Group-Sponsored 31 Spooky Flashes in October Contest

Details

A double-stage competition devised by Scribophile United Pumpkins Group.

Including: Muse, Tri County Donuts, Diverse Futures, Westerns, 52 Stories in 52 Weeks, The Smithy, Dark & Twisted, One Hundred Word Stories, Writing Roadies, The Literary Wolf Pack, The Periphery, Words Beyond Time, Calling All Monsters, and BATS.

Intro

31 Spooky Flashes in October is the Ultimate Challenge—a writing contest occuring in two stages.

The first stage is called “The Great Pumpkin.” In this stage, Scribophile members need to use all their creativity, quick thinking, and writing skills daily to write a 100-word flash responding to the prompts selected by the groups organizing the contest. Each day we’ll select one winner to win 5 karma points. We’ve called it the Great Pumpkin because you get to grow a beautiful creation each day from the groups’ best seeds.

The most dedicated writers will have cultivated 31 flashes by the end of October. These spooky gardens of flashes will get a second chance to win!

The second stage is called “The Haunted Patch.” In this stage, all of the flashes you wrote in the Great Pumpkin stage are collected into one document, which we’ll judge as a single unit of writing.

We expect spooky, Halloween-related entries, but mash-ups are welcome too in both stages.

The contest is open to fiction and non-fiction, but keep in mind the prompts could be particularly daunting for non-fiction writers.

The Stages

1. The Great Pumpkin: daily entries can win 5 karma points!

   Every day in October, there’ll be a prompt for you to write a 100-word flash. There are different judges for each prompt who each day will select one flash as the winner of 5 karma points. Every single day through October, you get a new chance to write and to win.

   How to enter The Great Pumpkin

   • Join the Scribophile United Pumpkins group.

   • Each day starting on September 30, a Prompt thread will open in the Scribophile United Pumpkins group forum.

   • The first post in the thread will be the prompt and a link to the countdown clock. You’ll have about 48 hours to post an entry in the appropriate thread.

   • You can enter only once for each prompt.

   The Great Pumpkin’s entries must be:

   • Posted before the thread in Scribophile United Pumpkins closes. (Watch the timer, because edits after the deadline will disqualify an entry.)

   • 100 words exactly (not including the title or the header) as counted by wordcounter.net.

   • Prose (including poetic prose).

   • Reflective of the prompt.

2. The Haunted Patch: A month of flashes to win cash prizes!

   The Scribophile United Pumpkins group will release 31 Halloween prompts, one each day from 30th September to 30th October inclusive. Start a single Scribophile work with your first flash, and “edit” that work every day to include your new entries. In the end, you'll have a single document with your combined entries, for your chance to win cash prizes.

   The Haunted Patch will have a different set of judges than the daily challenges of The Great Pumpkin, and the work will be evaluated as a complete entity.

   How to enter The Haunted Patch

   • Entries can be posted from October 1st, 2022.

   • As you write 100 word stories to match every prompt released by Scribophile United Pumpkins Group, post your first flash as a work for critique in a public spotlight, and every day “edit” it to paste your new flash entry into the same document.

   • Each 100 word story in the work should have the prompt number and text as a header.

   • There will be 31 prompts, but you can choose to skip up to 5. Just put the date of the prompt and “Free Card” to skip a prompt. Therefore, we’ll expect 26 or more flashes in every collection.

   • You can only enter one story per prompt.

   The Haunted Patch’s entries must be:

   • Posted in the Main or Personal Spotlight before the competition closes November 6th, 11:59pm UTC time.

   • 26 or more flashes (or all 31 if you can!) of exactly 100 words each (without title and header) as counted by wordcounter.net.

   • Prose (including poetic prose).

   • Reflective of the prompts.

ProTip: You might want to pick a theme for your work in the early stages of the competition. If you want to know what a theme implies, please check this wonderful article on theme at the Scribophile Academy.

Prize money for this contest is provided by the Scribophile Writing Contest Prize Fund.

Winning entries

Winners have been announced! Log in to see them.

Prizes

Rules

See the contest description for complete rules.

Submission guidelines

See the contest description for submission guidelines.