Just a Minute

The Prompt

Can you create a compelling story filled with tension, drama, or excitement that plausibly takes places within 60 seconds? For this challenge, we would like you to write a short fiction story where all the action takes place within a single minute. Whether it's a dramatic confrontation, or a fleeting goodbye, you must fit everything into a very tiny window of time. The word count limitation of 500-1,500 words means you won't be abe to write it or read it in a minute. Are you up for the challenge?

In order for your submission to qualify, it must be:

• Between 500-1,500 words.
• Be submitted to Fiction community. Choosing a community is a final step in the submission process.

The Prizes

• Grand Prize: $500
• Second Place: $200
• 10 Runners-Up: $20

Special shout-out to Breezy for inspiring this challenge idea in Share Your Ideas to Shape the Future of Vocal Challenges.

For your piece to be eligible, it should adhere to our Community Guidelines. Stories published on Vocal and entered into the contest up until 11:59 PM ET on May 2, 2024 will be entered for consideration. Official Rules for the Challenge can be found here.

The Just a Minute 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 runners-up 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.