiful green blades and variegated plants in thick layers of gasoline every first of December. Louis and I begged her every year to leave the leaves, let them decay to dust like the faeries in our old storybooks, but she always laughed and shook her head, sending ripples flowing through her beautiful red mane. -Mama said that Papa married her for her hair, for the way it reminded him o...

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“Falling Leaves, Warm Memories” by Raelyn Pracht

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. The remnants of hours spent raking now filled an old drum, surrendering to the heat of a controlled fire. This was one of my favorite parts of the fall season - the near-ritualistic burning of the leaves. The smell, one of musky, sweet smoke, brushed with a hint of dampness, always offered moments of nostalgia in its embers. The warmth of the fire offered its own gift of comfort and memories, a sharp contrast to the chilly mountain air of the Shenandoah Valley. I took a sip of hot apple...

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“The Ember In The Wind” by Grace Sigurdson

Submitted to Contest #63

"By the time I was outside, the leaves were on fire," Sapphire told her therapist. "Then what did you see?" Dr. Green said, nodding. "There was this little ball of fire, just, walking, er floating? around." Dr. Green went deep in thought about what to say to the doctors and Sapphire. She interrupted his thoughts when she got up and walked to the window. "Doctor, it's outside," She said calmly. The doctor got up and looked out the window. He saw nothing, but people were either running away from the middle of the road or staring at, nothing...

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“The Autumnal Adventure” by Amna Ayub

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. Everywhere around were myriads of red, yellow and brown leaves who looked forlorn and desolate. The sky was deep blue accompanied by snowy clouds and they seemed to me an invitation for a thrilling adventure. On the western side, red and orange colours were spread throughout the sky just like the colour of leaves I was surrounded by. It was evening time and the sun was about to set. This is the beauty of autumn that I have adored since my childhood. Autumn is my favourite time of the ye...

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“Hexed” by Kara O

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. From the upstairs loft, the tendrils of smoke had looked like a mirage, a trick of the mind. But standing on the porch with the heat blazing and the leaves cracking, it couldn’t be denied. The spell had worked. And my heart bubbled with joy. And I did a little jig. Now I knew hexing my neighbors would work. Not that the spell not working would have stopped me, but now I knew it was going to work. Hosing the pile of leaves I’d raked till they were a hiss...

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“Hell to Play” by Tucson Richelson

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. The warm sun sagged in the sky. The big blue above me bore down and invited me to keep walking forward, but it was so hard. I couldn’t help but stop and look at things. I felt reborn the way someone who has a near death experience feels alive for the first time. The all new game from Facebook, cutely called, “Faceplace” was not anymore a game than Facebook was a game. It was a simulation, a very, very real simulation, filled with other real people. It’s not really my cup...

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“About Halfway” by Judy Buechner

Submitted to Contest #63

About halfway By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. Or at least that is how it felt when I, the youngest (and the only) of 7 children, was let go from a position for the 2nd time in my life. As I am pretty sure that none of them have ever been let go… from anything. Hey just another great experience to chalk up to my 45th year on this planet, marking about the halfway point here on Earth. It started about 7 weeks earlier when one of the other Account Managers had agreed to let me shadow him for a day.&...

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“Faluvial and Barculaine” by T. S. Burkhardh

Submitted to Contest #63

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. I’d been cooped up inside all weekend working on homework. Now, as I walked to school with Ana, I realized that Autumn had arrived. I should have realized it days ago when Daggerbeak, my pet cockatiel, kept staring alertly at the window. She must have been seeing the first of the leaves coming down. The thermometer had swung way upwards today, but it would probably be the last warm spell of the year. Anna skipped along, her outrageous silky pig tails swishing about on either sid...

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$50

Prize money

907

Contest entries

0

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Oct 16, 2020 EST

Won by Masha Kurbatova 🏆

Title: come to atlanta!

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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