Write a story in which a character discovers that a truth they've believed their whole life is either false or not the whole story.

Posted in Dramatic on Feb 7, 2025

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✍️ 73 stories

“Obscure Recollection” by Donald Haddix

Submitted to Contest #289

“Dad, where are the yams at?” Frankie yelled up the basement stairs.“Behind the peas, son!” Dad yelled back.As Frankie walked to turn the light switch off, he looked over at his father’s terrible masonry job that he did right after Frankie’s twelfth birthday. Until recently, the basement had always been a place Frankie’s mother and father never allowed them in. The only things down there were various odds and ends, his father’s tools and the freezer next to the pantry.Frankie flipped the switch, putting the basement back into darkness again....

47 comments 47

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“Telltale Sign” by Mary Bendickson

Submitted to Contest #289

Telltale Sign Maggie sat in the dusty yard admiring her new doll. Her first doll ever. The birthday girl at four-years-old never knew little girls and dolls went together like boys and climbing trees. As the only girl among five boys in her family she had only played however those boys played. Sticks as swords or twigs raking the dust prepping the soil for 'planting season'. This doll was delicately dressed in a pink silky dress with lots of lace up to her neck beneath her porcelain face with its flushed cheeks and rose-bud mouth showing tin...

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“A Bike Without Training Wheels” by Kate Marsh

Submitted to Contest #289

(TRIGGER WARNING - Talk of eating disorders)*** Shannonnn,Shanny Shan Shan, I think that I’ve lost my way with words. Who would’ve thought! In middle school I was basically Emily Dickinson in mom jeans. I have no idea how to start this, and I know I should just grow a pair and say it in person. But that´s bound to be awkward. So, I’m writing now, at the bow of the ferry, cheap coffee in hand, headed toward you. The barista downstairs told me I look a little like Leighton Meester. I know you love her, so it feels like a compliment to us ...

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“Happy Never After” by Laura Camacho Frias

Submitted to Contest #289

[Ernesto] I reached the exit door, happy that no one had punched or yelled at me, but as happens to the overconfident, my happiness did not last long. Someone came after me and grabbed my shoulder, an older man I recognized as the groom's father. I turned my head, saw his fist, and heard:"You stupid son of…"He had no time to say anything else. Before his fist could even touch my face, I saw someone else come between us, someone who threw a punch at him: the bride's mother. "You knew it!" she cried. She looked at me and gently said, "Thank yo...

16 comments 16

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“By Any Other Letter” by Asia W

Submitted to Contest #289

I have been alive for seventeen days, and my sister tells me I will never know God the way I’ll know him when we’re together. She is fourteen years, one month, two weeks, and one day older, and so she is correct. I can see it in the way she moves, like angels are dressing her feet, and smiles with pink lips the shape of a whip tail, and in the way the skin of her face is not mushed with the same oatmealed scars as mine. Nestled by the jaws of the stream, we watch the mothers as they loop the grassy flat of the hill, white dresses bloom...

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“Sipping Tea with a Pretty Monster” by Astrid Skarsgaard

Submitted to Contest #289

Mothers keep secrets from their families for good reasons. Jodi’s mom, for example, sleeps around. Amanda’s mom snorts a little coke. The worst thing I can say about my mom is that she smokes.But all that changed today when I came home from college earlier than planned. &...

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“Brinley Street” by Story Time

Submitted to Contest #289

My father went to work everyday. Every day. Seven days a week. Even on holidays sometimes. Sometimes my mother would yell at him. Sometimes she didn’t bother. He’d ask her if she liked our house. Our nice house in a nice neighborhood on a beautiful island. A paradise. Even if in the winter it felt like a hollowed out stuffed animal. Still fun to look at, but not much to hold. Safety and good schools. I took French lessons. Really, I did. French lessons. Back then, that was all middle class. It didn’t mean you were rich. I never thought we we...

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“Half True” by Helen A Howard

Submitted to Contest #289

Half trueFalling in love is like being on the best ride.Falling out is what happens when you get off.As the bus drew close to the American airbase drop off point, nineteen-year-old Lottie applied another layer of Strawberry Potion to her lips. Earlier, she’d sneaked out of the home she shared with her strait-laced parents in a village a few miles away telling them she was staying over to watch tv with an old school friend. The staying over part was true but she wasn’t sure her mother believed the rest.“Just because you’re a grown woman doesn...

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“My Worry Stone” by Amanda Wisdom

Submitted to Contest #289

When you look up the etymology of the word monster, it means “to warn.” For as long as humans have been around, and even before the genesis of written language, we’ve found ways to communicate this word.Whether it was with clay tokens or cave paintings, monsters have appeared in our histories, our stories, and our lives, time and time again. And though they might haunt and horrify in a variety of shapes and sizes— some baring claws and fangs, others decorated in clown makeup or Halloween masks— they all have one, undeniable factor in common:...

