Your protagonist is a writer who discovers a new favorite author. How does their writing, or even their own personality, change as the protagonist falls under the writer’s influence?

Posted in Narrative on May 17, 2024

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✍️ 28 stories

“Not Just a Book : The Carefree 1960's” by Ingrid Bacsa

Submitted to Contest #251

Contains incestuous predation and attempted suicide but not detailed description of the crime itself. Carefree Nineteen Sixties Not Just a Book!I had spent my entire life in a dark cloud, inside this cloud there were equally dark secrets that could not be told… could not be faced or confronted by me..At 48 years old, I finally broke free from the locked in state I had been enduring since my childhood of abuse that had left me frozen inside. My entire life had been a platform from which I observed the world aroun...

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“Gina” by Abby Draper

Submitted to Contest #251

“Gina” Grace closed the book with a soft snap. After a week of reading during her every waking moment, she was finally finished. Her eyes were glazed with tears, as she sat with the book in her lap, her head leaning back against the red wingback chair. It was certainly not the ending she expected, how could he kill off Gina like that? Grace blinked, the welled tears coating her dark lashes. “Great now my mascara is ruined. You’ve done it again James Fuller, you idiot. Who would kill her off I don’t get itâ€¦” she muttered to herself, ...

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“Writing in Blood” by TJ Felegie

Submitted to Contest #251

I was never a good writer. Every teacher I ever had told me it, “you need to work on your grammar, you need to get better vocabulary, you need to use more adverbs, you need to use less adverbs, yada, yada..” My father told me it, “Jesus christ, will you put that goddamn pen down and get a job. The paper is worth more without your words on it.” Typical Boston fucking blue collar dock worker. Never saw the point in art, not even his own kid’s, not that mine was any good. But he still taught me to not take any shit; that if you believe in somet...

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“Sir Sinkrattle’s Reliquary and Verboratorium” by Cajek Veilwinter

Submitted to Contest #251

Sylvia was on the fifth floor of “Sir Sinkrattle’s Reliquary and Verboratorium,” a bookstore in the Fog District. The building itself was very old, and the windows looked out onto the wet, cold, misty streets of Vulane below, where creatures with clandestine missions stepped gingerly on the cobblestones. Usually the store was empty, but she noticed a few female rats reading from the popular section, where the new batch of the Shadowclaw Chronicles - a series of mystery novels - had been deposited. From time to time, they surreptitiously...

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“ Her Words” by Fredrich TheFrogdrick

Submitted to Contest #251

Trigger warning: stalking and violence The words, her words… How can they be so beautiful? The curves of the letters, the sounds they make as I read them aloud, the way they come to life: It’s like nothing I’ve seen in my life. I was her first fan. Back before there were so many people obsessed with her words, I was there reading her beautiful words. Each word is a sculpture, together they make clay-mation movie that I can watch as many times as I want while barely paying anything at all. From the beginning, I was the only one watching...

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“Chapter Prescription For Joy” by Melissa Hardin

Submitted to Contest #251

Everyday remained the same in life, mundane with small tasks procrastinated. Adventures are few and far between in adulthood with little to no money. Wake up, work, eat, sleep, and dream. Twenty-five dollars left in savings every week. So lost in that monotony I began to search through paperwork as usual. Tax time arrived and it was always a miracle it would make it in by April 15. I opened the door to the closet with a sigh and after lifting several boxes out of the way I found the plastic legal file box, and sighed again as I sat down to ...

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“The Optimist's Handbook” by Imogen Bird

Submitted to Contest #251

The moment Astrid truly accepted that her favourite book wasn't a work of fiction was the moment she decided she had no other option than to eject herself out of the airlock.She wasn't the first to come to this rather extreme conclusion after reading the title, but the population of Gen-Ship-Six had yet to notice the connection between the innocuous title amongst the recently deceased possessions and the series of grisly suicides that had followed it's odyssey through readers hands.Astrid had found the book in the redistribution centre. A co...

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“All Glory To Ino Antara” by Tseth S.

Submitted to Contest #251

People of Ultara, children of Aldarian Descendants, in light of the ongoing rebellions, this story will be different from all the others I have written thus far. I will speak about the person who has inspired me to write.....Have you ever heard of Ino Antara?Perhaps that was a stupid question for me to ask at the start.Of course you have!Who in Ultara has never heard of Leader Ino Antara? He is someone even the babies born of Maldarian Descendants have heard of before, much less you the children of Aldarian Descendants.Wi...

