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#337 Beyond Reach with Kobo

This week, we're running a takeover in collaboration with our friends over at Kobo! In addition to receiving the usual Prompts top prize of $250, the winner of this takeover will also be given two special bonus prizes: a Kobo Clara Colour eReader and a Kobo Remote Control! Find out more below...

Hello from Kobo Writing Life! We’re Rakuten Kobo’s self-publishing platform, favoured by independent authors all over the world. KWL is a small, author-friendly team with a big vision — we want to help authors reach more digital readers no matter where in the world they are, or how they want to read.

Recently at Kobo, we launched our Kobo Remote Control, which allows readers to turn pages from afar and stay in their story, uninterrupted! Using that as our inspiration, our theme for this contest is “Beyond Reach.”

Let your creativity soar with the five prompts below and explore themes of distance, time, and yearning for something just out of reach. In addition to the usual $250 prize, the winner of our special takeover will receive their very own Kobo Clara Colour and Kobo Remote Control!

Special Update: The Results 🏆

Kobo Writing Life's top pick for their takeover was "The Bends" by Nina Chyll. Here's what they had to say about it:

The story's world building is excellent, and we were completely hooked by the premise. The twists kept us fully engaged — the author created a perfect blend of suspense and longing, and the messaging format added perfectly to the way the story unfolded.

Congratulations to contest winner Nina Chyll and the runners-up, Tori Jackson and Madi M!

This week's prompts

Write about a character who can rewind, pause, or fast-forward time.

Short Story – 59 stories

Center your story around a long-distance relationship (familial, romantic, platonic, etc.).

Character – 41 stories

Write about a character in search of — or yearning for — something or someone.

Dramatic – 109 stories

Set your story on a remote island, a distant planet, or somewhere faraway and forgotten.

Short Story – 88 stories

Write a story that includes (or is inspired by) the phrase “Almost is never enough” or “So close, yet so far.”

Short Story – 50 stories

Stories

The Tale of Fenwick and the Clock Brownie

Submitted to Contest #337

The Tale of Fenwick and the Clock Brownie Isambard Fenwick had been repairing clocks and timepieces for nigh on fifty years, but never before had he taken on so many repairs in a single week. Business was brisk, a good thing. But had he any hope in fixing these clocks with sufficient speed to please everyone? His only assistant, Tompion, was ill with the mild form of influenza gripping the Strand and Covent Garden. And besides, Tompion was best suited for simple work, like cleaning clockworks and minding the shop. ...

12 likes 2 comments 2
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A Worse Fate

Submitted to Contest #337

This story contains a discussion of euthanasia. No one spoke his name, not because they couldn’t, but because he had none now. It didn’t bother him. Perhaps he deserved it.He struggled against his shackles, trying to move his slight frame into better position to see out the window. They had dropped out of interstellar speed once the spacecraft had entered the star system. Hoping to see an asteroid, or meteor, or anything at all, he strained his neck and rocked back and forth against the metallic wall of the ship. There was nothing, thoug...

12 likes 2 comments 2
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Can’t Get You Out Of My Head

Submitted to Contest #337

Wednesday 1st Jan 1986This term, I am not going to even think about Tom Jennings.I will not go to his room when I’m feeling lonely or insecure.I will not go to his room when I’ve had a couple of drinks in the bar – not orange juice, that pink fizzy one that Fiona got me to try. It doesn’t taste like alcohol but it makes my head feel fuzzy and that’s definitely not a good thing.I will go to every one of my lectures.I will complete all of Dr Pickup’s translation homeworks and hand them in on time.I will try not to get embarrassed when Paul Con...

12 likes 4 comments 4
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yearning to find me

Submitted to Contest #337

I went looking for my inner child the way people search through old houses-slowly and afraid of what might still be living there. She wasn't lost not really. She had simply gone quiet. Curled herself into a corner of my body, I learned not to visit. I had mistaken silence for absence. Survival has a way of convincing you that what hurts most must be abandoned to move forward. I told myself I didn't have time to look back. I was busy becoming a wife, a mother, becoming dependable. Useful. Strong. I stacked responsibilities like sandbags again...

12 likes 10 comments 10
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Eternal Recycle of Being

Submitted to Contest #337

Rodney Billingsley’s life ended in a bar fight. At twenty-seven, an astrophysicist engineer with dreams of finally marrying his high school sweetheart and having a family.“Beatrice, I took these pictures last night of Andromeda and Sirius from my Celestron spectral telescope, aren’t they wonderful? I wish we could go there for our honeymoon”“I just want to go anywhere with you darling. You have worked so hard, now we can finally get married! God, I love this song, Die with a Smile (by Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars)Out celebrating his new promotio...

11 likes 12 comments 12
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The Woman Next Door

Submitted to Contest #337

I am afraid of the woman next door. Though, not for reasons you’d expect. She isn’t frightening. Far from it, actually. She’s tiny and elderly, and wears these floral smock dresses that could have been cut from my mother’s curtains. She wears large silver glasses which magnify her eyes, and I suspect she wears dentures, just like me. She is, in every sense, the embodiment of innocence. You couldn’t imagine a more harmless looking neighbour. But that’s not why I’m afraid of her. The woman next door is watching me. She's always watching me. An...

