Opennovellacontest26 Stories

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!

Cursed storms have been tearing through the port cities, and the constellations are shifting in ways no map can explain. When a stowaway girl is discovered aboard a merchant ship, Elias, the crew's bookish young cook, can't stop watching her. Olive is a mystery in every way. She barely eats or sleeps, and seems determined to get herself thrown overboard every time she opens her mouth. Yet when she somehow navigates their vessel through violent weather, Elias realizes there is much more to her story than he could have possibly imagined. ONC prompt #69: The stars are disappearing one by one and only you can hear their whispers. Percy Jackson meets Pirates of the Caribbean meets astrology (I do not use AI to write my work. I will sometimes use it to research historical details for accuracy but no AI is used to generate creative materials)

After discovered the opposition power and their fragments identity, Scarlet Bright and Lithanine "Lilith" Diesel continue their journey, discovered a new friend, Lucin and Lilith just discovered the new power. And not just that, Lilith will find new fragment identity soon or later. This story was Al-generative chat and edited by me to keep the fixed plot.

This is the report of Lee's adventure in his phone. Lee downloaded the app "Adventure in Your Phone" and got trapped in the virtual world. To escape, he must complete a series of tasks hidden within his own apps.

Penelope has dreamed about one particular man nearly her entire adult life. There's just one problem - she doesn't know him in her waking life. Her best friend is convinced that Penelope is destined to meet him one day but as the years go by, Penelope becomes more convinced that he is just a figment of her imagination. Until she finally meets him while awake. As they get to know each other outside of their dreams, everything Penelope thought she knew about love is thrown out and she learns just how powerful a force love can really be. *Written for Open Novella Contest 2026 using prompt #18: At eighteen, you begin dreaming of a stranger who feels like your other half. When they finally appear in real life, everything you thought about love and reality begin to shift.*

Maya Seymour closed a painful chapter that left her helpless in grief, named Foxer Klein. After three years of searching, Elliot Leaf healed the girl's heart that needed closure and a new beginning. But Foxer came back. Alive. [ Prompt 79 and 82 of ONC2026 ] [ Updates follow the ONC timeline ] [ To be proofread soon ] [ Book cover will change ]

25-year-old Melody Marsh doesn't believe in magic. She might call herself a witch, but her witchcraft is just knowlegde of plants and a skill for healing people. Magic is just a thing of fairytales and legends, she believes. Until one day a massive black dragon appears in her garden, with his dirty, heavy feet right on her precious plants. He's a messenger of the gods and Melody was chosen for a quest. So after recovering from the trauma caused by the mass murder on her plants, Melody follows the dragon on a journey over the seven seas to the world's edge. It's there where she gets the chance to change one regret from her past, but everything has a catch. What's the right decision in the eyes of fate, when fate herself has been looking over Meldoy all her life? ______________ Written for the English edition of the Open Novella Contest (ONC) 2026. Based on prompt 74: You are offered the chance to rewrite one regret from your past, but doing so requires giving up a memory you treasure. The living library awaits your decision.

Beth Reynolds is running on three hours of sleep, a dying phone, and a very precarious subway coffee... until the train lurches and she dumps the whole thing on a ridiculously hot stranger. Then she shows up late to the biggest callback of her modeling career and realizes the "coffee guy" is Chris Martinez - her co-model for the shoot. The one she has to get half-naked with. Maybe kiss. For the camera. On set, the chemistry is real enough to make the photographer cry. Off set? Chris is sweet, steady, and somehow still sends mixed signals that make Beth feel like she's losing her mind and her oracle cards aren't helping. So Beth does what any anxious romantasy girl with catastrophic impulse control would do: she buys a love spell on Etsy. And after that... everything she's been dreaming about starts happening. Except now she can't stop wondering: did he choose her... or did she pay for him?

A series of murders, a school magazine and an obnoxious colleague in the way. Suspicious letters pop up in the magazine Zoey Tan heads, she is forced to find the perpetuator who has landed her in the trouble. When the perpetuator proves to be more than just trouble to her, things take a deeper dive. When his low-key persona slips, Yuvan Tejas desperately tries to re-assemble it and protect those who shelter under it. When murder dots the city and the murderer seems closer than he thought possible, tides turn. Together they discover a truth that shakes their worlds.

