September 2011 Flash Fiction Challenge!

Sophia

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Welcome to the September Flash Fortnight!

The September Flash Fortnight will run from Thursday 15th September (Day 1) to Wednesday 28th September (Day 14). Each morning during the challenge, I'll update this post with a new prompt for the day, so please check back if you find them useful! All of the challenge prompts will remain permanently available to you, so if you'd like to use any of them outside of the Fortnight, please feel free to do so.


*


Prompts


Day 14 : A Most Excellent Egg.
Day 13 : Survivor.
Day 12 : She sells sea shells.
Day 11 : The Law of Diminishing Returns
Day 10: The race to recreate a forgotten recipe.
Day 9 : Silence. (This is the specified prompt for an upcoming issue of Gumbo Press. Up to 500 words; deadline is October 31st.)
Day 8 : A miracle from the god of gossips, and its price.
Day 7 : A material that behaves unexpectedly at the worst possible time.
Day 6 : And then there were three.
Day 5 : Sabotage in a darts tournament.
Day 4 : A new member in an old team.
Day 3 : A frontier town beneath a frontier town.
Day 2 : Writing. (This is the specified theme for an upcoming issue of Pure Slush. 100-500 words; deadline is 30th September.)
Day 1 : The Day and The Rose


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Tips on using the prompts

Think of the prompt as a starting point. When you look at it, certain words, phrases or ideas might immediately come to your mind. Try writing these down. For each of these things, consider what words, phrases or ideas that they, in turn, inspire.

Keep going in this way. You could free associate on the thoughts you're getting, or ask yourself questions on each thing: What is it about this that I'm drawn to? What would happen if I followed this train of thought to its logical conclusion?

Try not to censor yourself, or second-guess your imagination. In the end, the idea you end up with might be completely unrelated to the prompt - and that's completely fine!


Good luck!


Optional: Signature art!

1.jpg
7.jpg
13.jpg


Here are some images that you are welcome to use in your post signatures, if you wish, to mark your achievements in each challenge. They indicate the total number of days during the Flash Fortnight on which you've completed a story draft. There are 14 images available, one for each day.

You can update your signature with a single new image each day, or put one image up at the end of the challenge; however you prefer.

The images are currently hosted on Photobucket. To add them to your signature:

Go to your User CP (the left-most link in the blue menu bar that is near the top of every page);
Click on the Edit Signature link from the list on the left of the page;
Paste the URL into the signature box, preceded by
;
Click on Save Signature.

The URLs of the images are all in this form:

http://i922.photobucket.com/albums/ad65/elarasophia/AW Flash Fiction Forum/1.jpg

Right-click on the link and copy it, and then edit the 1.jpg at the end to the number you would like (e.g. 10.jpg) after you paste the URL into your signature box.


But there's more!


You can also choose a signature picture from this second set of images, which was very kindly created by Williebee:

W1.png
W8.png
W14.png


Again, there are images available for each day of the challenge. The URLs for these are all in this form:

http://i922.photobucket.com/albums/ad65/elarasophia/AW Flash Fiction Forum/W1.png

Right-click on the link and copy it, and then edit the W1.png at the end to the number you would like (e.g. W14.png) after you paste the URL into your signature box.
 
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Lillie

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Lillie

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First one done. Very rough, but I think it might have some potential.
 

Lillie

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Yeah, I'm trying for all of them too.

Second one done. If ever I sort that out it's going to be a damn sight longer than flash.
But yeah, that's probably something I'll end up working on.
 

Lillie

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Just checking in to say I'm just about keeping up.

But I cheated and wrote a haiku for one of them.