Menu
Prompts
Contests
Stories
Blog

Menu

✕
CONNECT
Editing Design Marketing Publicity Ghostwriting Websites
BLOG
Success Stories
APPS
TOOLS
Book Promotion Sites Book Review Blogs Booktube Channel Guide Book Title Generator Character Name Generator Independent Publishers Literary Agents Literary Magazines Pen Name Generator Plot Generator Publishers Directory Short Story Ideas Writing Contests Writing Exercises Writing Scholarships
ABOUT
About Reedsy Terms Privacy

CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

Write a story in which the same line recurs three times.

Posted in Fiction on Oct 26, 2022

Submissions are closed

Sorry, we are not accepting submissions for this prompt as it is not part of an active contest. Make sure you don't miss our next contest by creating your free Reedsy Prompts account.

Sign in with Google
Sign in with Facebook

Or create a new Reedsy account:

Why not check out our active contest?

✍️ 163 stories

“Strawman” by Ben K

Submitted to Contest #101

Splashing water on my face I look at myself in the mirror. “Come on. You can fucking do this. Fucking do it. It’s all a part of the show. The show most go on.”Grabbing a single razor blade from the medicine cabinet. I pop the top of my vial and pour a little powder atop my counter. Sift it into a straight line, lean down, close one nostril and snort every microscopic grain straight into my brain. Knocking my head back with a second deep sniff it hits. Shaking my head around for a beat, I lean back into the mirror. Checking my teeth for anyth...

1 comment 1
Read story

“The Nature of Things” by Taylor Hunter

Submitted to Contest #101

March 6th: “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.” That’s what they always tell me, that’s all they have to offer me. They pat me on the shoulder and whisper those empty words like I’m supposed to then look up to the dim heavens and offer my gratitude. I’m disgusted and I’m broken.  March 10th: I cried again today. I was doing what I already know to be wrong and recalling old memories. They’re such a brutal kiss, I get to taste the sweet sweet lips of love just ...

0 comments 0
Read story

“Only I can make myself better” by Karina Kilimnik

Submitted to Contest #101

 TW- Mental Health problems discussed.EmmaCuriously, today I saw my old friend, Emma.Out of the blue, she walked into my book shop.My heart began racing, she is THE celebrity of today.Pressing against the window were her countless fans.A stunning smile can be seen escaping from her lips.Radiant eyes look right at me.Immediately, I rush to say hello.Secure in herself, she stands tall.Opening my bookshop was the topic of discussion, not her award.Now she politely answers that she is well.Kingdom the size of the world, she owns it all.Insp...

4 comments 4
Read story

“Forever Dark” by Sikander Shah

Submitted to Contest #101

It shook me to my core. I had learnt a new skill that day, out of fear, but a skill nonetheless. I had no idea such an event would leave me in such a bereft state. I had no idea it’d strike me this persistently. Well, it was in my accountability as to what had happened. Yes, I went inside the preserve and perhaps I might’ve provoked the beast a little. It began in the wild life arena. You might have seen the title I have given to this encounter and you will figure out why sooner or later. I had seen so many things already. I’ve seen lions,...

1 comment 1
Read story

“The Last Ride” by Joan Fiddle-Ferder

Submitted to Contest #101

The Last Ride       By       Joan Fiddle-Ferder  “I AM GOING TO CUT OFF YOUR BREASTS!”, she screamed at the top of her voice.  Irritated that her reading of Catcher in The Rye had been interrupted, Fiona looked up from page seventy-four of Holden Caulden’s exploits in Manhattan to see a woman, who couldn’t be more than thirty, hovering over her, threatening to cut off what little Fiona had on her grown on her chest after twenty-five years. It was t...

