2018 Short Fic Challenge

Welcome to the home of the 2018 Short Fic Challenge! All are welcome to join us in writing short stories this year! | What is the challenge?

[shortficchallenge]

Weekly Writing Prompt #16

Here are this week’s writing prompts! Feel free to use them if you find yourself stuck and in need of an extra boost of inspiration. If you have ideas for prompts for us to share, go ahead and drop them in our ask box. :)

Writing Prompt: Use the line: “What’s for dinner?”

Word Prompt: Use the following words in a story/scene: seriously, distracted, fork

You can use either prompt or go for the challenge round and combine both of them!

Special Note from your Mods: Hey everyone :) We have both had intense summers that have kept us on our toes and trying to remember where we left our brains. Which means we’ve dropped the ball on putting up writing prompts - sorry! Fingers crossed that we’ll be able to get back to doing this on a weekly basis again :) 

Wishing you laughter and lots of words written, your mods, Ruthie (@ageekyreader) and Meri (@merigreenleaf)

Did you use our prompts? Tag our blog @shortficchallenge and let us know!

[shortficchallenge]

Weekly Writing Prompt #15

Here are this week’s writing prompts! Feel free to use them if you find yourself stuck and in need of an extra boost of inspiration. If you have ideas for prompts for us to share, go ahead and drop them in our ask box. :)

Writing Prompt: Use the line: "I'm not giving it back until you say you're sorry."

Word Prompt: Use the following words in a story/scene: gregarious, centerpiece, freeze

You can use either prompt or go for the challenge round and combine both of them!

Did you use our prompts? Tag our blog @shortficchallenge and let us know!

[shortficchallenge]

Weekly Writing Prompt #14

We missed last week with a prompt post, but here’s this week’s! Feel free to use them if you find yourself stuck and in need of an extra boost of inspiration. If you have ideas for prompts for us to share, go ahead and drop them in our ask box. :)

Writing Prompt: Write a story/scene where the character gets to their door and realizes their house keys are missing, then have them retracing their steps.

Word Prompt: Use the following words in a story/scene: clinch, small, steak

You can use either prompt or go for the challenge round and combine both of them!

Did you use our prompts? Tag our blog @shortficchallenge and let us know!

[shortficchallenge]

Weekly Writing Prompt #13

Here are this week’s writing prompts! Feel free to use them if you find yourself stuck and in need of an extra boost of inspiration. If you have ideas for prompts for us to share, go ahead and drop them in our ask box. :)

Writing Prompt: Use the line “Quick! Close your eyes and drink this.”

Word Prompt: Use the following words in a story/scene: vanity, itchy, whale

You can use either prompt or go for the challenge round and combine both of them!

Did you use our prompts? Tag our blog @shortficchallenge and let us know!

[shortficchallenge]

Weekly Writing Prompt #12

Here are this week’s writing prompts! Feel free to use them if you find yourself stuck and in need of an extra boost of inspiration. If you have ideas for prompts for us to share, go ahead and drop them in our ask box. :)

Writing Prompt: Use the line "Nothing you say can change my mind.”

Word Prompt: Use the following words in a story/scene: smock, pretend, eventually

You can use either prompt or go for the challenge round and combine both of them!

Did you use our prompts? Tag our blog @shortficchallenge and let us know!

[shortficchallenge]

Weekly Writing Prompt #11

Here are this week’s writing prompts! Feel free to use them if you find yourself stuck and in need of an extra boost of inspiration. If you have ideas for prompts for us to share, go ahead and drop them in our ask box. :)

Writing Prompt: Use the line “Look! I got us matching pants!”

Word Prompt: Use the following words in a story/scene: cube, squishy, vault

You can use either prompt or go for the challenge round and combine both of them!

Did you use our prompts? Tag our blog @shortficchallenge and let us know!

[cyber-vampyr]

Quick!

Does anyody have a short prompt lying around that I could write? I’m stuck bored outta my mind at work. I’ll post it later, if it gets done. I need distraction!

[enasroterfaden]

I don’t keep prompts around myself, but check out @shortficchallenge - they have a bunch of prompts and other resources :)

[shortficchallenge]

Thanks for the mention @enasroterfaden! We try to post prompts weekly on this blog and we have a few resources linked on the about page (if you’re on a computer) or in this post (if you’re in the app).

(This reminds me, I really should make a new/better/updated post/page for prompt resources.)

[shortficchallenge]

Weekly Writing Prompt #10

We missed a few weeks with the prompts, but here are some new ones! Feel free to use them if you find yourself stuck and in need of an extra boost of inspiration. If you have ideas for prompts for us to share, go ahead and drop them in our ask box. :)

Writing Prompt: Use the line “That’s not a kitten!"

