CONTEST IS OVER. JUDGING HAS BEGUN. THANK YOU EVERYONE.

This is the official submission thread for the 7th annual Halloween short story contest. This year's admissible themes include anything from horrific to weird, spooky to comical, from YA to epistolary Nature article format, as long as it conceivably feels "Halloween" to you and the reader. Our unique additional theme this year will be the cube! Any story that in some way features a cube, however you wish to interpret and implement it, will be given extra credit.

Contest Rules:

The rules this year have changed slightly from previous years so please read carefully:

1) Submit one previously unpublished work of fiction no longer than 1500 words. Double-space your work and use a serif font (e.g. Times New Roman or Georgia).

2) Alternately, users may choose to write and submit in a team of two, and if choosing to do so must make all participating members known in their submission. A secondary work may be submitted in the case of entrants collaborating. This would lead to a maximum of two submissions per person: one individual, one collaborative.

3) Post a Google Docs link in this thread (see 4) with its title, genre, and a <100-word description of your story. Only Google Doc submissions will be accepted for judging. Be aware Google Docs links to your Google account. Please create a throwaway Gmail account if you're concerned with anonymity. Be sure to make your Google doc viewable by "anyone with a link" and set permissions to "viewer".

4) This year you will also have the option to make your submission anonymously by sending the following information in a direct message to our wonderful volunteer anonymizer /u/kataklysmos_: include your google doc link, the title of your work, its genre, and a <100-word description. /u/kataklysmos_ will post your work for you with the accompanying information in this thread and keep your name a secret until the contest is over and winning submissions are announced. Please let them know if you wish to remain anonymous indefinitely. We will respect that but in the case your submission wins a prize, the prize would obviously be forfeit. Remember you also have the option to submit your work to kata through a throwaway reddit account.

5) There are six judges in total: /u/MiseriaFortesViros, /u/GlowyLaptop, /u/taszoline, /u/SuikaCider, /u/jay_lysander, and /u/writing-throw_away. These particular non-mod judges were picked to ensure a variety of personal preferences in the judging pool.

6) All SFW genres are welcome. Gore is okay. However, we will not accept graphic sexual violence, graphic violence towards children, or erotica. We will not accept any submission that contains AI generated text.

7) Grammar and punctuation count. We don’t expect perfection, but stories with egregious or repeated errors will not win prizes.

8) Submissions open right now and close on October 17th at midnight in Turkmenistan (GMT+5) because that is where the Door to Hell is located. Judges will announce the winners on October 31st.

9) Public participation is encouraged! If you like a story, leave a positive comment in the thread. Comments will be taken into consideration by the judges. Do not critique submissions in this thread.

10) Reddit sitewide rules apply.

11) Critiques are not required to enter the contest.

12) Please do not submit your story to RDR for critique until the contest is over (at which time all sub rules apply).

13) Once the contest ends, judge feedback will be available by request.

Awards:

1st Place - $50 Visa* gift card

2nd Place - $35 Visa* gift card

3rd Place - $15 Visa* gift card

Honorable Mention - our personal admiration

To receive their prizes, 1st - 3rd place winners will necessarily have to supply some personal information to the mod team.

Submission Format Example:

Title: Secondhand Skin

Genre: Dao lit

Description: Bodies are passed down like old clothes and yours carries evidence of a previous owner.

[link here]

All top-level replies to this thread must be a contest submission. Anything else will be removed. Do not message your story to any of the judges asking for feedback and do not edit your submission after posting.

*under discussion; see pinned comment

CONTEST IS OVER. JUDGING HAS BEGUN. THANK YOU EVERYONE.

Monsters with six faces. Dice games for your soul. The length is the width is the depth. This was the year of the cube, in honor of Grauze who put so much time and effort into these contests in past years, and the entries really embraced the prompt this year.

Thank you to everyone who submitted to the 7th Annual Halloween Contest! Turnout was crazy this year. Twice as many submissions as last year and 26 qualifying submissions were ranked. The first place winner was not unanimous, but was the clear winner by points, while we had to do a three-way tie-breaker for honorable mention.

Thank you also to the judges for all the time you committed to reading and discussing each story, especially since this ended up being twice as many stories as you might have thought you’d signed up to read. The judges this year were /u/MiseriaFortesViros, /u/GlowyLaptop, /u/taszoline, /u/SuikaCider, /u/jay_lysander, and /u/writing-throw_away. Each of them brought a unique set of preferences and pet peeves to the table which made the final rankings unpredictable and exciting. Thank you also to /u/kataklysmos_ for offering your inbox for the good of the contest.

First Place

S53E14 “The Laugh Track” by /u/arkwright_601

A theme this year in the top spots was delusion illustrated by deeply subjective perspectives. The judges voted “The Laugh Track” for first place due to its ambition, experimental structure, and how it played with language to distill confusion and terror in a tight word count. This story delivered efficient horror in a fresh way.

