Win 6.66 SBD and More! Halloween In Spring: Horror Fiction Contest!

in contest •  7 years ago  (edited)

Win 6.66 SBD and More! Halloween In Spring: Horror Fiction Contest


image source

Alright then, Steemit. This place has been good to me my first two months. I’ll give a little back. Contest time.

I love horror. I love the concept itself. I love the philosophy of it. I love the feeling of my hairs standing up on the back of my neck, of taking a quick glance around my room to check for ghouls. So, Steemit. Show me whatcha got.

Contest Rules

UPDATE

  1. Write a short horror story.Original content, made for this contest. Not older posts.
  2. One person, one entry.
  3. Link your post in the comments below.
  4. Word Count: 1000-3000. A little under, a little over, that’s okay. Whatever is necessary to make the story complete.
  5. Upvote this contest post. (Resteeming this post would be cool too, but isn’t mandatory.)
  6. Use #horror as a tag. Currently, there’s not much on Steemit. Let’s change that.
  7. Link this post at the end of your story.
  8. One picture. If your writing can’t convey images without you depending on pictures, than it’s probably bad writing.
  9. No Vampires or Ghosts. Unless there’s something unique about them. But really, just try to be more original, please.
  10. Contest begins Sunday, April 22nd
  11. Contest finishes 14 days after the post. Sunday, May 6th 0:00 (Yes, 14 days. This gives you plenty of time to write)
  12. If you want me to offer my critique of the post, please put "critique" at the end of your post.

The Pot

First place gets: 6.66 SBD
Second place gets: 4 SBD
Third place gets 2 SBD

I know it's not much. Depending on the payout of this post, I might be able to offer you more. I’d like to, but I’m no whale. Really, that’ll be up to the Steemit community.

That’s it, really. Good luck to all participants and thanks ahead of time.

Below are some writing tips.


What Is Horror?

Origin of the comic. If one considers that for some hundred thousand years man was an animal susceptible to fright in the highest degree, and that anything sudden or unexpected meant that he was ready to do battle, perhaps to die; indeed, that even later in social relations, all security rested on the expected, on tradition in meaning and activity; then one cannot be surprised that at every sudden, unexpected word or deed, if it comes without danger or harm, man is released and experiences instead the opposite of fright. The cringing creature, trembling in fear, springs up, expands wide: man laughs. This transition from momentary fear to short-lived exuberance is called the comic. Conversely, in the phenomenon of the tragic, man quickly goes from great, enduring exuberance to great fear; however, since among mortals great enduring exuberance is much less common than the occasion for fear, there is much more of the comic than of the tragic in the world; man laughs much more often than he is devastated.” -Nietzsche

Horror doesn’t have to be just vampires or ghosts. It doesn’t have to be slaughterpunk or gore or spooky jump-at-you-boo unexpected twists.

Horror, at its base, challenges the reader’s assumptions about the world. It shakes the reader through shaking the character. The ghost or the supernatural entity or the fantastic, these are plot tools. They’re a means of telling the story.

See Ligotti or Borges or Bolagno or Lovecraft for examples of what I mean.

I’m looking for short stories that use the supernatural or horrific in an exciting way to keep the reader engaged, the force the character to make a decision, to push the plot forward.

What is a story?

A story has a beginning, middle and end. A story has characters. A story has conflict, which drives the plot. The character has a to make a decision of some kind, has to put something on the line, to reach a lesson. A story is the unravelling of a truth. By the end of the story, that truth is revealed. When the reader learns the truth (what the story IS), the story is finished.

Writing Tips

  1. Use a powerful hook for an opening line. Engage the reader.
  2. The reader should know exactly what the story is about by the first few sentences, if not the first sentence.
  3. The unexamined life is not worth living. The unexceptional story is not worth reading. Don’t write about mundane things.
  4. Adverbs suck. Usually. Use strong verbs instead.
  5. Try using http://www.hemingwayapp.com/ This is a free tool. You can see all the adverbs and passive voice in your work, and eliminate them.
  6. If the sentence or paragraph doesn’t propel the plot forward, the reader doesn’t need to know it. Remember, you as the writer should know EVERYTHING about the story and characters. But the story itself is just a small window into that world. It doesn’t have to be the entire world itself.
  7. Characters should exist in a time and place and perform actions, or have actions performed on them. Point being, stories require movement of events and places. Not just descriptions. Not just flowery language. Not just images.
  8. When describing things, try to be as sparse as possible. The reader creates the image in their own heads. “She sat on a bed” vs “she sat on an iron bed” vs “she sulked on an iron bed” vs “she sat on a bed that was made of iron, approximately two meters by four meters in length, covered in red velvet blankets and silk pillows shaped like hearts”
  9. Don't start with a person not remembering where they are. Don’t end with ‘it was all a dream’.
  10. Or, fuck all these tips and do what you think the story needs.
Authors get paid when people like you upvote their post.
If you enjoyed what you read here, create your account today and start earning FREE STEEM!
Sort Order:  

You have my interest! And I agree, I'd love to see more horror on Steem. Will surely be participating in this. Maybe something Lovecraftian mixed with Giger surrealism... Hmmm.

sounds far out. looking forward to reading whatever you may send my way

Ha! @anikekirsten, I looked at your comment too quick and read "Ginger surrealism." I was like "Oh my gosh, I have a genre now!!"

