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#3 Calling All Bookworms

This week, each of our prompts is loosely inspired by some of the most beloved literature of all time. Can you match every prompt to the book it takes its root from? Hint: the five novels are included in this blog post of books to read in your lifetime.

This week's prompts

Write a story about a teenager visiting the place where they grew up.

– 31 stories

Write a story about a matchmaker.

– 26 stories

Write a story about a parent putting their child to bed.

– 32 stories

Write a story about an ordinary day in a person's life. Use their internal dialogue to make the story interesting.

– 25 stories

Write a story about someone who wins a contest and the prize of their dreams.

– 14 stories

Stories

The Smallest Things

Weekly Contest #3

"Have you finished your food, Olly?" Mom asked."No." She blinked, then sighed slightly, having forgotten. "Are you full, Olly?" She rephrased."Yes." Wide eyes looked at her, simply observing. She smiled."Then we'll put your food in a container for tomorrow, okay?""Okay." Mom grabbed a container and the 5-year-old helped pour his leftover spaghetti and green beans into it."Go brush your teeth, Olly," she said, gently pushing him towards the bathroom as she turned to put the container in the fridge. She hummed to herself as she started the war...

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Hatchmaker

Weekly Contest #3

“This is insane,” Ben said, anxiously running his fingers through his hair and pacing around the room. “Are you sure this is necessary?” “Trust me, Ben,” Albert said, “this is going to do the trick.” Ben flopped on the couch like an amiable toddler in a pathetic attempt at a temper tantrum. He stood up and started pacing again. He took a deep breath. “Fine, I’ll do it. Where’s the suit?” Albert’s efforts to contain his excitement were only moderately successful, something he realized as his feet left the floor in a spontaneous outburst of an...

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Transitions

Weekly Contest #3

She grew up in a warm inviting home with close to none the worry or pain; but being the imaginative girl she was, piles of clothing could easily morph into terrifying monsters and shadows on the walls effortlessly mimicked creepy crawlies. With such nightmare fueling things dancing about her room, it goes without saying that bedtime could become a dreadful thing for the wide-eyed child. She was seen as the apple of her mother’s eye; the miracle child that wasn’t deemed possible to ever be conceived. So naturally, her mother’s doting affectio...

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A MOMENT OF PERFECT CONTEMPLATION

Weekly Contest #3

A MOMENT OF PERFECT CONTEMPLATION  By Andrew Paul Grell    “It was a dark and stormy night?”  “I think Snoopy owns that by now. Try again.”  “It was the Jest of Times, it was the Wurst of Times: Mustard, Kraut, and Schtick?”  “You’re not even making an attempt. Parody titles are beneath contempt in such a competition. You have to be part of this. I can’t just snap-snap-snap and make you a prize-winning author. I mean, I can, but that wouldn’t do anyone any good at all, at all. ...

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The Song My Mother Used to Sing

Weekly Contest #3

“Wlazł kotek na płotek i mruga,” My mother sings as she puts me to bed. I never really understood the words but it goes something like this: “The kitty has climbed the fence  and blinks,”This song is the last thing I hear, every night, at bed time. While my friends would hear nursery rhymes of the latest trends, my mother sang this song to me. It’s amazing that I have never learnt it in English. But, for the purpose of this story, I have asked my mother to write the song in its entirety and I have looked up the translation online...

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Write a story about an ordinary day in a person’s life. Use their internal dialogue to make the story interesting.

Weekly Contest #3

5.30 a.m. I wake up with a start. Groggily I reach out for my phone and hastily check Skype to see if there are any messages from Brian – my long distance partner of two decades who I have never met. Yes, you heard me right. Ours is one of those stories most people find it difficult to believe. We had met online in 2004. And it was love at first chat and have never looked back ever since. Strangely enough, he is more real to me than the people I interact with every day. So I can safely conclude that in this age of changing partners like clot...

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Picking up Pennies

Weekly Contest #3

“George,” Randy said, “I need your help. You and Janice are so happy together, and I want that for me. I’m tired of being a bachelor. I need advice from someone who knows how to find the perfect woman. Will you help me?”               “Randy, one of the reason’s you’re still single is that you’re cheap. No woman wants to go out with a guy who has a coffee jar full of pennies. Quarters I can understand, but pennies?”        &nbsp...

