Menu

Menu

Prompts

Contests

Stories

Blog

Directory

Contests

Magazine

FAQ

← All contests

#64 Out on the Moor

This week marks 173 years since the original publication of the classic novel Jane Eyre. In the nearly two centuries since then, the novel has served as social critique, deep character study, sweeping romance, and so much more. Its atmosphere has inspired reams of Gothic literature and ghost stories, while its in-depth handling of Jane’s perspective set a whole new path for the way characters are written.

In honor of this achievement, this week’s prompts have been drawn from facets of Jane Eyre. We can’t promise that your story will be remembered for centuries — but you never know!

🥇 Winner

The Girl in the Goethe House

Winner of Contest #64 🏆

I pass under the words “GOETHE FAMILY ESTATE” and grapple with a queer feeling of unease. The archway is flanked by faceless statues, their features worn smooth by wind and rain. The path to my right leads down the hill, past rows of uniform headstones, to the old convent. Ahead of me stands the Goethe Manor House.The convent was closed decades ago, and the Goethe House has been abandoned for over a century. The only building on the estate that is still occupied is half a mile away; the former Catholic girls’ school, now converted to a nursi...

401 likes

128 comments 128

⭐️ Shortlisted

My Zoey

Shortlisted for Contest #64 ⭐️

I wrap her tiny body in my arms. A snot bubble around her nose bursts as she sneezes gently into my sleeve. I bundle her up in her sleeper and place her in her crib. She fusses when I set her down, but within a few minutes, she relaxes into a slow, rhythmic breathing.     Standing over the crib, I smile. It’s been a long day filled with baby boogies, watery eyes, and sick crying. I haven’t been able to calm her all day, but these quiet moments where I can just watch my beautiful baby girl are worth it. The butterflies in...

55 likes

Linden Drive

Shortlisted for Contest #64 ⭐️

I sometimes feel that I knew you once, that the memory of your voice has haunted me for what feels like centuries, ringing in harmony with the silence of death. Yes, I think that I did know you, that this house was ours, but I cannot recall what our names were or even the shape of your face. Everything fades in death; even the sharpest memory becomes muddled and thin, mist on the moorland. Dying is being wrapped in an unending blanket of fog, watching the shape of the world as it happens without you but not seeing anything clearly. I wi...

49 likes

Manse Dracule

Jacques Humanité

Shortlisted for Contest #64 ⭐️

He stood with wine in hand, for hours regarding that portrait hanging above the hearth. The light and shadow rippling across the study as the fire danced bent the face painted in dozens of variations, some kind, some stern, some emotionless, and one that would appear only as the light waned and darkness descended: a monster. He set the glass down and made his way along the winding cobble corridors of Manse Dracule. He passed his family’s banners hanging along the walls, and empty rooms from which the firelight of hearths kindled by phantoms ...

34 likes

Haunted

Chelsea S D

Shortlisted for Contest #64 ⭐️

Finding just the right haunted house is always a challenge. One cannot simply walk into any old house and find their match; there are specifics to consider. You are buying a house after all, and it is important to have the usual lists of needs and wants. You may want 4 bedrooms, but need a two story Victorian where a grisly murder took place. You might want a two car attached garage, but need a basement with the frayed and knotted rope still hanging from the pipes. You have to know your priorities, when hunting for a haunted house.Of course ...

29 likes

What Happened That Night at Greymouth Manor

R. E. Rule

Shortlisted for Contest #64 ⭐️

               It was a dark night, and I was motoring home, rumbling along the twin ruts that led past Greymouth Manor. Masses of inky cloud had banished the moon from the sky. My headlamps dimly lit the trees lining the thin lane, casting a thicket of shadows across the road. I watched eagerly for the golden glow from the rows of stately windows, a beacon of prosperity and tradition in an ever-uncertain world, but through the gap in the hedges guarding the main entr...

24 likes

This week's prompts

Set your story in a Gothic manor house.

Horror – 133 stories

Write a ghost story where there’s more going on than it first appears.

Mystery – 225 stories

Write about someone who’s been sent to boarding school.

Novel – 119 stories

Write about a family attempting to hide their secrets from someone new.

Dramatic – 121 stories

Write a romance that involves one partner saving the other from a fire.

