Menu

Menu
Prompts
Contests
Stories
Blog
Directory
Contests
Magazine
FAQ

Begin a scene with a non-visual sense. Describe a specific sound, smell, taste, etc to capture your setting, then expand the story out from there.

Posted in Fiction on Sep 29, 2023

Submissions are closed

Make sure you don't miss our next contest by creating your free Reedsy account.

Sign in with Google
Sign in with Facebook

Or use an email address:

Why not check out our active contest?

✍️ 150 stories

Whale Song

Winner of Contest #218 🏆

Agony broils, but anguish simmers. I have known them both well and in equal measure. In the early days, my brain felt blurry and disjointed; I had the sense of being deep underwater, all undulating shadows and echoing whale song. The darkness was expansive, and the staticky, dull sense of confusion I felt was sometimes intercut with crippling panic. BP is spiking, the whales moan. Slowly, slowly, I floated to the surface, leaving the deep water below me. Still darkness, but the birdsong of faraway waterfowl sharpened, morphing into b...

155 likes 63 comments 63
Read story

Forged in the Breach

Submitted to Contest #218

Discorded drunken music swaggered up from the city of flapping canvas below. Tuneless yet merry lutes, belched singing and half hearted cheering, all battling for dominance over the melee of whetstone and anvil. What a racket it made. Never been a night different though, not to Jax's memory anyway. Same patriotic songs, same heroic stories, same bloody business needed doing come morn'. Only thing ever changed was the number of the dead. And that only traveled one road. Pointless the lot of it.Something has to change.Blowing out a smoking bre...

55 likes 57 comments 57
Read story

Rumination

Submitted to Contest #218

I feel my intestines move. It’s a sudden jerking – spleenwards – and then a quiet simmer. Is this what it’s like for pregnant women, when the baby kicks? Only, instead of a baby, it’s a nest of garter snakes. And the snakes are suddenly cold and they’re looking for a hot stone to rest on, and they drag my balls up into my body with them, as though they were dragging their luggage to the bus stop. And I wonder: is this a sign? Am I making a mistake? Right now? It’s weird to feel cold inside, to have ice spreading over and through my stomach r...

52 likes 77 comments 77
Read story

Crochet

Submitted to Contest #218

For family members of terminally ill individuals.You take your time walking down the aisle, running your hand along the rows of skeins, giving each a gentle squeeze. Some are fluffy, thick cords of feathery fibers, while others are fuzzy like one long rope of pom poms. Some are thinner, strings of intertwining wool and cotton and silk, acrylic even. Some are rougher, not like hemp, but textured like a thousand individual hairs twisted together. You can feel the invisible fly away strands spiking upwards and yielding down against your touch.T...

51 likes 59 comments 59
Read story

The Lock Tickler

Submitted to Contest #218

The prestigious Bearing and Whitworth Building was silent except for the incessant chatter of the starlings roosting behind its tenth-floor fascia. The law firm’s employees had fled their Wormwood Street offices for the weekend, leaving the commercial district empty but for the occasional bellow from distant river traffic and the dissonant howl of a patrol car’s siren. However by mid-evening the scuttle of feral paws and the yelp of an urban fox added to the stark ensemble as members of the local wild life appeared from their dark ...

43 likes 35 comments 35
Read story

Mida's Touch

Submitted to Contest #218

The autumn years: the time you’ve worked and waited for. To settle back, finally for more than a snatched half hour, on that comfy sofa you spent the best part of one career year saving for, sinking with a loud sigh into those plump cushions. No lego bricks digging into your back or model cars skidding beneath your feet. Just space to stretch luxuriously out, a glass of red wine in one hand, each sip a taste of the south; a book in the other, any yarn will do, you’re old enough to read what you like now after all. That’s the dream isn’t it w...

43 likes 33 comments 33
Read story

Don’t Smell the Roses

Submitted to Contest #218

T/W: Depictions of a dead body, read at your own discretion.“The stench of death.”Why do they call it this? Death doesn’t stink at all. I try my hardest not to breathe it in, but it’s there. It’s clawing at my nose, settling on my tongue, filling up my throat. It leaves me to choke. I’m frozen by the smell and helpless to escape it.Couldn’t I run before?Couldn’t I walk, crawl, jump, and dance?Why can’t I move now?These legs are stiff like hardened concrete.My chest raises with tiny inhales, small, like cool sips of water. One right after ano...

