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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#75: New Year, New You

For many of us, the last year was like living through a low-budget disaster movie — but the good thing about the new year is that it gives us an excuse to start fresh. And even though flipping a calendar doesn’t necessarily fix all our problems, it’s still good to take a moment and think about everything you do have the power to change.

In that spirit, this week’s prompts are all about fresh starts. From small, personal achievements to huge goals that will change the world, everything starts with the decision to try. What sort of things will your characters achieve this year? What sort of things will you?

This week's prompts

Write about someone who has finally managed to succeed at a long-standing New Year’s resolution.

Winter – 98 stories

Write about someone whose job is to help people leave their old lives behind.

Adults – 246 stories

Start your story with one character making a vow that they never would have made the year before.

Holiday – 102 stories

Write about someone who doesn’t remember their past — and doesn’t want to.

Thriller and Suspense – 205 stories

Write about two characters who each want to change the same thing, but resolve to go about it in very different ways.

Teens – 84 stories

Stories

“I Loathe Uninvited Guests” by Orenda .

Submitted to Contest #75

“Ooh, see, who’s making it to the top of the mountain. It’s SwordOgre!” the anchor’s voice roars through the JBL speakers as the virtual spectators cheer and applaud their favourite players. I press my headphone mic close to my lips and jab my thumb at the screen. “Hey, hey, player-1234-I-don’t-care, I will invert your rib cage if you don’t leave my spike behind.” The player who, as usual, feigns ignorance, sprints up the mountain toward my area and sabotages my spike. A clever coward, I see. Red splashes my screen and sirens pierc...

158 comments 158

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“Blue Violets” by Maya W.

Submitted to Contest #75

***Not exactly a trigger warning but there’s some talk of religion if you don’t like that.*** “Stars will blossom in the darkness, violets bloom beneath the snow.” It was dark and lonely behind the gates of hell. A youngish man with a maniacal grin stood behind an old wooden table stretched along a dreary path, smoke coming to and fro from behind the table until it floated back into the air, more gaseous soot returning from below. This man was Charon, the ferryman of the underworld. The closest thing the Greeks had to a grim reap...

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“Rhythm of the Waves” by Yolanda Wu

Submitted to Contest #75

Olive knew of rapid heartbeats. Shortness of breath. The sting in the air that pricked his skin. The wind that slapped against his cheeks.The people he had walked past mere seconds ago were now blurs in the corner of his eyes. His entire family was here - his mum, his dad, his stepdad, his two brothers.It was surreal.Blue was standing in front of him with a cerulean suit to match his eyes. A white rose in his breast pocket to match his shirt. His silken hair was pulled back into a bun like the day they had met.Two well-intentioned curls had ...

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“Strangers on a Train” by Maya W.

Submitted to Contest #75

“Some birds sing when the sun shines bright. Our praise is not for them, but for those who sing in the dead of night. We raise our cups to them.” Suyin plopped herself down by the train’s windowsill, gazing out the reflective glass to see shimmers of rain falling down from the clouds. From the right angle, she could almost see her own reflection in the window, right above the bronze colored wood. Sighing, she stared out at the rain as it poured like a paint dripping down a canvas onto the streets of Ophirie. Signs blew in the wind, the rai...

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“In the Rearview Mirror” by Scout Tahoe

Submitted to Contest #75

“Two bedrooms, two bathrooms.” Brian gestured down the hallway like he had many times before, but this time, he knew the walls were listening with their pierced ears. His client massaged her floral handkerchief between dough-soft thumbs. “1,400 square feet.” She ran her free hand along the walls and noticed they felt like peeling bark during a heatwave. Her fingers dipped into every dent and slipped along every curve. “In a nice neighborhood. It seems perfect for you,” Brian admitted, tapping his short nails again...

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“He left me” by Coco Longstaff

Submitted to Contest #75

When my father came home from work late at night, I could tell he was drunk straight away, again. I watched as he was knocked off balance and tripped to our front porch. I have had enough of this. Enough of him forgetting the bills, enough of him forgetting my life, enough of forgetting about her. He wasn't always like this, my father. But it all changed when my mother died. He couldn't hold his life together, and he started letting life past him. I needed to get away from my father. He was ruining my life. But I didn't know how to leav...

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“Monsters” by Scout Tahoe

Submitted to Contest #75

September, 2011There was a space, behind the bookshelf, where heat spat through the vent. It was tucked away from the rest of the classroom and my favorite spot to read. Spiders would knit webs through the nooks and crannies and dance onto my finger if I had the courage. Dust flew through the air like blind flies but I ignored it, sneezing into my elbow. I thought I was safe and alone but one day he showed up. He was sharper than all the other boys I knew. Kohl always had a plastic fork in his pocket and dimples carved into his fac...

