Story contest?

[Rrty]

Wasn't sure where to post this; the suggestion section didn't seem the right place, so I brought it here.

I have a suggestion for something that might be fun. I'm sure something along these lines may have been done before, but I'll mention this nevertheless.

What about a flash fiction contest? 500 words, no more. This is how it might work. We have a call for submissions, and the top ten are selected by, let's say, the moderators/staff. Then, someone like, say, Bev Vincent selects the best two out of those. And then Mr. King selects the best one out of the two.

Since we're talking 500 words, there's not a lot of investment of time for the judges. However, if that is even too much, maybe the limit could be 400 words, or even 350.

500 though seems to work best; at some point, flash fiction is no longer fiction and merely a statement.

Thought this might be something that the board would like. And consider this: Mr. King wrote one of the best flash fictions in the world, seriously, one of the best: that little paragraph about the spider in Gray Matter. Wasn't that an awesome gem of writing? That paragraph, embedded within a pretty good larger story all its own, is proof that he is an amazing talent. (And who knows, maybe that spider hatched from one of those eggs at the end of It.) Pull your copy of Night Shift from the shelf and find that paragraph. You're welcome.

Anyway, I throw this in for consideration. Mr. King is definitely a busy man, but if he's got time to join Twitter (I still can't understand all the codes and structure that go with that, it's like assembly language mnemonics to me), he's got to have time to read two 500-word paragraphs.

And the prize for the winner? Nothing except for the satisfaction of winning. I wouldn't complicate the protocol with prizes. They don't really fit here.

 

[Moderator]

It would be more likely to have success with member votes than with Steve's participation. I can't make any promises that even with the entries being vetted it would be something he'd be willing to do.

 

[Lepplady]

Are we talking about a holiday themed piece? Or in general?

 

[Rrty]

I was thinking just in general, Lepplady.

Ms. Mod, point well taken about involving Mr. King. That's why I thought no more than two would be sent to him. But if he cannot participate -- and he might be willing to do so, only because I think he had some sort of contest during the release of On Writing, didn't he? -- then perhaps we could keep it to just moderators like yourself and perhaps one of the more famous members (Mr. Vincent had come to mind first, but perhaps he wouldn't want to participate either, which I would fully respect). You could do it by member votes, but I don't know, the whole crowdsourcing thing sometimes isn't as fun as expert judgment (not that I watch American Idol, but if I did, I would rather the winner be selected not by the audience but by the actual experts, perhaps by a single expert at that).

Something to consider, at least.

 

[Lepplady]

I like the idea.

 

[Garriga]

I'm down. But i say let board members vote.

 

[Rrty]

Here's something to check out for those who may have missed it. Owen King recently had some of his own flash fiction (or micro-fiction if you prefer) posted on Salon. And it was quite good. (I supplied a link, but if links aren't okay on the forum, just search at Salon or Google for this.)

Two-sentence holiday fiction: Amazing short-short stories from amazing writers - Salon.com

Owen shows us how it's done. I enjoyed his two sentences. Interestingly enough, a word limit is preferable for these kinds of things, because I suppose one could cheat and have as long a sentence as one wanted, but in this case, I thought the parameters generated some cool material from the authors.