(Winners announced!) Summer ‘24 Hint Fiction writing challenge for lots of coins!!!

Hello, Story Spacers!

I need some fun summer reading, so I’m sponsoring a 70-word Hint Fiction writing contest around the theme of your choosing.

3 Rules:

1. Must post your story in this thread. Do NOT submit as a regular story for mods to approve

2. Must be 70 words or less

3. Must use all of the following 3 words:

a. buzz (or form like buzzes or buzzing)

Clarification: like ‘summer’, ‘buzz’ can be part of a compound word. Had a question on that.

b. summer (can be part of word like summertime or proper name Summer)

c. heat (or heated, heating, etc.)

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Contest begins June 23rd. Ends at 8 am EST July 8th.

A winner will receive 500 coins ($50). Second place will receive 375 coins ($37.50)

Winners announced July 9th.

My twin sister is the judge. She’s not a member and doesn’t know any of you. 😊

Remember: hint fiction should tell some semblance of a story and hint to a much larger story. Choose your 70 words wisely!!!

Have Fun! 😎

This sounds wonderful and I can't wait to read what you all come up with.

Thank you WriterGirl for sponsoring this!

I'll go first, so everyone will have something easy to better.

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Summer rises fast across the desert.
Against nature's clock, I was tasked one of the department newbies, to find her special bloom.
We'd slow-tramped two long arroyo cuts of heat and dust before we found it.
Sprawled in the gravel wash beside me, she turned her sweat-speckled face to mine and smiled.
"Hear that buzz? Happy bee, happy life."
She found what she was looking for. Maybe I did, too.

Surreptitiously following the freckle-faced girl through the summer heat of the forest, I gulped as she reached the haunted cave.

Petrified, I watched as she calmly walked inside.

The things I heard that night chilled me to the bone. Yet soon after dawn, she emerged unscathed. Serenely, she smiled, commenced to glow, then disappeared!

The buzzing in my head grew to a roar as I tiptoed towards the cave entrance…

Woohoo! Kis and Mr T swooping in first and setting the bar high! :worship:

Keep ‘em coming!

Quote by WriterGirl

Woohoo! Kis and Mr T swooping in first and setting the bar high! :worship:

Keep ‘em coming!

Oh crap, yes. You've really got something going here, eh.

I hope you join in the fun, Mr Ape! 😊

Well, I have one started and only need to cut 31 words. Gack. And I thought 100 words for a micro was hard.🙄

What a fabulous idea, WriterGirl, thank you.

I'll throw my hand in with a piece entitled "Nowhere To Turn"...

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I pause to wipe sweat from my grit-streaked brow. The relentless desert heat shimmers forever beyond the brittle brush and dusty tracks my idling car made, countless uninhabited miles from the interstate.

Summer had been brutal. I repeat under my breath: “I had no choice. No option.”

Casting a gaze to the Pontiac’s trunk, flies buzzing above the stench, I suppress more tears and vomit, then continue digging her grave.

Okay, here it is.

_______________

Walking in the summer heat, I met Goldie. The old man looked nervous, even a bit frightened.

“What’s the buzz?” I asked.

“Mickey’s back.”

My face went pale.

“You’re kidding?”

“I’m not.”

The last thing I needed was Mickey back. I hurried home.

“Mickey’s back,” I told Laura.

My wife stared out the window, then sat down and wept.

A cat’s meow made us both jump.

“Oh no,” I whispered.

Trust a redhead; eye-catching décolletage flouts winter’s dreary buzzkill--eight million stories in the naked city, none worth a stone-cold detective’s dime.

Summer’s sob story: sweet sister’s dreamy singing; Mafia’s speakeasy injustice. Mystery rulebreaker packed heat; murder most foul!  

Emerald eyes sparkle, the siren’s call to ante-up, yet she needn’t drop another dime. Sultriness flambéing grayscale has the gumshoe-moth flame focused, a femme fatale’s reputation for misdirection now cynically discounted.

Finding Godot

`

Godot burst through the door, head buzzing with hope – then stopped dead, disappointment bitter in his mouth.

The airless room was baking with summer heat. Turning, he found the door behind him had vanished. Only the door ahead remained.

Wiping his face, he resolved to escape. He strode forward, yanking the door handle…

.

Godot burst through the door, head buzzing with hope – then stopped dead…

🤣 at James' entry. Probably the funniest so far.

Bees terrified Jan, though she'd never seen one. So, she was terrified of summer. One year, as she sat alone on the stoop in the summer heat, she heard a buzz, and froze. The bumblebee came around the corner, buzzing comically loud, stumbling and bumbling from one gorgeous flower to the next. How could she have been scared of something so simple and beautiful?

When it stung her, she laughed.

I counted the words like 10 times. I think I’m right at 70,

Quote by verbal

I counted the words like 10 times. I think I’m right at 70,

Yup, right at 70! And I’m terrified of bees. Once stripped out of my top and bra and ran around screaming at an outside summer event when I heard a buzzing in my shirt. Not my finest moment. 😳

Y’all are so talented! And have terrific starts to longer stories!

