Menu

Menu
Prompts
Contests
Stories
Blog
Directory
Contests
Magazine
FAQ

Write a story about a character who is trying to become a better person.

Posted in Middle School on Nov 1, 2022

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?

✍️ 42 stories

Reincarnation, Rebirth, and a little bit of Regret

Submitted to Contest #158

It was but a lost child. I probably shouldn’t have stared at it so horrifically. “Can you help me? I’m lost.”“Oh god,” I uttered before I could stop myself. I tear my heavy glare away from the short, chubby little thing. I ran in here to lose myself, not to be found. Another quick little glance is stolen before I smear my hand across my dry eyes, feeling the cool relief from my fingers seep through weary eyelids. “Fine,” I sigh, dropping my hand from my face. “Make sure you’re following me. I don’t care whether you’re behind me or ...

28 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

Ellos Vinieron Del Sur

Submitted to Contest #158

The Rio Grande was a crepuscular figure in the looming darkness. Its calm brown waters softly sailed through the desert, splitting the land in two, separating hopeful dreams from the brutal bitterness of reality. The cryptic depths moved morbidly along the shallow banks of sandy loam where the watchful eyes of mysterious predators bided patiently behind the gloom. Only the docile light of the moon, which billowed obediently through the sand and ebbed silently between the waters, made the oppressive hostility of the dark more bearable. Perche...

26 likes 10 comments 10
Read story

Me

Submitted to Contest #158

Morality is a tricky thing. No one ever tells you exactly what’s right or wrong. There’s no bullet-point list outlining the consequences of each action you take. Let alone a bullet-point list explaining how your actions might affect others.I reread the same sentence for the fifth time. “The key is listening.” Rather prejudice against deaf, aren’t they? The bookstore is quiet. A soft glow illuminates the dust floating near me. It casts an ethereal light on the shelves of untouched spines. People whisper around me and the smell of bo...

26 likes 6 comments 6
Read story

Rock Bottom is Wherever You Stop Digging

Shortlisted for Contest #158 ⭐️

Oh no. No no no no no no. This can’t be happening. I sit up from the bench I was sleeping on, trying to take in my surroundings and not vomit. Oh, my aching head. Many of my hangovers have been terrible before but never THIS terrible.I am in an unfamiliar subway station. The smell of fuel and greasy food and dirty floors and public urination suddenly becomes too much, and I run into the station bathroom which is thankfully nearby, and up comes all my stupidity. Mixed together with the martinis and scotch and champagne and whatever else I’ve ...

24 likes 8 comments 8
Read story

The Spider Web House

Submitted to Contest #158

A dew-covered spider web so sticky and threads gleaming with four am moonlit sparkles, was spinning soft yet deadly circles around his body. Ben was here again, soon to be stuck in a room, in a house that was begging for repair, on a road he didn't want to be on. The road located in an area that could only be called the wrong side of the tracks. The cliche screamed, but fit, so there it lay. The house itself was in disrepair yet lucky enough to still have two working windows on the second floor.  Covered in greasy fingerprints that st...

22 likes 13 comments 13
Read story

And life went on

Submitted to Contest #158

Elena wasn't very clear on the details. She could not fathom how quickly she had let go of her common sense for sheer, utter recklessness. It could be blamed, she supposed, on the Ferris Wheel of thoughts her mind had become; receive the highest grades, get the best recommendations, gain this internship or that, look good, dress well; the same drivel running over and over in a slow torturous pace in her head. Breaking away from them, breaking away from that need for perfection and success, had been thrilling. Twenty years old and still liv...

21 likes 6 comments 6
Read story

You Called My Name Again

Submitted to Contest #158

My McDonald’s fountain drink cup of spare change sits quietly in front of me. Snow is beginning to bury it away. No one looked my way. That’s how it usually is. People avert their eyes, and do their best to block me out of their consciousness; if I did appear in their field of vision, I suppose they’d feel some sort of social obligation to hand me some spare change. But I’m simultaneously too young and too old to garner too much sympathy, so then again, maybe not.  I sit down, pulling my blanket around me a bit tighter. New York winter...

