The prompts for each of the six contests in year three of the Fiction in Five contest are listed below. Once the winners have been announced, you will be able to click on the links for each contest to read the winning entries.
The first contest this year is the August, 2012 Contest.
August 2012 Winners
The August prompt:
Following are three prompts for the August Fiction in Five contest. Choose ONE and ONE only. Write your story based on the prompt you have chosen. You do not need to use the exact wording, but the judges need to clearly understand which prompt you are basing the story on. There are also six words or phrases listed below the prompts. You need to use each of the six words or phrases in your story no matter which prompt you choose.
Prompt #1. Incorporate all three of the following elements into your story: (1)the first day of school, (2)a love note, and (3)a recipe with a significant mistake.
Prompt #2. Your character thinks her boss is looking for an excuse to fire her. She decides to fight back….
Prompt #3. A babysitter is snooping around her employer’s house and finds a disturbing photograph…
Six words or phrases:
1. Milk cow
2. River
3. Quill
4. Schedule
5. Basket
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October, 2012 Winners
October Prompt:
Choose ONE and ONE ONLY of the following prompts: If you choose #1 or #2, the exact words must be included in the story, somewhere in the first paragraph. If you choose #3, the judges must be able to “see” the picture you choose in their minds as they read the story. Have fun, and happy writing!
- It started out like any other day in the garden. But then, something very strange happened. The scarecrow blinked once. He blinked a second time. He coughed. Then he . . .
- Finally, she could hope for a better tomorrow. A future free of the dark shadows of her past.
- Choose one of the images below and write a story about it:
Whichever prompt you choose, you must include the following six random words in your story:
- Leaves 4. Potatoes
- Crunching 5. Yellow
- Parade 6. Tablecloth
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December, 2012 Winners
Winning stories are now available by clicking the December, 2012 Winners link above.
Choose ONE and only ONE of the following story starter prompts as the first sentence of your story:
- Even under two blankets, Jimmy lay in bed shivering. It had to be the coldest night of the year….
- Splat! The snowball smacked me in the back of the head. …
- In my hometown it never snows. I knew it would take a miracle to get snow on Christmas Eve. The weatherman said it might happen this year …..
Use the following six words in your story:
- Random
- Dessert
- Evergreen
- Ribbon
- Sparkle
- Shipping
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February, 2013 Prompt:
Fiction in Five February, 2013 Prompts
There are two parts to the prompt for the contest.
Part 1: Use ONE of the following prompts as the FIRST sentence (or partial sentence) in your story: (bonus – subtract the number of words from the sentence you choose from your total word count)
1. Old Man Winter made one last attempt at keeping… (10 words)
2. The sound of footsteps cracking through the thin ice sheeting the shallow puddles in the rough driveway… (18 words)
3. The snow was gone, but the air was still bitterly cold. (11 words)
Part 2: AND Use all six of these random words in the story:
1. Lightning
2. Arrow
3. Word
4. Calendar
5. Clothespin
6. Stamp