Tag Archives: short stories

New York City Midnight Short Story Challenge

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Writer Wendy’s weekly installment

The New York City Midnight Short Story Challenge opens tonight.

This is when about 15,000 people try writing a 3,000 word story in a week or less, based on a prompt that involves a character, a genre, and a plot device.

I’d always wanted to enter, and last year finally made it. (Hey, if the pandemic taught us anything, it’s: don’t postpone joy.) The prompts drop at midnight on Fridays. I rose bright and early Saturday morning to discover I was writing an action adventure story based on a coast-to-coast killer and a weird teacher.

Just shoot me.

Actually, I had a good time writing something in a genre I don’t even read. A little boning up on what action adventure entails, a little whimsical use of crochet as a plot device, and viola, I was through to the next round.

Round two is when the sheep and the goats start dividing. Round 1 is basically eliminating people who don’t write in complete sentences. Round two was fun as well, and while I enjoyed it, my life was complete by not getting tossed out the first time in the first round.

So when I advanced to round 3, I was kinda astonished. And scared. Pressure was on. We were now down to 100s instead of 1000s.

I didn’t make round 4 last year. The prompt drops at midnight, and I certainly plan to get at least to round 3 this year. We shall see.

Except a lot of weird questions. One reason I made it as far as I did last year was all the help friends sent me. They read, edited, suggested, and checked facts. It was pretty intense. (The deadlines get shorter each round.)

I look forward to what this year’s short story challenge brings. But believe me: nothing could be worse than writing an action adventure about a teacher who crocheted a note to the police.

Come back next Friday for more from Wendy Welch

No Pressure

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So this weekend is going to be a little weird…

This afternoon Jack and I drive up to Fairfax to old friends Barbara and Bernard, of the Celtic Band Iona. We’re doing a house concert for their Swift Run series tomorrow night.

We’re going up today because at 11:59 pm tonight, the prompt drops for Round 3 of the NYT Short Story Challenge. It’s been on my bucket list to enter for years, and finally I got around to it. And am now halfway through the challenge, whittled from more than eleven thousand entries to just 215 writers advancing.

The contest gives you a character, a setting, and a genre. My first one was action-adventure, coast to coast, and an oddball. Yeah, thanks. But they loved my story of a murder victim who crocheted the killer’s identity into a shawl. (Whew!)

Next up was drama, a personal chef, and the digital divide. Having spent my life working with people caught in poverty traps, that wasn’t quite so hard, and the feedback was wonderful.

How I found out I was advancing in the competition: a friend needed to be picked up at the Roanoke airport about 10 pm. Back home about 11:45, I did what Americans do to try and calm for sleep: checked my messages. There it was, notification of the second round winners. You clicked on the group you were assigned, and the name of the five selected stories and their authors would appear in a row.

I clicked twice to confirm what I was seeing: Wendy Welch “Across the Great Divide” SYNOPSIS: Forty Cornish hens are all that stand between Rona’s family and homelessness. A cell phone would have been more useful.

And stayed up for another hour, just clicking again and again, staring at the notification.

So Friday night I will get up about 11:45, read the prompt, jot down some ideas and go back to sleep. Saturday, I’ll get up at my friends’ house and start writing. They have offered to leave fruit and crackers outside the door for me. It is the sweetest thing when friends you haven’t seen in forever set up to isolate you so you can fulfill a fun dream.

Saturday night we do the concert, and a dozen lovely friends will beta read the draft I send. Sunday morning, get up early and get that puppy edited and sent, then drive home for a 7 pm online book launch. Stories for Social Action has been in the works awhile, and the Healing Story Alliance is celebrating its release. I’m on at 7:30. By then the NYT story will be in.

I will sleep the sleep of the dead (or the deeply troubled) and get up Monday rejoicing as a befuddled person to run a race. My day job has a board meeting that afternoon.

Monday night, I will sit and stare at the wall, methinks. That sounds good.