Write a story inspired by the phrase “Back to square one.”

Posted in Narrative on Apr 14, 2023

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✍️ 81 stories

“The Glorious Gift” by Shahzad Ahmad

Submitted to Contest #194

You must have read about at least a few heart breaking stories of individuals who had to start afresh after having lost sight of their goals on the point of making the all-important grab! But the response to your effort is often immeasurable and unpredictable. It is beyond the realm of human anticipation. It is a territory of divine calculations and defies any human extrapolation. The cue is to get your act together and try to make another attempt with greater drive, leaving the past to sulk in the shadow of its own doom. The protagonist of ...

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“Back to Square One” by Kay Reed

Submitted to Contest #194

Today I did the thing I was never supposed to have done: I quit writing.Written a million ways, in a million advice columns, said by a million authors to aspiring writers: Whatever you do, KEEP WRITING.That’s what I have been doing, mind you, for nearly twenty years, since I first decided I wanted to be a writer in the prepubescent halls of middle school. My dad taught me the meaning of hard work and dedication to the cause, a loyal employee at his company for nearly thirty years. The work is hard and tedious at times – he prepared me for th...

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“The Clean up Caper” by Michael Shiffer

Submitted to Contest #194

It’s Saturday morning, and my team and I are meeting with our newest client outside his home, the Northern Lights Apartments. Ours is an all too typical neighborhood. Cars, twice as old as us, cram narrow streets, forcing vehicles to slalom down the roads. We’ve learned to keep one eye out for moving cars and the other eye on one another. It’s late May, a week after the city-wide cleanup. I’m BeeDee Greenwood, and these are my stories from Mac Muldoon Elementary, a school with 250 students, where second-hand sports gear is first-time playgro...

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“In the Hardest Class Ever Taught, Flags Get Stuck” by Éan Bird

Submitted to Contest #194

In the hardest class ever taught, we return to square one over and over, go back, top of the page, redo checkboxes, fill in the same blanks again. Communication deduces into physical gestures and emotive symbols, culminates in idiomatic explosions. In the hardest class ever taught, learning struggles.I taught the hardest class tough lessons about the life cycle of a chrysalis. After instructing students to highlight where they found proof butterflies come from cocoons, I read the text aloud, modeled the activity, but looked up to a student d...

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“Henry” by Harken Void

Submitted to Contest #194

Henry was not a simple child to love, nor was he easy to understand. Born to a woman of society’s elite who dropped him onto an extravagant Chinese carpet, one likely worth as much as the county of Cheshire, and so drunk she only noticed her baby’s arrival once she stepped onto the umbilical cord, you could say that Henry was off to a rough start. One that would set the tone for the rest of his life. Henry’s mother’s name was Priscilla and she hadn’t worked a day in her life. Spoiled from birth, she was one of the privileged few on pla...

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“Ye Auld Hag!” by Julie Grenness

Submitted to Contest #194

"Ah, this old grey mare just ain't what she used to be!"Hilary declared. It was a sunny Sunday afternoon. Old Ben looked up from his fixation, sport on television. He grumped, but that was all perfectly normal. The summer sport of golfing was only a merely pallid substitute for his tortured real world of supporting his crud football team in the winter months. Old Ben thought he should show understanding of Hilary, aka Hilaria. Maybe she was going through another stage, now they were both retired, in their elderly stage. "Never mind, neither ...

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“The Unemployable Chess Player” by David B Fraser

Submitted to Contest #194

I sat across from the Job Fair lady at one of those long auditorium tables. Army recruitment was at the next booth and on my other side some creepy guy in a blazer was selling training in Real Estate. There were hundreds of booths and most were offering training rather than jobs. “So, what have you been doing since High School?” The Job Fair Lady continued. She didn’t like what I said about school, but she had one of those nodding smiles people put on when they think they’re being nice. “Chess....

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“The Opportunist” by Mark Gagnon

Submitted to Contest #194

The Opportunist Witnesses standing along the perimeter of the small regional airport said the commuter jet didn’t appear to land unusually hard compared to other planes that had touched down just before. At the debriefing, the pilots claimed to have inspected the tires during their pre-check and found nothing wrong. No matter the reason, two tires on the right main landing gear burst on impact with the runway. An ear-splitting squealing sound made by metal scraping concrete was followed by the right wing separating from the fuselage and cart...

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“Alone or Not” by Mary Hood

Submitted to Contest #194

From her chair, Sue silently watched the ant walk with the grain of the wooden floor to the edge of the fireplace. She blinked, and in that brief space, lost sight of its whereabouts. “Warmer temperatures bring the ants inside”, she thought. Earlier that morning, she raked some leaves and winter's remnants from her garden. She found the woody sticks where the peonies soon will fill the air with fragrance. “The ants will open them.”, she remembered saying out loud. She didn’t mind ants or other insects if they stay outside, except daddy lon...

