Tag Archives: Halloweensies

Beware or Be Scared — a Halloweensie story

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Susanna Leonard Hill is hosting the 12th Halloweensie Contest and entries close on Monday 31 October. You may still have time to enter. All you have to do is write a 100-word Halloween-themed story for children up to 12 and include the words slither, treat and scare. Easy right? Pop over to Susanna’s amazing blog for all the rules, and join in if you dare. There are some pretty amazing prizes.

You will be able to read all the entries in the comments section of the Official Contest Post after the weekend. By next weekend, Susanna hopes to have narrowed the field down to about twelve stories for readers to vote on. What a mammoth task.

Since I’ve been practising writing brief stories in the Carrot Ranch flash fiction challenges, I thought I’d have a go at this one too and, I guess not surprisingly, I’ve done it in 99 words (you’re allowed to go under, but not over, 100 words). While my flash fiction stories often feature children, this one had to be for children. I hope I didn’t make it too scary, but I aimed it at the older, rather than younger, age group, who I hope may ‘get’ some of the nuances with word choice and punctuation. I hope you enjoy it. You are forewarned.

Beware or be Scared

Nathara expected her ginormous jelly Poisonous Pythons, individually sealed for hygiene safety, to make the children’s eyes POP! And they did. Laced, through the fence the treats were irresistible. Children ignored the “BEWARE” sign. They failed to read the small print “Open only after midnight.” They didn’t flinch when Nathara laughed, “Mwahahaha!” and found no reason to be scared when she hissed, “Enjoy eating children!” They couldn’t wait to tuck into the squishy, sweet, stickiness of the enormous Poisonous Pythons and ripped the seals apart. Nathara’s slippery servants slithered free and wrapped the trick-or-treaters in their squishy sweet stickiness.

For a follow up to this story, check out my response to this week’s Carrot Ranch prompt ‘bones’, Make No Bones About It.

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Halloweensie contest: Spider scare

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trick-or-treat-bag

Happy Halloween everyone!

This year for the very first time I am joining in a Halloweensie contest set up by children’s author Susanna Leonard Hill.

A Halloweensie is a not-very-long (100 words or less) story for children.

I’ve been getting plenty of practice writing short stories in response to the flash fiction challenges set by Charli Mills at the Carrot Ranch; and, as my stories often feature children, I thought I’d give Susanna’s challenge a go.

Rules of the contest are:

Write a 100 word Halloween story appropriate for children (title not included in the 100 words, children here defined as 12 and under), using the words spider, ghost, and moon.   Your story can be scary, funny or anything in between, poetry or prose, but it will only count for the contest if it includes those 3 words and is 100 words (you can go under, but not over!)

Stories must be submitted before Monday October 31st by 11:59 PM EDT.

There are some very generous prizes for contest winners.

For more information, check out Susanna’s post.

I am submitting mine a little earlier in case some of you don’t know about the contest and would like to join in. There’s still time. There’s also plenty of great Halloweensies to read on Susanna’s post if you have time for some fun reading!

Here’s mine:

Spider scare

No moon was out,

So ghosts were about,

Looking for people to scare.

Little Ghost was unsure,

He’d not joined in before,

Anxious, hesitating to dare.

“You’ll be all right.

Simply give them a fright.

It’s easy, just give it a try.”

Dad sounded brave,

With advice that he gave:

Nothing would scare him for sure.

“I’ll give it a go.”

Little Ghost followed slow,

As Dad floated up to the door,

Then let out a scream

As, down from a beam,

A spider descended nearby.

Little Ghost laughed

At his Dad taking fright:

A spider like that wouldn’t bite!

 

Thank you for reading. And thanks to children’s author Vivian Kirkfield, who blogs at Picture Books Help Kids Soar, for introducing me to Susanna and her fun contest.

If you are looking for a fun game to play on Halloween, check out the Trick or Treat board game.

Thank you

I appreciate your feedback. Please share your thoughts.