The comedy horror television series Widow’s Bay begins with the mayor of a small New England island town attempting to boost tourism and presenting the locale in a positive light to a visiting reporter of a major newspaper outlet. Despite the mayor’s efforts to detract attention from the town’s history of unusual occurrences, corroborating local residents’ warnings that the island is cursed and haunted, an arrival of thick fog brings present danger and terror that cannot be ignored. Write a short story that revolves around a group of people whose competing interests are illuminated when an outsider enters the picture. First, spend some time establishing the nuances of your characters’ relationships: Are there rivalries or unresolved conflicts from the past? How does the outsider create a disruption in your characters’ routines and expectations?
Find details about every creative writing competition—including poetry contests, short story competitions, essay contests, awards for novels, grants for translators, and more—that we’ve published in the Grants & Awards section of Poets & Writers Magazine during the past year. We carefully review the practices and policies of each contest before including it in the Writing Contests database, the most trusted resource for legitimate writing contests available anywhere.