Hello everyone!

In an attempt to ring in Autumn rather than spookfest #5, we decided we’d look at a bunch of interesting prompt that have to do with the changing of the season this time. We had Autumnal Gloom, Before the Deep Sleep, and South for Winter among other contenders this week. But of course, only one could go on to have piles of microfiction spewed forth about it.

This week’s prompt is:

The Lengthening Night

RULES AND GUIDELINES HAVE CHANGED!
Read them below to participate! You may not be eligible if you don’t!

Because apparently we just can’t get enough darkness. Someday we’ll have an intrinsically pleasant prompt, but for now I’m not complaining. I do tend toward the macabre and the tragic anyway, and The Lengthening Night definitely fits that bill.

Like most of our prompts, this one has a blessed metaphorical richness. There’s all kinds of directions to take “night” and the process of it “lengthening”. Just think, “night” can represent any period of darkness one goes through, especially when contrasted with a period of light. It could be that one’s fortune is continuously diminishing, or a war is trudging on year after year, or a one still hasn’t recovered from some manner of comatose state. On the lighter side, night can also represent a period of peace, tranquility, quiet. This could be about coming to terms with something; recognizing, accepting, and learning to live in the darkness.

Wherever you take it, have fun in the dark! Here’s hoping you don’t stumble over too many things on your way to the bathroom.

Remember, this is part of our weekly Writing Group stream! Submit a little piece following the rules and guidelines below, and there’s a chance your entry will be read live on stream! In addition, we’ll discuss it for a minute and give you some feedback.

Tune into the stream this Friday at 7:00pm CST to see if you made the cut!

The whole purpose of this is to show off the creativity of the community, while also helping each other to become better writers. Lean into that spirit, and get ready to help each other improve their confidence in their writing, as well as their skill with their craft!

Rules and Guidelines

We read five stories during each stream, four of which are selected at random, and one of which is selected because it has the most likes.

• English only.
• Prose only, no poetry or song lyrics.
• One submission per participant.
• Use proper spelling, grammar, and syntax.
• Submit your entry in a comment on this post.
• You must leave a review on two other submission to be eligible, and your reviews must be at least 50 words long.
• No more than 350 words (you can use this website to see your wordcount).
• Include a story title and an author name (doesn’t have to be your real name)
• You must include the text “Submitted by” immediately before your author name, or you will not be recognized by our sorting process and you will not be eligible for selection. (Example Submission)
• Keep submissions “safe-for-work”; be sparing with sexuality, violence, and profanity.
• Try to focus on making your submission a single meaningful moment rather than an entire story.
• Understand that by submitting here, you are giving us permission to read your submission live on stream and share it on our social media sites. You will always be credited as the author.

Comments on this post that aren’t submissions will be deleted, except for replies/reviews left on existing submissions.

Hello everyone!

Now that Halloween has passed and the spirits’ve gone back into hibernation, we’re officially packing up and rolling on out of spooky town. Let’s have one last hurrah on the way out though, because this week we’re writing about a slightly darker-sounding aspect of the season of the Turkey…

This week’s prompt is:

The Harvest

Read the Rules and Guidelines below to participate!

Make it grim, make it dark, make it vaguely autumnal. There are a lot of directions to go with this prompt, but some of the most alluring out of the gate, especially if you’re leaning into the general creepiness of the prompt, is toward the harvest of people rather than produce. And those stories are bound to be a lot of fun, but remember, “harvest” can be a very broad theme. It could be about the things attached to harvest time as well: hunger, scarcity, plenty, reaping, sewing, life and death, etc., etc., etc. Just as scary to realize during harvest time that you’re facing famine as it would be to realize you’re the one being “harvested”.

Happy harvesting! Can’t wait to see what you all bring to the table.

Remember, this is part of our weekly Writing Group stream! Submit a little piece following the rules and guidelines below, and there’s a chance your entry will be read live on stream! In addition, we’ll discuss it for a minute and give you some feedback.

Tune into the stream this Friday at 7:00pm to see if you made the cut!

The whole purpose of this is to show off the creativity of the community, while also helping each other to become better writers. Lean into that spirit, and get ready to help each other improve their confidence in their writing, as well as their skill with their craft!

Rules and Guidelines

• English only.
• Prose only, no poetry or song lyrics.
• One submission per participant.
• Use proper spelling, grammar, and syntax.
• Submit your entry in a comment on this post.
• You must leave a review on two other submission to be eligible, and your reviews must be at least 50 words long.
• No more than 350 words (you can use this website to see your wordcount).
• Include a story title and an author name (doesn’t have to be your real name).
• Keep submissions “safe-for-work”; be sparing with sexuality, violence, and profanity.
• Try to focus on making your submission a single meaningful moment rather than an entire story.
• Understand that by submitting here, you are giving us permission to read your submission live on stream and share it on our social media sites. You will always be credited as the author.
• Comments on this post that aren’t submission will be deleted, except for replies/reviews left on existing entries

Example Submission

Hello everyone!

We’ve only got one or two more weeks of spooky themes left, and this week’s choice will not disappoint. There were a lot of good suggestions, but only one so monkey’s pawesomely faustian in its implications, that it had to be the winner.

This week’s prompt is:

They All Came Back

Read the Rules and Guidelines below to participate!

As I said before, this is a very, very open-ended prompt, but that’s a good thing! This could be about loved ones returning from the dead, changed. It could be about memories you thought you secreted away so far down they’d never resurface. It could even be about someone who doesn’t know how to turn away from a situation or a person they really ought to.