"Hello and good whatever time of day it is! It's me, TinyOctopus, coming at you with fresh content." Cameron has heard those words dozens if not hundreds of times. The problem? He's in love with the gamer who goes by TinyOctopus but he's always known her as Brooke, his best friend since middle school. After a long day dealing with 'the customer is always right' he's content to curl up with a bowl of nachos and watch her play and dream that one day he'll have the courage to tell her how he feels. After one of the worst shifts of his life, Cameron falls asleep mid-stream. When he wakes up he's most definitely not at home and everyone in sight is strangely... obsessed with one person. Enter the farmer and with a sinking feeling Cameron knows exactly why this valley looks so familiar.

He feared that his dream would become a reality. And when it did, he hated himself for being the cause of her ruin. .𖥔 ݁ ˖ ˚☽˚.⋆ .𖥔 ݁ ˖ ✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅.𖥔 ݁ ˖ ✦ ‧₊˚ ⋅ Just a random night in Hugo Moulin's life and he comes across the woman he could possibly dedicate an entire love serenade to. But when she accuses him of trapping her and ruining her life, what can the man do? Good for him, for he soon realises that this miserable situation was nothing but a dream. A dream with absolutely no meanings. But what's going to happen to this guy when he finds clues that point out about the existence of the woman in reality? And what's going to be his reaction when the woman turns out to be the one person he had vowed to be wary of for the rest of life? Was she real? Or just a fever dream? Or maybe just an enemy who had been eating up his thoughts? Or....what if...he was just losing his mind? #ONC2026

In a dark Benedictine Abbey, high in the cold mountains of Helvetia, where stone and earth remember older laws than kings, a legendary weapon rests in silence. It lies within the Kloster Einsiedeln, a mountain abbey sworn to the Cantors of the region of Oath Fellowship, its fresco painted walls with tales of a history that is much different than the truth it conceals. For generations, the weapon has slept beneath legend, its purpose misremembered, its history softened into a heroic myth. But weapons do not forget. When the lies that bound it begins to unravel, and the abbey's sealed records stir, old borders awaken. Wolves who once feared only the glint of steel begin to fear something else as the weapon reveals what it was never meant to be. Not an instrument of slaughter, but a measure of law. What rises in its wake is neither hunter nor monster, but something the world has not known for centuries. The Wardens of the Limes. Some weapons are forged to kill. Others are forged to decide. This weapon requires HEIRS. And Miteinander; working together. Or it won't work at all... The surprising heirs of the weapon, rivals since childhood, staunch upholders of the lies believed throughout family generations, must now overcome, to step into their chosen destiny. "They stand at the Threshold." ✠ ✠ ✠ ONC26 Prompt # 1. Two rivals discover they're the chosen heirs to a legendary weapon that will only activate if they work together. Some Historical references: The Kloster Einsiedeln Abbey was first founded as a Benedictine monastery in 934 CE on the site of a former hermitage. Its origins, however, date back to approximately 835 CE, when the hermit monk Saint Meinrad first established a small cell in the "Dark Forest" of the region. LIMES definition: Latin. Originally meaning a path or boundary line. A limes (plural: limites) was a fortified border or frontier system of the Roman Empire.

Adrienne Julieta Fernandez, a Brazilian female formula driver's whole life changes due to one promotion. There's one more thing. A man. A man she never thought she knew of until she reached the top. A man who wrecked her life as much as he got her high on it. He has a secret which could change everything. She is unknowingly in the mess of the dirtiest tricks in racing. In the end, she will have to face her wrath. Brought to her by none other than her closest.