0 comments 0
Read story

“Meeting” by Tamara Nenadić

Submitted to Contest #101

On a sheer peak of joy we meet;Below us hums the abyss;Death either way allures our feetIf we take one step amiss.Edith Wharton, A MeetingThey were supposed to meet on the 8th of October, at 3 in the afternoon, at the place that everybody in the village called the Turkish hill. The stories about the crossroads at the top of the hill were often told during winter nights and family gatherings, but she remembered very little of them. House built on top of the Turkish graveyard where a man killed his wife and two children for reasons unknown to ...

1 comment 1
Read story

“Mourning Dawn” by Mixens Smallcharms

Submitted to Contest #101

They say that when a phoenix dies, it burns to ashes and is reborn anew. With that in mind, we must assert that there is, at any given time, at least one phoenix on the planet at any given time. So… where is it? Why have I never seen one before? Dagny paused to think a little longer, letting the ink of her pen bleed a little on her lower lip. It wasn’t necessary to lick the pen or anything, she just thought it made her look smarter when she wrote. As a result, she had accumulated an impressive collection of blue spots on her lips by the ...

0 comments 0
Read story

“Neither Be Seen Nor Heard” by Ashton Newland

Submitted to Contest #101

Crashing through the glass panel of a greenhouse, I land onto a bed of velvety moss and roll forward into some large ceramic pots containing large trees with waxy green leaves and the most fragrant yellow flowers. While I am not entirely sure the location of this place, I know for a fact I am in a greenhouse of spectacular size. Checking myself for injury, I notice my clothes are in tatters, and I have a few bleeding cuts. Nothing is broken, no holes sliced into the depths of my abdomen, and my head is still attached to and directly above my...

0 comments 0
Read story

“I Want Ice Cream” by Faustina H.a.F

Submitted to Contest #101

TW: death, murder “Nicole!” My six year old sister forces me awake, “Mr. Rainkiss, wants something to eat!”   I throw her off my bed, and she falls straight on her butt, “Tell Mr. Rainkiss to go bother mom or dad,” I grumble from beneath my red curly hair.   “Mommy went to work, she told me to wake you when I got hungry, and dad is going out of town this week,” Lilly, my little sister, says in a matter of fact way, “Maybe if you worried more about our family and less about boys, social media, and extracurriculars you’d know what wa...

1 comment 1
Read story

“I Was Born to Fly” by Quinn Ford

Submitted to Contest #101

I was born to fly. I knew this because it has been ingrained in me since I was given life by the Rulers, our oh so compassionate leaders and politicians. This was my purpose, and it was imprinted in me. I remember the other children. Thousands of them. We all felt lost, but we never spoke about it. We just knew our role and we did what we were told on the schedule we were given. I remember the spartan early learning center and its mustard walls with space charts and flight paths. I remember with such hazy detail these childhood days, sti...

0 comments 0
Read story

“No More Than Three Months” by Carolina Pérez Ramos

Submitted to Contest #101

And that's how I did it. I got up to close the window, it was a sunny day, the clouds were nonexistent and the small plants and flowers moved with the gentle wind. Although the birds were singing a sepulchral silence reigned inside the country house. From the distance I could see some cows and horses from the other farms that were far away. A few seconds after observing the landscape, I closed it. I needed more darkness, I didn't want him to wake up. He was laying bed, exhausted from the date we had last night. He had been very gentle, he a...

2 comments 2
Read story

“The Doors of Giving and Taking ” by Layla Donovan

Submitted to Contest #101

“Stand clear of the closing doors, please.”Neil Levitt ducked between the closing steel doors a moment before they met in the middle to seal him out of the car and into waiting another twenty minutes for the next train.He was thinking that maybe it would have been better to wait, because now he’d be home twenty minutes faster; and perhaps that was something he was trying to prevent. But after years of catching trains just in the nick of time with his mind usually running with thoughts like ‘please please please don’t close’, he’d fallen into...

