Let’s get spooky
Maybe winter is finally on its way out here in the Northern hemisphere, but mornings are still misty-grey and mysterious. Sometimes, when I leave the house early and the traffic in my neighborhood is particularly quiet, it can feel like I’m the only one on the road. It makes me pedal a little harder, breathe a little deeper, and wonder if it’s just the chilly air prickling the back of my neck, or if some invisible creature is stalking me through the fog. In either case, maybe March is the month to look fear in the face.
So what’s the prompt?
In honor of one of the world’s greatest spooky storytellers, Edgar Allen Poe (who was born October 9, 1949), we’re asking you to give us a ghost story in exactly 49 words. Sound easy? Well, there’s a catch! We want to stretch your imagination a bit and get you thinking outside cliches, and so your story may not include any of the following words:
- Ghost
- Haunt
- Spirit
- Fright
- Chill
- Eerie
A few more ground rules:
- You may not use variations of the above excluded words (plurals, tense changes, etc.). For example, haunt, haunted, haunts, haunter, haunting – all of these are out of play.
- We’re talking real ghosts here – spirits of the dead. No getting cute and writing about a song that follows you around or a lost love – unless that lost love has literally risen from the grave. (I know, I know – my first instinct was to get metaphorical, and I created the prompt!)
- No onomatopoeia. A knock may come at the door, the wind may moan, but don’t write the sounds out: “rap-rap-rap,” “wwOOOOoooooo.” We’re not looking for characters telling ghost stories to Girl Scouts; remember that the ghost itself must be present in your story – not just mentioned or referred to in theirs.
- Zombies, vampires, and other undead are not the same thing as ghosts.
That’s it! Good luck, and happy writing!
This is the badge you need:
Below is the YeahWrite badge you need for this month’s microprose challenge. Under the badge is a few lines of code. See that? Copy it and then paste it into the “text” or HTML view of your post editor. If you don’t copy it exactly, the image will not appear correctly in your post, and you will receive an error message when you submit the post to Inlinkz. If you have any questions regarding adding this code to your post or website, please contact us at editors@yeahwrite.me.
Need a hand?
Microprose sounds easy. After all, how hard can it really be to write a story with fewer than 100 words incorporating a prompt or two? But it turns out it’s our hardest challenge to really get right. Whether you’re a seasoned micropro or a brand new microwriter, it’s worth taking a minute to glance through the tips and tricks our editors have put together, like this quick refresher on what makes a micro great, or this one on how to incorporate mandatory prompts into adjudicated challenges. Make sure you make it to the vote this week: check your wordcount (we count those footnotes!) and prompts!
How to submit and fully participate in the Microprose Challenge
Basic YeahWrite guidelines: must be in response to the prompt found in this post; your entry can be dated no earlier than the Wednesday the prompt was posted; a ghost story in exactly 49 words, excluding the words listed above. You may enter only one microstory per challenge.
How to submit and fully participate in the challenge:
- Please grab the code beneath the microprose badge in the body of this week’s post and paste it into the HTML view of your entry;
- Follow the Inlinkz instructions after clicking “add your link” to upload your entry to this week’s challenge grid;
- Your entry should appear immediately on the grid if you don’t receive an error message;
- Please make the rounds to read all the entries in this week’s challenge; and
- Consider turning off moderated comments and CAPTCHA on your own blog.
Submissions for this week’s challenges will close on Wednesday at 10pm ET. Voting will then open immediately thereafter and close on Thursday at 10pm ET. The winners, as always, will be celebrated on Friday.
Thank you for sharing with us your hard work! Good luck in the challenge…
Loading InLinkz ...About the author:
Christine Hanolsy is a (primarily) science fiction and fantasy writer who simply cannot resist a love story. She joined the YeahWrite team in 2014 as the microstory editor and stepped into the role of Editor-In-Chief in 2020. Christine was a 2015 BlogHer Voices of the Year award recipient and Community Keynote speaker for her YeahWrite essay, “Rights and Privileges.” Her short fiction has been published in a number of anthologies and periodicals and her creative nonfiction at Dead Housekeeping and in the Timberline Review. Outside of YeahWrite, Christine’s past roles have included Russian language scholar, composer, interpreter, and general cat herder. Find her online at christinehanolsy.com.
