Foggy Waters
Write a short horror fiction story set in or near a body of water.
Prizes
- First Place:
- $5,000
- Second Place:
- $2,500
- Third Place:
- $1,000
Status
CompletedTimeline
Submissions opened
Sep 30, 2021
Submissions closed
Nov 03, 2021 3:59 AM CUT
Results
Nov 16, 2021
Prizes
- First Place:
- $5,000
- Second Place:
- $2,500
- Third Place:
- $1,000
Status
CompletedTimeline
Submissions opened
Sep 30, 2021
Submissions closed
Nov 03, 2021 3:59 AM CUT
Results
Nov 16, 2021
About this challenge
Summoning all horror-loving spirits! This Challenge is inspired by the unforgiving New England coasts, the lakes too deep to see the bottom, and the clowns and gators that live in the sewer. This spooky season, we're asking you to create a piece of short horror fiction that is set in or near a body of water.
The body of water can be natural or man-made, and serve as an integral plot point or a scenic detail. Whether you choose to create a story about a Victorian ghost ship, a lighthouse where the residents slowly go mad, or a Jaws-inspired massacre amidst the waves, the only requirement is that your entire story takes place in, on, or around the water.
How to enter
Your story should be between 600 and 3,000 words and adhere to our Community Guidelines. Stories published on Vocal and entered into the contest up until November 2, 2021, at 11:59 PM EST will be entered for consideration. Official Rules for the Challenge can be found here.
The Foggy Waters Challenge is exclusive to Vocal+ members. To learn more and upgrade to Vocal+ visit https://vocal.media/vocal-plus.
To be eligible to win the grand prize, second place, or third place prizes, you must be over the age of 13 and residing in a country where Stripe is available at the time of entry. A complete list of countries where Stripe is available can be found here—winners will need to have a Stripe account created and connected in order to receive the prizes. For this reason, entrants located outside of any of these countries will not be eligible to win.
Open challenges
Challenges you can enter now for a chance to win.
Challenge resources
Love Unraveled Challenge Winners
Sometimes the simplest challenges are the deepest and most revealing. For this challenge we asked you to “unravel the mysteries, joys, and challenges of love through the power of personal storytelling” — we all love, we all feel we know what it means to love. Yet this challenge offered a reminder of the infinite shapes of human connection, and what power love has over us, even in the face of struggle and pain.
Vocal Curation TeamPublished 5 days ago in ResourcesInverse Challenge Winners
Misplaced keys, biodegradable pots, rainbow jellycats… such “ordinary” objects, images, you might say — but they are what make Teresa Renton’s Lost Things Wait for You to Find Them but Sometimes They Don't inverse poem stand out as our winner. We are drawn into the particular world of this poem by specific visions like that. In this latest challenge, we asked you for a poem that could be read from the top or the bottom, and which takes on a different meaning depending which way you read. Teresa’s poem made me think a little bit of Elizabeth Bishop’s famous villanelle, One Art, in its conflicted engagement with loss and abandonment. A terrific achievement.
Vocal Curation TeamPublished 12 days ago in ResourcesSnow Micro Challenge Winners
We think of snow as cleansing, purifying — but thinking outside the box is never a bad idea. For our Snow Micro challenge, our Grand Prize winner Dane BH conjures up light flurries in her winning entry, Our Tribe. Dirty gray city snow mounds in piles before melting away, an effective but never forced metaphor for a friendship that has thinned and frayed beyond survival. This is a brief masterclass in effective storytelling.
Vocal Curation TeamPublished 19 days ago in Resources