I’m at Geek’d Con in Shreveport, Louisiana for the weekend, helping run the Raconteur Press booth. Friday was fun, lighter crowds, and a bunch of folks who were a little wide-eyed and curious. Turns out the local Air Force base gave a bunch of it’s people free tickets, four per family, for the Friday. So we had a ton of kids and folks who were very curious about everything. Today, Saturday, will be ten hours of commerce, costumes, and conversations. It will be exhausting, and worth it.
In the meantime! I plan to do some posts soon on formatting for print, but today is not that day. Some of you may recall the Postcard challenge RacPress did a year ago, which turned into some charming little books full of the winners. There’s no book for this one, but I’m going to give you postcards for inspiration below. I challenge you to pick one, and write a 50 word story about it in the comments.
Have fun! And remember, when you have done this, you can say you wrote today, and you finished something! It’s only 50 words. You can do this!
Go! Write!
I can’t wait to see what you make with my images!
Mad Genius Club 
17 responses to “Story Challenge”
Image #1
Cold Case
“Drop it!”
The man turned, knife dripping blood. I’d been too late again. His grin was unrelentingly feral, tinged with red. Graveyard chill made my aim tremble.
Rain sluiced off my hat, but drifted through him.
Could you even kill a ghost? I sure as hell was going to try.
great story!
I can’t believe I did it! I wrote a 50 word story! (and I apologize if this ends up posted 3 times – I had a devil of a time leaving the comment because of stupid login)
image #1
Predator
He rounded the corner and stopped dead.
The click of a hammer cocking accompanied her deadly smile. “Looking for something?”
He cringed back with raised hands. “N-no! J-just out walkin’!”
“You hunted the wrong prey, Monstru.”
Pretense dropped. Fangs flashed. “Bullet won’t stop my kind.”
“Silver ones will.” She fired.
Love it!
Image #5:
The offworlders’ command center was a blight on the landscape, and Warlord Ajax watched with hatred as the shuttle brought in another tithe of local workers. Hatred, but hope; spies were necessary if there was ever to be independence. Hope, but sorrow; Ajax blinked away tears. “Good luck, my son.”
TXRed here as Admin – your comments got sent into Spam, instead of moderation. I’ve released two, and will remove the duplicates. WP has been very glitchy about comments across a lot of WordPress blogs for the past few weeks. Sorry about the frustration!
thank you! Thankfully, replying directly to the email had worked, but I’m happy to know that there won’t be any unintended multiposts showing up in the future. I fully blame wordpress – it was definitely not the fault of anyone on your end 🙂 But thank you very much for being so prompt in getting things ironed out!
Second Half…
#5
After the crash, James made it his goal to climb the hill. Why? The air wasn’t breathable, he had only hours left on his suit. But he climbed.
Near the top he heard the roar of rockets. He scrambled the last few steps…and there was the city.
He wasn’t alone.
#6
There was something off about the dame, something mysterious and otherworldly. And then it hit him.
Her lips.
They were not black or white or anything in-between. They were a color that had no name, that almost hurt to gaze on.
But who had done this to her and why?
#7
The Captain drank from his hip flask. Not whiskey, but milk of magnesia. The brass loved the idea, but his ulcers hated this mission.
What if the Tesla Ray slipped and the kaiju was set free? That spy that jumped…couldn’t have lived, but what if he did and warned Neo-Tokyo?
#8
“A token of your love? I would be hono—”
“No, you fool! It’s soaked in holy water, an extract of wolfsbane, and aqueous silver.”
“Ah, so a token from your father the alchemist.”
“And my uncle, the priest. And, I suppose,” said said, gazing down. “From me.”
#9
For generations, Birizoth ravaged the land. But who could kill a dragon?
“Set a thief to catch a thief,” the young king said, quoting a nursery rhyme, after Birizoth killed his father.
Eleven years later, we found Tolgrakz, Birizoth’s former mate, whose eggs were trampled in a rage.
Vengeance comes.
Last Image:
Party of Seven
“First summit! Let’s camp here tonight.”
“We’d be on the third summit if Darkflame would let us ride. Why have a dragon in the party if he won’t do anything?”
“I’ll do plenty ere the end. But if you can’t handle this first climb alone, you’ll never complete the quest!”
Image 3:
The little girl was lost in the forest, when she came across a unicorn foal.
“What’s wrong, little girl?”
“I can’t find my way back to the village,” she cried.
“It’s this way.”
The foal guided the girl back to her village.
“Thank you!” The girl hugged the foal goodbye.
One for the Road
By Jesse Barrett
The city was on fire and it was Tim’s fault.
Sure, it usually was, but who starts a fight with a band of adventures so fresh off the road they are still dusty?
The resulting to-do got a little out of hand.
We just wanted a drink and a bed.
Black ink, white paper. Red lipstick was impossible, but there it was. Then creamy skin. More shades of grey.
I’d heard it could happen, characters coming to life on the page. Never thought I’d see it.
She stared, suspicious.
“Okay, bub,” he growled. ” You’re the writer. Why are we here?”
(sixth from the top)
O, I like this one.
#5
Cerebos towered over the city. In the first century, they’d clung close to the life support systems of the colony ship. The introduced Earth plants had taken over the land.
“Soon we’ll let the animals out.” He stared upward. “Like the Cerebus, I will never again fly between the stars.”
Nursery school was a busy time for unicorns and their companions. They learned to sing in harmony and dance with grace. More joy than grace really because of course they were very young but everything good comes with practice and love. But always after lunch they napped in the meadows.
(Sometimes a picture just throws words at you)
#4 Zek was no magician. He merely recognized the science that linked human thought to quantum effects. From flipping an electron’s charge he quickly graduated to larger effects, like varying the gravitational constant of a star. No one is entirely sure that the disappearance of Glieg-426a wasn’t his parlor trick.
Image #4
We walked through the park after our first date, the streetlights just coming on along the boulevard. I noticed some mushrooms growing in a fairy circle around a small tree stump. I stopped to pick one, wondering if they were edible. She looked back as I took my first nibble.