Menu

More apps built by Reedsy

Assemble a team of professionals

The writing app for authors

Writing courses, events and memberships

Get your book reviewed

Weekly writing prompts and contests

Menu
Prompts
Contests
Stories
Blog
Directory
Contests
Magazine
FAQ

Write a story about a stranger coming to town and shaking up the order of things.

Posted in Character on Jun 23, 2023

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?

✍️ 55 stories

To Live and Die in Cemetery Creek

Submitted to Contest #204

We didn't think much of him at first. We'd seen our fair share of strangers tumbleweed their way through Cemetery Creek over the years. We'd come to recognize the peddlers: their honeyed words, their dirt-free mustaches, the way they'd ride into town on mules, never horses, so we lowered our guards, so we'd think they were one of us. This man, we reckoned, was no different.Said his name was Ambrose. Suppose he saw us on that Sunday afternoon three weeks ago, spilling out of the church's double doors, all of us in our chaps and vests, our blo...

52 likes 36 comments 36
Read story

To whom it may concern

Shortlisted for Contest #204 ⭐️

If all has gone to plan, the name of Joseph Finch should mean nothing to the world. But if it does, firstly, I apologise for what I had to do.Peculiar it may seem for this tale be recounted almost two hundred years after the fact, but those were the instructions given to me by the Stranger.It began in the winter of 1826.The banshee wind shrieked across the great barren plains, bringing a ghostly chill from the high places to torment the shutters and shingles of Redemption. Huddling under several blankets and furs, rocking by a meager log fir...

35 likes 39 comments 39
Read story

Pride's Pioneers

Shortlisted for Contest #204 ⭐️

No one was worried at first. The minivan lulled them into a false sense of security. Normal has a certain taste and color. It's a perfume that lingers. The neighbors sniffed at the air. The house looked the same as everyone else’s. The beauty of the homeowner’s association’s iron fist over the subdivision. The tan porches blurred into eggshell garages that contrasted subtly with the off-white of the doors. All with more pigment than the residents of the community.  The woman carrying the boxes into the home had a few tattoos on her ...

34 likes 16 comments 16
Read story

Bewilderness

Submitted to Contest #204

He arrived in the town of Bewilderness on a weary, white mustang with bruised hooves. Dusty trousers, torn shirt, battered Stetson. Stubble that was more days old than he knew. Sunburnt face tired and drawn, throat coarse as gravel, bags under eyes from not sleeping. For many more days than he knew.He’d travelled a great distance, through an endless expanse of sandy nothingness, his faithful steed carrying him on bent shoes. He didn’t know where he’d come from or where he’d return, he only knew he was here, now, in this washed-out town of ra...

27 likes 20 comments 20
Read story

Mitzee and Menace

Submitted to Contest #204

The glass window magnified the warmth of the sun, and Mitzee closed his single working eye as the rays seeped into his weary, old bones. He had a good home, a roof over his head, meals on demand, comfort and luxury all round.It hadn’t always been this way. He’d been a streetwise scoundrel, a ragged ne’er-do-well in his youth and into his early adulthood. A soft smile twitched his lips at the recollection. He’d been a terror. There was not a crime he hadn’t committed, or at least attempted, and he was usually successful. Pickpocket,...

26 likes 23 comments 23
Read story

A Matter of Interpretation

Submitted to Contest #204

Jarod Cochran was here to hang a man. And maybe to kill a few others who got in the way. The badge of a U.S. marshal came with responsibilities. Amarillo, Texas was growing at the end of the nineteenth century. Almost a thousand souls now lived in the area, carving out a life and a future from the semi-arid and seemingly empty land. Cattle ranches dominated the region; barbed wire and guns determined who owned which parcel of land. Jarod stayed on his palomino and ambled through the town’s main street. It wasn’t much: a saloon, a hotel/resta...

26 likes 34 comments 34
Read story

The pianist

Submitted to Contest #204

‘What’s going on?!’ The Master asked, as he woke, prematurely, from his hourly nap.‘Forgive the intrusion, Master,’ the maid said, as she shook the Master’s ruggedly handsome face, ‘But I thought you’d want to see this.’ The maid pointed over at a shadowy figure, who stood in the doorway of their humble household. ‘He’s been there for some time. Just looming, he was, on our delicate little porch.’The Master came to his senses and peeled himself off the chair, before stumbling towards the stranger, with trepidation. ‘Is he armed?’‘Two.’‘I’ve ...