Well, shit. There just may be a niche right there. Lol.

That Nietzsche quote is solid. Anyways, I might ponder just throwing one here for the the shits and giggles, but I will try to actually make it decent enough to feel a bit spooked. (I mean for all we can care about horror, Half-Life 2, for all intents of purpose, is a psychological and systematic horror with all the Combine dominance and the shit we don't know off that they do in the background of Gordon Freeman's travels.) If I win something, cool and maybe I should branch to writing some fiction in general for the future. If not, all well. There's always a next time and at least I did something fun. Anyways, hope to see cosmic and surrealistic horrors up in this contest and hope others will do great throughout the contest!

looking forward to your submission.

As I am with everyone that's entering this contest.

I use passive voice at times and am not sorry :P I often prefer it to active voice :P still not sorry ;)

If you ever read "A Gentleman from Moscow," by Amor Towles, you will feel vindicated immediately. I am not a fan of passive voice, in general, but he does it with such artistic grace that it is mind blowing.

:)

I use it often in dialog.

Welp, I finally did it. Here's the link: https://steemit.com/horror/@theironfelix/the-compound
Again this was done for the shits and giggles, despite that I had some fun just using this to vent out whenever I got bored. Regardless, I will get started with reading the other posts made right now! Hope to see great love and dedication in other's posts!

But for the fact that it had to be within 2-3K words, a quick tempo had to be kept and that I worked infrequently on this, I think I did a decent job.

I may give it a go... And @carrieallen read this

Thank you @yidneth!

These are great tips :) I need to do something like this for UNDER 600 words. 😎

My favorite Tip is #10! LOL!

You should participate. 💞 Gonna try myself but as foreign and though I speak English without a thought you doubt when you write artistically.

That's my favourite too!

Oh gosh, i'd love to give this a shot! I love the horror genre.

Hello!
This is my first try to write a horror story.
Hope you'll like it.

Hi, I am co-admin of @thewritersblock - a writers community on Discord HERE.

I would be happy to share this contest there if you remove the requirement to upvote this post. Most would do it automatically as they enter.

Great idea for a contest and I love the prize being 6.66 SBD ;-)

can you explain why you're asking me to remove that requirement? Please understand, that's kind of an odd request.

It comes across as 'pay-to-play'. Of course you are free to make whatever requirements you wish, but some people might be put off by it. Just speaking from experience.

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

Thanks for explaining your reasoning. I disagree with their perspective.

They aren't paying anything to play.

Voting means they're adding value to something they think is valuable, in this case, a contest promoting horror fiction on the blockchain. if they don't think that's valuable, why would they write for it?

Voting this post page means:

a) growing the pot for the winners
b) me potentially breaking even in promoting the contest
c) the page maybe gaining more views, thus spreading the word about the contest, in turn helping promote the writers submitting content

If people are put off by that, they can, politely, go have fun elsewhere.

Agreed!!!!

Will definitely give this one some thought! Great idea for a contest - good horror is hard to pull off :)

give it a shot!

Thanks @dirge for waking the creativity in our writers, they're all doing a great job and we're expecting more. Thank you.

Just trying to give back. I was lucky to participate in contests hosted by @tygertyger, @calluna and @mctiller. Trying to follow their example!

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

@dirge - I'm thinking of giants ants invading a village and ripping it to shreds!

On second thoughts - Nah, maybe not!

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

@dirge - This just cracked me up! I should remember the antennae in my next epic ant story... Thanks for the share.

Alright! Resteemed!

Made it in time! Here is my entry The Ordained Gardener - Thank you very much for this great contest, and all the wonderful horror stories I have got to read because of it!

Bam! She's in

Hiya - I just posted my story, then went back and read your rules. I may have broken one - oops. However, I do think it might qualify - please let me know if I don't!

https://steemit.com/horror/@riverflows/horror-story :)

Hope you enjoy it - it's kinda Australian in its themes, well, certainly it's setting.

Thanks for the submission. I'm looking forward to reading it!

Is there a specific hashtag for this contest, as it will be easier to find people's work i.e horrorshortstory ? rather than looking in a sea of horror - I daren't go there - although, as you say, perhaps there isn't a lot of horror on Steemit after all, and it's quite safe to test the waters. Or.... is it...? Muahhaha

my thinking was just #horror. Some people have already posted their submissions so for now, let's just leave it as #horror.

