Your Story #136

Write the opening line to a story based on the photo prompt below. (One sentence only.) You can be poignant, funny, witty, etc.; it is, after all, your story.

Alexander Spatari via Getty Images

Prompt: Write the opening line to a story based on the photo prompt below. (One sentence only.) You can be poignant, funny, witty, etc.; it is, after all, your story.

Email your submission to yourstorycontest@aimmedia.com with the subject line "Your Story 136."

No attachments, please. Include your name and mailing address. Entries without a name or mailing address will be disqualified.

Unfortunately, we cannot respond to every entry we receive due to volume. No confirmation emails will be sent out to confirm receipt of submission. But be assured all submissions received before the entry deadline are considered carefully.

Entry Deadline: CLOSED.


Out of over 100 entries, WD editors chose the following 12 finalists. Vote for your favorite using the comments section at the bottom of the page.

1. The world was vastly brighter than I remembered, with hues of rich greens climbing upwards, turning into shades of yellow until mixing.

2. The bamboo swayed and swished as if breathing, releasing the all too familiar stench of raw sewage and decaying bodies.

3. The last thing Jen remembered was leaving her hotel room in Chicago, but she woke up with a pounding headache on the floor of a Japanese bamboo grove.

4. Why am I the only one who looks up and wonders what that blue thing is just beyond our Green Canopy?

5. Flat on his back, breath ragged from the fall, eyes fixed on the towering bamboo above, the angel listened to the silence of a world consumed in its own oblivion, too unready and unwilling to be saved.

6. With both wrists zip-tied to the unyielding bamboo, and with no way to signal the rescue plane roaring past overhead, Roger Mallory dropped his head to his bloodied chest and wept.

7. Here were enough trunks here to build the ark exactly as instructed, if only he had an axe and more time.

8. At least they’re safe, she thought, her vision fading as the last of her life seeped from the jagged bullet wound in her back into the cold, mossy floor of the bamboo grove.

9. Guiseppi picks up his chisel to carve the magic flute, the only thing that will free him from his debt.

10. If only they were needles, but no, it's me, in a recovery from hell, surrounded by green spears.

11. “So, the shrink ray works,” my assistant says, glowering at me from behind her large, round glasses, as gigantic green stocks loom above us.

12. “Whoa, talk about false advertising!” Daniel exclaimed as he peered up at the obstructed sky, his grip tightening around the can of Weedbuster.

Since obtaining her MFA in fiction, Moriah Richard has worked with over 100 authors to help them achieve their publication dreams. As the managing editor of Writer’s Digest magazine, she spearheads the world-building column Building Better Worlds, a 2023 Eddie & Ozzie Award winner. She also runs the Flash Fiction February Challenge on the WD blog, encouraging writers to pen one microstory a day over the course of the month and share their work with other participants. As a reader, Moriah is most interested in horror, fantasy, and romance, although she will read just about anything with a great hook. Learn more about Moriah's editorial services and writing classes on her personal website.