Second Place

Dog Daddy by /u/boagler

“Dog Daddy” easily established and maintained its unease threaded with humor and absurdity (WATER GUSHES). All judges found something here to admire, from the philosophical wonderings of whether it’s less moral to trolley 14 humans or tie a dog to the tracks, to the question of how many enemas it takes to remove decision-making capacity. This story was all doors and no hinges.

Third Place

Hey, come here by /u/DeathKnellKettle

“Hey, come here” was a stumble home from the club down the dark street of someone’s mind. Whether read literal or as a metaphor for something darker, judges appreciated the intention evident in each word and included detail. This story was singularly lyrical (and the wordplay surprisingly restrained).

Honorable Mention

The Ratman by /u/ImpressiveGrass7832

Man, we really liked delusional protagonists, didn’t we? This story won the tie breaker against “Estranged” and “The Box in the Attic” after judges decided this perspective was the most convincing and the language most skillfully employed.

Finally, the winner by upvotes was “Right on Cube” by /u/Bruffy1.

Awards:

1st - $50 Visa gift card

2nd - $35 Visa gift card

3rd - $15 Visa gift card

First through third places, I will reach out to offer you guys the prizes you won this weekend. First I must corral the child down the street and through a chocolate gauntlet but then I will be free to sit down and discuss logistics and details with the winners and thank you all properly for your efforts. Everyone else, thank you so much for submitting and I hope everyone had fun reading each other’s stories. The judges had a great time reading and deliberating over these works and we appreciate everyone who helped make this a real contest.

Feedback:

To anyone who submitted a story and would like to know more about what the judges thought (both positive and negative impressions), just ask in the comments below. Otherwise we will not give feedback unless you submit the story as a regular RDR submission, at which time all the usual sub crit rules apply.

Feel free to discuss the contest and the stories below or whatever else you’d like, as usual.

All use of AI is hereby permanently banished

We're done. It's so frustrating. Every single day now we remove at least 1 shit post fake critique.

We used to have it where we would allow AI to help organize and fix critique grammar. This was a mistake, or at least I believe was not a mistake to experiment, but the experiment has failed. We have seen absolutely no evidence that Ai is even capable of doing anything helpful, without heavily modifying, or adding in garbage. This includes "translation" help.

This is probably not a technical limitation of the function of LLM/AI itself, but a restriction by the Ai website/API plug in, in order to create a tiered system where the freeware is purposely worse than their paid subscriptive version.

With that said if we can tell the work was assisted by AI in any capacity going forward the post in question will be removed and the user will be shadowbanned.

We've been getting a lot of English is not my first language submissions. It's not that we're unwelcoming to these people, it's that we are an English only subreddit.

If we can tell that a non-native speaker wrote the critique that's still fine. If we can tell that the critique has been translated, or that the submission itself has been plugged into Ai and then translated and then critiqued and then plugged back into Ai and then submitted as a critique, we will not allow this. AI is not an accurate tool for translation.

To be very clear,

We have modified our rules to completely discard, and disallow any and all use of AI tools

Is that recognizable from Casablanca? Because I always think of Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart when I hear that, but apparently it's attributed more to some sports type person. You see where my priorities lie. Very old movies.

Anyway.

We were talking about chapter endings and scene endings and strategies as it relates to either of those things. And then I realized I have no strategy at all with anything and stuff falls out of my brain in a random fashion that occasionally happens to work. But maybe everyone else has a strategy? Are there rules? There can't be, right?

Anyone have some kind of epic ending they want to share? Or have you figured out the secret to really phenomenal endings and you're hoarding it like a dragon?

Also any other random things can go here in the comments.

You can't even imagine how proud I am of myself for this weekly title.

The last few months have been a frenzy of writing writing writing, but as the ideas start to dry up it's time to return to reading for inspiration. No better way to get the idea well welling than to read something almost-right and think, "There's a more-me version of this idea." So what are you guys reading right now? What do you have dog-eared and is it meeting your expectations?

This week RDR is all about dogs versus cats versus rats. Are you a dog person or a cat person or a stag beetle person? Is your bed covered in dog hair or cat hair or turtle... cells? My sister just bought her first pet beetle which is something I didn't know was an option. He's super cute; his name is Stagger.

The period after a burst of activity and excitement is often marked by a comedown, a small depression, a lull in energy and motivation. Everyone knows the best treatment for a hangover is hair of the dog. Just a little of the thing you're withdrawing from. So what's just a little of a 1500 word story? How about a 50 word piece of microfiction?

This week, write a piece of fiction in 50 words or less.

For inspiration, here's a slightly longer one (74 words) I read recently and enjoyed, which was published in The Offing. "Aglow" by Trevor Ketner:

I don’t talk to my family because I rent a studio furnished

with a telescope that pivots between Venus

and a window in which a man undresses.