3 comments 3
Read story

“Get Your Soul Right” by Red Hazelwood

Submitted to Contest #101

       The sky was raining gold the night that loneliness became a friend. Street vendors clamored under the golden fire, plying their trades for a hope to feed their families. Rich and poor battled to be heard through the explosions, and I sat beneath it all. Soggy popcorn grew cold in a greasy bag that dangled from my fingertips. A couple behind me was sprouting some new age bullshit about how the fireworks contained tiny pieces of their loved ones, raining down on them, providing them with some motivatio...

0 comments 0
Read story

“The playful pattern of a fate in the mirror of a glossa” by Rodica Niculescu

Submitted to Contest #101

Time goes by, time comes along, All is old, and all is new; What is right and what is wrong, You must think and ask of you; “Glossa”, by Mihai Eminescu (1883), The chirping of birds is so sound in the peace of the morning. Freedom-thirsty dogs bark at the woods’ shadows in the woods surrounding his house. Their voice is only a sound sent back bay from the trees’ bark. His home set on a mountain slope, each morning looks with sleepy windows to the sunrise from behind the ridge, and each evening admires the calm of the king Sun wh...

0 comments 0
Read story

“The balloon” by Mariana Del Rosal

Submitted to Contest #101

That afternoon, Janet made sure the bathroom door was closed before sitting on the toilet. She was alone at home, but her mother or her sister could come in any second now. They thought she was at the office, but that morning she had to call in sick because of nausea. She opened the packaged she had bought at a drugstore far from home (just in case) and she tried to pee, which took some more time than usual. Finally, after two endless minutes, she looked at the plastic strip again. There it was: two clear blue lines. It was the second time s...

2 comments 2
Read story

🌟 Similar prompts

Write about a character doing something they’ve done hundreds of times — only this time, it’s taken on a new meaning.

Character – 148 stories

Write a story about a character who fails to understand something until they have the full context.

Character – 75 stories

Write a story about a character who always repeats themselves.

Character – 45 stories

Write a story that involves a reflection in a mirror.

Horror – 295 stories

Contest #101

Enter our weekly contest!

This week's theme: Antanaclasis

$50

Prize money

728

Contest entries

0

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Jul 09, 2021 EST

Won by Mary Sheehan 🏆

Title: Colleen

View details

Win $250 in our short story competition 🏆

We'll send you 5 prompts each week. Respond with your short story and you could win $250!

NEW VIDEO COURSE 🎉

How to Write a Novel

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

Explore more writing prompt ideas:

Adults Writing Prompts ⭢

Adventure Writing Prompts ⭢

Angst Writing Prompts ⭢

Character Writing Prompts ⭢

Christmas Writing Prompts ⭢

Dark Writing Prompts ⭢

Dialogue Writing Prompts ⭢

Dramatic Writing Prompts ⭢

Dystopian Writing Prompts ⭢

Fall Writing Prompts ⭢

Fantasy Writing Prompts ⭢

Fiction Writing Prompts ⭢

Fluff Writing Prompts ⭢

Funny Writing Prompts ⭢

Halloween Writing Prompts ⭢

High School Writing Prompts ⭢

Historical Fiction Writing Prompts ⭢

Holiday Writing Prompts ⭢

Horror Writing Prompts ⭢

Kids Writing Prompts ⭢

Middle School Writing Prompts ⭢

Mystery Writing Prompts ⭢

Narrative Writing Prompts ⭢

Nonfiction Writing Prompts ⭢

Novel Writing Prompts ⭢

Poetry Writing Prompts ⭢

Romance Writing Prompts ⭢

Sad Writing Prompts ⭢

Science Fiction Writing Prompts ⭢

Short Story Writing Prompts ⭢

Spring Writing Prompts ⭢

Summer Writing Prompts ⭢

Teens Writing Prompts ⭢

Thanksgiving Writing Prompts ⭢

Thriller and Suspense Writing Prompts ⭢

Valentine's Day Writing Prompts ⭢

Vampire Writing Prompts ⭢

Winter Writing Prompts ⭢