Happy November! It’s one of the two best months of the year (at least in the USA), as you have fall weather, Thanksgiving, football and hockey season going strong, as well as summer and baseball mercifully ending. Of course, November isn’t perfect, as Black Friday is a thing¹On one of my old blogs, I wrote a short story about how weird an alien civilization would find Black Friday to be. If I can find the post, I’ll put it up on this blog at some point in the future.. But hey, even a perfectly snowy day can have its moments of ugliness, right?

As an additional quick note, there will be no mid-month short story challenge prompt in December. This is because I’d like a month off from writing a prompt and a short story, particularly with how much I’ve been posting this month. Plus people are busy during the holidays and stuff²How dare all of you…. The next story prompt will be posted on January 15, 2019.

Your prompt is for this month below. Your story should be posted on December 1, 2018. Be sure to link back to this post so I can see your story and share.

• Suggested number of words: Maximum 2500 words
  
• Seven words to work into your story: Truculent, gabby, rambunctious, yellow, scared, fox, dye
  
• Genre: No limitations
  
• Rating/Content/Perspective Limitation: First person perspective
  
• Topic: You are people watching at a public place. Tell a story where your main character begins making up a reality for those around him/her based on what he/she sees (how they look/what they’re doing/what they’re saying/etc). End your story with a paragraph or two where the people being watched by your main character shatter that reality in some way.
  

This is Halloween. Or so the song goes. I don’t know, I didn’t write it. That said, we have entered my favorite part of the year — fall/autumn — and all the holidays that come along with it. While I have a personal fondness for Thanksgiving, I do enjoy Halloween. It’s the one secular holiday where you get to eat all the sweets you want and (nearly) no one judges you.

I didn’t get to go trick-or-treating as a kid until I was 13 years old. That said, the costumes and spooky stories around Halloween always fascinated me. In light of that, we’ll be going with a spooky prompt for this month’s challenge. The idea for this prompt was provided by frequent idea giver, Stephanie.

Your prompt is for this month below. Your story should be posted on October 31, 2018. Note the date in the previous sentence, as your post is due one day earlier this month to coincide with Halloween. Be sure to link back to this post so I can see your story and share.

• Suggested number of words: Minimum 500 words, no maximum
• Seven words to work into your story: Couture, amalgamation, spooky, twins, jury, centerpiece, control
  
• Genre: The prompt feels like it works well for a young adult style, but you can deviate from that if you want.
  
• Rating/Content/Perspective Limitation: No limitations
• Topic: You are a ghost. You’re off to haunt someone. In your ghost world, ghosts get to choose what they wear on a haunt by haunt basis. Tell the story of why this matters, as well as how your ghost gets ready for this specific haunt.

It’s the middle of summer if you’re in the northern hemisphere. If you’re like me, that means you’re struggling through the worst part of the year, begging and pleading that fall and winter will come sooner rather than later. Since there wasn’t much of a spring time in the Midwestern USA this year, it’s doubly the truth.

What better way to beat the summertime blues¹Alan Jackson fans are free to take a shot here. than to go inside, crank up the air conditioner, listen to some music, and write a story? And even if you’re the type that likes being outdoors, I’m sure there’s a shade tree or a park where you can do the same — as this month’s prompt post is a little bit different from previous ones. This will be the start of two consecutive music related theme prompts, so let me know how you like it.

Your prompt is for this month below. Your story should be posted on August 1, 2018. Be sure to link back to this post so I can see your story and share.

• Suggested number of words: Minimum 500 words, no maximum
• Seven words to work into your story: Gravity, reject, narrow, relief, defiant, register, staircase
• Genre: Open to you
• Rating/Content/Perspective Limitation: No limitations
• Topic: It’s up to you…but you have to write your story based on a song. You get to pick the song, you get to pick the topic, you get to write the story. Just be sure to add a note (or a link) within your post indicating what song you used for inspiration.