Come explore the unknown and vote for your favorite story
Check out nine original stories written by the Storyletter community
Two months flew by like that *single finger snap*, and the latest prompt from Storyletter XPress Publishing comes to an end tonight.
What an amazing turnout! I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of entries and the differing styles presented therein. You may be familiar with several of these stories already as I’ve been cross-posting them to the SXP audience every Saturday.
From March 15 - May 17th, we hosted a writing prompt called “Exploring the Unknown”. The idea was to write a poem or flash fiction piece exploring any sort of journey into the unknown whether it be a physical or psychological one, Earth-side or off-world.
The result?
9 original pieces of short fiction
The entries for this prompt were incredible all around. I’m consistently impressed by the talent here on Substack. We had elements of horror, sci-fi, fantasy, contemporary, and even a mixture of each. Here is the complete list:
Voting parameters
Since Raising Rocabarra (5/20) and The Derelict (5/27) haven’t been cross-posted yet, voting will extend to May 31st.
Votes will be accepted in the form of comments on this post. Readers must clearly state the name of the story and/or author, along with a brief statement about why they are voting for that story. This is an attempt to prove that voters have at least read the story they are voting for. For example, “I’m voting for ___ because I really enjoyed the way they implemented ___.”
Entrants won’t be able to vote for themselves directly, however, if an entrant votes for another story, they will in turn receive one complimentary vote on their own story. This is to encourage good sportsmanship, while allowing for—in the case of no external voters—the winner to be chosen by their peers.
Only one vote comment per reader. Must be subscribed to Storyletter XPress Publishing for the vote to count in order to discourage external subscriber count advantages. Any final ties will be broken by Winston’s vote.
Feel free to comment on this post with words of encouragement, or constructive thoughts for making this space better for writers and readers. It won’t count against your one vote comment.
Winning prizes
The entrant prize for this prompt is a $25 gift card to the Storyletter Gift Shop.
Bonus: Two vote comments will be chosen at random to receive a 3-month paid subscription to Storyletter XPress Publishing. Additional comments do not increase your chances of winning, nor does the length of the comment.
Double bonus: If there are over 20 votes total for this event, I’ll double the cash prize to $50.
When is the next prompt?
Our next prompt will begin June 21st to kick off the Summer season. The prompt theme will be announced in its respective post on that day. For more insight into what that might look like, check out our previous prompts, “Exploring the Unknown” and “Flip a Common Trope.”
Good luck and happy reading!
It's so hard to choose just one! I enjoyed all the stories, they were all done so well, and they were all so incredibly different! I have a few favs, but I think for this I have to cast my vote for Raising Rocabarra. Something about the mysterious setting, the unknown quest, the foreboding, and the way the story revealed itself as if walking in a narrow pool of torchlight really exemplified a sense of exploring the unknown. Even the end, though it explains the immediate goal of the protagonist, manages to raise new questions. Plus, it's just fun.
This is such a difficult vote! All the stories were wonderful, but The Canyon has my vote. I felt like I was there, drinking coffee, forging past snake ridden rocks, peering at the stars at night. Beautifully written.