Holiday Scandal Contest: Reindeer Revolt and Other Untrue Tales

‘Tis the season again, time for some holiday cheer. So let’s bring a smile to some faces this week! How about another TWB writing contest? Let’s do one with a heaping measure of comedy, something that will make people laugh out loud. Ready? Okay! We’ll tell you our ideas.

Everyone doesn’t celebrate Christmas. Many cultural holidays revolve around the end of the year, and we can embrace them all. No matter what custom you practice, there has to be a way to make it funny and emotionally accessible for all of us. Therefore, we’re looking for stories across all traditions and cultures—fiction only, please—that give us a humorous look inside festivities around the world.

One good example of a Christmas prompt we heard was suggested by @deadsun—an uprising in Santa’s workshop, complete with militant elves and rebellious reindeer. But this is just one possibility. Get creative! See how hard you can make us laugh!

Top prize in this contest will be 50 Steem, courtesy of @curie, and 10 SBI shares. If we have more than ten entries, we’ll award second and third prizes, TBA. Fewer than ten entries, and we will award one overall winner. Maximum word count for this contest is 1500 words. Deadline is midnight EST on December 31.

Some Tips for Scoring Well in this Contest

The Writers’ Block has always been about quality authorship. That’s why we’re selective about what we upvote and support. Winning our contests isn’t easy. This doesn’t mean we don’t want you to enter them. We just want you to give the effort your very best, and even drop into The Block for some advice before posting. Our editors are always happy to talk to you about writing. It’s what we do!

Some things to think about before submitting your fiction:

A) Is it a story? Or is it an essay? Essays have their place, but we’re looking to be shown a funny tale, not told one. For more information on showing versus telling, have a look at the article posted online HERE.

B) Does the opening line grab the reader and set the hook? Do the first few sentences provide an inciting incident that gives the reader solid clues about the nature of the story? Or is your opening an info dump, a description of the weather, or backstory? For more information about writing great story openings, see THIS article. If the opening of your story is not strong and compelling, our editors will probably not read further than the first paragraph or two, and the same is likely true for most of the audience you hope to entertain.

C) Is your Point of View consistent? Many debates rage about which point of view is most effective. We can tell you for a fact that our editors don’t care much for omniscient voice. Why? Because it’s seldom done well and is most often an exercise in head-hopping. If you don’t know what we mean by this, have a look at the article HERE. It may be a very eye-opening read for you.

D) Due to our lack of editors fluent in various languages, we accept only submissions written in English. If you’re not a native English speaker, it might be worth your while to get an opinion from someone who is before submitting your story. We treasure the fresh voices from different parts of the world and love it when we find a unique accent written into a piece of work. However, this isn’t the same thing as broken English or poorly constructed syntax. Those things will disqualify your entry, as will misspelled words, poor grammar, or excessive typos. That is true even if English is the author’s native language.

With these things in mind, have fun writing your story and we look forward to reading your entries! Just provide a link in the comments below. We’ll respond to each submission letting the author know we received it. Thank you!