20 likes 8 comments 8
Read story

Worth His Weight in Gold

Submitted to Contest #204

The saloon doors swung open followed by a frigid wind and a quick accumulation of snow. A rude chorus amounted to a demand for the stranger to shut the doors. He did so, taking his time, and brushed the snow off his fur hat and shoulders. In the heat of the room, warmed by a blazing cast iron stove, the melting ice on his long beard dripped to the floor. The saloon stunk of stale cigars, cheap whiskey, and filthy miners. “Well if it ain’t Stonewall Jackson himself,” said a black mustache with a man behind it. He was leaning ba...

19 likes 12 comments 12
Read story

Mark Reinvents the Wheel

Submitted to Contest #204

When his boss told him there was no need to reinvent the wheel, Mark did it anyway, because his boss liked people who went the extra mile, and Mark wanted to please his boss. Unfortunately, no one liked his wheel, on the account that it had already been invented. So, Mark had googled “backward communities,” hoping to find a place where his wheel would be helpful, and found Eastrock, Wyoming. Now here he was, about to unveil his life-changing invention to the gathered villagers. They were an odd lot, dressed in worn animal hides and carrying...

18 likes 8 comments 8
Read story

Wasn't Always Easy

Submitted to Contest #204

“We were all shocked to say the least,” I told the news reporter. “I didn’t think she was capable of doing something like that.” It was Wednesday December 23rd 2012. I was nine years old, going to the annual Hastwick Winter Festival. I was taking my four year old sister to the festival to visit our mother who was running it. Mom was always busy, so we barely saw her. She worked long hours and often had to travel for her job. Even when she was home, she was usually too tired to spend quality time with us, so we spent most of our time with ou...

16 likes 1 comment 1
Read story

Sunflower

Submitted to Contest #204

*Trigger Warning: Language, vocal impairment, insinuated violence.* “Now, I know you ain’t tryna steal my truck.”  She was laid over his front seat, her head beneath the dashboard and her shoulders coated in the thick clumps of coffee-bean hair that hung past her waist. The olive skin below her shorts was nearly golden beneath the flickering signs in the night and her hands suddenly stopped moving once she heard his voice.   The strip he was parked on was downtown. Lined with bars as far as a quarter mile down, f...

16 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

The Girl on the Train

Submitted to Contest #204

      "Settle down, everyone! Please, settle down!" Sheriff Bowman's words didn't travel far. The church that doubled as a schoolhouse during the week was small and sat forty people at best. He addressed the man behind the pulpit. "Reverend, you take it from here."            Reverend Mark Wilcox nodded and searched the crowd, looking for someone, anyone, to raise their hand and volunteer to help.           ...

15 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

World at Knife’s Point

Submitted to Contest #204

Naya holds a dying man in her arms.It was reckless to save him.More than reckless – unlawful, punishable by death. Or worse, expulsion.She pulls at the collar at her neck, presses a shaking hand to the man’s throat. His pulse picks up, flutters like moth wings against the light pressure of her fingers.No one has ever entered her world before. It is sealed shut with magic – a great domed barrier that swirls like a vast oil slick against a desert sky, a bowl clapped down over its skittish prey.Her people talk of Outsiders entering their world ...

15 likes 10 comments 10
Read story

Bad News Comes to Buzzard Gulch

Submitted to Contest #204

Bad News Comes to Buzzard GulchExcept for the fun-starved, thirsty, horny (on steroids) cowhands from the surrounding ranches, no one ever comes to Buzzard Gulch. There’s no point to it. One dilapidated hotel, two run-down saloons where the booze flows faster than water over Niagra Falls and the “women of the night” work day and night upstairs (and sometimes in the woodsheds out back during the rush hour), a blacksmith shop, a general store, a feed mill, a school with a fifth grade average age of 27, and a church where the good Reverend Barn...

14 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

Brooksville

Submitted to Contest #204

The town of Brooksville was a serene haven nestled amidst rolling hills and lush green meadows. Its residents, numbering just a few hundred, led peaceful lives, their routines following a predictable rhythm. Yet, as fate would have it, a stranger was about to arrive and shake up the order of things. One sunny morning, the townsfolk noticed a figure in the distance, approaching with purpose. As the stranger drew nearer, they saw a young woman with a wild mane of golden curls cascading down her back. Her eyes shimmered with an indomitable spar...

13 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

🌟 Similar prompts

Set your story in a desert town.

Adventure – 51 stories

Write a story about someone undertaking a long, dangerous journey.

Adventure – 39 stories

Write a Western-inspired story in a new genre or setting (e.g. a space western, fantasy western, etc.)

Fiction – 77 stories

Write a story about someone seeking revenge for a past wrong.

Dramatic – 71 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