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“Beneath the Walls.” by Kaylee Ellison

Submitted to Contest #289

(Trigger Warning: This story contains themes of psychological horror, isolation, grief, distorted reality, and a depiction of a character's emotional distress and unraveling perception of reality. Reader discretion is advised.)Elysse had always been told that her mother had left.She was told that the house, the one with the peeling wallpaper and the smell of rotting wood, was the last place her mother had been. But it wasn’t until Elysse was older—when the grief became a suffocating blanket—that she stopped asking why her mother had left. Sh...

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“My Father The Great American” by Sophie Goldstein

Submitted to Contest #289

My father was the proudest American in Texas. Growing up he’d make me work with him on his car every Sunday and tell me American history. He wanted me to know that the United States was the greatest country in the world. Every Fourth of July there’d be the traditional barbecue and fireworks. He’d take his stereo outside and play Frank Sinatra on full blast and let me shoot a couple rounds from one of his handguns in celebration.One of the speeches my father used to give me the most was, “Mijo, you might be Mexican but you’re American, you he...

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“A Soul Beneath the Ashes ” by Zeinab Jaber

Submitted to Contest #289

(this story includes triggering matters like death, grief and supernatural horror.)Yvaine was drenched within minutes by the rain which matched without any tag of will or tell—as she was caught standing at the village edge staring into the pyre.The scent of charred wood and flesh mingling with the air was thick as grief itself—again, she was too late.The elders had already burned the body.Her mother's body.The flames had died down to embers, but they had done their work. The woman who had raised her, who had whispered old names into her ear ...

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“The True History of England's Favorite Colony, as I heard it” by Tommy Goround

Submitted to Contest #289

Trigger: written in the fat thumb grammar to avoid data miners over-borrowing any more labor.Grandpa was dragged out by his neck and forced to sign his property away. The crows thronged hard and threw their gnatty green tomatoes, their wooden shear sticks fanning about in the hazey morning. It was like a thunder strike as this tassled leash went around his neck and someone slapped a horse on the hind and the cobblestones went bumpety bumpety. It’s rough to have this awesome guy, this King of royal blood in your line, but you can’t brag ...

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“The Man in the Photo” by Virginia King

Submitted to Contest #289

For as long as Olivia could remember, there was an empty space on the wall of her grandmother's sitting room. The dusty outline of a missing frame sat between family portraits, a haunting reminder of what—or who—had been erased.No one ever mentioned it. When she inquired, her mother would simply purse her lips and shake her head, while her grandmother would murmur, "He doesn't exist anymore."But Olivia was always the type of person who wanted to know the whole story.She discovered the photograph years later, after her grandmother had passed ...

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“Not You” by Reilly Stuber

Submitted to Contest #289

DISCLAIMER: This story contains nudity, language and slight gore that may be sensitive. Keep that in mind, and enjoy the read!The lab smelled of chlorine, sterilization, and simplicity. A drop of water kept illuminating the background, a feeling of coldness eradicating from it as each droplet landed on the floor across the glass.Bloop. Miley felt comfortable behind six inches of safety glass, the space giving her time to breath and watch as the droplets of water kept splashing onto the opaque floor, the water spreading across it slowly like ...

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Write a story in which a character discovers that a truth they've believed their whole life is either false or not the whole story.

Submissions are closed

✍️ 73 stories

“Obscure Recollection” by Donald Haddix

“Telltale Sign” by Mary Bendickson

“A Bike Without Training Wheels” by Kate Marsh

“Happy Never After” by Laura Camacho Frias

“By Any Other Letter” by Asia W

“Sipping Tea with a Pretty Monster” by Astrid Skarsgaard

“Brinley Street” by Story Time

“Half True” by Helen A Howard

“My Worry Stone” by Amanda Wisdom

“Beneath the Walls.” by Kaylee Ellison

“My Father The Great American” by Sophie Goldstein

“A Soul Beneath the Ashes ” by Zeinab Jaber

“The True History of England's Favorite Colony, as I heard it” by Tommy Goround

“The Man in the Photo” by Virginia King

“Not You” by Reilly Stuber

🌟 Similar prompts

Start your story with the lines: “The room is unfamiliar. I don’t know how I got here.”

Write your story as text messages or an online conversation between two characters — and at least one of them isn’t who they say they are.

Write an open-ended story in which your character’s fate is uncertain.

Your character is getting changed in the bathroom of a nightclub or restaurant, then emerges looking completely different. Why?

Contest #289

Enter our weekly contest!

$250

Prize money

364

Contest entries

155

Stories

Win $250 in our short story competition 🏆

Explore more writing prompt ideas: