The Open Novella Contest is back for 2026! Join fellow storytellers and plant the seed of a tale that will blossom into a 20,000+ word novella within 12 weeks! Your epic quest begins February 1st, 2026, so mark your calendars with this date!

Tayla's life should have been full of adventure and battle, and it would have been had she not failed her Crest Champion test a year prior. Now she's stuck at her aunt's herbalist shop, selling potions to the very ranks she once dreamed to join. And her town has just become a hot spot for Crest Champions everywhere. The once-bound dragon Zyrel has awakened after a century of slumber, and he draws dangerous monsters to his cage. The Crest Champions must kill him before he can finally be freed. Tayla plans to keep her head down and avoid the constant reminder of her failed dream, but that changes when an alicorn appears in her garden, claiming they must join forces and release Zyrel before it's too late. There's something wrong with the story of Zyrel's imprisonment, and to uncover the truth, Tayla must join a familiar-and loathsome-face from her Academy days. Dangers await, but the greatest threat she finds in the woods won't be the prowling beasts. It will be herself. -- Shout out to @raizelrose3 for the absolutely amazing cover!!

You're never too old to go on an adventure. ------------ Every year in the kingdom of Asledia, a handful of eighteen-year-olds are chosen by the gods to complete a quest. If they are successful, a grand reward awaits. Gwyneira Fowler is pushing forty and content with her role as both a spinster and an assistant manager at her parents' flower farm. When a cat-sized dragon appears in one of the family hothouses and declares that she has been chosen, Gwyneira's quiet, predictable life is upended. Within days, she finds herself on the back of a strong, steady mule, headed gods-know-where in search of a sacred garden. And the little dragon? She's coming, too, much to Gwyneira's chagrin. Stepping outside of one's comfort zone can be difficult. Sometimes all you need is a little push. And a muzzle for the dragon. ONC '26 Prompt #3: You don't expect much excitement in your quiet garden until the day a dragon suddenly appears among the flowers.

The Eye has seen-the world will end, unless the apocalypse is properly thwarted. Unfortunately, this task has been handed to the two worst people for the job. Gadowyn Harker is a poison-peddling witch of the Gold City with a curse: if she loves, she will lose her powers-and herself. Beau "The Beautificent" Beguile (not his real name) is a smug necromancer who cons the rich and has a lifelong allergy to love, and all its messy bits. Now they must do the unthinkable: bring a dragon and a future knight-princess-sworn enemy of dragonkind-together, romantically. The world would do well to start praying; the chances of success are slim at best. Meanwhile, the Gold City teeters on the brink of collapse, undead roam the streets (entirely Beau's fault), and the end of the world draws ever closer. Somehow, Gadowyn and Beau must save it all with love-without falling prey to it themselves. First draft written for ONC 2026 | Main Prompts 11 & 98

Lady Marigold Lennox knows the rules of the Season. Follow mother's orders, secure a match to protect the estate, and never let longing for romance or feelings ruin a perfectly sensible plan. With her inheritance on the line and her seventeenth birthday looming, she intends to marry quickly. At a pre-Season flower arranging class for young ladies, Marigold finds unexpected allies in two other girls navigating this new world beside her. One too sweet to be seen and one too scandalous to be forgiven. Together they must enter society and await it's judgement. Then she meets Oliver Harrow. Practical, intelligent, and refreshingly uninterested in control, Oliver seems to be her perfect solution. A marriage of convenience would benefit them both. Marigold can secure her inheritance, and Oliver gains better standing in society - each free to live life largely as they please. Love, after all, is an unnecessary complication. Or so Marigold insists. But whilst Marigold is content with simple friendship, Oliver's heart begins to want what their arrangement forbids. As the Season unfolds, her friends' struggles force Marigold to confront her own heart. Friendship with the man she is to marry feels safe, but that doesn't mean it's the path she's meant to take. With her heart no longer following the plan, Marigold must decide between the safety she wanted and the love she never expected. Written for @OpenNovellaContest 2026 Prompt Used: 24. Staying as friends feels safe, but that doesn't mean it's the path you're meant to take

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Where the evil Queen of Hearts and the eccentric Mad Hatter fall in love. --- Marra is the Queen of the Kingdom of Hearts. She is known to be heartless and cruel, a tyrant through and through. She has been searching for clues on how to find the mystical being called the Jabberwocky. As she sets foot on her adventure, she encounters different people and creatures who will change her outlook on life, including the eccentric Mad Hatter. Will she let herself fall in love with the madman? --- Based on the "Alice in Wonderland" franchise, particularly the classic books "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass" by Lewis Carroll. --- An Open Novella Contest 2026 entry. Prompt 44. "May I have this dance?" "Seriously? Right now, in this situation?"

Lyra needs an escape. After breaking things off with her ex, she flees to the Ozarks. The sleepy mountain town seems far enough off the grid, and the historic apartments owned by her father are charming enough. The ghosts think so, too. Or, at least, that's what the locals say. Even the nice, quiet man she always bumps into on her coffee runs is more than willing to share his experiences with the beyond. Ever a skeptic, Lyra wants nothing to do with the area's haunted appeal, or the paranormal investigator next door who seems a little too in her space. The living are awful enough. Why would she want to speak with the dead? But restless spirits are much harder to ignore, especially in a building that feels so... alive. __________ Main ONC Prompt: 80. »Monsters don't live under our beds. They live in the recesses of our minds.« (Variation of Edgar Allen Poe's famous quote) __________ ©️2026 Wrenna Stone "Reflect" is posted exclusively on W a t t p a d . c o m. If you are reading this novel on another platform or website, please inform the author via W a t t p a d, as you may be reading it from a mirror site or any other platform where it has been plagiarized.

Everyone believed the shields kept them safe from the world, but they were wrong. It was the other way around. || Wynt has lived in City 119 all his life. At least, that's what he tells everyone. He's always been a bit odd, but as one of many orphans, most people don't pay him much attention. Nor do they bother to listen. That was their first mistake. The second mistake was believing they were the only living people on the planet. And the third.... the third mistake was the worst of all. They thought the cities were there to protect them. Wynt was never meant to be there. But he was, and now he has to make a choice. Does he want to save them? Or does he want to watch them fall?

The Winter Folk by Jennifer McMahon meets The Haunting of the Hill House (the Netflix series) in this tale of paleoanthropological terror that plays with the famous theory of the uncanny valley by Masahiro Mori. *** PhD student Giselle Brown returns to her childhood hometown to complete her dissertation in peace, hardly expecting anything surprising to happen. It already muddled her life as it is; she doesn't need more trouble to spice it up. But when the bones of a human cadaver are discovered by the local anglers, which turn out to be the remains of her long-lost mother, Giselle's life is thrown into a tumult. Twenty years ago, Giselle's mother, Julia Brown, had disappeared from their house, leaving behind a trail of heartbreak and despair. The police never found her mother, which drove her father to suicide, her older sister to turn mute and to be admitted in an asylum, leaving the full onus of raising Giselle on her grandmother. Her mother was more a legend in their house than a person who haunted their every action and Giselle's most haunting thoughts. Somewhere deep down Giselle had always sought answers to what happened to her mother and the disturbing facets of the last week she was with their family. Now, with the corpse recovered and identified, the investigation that had once gone cold resumes upon Giselle's insistence. Yet things get stranger as the police uncover the most bizarre facts about the cadaver and the details about the last days of Julia's life. Giselle is plagued by reflections that are not quite hers, shadows that stretch too long, figures appearing at the edge of the woods close to her home and a lingering sense of being watched. Giselle doesn't know what to do. Can she really trust her mind? Or is nothing as it seems?