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#334 Once Upon a Time...

What's your favorite fairy tale? Whether it’s about a brave knight fighting a dragon, a hidden kingdom waiting to be found, or a fairy godmother making dreams come true, fairy tales can remind us just how powerful one’s imagination can be.

This week, let fairy tale-inspired elements and themes influence your writing. Pen a brand new kind of fairy tale, or take a traditional one and put your own spin on it. As long as your characters and settings are your own creations or in the public domain (i.e., not copyrighted), feel free to get creative. You can draw inspiration from classic fairy tales or folklore — just make sure your story is all your own!

🥇 Winner

The Bear Necessities of Contract Law

Winner of Contest #334 🏆

Goldilocks Lockwood v. Bear FamilySmall Claims Court, Woodland DistrictCase No. 2024-SC-0847Transcript of the Plaintiff's Opening Statement THE COURT: Ms. Lockwood, you may proceed with your statement.MS. LOCKWOOD: Thank you, Your Honor.[Sound of papers shuffling]My name is Goldilocks Lockwood. I am a licensed house-sitting professional, bonded and insured, operating in the Forest District for the past five years. I hold certification number 4721-GL from the Forest District Professional Standards Board, and I am a dues-paying member in good ...

74 likes 89 comments 89
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⭐️ Shortlisted

The Vanquished Forest

Shortlisted for Contest #334 ⭐️

Once upon a time, there was an ominous forest and a terrified kingdom. But such a time is past. The deep forest, full of witches, fairies, and monsters was no match for terror, no match for the instruments of humanity. The people triumphed, they conquered, and as humans do, they razed it to the ground. All that was left of the fearsome wood were the stumps, inadvertently marking the graves of the forest’s inhabitants. And happily ever after could not be. For the forest had stood for millenia. It held knowledge and sentience. With its own pow...

25 likes 14 comments 14
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Paper Chains

Shortlisted for Contest #334 ⭐️

Dangling limply across the makeshift walls of the office cubicles, a paper chain made from scrap paperwork was severed at the middle. Perhaps the gluestick that had been used to haphazardly string it together was dried up. Maybe someone tore it by accident. I’d probably never find out. There were plenty of things you’d never know in your life, be it minute, inconsequential happenings such as this one, or indelible unknowns, like if that person years ago truly did like you back. You still wonder, regardless, and perhaps to the same extent equ...

14 likes 9 comments 9
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This week's prompts

Write a story from the perspective/POV of a non-human or fairy tale character sharing their side of the story.

Short Story – 82 stories

Start or end your story with “It was so terribly cold. Snow was falling, and it was almost dark.” (From Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Match Girl”)

Winter – 38 stories

Write a story in which someone is warned not to go into the woods or speak to strangers.

Dramatic – 46 stories

Tell a story using a series of journal entries, diary entries, or letters.

Short Story – 44 stories

Write a story that includes the phrase “once upon a time…”, “in a land far, far away…”, or “happily ever after…”

Short Story – 91 stories

Stories

The Bear Necessities of Contract Law

Winner of Contest #334 🏆

Goldilocks Lockwood v. Bear FamilySmall Claims Court, Woodland DistrictCase No. 2024-SC-0847Transcript of the Plaintiff's Opening Statement THE COURT: Ms. Lockwood, you may proceed with your statement.MS. LOCKWOOD: Thank you, Your Honor.[Sound of papers shuffling]My name is Goldilocks Lockwood. I am a licensed house-sitting professional, bonded and insured, operating in the Forest District for the past five years. I hold certification number 4721-GL from the Forest District Professional Standards Board, and I am a dues-paying member in good ...

74 likes 89 comments 89
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A Little Arm-Tearing Should Do the Trick

Submitted to Contest #334

The three of us stood on the deck of the Praveen, looking as uncomfortable as a stone pillow. We had to do it, but if Captain Cleeber gets mad about our accusations, there won’t be a happily ever after for us. “Treason? Not possible!” Captain Cleeber said. “This planet isn’t technologically advanced enough to manufacture a magnetic disruptor,” Alora said. “I refuse to believe it. None of my men would share our technology with a primitive race. It’s against the law.” Alora and I looked at each other, shocked by his Pollyanna view of his crew....