I was getting annoyed with your tips until number 10 hahaha!!!!! I haven't written a horror before but I love the idea of it and I've had a story simmering for a while. Might give it a go... if you can allow the idea that there is horror in the mundane! X

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

“No subject is terrible if the story is true, if the prose is clean and honest, and if it affirms courage and grace under pressure.” -Hemmingway

What annoyed you?

Oh no, not in a 'I hate you' kind of annoyed, just I can think of a reason why every one of those rules can be broken, but I'm only being assy because I hate rules :) - it was more that I loved Number 10 than hated the rest :)

And I am writing one, but it's creeping me out, so I'm going to have to wait til daylight now - how long have I got? This is fuuuunnnnn.....I haven't written a story in ages!

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

I did write one for this, but the app doesn't think it is very good, so I think i am going to try again seen as we have two weeks :) - I may have to rethink my writing style completely lol but it is good to know :)

Oh and any guides on levels of violence? :)

one thing to pay attention to with that app, is that its great to show when using passive voice or adverbs. but, if you want to use them, use them. I mean, even Hemingway did. Sometimes a sentence needs to be long and complex. So always go with what your own style demands.

Violence? My (often wrong) opinion: make sure its necessary. then make it sudden and shocking. We should feel the punches and the cuts. Then be over with it.

it only got a 6, and I would like to do better :) I do use the passive voice at times, and it did find a few adverbs, I use things like "just" and "barely" for emphasis. I am very drawn towards long flowery descriptions, recently of pure carnage, with lots of long complex sentences. I have posted the story I wrote for this yesterday anyway, I am looking forward to the challenge of trying something different.

I am a strong believer in the gun on the wall principle, and I of course, feel the violence is necessary to convey the right vibe, but then others often disagree. (I have been advised to refrain from sharing the an installment in my Ursula story due to excessive violence lol - so I thought I better check if you would prefer not to have so much)

I am still worried it is too gory, it isn't the actual violence in this one (so far anyway) more that the descriptions of the aftermath could be too much, I may just end up writing a few stories for you and seeing which one seems like the best fit :)

like u said. gun on the wall. im not scared of gore!

Oh gosh, i'd love to give this a shot! I love the horror genre. Thanks for hosting!

wonderful to hear! Thanks for the submission. Looking forward to reading it

You're welcome! I hope you like it :D

So, I've linked this post but here's a link to mine for anyone that wants to read it:

https://steemit.com/writing/@dbzfan4awhile/fantasy-adventure-story-scene-snippet

As for Horror, I did have a Story Chain game that I did many months ago (https://steemit.com/story/@dbzfan4awhile/the-next-great-story-chain-game-the-restaurant) that you might find fun.

hey cool. thanks for sharing some stories here. What I'm asking is original content, created for this contest post. not old content.

Ok. Maybe I can come up with something today.

take your time, Goku. You got half the length of the Frieza saga. Roughly two weeks

I don't need my weighted training clothes to do this. Here's one that I just wrote specifically for your contest:

https://steemit.com/horror/@dbzfan4awhile/tar-demon

I wonder if us writers could all donate to the prize pool? That would be a good incentive to get lots of writing out there. I'd donate 1SBD (I'm not rich) for the cause - what would others thing, like an entry fee? It's not alot, but it would support writers spending time on it and would help celebrate and promote writing. x

Votes are enough.

I don't want anyone 'donating' towards the contest. It complicates things, and creates a potential situation where someone might feel 'burned' by donating and maybe not winning a prize.

Also, donating would be more 'pay to play' which I'm against. But thanks for being generous.

I put in 1.2 SBD through bidbots on the contest. The total payout right now is 1.97 SBD. So from that I'll put at least another 1 SBD to the winners pot. Or maybe it'll all go towards a 4th place.

I'll likely do another '7 days left' post for the contest and that'll also go towards the prizes.

Great idea. It will also remind me to finish my story and post it. :)

Adding mine here. Thanks for the excellent contest and guidelines!


Forgotten Memories

Awesome, thanks for your submission!

I have the dumbest question, @dirge. Does 0:00 May 6th essentially mean midnight tonight (the 5th)?

Yep. But I'm on Korean time ahead of y'all. Right now its almost noon on a rainy Sunday for me. So if you submit anything in the next twelve hours, it's all good.

Okay thanks! I only just decided today that I should be writing something for this. We will see if I can pull it off!

Thank you for the grace period. Here's my story: https://steemit.com/fiction/@jayna/the-char-man-of-the-candahashee-bridge.

you've already applied with "confession of a serial killer". One entry per person.