Monthly Theme: We Need A Hero

We’ll line up the villains and you knock ’em down.

The world has many villains.

And this month we supply our own most wanted list.

The four villains regarded by our readership (and whoever you could get to vote on your behalf) to be the most genius, the most horrifying and the most worthy of being vanquished.

Four horsemen of their personal apocalypses that our heros must take down, either as lone wolves or as part of a team.

Regardless, it’s your mission to take them down in spectacular fashion. Share with us the final moment, the epic battle, that courageous last stand. Or the brilliantly interrupted monologue.

These villains will come from our growing list of monsters:

But we won’t tell you which of these we’ll be setting in your path.

No, a hero must be able to rise to unexpected challenges. To take up their sword and vanquish any foe we set before them.

To rise at the darkest moment and step up to do battle when we, the people, need them. We need a hero (bonus points for writing to this song)

Write Together, Grow Together

In the spirit of collaboration this month, we’re building up a writer supplied Most Wanted List.

Writers started sharing them in the last week of September

We’re now tallying the most popular stories for our Top 4.

We’ll take a final count just before the first prompt on October 6th.

So even if your villain was just shared, you have time to climb the ranks.

Each week we’ll prompt you with one of the Top 4, in reverse order, leaving the most popular, ingenious, horrifying villainous villain for last.

Although I must admit the Top 4 are looking pretty clear, so if you want a chance to be included, you better round up your votes (via clapping fans).

And if you’re not sure how this started, this is the gauntlet we threw down:

If you haven’t accepted our challenge, then here’s how you get started:

Last Month’s theme was Hope Springs Eternal

One of our most popular themes and an amazingly successful collaboration with the Dystopian Project. Perhaps we’ll do something like that again.

It’s a great way to try new publications, genres, meet new friends and find new readers.

Here’s the list of theme and prompts in case you missed any

Our prompts are evergreen. Use them when every inspiration or writer’s block strikes. The most important thing is to keep writing.

Five Fan Favorites

All of these stories scored over 10 fans. Dear writers, if you were wandering which stories to invest in expanding, your fans have spoken.

If you missed any of these give ‘em a read:

1. Paul Mansfield’s With the Flames, Comes Hope, tops the charts with 16 fans and a nearly ironic clap count of 667.
2. Zane Dickens’ The Goat that saw the World is next and may just hit you in the feels.
3. Rayne Sanning’s The Cost of Living, March 2052, a newer writer at Microcosm, knocks it out the park with this one.
4. CK Green’s Journey Across an Ocean of Plastic, shows us a better world away from all our plasticky woes.
5. Nanji Erode’s Erasing People From the Past, the third part in his “How I Died” series, struck a cord with readers.

We had a lot of good stories, and this is a quick-to-sample popularity metric, so I’m sure it excludes newer writers with less rabid fans. If this made you mad or sad, let me know and I’ll mix it up next month.

Five Fan Favorites from Dystopian Project

We couldn’t end a collab month without sharing the top five stories as selected by Grandmaster Jann (direct all hate mail in that direction).

If you missed any of these, give ‘em a read:

1. Camilla Seth, took top honors with The End Came with the Flood and second place actually but we limited to one story per writer!
2. Rayne Sanning’s Sea Treasures took second place.
3. Zane Dickens’s We Had Food (twisting little drabble)
4. Marianne Simon’s The Wells Have Gone Dry
5. Jann Christoph von der Pütten’s Forgotten Depths (another drabble)

Also, follow the Dystopian Project for great stories!