Write a story framed by a single scene: something happens, a flashback or inner monologue intervenes, and then the story ends with the rest of the original scene.

Posted in Narrative on Dec 22, 2023

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✍️ 90 stories

“The world’s Rebirth” by Marwa TA

Submitted to Contest #230

The world was crumbling. It was the end.Monsters have existed since the dawn of history. They’ve always been here, accompanying humans in all their miseries. But they had never been as numerous, as vicious as in these recent days. They were everywhere, killing relentlessly. Something had shifted in them. They were beginning to coordinate, showing more unity in their quest to decimate humanity.A disheveled individual stood facing a monster with a swollen face, whiter than plaster, and long hair blacker than ebony. Its eyes were simple black d...

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“Diamonds and Pearls” by Elizabeth Ruth

Submitted to Contest #230

I’m greeted at the car door by an over eager assistant to producer, clearly in her first 90 days. She is opening the door, hoisting me from the interior, ‘we’re just a wee bit on the late side’ she admonishes. We break into a trot rounding onto 7th Avenue from W57th, and she practically pushes me into the elevator, yanking me out a bit later only to shove me down the hall and into a room with a few sofas and a table. Not late at all, I have time to sit and consider the painting they’ve chosen to adorn the wall. It has muted blues and soft br...

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“Only a Memory” by Jim Brosnan

Submitted to Contest #230

Only a Memory by Jim Brosnan I decided to check one item off my bucket list—climbing the Rockies. I decided to take advantage of some free time after devoting over sixty hours a week working on a grant project. It was a recent award for which I had received state funding. The week of hiking had been seasonably warm. Near the summit I began to feel the need for a jacket even though it was mid-June. On the last morning I learned first-hand what a snowfield was by dropping knee-deep into a crevice. From a distance, the landscape l...

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“Silver Threads” by Hannah Leigh

Submitted to Contest #230

The dusty gray morning sky was the same shade as the tip of one of Sarah’s fingers. Her eyes drifted open from a night of restless and painful sleep, and the color and numbness in her right ring finger caused her eyebrows to furrow. Dusty is better than black, but until this point the cold of the nights at Auschwitz hadn’t caused this particular color change. She woke most mornings to red and white, but never this hue. It could be worse. Most women in the barracks had lost at least a toe by this point in the harsh winter. Sarah had all twent...

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“The Reality of Fantasy” by Ava Reid

Submitted to Contest #230

I tried not to look lost as I made my way through the lounge, passing two bars and numerous tables that had groups of people who varied from appearing to be bored, to hanging off their chairs with excitement. I didn’t want to sit at a table by myself, so I continued walking, surprising myself when I got as close to the stage as possible. I was almost exactly in the center and likely to be one of the first people the performer saw when they came out. People started to surround the stage as a digital sign above the curtain counted down the sec...

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“Portrait of an ordinary man” by Fox Ferguson

Submitted to Contest #230

[Trigger warning: implied paedophilia and child abuse] He was, altogether, a very ordinary man. He wore jeans and a hoodie, and he was quietly good-looking, neither plain nor showily handsome. His eyes were of a colour you couldn’t remember. Once, on holiday, he had been persuaded to have a caricature portrait taken on the beach; but the picture had come out blandly bad, as if there were nothing in his face which could be grasped or exaggerated but only what was regular. He was a very ordinary man. No one noticed him as he crossed the ...

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“Stripped” by Yvette Okeke

Submitted to Contest #230

I walk into the salon and gingerly take off my sunglasses crinkling my nose to the pungent smell of hair dye and nail polish remover. The combination does nothing to mask the stench of athlete’s feet, much as the sound of hand driers blasting away at clients’ hair cannot compete against the conundrum of chatter that is very typical at 1st avenue F’ close house 20 Festac Town. The posh little hair salon called “Dina's Hair Secret” is a lot more like a market place than beauty parlor really. I own this place and yet sometimes I feel like ...

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“Letting It Go” by Szabolcs Takács

Submitted to Contest #230

The hospital room has that familiar smell of medicaments when you come round. You hear fragments of a conversation as your mind is awakening: ’severe atrial fibrillation... transferred from emergency care... needs occasional supervision... ’, says a man's voice, apparently that of a doctor, with two women's voices chiming ín occasionally. As the last thing you remember is roaming the streets of the city’s historical district, you assume that you have been taken to cardiology after you had had the blackout. Luckily, they had been able to...

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“Basketball As An Assumption” by Gregg Voss

Submitted to Contest #230

0:10.3 left Rising heat billowed from the collection of huddling men-children. Coach knelt in front of his five chosen players who leaned forward on red-padded folding chairs awaiting instruction, ignoring the heat and the blaring “Cotton-eyed Joe” and the juvenile multi-syllable chants of, “Overrated!” and “Season’s over!” Braden Cowley was one of the five seated and stared down at the blond h...