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“Criminal” by Coco Longstaff

Submitted to Contest #75

“You got it?”“Here.” He picks up the heavy briefcase and passes it to me.“Showtime.” I declare.The train halts to a stop and we both get off. We head up the stairs and onto a windy sidewalk.“Which one?” I ask, peering at the neighborhood in front of me.”That one.” My partner says, pointing at a solid, Victorian brownstone just off to the side.“That’s a rich family.” I tell him as we both make our way onto their sidewalk.“Sure is. Now like you told me, its showtime.”“Mmm-hmm.” I smile.My partner knocks on the wooden door and waits. After a wh...

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“Frozen love” by Coco Longstaff

Submitted to Contest #75

Jade Newman stood up in her new skates. She had resolved to do this, she will do this. Jade had waited for almost a year for this, now she was going to succeed.She impatiently waited for the rest of her family to get their skates on their feet. Jade stomped and grumbled as her family told her to wait, wait. They were all busy packing and helping each other with their skates and luggage. &n...

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“The fugue state” by Moon Lion

Submitted to Contest #75

The air smelled like fire and incense, imbued with something magical and lost to time. Taking lungfuls of it made the edges of my vision blur, and everything seemed right. The tented stalls, the lights, the giggling drunken women who passed me. All of the things that seemed touristy and tacky when I had arrived suddenly seemed perfect. I see a man with one eye, and a woman with a serpent's tongue. But I dismiss them, little glitches in my broken mind. Of course, this would be it, this was the only place I could ever retrieve what I was...

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“Page 121” by A.Dot Ram

Submitted to Contest #75

Whoever erased my memory has done a damn good job. Ninety-nine point nine percent of the time, I don't miss it at all. “My name is Tansy Thatcher and I have a good life,” I whisper to myself. I am thirty-seven. I’m head of marketing at an architecture consultancy. I have a cordial but distant relationship with my co-workers—the kind that leads to just enough collaboration to get things done, but not enough to get lost in aimless oversharing. I'm okay with this. I live with my husband Josh and cat Sprüngly in a cozy two-bedroom house in ...

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“The Devil’s in the Details” by Elise Volkman

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #75

Danny V. Luce sits back in his sleek, leather chair and kicks his feet up on his desk like the world is a pea-sized speck in the middle of it and he’s here for its reckoning.“Look, Darlene. I know this is how you’re used to doing things, but you’ve just gotta let it go.”He’s actually here for my reckoning. I keep forgetting — that’s what happens when you come out from a minor car accident with major head trauma.“Mr. Lewis—”“Luce.” He corrects me quickly, as though he expects the slip.“Mr. Luce.” I blink, wondering how I forgot that already. ...

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“Easier Days” by Kristin Neubauer

Submitted to Contest #75

I will never eat another apple pie. Never again. I wouldn’t have said that last year or any year before that. But now, the thought of an apple pie shatters me. It started with a Facebook post from an ER doctor treating COVID patients. He wrote about baking his single use N95 mask in order to sterilize it before using that same mask again. And again. And again. “It comes out warm and toasty and clean. It comes out safe. I set it on the windowsill to cool, like an apple pie from easier days,” he wrote. I sent that to Pip, who...

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“Sika's Story ” by CarefreeChicken, The Overlord Of Reality

Submitted to Contest #75

She adds another braid in her hair for every year she survives. There are four braids missing. She cannot remember. She knows she doesn’t want to. She can tell in the way the others look at her that she doesn’t want to. She lives. She lives and does not think of her story. She does not think of her family or the home she does not know.Only at night can she remember. Only at night can she remember how her family were killed and her home burned.She wakes up screaming for the mother that she does not know.She wakes up screaming for th...

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“The Unexpected Diet” by Daniel R. Hayes

Submitted to Contest #75

Jill slammed her hands down on the kitchen table so hard and unexpected that it startled Brad. She gave him a look that chilled him to the bone. This wasn’t just any look, it was “The Look.” The look that our moms used to give us when we got into trouble, the look that meant she was serious. Brad looked at her with a child-like expression and asked, “What did I do this time?” She cocked one eyebrow and proclaimed, “It’s not what you did, it’s what you're gonna do. What we are going to do together.” “What are you talking about? You kn...

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$50

Prize money

735

Contest entries

0

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Jan 08, 2021 EST

Won by R. A. 🏆

Title: The Violinist

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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