Browsing all articles tagged with short stories.
Jagannath by Karin Tidbeck
With Jagannath, I return to two genres I have visited in earlier reviews: short stories and Scandinavian fiction. One of my very first reviews for this site was a collection of speculative fiction set during the Age of Discovery, dealing with subjects as varied as the invention of a new sort of clock to Darwin’s […]
Monthly Short Stories Winner: Alien or Eldritch Artifact
A massive artifact appears all of a sudden and (violently) disrupts the everyday life (of a tribe, a city, a country, the world). It can either be an alien artifact (science fiction) or an eldritch artifact (fantasy). This month, we wanted our entrants to think big. Something huge happens and humanity (or whoever else) barely […]
Monthly Short Stories Winner: Water
This month we asked for stories, where water of any kind was a key element. It didn’t matter if it was a stormy sea, a misty lake, a polluted river, a frozen waterfall, a terrible flash flood, or a sentient geyser – water is incredibly diverse and we expected the stories to mirror this. And […]
Monthly Short Story Winner: Find the Story in the Picture
This month our entrants got three pictures to choose from. Every picture a frozen moment from an unknown story. They convey atmosphere and (part of) a setting. The rest is up to you. Rules: 1. The story/poem must be inspired by one of the pictures. 2. Prose must be 500-1500 words long. 3. Poetry must […]
Monthly Short Story Winner: Regret and Redemption
Your main character (MC) did something, planned or by accident, and it went terribly wrong. Life is now constant regret. Do they want to correct it? Is it even possible? Everybody should have the chance to redeem themselves, but this is not a fairy tale – or is it? Rules: 1. The story’s theme must […]
Monthly Short Story Winner: Story Generator
This month’s stories were all crafted using the Official Bea and Xia Story Generator™. Rules: 1. Entrants must go to Roll Dice Online. Choose number of sides 5; number of dice to roll 7; number of rolls: as many needed to find the perfect theme. 2. Prose must be 500-1500 words long. 3. Poetry must […]
Monthly Short Story Winner: Gangsters and Crime Lords
Al Capone. The Godfather. Kingpin. There are many infamous crime lords in history and pop culture. Your job this month is to bring them into a fantasy setting. They don’t need to be the main character but a crime lord and their underground organization have to play a significant role. Rules: 1. This can be […]
Monthly Short Story Winner: Music
Music plays a huge part in our lives and so it’s no wonder that it has its part in fantasy too. There are countless ways in which to include it. As a song to set the mood or as a part of your worldbuilding. As the integral theme of the story (and its magic) like […]
Monthly Short Story Winner: Omens
“An omen is a phenomenon that is believed to foretell the future, often signifying the advent of change. People in the ancient times believed that omens lie with a divine message from their gods. These omens include natural phenomena, for example an eclipse, abnormal births of animals and humans, and behavior of the sacrificial lamb […]
Monthly Short Story Winner: Through the Beast’s Eye
Writing often means putting yourself in somebody else’s shoes and writing from their perspective. The barmaid, the warrior, the shady detective, the witch, or the orphan boy. You do this all the time, becoming somebody else for the time you write that person. If you’re good at it, all the characters will read, sound, and […]
Monthly Short Story Winner: Fanfic
This is the fourth year we’ve done a fanfic month. We didn’t want it to get boring so we’ve tried to change it up each year. The first year you could write whatever you wanted. The second year we limited the books you could choose from. The third you had to stage a fight between […]
Monthly Short Story Winner: Urban Fantasy
We haven’t had a genre as our monthly theme for quite a while, so this time entrants wrote us a nice, little urban fantasy story. This means that story should take place mainly in a city. Any city, any time? No. To make it a bit more specific, they had to stay on our world […]