Maeve Raines has seen golden strings since her teenage years-thin, luminous threads tied to people's pinkies, binding them through choice, emotion, and consequence. Friendship. Betrayal. Belief. Obsession. Love. Everyone has them. Some have many. Having only one is rare. Having none is impossible. Except Maeve cannot see her own. Now in her late twenties, she lives a life that demands silence and observation. Her secret stays hidden, pressed between unanswered questions and the letters she writes to the Fates-quiet confessions meant for powers she isn't sure are listening. Over the years, she has learned every shade of gold that exists and memorized their meanings. There is nothing left about the strings that should surprise her. To the world, she is someone else entirely. She goes by Juno-a name chosen, not given. A name she wears like armor. Under that name, she drifts. Watches. Learns how lives knot and unravel. Until she meets Theo Mercer. Her neighbor is gentle, reserved, and marked by something she has never encountered before. He has no visible strings. Not one. The absence unsettles her more than any bond ever has-because she knows what every shade should mean, and yet he fits none of them. Theo knows nothing of fate or golden threads-only that being near Juno feels fragile, like something he shouldn't expect to keep. What unfolds between them is not loud or dramatic. It is slow. Measured. Built from shared glances, half-confessions, and the quiet comfort of being understood without explanation. And for the first time, Maeve feels something she cannot categorize-a pull, a burn around her own pinkie whenever she turns away from him. Still unable to see her string, she prays-desperately-that if it exists, it will not be the worst kind. The color of love that never gets to stay. To the Fates is a quiet, tragic exploration of destiny misunderstood, love interrupted, and the cost of seeing what others cannot.

The dream always ended the same way: with the salt-spray of an ocean I'd never visited and the warmth of a hand I couldn't quite grasp. He never had a face-just a silhouette cut out of the moonlight-but his voice was a low rumble that vibrated in my chest. "Find me," he'd whisper. "Before the clocks stop." When I woke up, the silence of my apartment felt like a physical weight. I checked my pulse, my skin still buzzing from a touch that didn't exist. I told myself it was just stress. I told myself that "Thorne" was a name I'd probably seen on a billboard or a dusty law book. But then I saw him.

Usually, after-work suggestions from coworkers mean drinks and karaoke, both of which Opal normally declines in favor of a good nap. Finding herself in a creaky house surrounded by candles and spiderwebs? That should have been her first red flag. The ghost of the house realizes someone can finally see her and suddenly promises are being made to help a sister move on. The sister? A cop with her own vendetta. Opal is dragged into a cold case for a ghost she'd rather not be able to see because apparently, normal life was too much to ask for. Between late nights, dark corners, and dusty old documents Opal finds herself talking to the dead whether she likes it or not. Either they'll find the answers, or they'll be adding to the ghostly population.

It was supposed to be simple. One mission. One target. Substantial compensation. Instead, two elite assassins from rival organizations show up with the same assignment, the same instincts, and wildly inconvenient chemistry. Ezra and Elaine had everything planned and organized. The guests. Fake, but whatever. The food. Which they did not get to eat. Tragic. One dreamy gown. Ruined by an idiot who also smashed their wedding cake. Oh. And the bullets. Because when you make a living pulling triggers, it is only fair that the past shows up armed. Now the guest list is bleeding, the vows are under fire, and the mission they thought they understood is unraveling into something far bigger than either of them signed up for. Turns out, when your love language is violence, your happily ever after comes fully loaded. ---- [First draft - unedited]

My ONC Journal 2026.

Bee's life is sort of stable: she has a flat, a bipolar diagnosis she's getting a handle on. Well, as much as possible, considering she also has a personality that treats impulse control like a creative suggestion. Theo - her childhood neighbour, moral compass, and lifelong critic - has moved back into the apartment across the courtyard. Now he's in her bar. In her kitchen. In her friend group. And, judging by the way he pointed at the window last night, extremely aware of which bedroom is hers. They've spent the last decade living separate lives on purpose. Different cities, different people, one annual birthday party where they confirm they're still wildly incompatible and leave again. But Theo isn't leaving this time. And apparently, neither is the possibility of whatever they've spent ten years avoiding. Prompt: You will meet many people in your life. Many will come and go, but some will leave footprints on your heart.

Santa Claus is an old man in a tattered red coat, limping through a world whose failure to believe in him has caused him to vanish limb by limb. But before he disappears entirely, he has one last round to make - not with gifts, but with letters of apology, delivered to the people whose lives were derailed by a single, cold lump of coal. The greatest burden he ever carried was never the toys. It was his memories of the coal. This is one of my entries in the 2026 Wattpad Open Novella Contest. It is in response to Prompt 79: "A letter arrives addressed to you, written by someone who shouldn't exist."