Official (Unofficial) Ekphrastic Challenge Rules!

Update 2/6: Bit of a delay in posting the winners! My apologies. Should be up this evening.                      

WELL CRAP.

How dare you all send me 30 photos! It’s like you took me up on my challenge or something. Seriously, though, why aren’t more of you posting your glorious photography for us all to see? I spy brilliant camera-genius artistes amongst us!

If you missed the deadline for submitting photos, never fear! I plan to run this challenge again in a few months.

Anyway, I suppose you’re wondering what exactly this challenge will consist of. If you’ve given it some thought, you’ve probably guessed that this will be a writing challenge. Check. And if you’ve given it even MORE though, you’ve deduced that the writing will be based on the photos you submitted. Right again!

Basically, I used a random word generator to assign each of the photos to the people who submitted them (sans one AI image, unfortunately. See my note here). There was only one person whom I did not know, so I’ll leave them dubbed “the parakeet photo person” in the list.

Your mission — should you choose to accept it (though, I suppose you already have) — is to write at least one micro or sudden fiction story based on the photo I’ve assigned you. I’ve decided not to opt for poetry, as I feel that photos don’t always evoke poetry and that it’s something the writer has to feel moved to do. Because I’m assigning the images, y’all will not have such a luxury. So, no poetry.

The word count maximum is based on Reedsy’s guide, which restricts micro fiction to 500 words and sudden fiction to 750 words. It’s your choice, given your photo, how long you would like it to be. But my word count minimum is 300. I would like there to be enough space for an immersive narrative to emerge. So to recap, story word count should be between 300 and 750 words.

I say, “at least” one story because I don’t want to limit your creativity, especially if you feel that one of your later stories is better than your first. So, no limit on the number of entries! (Yay! Though I feel a wave comin’...)

I will be using a rubric, like last time, as I feel like that went over well with everyone. Though I do not disparage anyone who chooses winners based on personal favorites, I would like to establish some structure in how I do it because, hey, I hate making decisions when I’m enjoying myself. Plus, I’d like to feel that there is some rhyme and reason to the winners!

There will be 3 prizes and a few runners-up, which will be decided during the judging process.

• First Place: $10
• Second Place: $5
• Third Place: $2
• Runners-up: $1

* If anyone has Ko-fi, do let me know. They don’t take out fees, so, hey, anything we do to avoid that, amirite? 😀

The Rubric

Total: 100 points. 110 with bonuses.

Story is based on the photo = 40 total points.

Story has a solid beginning, middle, and end, or at the very least, leaves the reader in a different place than they began = 50 total points.

Story clearly demonstrates a unique and careful thought process. Does not fall back on easy tropes, tired plots, or predictable characters. Contains an element of narrative surprise, in other words = 10 pts (with an additional 10 bonus points if done particularly well).

Feel free to ask me any questions in the comments!

Aaand now….

…here’s the line up!

Photo Assignment List

I literally numbered everyone's photo and name and then "rolled" the generator to give me a random number. I paired that number to the name as it appeared in the list on the Google Doc (also reflected below). The picture under your name is the picture you're assigned.

Davina Zinn McKee

Mike Singleton

Celia in Underland

Leslie Writes

Andrei Z.

Chloe Gilholy

Natalie Wilkinson

G.A. Botero

Judey Kalchik

Roderick Makim

Lamar Wiggins

Dana Crandell

Harbor Benassa

Mesh Toraskar

Donna Fox

ROCK

Rachel Deeming

Suze Kay

Oneg in the Arctic

Gerard DiLeo

Hannah Moore

Angie the Archivist

Rachel Fendrich

Randy JK

Rebekah Conard

Paul Stewart

Alex McEvoy

Poppy

Parakeet Photo Person

Lana V Lynx

Note: Some people have been wanting to swap photos since I've posted the list. While I'm not opposed to that, I do want to say that my intention with this challenge is to, well, challenge you. I chose to randomize the photo assignments so that none of my knowledge of any of you would bias those pairings. If you do not like your photo, I understand. But I also want to encourage you to think more creatively about what you can do with it. I'm not intent on forcing you to write; quite the contrary! So, how can you include an element of the photo, the symbolism of the image, etc., into your story? We don't have to approach this in a linear, purely logical, "what you see is the story," fashion. We are writers, yeah?

Please use the photos as the featured image to your story. If you write multiple stories, don't feel like you have to have duplicate featured images, but do please include it somewhere so we know that it's for the challenge. 🤓 Please drop your story links in the comments of this article! (You know, typical unofficial challenge stuff. 😁)

That's it! (Ha, as if it wasn't a lot of information.) Happy writing, everyone! I’m super excited to see what you publish in the upcoming weeks.

The deadline is February 1st and I’ll be judging through that weekend, results on February 5.

And thank you so much for participating. 🙏🏻❤️🥰

Cheers!