Week One - Sunday to Saturday
Access the Prompts and Write

Prompts  |  Sunday
Our prompts are posted on Sunday morning on the Parade Order page. To access this page, visit The Den, accept the Rules of the Road and click the Start This Parade button to begin your 90 minute writing session. Do not click  until you are ready to write, as your timed session begins when you click this button. You will be taken to the prompt gallery for the current week.

We typically feature a half dozen or so prompts, which can be images, text, or a combination thereof. Unless specifically directed otherwise, you may choose any one or combination of prompts to inspire your flash. Prompts are meant to inspire you, not chain you down. That said, members typically take your useage of the prompt(s) into account when voting for awards.

Flash Session  |  Sunday through Saturday
When you are ready to begin your writing session, visit the Parade Order page (accessable from The Den). Take in the prompts and write your flash piece(s) in a word or text processor. When you are done, click Take Me to the Story Submission Page button found below the Prompts gallery.

The Submission page contains a form where you will enter your name, story title (optional), word count (optional) and paste the body of the story. Click Submit, and you'll be taken to a page that allows you to write another flash or end your session. Yes, you may write more than one entry, but the all entries must be completed within the initial 90 minute time frame in order to be considered for voting.

If you do take longer than 90 minutes, go ahead and submit that road kill. We will make the story available for commenting, but it will not be available for award voting. Note: if you write a second story and the second story pushes you beyond the limit, only that second story will be marked as road kill.

Hanging Out While the Parade Forms

 Big Easy Forum |  Always open
While we're waiting for the stories to be posted for comment, we generally hang out in the Big Easy Forum. This is where we get to know each other and discuss topics of the day.

What we do not do is identify (directly or by inference) the story we wrote for the current challenge, or the prompts. Don't spoil it for those who have not yet written.

Parade Awards |  Always open
You might also visit the Parade Awards page to get a sampling of past Challenge Winners. Here is where we list winners of the Flash Challenge, with links to their pages and recent publications. In order to have your publications listed, you must first win a Flash Challenge, so if you do not at first succeed, keep trying, keep getting better. It's that whole "challenge" thing. We will list and link to published stories that started here on Show Me Your Lits.

Week Two - Sunday to Thursday
The Judging

Read and Comment  |  Sunday through Thursday
Once stories have been posted, we have a chance to read and comment on them. Stories can be accessed via the Read the Stories page. If we have enough stories, we will arrange them into krewes (4-7 stories each). In this case, you will be responsible for reading the stories in one krewe (possibly more than one if you wrote more than one story). In this way we try to limit your time obligation, and to make room for more winners (beads are cheap!). If your story appears on one krewe, you will be asked to read the stories in another krewe, but you are certainly allowed and encouraged to also read and vote on stories in your krewe.

There are no strict rules for commenting, but we try to balance positive and negative comments. While we are not a workshop, most of our members appreciate constructive criticism aimed at improving the next draft. Clever comments are valued (they're shiny!), but mean-spirited statements will be frowned upon.

Stories are posted without author name, so at this point we theoretically have no idea who wrote what. Sometimes, a member's style will shine through this mask of anonymity and we may have a little fun guessing who the writer might be, but we refrain from actually identifying them by name in the comments. We're not about ripping off masks, but rather nibbling along the edges. Some of us will comment on our own stories to further confuse identity. That's entirely up to you, but it can add a bit of fun to the process.

Vote!!!  |  Sunday through Thursday
The whole point of a contest is to vote on the winners, right? And we do take the voting seriously here. Several categories are available for your votes and each category includes a "No Vote" option should you feel that no story excelled in a particular area. You are free to vote for your own story if you honestly believe yours is the best in a particular category, but we tend not to vote for our own work out of respect for our fellow members.

Friday and Saturday
Results Revealed

Best of the Best  |  Friday
If we have more than one krewe, there will be an additional voting on Friday to choose the "Best of the Best" for that week. The best of each krewe will be pitted against one another.

Winners and winners |  Saturday
Winners of the week's competition are announced on Saturday. The announcement will appear in the Big Easy Forum, and the winner of Best Flash (or Best of the Best in the case of multiple krewes) is invited to provide prompts for the next challenge.

At this point, members are encouraged to join the discussion, claim their story, answer any questions raised in the comments, ask questions about comments, suggest possible markets, etc.

Join Us!