Microcosm’s Greater Challenges

You’ve scaled the hills of Short Shorts, now seek out the mountains

A Growing Collection of Challenges

These challenges are for writers looking for more than a weekly prompt.

For writers who find the word count squeeze pedestrian, for writers who seek greater battles. For writers that have submitted the hills of a complete story, of consistent practice and regularly accepted stories.

You’ve earned the right to take on something bigger.

General Challenge Requirements

• These are open to all writers who have had a story accepted.
• It’s recommended though that you try out a full month of weekly prompts before trying these challenges. Particularly a 300-word story before taking on a Mini Novella.
• Engage with other writers and their stories before attempting an Accidental Anthology to increase the chances other writers pick up your baton and continue the chain.

Our Newest Challenge:

The current challenge we have going is the 💯 Story Challenge, to write 100 stories, in a 100 days at least 100 words long.

A perfect challenge for those restarting their writing habits or with post-January resolution blues.

Empty World

A challenge not to write another story, but to write another world. A world waiting for a hero. Try your hand at describing an inviting world — one that begs for someone to explore. Read how in the link below.

Why do it? To become better at describing an engaging and exciting setting. Ensuring it is complete enough for another to write in but mysterious enough that the questions posed beg to be answered in their own unique ways.

Heroes for Hire

If you’ve written an Empty World, then you should try a Hero for Hire. Write a character study to share and see what adventures and troubles our community throws at them. Read how in the link below.

Why do it? To become better at writing characters. Writing a character that someone else can run with makes them more complete and more inspiring for readers too.

Villains to Vanquish

After an Empty World and a Hero for Hire, then the next thing is your Villain to Vanquish. Write us a damn good, bad guy.

Why do it? Every good hero needs a villain to battle against, a well rounded antagonist to show he’s true worth. It’s more character practice.

Here are all our previous villains you can pick any of these to write to, just remember to tag the original writer so they can check out your story.

Accidental Anthologies¹

What is it?

A collection of stories that start with a seed story and subsequent writers add their own versions, linking back to the first story and the rest in the chain.

Why would I want to do this?

It's a fun way to collaborate and interact with your fellow writers in the Microcosm Community. The editors tend to like them so your story has a higher chance of being accepted and workshopped.

How do I do it?

• It couldn’t be easier — read plenty of stories! Start here.
• And when you stumble across an idea or theme that really resonates, and is fairly fresh, write your own version and submit it like any other story.
• Try to stick to the same word count as the first author to keep the challenge the same. Using more words is kinda cheating!
• Remember to include a small explanation or backstory of what inspired your own version.
• Tag the author of the first story as well as a link to their story. Have a look at the example below for ideas on how to do that.
• You tag an author by using the @ sign and then typing their username. It will turn green when you get it right. E.g. Zane Dickens

Past Anthologies:

A collection post will be made for all chains at least three stories long.

Mini Novella in Flash

What is it?

A Novella in Flash is a collection of flash fiction stories that centre around a single theme or event.

Why would I want to do this?

If you’ve written a ton of flash fiction you might begin to yearn for more, to write something bigger or longer. This is a good next step.

How do I do it?

• You can follow a month’s prompts connecting or you can write unprompted stories up to 300 words long, provided you have an approved 300-word story already.
• The event can be anything interesting enough to spawn multiple stories. Something happy, sad, traumatic, or explosive. The choice is yours.
• It can have one main character throughout or multiple characters each within their own story or appearing in all. But it is the event or theme that links them together, not necessarily the characters.
• Each story needs to stand on its own, but when read all together it must be clear they’re connected. Ideally reading all of them should complete the stories even more.
• Accepted challenges entries will be linked below for other writers to enjoy and learn from.
• Link your stories together by pasting a version of this template at the bottom of your stories (or if you’re following prompts see Zane’s example). Then link Part 1 to your first story and so on.

This a Mini-Novella in Flash below you’ll find links to all of the related pieces:

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | The End

Previous Mini Novellas in Flash

This collection by Zane Dickens looks at one event from the senses of five different people, using the prompts of our April 2021 Sensate Edition.

Each story deals with a single sense, starting with taste then moving through touch, smell, hearing and sight.

Nanji Erode’s stories look into the odd relationships humans have with their robots. Part 2 is my personal favourite.

The Wild Week Challenge

Flash Fiction’s answer to the 30 Day Challenge, a 7 Day Challenge. Because Life will find a way … to wreck your plans, so keep ‘em small and get ’em done.

Why do it? To increase your follower base. To reach more eyes and to try different prompts. To increase your writing output. To learn to writer faster.

Become a Serial Writer

We’re glad to see you made it thus far. This is the tippy top of the Microcosm Mountain. If you’ve beaten all the other challenges, take on this one.

Here you tells us a story that spans multiple parts, here to create something so engaging your readers are compelled to click not once but multiple times. Driven by a thirst to know what happens right to the very end.

For the bravest of writers, proceed with caution:

The trick of this challenge is not simply writing a serial of multiple episodes, that would be too easy to claim the highest spot. No you must do that, you must achieve that feat, while answering every prompt in a single month.

Why do it? To learn to write longer. To earn more reading minutes. To know that you can progress to the next step once you succeed.

¹ Credit must be given to Paul Mansfield for the seed of the name ‘Accidental Anthology’ in his postscript after. As well as the idea for the Empty World kickers.

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