Intro by Postuhenin:[]
Hellooooo goblins and ghouls, and welcome to the main event of the season! Today, the stars and planets have all aligned in perfect formation for this: a flash-fiction writing challenge in the month of Halloween, and it begins on no other date than Friday the 13th! BWAHAHA–ahem, sorry, got a bit caught up in the excitement there.
For this particular challenge, we’d like to introduce a completely different kind of writing/scoring system! Instead of a panel of predetermined judges scoring each story, as is standard for the wiki, we’ve decided to give the whole administrative team a festive Halloween scare by letting all of you, the people reading this right now, give out the awards! And in the true spirit of our belovedly spooky month of October, we’ve had a witchcraft-loving friend turn the awards into all sorts of trick-or-treat candies! Yum yum!
To give a more in-depth explanation on the challenge and its hauntingly enigmatic (yet actually very simple) inner workings I turn this announcement over to my awesome partner-in-crime, Macciata! Take it away, Mac!
Rules for the Trick-or-Treaters[]
Thanks, Post! What we're aiming at here is a simple, casual challenge without all the trappings and stress of a real contest -- the difference being that I'm challenging you to write a short-short story in the time given, not setting up a competition between writers to be "the best". There's no scores, no losers or winners, just bragging rights and cute award ribbons appended to your stories.
So here's the skinny for prospective writers:
- Your prompt is "Halloween". Yep, that's it. I feel that making the prompt more specific would sort of incline it, however subtly, toward what I think of in response to the word "Halloween", when the idea is to open up what your thoughts of it might be.
- Your word limit is 1,000. Also yep, that's it. It's not a super-strict limit (since there's no way for a story to be rejected from this challenge so long as it follows site rules anyway) -- a few words over probably won't even be noticed, but going over 1,100 is pushing it and risking the sarcasm of the Macci.
- Post your story between October 23 (the second most important October holiday: Macciata's birthday) and October 27.
- When you post:
- Paste this template at the top of the story's source: {{AN|This is my entry for the Trick or Treat, Short and Sweet Halloween Writing Challenge 2023.}}
- And this one at the bottom: {{By-user|insert your username here}}
- Along with whatever categories you see fit to apply, include the category "HWC23".
- Comment on this blog entry with a link to your story.
Rules for the Neighbors[]
Everyone is welcome to read the story entries and drop candies in their bag -- which is to say, comment on the story page listing the ones you want to give it. You can drop as many different candies on a story as you think apply. Participating writers can't give candies to their *own* stories, but you're welcome to bestow them on others.
Note that aside from the first three items in the table below, none of the candies are for rating the quality of the stories -- just for indicating that they've given you the relevant feelings effectively.
Any story that gets at least 5 candies of a given type receives a prize ribbon on its page!
The Candies[]
| Full-Sized Candy Bars: The holy grail of treats. | For the story you think is absolutely top-notch. YOU CAN ONLY GIVE ONE OF THESE, so choose wisely! |
| Stinky Zombie Foot: Wait, this isn't candy at all… where precisely did you get this? | For the absolute stinkiest story. YOU CAN ALSO GIVE ONLY ONE OF THESE. For obvious reasons, you can't give this and a Full-Sized Candy Bar to the same story. Paradoxes are bad for the universe. |
| Fun-Sized Candy Bars: What's "fun" about eating less candy? | For any story you really enjoy, even if it's not the absolute best. |
| Peanut Butter Pumpkins: Chocolate and peanut butter, the true flavors of Halloween! | For a story that truly captures the spirit of autumn and Halloween. |
| Creepy Eyeballs: The snack that stares back! It's just normal, safe corn syrup and food dyes… right? | For stories that give you the genuine creeps. If the shadows in your room at 3AM make you regret reading this one, give it the Eyeball. |
| Weird Old Candy: Do they even still make "Chic-o-Sticks"? | For stories that mess with your head, abuse the very boundaries of reality, and make you wonder what the heck you just read. |
| Gummi Worms in Snot Goo: Nothing says "delicious" like chewy, slimy annelids in sour fruit mucus! | For stories that are Just. Plain. Gross. |
| Wax Vampire Lips: The disguise you can eat! If you like eating sweet wax! And if hiding your lips counts as a "disguise!" | For silly stories! Or stories that might not be entirely silly, but still made you giggle at some point -- even if it was kind of a nervous giggle. |
| Dental Floss: What?! You think my teeth are that bad? It's not even mint-flavored! This is so sad. | For stories that break your heart, wrench your gut, and generally give you that spooky feeling of sadness. Feel free to cry if needed. |
So there you have it! Go forth, my lovely little monsters, and bring terror to the mortal world!
BONUS: in case you haven't read the comments below, I was inspired to make an offer to anyone who wants more structure to work within -- just ask me and I'll give you an extra sub-challenge to meet. I have some ideas for what happens if you do or don't meet the additional challenge... but it's a surprise!
(note: don't expect anything too fantastic; bear in mind that the "prizes" for the contest itself are just pictures added to the bottom of the story page.)
Special thanks to the Creepy Crew: MakRalston for developing the original idea, Postuhenin for contributing candies and the intro, Tewahway for [REEEEEDACTED], and Cornconic for advice and help on the backend.