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Before We Were "Us"

Weekly Contest #3

“Grandma how did you meet Grandpa?” Glenna smiled before answering Conner who looked up at her with his big brown eyes filled with wonder and curiosity. “It was a very long time ago, and I was very young,” she began. Conner crawled into his Grandmother’s lap and nestled in to listen to her story. As she spoke he laid his head against her shoulder, and Glenna wondered from time to time if the warm little boy had fallen asleep only to have him ask, “Then what, Grandma? Then what?”“When I was a young girl of only 16 years old, my...

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Papa v2.0

Weekly Contest #3

At 57, I have had several nerve-wracking experiences, some personal and most others professional. But, this was new, rather unknown. Arun, my only son, looked nonchalant. He was setting up the conference room we were in, on the 85th floor with a backdrop of skyscrapers. What a view! I imagined my two-story office building with files and photographs everywhere overlooking a small tea shop. My wife Uma and I visit him every year from India. This has been our annual ritual since he moved to Toronto for college and settled here. This year, we kn...

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Rolf

Weekly Contest #3

The Blackburns are married. A job well done, I think, stirring honey into my morning cup of Earl Grey as I flip through their wedding photos. I've decided that I'm having a pleasant morning when a knock sounds on my kitchen door. It's odd - people normally knock at the front - but I brush the thought off and take my tea to the door. Perhaps another customer. I open the door.Perhaps not.On my stoop stands a peculiar-looking man. He blinks several times, opening and closing his mouth like a fish or a person who is struggling to speak. He seems...

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Diamonds in the sky

Weekly Contest #3

  Katie Sue Johnson had never gone more than a week without work. She was no longer as young as before, but was still slender, energetic, and had a warm friendliness in those big brown eyes of hers. Whenever she was on an interview for work, she was usually the first selected. So her recent company had sent notices to all the girls and managers that they were moving to Minnesota, just as soon as the finishing touches were complete on the new facility. Most of the people at the top were having the company pay for...

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Bad matchmarker

Weekly Contest #3

Mia and Sissyl are two sister cousins has a different character, Mia is more indifferent and cheerful but sometimes he is Introvert in school, while Sissyl is more feminine and melancholy and cheerful in school, Mia and Sisil school in different schools, Mia tends to be quiet he is not many friends in his school, while Sissil in school he is very easy to play Sisil has a lot of friends at his school, male friends or female friends Mia and Sissil likes to exchange stories, and sometimes Sisil also introduces some of his close f...

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This Is Not My Home Anymore

Weekly Contest #3

Insects hummed in the heat of the mid-day sun. Tall stalks of weeds barricaded the back door to the red-bricked house. Swatting at crickets and trampling the plants with her boots, Nat managed to traverse through the jungle of what used to be her old backyard, a place she hadn’t been to in 6 years.  Nat yanked on the screen door of the house, only to have it budge slightly. It had been jammed into the rail many years ago from a surprise when the neighbors dog got loose. They never ended up replacing it though.  Now years later...

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Sandy Grounds

Weekly Contest #3

“You can’t be serious,” my mother said over the phone. I sighed deeply, “Mom, I’ll be fine. I am just going back to see a friend, that is all.” “For how long?” the worry still showing through her words. “Four days, three nights.” “Noah, honey, it’s not safe.”I had spent nearly half an hour trying to convince her that I would be fine, causing her to hang up on me out of frustration. After texting Valerie, the girl I’d be visiting, I began packing the necessities for an out of town trip.My phone lit up in the darkness of my bedroom, making me ...

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Maku

Weekly Contest #3

Despite the safety and comfort afforded him by his brand new, bright red superhero-inspired gadget belt and the companionship of Mr. Monkey, Landon was still apprehensive. The step from the safe, pillowy carpet to the dark recesses of the unknown before him was as vast as the ocean. But he had made it this far. There was no turning back now.Breathing in all of the oxygen in the room, Landon took a step. And then another. Gone was the protection of the familiar world in which he knew, replaced instead with this...nothingness. He gripped the t...

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