Menu

Menu
Prompts
Contests
Stories
Blog
Directory
Contests
Magazine
FAQ

Write a story named after, and inspired by, one of Shakespeare's plays. Think modern retellings, metanarratives, subversions, etc.

Posted in Narrative on Jun 28, 2024

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?

✍️ 70 stories

The Untaming of the Shrew

Submitted to Contest #257

CW: Gratuitous swearing (including Renaissance swear words)Let me set the record straight, first and foremost: No, contrary to what that doddypoll William Shakespeare wrote in his dramatic work, no, I have not been tamed. In fact, if I may clarify, I will never ever be tamed, not then and not now.(Oh, let me repeat that in a language, a bunch of lines, you understand.)That’s right. Good ol’ Willy Shakes all played you, shut off the spotlight of the truth about me and illuminated a fabrication in the brightest of ambers and deep cobalt blue. ...

44 likes 67 comments 67
Read story

Much Ado About Nothing

Submitted to Contest #257

Much Ado About Nothing“About face! March! Hup, two, three, four. Hup, two, three, four. Halt! About face! March! Hup, two...”This goes on in daylight and in darkness.“Red, yellow, black and white. We keep everything in sight. Day and night.” Marching Mustard remarked. “We are the Watchmen keeping watch over the rails of the ramparts in Messina...”“Halt!” comes the command.“Oomph. I hate it when you stop so suddenly, Colonel Catsuppi. You being red and me so white we'll come out pink colliding all the time.” Ranchairo exclaimed.“That would cr...

41 likes 62 comments 62
Read story

Rowena and Julian

Submitted to Contest #257

The bell rang and all students lethargically directed themselves towards their respective classrooms. School sucks, sure, but high school is the worst of them all. At least that’s how Julian felt, when he sat at his desk and took out his notebook and pen. Every day he spent between those walls was dragging awfully and he was longing for the last ring of the bell, so he can run down to the basement, to his after school chess club meetings. He loved playing chess with his mates, beat them one by one, using newly learned techniques that he stud...

34 likes 16 comments 16
Read story

Romeo and Juliet

Submitted to Contest #257

They call me Nanny Finch. I don't do much nannying anymore mind, my charge is all grown up. The Capelins kept me on even when she reached adulthood. I made myself useful, making cups of tea and whatnot, but that wasn't what they paid me for. It eased their conscience, you see, to know she wasn't too lonely. God knows they didn't know how to keep her company themselves. And then it was only natural I looked after her own son when the time came. So, I'm still here, despite that Justine, that's her name, is going on for forty-two now. But the e...

29 likes 16 comments 16
Read story

The Silicon Throne: A Modern Retelling of Hamlet

Submitted to Contest #257

Act I: The Appearance The sun plays among the glass and steel skyscrapers, rising like the giants we remember from the stories our parents read to us before bed. Each cloud seemed like cotton candy in the eyes of the children running in the park, cheerful. I haven't felt happiness for some time now. The long shadows of the buildings stretch like giant fingers over the urban landscape that seems so silent and yet chaotic. A cacophony filled with silence that does not bode well. Elsinore Enterprises, once a fortress of innovation and promises,...

28 likes 14 comments 14
Read story

Dawn Treader of the Mystical Coast

Submitted to Contest #257

Part I. The Dawn Treader Arrives at the Lighthouse in 1898Years later, on the other side of the world, Elsie stood on the deck of the ship, watching dawn rise over the waves. She pictured the woman traveler named Aurora, the dawn treader and time walker, who was surrounded by tiny winking lights. Elsie was twelve years old then, growing up at the remote lighthouse station, with her older brothers. It was 1898 on the Mystical Coast, during midsummer's eve solstice celebrations.The pleasant, mild weather, when spring meets summer, caressed th...

27 likes 17 comments 17
Read story

ROMEO AND JULIA: A MODERN RETELLING

Submitted to Contest #257

Romeo Montague was not your typical star-crossed lover. In fact, he was a nerd. A bona fide, Star Wars-quoting, Dungeons & Dragons-playing, comic book-collecting nerd. With his glasses perched precariously on his nose and a pocket protector filled, Romeo's greatest adventures usually involved battling trolls online rather than courting ladies. So, his life took an unexpected turn when he, a self-proclaimed nerd, fell head over heels for Julia Capulet, the smartest and coolest girl in school. Their love story began in the most modern of...