43 likes 59 comments 59
Read story

An Unseen Path

Submitted to Contest #218

Emma felt the warmth of the sun on her face. She stood on the soft grass at Bear Grove Park, and took a deep breath of the crisp spring air. Being matched with a running guide that day was her first step on the road to running the Springfield marathon.A sound of footsteps drew nearer. She was prepared for the fact that sighted people could be awkward in these situations. The Run Together foundation had given her his basic info, at least that was something to work with.“Hello Andy,” she said, with a joyous optimism, as if she had heard fabulo...

40 likes 35 comments 35
Read story

1861 - A Reunion in Calcutta

Shortlisted for Contest #218 ⭐️

CW: Racism, Religious fervor Is that the perfume gifted by your captors who snatched you away from your kingdom that’s wafting in the air, my darling boy? It stinks and smells worse than your uncle’s blood splattered on your face even as you watched in horror: a 7-year-old Maharaja robbed of his wazir and his regent mother robbed of her brother. It’s been 13 years since we breathed the same air, stood under the same roof, and spoke a word of endearment in person. It’s a pity we are not standing on the soil of Lahore from where you were rip...

37 likes 45 comments 45
Read story

BIRDS OF PARADISE

Submitted to Contest #218

The unusual sound came from the toolshed just as dusk began to blur Bilburry Hall's contours. Something resembling wings flapping against bushes or dozens of creatures attempting to flee the constraints of the wooden structure. Even though it was more of a feeling than an actual noise, Tom Davies, the gardener, couldn't resist investigating further. He approached the structure with caution, his heart beating with apprehension.Of late, he noticed strange things happening in the garden. Things that, on their own, could...

34 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

The Gift

Submitted to Contest #218

The Gift I wish to impart to you, my friend, a gift. Hopefully, you will be able to put it to use now and throughout your lifetime. It should be renewable and sustainable. You may even pass it on to another if you choose. I only ask you use it wisely and cautiously. It can be very powerful. I do not intend to be so mysterious. I will tell you what the gift is and what it isn't. It isn't a panacea for all life's woes. But it can be a tool to help cope with whatever struggles and strife life lays at your doorstep and to reach self-improvement...

33 likes 33 comments 33
Read story

The Book of Misrevelation

Shortlisted for Contest #218 ⭐️

We could smell the war before it dawned over the horizon. Day after day, vinegar pushed through pores on our skin clogged by testosterone. The muggy smoke of burning soup filled lungs whenever we forgot about it cooking on the stove. The stench of diarrhoea in the latrines was impossible to withstand, and it doesn’t deserve to be described here other than to say we stole laundry pins from the villagers to put on our noses for protection just to do our business. Sheets had to hang out, smelling crisply of starch, war or no war.  We fille...

29 likes 10 comments 10
Read story

Cockroach Girl

Submitted to Contest #218

The floor underneath Barry shuddered and swayed as they took a tight corner. The clattering whoosh of the dark tunnel drowned out the tired silence of the other commuters. Barry’s sweaty hand threatened to slide loose from its cold metal pole, so he adjusted his grip and tried not to think about what had made it so sticky. Multiple people had relieved themselves in this car over the course of the day. The sickly sweet mixture of vomit and tangy excrement churned his stomach, threatening to dislodge the chopped salad he’d had for lunch tha...

28 likes 32 comments 32
Read story

White

Submitted to Contest #218

         “…no man can ever feel his own identity aright except his eyes be closed;               as if darkness were indeed the proper element of our essences…”                                              ...

26 likes 39 comments 39
Read story

Sensory Memory

Submitted to Contest #218

Smoke.I smell smoke.My head is heavy, my eyes refuse to open. I’m still in a deep, heavy sleep. Sleep. Is it sleep or a nightmare, how can I tell for sure? The smell of smoke is getting stronger, I can taste it now on my lips. I’m struggling to swallow and it travels to the tip of my tongue, tingling for a bit before it disappears down my dry throat. Now, the taste on my lips feels more metallic. I read somewhere that it happens after inhaling a lot of smoke. The smell intensifies and my brain becomes more alert. It rushes to wake me up, for...

24 likes 8 comments 8
Read story

🌟 Similar prompts

Start the story with the absence of a sensory detail (eg. silence when there should be noise).

Fiction – 52 stories

‘Hit a tripwire of smell and memories explode all at once.’ Use the senses to transport a character back to the past.

Character – 49 stories

Write a story that begins, ends, or changes with a song played by a busker.

Fiction – 27 stories

‘The worst meal I’ve ever tasted.’ Imagine a zero-star TripAdvisor restaurant review: capture the customer’s evening out that compelled them to complain.

Funny – 31 stories

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