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“Imitation is a Form of Flattery ” by Sam Goularte

Submitted to Contest #251

Amelia couldn’t believe it.She was sitting in the same room as the one and only Bea Caldwell. The author of The Slovenly Maid Upstairs was sitting just an arm's length away from her. Amelia has admired Bea for only six months but it felt much longer. In fact, Bea Caldwell created the desire for Amelia to be a writer herself.Bea sat across from her with a grim expression, as if sitting here was interrupting her precious writing time. Amelia felt sympathy towards the person before her, she knew how it felt to...

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“Path of No Path: Becoming No Name” by Stephen Laviera

Submitted to Contest #251

“Pepe get your ass outta bed you’re gonna be late to school again! If the truancy officer comes I won’t cover for you. I’ll let’em lock you up!” His mother turned from the stairs in the foyer. Slithering back into the living room. Sulking and watching her soap operas. Her morning usually consisted of berating and bashing her middle son Guiseppe. Her loathing contemptment of his father. She takes out on him. Of the three kids Pepe looks the most like Eto. The only daughter and the bab...

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“Closed on Sundays” by Pat McClellan

Submitted to Contest #251

My Dad’s house was on Heartsoul Dr inside the new development called Madden Hills. All the houses in the subdivision were cookie cutter ranch style homes with manicured front yards. It was the early 70’s and this subdivision had been redlined reversed and built especially for young families of color who had migrated North to work in the factories. There were no corner stores, no bodegas, no liquor stores or wine shops. The neighborhood had been built around a library, nestled and surrounded by a fortress of tress in one corner, an eleme...

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“Read!” by 𝔊𝔲𝔞𝔡𝔞𝔩𝔲𝔭𝔢 𝔗𝔢𝔩𝔠𝔬𝔫𝔱𝔞𝔯

Submitted to Contest #251

One of my first words was "read.” I would follow Mom or Dad around the house with a picture book and say "read" over and over until I got what I wanted. As I got older, they read me chapter books, too. The Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. For a while, I had trouble reading. My eyes couldn't track well across the page, so I would claim loudly and vehemently that I couldn't read. I remember feeling angry and embarrassed that I couldn’t easily do what it looked like everyone else was doing.&nb...

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“Muse” by Imani S

Submitted to Contest #251

I promise it didn’t start with plagiarism. What good writer plagiarizes anyway? No, it, like all crimes, began with admiration from the inspiration-starved. In our world true focus is limited. You can try to capture it in the calm of your own home, but then you remember you need to wash the dishes. Or do the laundry. Or pay your credit card bill. The indignities of modern life entrap the mind. Sure, you can get out of the house, go to the neighborhood cafe, but you're distracted by the whirr of the coffee machines, and crying sugar-addled to...

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Your protagonist is a writer who discovers a new favorite author. How does their writing, or even their own personality, change as the protagonist falls under the writer’s influence?

Submissions are closed

✍️ 28 stories

“Not Just a Book : The Carefree 1960's” by Ingrid Bacsa

“Gina” by Abby Draper

“Writing in Blood” by TJ Felegie

“Sir Sinkrattle’s Reliquary and Verboratorium” by Cajek Veilwinter

“ Her Words” by Fredrich TheFrogdrick

“Chapter Prescription For Joy” by Melissa Hardin

“The Optimist's Handbook” by Imogen Bird

“All Glory To Ino Antara” by Tseth S.

“Imitation is a Form of Flattery ” by Sam Goularte

“Path of No Path: Becoming No Name” by Stephen Laviera

“Closed on Sundays” by Pat McClellan

“Read!” by 𝔊𝔲𝔞𝔡𝔞𝔩𝔲𝔭𝔢 𝔗𝔢𝔩𝔠𝔬𝔫𝔱𝔞𝔯

“Muse” by Imani S

🌟 Similar prompts

Write a story about discovering a lost manuscript. It can be from a famous (or infamous) author, or an unknown one.

Write a story about a future academic (or another influential person) “rediscovering” a book that, in its time, was dismissed. The book can be fictitious or real.

Dream up a secret library. Write a story about an adventurer who discovers it. What’s in the library? Why was it kept secret?

Your protagonist is a voracious reader. Lately, they’ve been noticing odd synchronicities in the books he or she is reading. What does the protagonist discover is happening?

Contest #251

Enter our weekly contest!

$250

Prize money

234

Contest entries

76

Stories

Win $250 in our short story competition 🏆

Explore more writing prompt ideas: