Opennovellacontest Stories

**WATTYS 2025 HONOURABLE MENTION** Cas and Vish are best friends whose feelings run deep. Whilst Cas is clever, sporty, and on the brink of a bright future at university, Vish has no such prospects. A painfully shy artist, Vish's horizons end at his daily routine of pills, sensory issues and panicking parents. When they celebrate what could be their final summer together by painting wildlife and swimming at a secret wooded wetland hidden in the Fens, the lads awaken something ancient and sinister lurking in the water. A voice in Vish's head -- Charlie -- tempts him to spend longer and longer in the woods. When villagers begin to disappear and Vish becomes increasingly secretive and distant, Cas is convinced that Charlie intends to claim Vish, body and soul. Lies, heartbreak and obsession push their friendship to breaking point, but nothing will stop Cas from protecting Vish from Charlie's onslaught, not even a fight to the death. --- This book started life as an ONC 2025 prompt: 105. Your childhood imaginary friend who disappeared years ago returns - only this time they're real.

For Centuries Grim has been collecting souls. It's what he does, it's his purpose. One day, while collecting a soul in the park, he comes across a lost puppy. For reasons he can't explain, the urge to return the small dog to his owner is overwhelming. He soon finds the animal's owner, a woman in her mid-twenties named Maria. He is struck down by her beauty and realizes that he had once claimed the soul of someone she loved. He becomes even more conflicted when he realizes he has just one year to claim her soul.

Vítej u druhého ročníku literární soutěže Slovotvůrci! V každém z nás určitě Slovotvůrce dřímá, stejně jako velké příběhy, které chtějí vylétnout z našich myslí do fantazií čtenářů - tak je pojďme probudit! Poděl se o ně s námi a staň se Mistrem Slovotvůrcem! Vyhraj zajímavé ceny a dej o sobě vědět komunitě čtenářů a spisovatelů!

Als monsters mensen nodig hebben, maar mensen monsters niet... welke soort is dan werkelijk krachtig? En wat gebeurt er als de mensheid dat eindelijk realiseert? De strateeg Hugo ontmoet Merille. Zij is niet menselijk, dus staan ze recht tegenover elkaar. Maar Merille is anders dan elk monster dat hij kent. Zij heeft zijn soort niet nodig. Het antwoord is controle. Maar hoe kan hij dat krijgen, terwijl de regels zijn veranderd? Het is tijd om het systeem te controleren, voordat hij wordt gecontroleerd. * Volgens prompt 80. Monsters leven niet onder onze bedden. Ze leven in de krochten van onze gedachten.

Blurb Milo is a vampire new to the mythical community. His father has enrolled him in the mythical boarding school, Mareville Academy. Milo has a big secret-he's not like other vampires. He tries to fit in, but ends up causing trouble. Will Milo be able to stay out of trouble and represent his kind in a just way? # Story is completed (not edited yet). #All places and people are fictional. #An 'Open Novella Contest 2026' entry. #Prompt 81. Unalluring and bumbling, your character is the world's worst vampire. #This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

ALIEN AMONG US is a contemporary sci-fi novella that will give you the giggles, tug at your heartstrings, and leave you wondering if there really is life beyond the stars. ************************************************************************ Entered into the Open Novella Contest 2026 | @OpenNovellaContest - Rules & Guidelines: here: https://www.wattpad.com/story/406004197-open-novella-contest-2026 **Main Prompt** 25. You live with four other housemates, but one of them is secretly an alien trying to learn how to act human. ©2026 E. S. Elias, All Rights Reserved. Book Created & Published to Wattpad: 02.01.2026 Book Marked as Completed: 00.00.2026 Book Cover: Me @DesignsbyEH Word Count: 2,222 / 20,000 Goals: ✔ Round 1 ✔ | 2,000 words ✔ | Round 2 _ | 8,000 words ✔ Round 3 _ | 20,000 words LONGLIST _ | SHORTLIST _ Round Winner? _ | Honorable Mention? _ | Ambassadors' Pick? _ Mentioned in Ambassador Newsletter _ Top-5 Winner? _ Rankings: #ONC2026: #ONC #2 02.03.2026

[COMPLETED] Have you ever wondered who your soulmate is? In the world of 'Moonlit Dreams, Moonlit Fate', you get to meet them in your dreams, right after you turn twenty years old. However, you do not know what they look like. As Yvonne Blythe keeps dreaming about her soulmate on the nights following her twentieth birthday, she becomes determined to find them. During her relentless search for the person of her dreams, she meets Reid Wells, a senior at her university. The encounters do not stop there - Yvonne and Reid keep running into each other at the most unexpected places. But, these encounters make a realization dawn on Yvonne - Reid was not just a random guy, he felt like the very person who had appeared in her dreams for the first time. Entry for Open Novella Contest 2026. Prompt used: 21

When you think of vampires, you probably think of Dracula or--shudder--Edward Cullens. You know what I mean: the romanticized, sexy version of a vampire. The one with sparkly skin and a charismatic compulsion. Hot. Sexy. Let's be real here, Gary Oldman really set the bar, right? But what fiction doesn't tell you is that being a vampire is messy and, quite frankly, HARD. It's ugly and lonely, and don't even get me started about tracking down blood. I'm wanted in every province (ever hear of the Bloody Killer? Yeah, that's me. Totally lame serial killer moniker, by the way, RCMP). I didn't have the choice to turn into a vampire, but, boy, did my creator pick the wrong person. Out of control, clumsy, drunk, messy, blah, blah, blah. You get the idea. I know, I should probably see a therapist, huh? Well, my trail of bloodless bodies soon catches up to me when a chance encounter with a hottie in a cafe leaves me with his phone by mistake, and I realize just how f***ed I am. And as I do my best to keep him away (while trying to survive as a vampire), I can't help but fall for the cafe hottie, putting a stake on my life. *** ONC '26 prompts: #56 and #81

Against the backdrop of a damp, golden London autumn... ​In 2026 London, history professor Sarah uncovers a centuries-old letter hidden behind an old framed painting in her new flat. As she deciphers its secrets, she becomes entwined in a long-lost love and a mystery that spans generations-leading her to a man who holds the final piece of the puzzle." Participation in the Open Novella Contest 2026 Prompt used: #79 © 2026 by Nermein Sami El-Kurdi. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission is strictly prohibited #onc2026 #opennovellacontest2026 #oncprompt79

Prompt 78 - You begin to realize nothing is quite what it seems.

When a cautious Formula One engineer crosses paths with a damaged comeback driver, she discovers that the most dangerous variable she should assess in the sport isn't speed-but attachment. ✦✦✦ Adriana Santos has always known her place on a championship-winning Formula One team is contingent. Excellence, she learned early, is not the same as security. She works in a role the paddock barely understands-simulating failures before they happen, answering 'what ifs' before they become 'what went wrong', and treating the car like a living thing whose future rests in her hands. Her work is quiet, precise, and easily erased the moment she becomes inconvenient. She is careful because she has to be. She knows Joshua Thomas long before she meets him: the driver who changed his name to fit in, the anomaly on a rival team forever tipped for titles. To Adriana, he's a reaction curve that never quite returned to baseline after last season's crash. His comeback is framed as resilience. Many are simply waiting to see him fail. They meet by accident, in a moment stripped of his usual extravagance and pretence. Adriana notices what she always notices-the face behind the mask, the way he laughs through failure like it doesn't frighten him. Adriana doesn't forget him, though. She keeps her distance but Joshua doesn't, and their reluctant friendship begins to bend into something riskier. And they both know exactly what it could cost them. ✦✦✦ ✦ Open Novella Contest 2026 | Prompts 24, 29, 30, 44 ᴄᴏᴘʏʀɪɢʜᴛ © 2026 ʙʏ ᴀᴜᴅʀᴇʏ ᴀʟʟ ʀɪɢʜᴛꜱ ʀᴇꜱᴇʀᴠᴇᴅ.

HE JUST DOESN'T KNOW WHEN TO STOP After falling asleep to a video of the "nihilist penguin", Lian Min wakes at 3 a.m. to wet footprints and melting snow in his studio apartment in a country of perennial summer. On tracing the footprints to the corridor, he discovers a world in stasis where he is the only one who can still move. That's the least of his worries, however. Various flowers begin sprouting in his living room and the footprints change trails without warning, leading him to discover things about his neighbourhood that he never knew and perhaps should not know. Then the trail goes cold.

This space is created especially for writers participating in the Open Novella Contest 2026 Writing a novella is exciting... but also confusing, lonely, and full of self-doubt. ❤️ Is my story good enough? ❤️Is my opening strong? ❤️Will readers understand my characters? ❤️Am I even on the right track? You don't have to figure this out alone. This book club is a place where contestants can: ✔ Share their entries ✔ Get genuine reads ✔ Receive honest and helpful feedback ✔ Improve their chapters ✔ Support fellow writers Here, we don't compete. We grow together. If you are writing for the Open Novella Contest and want readers, reviews, and real feedback - this circle is for you. Let's help each other write better stories.