34 likes 26 comments 26
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The Kindred Wood

Submitted to Contest #334

In all of the mountains there was no fairer glade than where the elk-riders lived. Before the many dwellings were built, naught but eglantine and mountain-thistle bloomed in that knolly place. Little had changed since ages past, though black moss grew thicker, draping over roof-rims or cladding the keystones, and these mossed abodes were arrayed in those darkly garlands alike the ancient fanes of the lowland. This moss-bedecked place pleased the shaggy denizen elk, and the folk made these beasts their greatest stock and blazonry, while the s...

34 likes 15 comments 15
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C-1697

Submitted to Contest #334

OFFICE OF NARRATIVE INTERVENTION: POST-EVENT FILINGDOCUMENT ID: REV-77-CIND-1697FILING AGENT: O-99 (Field Designation: "Godmother")SUBJECT: C-1697 (Resident: Estate 4, Northern Province)EVENT TYPE: Tier-2 Social Integration / Royal GalaTOTAL DURATION: 04:00:00 (Active Phase)STATUS: CLOSED – SUCCESSFUL I. PRE-INTERVENTION COMPLIANCE AND ETHICS REVIEW1.1 Authority and Legal FrameworkThis report is submitted under the mandates of the Central Narrative Bureau (CNB), specifically the Fairness and Equilibrium Act of 812. Field Agent O-99 was dispa...

31 likes 13 comments 13
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Vital Signs

Submitted to Contest #334

“Come with me to the store, Ry,” Faye sighed as she shoved a crumpled tote bag into his hands—like she used to do with jackets when he was little—stepping over the lasagna volcano’d all over the kitchen floor, still steaming archipelagos of ricotta and squiggly noodles. Had the dinner she made not dropped, had some of the neighborhood kids been over when it happened, preventing Faye from reacting like some monster, Ryan might’ve protested as he was wont to do. Instead, he packed the bag tighter into his fist, trudged toward the door with all...

27 likes 14 comments 14
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White as Snow

Submitted to Contest #334

The mirror does not lie. It only lies just enough.In the penthouse above the city, it hangs on the wall like a window into another reality: tall, narrow, framed in black glass that never seems to gather dust. Everyone calls it the Mirror, as if it carries a title. As if it is more than an expensive object.But I hear everything.I have been hanging here for years. Bolted in place, calibrated, fed by cables running through the walls like veins. I see light. I measure heat. I read microtensions around eyes, the tightening of a jaw, the sheen on ...

26 likes 19 comments 19
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The Lantern and the Lie

Submitted to Contest #334

"Don't speak to the Man in the Grey Cloak, for he weaves lies into ropes to bind you." That is what Mother said every time she locked the heavy oak door. But Mother also said she loved me, and I had bruises that proved that was a lie, too.The kitchen smelled of burnt milk. Luca sat at the pine table, spine rigid, watching the empty porcelain plate that gleamed white as bone in the lamplight. His stomach twisted on itself like rope. The plate wasn't empty because he'd eaten. It was empty because Father had decided he wouldn't."You spilled the...

26 likes 11 comments 11
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The Vanquished Forest

Shortlisted for Contest #334 ⭐️

Once upon a time, there was an ominous forest and a terrified kingdom. But such a time is past. The deep forest, full of witches, fairies, and monsters was no match for terror, no match for the instruments of humanity. The people triumphed, they conquered, and as humans do, they razed it to the ground. All that was left of the fearsome wood were the stumps, inadvertently marking the graves of the forest’s inhabitants. And happily ever after could not be. For the forest had stood for millenia. It held knowledge and sentience. With its own pow...

