Your 100 Word Story
A 2023 OPPORTUNITY
I’m giving EVERYONE who participates in these Free Writing Friday challenges THREE comp months in 2024. That gets you access to 14 episodes of Sleight of Hand and the entire 100 Word Stories archive.
But wait, there’s more! If I select your story as my favorite, you’ll get ONE FULL YEAR comped! That means you get to read the entire serial from beginning to end for FREE!
I’m giving away 6 FULL YEAR comps and an unlimited number of 3 month comps every Friday till December 29th!
Time to flex your writing skills and share your best 50 words to add to mine! Clock is ticking on this giveaway that ends at 10pm EST on Sunday, December 17th.
IMAGE PROMPT
Strange lights are dancing in the dark. What do they mean? And…what do they want?
A 100 WORD STORY COLLABORATION
[MY 50 WORDS]
It was ten days before Christmas and, as promised, they came in the night. Multi-colored lights surrounded the ground but the sky remained blue with twinkling stars.
The red light was most exuberant, making circles and dancing upon the freshly fallen snow. They were our guests. Or so we thought.
Write your 50 words to follow mine, then copy/paste them into the comments. Be sure to put “[My 50 Words]” first so I know it’s an official entry.
REMINDER: You don’t have to write your story just on Friday!
Free write all weekend long!
HOW TO JOIN THE COLLABORATION
I write 50 words (see above) then you write an additional 50 words.
My 50 must start. Your 50 must follow.
You have all weekend long to copy/paste your 50 words into the COMMENTS section of this post.
My 50 words will always use the IMAGE PROMPT as inspiration.
I will select my favorite 50 word addition to my story and share it in the following ways:
Substack Notes (you will get tagged as well)
Upcoming First Edition email on December 1st and January 1st (respectively)
If you are up for this challenge scroll to my 50 words BENEATH the IMAGE PROMPT! Good luck!
JUST WANNA WRITE YOUR OWN 100 WORD STORY?
Here’s how:
Write exactly 100 words. Not 99 or 101. The Word Count Police are tracking!
Genre? Writer’s choice! So long as you give us all the thrills and the feels.
To Fic or to Non-Fic? You decide. What matters most is that you’re satisfied with the output.
Copy/paste your words in the comments, then share on your own Substack, and maybe, share to social media!
A Note on Substack Notes | Click the 🔄 “Restack with a Note” and copy/paste your story for added reach and growth.
[My 50 Words] We joined the dance, following as best we could, given our human limitations. Spinning increasingly faster for hours, we finally dropped, exhausted. The red light continued to encircle us into a spiral that tightened with every turn. Our guests? No. We were their meal, the source of their illuminated energy.
Oh no!
[My 50 Words] The lights held us transfixed as footsteps crunched in the snow. The fat man spoke to my friends and they changed. Then he whispered a name and the red light entered me. I sprouted fur and horns, and as he hitched me to his sleigh my nose began to glow.
Very seasonal
Thank you. I so wanted to get a ‘ho ho ho’ in. But it’s three whole words 😄
Hello, Rudolph! Good one
[My 50 words] I stood, with arms open wide as the dancing lights embraced me, until I too became a being of light. Transported into their magical forest kingdom, I was invited to be their guest, to witness them spreading the light of peace and goodwill across the planet in just 10 days.
PS, as I was writing this little story about light, the sun shone through my kitchen window, in a momentary blaze of glory, and then it was gone! Serendipity! 💫
[MY 50 WORDS]
It was ten days before Christmas and, as promised, they came in the night. Multi-colored lights surrounded the ground but the sky remained blue with twinkling stars.
The red light was most exuberant, making circles and dancing upon the freshly fallen snow. They were our guests. Or so we thought.
While we watched, entranced, the white ones coiled around us, humming.
The vibrations woke a sensation of joy. People started to dance, twirling around the red light.
Someone screamed as the white coils tightened.
Blue balls of light clustered on her, feeding, dissolving.
Far from the red glow, I escaped.
I wrote this before reading any other replies. Seems like someone else had the same idea.
Great minds!