Words From Our Past Challenge

Absolutely Unofficial Vocal Challenge - For the fun of building community!

You've pounded away on your keyboard and poured your heart and soul into your story. You gave it a title and a subtitle and found the most amazing picture to showcase your words. Days go by, but you didn't get any reads on your story.

That was in the beginning!

Now, your stories get more attention, but you'd love to give this story one more shot at receiving its glory.

So, here are the RULES:

1. Submit one short story from your past stories with less than 5 likes or 5 comments. The stories can be from the following genres:

- Fantasy, Paranormal, or Sci-Fi

- Horror

- Romance

2. Link this challenge in your story and leave a comment here.

3. Please include the link to the story and the genre in the comments. If there isn't a genre, I will not be able to judge the story.

4. The challenge will run through February 28th at midnight EST. I'll pick the winners by March 15th!

5. Since this is my first challenge, please only submit one entry. If participation is low, I might change the rules.

My First Vocal Story - Losing Lucian (Fantasy)

Here's the link to my first Vocal story. Back then, I didn't have a sense of community or understand how Vocal really worked, as I was focused on writing for Kindle Vella. As that sunsets, I am finding new ways to connect with other authors. I hope that this challenge will help build new connections within this community.

Judging Criteria:

Depending on how many stories are entered, I could be reading many stories. You will be fighting for my attention.

1st criteria: Does the story grab my attention?

2nd Criteria: Is it well written?

3rd Criteria: Make me fall in love with the characters!

4th Criteria: Don't scare me too much! Please don't enter anything too scary. I won't read it. Mild horror!

The Community-Based Prize

I'll pick the winners by March 15th.

From each of the following categories, I'll pick one winner and one runner-up:

- Fantasy, Paranormal, or Sci-Fi

- Horror

- Romance

For the winners of the Community-Based Prize, I'll write a separate story and highlight the winners with links to the winning stories, share the story across my social media platforms (Bluesky, Facebook (several groups), Instagram, and Threads), and read the following:

Winners of the genre categories: Read, like, and comment on 5 stories from the winning authors and 3 from the runners-up.

If I don't have enough stories in each category, I will choose the top 3 winners and 3 runners-up from all of the entries. :-)

The Tip Jar Prize

The Grand Prize Winner will be chosen from the winners of the genre categories. They will receive a $5 tip for the best story from our past.