Snow Micro Challenge Winners Scroll

YouTube Shorts has brought back the use of copyrighted music to creators like us, and I animated the Vocal Snow Micro challenge winner's list!

And what an awesome song Rick Henry Christopher has reminded us of this week, to compliment the subject matter of the winning entry.

Vocal's Notes regarding the Winning Entries:

We think of snow as cleansing, purifying — but thinking outside the box is never a bad idea. For our Snow Micro challenge, our Grand Prize winner Dane BH conjures up light flurries in her winning entry, Our Tribe. Dirty gray city snow mounds in piles before melting away, an effective but never forced metaphor for a friendship that has thinned and frayed beyond survival. This is a brief masterclass in effective storytelling.

Congratulations too to second-place winner Ellen Stedfield, who has her first challenge placement for Snowman, a spookily magical tale about a boy and his wintry creation. “Boy, spirit, and winter's magic coincided in that moment,” she writes. It’s the culmination of a “desperate dream”, and very nicely done.

Our runners-up include april’s A Dream of Snow, which takes us into a dystopia where there white stuff may not be what it seems; Why, Why, Why by Hannah Moore wishes to transform rain to snow to mutate grief — it’s a swift, moving meditation. In Joe O’Connor’s Orange in a Storm a vixen hunts for her cubs in swift, shivering suspense. We felt a chill as we read all your entries, your flurries of words that called up hushed and frosty worlds.

About this challenge

The Prompt

Write a 250 word microfiction that takes place in a snowy setting.

In exactly 250 words, craft a microfiction story set in a snowy landscape. While immersing the reader in the unique atmosphere of your wintry world —whether you choose to capture the hushed silence, the pristine beauty, the ruggedness, or perhaps the transformative power of snow—ensure that your narrative goes beyond mere scene-setting. We challenge you to incorporate meaningful action, be it a character's decision, a surprising event, or a significant revelation, within the limited word count. Your task is to balance vivid imagery with dynamic storytelling.

**In order to let the expert brevity of your compelling microfiction shine, please do not include author's notes or additional text before or after your story. If you would like to share a message with your subscribers, use the comments section.**

In order for your submission to qualify, it must:

Be exactly 250 words in length (the body of the text, not including the title or subheading). Do not include author's notes in the body.

Take place in a snowy setting.

Be submitted to Fiction community. Choosing a community is a final step in the submission process. Your microfiction may be rejected for word count requirements if it is submitted to any other community.

The Prizes

Grand Prize: $500

Second Place: $200

10 Runners-Up: $50

Special shout-out to Maureen Y. Palmer for inspiring this challenge idea in Share Your Ideas to Shape the Future of Vocal Challenges.

How to enter

For your piece to be eligible, it should follow the rules above and adhere to our Community Guidelines. Stories published on Vocal and entered into the contest up until 11:59 PM ET on February 15, 2024 will be entered for consideration. Official Rules for the Challenge can be found here.

The Snow Micro Challenge is exclusive to Vocal+ members. To learn more and upgrade to Vocal+ visit https://vocal.media/vocal-plus.

To be eligible to win the grand prize, second place, or runners-up prizes, you must be over the age of 13 and residing in a country where Stripe is available at the time of entry. A complete list of countries where Stripe is available can be found here—winners will need to have a Stripe account created and connected in order to receive the prizes. For this reason, entrants located outside of any of these countries will not be eligible to win.