{"id":67,"date":"2010-01-13T07:32:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-13T07:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/01\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest-snow.html"},"modified":"2010-01-13T07:32:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-13T07:32:00","slug":"five-sentence-scary-story-contest-snow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/01\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest-snow.html","title":{"rendered":"Five-Sentence Scary Story Contest: Snow"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span>The conversation<\/span> since <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2010\/01\/god-and-gardens-and-big-question.html\">Monday<\/a> has been excellent, I think. Thanks to those of you who contributed, both from the religious and non-religious sides. Thanks also for keeping it civil.<\/p>\n<p>But it&#8217;s been a heavy sort of conversation, all this existence-of-God stuff. Let&#8217;s do something fun, OK?<\/p>\n<p>My favorite contests here are always the five-sentence story contests. I&#8217;m always pleasantly surprised at the quality of the writing. Surprise me again, please.<\/p>\n<p>Please take a look at this recent photo:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 400px;height: 222px\" src=\"https:\/\/d.yimg.com\/a\/p\/ap\/20100110\/capt.a63209d1f768402681cf4bee1d974569.winter_weather_nebraska_nedw102.jpg?x=400&amp;y=222&amp;q=85&amp;sig=FyVojYtv8B3KZhYA8oyQWw--\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This is a Five-Sentence Scary Story Contest. Your job is to come up with a creative and frightening story to explain this photo (please submit your story via comment), while adhering to the following five rules.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold\">Rule #1: <\/span>It doesn&#8217;t have to have anything to do with the actual real-life subject\/explanation of the photo.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold\">Rule #2: <\/span>It has to involve a character nicknamed &#8220;Hambone.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold\">Rule #3: <\/span>Why &#8220;Hambone&#8221;? Because it&#8217;s a silly name, and I want to see how you turn a funny nickname into something scary.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold\">Rule #4: <\/span>Your story must contain five sentences. No more. No less.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold\">Rule #5: <\/span>Your story must be frightening, moody, mysterious, or otherwise scary in tone.<\/p>\n<p>The winner gets a choice: Either you get a free signed copy of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0470373113?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=jasoboye-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0470373113\"><span style=\"font-style: italic\">Pocket Guide to the Afterlife<\/span><\/a>. Or you get a free <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fakebandshirts.com\/belialshirt.html\">Certain Sons of Belial<\/a> t-shirt in whatever size you prefer (Adult S, M, L, XL).<\/p>\n<p>The contest will last until 9 am central time tomorrow, at which point I&#8217;ll choose my favorite five-sentence submission. To get things started, my own submission is below. (Don&#8217;t worry, though. I refuse to pick myself as the winner, except in my daily morning ritual which has nothing to do with this contest.)<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8211;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: italic\">The snow was deep. <\/span>Too deep, <span style=\"font-style: italic\">Hambone thought to himself, as he steered his ancient Corolla into the ghostly white beyond, where the drifts met the sky. Last night, the storm had ravaged these wheat fields with a blizzard for the ages. But the frigid cold was nothing compared to the arctic chill he felt in the pit of his stomach. Or, to be more accurate, to the left and right of his stomach, where his kidneys had been.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8211;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold\">Need inspiration? Here are my previous Five-Sentence contests:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>+ <\/span>The inaugural <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/05\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest.html\">Five-Sentence Scary Story contest<\/a><br \/><span>+ <\/span>The <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/06\/five-sentence-romantic-story-contest.html\">Five-Sentence Romantic Story contest<\/a><br \/><span>+ <\/span>The <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/10\/5-sentence-story-contest-with-shark.html\">Five-Sentense Suspenseful Story contest<\/a> (with shark)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The conversation since Monday has been excellent, I think. Thanks to those of you who contributed, both from the religious and non-religious sides. Thanks also for keeping it civil. But it&#8217;s been a heavy sort of conversation, all this existence-of-God stuff. Let&#8217;s do something fun, OK? My favorite contests here are always the five-sentence story&hellip;<\/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-67","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contest","category-five-sentence","category-stories","category-writing"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Five-Sentence Scary Story Contest: Snow - 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\/01\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest-snow.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: Snow - O Me of Little Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The conversation since Monday has been excellent, I think. Thanks to those of you who contributed, both from the religious and non-religious sides. Thanks also for keeping it civil. But it&#8217;s been a heavy sort of conversation, all this existence-of-God stuff. Let&#8217;s do something fun, OK? My favorite contests here are always the five-sentence story&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/01\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest-snow.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"O Me of Little Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-01-13T07:32:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/d.yimg.com\/a\/p\/ap\/20100110\/capt.a63209d1f768402681cf4bee1d974569.winter_weather_nebraska_nedw102.jpg?x=400&amp;y=222&amp;q=85&amp;sig=FyVojYtv8B3KZhYA8oyQWw--\" \/>\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: Snow - 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\/01\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest-snow.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Five-Sentence Scary Story Contest: Snow - O Me of Little Faith","og_description":"The conversation since Monday has been excellent, I think. Thanks to those of you who contributed, both from the religious and non-religious sides. Thanks also for keeping it civil. But it&#8217;s been a heavy sort of conversation, all this existence-of-God stuff. Let&#8217;s do something fun, OK? My favorite contests here are always the five-sentence story&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/01\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest-snow.html","og_site_name":"O Me of Little Faith","article_published_time":"2010-01-13T07:32:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/d.yimg.com\/a\/p\/ap\/20100110\/capt.a63209d1f768402681cf4bee1d974569.winter_weather_nebraska_nedw102.jpg?x=400&amp;y=222&amp;q=85&amp;sig=FyVojYtv8B3KZhYA8oyQWw--"}],"author":"Jason Boyett","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/01\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest-snow.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/01\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest-snow.html","name":"Five-Sentence Scary Story Contest: Snow - O Me of Little Faith","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/01\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest-snow.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/01\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest-snow.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/d.yimg.com\/a\/p\/ap\/20100110\/capt.a63209d1f768402681cf4bee1d974569.winter_weather_nebraska_nedw102.jpg?x=400&amp;y=222&amp;q=85&amp;sig=FyVojYtv8B3KZhYA8oyQWw--","datePublished":"2010-01-13T07:32:00+00:00","dateModified":"2010-01-13T07:32:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#\/schema\/person\/f69eb4f788db541ff47d2f5d01cad5e7"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/01\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest-snow.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/01\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest-snow.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/01\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest-snow.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/d.yimg.com\/a\/p\/ap\/20100110\/capt.a63209d1f768402681cf4bee1d974569.winter_weather_nebraska_nedw102.jpg?x=400&amp;y=222&amp;q=85&amp;sig=FyVojYtv8B3KZhYA8oyQWw--","contentUrl":"http:\/\/d.yimg.com\/a\/p\/ap\/20100110\/capt.a63209d1f768402681cf4bee1d974569.winter_weather_nebraska_nedw102.jpg?x=400&amp;y=222&amp;q=85&amp;sig=FyVojYtv8B3KZhYA8oyQWw--"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/01\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest-snow.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: Snow"}]},{"@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 &amp; 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). 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