2014 Flash Fiction Challenge! One flash fiction story under 500 words a week for 52 weeks–that is your challenge! Stories must be under 500 words and contain the classic story elements: protagonist, obstacles or complications, and resolution. Each Wednesday I will post a weekly  writing prompt.

Weekly Prompts & Submissions

Fifty-two: Start your story with: “I’m telling you this story because you are the only person I can trust not to judge me . . .” Submissions.

Fifty-one: A famous, unsolved crime. Submissions.

Fifty: About an hour ago. Submissions.

Forty-nine: Start a story with the following sentence: The first __________. Submissions.

Forty-eight: Revisit a favourite character from one of your past #FFC52 stories and write a new story about this character using the word “oyster” somewhere in it. Submissions.

Forty-seven: Your narrator discovers an object (or objects) hidden in the family home. Submissions.

Forty-six: Study a stranger the next time you are in a coffee shop, on a bus or subway, in a queue. Write a story involving this stranger. You can make it a tragedy, comedy, horror, Sci-fi, mystery — whatever suits your style. Go! Submissions.

Forty-seven: Your narrator discovers an object (or objects) hidden in the family home. Submissions.

Forty-six: Study a stranger the next time you are in a coffee shop, on a bus or subway, in a queue. Write a story involving this stranger. You can make it a tragedy, comedy, horror, Sci-fi, mystery — whatever suits your style. Submissions.

Forty-five: Grab the book (or your favourite book) you’re reading, turn to page 45, close your eyes, point to a word, and write about it! Have fun! Submissions.

Forty-four: “You smell terrible. What happened?” Submissions.

Forty-three: It’s Halloween! Let’s write a scary story! Use this picture as your inspiration. Submissions.

Forty-two: Continue any other author’s story already posted to #FFC52 over the past 41 weeks. Submissions.

Forty-one: Two convenience store employees are stuck at work during blizzard. Submissions.

Forty: While driving to work one morning, you decide to drive past the office and keep on driving. Submissions.

Thirty-nine: A public relations (PR) firm’s newest client is a PR nightmare. Submissions.

Thirty-eight: Your main character finds the skeleton of a baby in an old curiosity shop and decides to buy it. Submissions.

Thirty-seven: Infinite Jest. Submissions.

Thirty-six: Memento mori (remember that you will die). Submissions.

Thirty-five: “Well, to be honest, I threw it away.” Submissions.

Thirty-four: “You have ten seconds . . .” Submissions.

Thirty-three: Open the book you are reading right now (or a favourite if you aren’t reading anything, oh, and shame on you!), turn to page 33 (or 33% on e-readers) and write a super flash fiction about the first proper noun (person, place or thing) on the page! Word count is 500 as usual, but feel free to use 33 as your word count for this week!! Submissions.

Thirty-two: A celebrity of your choice (alive or dead) applies for a job and gets an interview. Submissions.

Thirty-one: A woman’s cat goes missing. Two days later she receives a random note. Submissions.

Thirty:  A man steals a large sum of money to pay a debt to a loan shark. He saves his ass from a beating, but is haunted by the nature of what has done. Submissions.

Twenty-nine: Create a six-word story. Submissions.

Twenty-eight: Your protagonist is an inanimate object granted sentience by a higher power. Submissions.

Twenty-seven: A journalist writing a story about living on death row begins to fall for one of the inmates she’s interviewing. Submissions.

Twenty-six: ”Do you notice anything different about me?” Submissions.

Twenty-five: Your protagonist is a member of jury about to hear the sentencing of the criminal you just convicted. Submissions.

Twenty-four: “I’d seen some big ones in my time, but this one…..this one was huge.” Submissions.

Twenty-three: The first men/women to set foot on Mars return to their ship only to find a large, strange insect on the door of the ship. Submissions.

Twenty-two: You (or your protagonist) walk through a door, only to find that not only are you not where you expected and there doesn’t seem to be a way back…” Submissions.

Twenty-one: A woman purchases a cookbook at a charity book sale and discovers a note tucked in the pages. Submissions.

Twenty: Staring at the painting (or sculpture) in the museum, I was horrified to discover… Submissions.

Nineteen: A man’s dog (or pet of your choice) develops the uncanny ability to communicate telepathically with him. Submissions.

Eighteen: “Weird things remind me of her. Cabbage,  for instance.” Submissions.

Seventeen: An escaped prisoner hides from police within a group of homeless men. Submissions.

Sixteen: For unknown reasons, insects begin to grow larger and smarter. Submissions.

Fifteen: A desperate man comes up with a unique way to make some extra cash. Submissions.

Fourteen: Oh, I’ll propose a toast to the happy couple, all right. Submissions.

Thirteen: A man gets a phone call in the middle of the night asking for sensitive information. Submissions.

Twelve: Suffering a mid-life crisis, a man on the eve of his fiftieth birthday quits his job and goes on a  quest to “get the band back together.” Submissions.

Eleven: While scrolling through Facebook, a women sees a picture of herself in a post about fashion victims. Submissions.

Ten: Two childhood friends meet up after twenty years. After several drinks, one admits to having murdered several people. Submissions.

Nine: Look, somebody has to make a decision. Submissions.

Eight: Three people walk into a bar after an earthquake. Submissions.

Seven: He made movies. I didn’t ask what kind. Submissions.

Six: A thirty-year-old man is having a conversation with his imaginary friend. Submissions.

Five: A man decides to surprise his wife by bringing her lunch at work. When he gets there, he is told she hasn’t worked there in weeks. Submissions.

Four: Two people get into a heated discussion on a busy city street. Submissions.

Three: While at a party, two adult siblings find themselves attracted to the same person. Submissions.

Two: A writer famous for horror stories is writing a story that grows so terrifying that he/she becomes to afraid to complete it. Submissions.

One: A vagrant approaches a well-dressed man who leaves a trendy coffee shop with a five-dollar latte and a fat-free scone. Submissions.