If it’s July, it’s hot, so it must be time for shorts. Short stories, that is! Shorts in July is the name of our group’s writing challenge for our July meeting.
The Challenge
Pick a theme song. Your choices are (links below)
- Here Comes the Sun, sung by the Beatles
- Ring of Fire, sung by Johnny Cash
- Hot Blooded, sung by Foreigner.
Write a story inspired by your theme song.
Your story should include the three challenge words SULTRY, INFERNO, and FERVID.
The Details
Your story should
- be no more than 1000 words;
- fit in one of our genres–science fiction, fantasy, or horror;
- poems are acceptable as entries;
- include no author byline or other identifying information;
- Reveal, either in the story or in a separate preface, the name of the song that inspired the story
- Use all three challenge words;
- Be in some way connected to the song in mood, lyrics, or some other manner of your choosing;
- Have a unique title–please don’t use the song’s title as your story’s title.
- Bring your story to the meeting in a plain, unmarked manila envelope.
The Officers will have unmarked envelopes at the meeting if you don’t have one available. Genres are intended to be broadly interpreted–a slipstream story, for example, is fine.
The Game
We’ll proceed as we do at the Holiday meeting, with an anonymous reading of each story. As the readings proceed, members will keep a pencil-and-paper list of the story’s titles and their individual best guess of the story’s author. After the readings are complete, we will go through each story in turn, discussing our guesses before the Author Reveal. The member with the most correct guesses will get a door prize provided by the Officers.
The Songs
Links to iconic performances of the songs and to the lyrics are below.