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“Back to Square One” by Jose Nodar

Submitted to Contest #194

The heart can be so easily broken by love. I know; it occurred to me. When I was very young, and most likely very dumb, I experience puppy love, and as I grew up, I then muddle through crushes in high school and then as I achieve that young age of twenty-something, I find my real first love, and I then lose it. We were too young to understand the intricateness of relationships, of dealing with the opposite sex in meaningful ways, so our signals were mixed and misunderstood. So, we broke up last September at what was then our favourite resta...

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“Snakes and Ladders” by Zoë Page

Submitted to Contest #194

Life’s a game, and love is the prize – or so they say. If that is the case, then why, of all things, is the first kiss the horrible, long snake that sends you tumbling right back to square one? Well, perhaps not the kiss itself, and more how the kiss ends: whether you’re interrupted, walked in on, broken apart fiercely by something. That’s always how it goes in novels. The character’s build up such a connection – oh, sparks are flying the size of deadly lava bombs – and they finally, after so agonizingly long, have that first kiss… but it’s ...

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“Pierced Skin” by Maria Sfeclis

Submitted to Contest #194

“I love you, Harry.”, Anne whispered against his lips, the words rolling off her tongue slowly, smoothly. Harry breathed her promise into himself, letting its sugary texture dissolve within the walls of his body, feeling his heart rate pick up at the new dose of glucose threatening to mess up his brain. “Don’t. Walk away while you still can.”, his mind tried to warn him, to prevent him from making the same old mistake, to resist the familiar, warm feeling that had always filled him whole, yet that had left him bitter every time. But no memor...

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“A Love Story” by Crissie Dittrich

Submitted to Contest #194

Is it too much to ask to find someone I can truly connect with? I have been trying so hard to find that one person who really gets me. Someone I can share my life and love with. Someone I can take care of and support. I put in all of the effort, but it is as if they can never truly see that. They can never see the connection we have.Gerry was one of the latest in a long line of disappointments. He was a handsome, successful businessman who seemed perfect on paper. I took in his mail, walked his dogs and even did a little cleaning. ...

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“Coffee dates” by Sanele M

Submitted to Contest #194

“Ok, I’m ready. We can do this.” I whisper to myself in the mirror after reapplying my mascara, I take a few steps back to examine my whole outfit in the full-length standing mirror in the corner of my living room. A pile of clothes on my bed and a few mental breakdowns later I decided on a black bodycon maxi skirt, white cropped tank top, my favourite black oversized denim jacket, and go-to white sneakers. Mental note: I need to buy new sneakers. Another white pair or maybe black Converse… we’ll see. I look appropriate for a casual first da...

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“Mistaken Development” by Arianne Schwenke

Submitted to Contest #194

I thought I found him - someone who could see me for who I am, who could make me smile and laugh. I thought I found the sunshine that would thaw my bitter cold heart and show me how to blossom. I thought that wanting was all that I needed.I thought that all I needed to move forward, was strength of will, an open mind, and a new attention. After all, I had never been dealt a blow so heavy I could not find a way to stand back up. I had never been so defeated I had lost the will to fight. I had never felt a passion that I could not overcome wit...

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Write a story inspired by the phrase “Back to square one.”

Submissions are closed

✍️ 81 stories

“The Glorious Gift” by Shahzad Ahmad

“Back to Square One” by Kay Reed

“The Clean up Caper” by Michael Shiffer

“In the Hardest Class Ever Taught, Flags Get Stuck” by Éan Bird

“Henry” by Harken Void

“Ye Auld Hag!” by Julie Grenness

“The Unemployable Chess Player” by David B Fraser

“The Opportunist” by Mark Gagnon

“Alone or Not” by Mary Hood

“Back to Square One” by Jose Nodar

“Snakes and Ladders” by Zoë Page

“Pierced Skin” by Maria Sfeclis

“A Love Story” by Crissie Dittrich

“Coffee dates” by Sanele M

“Mistaken Development” by Arianne Schwenke

🌟 Similar prompts

Write a story inspired by the phrase “It’s hardly brain surgery.”

Write a story inspired by the phrase “I’ll eat my hat.”

Write a story inspired by the phrase “The short end of the stick.”

Write a story inspired by the phrase “The plot thickens.”

Contest #194

Enter our weekly contest!

$250

Prize money

213

Contest entries

118

Stories

Win $250 in our short story competition 🏆

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