SUBMISSIONS CLOSED

PROMPT: The sound could be heard for miles. 

Maximum: 350 words

Submission window: July 30 12pm (Pacific Time) to August 1st at 12am (Pacific Time)

Your story must include the sentence prompt. You can change the tense, but try to keep it as close to the original sentence as possible.

Your story must be an original flash fiction that is not part of a serial/series. It can be from the world and characters of a prior written story or book, but make sure it stands on its own. 

Any genre is accepted (no poetry).

To enter, leave your story in the comments below (comments will be open from July 30th at 12pm Pacific time and submissions will close on August 1st at 12am Pacific). Please leave your comment anonymously. Once you’ve submitted your piece, be sure to read the other participants entries and like your favorites.

The winners will be announced Friday, August 5th.

Prizes:

Editors Choice Winner will receive $40 gift card, a query letter critique from Emily Barnett, and a 3 chapter critique from Beth Stedman

Readers Choice winner will receive a query letter critique from Emily Barnett and a 1 chapter critique from Beth Stedman

BOTH winners will be interviewed on Fable & The Verbivore to talk about their Flash Fiction Magic piece and their writing in general.

Additional Notes:

Please leave your comment anonymously, which means either write anonymous in the name spot or make up a name for that spot when leaving a comment.

It will ask you to put in an email when you leave you leave your comment — please DO put your email in. It won’t show up on the site, but we can find it when we need it, in order to notify the winners.

Please DO NOT post your piece on your social media until after the winners have been announced, in order to keep the pieces anonymous.

Finally, comments will remain open even after the submission window closes, so that everyone can read and comment on each other’s pieces. Just know that anything submitted after the submission deadline will not be considered for prizes.

NOTE: We had some issues with the like button — so if you want to vote for readers choice, comment with “like” instead. Sorry, it’s confusing. We’re still figuring this out and appreciate your patience!

FF tips: 

• Don’t go into a lot of backstory. If the backstory is taking over your plot, then you’ve started your story in the wrong place. 

• Dialogue should be tight and meaningful. 

• Skip filler words to get straight to the point. Make each word/phrase do double the work. 

• Make each description matter: Does it give us insight into the character or introduce us to the mood of the story?

• Give your character an ARC of some sort. Or a revelation. What do they learn at the end of the story that they didn’t know at the beginning?

• It’s okay to leave the reader on a minor chord. You might not wrap up everything nicely in a FF, but you want to give us a sense of direction. Where might this character go next? Sometimes that tension makes the story even more poignant.