Romance – 153 stories

Stories

The Girl in the Goethe House

Winner of Contest #64 🏆

I pass under the words “GOETHE FAMILY ESTATE” and grapple with a queer feeling of unease. The archway is flanked by faceless statues, their features worn smooth by wind and rain. The path to my right leads down the hill, past rows of uniform headstones, to the old convent. Ahead of me stands the Goethe Manor House.The convent was closed decades ago, and the Goethe House has been abandoned for over a century. The only building on the estate that is still occupied is half a mile away; the former Catholic girls’ school, now converted to a nursi...

401 likes

128 comments 128

The Wandering Medallion

🆇🅰🆅🅸🅴🆁 🅶.🆂. 🅵🅴🆁🅶🆄🆂🅾🅽

Submitted to Contest #64

When Graham’s heart cancer had forced its removal, it was it for him, except for a last chance at life: a highly experimental prosthetic heart. And for four months, it has worked, constantly transmitting commands in response to his body’s natural nervous signals to a computer. It, in turn, would regulate the BPM. Monitors constantly beeped, showing the peaks and dips in his artificial pulse. Four months and one day since the surgery, the lock to the door of Graham and his Grandparents’ dwelling was picked. The valuables off of the shelv...

168 likes

What Happens in the Basement of Number Seven

Liza Anne

Submitted to Contest #64

Little Hallow is a very small town located just north of Nowhere and three hours west of Witch Haven. It’s so small that the houses are numbered without a road name. Very few come to Little Hallow and even fewer leave. It is a place full of witches and warlocks, owls and black cats, and all sorts of magical objects. The inhabitants of Little Hallow are not happy, per se, but they are content. In such a small town, everyone’s lives are so interconnected, and that is enough to keep them complacent for the moment.“Lilith! Lucy! Come quickly, no...

154 likes

The Things we Lose in the Forgetting

Jessy Glazewski

Submitted to Contest #64

“Can I get you anything?” the interviewer asked, putting on a pair of thick-rimmed glasses. “Something to drink, perhaps?”“No, thank you. I’m fine.” John answered. “Alright, shall we begin then?” John nodded, pulled the blanket draped over his back tighter around his body.“So when did you first notice the fire?”“Uh, it was around 2:30 in the morning.”“And you were in the house at the time?”“Yes.” “As was your wife, correct?”“Yes,” John answered, shifting in his seat. “Do you know when I’ll be able to see her?”“Tell me,” the in...

142 likes

The Return Of The Prodigal Son (The Chadwick Saga - Part 1)

Submitted to Contest #64

Sarah ran from room to room, frantically, searching for her child, with tears streaming down her face. Her long auburn hair, soaking wet, hung loose about her shoulders. Her pale skin glistening in the candlelight she was holding. Her long blue satin dress dripping with water, clung to her slender form. The sound of her son crying had woken her up in the middle of the night. When she went to check on him, she found, to her horror, an empty crib.The storm was still raging outside. The rain coming down in torrents. The wind howling like an inv...

115 likes

Warwick House

Submitted to Contest #64

I arrived at Warwick House too early. Jude looked back at me when I checked my watch—9:10—as we drove under great iron arches toward the looming manor. “You okay, Bethe?”“I’m fine. I’ll wait outside. Thanks for driving me, Jude. I owe you one.”“Anything for you, Bethy.”“Shut up.”He laughed.Gravel crunched and spat under my feet as I rolled my suitcase over the driveway. Jude turned in an ungainly circle in the white driveway and the car disappeared from view. He was proud of that car, a nice little 2017 remodel.I went all the way u...

106 likes

Born to Be

Ariadne .

Submitted to Contest #64

January 1889 Green Valley School for Girls comes into view as the horse-drawn carriage pulls to the central courtyard. I can’t keep my eyes off the massive building. It’s breathtaking, with its numerous turrets and towering steeples. The walls are built of gleaming stones of varying sizes and shapes, none the same as another. From a distance, it is a uniform creamy white, but as the carriage draws nearer, I can see that it is a mosaic of humble rocks. Of them, not one would be given a second glance if they were loose by the roadside. But to...

92 likes

452 comments 452

Leave

Elle Clark

Submitted to Contest #64

Jessica woke because of the cold. Icy tendrils of damp were clawing at her arms and the chattering of her teeth was enough to make her jaw ache. Beside her, Jackson slept soundly. The duvet was tucked round her shoulders and his face was relaxed and innocently boyish. The cold that seemed to be seeping into her very bones didn’t appear to be affecting him in the slightest. Jessica remembered her mother talking about fevers so hot they tricked you into thinking that the burning you felt was ice. She certainly felt like she wasn’t complet...