Thank you for giving me some enjoyable lil reads! ❤️

Quote by verbal

I counted the words like 10 times. I think I’m right at 70

.

I copied it into a Word document, and MS Word thinks it's 70 words.

It's also very good.

Quote by JamesPBear

It's also very good.

Thanks Mr. Bear.

Quote by JamesPBear
MS Word thinks it's 70 words.

MS Word has some funny ideas sometimes, though. 😜

One weird thing I have noted with LibreOffice Writer is that the dang thing counts the header. So I have to CTRL-A to select the whole body to get a count of just actual text. That's one thing Word gets right, it ignores the header in word count.

Okay, y'all are wonderful. You all made it look so easy. Welp, here's my offering. As Verbal said, I've counted it 10 times.

~*~

The summer air seemed to buzz with something not yet seen. A cry floated through the air as lightning lit the sky and thunder cracked like a whip, startling the boy. The crying grew, feeling everywhere, surrounding him, racing in on rolling clouds. 

The boy froze, no longer feeling the heat of the day. 

His parents' warning was true. 

“‘No!” his cry was stolen by the wind.

“No,” he whimpered.

Thanks for the Heads-up, WG. Okay, here is my effort...

<<*>>

“Hey! Jeannie! Over here!”

“Hey, Mandy! What's new?”

“Have you heard the Buzz?”

“Buzz?”

“Yeah, you know. The Summer Heat Rock Festival.”

“What about it? You know I'm not into that noisy stuff.”

“Hollywood Vampires are playing on Sunday!”

“Never heard of them.”

“Alice Cooper?”

“So?”

“Johnny Depp?”

“What!? When does it start? I have to be there!”

Thank you, WriterGirl, for this generous competition. My entry is below.

************

Summer heat was intensifying. She had been made by the enemy and was now running. “Sierra One requesting immediate evac at rendezvous point,” she said into her earpiece. 

Suddenly, she triggered a landmine.

The buzz from a chopper was heard as it landed. 

A medic hopped off. He made his way to her maimed body.

OK, this is NOT an entry, but a certain person who will remain nameless happens to be visiting French Lick and wanted me to post this. I discarded this as too creepy, but apparently … SOMEbody LIKES creepy…

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The Assignment

Gildor opened the door. Hot summer air torched his face, and a fly buzzed by.

French Lick, he sneered to himself. What a hick name!

Flashing his plumber’s card, he entered the resort’s service entrance. His tool kit held zip ties, gags, and chloroform. He’d been sent to abduct that pair of twin sisters, and when the money was right, he always delivered…

Way too creepy, unless the ending has the twin sisters waiting eagerly for his arrival. Though their revenge on him and his employer could make his plans look sweet by comparison...😲😈

Wow, I make 10 entries, though it's getting hard to count with all the chatter in between.

Quote by JamesPBear

OK, this is NOT an entry, but a certain person who will remain nameless happens to be visiting French Lick and wanted me to post this. I discarded this as too creepy, but apparently … SOMEbody LIKES creepy…

------------------------

The Assignment

Gildor opened the door. Hot summer air torched his face, and a fly buzzed by.

French Lick, he sneered to himself. What a hick name!

Flashing his plumber’s card, he entered the resort’s service entrance. His tool kit held zip ties, gags, and chloroform. He’d been sent to abduct that pair of twin sisters, and when the money was right, he always delivered…

Oh funny Bear. I know how this one ends. You don’t wanna mess with twins. Muhahaha! 😈😈

Kelly is loving these. Some made her smile. Some made her laugh. Some made her go, “Awww”, some tugged on her heartstrings, and one of you made her go, “WTF?!”

😀

Alright, Here is my entry. Seventy words exactly according to Google Docs.

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Summer left sweat puddles on the bus seat, as she stood, her dress clung like sap on bark, to her legs in the South Carolina heat.  Once on the dirt road, the bus exhaled exhaust into her hair. Determined, she walked quickly toward the tiny shack in the distance. Taking a jar out of her bag to make sure she still heard the faint buzzing of royal wings inside it. 

Quote by JamesPBear

OK, this is NOT an entry, but a certain person who will remain nameless happens to be visiting French Lick and wanted me to post this. I discarded this as too creepy, but apparently … SOMEbody LIKES creepy…

------------------------

The Assignment

Gildor opened the door. Hot summer air torched his face, and a fly buzzed by.

French Lick, he sneered to himself. What a hick name!

Flashing his plumber’s card, he entered the resort’s service entrance. His tool kit held zip ties, gags, and chloroform. He’d been sent to abduct that pair of twin sisters, and when the money was right, he always delivered…

😈

His idea of silent stealth is amusing. And unacceptable. I ease up in a slow stretch, heating my limbs.

"What is it, Pix? Trouble?" you buzz-purr, still sleepy-eyed from our snuggle.

"No worries, Butter. Just going to make sure we get fed in the morning."

I give each fore-paw a flex, talons arcing. Satisfied, I slip into the summer darkness.

I hope this one's a screamer. That's always more fun.