Chandra Arthur

May 5, 2025

I Competed In A Writing Contest and…

In 2024, I submitted two different stores to competitions hosted by NYC Midnight. Here is how that went.

With NYC Midnight, feedback is included with the submission fee. I placed 8th in my group with the micro fiction and received an honorable mention for the 500 word fiction challenge. If you would like to see more about the feedback I received and how I use that, leave a comment and I’ll share more details about that.

“Interview, Post Debriefing,” was my first round entry for the 250 word Micro Fiction challenge. From NYC Midnight’s website, “There are 4,162 writers participating in 100 groups, with approximately 42 writers per group.” I received insightful feedback, but I won’t be revising the story at this time since it was drafted specifically for the challenge and I advanced to the next round. The feedback has implications to my writing in general and gave me something to work on.

”Sulfur, Spice, and Everything Brimstone,” a great success for me! “There are 3,896 writers participating in 95 groups, with approximately 41 writers per group” from NYC midnight. I came in 9th as the first honorable mention in my category. Although I did not advance to the second round of the competition, I’m really proud of the story. Having drafted, edited, and submitted, all in 48 hours.

After some review, I’ve condensed the feedback into three main points. A more narrow cast of characters would be helpful, the amount of information in each story is a bit overwhelming, and some of the motivations are vague.

This is feedback I’ve received several times, I love having a large cast of characters. This is feedback that I am aware of and have to take it as a valid criticism of my work, not just flash fiction. However, with flash fiction, it is important feedback.

Second, I’m not sure if this is stylistic or not yet. One thing the judges were clear on, it wasn’t an info dump, just a lot of information over all. I’ll have to pay more attention to it as I continue to write. Especially with flash fiction, I’ll need to be more mindful and a little more ruthless when I’m cutting and editing.

Third, when I read “vague motivations” in the feedback, I didn’t fully understand what they meant. Part of the flash fiction genre expectation is that there will be some plot twist, some element of the story that is left unexplained, a question that leaves the reader with something to think about. But after reading the story and the feedback again, it was clear to me. While some questioning and thinking deeply about the story is good, for the reader to be unsure of the point of the story is… not good.

For more on submitting to fiction writing contests, keep an eye out for my upcoming presentation at AWC 2025.