I couldn’t be more proud of you!

I encourage you to download the post-challenge worksheet attached to this page and either print it out or simply use the question and answer them in your journal. 

• What worked?
• What was a sure-fire way to torpedo your writing day?
• What surprised you?

WRITE IT ALL DOWN

While you’re in the throes of the challenge it’s easy to think you’ll never forget all the lessons you’re learning. 

You will.

So save the lessons, put them somewhere safe, then take the rest of the day off. Maybe tomorrow too. You deserve it.

Share your favorite lesson in the comments, below!

Celebrate Your Success

And don’t forget to download your Certificate of Completion. Print it out, fill in your name, and post a picture of yourself on social media with the hashtag #StoryADayMay

I’ll be back in your inbox in a few days, to invite you to think about some ways to continue the momentum, here at StoryADay, but for now: celebrate!!!

You did it! Now let’s see if your character has THEIR wish granted…

Grant your character’s deepest wish, today

You’ve done it!

You started this month with the desire to write more, write better, and build your writing practice.

With commitment (and probably some imperfect execution) you’ve arrived here, at Day 31 of StoryADay. That’s a huge accomplishment.

As you write your story today, think about how it feels to get what you wanted.

Of course, reality never quite matches up with how we imagined the perfect outcome (for example, I imagined that this year I wouldn’t crave Sundays ‘off’ from my own challenge. This did not turn out to be true…)

For your character, feel free to use the old fairy-tale caution to be careful what you wish for.

For yourself, however, I’d remind you that achievements begin with two things: a vision of how things could be; and a decision to work towards that better future. You used both to write, this month.

CELEBRATE!
Whether you wrote three stories or 31, you Imagined yourself as a writer, you Wrote, you Refined your practice, you Improved your craft, you Triumphed and, if you’re still reading this, I’m pretty sure you Engaged with the community.

You’re living the I, WRITER life.

If you’d like to keep Repeating this successful pattern, take the next steps by joining our on-going community, the StoryADay Superstars. Find out more.

Tomorrow, I’ll be back in your email inboxes one final time, related to StoryADay May 2025, to send you a self-assessment form, so you can capture what went well and what you will do differently as a result of everything you’ve learned on this journey.

This is one of the most valuable documents you’ll create for yourself and I recommend repeating the practice after every project, in future.

For now, sit back and bask in the your successes as a StoryADay 2025 Winner!

Julie Duffy

Julie Duffy
In 2010 Julie was a frustrated writer, who decided that writing a StoryADay in May would be a great way to kickstart her writing practice. 16 years later, it seems she was right. The rest of the writing world quickly caught on and now May is known as Short Story Month! Julie is the author of writing handbooks, articles, podcasts, workshops and courses, as well as a short story writer, and ‘Book Boss’ — your accountability coach for getting to ‘the end’.

If you’d like to spend six months in the writing community Julie created, consider joining our StoryADay Superstars group.

Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!

Remember: I don’t recommend posting your story in the comments here (and I talk more about why not, here). Best practice: Leave us a comment about how it went, or share your favorite line from your story.

Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday

Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version

“Ash had one more loose end to tie up before catching the 9:15 and kissing this town goodbye forever.”

Kai Lovelace

Kai Lovelace is a writer and musician born and raised in New York City. Links to his work can be found here.

Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!

Remember: I don’t recommend posting your story in the comments here (and I talk more about why not, here). Best practice: Leave us a comment about how it went, or share your favorite line from your story.

Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday

Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version

Pick one of these photos.

Use the scene in the picture as the setting for your tale.

It can be where the story starts or where it ends.

It can be for a portion of it or for the entire story, but make sure to feature the setting significantly.

Give the reader a defined view of the place using all the senses.

Tell us what your characters hear, smell, touch/feel, taste, as well as see in this locale.

Lastly, avoid the info dump! Weave your setting in as you go.

Gabrielle Johansen

Gabrielle writes fantasy and super soft sci fi from her NC home. She has been published in Haven Speculative and Across the Margin. As a regular at StoryADay, this is her fifth time participating in the challenge.

Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!

Remember: I don’t recommend posting your story in the comments here (and I talk more about why not, here). Best practice: Leave us a comment about how it went, or share your favorite line from your story.

Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday

Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version

Your character goes back to an old haunt.

They don’t want to be there, but they have to go (brainstorm the reasons they might have to be there, but don’t over-explain it in the story).

• What does your character want?
• What’s stopping them from getting it?

While they battle to get what they want (and out of the story), pay particular attention to the things they notice, about the old familiar place.

• What does it smell like?
• What’s still there?
• What’s missing?
• How does what they notice inform the reader about their state of mind?
• Does one sensory detail change how they decide to act?

Use some of these details as you write the story today.

Julie Duffy

Julie Duffy is a writer and the host of StoryADay May. She loves to poke around places she used to live, for stories. You’ll read some of them in the weekly lessons in the StoryAWeek Newsletter: 52 Writing Lessons & Prompts to Keep You Writing All Year

Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!

Remember: I don’t recommend posting your story in the comments here (and I talk more about why not, here). Best practice: Leave us a comment about how it went, or share your favorite line from your story.

Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday

Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version

A person pulls up at a red light, looks to the car beside them, and sees themselves behind the wheel–just before the light turns and the other car takes off.

Tiffany Yates Martin

Tiffany Yates Martin is a career book editor, working with bestselling and award-winning authors, major publishers as well as indie authors. She is the founder of FoxPrint Editorial ( a Writer’s Digest’s Best Website for Writers) and author of Intuitive Editing: A Creative and Practical Guide to Revising Your Writing and The Intuitive Author: How to Grow & Sustain a Happier Writing Career.