Word Prompt: Use the following words in a story/scene: bulbous, caramel, hoist

You can use either prompt or go for the challenge round and combine both of them!

Did you use our prompts? Tag our blog @shortficchallenge and let us know!

[merigreenleaf]

Short Story: “This For That (Re)Quest”

(This is the “Adair’s This for That Quest” story I’ve been working on for over a month and I had a ton of fun with it, so I hope you guys like it! It’s funny and cute and hopefully a little sweet, too. :) For this I used two prompts from @shortficchallenge - this one and this one. This would take place a few months after book 3 [Iconoclasm].) ————————————— “Hey, buddy? Can you get me a book? Like a really thick one?” Adair stopped chewing and stared at Sol with his sandwich halfway to his mouth. Sol didn’t read. It wasn’t that he couldn’t, not exactly, but it certainly wasn’t something he went out of his way to do. When he did the book was more likely to have pictures in it of monkeys wearing hats than it was to contain actual words, so this request was odd. Then again, when was anything about Sol not odd? “Whhmph dho-” Adair gave up trying to ask and worked on chewing the largest bite in the history of mankind. Luckily Sol was the kind of person to wait patiently when his best friend was being a greedy moron. Adair swallowed and tried again. “Why do you need a book?” “Oh! I was wondering what ‘whhmph’ meant! I thought you were making up words. Hey, we should make our own language and not tell the others how to speak it! How smarfy would that be? I bet we could make up loads of words! Then we could talk and they’d never know what we were saying!” Adair leaned against Sol’s worktable and brushed crumbs from his shirt as he waited for Sol to get to the point. At least the two of them had mutual patience going for them. “I don’t think they ever really do.” Between Sol’s tendency to get distracted and Adair talking about paint colors and recipes, they tended to get a lot of blank stares from the others. “We can try if you want, though. But I was wondering why you wanted a book.” “Oh! Right! Sorry.” Sol gestured at the pile of wood and carpet on the table with one hand. His other hand was busy pressing down on a smaller piece of carpet. “The glue needs to set and my arm’s getting tired. Something heavy can sit on it so I don’t have to.” “Please don’t roost on the desk.” Adair could only imagine this thing getting glued to Sol’s pants. At least he hoped Sol wore pants. He wasn’t about to check and there was a sixty-forty chance Sol forgot again. “I’m not feathery enough to be a chicken,” Sol said, as though this was what Adair implied.

Keep reading

[shortficchallenge]

Weekly Writing Prompt #9

Here’s this week’s writing prompts a little late. Feel free to use them if you find yourself stuck and in need of an extra boost of inspiration. If you have ideas for prompts for us to share, go ahead and drop them in our ask box. :)

Writing Prompt: Use the line "If you don't eat that cake, I'm never speaking to you again!" 

Word Prompt: Use the following words in a story/scene: cellar, squish, backwards

You can use either prompt or go for the challenge round and combine both of them! 

Did you use our prompts? Tag our blog @shortficchallenge and let us know!

[ageekyreader]

Placing Bets on the Bridge

Hey everyone :) I’m apparently on a fanfiction kick lately. I think it helps me feel free to just mess about with the story while not having to do so in an empty vacuum. Plus it’s fun. That’s reason enough right there.  The following piece is fanfiction for Star Trek: The Original Series and set sometime during the first five year mission. It’s 1,181 words long. I was calling this “Bones Ranting” before I came up with a proper title, but I think this fits better. Bones rants as his normal mod of communication after all. Content warnings for gambling, swearing, discussion of medical procedures, and a mention of alcohol. 

“Don’t tell me to calm down!”

“Did I say that? Spock, did I tell Bones to calm down?”

“You did not.”

“See? You wound me Bones.”

The entire bridge crew was studiously not watching the interchange between the three senior officers. In fact, they were so focused on their work that there had only been four bets placed since Bones had stalked onto the bridge with the same stiff legged walk as a wet cat that was determined to take out the person who had wronged them. One person had won right away by betting that Captain Kirk would bate Dr.McCoy by asking Commander Spock a question.

“Jim, I swore an oath — ”

“To do no harm, yes, I know.” Kirk said interrupting his friend. “You do understand that emotional wounds still hurt don’t you?”

“Are you done yet? I have a serious problem here!”

“A problem which you have so far failed to give us any information about,” Spock pointed out.

McCoy looked between his two friends in disbelief. Kirk responded with a little shrug and an apologetic look.

“Well if you hadn’t interrupted me…” McCoy muttered.

Keep reading

[shortficchallenge]

Weekly Writing Prompt #8

Time for this week’s writing prompts! Feel free to use them if you find yourself stuck and in need of an extra boost of inspiration. If you have ideas for prompts for us to share, go ahead and drop them in our ask box. :)

Writing Prompt: Use the line "Where on (earth or whatever world) did you get this?" (A character has something that they shouldn't otherwise have.)

