If you wanna get right to the challenge, skip down to “FLASH FICTION CHALLENGE!” and champagne Leo
With Halloween nearly upon us, I’m thinking of my favorite monsters. Frankenstein, The Werewolf, Dracula, the Mummy…
Classics, to be sure. I first remember them in movies, and they kept me up at night!
But…
Dracula was my favorite monster, but lately I’m thinking vampires have lost their mojo. Maybe I grew up. But I never understood the Mummy. He was so slow! And something about the werewolf terrorizing people during a full moon once a month just sounded way too PMS-ey to me.
And what’s up with the fingers?
Monsters used to be scary, but that’s going back to Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. After Karloff narrated How The Grinch Stole Christmas, I’m not sure he was scary at all anymore.
Even when I was a kid, it was probably more suspense than actual scares that got to me.
Dracula intended to kill you; now he’s asking you on a date. Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula was decent, but also not really scary.
And don’t get me started on Twilight or Buffy.
What was the last scary vampire movie or book???
Was there even one?
And what makes scary stories SCARY?
Well, we’re about to find out.
.
.
FLASH FICTION CHALLENGE!
Halloween Edition
Your mission: Startle us. Scare us. Get the hairs on the back of our necks standing up. It’s NOT as easy as you think! Write a story that makes the reader jump. Wouldn’t it be great to get a bunch of those to learn tension and suspense from? I think being scared comes from the unknown, a surprise, fear, tension, dread, etc. One or more of those tension-builders are necessary in most good storytelling anyway. So it’s like hitting the tension gym!
You have 1,000 words to make us jump.
You can write about anything but your goal is to put a fright into the reader. If you can do that by typing BOO at the right place, you’re golden. Probably you’ll need to weave a story in there somewhere.
Here are THE RULES
- You write 1000 words more or less on the topic.
- Post it on your blog
- Reference us on your blog and this challenge so your regular readers don’t think you’ve gone batty. (Get it? Batty?)
- Post your link to your story here in the comments section.
- You have until 12 noon EST (sunny Florida time) on Friday October 23, 2015, to unveil your scary masterpiece. Just in time for us to show your scariness off for Halloween.
Read and comment on each other’s stories both here and on their blog, generating traffic but also feedback. You could learn something, too. (I hope to.)
GET TO IT!
Oh maybe this time around I’ll join 🙂
I hope so!
Slasher can’t top crafted horror. Cheers for a return to real suspense. Great idea!…..thinking…hmmm. ..where is that story fragment?…Is that a beating heart under the floorboards? We’ll shiver and see.
Right! But anything goes…
This is definitely going to be challenging for me! Thinking…
I hope so!
I can’t wait to read this!
The Shadow of Darkness by Tess M Garfield.
http://wp.me/p6zAo9-3x
(Remember, I write romance, this is a real challenge to me!)
A challenge should BE a challenge, I think.
Like Tess.. horror isn’t my thing. I don’t even watch horror movies. So, I’m not even sure if this falls into the category of horror.
Monsters in the Night
http://bit.ly/1jLaUra
Scary was the thing, not necessarily horror. Lots of things can be scary. Ask JA Allen about camping with spiders.
Looking at my bank statement often resembles horror!
Yeah, spiders have that immediate scare factor.
So far, you guys have done a GREAT job of creating a scary MOOD. That’s a big take away. Also there is palpable TENSION in these stories! Tess and Todd have hit it solid.
Great job of this so far!
Thank you, that’s awesome feedback. Any negatives? I need those too!
I enjoyed R. Todd’s story because it made me feel the atmosphere and visualise the setting. I look forward to reading some more over the next week.
It’s difficult to find negatives in a 1000 word piece. You have so little time to set the stage and create the scene, then you have to make action happen quickly and make a decent finish. Anything I’d criticize is something any author would say they’d have fixed if they had more time or a few more words. I’ve been very impressed with these over the last two weeks.
I wish I could write so well in English to be part of this, Dan. But I´ll keep reading you all 🙂
Poli, you are a terrific writer. We’d love to see you try one of these some time!
OohOohoooo . . .
Spooky . . .
Thinking . . .
Go for it!
Thanks, Dan. I´ll try, but you know… we never express emotions and fears (feelings!) the same way we do in our mother tongue. But I promise I´ll try ;-). Maybe, I could write in Spanish and then translate. Anyway, thanks for being so encouraging 🙂
Do it in Spanish and translate! We’ll learn more that way!
Okay this link should be the right one! My submission is:
https://edcwriting.wordpress.com/2015/10/20/destination-reached-flash-fiction-challenge-halloween-edition-scare-me/
Awesome! Thanks! (I removed the other ones for you)
Is it scary? You decide.
http://allisonmaruska.com/2015/10/21/flash-fiction-the-lab/
Not too shabby! I was hooked the entire time! Great job!
You may have a future in this writing stuff.
Thanks! And I certainly hope so! LOL.
Well, it goes without saying that I’m a fan of your work, so I jump right in and trust that you are going to take me somewhere interesting – and you always do!