Tales Retold

The Prompt

Have you ever envisioned Little Red Riding Hood's encounter with the Big Bad Wolf in a dystopian future? Or an alternate spine-chilling horror ending to Rapunzel? Perhaps you've always imagined the Seven Dwarfs as a team of detectives in a noir-style mystery, solving the case of Snow White? This is your opportunity to explore these narratives, and many more.

The challenge is to take a beloved fairy tale - whether universally known or specific to one culture - and retell it in your own unique way. We are open to any genre - modern, fantastical, horror, or sci-fi for example - the world is your oyster, the fairy tales are your pearls.

Your story must be a reimagining or a retelling of an existing fairy tale, not a completely new creation. Aside from that, there are no boundaries to the unexpected spins you can put on these timeless tales.

Check out this list of fairy tales to get your ideas flowing.

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

• Between 600-5,000 words.
• Based on an existing fairy tale.

This challenge was inspired by L.C. Schäfer's and Stephanie Hoogstad's suggestions to Shape the Future of Vocal Challenges.

The Prizes

• Grand Prize: $600
• Second Place: $200
• 10 Runners-Up: $25

For your story to be eligible, it should be between 600 and 5,000 words, and adhere to our Community Guidelines. Stories published on Vocal and entered into the contest up until 11:59 PM ET on August 22nd will be entered for consideration. Official Rules for the Challenge can be found here.

The Tales Retold 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.