As long as you’re making us uncomfortable and spooked with this piece, you’ve done your job!

Remember, this is part of our weekly Writing Group stream! Submit a little piece following the rules and guidelines below, and there’s a chance your entry will be read live on stream! In addition, we’ll discuss it for a minute and give you some feedback.

Tune into the stream this Friday at 7:00pm to see if you made the cut!

The whole purpose of this is to show off the creativity of the community, while also helping each other to become better writers. Lean into that spirit, and get ready to help each other improve their confidence in their writing, as well as their skill with their craft!

Rules and Guidelines

• English only.
• Prose only, no poetry or song lyrics.
• One submission per participant.
• Use proper spelling, grammar, and syntax.
• Submit your entry in a comment on this post.
• You must leave a review on two other submission to be eligible, and your reviews must be at least 50 words long.
• No more than 350 words (you can use this website to see your wordcount).
• Include a story title and an author name (doesn’t have to be your real name).
• Keep submissions “safe-for-work”; be sparing with sexuality, violence, and profanity.
• Try to focus on making your submission a single meaningful moment rather than an entire story.
• Understand that by submitting here, you are giving us permission to read your submission live on stream and share it on our social media sites. You will always be credited as the author.
• Comments on this post that aren’t submission will be deleted, except for replies/reviews left on existing entries

Example Submission

Hello everyone!

Continuing the theme of spooks, scares, and things we pretend to be brave about in the daylight, we put a whole list of horrific prompt ideas to a vote on patreon. This included things like “The Bugs are Growing Louder”, “The Veil Thins”, and “Crows Circling Overhead”. But, the patrons have decided, and…

This week’s prompt is:

The Shadows are Watching

Read the Rules and Guidelines below to participate!

There are, as always, millions of possibilities for this prompt. The clearest given route would be to write a story about sentient shadows (but who would ever do something like that?), but I challenge you to think openly about the terms “shadow” and “watching”, here. It doesn’t have to be a literal shadow, rather it could be the dark side of something, or the influence of it. It doesn’t have to be watching like a creepy stalker, but rather it could be “watching” like a shepherd over its flock.

Be creative, be wild, be spooky, but most of all, be open to angles you might not usually look from.

Remember, this is part of our weekly Writing Group stream! Submit a little piece following the rules and guidelines below, and there’s a chance your entry will be read live on stream! In addition, we’ll discuss it for a minute and give you some feedback.

Tune into the stream this Friday at 7:00pm to see if you made the cut!

The whole purpose of this is to show off the creativity of the community, while also helping each other to become better writers. Lean into that spirit, and get ready to help each other improve their confidence in their writing, as well as their skill with their craft!

Rules and Guidelines

• English only.
• Prose only, no poetry or song lyrics.
• One submission per participant.
• Use proper spelling, grammar, and syntax.
• Submit your entry in a comment on this post.
• You must leave a review on two other submission to be eligible, and your reviews must be at least 50 words long.
• No more than 300 words (you can use this website to see your wordcount).
• Include a story title and an author name (doesn’t have to be your real name).
• Keep submissions “safe-for-work”; be sparing with sexuality, violence, and profanity.
• Try to focus on making your submission a single meaningful moment rather than an entire story.
• Understand that by submitting here, you are giving us permission to read your submission live on stream and share it on our social media sites. You will always be credited as the author.
• Comments on this post that aren’t submission will be deleted, except for replies/reviews left on existing entries

Example Submission

Hello everyone!

We’ve got something really special to kick off our writing group. We were supposed to do this a few weeks back, but now’s as good a time as any. It is October, after all.

This week’s prompt is…

Wholesome, loving parents, but they’re also eldritch horrors

Now the obvious direction to take this one is toward humor and hyperbole. Easy to have a lot of fun imagine Cthulhu reading you bed-time stories at night, Yog-Sothoth helping you with your math homework, Shub Niggurath confusing your name with your alien siblings’, and those are all a lot of fun and totally valid! But you could also make this pretty sad or science-fiction-y if written the right way. What if the townsfolk are after your misunderstood aberration of a mother who you’ve been protecting in the basement for years? What if you’ve done something to accidentally transform dear old dad into a non-euclidean horror, and now you have to figure what it was and how to get him back?

Lots of angles to look at this one from! I’m stoked to see where y’all go with it.

Remember, this is part of our weekly Writing Group stream! Submit a little piece following the rules and guidelines below, and there’s a chance your entry will be read live on stream! In addition, we’ll discuss it for a minute and give you some feedback.

Tune into the stream this Friday at 7:00pm to see if you made the cut!

The whole purpose of this is to show off the creativity of the community, while also helping each other to become better writers. Lean into that spirit, and get ready to help each other improve their confidence in their writing, as well as their skill with their craft!

Rules and Guidelines

• English only.
• Prose only, no poetry or song lyrics.
• One submission per participant.
• Use proper spelling, grammar, and syntax.
• Submit your entry in a comment on this post.
• You must leave a review on two other submission to be eligible, and your reviews must be at least 50 words long.
• No more than 300 words (you can use this website to see your wordcount).
• Include a story title and an author name (doesn’t have to be your real name).
• Keep submissions “safe-for-work”; be sparing with sexuality, violence, and profanity.
• Try to focus on making your submission a single meaningful moment rather than an entire story.
• Understand that by submitting here, you are giving us permission to read your submission live on stream and share it on our social media sites. You will always be credited as the author.
• Comments on this post that aren’t submission will be deleted, except for replies/reviews left on existing entries

Example Submission