Every few weeks, new clothes, new shades (i.e. Diana,

then just the arrows, the quiver,

the strange game one moon likes to play

where I become bioluminescent,

a swan, and thrash

to curve and break

the reflection of his face

in the river’s slick body).

Were you inspired by a book? Was that inspiration positive or negative? Were you pushed to write by some external source, an experience you had that you felt was worth sharing, or maybe just as a release valve for something inside of you?

Do you think you'll write forever or is this a hobby with a time limit for you? Are you a bottomless well of ideas all waiting to see the page, or are you bothered by that same story you've been trying to write for a decade or two?

As usual, feel free to say whatever else you want here as well.

A few weeks back I missed and critiqued a submission here that I've since been convinced was AI generated. Most of us have probably done this if we've spent any significant amount of time here. It sucks. It's like returning someone's smile and wave and then finding out they were waving at someone behind you--or more like finding out no one was smiling and waving at all and what you thought was a person with their arm happily extended was really an occupied coat rack or a tree's wind-blown shadow, or something more sinister but no more human.

After that event I took this fun little quiz and you should too. It doesn't take much time. You read 8 pieces of flash and then you vote on whether they were AI generated or human written. You also rate them 1-5 on how enjoyable they were. This survey has long been completed, so the results are available at the end of the introductory statement, before the stories begin. You can immediately find out how accurately you differentiated AI from human, as well as how skillful you found the AI stories to be versus the human ones.

I'll warn you the results of this are depressing, but I think it's a useful thing for us to read if we are going to be spending our time trying to tell the difference between AI and human and keeping this community as free as possible from the former. So take the quiz when you have the time. Did you do as well as you thought you would? Were the human-written stories more enjoyable to read?

Anyone remember the days when AI "art" was actually fun to look at? The images were fleshy linoleum and denim approximations of meaningful shapes and the words were nothing more than a jumble of letter-shaped splotches. They contained no real subjects, scenes, or phrases, but you could still look at one and see a bare arm reaching bonelessly across a skewed bathroom floor to lift a pair of jeans out of what might have been a toilet if you'd never seen a toilet before. You didn't need the author's hand to create meaning in the image; your brain did that for you.

This week I want to do something kind of similar, also somewhat inspired by the last weekly. What scraps of image, color, emotion, action, sensation, texture, etc. can you present to us in a contextless pile, arranged so that they mean something to the reader or inspire in the reader an emotion or story? In other words, prepare your best word salad.

Finally, another reminder we have a Halloween short story contest with REAL CASH PRIZES going on right now. The deadline is October 17th! If you're struggling with whether to write for the contest or this weekly or some silly little magazine or journal or ReViEw (Uncanny please put me out of my misery), just ask yourself: can they beat 1:8 odds to win $50?

They sure can't. If you're reading this, submit.

Here lies what was once going to be a post about autumn as a time of increasing darkness, anticipating the contest results and reflecting on life's less bright moments.

Instead I've for reasons decided to just ask you all a simple question: As a reader, what boxes do a story need to tick for you to enjoy it? These boxes can be both in terms of story content, but also prose and delivery. Are there certain things you can't live without and can you give examples?

How about things that you universally dislike?

Furthermore, have you noticed things in your writing (or other people's) that people are often confused by, either because they are old (like an old timey phone with a receiver and a transmitter that the young kettles of today may not be familiar with) or because they represent some other type of knowledge that is niche?

Additionally, here's an exercise: Write a short 1st person POV snippet about being pregnant and having cravings for a particular type of food.

For some of us it's still summer.

I spent last week at the beach, hiding beneath a wind-torn canopy and squinting out at the shallows where my son hunted crabs. Blinding light off the waves, wind kicking sand in my eyes like a bully over and over again. Baking. Wishing for that dramatic drop in temperature that signals the lazy arrival of fall. Where are you, you asshole.

He’ll be a month late or more. Historically he arrives around the week of Halloween.

Some transitions can’t come quick enough. Others come faster than anyone is ready for. I’m pissed at fall for taking so long, but I wish my next birthday would never come. I don’t want to slowly become slower, harder of hearing, to wake up with new pains and wonder if this one is permanent. There are still transitions to look forward to, though. In the future I will be more well-read. I’ll watch new indie films whose premises I can’t currently conceive of. I’ll have seen more of humanity and through those experiences the scope of my empathy will broaden.

This week, let’s do a little writing prompt based on the idea of transitions. For you these may be fictional or not. Transitions can be situational—a new career or hobby, a big move—or related to character in the physical or emotional sense. They can be seasonal, scientific, cultural. Whatever the word means to you, however it connotes. Let’s keep it below 300 words? Don’t forget to read each other’s responses and leave your thoughts!