25 likes 14 comments 14
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By Royal Decree

Submitted to Contest #334

The townsfolk in the gallery are ordered to silence as His Honourable Lord Therington, Royal Justiciar, returns from deliberation.Rough cut pieces of parchment exchange hands and acknowledgement given to Their Majesties before proceedings resume.‘The accused shall rise.’ The Court Bellower yowls.A lone man, rather fit, thirty-four, single, size 28L, shabbily dressed and reeking pungently of yesterday’s indulgences, stands in the dock, facing the Court.He could really do with a wash, however, such luxuries will have to wait until after senten...

25 likes 9 comments 9
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Mirror, Mirror...

Submitted to Contest #334

I am not evil. I am honest. And honesty ruins people. The true evil lives within the women who gaze upon me. They ask their questions — always about beauty, love, money — and I tell them the truth. My answers are rarely what they want to hear. More often than not, it is exactly what they fear. What they do afterward is beyond my control. Take the Queen, for example. I was passed on to her, unwanted but intact, by an enchantress. Immediately I could see that my new owner was cold and quietly sadistic. And the way she would summon me! “Slav...

25 likes 14 comments 14
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The Wolf Who Cried "Boy!"

Submitted to Contest #334

The Wolf Who Cried “Boy!”♪ “We ain’t no delinquents,We’re misunderstood,Deep down inside us,There is good.” ♪-The Jets Gang, West Side Story “I know why you won’t go out with me, Marcie.”“It’s not that, Big Bad. It’s not that at all. It’s just that… well, it’s…”It was that. It was always that. Ever since the night of the big storm, when little Big Bad lost contact with the pack and wandered down off the mountain into this small town, it’s been that. He was alone, without family or friends, and different… very different.Children can be cruel....

25 likes 2 comments 2
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The Girl with No Shadow

Submitted to Contest #334

In a land far, far away where rivers shimmered like silver, their banks teeming with silver-finned fish leaping into the air, and kings possessed riches beyond measure, a child was born beneath a blood-red moon. Her skin reflected the pallor of wax, her eyes gleamed dark as soot, and her back betrayed not the smallest shadow.The midwives gasped. The priest refused to bless her. The queen, her mother, wept without knowing why.They named her Aelira, which meant “little light,” though she cast none.Scholars whispered that a child without a shad...

24 likes 9 comments 9
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Sideways Gift

Submitted to Contest #334

Once Upon a Time...in a town that had never seen snow...well... at least that was the thing the real estate brochures leaned on—four hundred days of sun a year, temperate coastal breezes, winter evenings that smelled like citrus instead of rot. The wealthy loved it because it promised continuity. No seasons snapping at their heels. No reminders that time moved forward whether you wanted it to or not.They called it Clearwater Reach, though it was neither clear nor reachable anymore. Once a fishing town, then a tech haven, now a hedge-fund...

24 likes 8 comments 8
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This Is Not Your Winter

Submitted to Contest #334

It was so terribly cold. Snow was falling, and it was almost dark. The mountains were white like the skin of the invaders, those who forced the last of us to run into this weather of death.Better that Pachamama take us herself than let the land thieves claim us.Antisuyu was not a land for my people. We have lived in Omagua since Pachamama created us.We swim in rivers, we climb trees, we gather the fruits of the jungle.We carry the heat of the forest in our bodies.We are not like the people of Antisuyu.Yet they are still alive, the white snow...

22 likes 6 comments 6
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A Golden Spark

Submitted to Contest #334

In a land far, far away, there lived a young dragon who pretended she was part of a tree.If you had passed through Deep Oak Wood during the old days, you might have thought the thick, high twisting branch was simply another knot of bark, silvered with lichen and bent by centuries of weather. Unless you were a toadstool or a fairy, you probably wouldn’t have noticed how it breathed, slowly and carefully, or how the leaves around it leaned inward, as if listening. Unless you were a wise woman, that is. Or a dragon.Like Minna.Minna was perfecti...

22 likes 10 comments 10
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