Craft a Story That Captures the Spirit of the Season in 300 Words or Less.
🤍✨🤍🌟🤍✨🤍🌟🤍✨🤍🌟🤍✨🤍🌟🤍✨🤍🌟🤍✨🤍🌟Greetings, Dear Writers, You have been tagged to inform you about our Winter Trabble Contest. Read on, to learn how to submit, vote for your favorite writers, and discover the rewards awaiting the winners. If you no longer want to be tagged in our stories, please let us know. Most importantly, I’d like to express my heartfelt gratitude to all 500 of our fantastic writers and readers. We have just attained this milestone. If you haven’t already, please follow our publication and join us on this journey!
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🏆The Winter Trabble Contest🏆
Explore the charm, mystery, and marvels of winter. Your story might be:
- An ice quest or frosty adventure.
- Romance under aurorae.
- A chilling twist in the snow.
- A wintry utopia or dystopian cold spell.
Let your creativity breathe life into winter, where the season itself is the backdrop, the challenge, or the character.
Allow your imagination to bring winter to life, using the season as a backdrop, obstacle, or character.
In 300 words or less, capture the essence of winter in all of its forms.
What stories does the frost tell you? Write them down and make winter the star!
Enter our NLS Winter Trabble Contest and stand a chance to win big!
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🏆Contest Details🏆
What to Submit
- Fiction, max 300 words
- Theme: Winter Wonders
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How to Submit
- Follow our publication.
- Become an active reader and writer for our publication.
- Read and publish at least 20 stories this winter with us.
- Submit directly to our publication, the New Literary Society. Use the title format: Trabble Contest: [Your Title], and the tag #fiction.
- Language: English.
- No fees.
- Submission deadline: February 28th, 2025
- Prizes awarded by: March 15th, 2025
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How to Vote
Simply clap! (The number of claps divided by the number of clappers will determine the popularity prize.)
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Prizes
- New Literary Society Prize
- Popularity Prize
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If You Win, Here’s What Awaits You
- Social Media Promotion: You and your work will be promoted on social media channels, increasing your visibility.
- Author Interviews: You will be interviewed, with the interviews published to highlight your achievements and creative process.
- Diplomas: You will receive personalized certificates recognizing your accomplishments.
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Before the Competition: The Midnight Riddle
(A Short Story Second Draft)
Dr. Emma Sinclair gazed out the vast expanse of her apartment window at the tranquil view of Bucharest bathed in a wintery, silvery moonlight.
The town laced with an ethereal glow had hushed into the silence of night. The hands of the clock were edging near the witching hour when she always surrendered before the realm of dreams. She was proud of her rigid regimen-to bed, early to rise. Tonight was different.
Emma burrowed under the blankets, eyes shut, and prayed for a good night’s sleep. But as the minutes ticked into eternity, sleep remained a mirage. Her head was filled with all sorts of racing thoughts, and her stomach clawed with that nagging feeling.
Emma glanced at the clock-the tough hands seemed to have stuck into midnight. This added to the bizarre mood that enveloped her-the fact that time had appeared to stand still. Her overwhelming prickling fear threw her legs over the edge of the bed as she now became determined to find out what mystery had penetrated her home.
The fragile steps of Emma sounded on the cool marble floor as she walked down the dimly illuminated corridor. On the walls, shadows pirouetted, their fantastic dance raised by the oppressive silence. Anticipation dripped from the air as if it held an unuttered secret. Her heartbeat quickened as she entered the living room. A bookshelf stood awry; its contents were thrown in chaos. It was a dissonant note in the symphony that was Emma’s world, a sight to make her blood run cold.
Her favorite books, arranged so neatly in their places on the shelves, were strewn all over the floor like abandoned toys. It was a blow to the solar plexus, a desecration of her sanctuary. Can you believe it? To just burst into someone else’s house and turn them upside down. Sounded like something out of a horror movie, I swear!
What’s even eerier? She was not alone. This spate of inexplicable vandalism has targeted many houses around the country. These stealthy intruders appear to be everywhere. What may be their motivation? Are they thrill-seekers seeking an adrenaline rush? Is there a deeper, more sinister intention at work here?
Emma doesn’t rattle easily, but where the invasion of privacy is concerned, it’s enough to make you lose your calm.
There she stood, amidst this mayhem in her living room, her heart pounding like a drum. Her mind was churning over question after question, each more unsettling than the last. Who was behind this? What did they want? More importantly, were they watching her at this moment?
But let us not worry about our Emma; she is a fighter. With that determined glitter in her eye, she literally and metaphorically started picking up the pieces. One thing was for certain: she was never going to let this faceless enemy intimidation get the best of her. No way, José!
Fire in her eyes, the kind that said, “Come on, I dare you!” She wasn’t picking up the pieces; she was planning her next move. This was a game that had just begun, and she wasn’t playing to keep but to win.
But here is where everything starts to get interesting. Her fingers find a piece of paper hidden between the pages of one of the books. Curious, she opens it up. And what does she find? A note. A word from an invisible adversary.
The note read, “The game has just begun.”
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– Julia Kalman
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Dear Cherished Followers, Writers, and Friends of Our Publication,
We warmly invite you all to participate in our contest and, if you haven’t already, to join our community as writers and active readers. Share your stories, connect with others, and become an integral part of our growing publication. If you’d prefer not to be tagged in future posts, please feel free to let us know.
(Please excuse us for not being able to tag all of you; perhaps another time.)
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