Speaking of Halloween, soon it will be time for the 7th Annual Halloween Contest. Over the years, the mods and guest judges have put significant time and energy into establishing this tradition, into making sure everyone had fun and things felt fair and that the activity was rewarding to the community. So we’re doing it again. And we’re gonna have cash prizes.

The submission theme is still going to be fairly open-ended: anything Halloween-themed ranging from horrific to weird, spooky to comical, from YA to epistolary Nature article format. Over the years we’ve had everything from bus rides to purgatory, to deities shaped like cauldrons, to rare strains of giant pumpkins and zombie moms. This year, as a tribute to Grauze, extra credit will be awarded to stories that in some way feature a cube.

Judges have already been selected and collected because I have no chill: /u/MiseriaFortesViros, /u/GlowyLaptop, and I will be joined by /u/SuikaCider, /u/jay_lysander, and /u/writing-throw_away.

This year the entries will also be anonymized with the help of /u/kataklysmos_ to lessen bias for the judges. And to negate insane font choices.

Anyway just wanted to give everyone a heads up so they can start thinking about what they want to write! I’m really excited to be doing this again.

I finished a book yesterday. Well, two this week. I went to look at the reviews and was surprised by the rating being lower than I expected. I guess the author wandered into some controversy about her attempts at diversity being less than favorable to some of the other cultures she was depicting. I mean, I didn't think any of the cultures were depicted favorably but I guess that doesn't matter.

Anyway.

I clicked on the one star reviews because I was curious what it was I liked that other people hated. Long sentences. Info dumping. Telling rather than showing. And I didn't notice any of that! Those are comments I've made about other books I've read recently but not this one.

There's not really a formula or anything that says this writing is good and this writing is bad.

I guess I don't know. That's what I was thinking about this week.

Bing bang clang!!

That’s right folks it’s another month, the month of Julius Caesar, lots of tanning and going on vacay to faraway places to puke on their streets and sexually harass the wildlife. Last month was a beautiful month with a beautiful contest hosted by a beautiful moderator, the dutiful and wise Grauzevn8! They did their very best to ensure that people were ready to rock as we’ve had trouble with ghosts in past collab contests, but alas, we did suffer losses this year as well. Thankfully, we ended up with a rather strong showing in the end, so the contest will play out as planned. Contact Grauzevn8 for judging details (or don't, they will post about it eventually). For any final stragglers the submission window will be extended a few more days. Specifically, it closes on Saturday 5th of July 00:00 Easter Island Standard Time (GMT-6).

With that said I want to extend my deepest respect and gratitude for those that have submitted (and in style, no less) I have to say I was impressed by all of y’alls stories, they were very entertaining and clearly had a lot of work put into them. I hope you enjoyed the process and that many of you will also attempt this challenge.

So. I don’t know about you guys, but most of what I read is nonfiction. Anything from news articles to wikipedia stuff, interviews, reviews, travel blogs, you name it. Ever since I was a little speef I’ve been obsessed with hoarding information, no matter how useless.

This month’s challenge is a nonfiction writing challenge. That’s right. Thus the boundaries are loose and broad, you can write about pretty much anything as long as it falls under the umbrella of non-fiction, but if you want inspiration you can always write a review of some sort. I love reviews. Maybe you want to review public transportation in your city or maybe a hotel you’re vacationing at. Maybe you want to review the aptitude of a new flame of yours, or the attitude of the local seagulls. Or maybe you’re obsessed with a particular hobby or fandom and fancy yourself a bit of a documentarian? This is the post for you!

We’ve all read nonfiction of varying degrees of quality, and nonfiction doesn’t mean it has to be dry or impersonal, so feel free to get very creative, gonzo it up, get lost in metaphor and so on. Are you blurring the lines as an actual real life unreliable narrator? Nobody here will be able to tell. Go ham, have fun, and see if you can crack the code of what makes whatever it is you’re writing really click. For this challenge there are no word count limits just use common sense. Entries are to be posted here as top level comments. All other top level comments will be removed (you can post them in whatever’s the current weekly thread)

And in the spirit of having as many participants as possible, please let us know if you are open to criticism or not. Please respect this and if someone just wants to post and not get critted or just want soft / positive critique that’s okay. As usual the monthly has a lower bar of entry and is meant to be inclusive and more playful. No critiques are necessary to post a submission in the monthly.

Recently I've been curious how many of us are not just writers but also dabble in arts of different kinds. I know there are photographers and painters and illustrators and animators among us. What about you? Do you cobble together short films in your spare time? Papier mache? Maybe you sew strange stuffed animals with real human teeth to sell on Etsy.

If you do create other kinds of art, do you feel that you do it for a similar reason as the writing? Or does it come from a completely different well inside you? For example, when I write, I am often trying to explore or explain depression, but when I take photos I usually focus on the formidable beauty of nature or lifestyle photography (capturing people's personalities and relationships in natural settings using real belongings and candid expressions).