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“Too Much Information?” by Jeremy Stevens

Submitted to Contest #230

Doink! “Honey, I thought we agreed: no phones, right?”“Right, sorry.” She starts rooting through her bag.Breathe. This spring-break vacation is what you’ve worked for; this has been your focus since your first semester results, a 7% increase from last year’s end-of-course performance but still, pitifully, only 24% proficient. Breathe. Last year, you did not hold this position, so administration should be thrilled with the increase; but still, that nag: the State’s prediction of student growth, for “educator accountability,” yielded a -3.I ma...

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“Firebird and Mourning Dove” by Pocket Poet

Submitted to Contest #230

It was the nightshade of trees that seemed to crawl all around her. Like indigo snakes, black dragons that coiled like the world serpent in thick vines of rose fang thorns, she tripped and fell onto the black and blue shadows on the uprooted feet of toppled trees, fallen kings and crowns, flags dragging on the ground, she tripped and fell at the foot of their shadows, bent the knee and rose in dark, moonflowerless night. The nightshade shifted in the wind, slithered on the ground, writhing vines filled with water crawled up even in the nig...

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“Obsession Rage” by Keyetta Harris

Submitted to Contest #230

Shying away from the broken mirror whispering over and over, “little girls should be seen and not heard.They should be seen and not heard. I pause. They should be,” I picked up the roses off of the dresser and threw them to the floor. They should be heard I screamed out! The dresser was covered with fragments of broken glass. Makeup powder everywhere. The room, the dresser, and the floor looked like a thief burglarized the place. “I am sorry daddy I did it again,” softly saying it over and over, “I did it again. Like a broken...

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“Digesting the Architecture” by Edward Brown

Submitted to Contest #230

Landon stood in the corner of the den, a large, bright airy room with contemporary leather sofa, two similar chairs and end tables. The tables appeared more like space vehicles except for the coasters, lamp (also a weirdly shaped object) and a Sports Illustrated. Everything had a place and a place for everything, he thought. He’d been in rooms, and houses like this, but that didn’t mean he knew how to act. He’d learned from living in Mt. Hebron that Southerners, of which he was both one by birth and not one by temperament, were judged quickl...

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“Trying to Forget” by Lucy Aklin

Submitted to Contest #230

(Sensitive Content: Involves mention of blood, school shooting/violence, mention of death/dying, detailed panic attacks, and mental health issues.)“What do you feel when you start thinking like that?” The therapist asked, giving me a pointed glance and tapping her pen on her desk. I hate that sound. A long silence creeped between us. I tried to ignore the words she’d spoken, the tapping of the cheap ballpoint pen against the dark wood. I looked at the two sad, bland, colorless pillows on my left side, sitting with me on the formal gray...

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“Motor Maniac: Writer Wanted” by Matthew Gordon

Submitted to Contest #230

Today, Doug is hoping to land the job of his dreams that he never expected. Sitting at an ornate desk in front of Mr. Whitmer, Doug finds himself on edge. Under the desk sweaty hands grip blue jeans, holding tight. Doug knows he’s under qualified, but he applied anyway, and got the interview! A writer for a large magazine, Motor Maniac. This job would set him and his family up, and allow them to raise their new child the way they want. Enough money, time after work and working from home. His current job with Mr....

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Write a story framed by a single scene: something happens, a flashback or inner monologue intervenes, and then the story ends with the rest of the original scene.

Submissions are closed

✍️ 90 stories

“The world’s Rebirth” by Marwa TA

“Diamonds and Pearls” by Elizabeth Ruth

“Only a Memory” by Jim Brosnan

“Silver Threads” by Hannah Leigh

“The Reality of Fantasy” by Ava Reid

“Portrait of an ordinary man” by Fox Ferguson

“Stripped” by Yvette Okeke

“Letting It Go” by Szabolcs Takács

“Basketball As An Assumption” by Gregg Voss

“Too Much Information?” by Jeremy Stevens

“Firebird and Mourning Dove” by Pocket Poet

“Obsession Rage” by Keyetta Harris

“Digesting the Architecture” by Edward Brown

“Trying to Forget” by Lucy Aklin

“Motor Maniac: Writer Wanted” by Matthew Gordon

🌟 Similar prompts

Write a story in which a character achieves a new level of clarity about how they’re really feeling.

Start your story with someone uttering a very strange sentence.

Write a story that hides something from its reader until the very end.

Write a story in the form of a list.

Contest #230

Enter our weekly contest!

$250

Prize money

362

Contest entries

108

Stories

Win $250 in our short story competition 🏆

Explore more writing prompt ideas: