Chilling Tales for Dark Nights: January Writing Contest

The Challenge:

This month’s challenge is something different.  Rather than write based on a photo prompt, your challenge is this:

Reimagine modern-day horror tale, with or without paranormal elements (that part is up to you) – from a first-person human perspective – based on and inspired by a popular (or semi-popular) fairy tale, children’s story or nursery rhyme of your choice from the public domain, and tell it in a realistic manner; any characters that are inherently unbelievable in nature – such as talking animals – should be rewritten as believable characters. Any names from the original stories or rhymes which if used would give away immediately which story the tale is based on should be changed.

Ideally, your final story should be something that would be suitable for posting to the Reddit NoSleep forums, realistic enough that, with some suspension of disbelief, it could be taken as truth to any follower of paranormal or unexplained events.

Here’s an example (this is NOT the story we expect you to use or adapt, by any means, your options are limitless) of what we’re looking for, and what your process ought to be – let’s say you decide to base your story on the nursery rhyme Little Miss Muffett.  Well, here’s the original rhyme:

Little Miss Muffet

Sat on a tuffet,

Eating her curds and whey;

Along came a spider,

Who sat down beside her,

And frightened Miss Muffet away.

Your hypothetical mission, if you choose to accept it, is to turn the above into a grade-A piece of first-person perspective horror fiction.

The Deadline:

All stories for this contest must be submitted to us no later than

Midnight CST on January 22, 2015

Click here for more details, and rules!