'Scare Us!' - LitReactor's First Official Writing Challenge Launches

Today LitReactor launches its first official writing challenge, and the topic du jour is horror. We want you to Scare Us! So we're challenging you to write an original horror story between 1,500 and 4,000 words. And that's not all. Your story:

1. Must feature an original creature of your own creation (no werewolves, vampires or zombies)
2. Must feature three deaths
3. Must take place in the town where you grew up

It's a little like NaNoWriMo, except we want you to come out of it with a tight, finished story, not a rough first draft. And we're doing this with an eye toward making this a regular occurrence.

Now, here's the thing: You aren't just submitting this story to a vacuum. This is a public contest. Users can read and rate stories, talk about what they like, and even offer comments and criticism. And you don't have to be a paying member to participate. Some of the stories are going to score personal feedback from LitReactor instructors such as authors Ed Sikov, Holiday Reinhorn, Joe Nassise, Suzy Vitello, Lidia Yuknavitch and Christa Faust. And there's going to be some other prizes, too... but we're not going to tell you about those yet.

The submission process started yesterday, July 1st and will remain open for the entire month.  In August we will begin rewarding the top rated stories.

Defender of the People, Josh Moyes (Utah), has stepped up to help us report on this event, so expect to see us talking about this in the news quite a lot. We have also gone and set up a helpful Discussion Thread where you can chime in and ask any questions you might have.

What are you still doing here? Why aren't you writing? Do you have more questions? Click here to have them answered.

Then, get to work. Think you can scare us?