Flash Fiction Challenge: Write 1000 words in 3 days for a chance to enter | For LegendFiction Members!
As part of our Season of the Quilldrake ᴮᴱᵀᴬ
A fun writing challenge for our whole community, and anyone new who wants to join us!
Anyone can enter a short story under 1000 words, using one special word as the idea.
Everyone gets three days to write after the word is shared.
The best stories are gathered in a free collection that stays free forever.
This free story collection is a gift LegendFiction gives away to readers.
It helps them discover new writers like you, and see what our community is all about. When you add your story, you’re helping spread creativity and invite more people into Legend Fiction. By joining in, you’re helping grow the community and making it easier for new readers and writers to find their way to us!
We’re looking for strong writing and fun, strange, creative stories!
Unlike an anthology with a longer deadline, this is fast-paced challenge. We hosted a flash fiction challenge for LegendHaven 2025, and 6 authors leapt to write incredible stories.
We think it’s a fun and fantastic way to encourage all members in our community to get creative together, once per season.
How the challenge works:
On Friday, January 23th, we’ll announce the special word for this challenge.
You’ll then have 3 days to create a story and post it inside the challenge space!
Last chance to enter this challenge is midnight, Sunday, January 25th.
The Only Rule: the word must be used within the story in some way. You can make it big, tiny, weird, genre-bend it, turn it into tech, turn it into a tool, twist it into something new, make it funny, reimagine it… (Keep the story mostly family-friendly.)
Everyone writes at the same time, so it feels like a group event.
After the deadline, the event host Dominic de Souza will read through them all, select the best-written and most original entries, and announce the winners.
What you get:
An epic Season Challenge badge on your profile
A copy of the ebook before everyone else
Your name on the book and a shoutout on the blog that we share with the world
Possible: your story read aloud on the Youtube livestream show!
If the idea works well, we’ll do it again every season!
See an example of our last Reader Gift: Shards of Wonder
Creative Constraints
World: Any world you want
Target Audience: YA
Story Types: Clear beginning and end, inventive worlds, unusual events
Hard Rules: One main character, one POV, standalone story only, no saving the world, your character cannot be the most powerful person in the room
How Stories Win: excellent writing style, clear attention to the rules and theme, fast paced, start in the middle of a problem, end as soon as possible
Bonus Points: Refer to events from other stories as inside jokes
📅 Deadline: January 25. We will publish if we accrue ~10 stories.
👋 Host: Dominic de Souza
🔗Links: How anthologies work | Your copyrights | Terms
All questions welcome!
Awesome idea, Dominic! Count me in.
I'm out of town camping Friday-Saturday, but how hard can 1,000 words be in 36 hours?