11 likes 5 comments 5
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Cassettes Are a Thing of the Past… And So Am I

Submitted to Contest #337

Tanner makes a move to hug a passing waitress, but she swerves out of harm’s way. “Hands off, Tanner Tripp! That’s sexual harassment. If your girlfriend sees you making a pass at me, you’re liable to lose that hand.” Tanner laughs as he leans against the bar and reaches for his drink. His smile fades as he turns to see Sophie standing nearby, her hands on her hips, her blue eyes laced with anger. Tanner and Sophie Wessex have been dating for six months. Blonde-haired and athletic-looking with a ready smile, twenty-four-year-old Tanner radiat...

11 likes 2 comments 2
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The Faraway Friend

Submitted to Contest #337

Maybell called me one day in distress and disarray. Her voice was quivering, and she was crying. I thought she was going to tell me her grandma had passed away, but the news was far, far worse. When she said she was moving away, the world around me turned gray. She had helped me cope with problems — ones I still carry today. When I knew she was leaving, my heart and soul shrank away. That night, I went to her house to help her pack. Our eyes were red from crying, our noses running, our voices shaky. We were only seventeen. We had planned to ...

11 likes 6 comments 6
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In Search of Meaning

Submitted to Contest #337

“Dogs are our link to paradise. They don’t know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring–it was peace.” -Milan Kundera I awoke when the first beams of sunlight began to creep through the bedroom window. First I yawned, then stretched, spreading my body across the soft cushion of the bed. Finally I looked over at Elizabeth to see if any of my movements had woken her. Her eyes were still closed, fast asleep, or perhaps pretending to be. I c...

11 likes 4 comments 4
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Battle at Tidberphal

Submitted to Contest #337

Battle at Tidberphal Captain Iroga sat in the command seat of the starship watching the world explode in front of them; she knew they couldn’t fix it, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t try. She checked the fleet status console and saw that both Alliance destroyers were fully engaged with their Celurian counterparts. They would be unable to deploy troop transports down to the planet to reinforce the regiments that were pinned down. The small two-person Scout ship, Hoverfly, was high above the atmosphere of the contested planet, Tidberphal. T...

11 likes 5 comments 5
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The Rewind

Submitted to Contest #337

The Rewind I learned to pause time on Tuesdays because that was when he called. Not the world — just myself. I would hold my breath, keep my face still, and preserve my life exactly as it was while his voice crossed three countries and a poor internet connection to reach me. I couldn’t prevent his words from arriving, nor my responses from forming, but I could sit within the moment and decide which version of myself he was permitted to hear. By the time I pressed play again, I was certain he believed I had simply been thinking.He never notic...

11 likes 2 comments 2
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Eight Years

Submitted to Contest #337

Today is Melissa’s last day with her son. For tomorrow, he will not wake up. She knows the way this goes like the back of her hand by now. She’ll tuck him into bed. Make sure he’s as snug as a bug in a rug.They’ll talk about how excited he is to go to the zoo next week. He’ll tell her about all the animals he can’t wait to see. He’ll make a list of all the animals they have to see and in what order. Though she knows they’ll never follow it. He’ll get too excited and run to the first animal he sees and any schedule they had will go out the wi...

11 likes 2 comments 2
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Declared Uninhabitable

Submitted to Contest #337

By every official measure, the outpost was an anomaly on a planet declared uninhabitable. Its walls were a smooth composite the color of bleached bone, and its corridors were too clean for a world that shed ash the way a body shed skin. Inside, the air was recycled and scrubbed until it carried a faint, sterilized tang.Mara keyed in the morning authentication and waited while the console accepted her fingerprint, her iris, and her blood-oxygen patterns.After a few seconds, the screen bloomed.PLANETARY STATUS: UNINHABITABLE.POPULATION (REGIST...

11 likes 3 comments 3
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When the Worlds They Fall Apart

Submitted to Contest #337

Julian Ice stared at his hands and did not recognize them. Light fractured across his fingers, shadows sharpening his features into something wrong, something cold, something solid. The chill crept into his bones, stinging his lungs, as if winter was in residence. He tried to breathe, pressing his thumb into his other palm. the exercises his mother taught him. His tension was high and rising. His breath frosted. His fingertips tingled, numbed by the cold's relentless grip. It wasn’t enough. Almost... but not quite. The cold came fast; the mo...

11 likes 3 comments 3
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Momentum

Submitted to Contest #337

The metronome bar ticked back and forth for what felt like 100 billion light-years, at least, according to renowned audial physicist Dr. Ivan Barr. Various pitches from keyboards repetitively floated into his clouded yet ever-curious brain. He and his colleagues were running a study under their current research topic, nicknamed “The Laws of Music”. They were experimenting with different instruments in an attempt to find the objective, “perfect” mathematical scale and tuning system for music. Dr. Barr was known for his architectural concert h...

11 likes 1 comment 1
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