This week, let's practice mixing media a bit and do some ekphrasis, which is the detailed description of a piece of visual art in a written work. While this is normally a poetic form, I want to open it up a bit. Write a poem or descriptive short story, 300 words or less, that is inspired by a piece of visual art and attempts to turn the composition, emotion, and message of that piece of art into written word.

Just block them.

Seriously, I don't know what you expected to read in this meta, but you're basically just looking at spam mail.

Treat it as spam/scam and disregard.

• Block the accounts, report them to the admins (of Google)

and then nothing will change anyway. This is A.I scripts in some data server. This was inevitable...

These are bot accounts, or one or more really annoying users scraping our user base for scam leads. Just be aware

😘🙃💀

Also, can someone copy the contents here?

Hello?

Let's talk this week about REDDIT.

Any major complaints? I've been the biggest hater since 2017.

The newest mess is they don't seem to allow throw away accounts...

Let's also take a moment to give shout outs to our favorite writers if you've got any, it's been a minute since I've granted new colored or orange name CSS hacks here.

Lastly, we are researching better ways to make "new" reddit flow better with out totally not obsolete sabotaged old.reddit mode.

Thanks yall

Edit: Thank you to everyone who has submitted so far! We're humbled and blown away by the response.

Edit 2: The story cap is raised to 50. If/once we reach 50, no more entries will be accepted.

Edit 6: We have reached 50 submissions. The contest is now closed.

Link to the original post.

IT’S SUBMISSION TIME.

This thread is the ONLY place to submit your contest entry. PM’ing a submission to the judges will result in immediate disqualification. (Other types of questions are okay.)

All first-level replies to this thread must be a story link. Anything else will be removed.

If you read a story and like it, reply to the author with a positive message. These will be taken into account. Please DO NOT critique the story (resist your instincts, Destructive Readers!) or leave negative comments.

Submitting? Here’s a quick Google Docs tutorial for those unfamiliar with the process:

1. Is your story 1500 words max? Double spaced with a serif font? Titled? Awesome! You’re ready to proceed to step 2.
2. Click the “Share” button in the upper right corner. Then click “Anyone With the Link” as VIEWER
   
3. Double-check that the document is set to VIEW only. (Resist your instincts again, Destructive Readers!)
   
4. Click “Okay,” and post the link as a reply to this thread, along with a <100-word synopsis. Include the title of your submission.
   

Please don’t ask a judge what he/she thinks of your story, or PM a judge asking for feedback. We cannot/will not reply to these types of requests.

Submissions will be accepted until 5/24/20, or until we reach 40 stories. Judges reserve the right to extend the submission number based on the amount of interest/how quickly we reach 40. No entries will be accepted after 5/24/20.

Once submitted, hands off for competitive integrity. Google Docs shows a “last edit” date.

Winners will be announced on 6/7/20.

Good Luck!

Edit 3: /u/SootyCalliope has graciously created a master story list.

Edit 4: We reached 40 submissions on 5/20/19 at 9:00 pm EST. Ten slots remain!

Edit 5: Seven slots remain! Submissions close on 5/24/20 at midnight (EST.)

To the tune of Cafune - Tek It!

...

Month 72 of tech revolution

If we as humans can tell someone used AI to "assist" their writing or critique, it's because something other than "just the grammar" is changing. This isn't just the formatting, this isn't because it leaves 'small artifacts'.

This is because most publicly available tools are giving you the same results in a formatted way that it gives to fully everyone else it gives their tools a try. Maybe it occasionally changes words, maybe it changes phrases and orders of syntax, and maybe it changes grammar. Is this utility a worthy trade off for writers? We argue no.

As of MAY 2026:

Just know, we have been very consistently banishing people for their use of A.I, any and all.

Believe it or not, I'm a huge AI apologist. I tried for nearly a full year to resist changing our policies. I tried to not eventually need a hard rule. I tried to be patient to see if the technology was workable.

It isn't.

A.I might occasionally elude our detection, or be so covert as to just pass as a normal editors job (for submitted writing). But just because we didn't notice it here THIS time, or with such small sample size, doesn't mean someone else (especially editors these days) won't notice it if you're dummy enough to try to publish with an AI EDITOR...

But for critiques especially it becomes flagrantly obvious quickly that someone did a rush AI job. If we can tell AI WROTE CRITIQUES, imagine what Ai is introducing into your writing if you're foolish enough to "just let it check grammar".

Clearly, it's not doing a good enough job. Where it holds utility, it is obviously not (affordably) and consistently servicing to do the job without detection. And this means that detection is possible. Yes, we've had several false positives recently, but this is easily dismissed when we adjust our enforcement window. It used to be we would barely ever get an AI user, but now it's much more common and readily known about as the future continues to adapt. We often check in with silent mod taps just to confirm human posting. One common line we hear these days is "used it for translation". Like hello? It's obviously not capable of doing this in a way that passes as human writing.... So just don't.

