Ignore all distractions and post your entry NOW!
The response to the Urban Legend Flash Fiction Contest has been amazing! At last count we had 14 entries with nearly 8 hours to go until the deadline, tonight at 11:59 pm. You can read below the following excerpts for the contest rules and prizes, but without further ado, let me direct you to the submissions we have not yet shared (in no special order):
@stitchybitch brings us the horrifying (or hilarious?) Legend of Swamp Ass
On a warm summer day, when the sun is dead center of an endless sky, when your mind isn't preoccupied with supernatural horrors that may lurk behind every creaking tree limb or rustled leaf, that is when you can expect him.
@gmuxx will convince you to use the stairs with Jenny Jenny
The floor shuddered under his feet as the car lurched upward, and he grabbed the wall for balance. Lights on the panel blinked a dull count that rose with every floor as he climbed the building.
@arekwolf blends hardboiled with hyperreality in Game Addiction+Law and Beer and Murder
I took a deep breath. Ideally his colleagues would learn from his experience, but I doubted their eagerness to do so. One became a cop for a reason, and it wasn’t a formidable intellect or the ability to reflect on how one’s choice to become the ruling class’s puppet might impact the lives of the average Joe and Jane down the line.
@nocturnal takes us to a monsoon-ridden and money-troubled Japan in Umbrellaman
Finally, Shane decided he had had enough beer and settled the bill with the bartender. As they stepped out of the door, they saw that the overcast afternoon had given way to an out-and-out evening thunderstorm, the drenched streets reflecting the neon above.
@hndmarshall spins a romance that will turn your hair gray in The Price of Passion
Every word he spoke rolled off his tongue like a romance novel she was captivated. She had thought it was a one-time meeting like the corny phrase "two ships that pass in the night". When he asked for her number and a date she couldn't believe her luck.
@miniature-tiger takes us down to the catacombs in Le Théâtre Souterrain
The underground theatre, that’s the tale you want to hear? Well I’ll give you the story as I heard it from Alex; right from the horse’s mouth. Not that he made much sense when we found him, shivering in the dark. Then you can believe what you want; it’s all the same to me.
@naquoya isn’t really himself today in The Man in the Mirror
But outside of these rare opportunities to experience variety, this had been his world. And this had been his routine. So much the same, so much repetition. But now Norman could feel a buzz, a sense of fate emerging.
@jhagi.bhai has comeuppance in mind with an untitled piece I shall call An Affair to Dismember until she says I can’t
The motel room was furnished in early sleaze. Large brown stains spotted the threadbare carpet like land mines. The curtains were bleached between colors and there were cobwebs in the corners. Bedside, a lamp on a wooden stand leaned tiredly.
@michaeladamparis will have you sending your calls to voicemail with Have you Checked the Children?
A flashing light and buzzing.
She answers it absently, the last delicious bite still in her thoughts, and is abruptly >met with deafening silence.
"Hello?"
Then, a voice, as if some man filled his throat with gravel and choked to death, and >was speaking from his grave. "E...le...ven."
@sandzat could sell deadbolts with Come Tomorrow
My throat... It hurt like hell and then some. I'd a raging throat infection from the past three days. No fever, just incredible pain. The doctor had put me on a week of some highly powerful antibiotics. They didn't help. I now wondered if it was something else.
@jean.racines births a litter of horror in The Barking Network
Not words, barks. They spill hate out of their snouts, and they do it with the intent to destroy. It’s all bark. It’s all woof. It’s a horde of rabid dogs bawling into your ears until you can’t hear anything else. No kindness could ever be that loud and the barks, oh, they follow.
@kathieletalis prepares a new feast for her vampires in Limbo
The ground vibrates violently and through the fog I see it a great fountain of earth has just been sent skywards, fuelled by an orange explosion. Then another, all around me beautiful fountains of soil and blinding orange showers down.
How it works
The contest is being funded and judged by yours truly with generous help from my friend and infuriatingly superior writer, @horrorguyian. Your entry can be funny, sad, terrifying… it can be a new take on an old Urban Legend, a mashup featuring an Urban Legend in an unlikely genre, or perhaps you will create one from whole cloth, and in a decade you’ll hear someone in a bar claim that very thing happened to his mother’s mechanic’s nephew!
Fair warning: I am a stickler for spelling and grammar. You don’t need to be stilted - this isn’t academia - but things like subject-verb agreement and knowing how to use quotes to set apart dialogue are going to be important in the reviewing process.
We want to encourage all minnow participants to use the incredible resources available at the fiction-workshop channel on Discord’s Minnow Support Project. The folks there are great and will help without judginess. The contest is running for three days specifically to give our fellow minnows time to polish their posts with the aid of the Fiction Workshop so please get over there asap!
Additional warning: If you create a legend from whole cloth, your story must somehow demonstrate that there is a common mythos surrounding the events or character. That’s what makes an Urban Legend what it is. If that wasn’t clear when you entered, or if you just feel like you want to tweak, FEAR NOT! You are free to edit and re-edit right up until the deadline. So Minnows, even if you think you’re the bees knees, get your tiny tails over to the Fiction Workshop on PAL’s Discord channel and take advantage of the amazing crew there and have a second opinion!
If you are writing English as a second language, please feel free to note that at the bottom of your post, as there is obviously more leeway there. I am sure I would be incomprehensible in any other language and I applaud the many ESL contributors here for writing in my native tongue better than the average American college student.
The rules are simple:
• You DO NOT have to be a minnow to participate, but you must include the #minnowsupportproject in your tags because I’m a minnow and I love MSP and I’m paying the prize so I say so.
• The piece must be 1,000 words or less. We will be counting! (Or our software will anyway)
• The piece must focus on an urban legend
• You must tag the post with “urbanlegendflash30” so we can easily find all entries.
• Finally, Upvote and Resteem this post or [the original]https://steemit.com/fiction/@jrhughes/urban-legend-flash-fiction-contest-usd45-sbd-prize-pool) to spread the word!
Winners will be announced and prizes awarded on Wednesday, July 12.
First Prize 30 SBD
Second Prize 10 SBD
Third Prize 5 SBD
Don't forget to comment, follow, and resteem!