Personally, I think this is a hard one (twss) but that's what challenges are for, right? Have a conversation between two or more people (people being intelligent entities, not necessarily human beings) where the omission of key information gets things m…

Write a conversation where both people are holding back, neither of them saying what they mean.

You have 1024 characters to write some kind of high epic fiction. Pick any genre, but make it big, make it epic, make it challenging for your characters. What are they facing and how are they going to handle the challenge?

As usual, you have a month. Wr…

Writing exposition is easy. In fact, a common mistake of young writers is the infamous infodump -- writing long paragraphs and pages that do nothing more than provide background and world-building for their story. It's much more difficult -- and much more…

You're at your local carnival. You have your wristband and are looking at all the rides. They look so fun and you wan tot ride them. But you are by yourself. A single rider. You get in line anyway and as a single rider you practically get to jump straight…

Time has been captured in a small space. A month seems to hold a year, and there seems to be no way forward, no way to break the endless cycle. Write about the scenario. Tell us what is happening, either to the world around your characters, to the charact…

Do you have a favorite style to write in? Who or what inspires you? I challenge you to write in your favorite style (all subjects and all genres accepted). Then leave a comment on this challenge with who are what inspires you. I will do my best to judge e…

Write a story in 3rd person that takes place in a wide open grassland. A bone or bone fragment must appear but doesn't have to be the focal point. The genre, protagonist, direction, and setting outside the grassland requirement are up to you. This challen…

Anyone paying attention to the news knows that there are mass refugee migrations taking place around the world. People of the Arab nations are fleeing into Europe and Russia, and Hispanics of all stripes are crossing into the US. In all cases this has cau…

I challenge you to write something where someone or something shakes (the ground, the window panes, the strange dog). The act of shaking should be significant but not necessarily obvious. All subject or genres are welcome. Optional second part of the chal…

I challenge you to write a story where something is out of reach (literally or figuratively). This distance should drive the actions of your character(s) and thus your story. All subjects and genres welcome

Write a story that takes place in a fantasy world, similar to those of Dungeons & Dragons or Tolkien's works.

I challenge you to write something where someone or something shakes (the ground, the window panes, the strange dog). The act of shaking should be significant but not necessarily obvious. All subject or genres are welcome. Optional second part of the chal…

One day there was nothing, the next day it was there. The size doesn't matter. It could be as small as a coin or as big as a stadium. But someone or something put it there and people are beginning to take notice, to be entranced. Please create a character…

Patrick Rothfuss managed to write a short novel by this title which features only one human character throughout the story. How did this capture a reader's attention so strongly that they read the entire book in one sitting?

Simple. There were many other…

A federal court recently ruled that the Oxford comma is absolutely essential to clarity in writing. All our English grammar classes emphasize proper punctuation -- commas, apostrophes, quotation marks, exclamation points, etc. Punctuation tells us where t…

Betrayal. It's sharpness stings. You know that feeling of violation, and it is violating to have a secret become public. It's like someone pulling off a bandaid to reveal one of your fears, one that you thought was safe. It feels shameful. Sometimes it is…

There is a fence. You can decide on the details and change what you like. By default, the fence is five feet tall, chain link, and it rattles when the wind blows (perhaps your fence is short, wooden and painted white). The fence isn't that important. What…

I guess I'll kick this sucker off.

We all have dreams, some good, some nightmarish, but probably mostly somewhere in between. Pick a dream you've had -- recently, from childhood, whatever -- and use it as the basis of a story.

I'll leave the challenge …

I challenge you to write a story where something is out of reach (literally or figuratively). This distance should drive the actions of your character(s) and thus your story. All subjects and genres welcome

The challenge is to write a poem, lyric, or story that uses three words chosen by someone else, as unrelated to one another as possible.

Feel free to simply choose words in some random fashion on your own, or request some here in a comment, or leave a th…