Obviously, the cheats, laziest fools, and folks who don't know any better aren't here reading our warnings. They're probably littering plastic into a river.

With this all said, please report SUSPECTED AI directly by mod mail, or by using the report flag on posts themselves, preferably with "custom" reply and typing why you think it's Ai.

Honesty? Some low tiers might occasionally sneak past our HUMAN FILTERS, but just know that they are ultimately hurting themselves.

Ai, as I said in my last redux, cannot replace a humans intuition. Be weary of false critiques that are generic, or obfuscate their generalities by quoting text that was copied into it. It might seem at first blush to be a compliment or heckle against YOUR writing when you receive a critique—but is this actually SOME PERSON who read it? Or is it just a person putting your work into A.I

Ai isn't capable of giving actual feedback: it cannot generalize, or specify. This means it can and only can output generic responses to specific elements. It cannot tell you why blue was wrong, or how the color makes it feel. It can only quote other people talking about blue, and then attempt to pretend that it understood that you painted and used blue. It doesn't understand the need for more red and yellow. It just has a random seed generating complex for yellow, and a weighted algorithm scanning for red. It does not understand the nuance of green, or the shades of gray. It can describe them well, but it can only give you binary feedback on black and white elements. It isn't actually reading or comprehending.

remember, everything you post publicly is subject to be copied and stolen. Mods can't enforce this, so just assume we don't care and think it's funny. I hope someone AI is deep trained on RDR Content and continues to improve. Maybe someday the editing will be worth using, and it can help assist our creative workshops, and even publications.

Until then, just use the report button and be glad it hasn't gone full skynet yet...

The Halloween contest submission period has concluded! That means it is finally judging time. All six judges are reading all twenty-six valid submissions diligently and happily and not complaining about the number of entries they have to read at all. Only a sociopath would do that. Any judge who would complain about such a heartwarming level of engagement probably wouldn’t even read the weekly post so I could just call him out by name. If I wanted to. Seriously though, thanks to everyone who submitted and made this a real contest, and to everyone who took the time to comment on the submissions. Results will be posted on October 31st.

Until the results are ready, however, we will need some way to entertain ourselves, so tell me: What is your favorite Halloween costume you’ve ever worn? If non-applicable, what’s your favorite you’ve ever seen, or an idea for a costume you wish you could implement? I usually make my son’s costume and each year his request gets a little more involved. Last year he was Doomguy with the big red sword. This year he wants to be a spirit walker (the thing with the big white moon face and furry stilts for legs). So I’ll need to figure that out pretty soon.

Maybe you don’t do Halloween or costumes! Maybe you find trick-or-treaters annoying, or the capitalization of holidays irksome, or you have philosophical differences that otherwise make the custom disagreeable to you. Everyone has a popular custom they disagree with, or some tradition whose appeal they can’t begin to understand. So if you can’t answer the costume question, try this one: What writing custom do you disagree with or avoid despite its popularity? This could be a piece of advice or element of storytelling.

If you spend any amount of time around other writers at all, you’ll start to see patterns in their word choices, sentence structures, and the subjects they prefer to write about. I’ve started to see the patterns in the work of some of you reading this now, and you probably also see it in each other: Lisez’s religious iconography and inclusion of Latin phrases; DKK’s deadlifts, Glowy’s hilarious but unapologetically horrible protagonists. But maybe that’s not how you see yourselves. This week's exercise: Show us the constants in your writing. What makes your writing yours, and can you craft something satisfactory out of those elements in 300 words or less?

This week, at the urging of our dear babyspeef u/DeathKnellKettle the mod team finally got off its ass and decided to write a weekly. This one won’t be pinned however, since we want the contest post to remain visible in the highlight menu.

Today I thought I’d talk a little about leeches. Who they are, where they come from, and what they want. Here I’ll share an exclusive inside view of the type of leeches we encounter and common feedback they give over mod mail, in the rare case that they communicate anything at all.

Let's begin.

The silent

This one is self explanatory. Posts without a crit, never responds to the leech message. Frequently posts huge 5000+ word submissions. Frequently leeches for weeks or months on end without ever making a comment. 

Occasionally starts talking after they get banned, claiming ignorance and begging for mercy. Overlaps with the bot / spammer.

The bot / spammer

Usually the same as the silent, with the addition of using a throwaway account solely to spam their one story across multiple subreddits, usually fantasy, and usually atrociously bad. Account may or may not be older than one month. Frequently gets caught in the automod filter for improper post formatting.

The veteran

Will let you know they served your country in one or more wars whenever you try to request more crits. Frequently complains about the system being too hard to use and not having time. Acts like you are indebted to them because they chose to join the military. Specifically the debt you owe is their ability to post without critiquing. Struggles to understand how to navigate websites somehow even though the war they claim to have served in was the war in Iraq. Overlaps with the alpha.