89 likes

A Centuries-Old Facade

Ariadne .

Submitted to Contest #64

Rhiannon“Mama, Mama!” the little girl says. Her dark curls pile over her chubby toddler cheeks, splaying over her mother’s chest. “Tell me Nana’s story, please?”“Rhi, I’ve told you that one so many times,” her mother replies wearily. “Don’t you want to hear something else?”“No, Mama,” the little girl insists, sticking out her bottom lip in a pout. “Nana’s story is the coolest! Please, Mama!”“Oh, alright,” comes the reply. “Let’s take you to bed first, mm-kay?”“Okay!” Rhi’s enthusiastic response is choreographed with hops, twirls, and spins u...

86 likes

Freya

B. W.

Submitted to Contest #64

"Freya! Freya, where are you going?" My older sister, Heaven called out as she chased after me. We were next to some very large bushes and once you went through them, you'd be in one of the human villages. It was the middle of the night when I was sneaking out to it, I thought that she was a heavy sleeper. Why was she even awake? Did I make some noises when I was getting up to leave earlier? "I'm...just going for a walk Heaven. Maybe you should just go back to sleep or something?" I suggested with a nervous smile. Maybe she would buy thi...

84 likes

102 comments 102

December 6th, 1941

Robert Grandstaff

Submitted to Contest #64

December 6, 1941 A bright blue sky for a hundred miles west ended the day. Cool mountain breezes, from the snowcapped Sierras, blew across the lowlands. A short hike to the edge of town, Alex and John searched for the house known as “Decay and Splendor.” Hidden among a neighborhood of pines, the gothic manor sat empty and foreboding. Boarded-up windows and tangled vines hid a once beautiful home fallen from glory. Dead leaves scented the air and swished along a buried sidewalk as they approached. Statues and figurines of white marble pe...

83 likes

THE TWIST

Enenche Elizabeth

Submitted to Contest #64

I ran briskly through the backdoor of our house as I managed to escape from my mum. Where is this naughty girl? I heard my mum asked from the living room. I had worn three cardigans with my teddy bear hung round my neck fully prepared for work.I forgot to introduce myself. I am Clara Bernard a junior nurse in Amelia Lewis Hospital (ALH). I am the intelligent one but the clumsiest nurse in the hospital. I was supposed to be a senior nurse but due to my clumsy nature, I am still in my present position. Some even see me as a psycho. My mum Mrs....

81 likes

122 comments 122

Hart

Lina Oz

Submitted to Contest #64

I see her through the smoke.She is still. Too still.My heart is not.I sense the flames nearby, gulping everything that resides on the forest floor. This fire, like all others I have been unfortunate to witness, is unforgiving. Unflinching. I have observed many of my family perish, too slow to escape the burning fingers, engulfed in a blaze so powerful that ash rains for days and weeks and endless years in the forest and in my nightmares.I will not let this fire take her.Suddenly, there's a cracking sound so thunderous that I snort, leaping b...

80 likes

The Prison

Julia Boddie

Submitted to Contest #64

She needed money and she needed it very badly. She lived alone, with no parents to tell her what to do. She was free. But nothing in life is free. All things come at a cost, even freedom itself.~~~~~~~~~~In a world like this, it was normal to see a fourteen-year-old kid like her living by themselves. The leaders of her city tried to make fair laws, but they couldn’t. This city had way too much crime. They couldn’t even get parents to take care of their children anymore. So here she was, struggling for money so she could pay for her house.She...

77 likes

A strange place (part 1)

B. W.

Submitted to Contest #64

I was reaching the school which seemed to be in the middle of the woods, yeah that isn't creepy at all. This feels like it would be something out of a horror movie actually, why do people in those always go? I looked up at the large dull building ahead of me, it was three stories so i guess that was interesting. I got out of my car and began to gather my things so i can go inside and look for my dorm. I took out my phone from my shirts pocket and then checked the time. 11:30. Great, it was almost midnight now, why did the school have to ...

76 likes

352 comments 352

Load more stories

Contest #64

This contest has ended. Thank you for your submissions.

$50

Prize money

751

Entries

0

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Oct 23, 2020 EST

Won by Mollie Rodgers 🏆

Title: The Girl in the Goethe House

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!

reedsylearning

How to Write a Novel

Join Tom Bromley for a writing master class and finish your first draft in 3 months. Learn more →

How to Write a Novel