13/4/2023 0 Comments 1 out of 3 - Writing entriesG'day folks, hard to believe it's the middle of April already.
I started 2023 with 3 submissions to a mix of competitions and was lucky enough to be published by Nightmare Fuel (still a kick arse moment for me). I was running at 50% success rate and just waiting on was the NYC Midnight short story challenge. A paid event that had over 6,000 writers in the first round. It was a competition with 4 rounds in total. The top 5 from each group advanced through to the next round, where the timeframe and word count reduced. Another twist being you had to write using the 3 prompts provided. I was in the Horror, Lawyer and Telepathy group for the first round (2,500 word limit). I had zero experience writing horror, but I had a couple of story ideas I started to flesh out. My biggest problem was that I wasn't sure if I should write straight horror or a horror humour. I liked my horror humour story better but went with the straight horror thinking it may increase my chance to advance. I battled this story submission for most of the week until I had something I was (mostly) happy with. One of the positives to the NYC Midnight challenge was that they provided feedback at each round of the competition, so I figured at worst I was paying for feedback on 1 story. I may not have advanced but I feel like I got some great feedback (good and things I have to work on). Below is the story for your reading pleasure. It's violent, gory and maybe somewhat disturbing... maybe. (Judge feedback - "It made my stomach flip, and I felt queasy by the end of the story.") (Wife feedback - "How do you think this shit up..... It's slightly concerning.") (My feedback - "Please don't look at my google search history. I'm not a bad person.") Anyway if you get a chance to read it, any and all commentary are welcome on my story. At the end I've also shared what the judges said. Let me know if you agree or disagree with their views.
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April 2023
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