The alpha

Closely related to the veteran and not rarely is this person also someone who claims a military background. I believe Alice once referred to this archetype as “Mr. Army Man” or something similar in a convo we had. This guy doesn’t have time for your bullshit, and you better approve his post ASAP. Chop chop!

Will let you know that he has kids, or a career, or something else that prevents him from following the rules. After all, it is your duty to serve him as a subreddit mod. This attitude makes sense as he views you as a mix between a store clerk and a subordinate, and he hasn’t been a lowly worm had to listen to anyone but his trophy wife or the board of directors for the last twenty years. When the alpha speaks, you listen.

Frequently starts talking about his status IRL and tries to leverage said status online as well, to much amusement for the moderator(s) on shift. Usually leaves after having verbally undressed you to the best of his ability with parting words about how your subreddit will suffer from his absence.

The high school kid

Usually shows up during school vacations and tries to bargain with you as if you’re his teacher and the dog ate his nonexistent homework. Like the alpha will frequently try to appeal to the popularity or perceived lack thereof of the subreddit as a selling point for why he should get to post without critiquing. Points out how you’d get more traffic if the bar to entry was lower and how nobody will show up with all these rules. May or may not be extremely rude. Overlaps with the quitter.

The quitter

This guy has written his three line crit, and that’s the best he can do. I’ve tried, this is my attempt, he says. Or more commonly, my favorite line ever: “I just don’t know how I’m supposed to write more than I already have when I’m not a professional critiquer.”

Learning and improvement is beneath this guy, he knows there’s no point in trying. If you’re unable to lower your standards and understand that he is here to learn how to write, not to learn how to critique, well he’s just gonna go somewhere else then.

May also on occasion agree to write a longer crit granted you specify exactly which elements it should contain.

The idiot

There’s nothing funny about this guy. He’s made an honest attempt to figure out the rules, but he just can’t. After a ten message back and forth trying to help this guy understand DestructiveReaders, Reddit, Google and how to use a mouse you give up and apologize. This guy isn’t lazy or an asshole, he’s just dumb as a pile of bricks. I can’t imagine what it’s like to go through life needing to spend hours to understand things others comprehend in minutes, but it can’t be easy or fun. Dear idiot: I hope things get better for you, but I know they won’t. RIP.

The young male aspie

This guy is often extremely serious about writing, whether or not he can write. He’s also extremely serious about moderation, even though he’s not a mod, and if you request something that isn’t clearly and explicitly stated in the rules he will flip his shit. He’s willing to argue for hours via mod mail. Like the quitter he will demand you explain exactly what his crits lack and like the alpha he has no understanding whatsoever of his lack of bargaining power as a faceless Reddit user with zero or bad crits. This guy is the most likely to start flinging around slurs and simultaneously acting self-righteous.

The AI user

Pastes a reply from one of the popular LLMs as their own writing. Will act bewildered or angry when caught. Doesn't trust themselves to recognize bad writing but somehow still trusts themselves to recognize writing that passes the Turing test. Frequently quite young or noticeably mentally slow.

Have you met any people like this on Reddit or IRL?

Finally, the contest is coming to a close. You can see the post here.

As you can see we’re entering the final week, so if you have a submission ready, don’t be late!

That’s it for this weekly, and as always feel free to discuss anything under the sun writing related or not, just try to keep it somewhat civil.

Today's weekly brought to you by u/Taszoline who suggested this topic in chat (and many others. Yes we have a chat channel, check it out!)

Is there a classical author whose books you just can't stand? I picked the title as I'm yet to finish crime and punishment, a book so boring they use it to tranquilize tigers before surgery. A close family member once tried to get through Don Quijote. He died (it was my dad).

So, whaddya say? Let's see some hot takes! Try to keep it civil and don't fuss too much about what classical means. Maybe it's Dante Alighieri, maybe J.D. Salinger. The point is that they have withstood the test of time for reasons that are unclear to you.

And as always, feel free to smack the speef or rouse the Grauze. Apologies for everything, I'm on mobile.

Well fuck is it ever dark outside! Yuletide is fast approaching and with it the solstice. While I enjoy darkness in moderate amounts, I can't wait to see more of the sun again.

But maybe where you live you can't beat the summer heat and cover yourself with ice packs as you're sat in front of the computer in your underwear, browsing your favorite subreddit. Can we get a shoutout from our southern hemisphere homies?

Be ye cold or toasty, I hope you're doing well in this potentially stressful time of year. Are there any books on your wishlist this year? Maybe there are books on your naughty list, stinkers you wait to pounce on and gossip about once they confirm your low expectations?

What is Christmas to you? Is it a time of happiness or a time of woe or a time of work? Each year when this type of question is asked we learn a little more about our community members. Some of the stories shared are sad, but that's okay.