19 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Size Matters

Submitted to Contest #158

Byron Strueth had lost almost sixty kilograms in a twelve-month stretch. It was a marvellous achievement. In less than a year, Byron had completely transformed himself. Through a strict regime of exercise, meditation and healthy choice eating, he had shed the weight, dropping from a hefty 130kgs down to a lithe 72kgs. A brave new world lay before Byron, but someone had forgotten to tell the previous incarnation of Byron; the fat one. His new body, with its narrower dimensions, perplexed and confounded Byron. He was ill at ease in it and ca...

17 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

The Road Home

Submitted to Contest #158

The sun momentarily blinded Eric as the door slammed shut behind him. He squinted around him and tried to locate Jon’s car, but none of the ones he could see matched the description Jon had given on the phone earlier that week. Eric sighed, sat on the low wall at the edge of the car park, and pulled his phone out of his pocket. It was so natural, even after not doing it for over a year. He pressed the power button, but nothing happened. He pressed it again, for longer this time, but the phone was dead. Of course it was; it had spent over a y...

17 likes 1 comment 1
Read story

A New Day

Submitted to Contest #158

A New Day Hank climbed on the bus and sat down. After being locked up for almost two years, he was heading home to his sister. It felt great to be free and as the bus moved along, he began to think back to when everything started going wrong................ His earliest memories were of his parent’s being drunk all the time and his dad beating on him and his sister, Kim. When he was twelve, his parents were in a car accident and were both killed. His sister was sent to live with his grandparents, but they couldn’t manage both, so he wa...

16 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

Fraidy Bat and Confident Bat

Submitted to Contest #158

There lived a bat. And he was afraid of everything. People, his shadow, and so went the list. Fraidy Bat was always so afraid, but there was one thing Fraidy excelled at. The Art of Theater. He loved to play on stage, acting and playing roles of different people. When he was on stage no one could see the bat as being afraid. He was daring, adventurous, and talented. But because he was too anxious around people, no one ever knew. One day, came another bat named Confid. She was loud, outspoken, and courageous. The people thought her to be ...

15 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

My Daughters' Addiction

Submitted to Contest #158

My daughter, a beautiful thirty-five-year-old woman with a huge heart for everything alive on this earth. She has long, down to her lower back, beautiful golden blonde hair, big brown eyes, and a great teasing like smile, has had an addiction for 13 years. The first time she admitted to me she was addicted to Methadone, she had already given birth to two beautiful, like her, children, a boy, and a girl. She wasn't living with me at that time and had extremely bad experiences within her relationships. She never told me that the men she was ...

15 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

The Graduation of Eddie Calibresi

Submitted to Contest #158

Passing from sixth grade to seventh grade, from elementary school to junior high school, was a monumental event of the highest order for Eddie Calibresi and me. Gone were our wanton days of team-frogging fourth grade boys like Brady O'Neil, and stealing kisses in the darkened recesses of a coat closet from the exotic looking Debbie Simmons and her best friend, Bonnie Rankin. It meant fewer high-speed chases on our bikes or skateboards, flying over the bridge at Bogg's Creek or making kamikaze passes at old lady Young as she swept her sidewal...

15 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Doing my best at this point

Submitted to Contest #158

When I was a little kid my favorite movie was Hercules.He was just a guy who didn’t know where he belonged but believed that he was made for more. I felt like that as a kid, but the difference between me and Hercules was that he was actively doing things to reach his goal. While I was more focused on the part of the song where there was a far off place where he felt like he belonged.Fast forward a couple decades, and well, here I am. Unknowingly moving through life, I had managed to get by mostly on my own, but I always wondered if...

14 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

Better Man

Submitted to Contest #158

She lies and says she's in love with him Can't find a better man She dreams in color, she dreams in red Can't find a better man Can't find a better man Can't find a better man Oh (“Better Man” Pearl Jam, 1994) Devon Shellnick wanted to be a better person, but sometimes nature does not allow the leopard to transform into a sheep just because he is tired of killing his next meal. Devon was twenty four and in six weeks, he’d be twenty five.  At that point he would be the oldest member of the Flushing Avenue Freaks Gang.  His brothe...

14 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

🌟 Similar prompts

Start your story with a couple sharing a cigarette in a parking lot.

Adults – 63 stories

Write about a character with questionable morals.

Dark – 41 stories

Write a story where the law plays an important role.

High School – 24 stories

Write a story that includes someone saying, “It’s not fair.”

Middle School – 72 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