She is the lost princess of the Twilight Ocean Clan-cursed, exiled, and forgotten by history. When the ocean begins to fracture and ancient forces awaken, she is summoned back to the depths to restore balance and break the spell that binds her fate. As she searches for the truth behind her curse, she is drawn into a dangerous love triangle: a feared leader of the war clan who threatens the seas, and the devoted Twilight Clan general sworn to protect her-even from herself. With kingdoms on the edge of collapse and her heart pulled in opposite directions, the greatest battle she faces may not be for the ocean... but for her soul. Submitted to the Open Novella Contest 2026.

Witches had to be swift and decisive in matter regarding the safety of human life, and yet, no matter how many times this lesson was taught to her, Ife never learned. With a history of bad decisions in her trail, where she had chosen blind trust over logical reasoning, she moves to an old family mansion, far away from home at the behest of her mother and besides the occasional cold yet angry whispers that seemed to come out of nowhere, everything appears normal. That is until she finds a starving vampire chained up in the mansion's basement who supposedly owned the mansion about a hundred years ago before her ancestors struck down his associates and imprisoned him. As per her pattern of behavior, Ife realizes a perfect opportunity to prove her pessimistic mother wrong. However, this could either be her first good decision, or her worst one yet as she navigates life with her new grumpy housemate. The is for the ONC2026 contest based on the prompt, "the daughter of the most powerful witch is nothing like her mother". I'm not exactly the best writer out there but I'm hoping enough people give this a try. Updates have been slow so far but I'm hoping to have this wrapped up by the end of the challenge.

For a small price, a Collector can make you remember things you have never done. In 1815 England, Meera Sterne defies societal expectations to play the dutiful daughter, marry into a rich family, and become the property of a man. Instead, she runs away and trains under the aloof and distant Aurelius Mackleberry, spending her days buying and selling memories. A stranger visits her trainer for a crime from years gone. Aurelius Mackleberry owes a debt with his life -- and his time has run out. Meera must unravel the violent and bloody past behind the wonders of Collecting memories and save the life of a man destroyed by his own magic. For Open Novella Contest 2020.

They fall in love with someone whose heartbeat matches a song they haven't heard since childhood. Jungkook: Marriage is terrifying! Taehyung: Love marrige is the worst.

After being accused of witchcraft, a young girl is forced to run away from her hometown. ( ((o)) ) Aubrey Delacourt was able to keep her magic hidden for fifteen years. But when rogue Wardens invade her town, her powers are revealed to everyone. Charged with witchcraft and forced to run away, Aubrey finds herself completely alone. Beyond the safe bubble of her town, Aubrey is left chasing legends to try and survive. As her magic becomes harder and harder to control, she struggles to hide from the Wardens who draw closer every day. With no other option but death, Aubrey sets off on an epic quest to try and neutralize her abilities. Aubrey knows what happens to wayward souls. But as she starts to drift away from reality, she wanders closer and closer to where the lost things go. ONC Prompt #22 Cover by @Alexan629

The war against vampires and the disease that creates them is unlike any other humanity has ever faced. With one bite, people are transformed into enemy combatants. No matter how loyal, how well-trained, or how disciplined someone is, the result is always the same. Each person is plundered for information, then pleasure, and then fed back into the conflict to destroy everything they value. Sergeant Wren Horan leads a squad whose sole purpose is to find and kill such vampires. On one fateful mission, she encounters more than a group of fledglings. She walks into a massacre and faces what she fears most: turning. But when she wakes up, it's not as a mindless fledgling. It's as something else entirely.

Running from an arranged marriage, Elaria wants nothing more than a life of her choosing. On the night of her escape she finds she's not the only one making a run for it. -- The two countries of Coastalis and Mossvale have an agreement since their founding to arrange marriage and keep the friendship held for ten thousand years intact. However, when Elaria is faced with this head on, she realizes her life has been lead into complacency, and she's had enough. Ready to finally live her life on her own terms, Elaria ties her sheets into a rope and scales down the wall of her own palace to escape. But she's not the only one. Erik, who has his own struggles, is desperate to return to Mossvale to reunite with the love he left behind. Together they forge an unlikely pairing as they traverse both love and fate. However, fate has much more in store than either of them expect. -- An ONC Novella Prompt #88 Your father is forcing you to marry someone you have never met. The night before your wedding, you tie your sheets together and make your escape through the window. Halfway down you make eye contact with someone doing the exact same thing a few windows over.