A regular contributor to writers’ outlets and a frequent presenter and keynote speaker for writers’ organizations around the globe, she is also the author of six novels (as Phoebe Fox).

Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!

Remember: I don’t recommend posting your story in the comments here (and I talk more about why not, here). Best practice: Leave us a comment about how it went, or share your favorite line from your story.

Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday

Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version

The one thing this house remembers

John Wiswell

John Wiswell is a disabled writer who lives where New York keeps all its trees. He won the 2021 Nebula Award for Short Fiction for his story, “Open House on Haunted Hill,” and the 2022 Locus Award for Best Novelette for “That Story Isn’t The Story.” He has also been a finalist for the Hugo Award, British Fantasy Award, and World Fantasy Award. He is the author of Someone You Can Build a Nest In, a Year’s Best pick by NPR and The Washington Post, and Wearing the Lion, and he can be found making too many puns and discussing craft on his newsletter, johnwiswell.substack.com.

Now out: the paperback edition of SOMEONE YOU CAN BUILD A NEST IN and you can pre-order his new release (coming in June 2025) now: WEARING THE LION

Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!

Remember: I don’t recommend posting your story in the comments here (and I talk more about why not, here). Best practice: Leave us a comment about how it went, or share your favorite line from your story.

Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday

Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version

In Second Manifesto of Surrealism (1929), Andre Breton called for “the profound, the veritable occultation of Surrealism.”

Of the Surrealist painters and writers who dove whole hog into arcane imagery, my favorites include Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo, Max Ernst, and Leonor Fini.

Choose a single Surrealist painting and do some fun, casual research to decipher its symbolism and “occult” elements. If you need help finding a painting, check out the list below.

After developing a personal interpretation of the work, write a short piece of surreal fiction about the character(s) and situation(s) in the painting.

If there are multiple characters, you might choose one to narrate the story (in first-person or third-person limited point of view) or use an omniscient perspective to jump around among the characters.

Instead of attempting to make a logical narrative that rationalizes the surreal situation, revel in the painting’s odd elements and tell a strange tale inspired by the imagery.

Recommended Paintings

Leonora Carrington:
Self-Portrait, Inn of the Dawn Horse, 1937-38
Queen of the Mandrills, 1959
The Giantess (The Guardian of the Egg), 1947
The House Opposite, 1945
Darvault, 1950
Friday the Thirteenth, 1965
Bird Bath, 1974
Sissygy, 1957

Max Ernst:
Attirement of the Bride, 1940
Napoleon in the Wilderness, 1941
Men Shall Know Nothing of This, 1923
The Antipope, 1941-42
Europe After the Rain II, 1940-1942

Leonor Fini:
The Shepherdess of the Sphinxes, 1941
Chthonian Divinity Watching over the Sleep of a Young Man, 1946
The Botany Lesson, 1974
Two Women, 1939
Donna del Lago or Le Bout du monde II, 1953

Remedios Varo:
The Call, 1961
Witch Going to the Sabbath, 1957
Creation of the Birds, 1957
Celestial Pablum, 1958
Woman Leaving the Psychoanalyst, 1960
Vegetarian Vampires, 1962

Julia Elliott

Julia Elliott’s Hellions was published in April 2025. She is also the author of the story collection The Wilds, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and the novel The New and Improved Romie Futch (both from Tin House). Her work has appeared in The Georgia Review, Tin House, Conjunctions, Granta (online), and the New York Times. She has won a Rona Jaffe Writers’ Award, and her stories have been anthologized in Best American Short Stories and Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses. She teaches English and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of South Carolina and lives in Columbia with her husband, daughter, and five hens. Her new story collection Hellions came out in April 2025.

Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!

Remember: I don’t recommend posting your story in the comments here (and I talk more about why not, here). Best practice: Leave us a comment about how it went, or share your favorite line from your story.

Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday

Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version

When she picked up the knife, she discovered the blade was still sharp.

Rachel Bolton

Rachel Bolton is a Bram Stoker Award Nominated writer. Her work has appeared in Apex Magazine, Women Write About Comics, Strange Girls, and more. She lives with her cat in Massachusetts. You can follow her on Bluesky @raebolt.bsky.social and find out more at her website:

Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!

Remember: I don’t recommend posting your story in the comments here (and I talk more about why not, here). Best practice: Leave us a comment about how it went, or share your favorite line from your story.

Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday

Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version

A teenager is eating a cherry snow cone, their lips are stained red.

Angela Sylvaine

Angela Sylvaine is a Bram Stoker Award nominated author and self-proclaimed cheerful goth who writes speculative fiction and poetry. Her dark cheerfulness is on full display in her novel, Frost Bite, a ‘90s sci-fi horror comedy, and her retro ‘80s YA mall slasher novella, Chopping Spree. Her goth side is fully explored in her debut short story collection, The Dead Spot: Stories of Lost Girls.

Angela’s short fiction and poetry have appeared in over sixty anthologies, magazines, and podcasts, including Southwest Review, Apex, and The NoSleep Podcast.

Join the discussion: what will you do with today’s prompt OR how did it go? Need support? Post here!

Remember: I don’t recommend posting your story in the comments here (and I talk more about why not, here). Best practice: Leave us a comment about how it went, or share your favorite line from your story.

Here’s your next Game Piece. save the image and share on social media with #storyaday

Prefer paper crafts? Here’s the cut & paste version