Welcome Promptlings to The Spark! It’s time to be weird, fantastical, daring, and deploy your creativity. Imagine monstrous beasts, conniving ghosts, and characters with mysterious motives who may also control weapons of wonder. All of this wondrous speculation originates from your imagination. The task is yours. This is The Spark!
The Rules
The rules are simple. You will be presented with a prompt. It could be a required first line, a task that will challenge your craft, elements required in your story, or a genre specific prompt. You will have two weeks to write a short story under the rules of the prompt. We’ll host a Gathering to celebrate what’s been accomplished and highlight your stories at the end of two weeks. You can share them on this thread, as well as The Pitch at the end of the month. This is an opportunity to find writers you admire, befriend, and learn from.
When sharing your creation, give us the title of your piece, genre in the form an emoji (see below), a brief teaser, and a link to your work. While most of the work will be posted on Substack, you are welcome to share work that fits the prompt that has been shared elsewhere (Wattpad, Simily, Amazon, etc.), but we do ask that the piece be available to readers for free. The Spark is an opportunity to grow in your craft and share your work with other speculative fiction writers.
Genre Emoji Index
👽- Science Fiction
🔮- Fantasy
💀- Horror
🔥- Dystopian
🍫- Magical Realism (Like Water for Chocolate, get it??)
👀- Weird Fiction
(The Gathering discussion thread will take place on Sunday, May 17th, starting at 3am PST, and will run all day.)
The Prompt
This month’s prompt is brought to you by Horror Tree Magazine. I have been subscribed to Horror Tree’s newsletter for years. I enjoy their weekly email where they not only share open calls for submissions to magazines and anthologies, but also share a collection of nonfiction writing related articles and a few recently published short stories. It’s a quick digest with a horror lens.
In case you didn’t pick up on it, today’s prompt is going to be horror themed. Let’s bring some darkness back now that the sun is shining and the weather is warming!
I found this call for an anthology through Horror Tree. I like submitting to anthologies. If you are selected, you have the opportunity to meet other authors, work with editors, and get your work in a physical book. Getting short stories in magazines is GREAT, don’t get me wrong. But an anthology is more evergreen, like short story collections or novels that are published.
This anthology is hosted by Cat Eye Press and is taking you into a bank vault:
“Don’t Go for the Vault is a horror anthology exploring the terrifying possibilities hidden behind bank vault doors. The editors are looking for creative stories where a bank robbery leads to something far more sinister than stolen cash. Stories may take place in any era and from any perspective, as long as the narrative involves a bank robbery, the opening of a vault door, and horror elements connected to what lies inside or around it.”
You can take this prompt and write. Discover what’s in the vault.
If you want to know more about submitting to the anthology, check out the details here.
Happy writing!
Good Luck Promptlings!
If you have questions or suggestions, feel free to comment or send me (Reina Cruz) a DM.
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't understand the why of this prompt. I see two possibilities (apart from not partaking in the prompt at all):
1. I write a story based on the prompt--the anthology guidelines--and submit it to the anthology. But then I cannot publicly display the story;
2. I write a story based on the prompt and publicly display it on Substack, but then I cannot submit it ot the anthology.
FYI: I chose number 1.