{"id":14,"date":"2010-04-23T09:25:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-23T09:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/04\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest-ash.html"},"modified":"2010-04-23T09:25:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-23T09:25:00","slug":"five-sentence-scary-story-contest-ash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/04\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest-ash.html","title":{"rendered":"Five-Sentence Scary Story Contest: Ash"},"content":{"rendered":"

As promised, <\/span>it’s time for yet another five-sentence scary story contest. This time, you have an entire weekend to submit your story in the comments.<\/p>\n

For inspiration, here are the links to the previous 5-sentence contests:
\u2022<\/span> The one with snow<\/a>
\u2022<\/span> The one with a shark<\/a>
\u2022<\/span> The romantic one<\/a>
\u2022<\/span> The very first one<\/a><\/p>\n

First, please take a look at this recent photo:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Now, for the rules.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is a Five-Sentence Scary Story Contest. Your job is to come up with a creative and frightening story inspired by this photo (please submit your story via comment), while adhering to the following five rules:<\/p>\n

Rule #1: <\/span>It doesn’t have to have anything to do with the actual real-life subject\/explanation of the photo.<\/p>\n

Rule #2: <\/span>It has to involve a character nicknamed “Mr. Shifty.” There is nothing significant behind the name “Mr. Shifty.” I thought of it, it made me laugh, and I want to see how you turn something that makes me laugh into something foreboding.<\/p>\n

Rule #3: <\/span>Somewhere, your story must contain this phrase: volcanic ash cloud.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rule #4: <\/span>Your story must contain five sentences. No more. No less. However, there are no rules dictating the length of your sentences<\/p>\n

Rule #5: <\/span>Your story must be frightening, moody, mysterious, or otherwise scary in tone.<\/p>\n

The winner gets a free copy of O Me of Little Faith<\/span><\/a>. I will determine the winner based on a highly subjective formula that considers creativity, style, adherence to the rules, and the relative awesomeness of your story in comparison to other submissions.<\/p>\n

The contest will last until 9 am central time on Monday, April 26, at which point I’ll choose my favorite five-sentence submission. To get things started, my own submission is below. (Don’t worry, though. Despite my raging ego, I probably won’t choose myself as the winner. Though the shipping costs would be much less expensive that way.)<\/p>\n

——————–<\/p>\n

Gerald coughed, gagged, and then stumbled in the rancid mud. The volcanic ash cloud had swallowed the horizon now, a black devouring nothingness that brought him to his ancient knees. Greasy fingers against his neck woke him from his stupor, and suddenly there was young Mr. Shifty, the farmer, dragging him through the muck toward the Dark Place. <\/span>Not the barn, Gerald thought, his wool trembling in the premature twilight. <\/span>Please, God, not the barn.<\/p>\n

——————–<\/p>\n

Your turn. Go!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As promised, it’s time for yet another five-sentence scary story contest. This time, you have an entire weekend to submit your story in the comments. For inspiration, here are the links to the previous 5-sentence contests:\u2022 The one with snow\u2022 The one with a shark\u2022 The romantic one\u2022 The very first one First, please take…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,17,18,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contest","category-five-sentence","category-stories","category-writing"],"yoast_head":"\nFive-Sentence Scary Story Contest: Ash - O Me of Little Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/04\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest-ash.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Five-Sentence Scary Story Contest: Ash - O Me of Little Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As promised, it’s time for yet another five-sentence scary story contest. This time, you have an entire weekend to submit your story in the comments. For inspiration, here are the links to the previous 5-sentence contests:\u2022 The one with snow\u2022 The one with a shark\u2022 The romantic one\u2022 The very first one First, please take…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/04\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest-ash.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"O Me of Little Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-04-23T09:25:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blogs.tampabay.com\/.a\/6a00d83451b05569e2013480032c18970c-900wi\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jason Boyett\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Five-Sentence Scary Story Contest: Ash - O Me of Little Faith","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/04\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest-ash.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Five-Sentence Scary Story Contest: Ash - O Me of Little Faith","og_description":"As promised, it’s time for yet another five-sentence scary story contest. This time, you have an entire weekend to submit your story in the comments. For inspiration, here are the links to the previous 5-sentence contests:\u2022 The one with snow\u2022 The one with a shark\u2022 The romantic one\u2022 The very first one First, please take…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/04\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest-ash.html","og_site_name":"O Me of Little Faith","article_published_time":"2010-04-23T09:25:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blogs.tampabay.com\/.a\/6a00d83451b05569e2013480032c18970c-900wi"}],"author":"Jason Boyett","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/04\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest-ash.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/04\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest-ash.html","name":"Five-Sentence Scary Story Contest: Ash - O Me of Little Faith","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/04\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest-ash.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/04\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest-ash.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blogs.tampabay.com\/.a\/6a00d83451b05569e2013480032c18970c-900wi","datePublished":"2010-04-23T09:25:00+00:00","dateModified":"2010-04-23T09:25:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#\/schema\/person\/f69eb4f788db541ff47d2f5d01cad5e7"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/04\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest-ash.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/04\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest-ash.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/04\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest-ash.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blogs.tampabay.com\/.a\/6a00d83451b05569e2013480032c18970c-900wi","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blogs.tampabay.com\/.a\/6a00d83451b05569e2013480032c18970c-900wi"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/04\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest-ash.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Five-Sentence Scary Story Contest: Ash"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/","name":"O Me of Little Faith","description":"A blog by Jason Boyett about Doubt, Christianity, Culture & Writing","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#\/schema\/person\/f69eb4f788db541ff47d2f5d01cad5e7","name":"Jason Boyett","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a5a\/a5a647d97bed4014325bf9a1fb0b6900x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a5a\/a5a647d97bed4014325bf9a1fb0b6900x96.jpg","caption":"Jason Boyett"},"description":"Jason Boyett is a writer, speaker, and the author of several books, including O Me of Little Faith (Zondervan), and the Pocket Guide series (Jossey-Bass). His work has appeared in Salon, Paste, The Daily Beast, Relevant, and a variety of other publications. He has also appeared on the History Channel and National Geographic Channel. Jason lives in Texas with his wife and two kids. Follow him at twitter and jasonboyett.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/author\/jboyett"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}