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

Start your story with someone looking out a train window.

Posted in Middle School on Nov 1, 2022

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?

✍️ 98 stories

Anywhere But Here

Submitted to Contest #168

*CONTAINS SENSITIVE CONTENT - DEATH OF LOVED ONES* Grace had no idea where her end destination would be. She just needed to get away. Get away from the whispers. Away from the pitiful looks. Away from this place. She bought a ticket at the station for the next departing train. She didn’t even remember where it was headed. She didn’t really care as long as it was anywhere but here. As she leaned her forehead against the cool glass of the window, she scanned the landscape of the town she had called home for the past seven years. She coul...

6 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Like Falling Snow

Submitted to Contest #168

Like Falling Snow Gavin Matthew Cordelia Belle looked out through the train’s window, her forehead and afro pressed lazily against its clean cool surface. Kansa City’s Union Station looked peaceful covered in snow. The morning rays would make an effort to dissolve the blanket of white powder, but the December chill would prove to be too fierce. A cold breeze had warded off all the on-lookers and well-wishers, leaving the station abandoned except for a handful of workers. The blowing gusts made themselves known as they rushed against the wa...

6 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Unheard

Submitted to Contest #168

The sun glinted violently, blinding her momentarily. The young girl covered her eyes, and after a few seconds, looked through the window once again. The train raced on the land, shaking her slightly. It was oddly relaxing. The viridescent hills chased her, and she saw a few children playing a game of soccer, all laughing as they tripped over each other’s feet. Suddenly, a bug flew onto the window, buzzing around wildly. She jumped, shaking her boyfriend, Ace, who was lying on her shoulder.  “What’s wrong?” He asked, groaning at the su...

6 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Kalka Mail

Submitted to Contest #168

There’s something about a train that inspires reflection, poignancy, romanticism. Maybe for some, claustrophobia. Imran gazed out the open window, watching distant lights through the darkness, feeling the biting December cold whizz across, as the vintage rumble of the train punctuated his thoughts. He drifted in and out of a dream-like state. “....oldest train still running in the country. When the British needed to move to their summer capital in Shimla, they used these very coaches!” The old man sitting next to him announced triumpha...

6 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Man in the Corner

Submitted to Contest #168

After walking to the very end of the platform, to the very last car, Vera slides into the very last row of seats. The seats that faced backwards from the way the train was moving. Most people get sick from backwards motion, but really, Vera preferred it this way. She always does this because the last car is always empty, and Vera needed to be alone for this journey. Vera shoves her bag into the overhead, and plops down next to the window. She is clammy; she had to speed walk from the parking lot to catch the final train this evening, to a pl...

6 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Seven Years

Submitted to Contest #168

Emmanuel remembered the first time she had ridden the train. Her nose pressed right up to the glass and a small smudge of fog would expand and contract with each excited breath. She held up Monsieur Toutou, her teddy bear, so that he too could see the rolling green hills and farmlands of the French countryside. Look for sheep Monsieur Toutou! But don’t count them unless you want to fall asleep! Emmanuel’s mother sat next to her wearing her best outfit, a dark blue dress covered in a pattern of white polka-dots with a high waist belt and a da...

6 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Gate 12

Submitted to Contest #168

I love when it rains. As egotistical as it may sound I feel like the rain comes in acknowledgement of me and my feelings. The smell alone relaxes my nerves and release a feeling of peace that allows me to believe that it's okay to just let go. Although, what gets me the most about the rain is the color of the sky. The darkness. Usually it comes through constant waves of darkening gray that slowly swallows any color in the sky that dares to defy its arrival. As the sea reflects only what is above, the ocean begins to turn black. The absence o...

6 likes 5 comments 5
Read story

The Train Wrecked Life

Submitted to Contest #168

Still foggy headed, he rubbed the remnants of sleep from his right eye as he amused himself with what could be. You see, Josh loved to daydream about how his life could be in a parallel universe – since he did not much like the one he was living. He peered out of the train window and saw a green field with many lights and bases… just like he ran as a kid. He was unstoppable on the field. Yes, on the field, he was a winner, but at home… that was a different story. Behind closed doors, his dad would berate him, beat him with a belt, and chas...