Word Prompt: Use the following words in a story/scene: fulcrum, iron, sting 

You can use either prompt or go for the challenge round and combine both of them! 

Did you use our prompts? Tag our blog @shortficchallenge and let us know!

[merigreenleaf]

Short Story: “A Glimpse of the Past”

(This is the story I was talking about this week, where I wasn’t sure if I wanted to share it or not. This started as a flashback scene in an early draft of book 2 that I discarded in the next draft, so it’s no longer canon to the series, but I think it’s cute and sweet and romantic and I’m glad I edited it to turn it into a story. :) )

————————————— Blythe scrubbed at the soil caught under her nails until they were as clean and neat as she could get them in the poor light. She hadn’t intended to work in her window garden, but she needed the familiar comfort of cool dirt and growing life beneath her hands. Etri had left to do… something tonight, something he’d kept vague, and she was alternating between annoyance at being told just enough to make her fret and aggravation that if it was that important, he should have taken her with him. If Etri wasn’t telling her, it was because it was dangerous, and if it was dangerous, it was her job to watch his back. He’d done his horribly annoying vanishing thing where she looked away for five seconds to check her watch and when she turned back to ask him a question, he was out of sight. One of these days she was going to tie a length of string around his wrist and keep him near her like he was an ill-trained puppy. Try to see him slip away when he was connected to her! Gardening had calmed her as it always did, yet a strange feeling still fogged her mind. She could have sworn she’d been somewhere different a moment ago. At the same time it was so right to be repotting her aloe in the new yellow pot Sol had bought her to replace the cracked one he’d accidentally knocked over. As she reached for a towel to dry her hands, she glanced out the window above the sink. Lantern light glimmered off a thin layer of freshly-fallen snow. It was pretty and it probably brightened up the wagon considering she’d been too stupid to remember to light a lamp. Snow… that couldn’t be right. There hadn’t been snow for months… A knock on her door echoed loudly in the dark even though it was hardly louder than a tap. Everything always seemed so muffled and quiet in winter… or was it spring? She tried to ignore the lingering disorientation and walked over to see who needed her at this hour. Etri stood on her doorstep, his head bowed as he wrung his hands together. “I need your help, Blade. I have been poisoned.” Blythe was about to chew him out for disappearing earlier when his words stopped her cold, half out of fear and half out of recognition. She’d heard this before. She could remember standing here with fear eating at her heart, she could remember taking him by the arm and tugging him inside out of weather, she could remember the way he looked at her with faith in his pale eyes when she began to heal him. She tried to take a few deep breaths to clear her mind and found her body wouldn’t listen. Instead she watched herself lead Etri into the wagon and hang his wet coat to dry by the stove, just as she knew she would. She knew she would because she already had.

Keep reading

[shortficchallenge]

Weekly Writing Prompt #7

Time for this week’s writing prompts! Feel free to use them if you find yourself stuck and in need of an extra boost of inspiration. If you have ideas for prompts for us to share, go ahead and drop them in our ask box. :)

Writing Prompt: Use the line “Ugh, I clearly haven’t been working out enough.”

Word Prompt: Use the following words in a story/scene: narcissism, grenade, gamble.

You can use either prompt or go for the challenge round and combine both of them! 

Did you use our prompts? Tag our blog @shortficchallenge and let us know!

[theguildedtypewriter]

Short Fic Challenge- Grizzly Affairs

This is using the @shortficchallenge phrase and is an excerpt for the NBC novel, Grizzly Affairs, with Ursa and Maithe. It worked really well for them, so here we go. Tagging those who requested to be a part of the list, comment if you’d like to be added. @lynnafred @golden-eyed-writer @audreyroseb @rainbowpitofdoom @byjillianmaria @cog-writes @incandescent-creativity

Keep reading

[shortficchallenge]

Weekly Writing Prompt #6

Dialogue Prompt: “How much wood would a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood?” 

Word Prompt: Use the following words in a scene: Bread, purple, Disney. 

You can use either prompt or go for the challenge round and combine both of them! 

Did you use our prompts? Tag our blog @shortficchallenge and let us know!

[shortficchallenge]

Weekly Writing Prompt #5

Time for this week’s writing prompts! Feel free to use them if you find yourself stuck and in need of an extra boost of inspiration. If you have ideas for prompts for us to share, go ahead and drop them in our ask box. :)

Writing Prompt: Use the line “Quiet! They’ll hear us!”

Word Prompt: Use the following words in a story/scene: battery, plagiarize, karma. 

You can use either prompt or go for the challenge round and combine both of them! 

Did you use our prompts? Tag our blog @shortficchallenge and let us know!