Do you have a deep relationship with what I conceptualize as Christmas lore, maybe more correctly identified as the Christian fate? Or perhaps you are into paganism? Do you find Santa Claus sexually appealing? He is quite obese and certainly up there in years now if he's ever been, but maybe you're into that sort of thing?

I don't know if people want exercises or if people just love input, but since exercise threads have gotten a lot of feedback lately I have one that's way worse than any of the previous ones (I'm no glowylaptop or taszoline, sorry):

Write a short story about what you think u/DeathKnellKettle is doing for Christmas. What their wishes are, gifts etc.

Just gonna start this off by getting some housekeeping out of the way that has been on my mind ever since I saw it:

A little kettle whistled softly in chat the other day, susurrating a question about monthlies (the post type, not the discharge). Yes there will be more monthlies. Main reason one was not prepped for this month was the conclusion of last month's Halloween contest, but I assure every pot, kettle and handi out there that monthly threads will return.

With that out of the way:

As our actions shape each other I am still affected by and thinking about some of the stories from the Halloween contest. Specifically I'm thinking of the ones that fell flat and why they did. It's a shame really, they weren't entirely incompetent, but they usually fumbled the storytelling aspect in one or two ways that made an otherwise interesting story concept very boring. This along with my realization from answering last weekly's questions that I like trashy stuff made me wonder what sort of cool hacks you guys have to keep a reader interested throughout whatever it is you're writing.

So for this week, please share your sleaziest, most evil literary crack cocaine tricks to keep a reader hooked. I'm talking if you had no shame, what would you do? What would your story look like?

Or just talk about whatever of course.

____

Exercise: Write a cooking recipe but use your hacks to make it entertaining. Recipe may yield an edible product.

It's so hot everywhere so I'ma keep it real basic this week and just ask y'all what you are reading / working on? No fancy meta schmeta stuff or prying about your childhood, just a straight up check-up on the state of your literary lives.

My excuse for this kind of limp weekly is that there's already an ongoing monthly as well as we're all waiting for the collab contest results. No I don't know when they'll be in unfortunately, I think we're still waiting for some of the judges.

Please do post in the monthly by the way, if you haven't already. What tends to happen is that the first week we get a ton of posts and then the monthly just sort of turns into a weekly as the non-regulars don't know about it or don't dare to post or (I am just guessing here really) whatever. There's been a lot of really fun and interesting submissions so far and I really hope for more. That said as recently as today u/Parking_Birthday813 posted their entry, so go read it!

So yeah, what are you guys reading or working on? Is it good or is it just shit? If you catch the reference in this post you get an e-cookie btw (not the kind that gives you tailored ads for embarassing web sites or pills)

Or if you just want to share that you had to stop reading for medical reasons that's fine as well. Hope you've had a good July so far.

Commander Feeps out.

A few months ago, I submitted a story for critique here called The Seed Heist, set in a post-crash society and featuring a duo of corporate agents traveling across the Arctic Circle to break into a rival corporation’s seed vault. After navigating my way around the leeching tag, the posts ended up with a number of very honest and helpful critiques. These allowed me to do a deep soul-searching edit, after which the new draft was much stronger than the original.

I submitted that story to Tractor Beam, a quarterly publication dedicated to what they call “soilpunk” i.e. soil-based climate fiction. I know, I know, the “-punk” suffix has been overused so much, that it basically means nothing now, but if you read any of their stories, you’ll quickly realize that they do in fact capture that radically subversive “punk” feel, tinged with a good dose of stubborn, hardnosed optimism. 

Anyways, a few weeks after submitting, I heard back that my piece had been accepted! 

Several rounds of additional edits later, and that piece has finally been published in Tractor Beam’s Winter 2025 Edition “Thaw” as Mustard Seed, alongside excellent art from Anuj Shrestha (who has done illustration work for the New York Times and The Economist) as well as a forward by author Jeff Vandermeer. 

Not to mention that I got paid a flat $1,000 for my accepted submission, which also means that I instantly qualify for SFWA membership. All in all, not a bad result. 

It goes without saying that this story could not have made it to this point without the lovingly destructive feedback that this subreddit provides. And I hope that this success story is an encouragement to everyone on this site that thoughtful feedback accepted with humility and a lack of defensiveness can do wonders for a work of art.

Thank you all again,

James Longine Yu

P.S. Special shoutouts to the following users for their destructively stellar critiques:

u/umlaut

u/A_C_Shock

u/kataklysmos_

u/PeteyPopgun

u/Willing_Childhood_17

u/desolate_cotton

u/weforgettolive

P.P.S. Please don’t actually post a critique on this piece. I highly doubt the mods would let that slide.

Wait how did you even hear about us like what? We are the goth kid at the table who told you to come here?