6 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

Evacuee

Submitted to Contest #168

This story contains graphic depictions of battlefield gore and disturbing images. Theo's breath fogged up the window. The frost that clung to the class sprawled along its surface in crystal patterns that resembled those stitched into the ornate rug on the floor of his father's bureau. It was cold on the train—a sort of chill that numbs, that seeps into one's bones and takes a firm grip. Theo's muscles felt tight. He huddled deeper into the embrace of his tweed jacket; it brought him little warmth, but he seized whatever respite from the c...

6 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

All Change

Submitted to Contest #168

“It’s awfully dark out there.” John flinched at the sound of her overloud voice. He hated loud people at the best of times, but in the restrictive cigar tube confines of a train carriage it was all too much. He looked around him for the signs that denoted this carriage as a Quiet Zone, but saw none. That was strange, he always homed in on the Quiet Zone. Even when he was dog tired after a long day at work and trudged to the station on auto pilot. Surely he would have remembered the annoyance and disappointment of either the non-existence...

5 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

How it started on a train...

Submitted to Contest #168

// Trigger Warning: This story includes description of a person’s TOXIC RELATIONSHIP EXPERIENCES and EMOTIONAL ABUSE. // A girl is looking out the train window. She is attractive and nicely dressed. She is young and appears to be in her mid-twenties. She has her hair down and her left ear, which is facing me, is visible since it is keeping her hair back. I have been captivated by her ever since I first saw her. She is sitting in the single-line row of seats on a window seat, and I am sitting exactly diagonally across the aisle on a wi...

5 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Imprisonment via Train

Submitted to Contest #168

She stared out the train window, watching the scenery whiz by quickly as she made her way home.  If she squinted her eyes, the trees, dilapidated houses, homeless encampments, and open space all seemed to intersect together into one big blob.   Her train rides to and from work and home were approximately an hour and a half long with 10 stops.  There was approximately 10 minutes between each stop.  Sighing, she wondered why she would endure a three-hour daily round trip commute.  Conductor: Now...

5 likes 1 comment 1
Read story

The Train

Submitted to Contest #168

THE TRAINGarry Marek sighed as he turned his head to watch raindrops chase each other in frantic loops around the window before being whisked away into the night. Peace reigned at last after a noisy crowd of boarding school boys on their way back to Cornham College had piled off at the last stop. As the train picked up speed on the way down to Riversham, the carriage swayed slightly to the rhythmic sound of the wheels on the rails, and clouds of smoke and steam from the old locomotive billowed past as it was caught by the wind swirling throu...

5 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Roxie's Train Ride

Submitted to Contest #168

Roxie's Train Ride          As Roxie boarded The Scotia at Liverpool, the weather was a cool 50 degrees. She knew that she would miss her home, but she needed to find new challenges. She also knew it would be rough going in the new country of America, but she felt up to the challenge. They dropped anchor in the Hudson River, off Jersey City.          She found a stenography and typing job in Jersey City. Her apartment rent was $9.50 a month. Even thoug...

5 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Tarnished

Submitted to Contest #168

Tarnished  Note: this account is based on actual events in the lives of real people. Names have been changed to protect the memories of the innocent.  October 17, 1905 - Tuesday My dearest James, Patience has been staring out the window for miles. We’re nearly a day into the journey, and there’s nothing much to see except for the endless prairie. I suspect she’s looking instead at mental imagery. What must she be thinking?… Feeling?  It’s a tremendous change to make at her age, but I hope it will be for the bes...

5 likes 5 comments 5
Read story

🌟 Similar prompts

Write a story about a character who is moving on, literally or figuratively.

Narrative – 56 stories

Make a train station an important part of your story.

Narrative – 72 stories

Write a story about a character who misses a train, for better or worse.

Adults – 33 stories

Write a story that includes someone saying, “Bon voyage.”

Adults – 16 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