26 likes 25 comments 25
Read story

A Serpent's Tooth

Submitted to Contest #257

All I wanted was for her to tell me the truth. That’s it; nothing more. Rapunzel, Rapunzel, tell your father he’s not crazy. That, and a third of it all would be hers. My darling, Cathay. Cathy named after mother. Cathy named after her grandmother. Cathy and not Katherine, because my wife--may she rest in peace--hated the named Katherine for some reason. Maybe because her entire life people had said-- “Cathy like Katherine,” and she’d have to correct them, and she always did. My Cathy never tired of correcting people. Is that why her younges...

23 likes 11 comments 11
Read story

Juliet and Romeo

Submitted to Contest #257

She laughs as the song comes on the radio and in that laugh he sees the girl she once was. He wants to be young again. To know her through the ages. To be with her and share his life with her. All of her. To know her from the very start and onwards, into an eternity which he could not bear if it was not for her, and a love he had not thought possible. Not for him. Not for them. He supposes the song is a classic now, but he remembers when it was first played on older, crackling radios. Those radios were new back then, now they are obsolete. R...

23 likes 20 comments 20
Read story

Romeo and Juliet

Shortlisted for Contest #257 ⭐️

“Please, come into my office.”“Yes, Prince- Principal Escalus,” Juliet couldn’t keep the tremor out of her voice as she toyed with the bottom of her plaid skirt and entered the unfamiliar office. She had been in here a few times seeing as the Academy was like a second home to her. She’d been enrolled in Kindergarten before she could even tie her school uniform tie or shiny black shoes. She sat on the hard plastic chair across from the Principal’s oak desk.“I hope you are having a good morning,” Principal Escalus said, although Juliet knew th...

21 likes 7 comments 7
Read story

The Tempest

Shortlisted for Contest #257 ⭐️

Promise turned in her bed, pushing at the snake that had settled its weight across her chest as it did every night, "Move," she commanded, heaving the monster with all her strength. The snake slithered off her chest and pressed up against the length of her body. When she had first enslaved Caliban in her empty home, it felt like a guardian. She had welcomed the monster; it had kept her safe from the reporters and intrusive acquaintances, all hungry for a piece of her story. It was a comfort. She had begged it to protect her and never leave h...

20 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

Mayor Michael Macbeth

Submitted to Contest #257

“Unrest, distress, disrespect and detest       The Sacrifice then Fallen Crest” “He will perish.”  “They will all perish if we don’t intervene. He must be placed in power to overcome the evil that already exists.” “Our powers of premonition and persuasion may not prevail. However, we have been left with no other choice. Now, stir, and say it with me, sisters.”  “Unrest, distress, disrespect and detest       The Sacrifice then Fallen Crest” “Who will deliver our mes...

20 likes 25 comments 25
Read story

The Summer's Tale: A Professor Deshpande Mystery

Submitted to Contest #257

 “I’m Posthumus,” Ethan explained.“My disconsolate sympathies,” Saanvi murmured. “You certainly look healthy.”“Posthumus,” Assistant Professor Cooper clarified with a crooked country boy grin. “Posthumus Leonatus. Husband to Imogen, ward of vassal King Cymbeline’s court.”“I suppose this means the University cannot proceed with selling off your larger pieces? And we could so have used a new multimedia wing.”“I know – I put in the original proposal, remember?”Chairman Deshpande raised an imperious brow. “Yet you are unwilling to make...

19 likes 15 comments 15
Read story

Romeo and Juliet Twenty Years Later

Submitted to Contest #257

An Interview With the Star-Crossed Lovers Historians poking around some old archives in Verona, Italy have made a surprising discovery. The city’s most famous couple, Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet, miraculously survived their bungled double suicide attempt, escaped from Verona, and took up residence in a combination vineyard, pasta factory, and olive orchard near Florence. For twenty years they kept their identities secret. Not even their crazy relatives knew where they were. This was wise, because some...

19 likes 13 comments 13
Read story

As You Like It

Submitted to Contest #257

Far away in the city of Thunder Bay, two brothers, Duke and Fred Jones, owned and operated a trailer park. Duke, the elder brother, was sly, scrawny, and a whiz at customer relations. Fred was beefy, strong as a moose, and could kick out undesirable tenants faster than you could say, “Hit the road, Jack.”Big changes were afoot in King’s Court Trailer Park because one night, while listening to a televangelist, a lightning bolt of revelation hit Fred Jones: “The meek shall inherit the earth.”“The meek? That’s me!” Fred shouted. His burly physi...

17 likes 6 comments 6
Read story

🌟 Similar prompts

Write your story in the form of a script, complete with stage directions.

Narrative – 33 stories

Write a story in which a case of mistaken identity plays a pivotal role.

Funny – 22 stories

Write a story about a tragic hero.

Dramatic – 56 stories

Set your story during rehearsals for a production of a Shakespeare play.

High School – 29 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