NYC Midnight Microfiction Challenge
NYC Midnight’s Microfiction Challenge kicked off again this past December. Two years ago, my wife brought this intriguing writing contest to my attention. I signed up in 2024, had a blast, and thought I would throw my hat in the ring again this year.
The contest goes like this: participants are divided into around 100 groups. NYC Midnight assigns each group a story genre, an action that must be incorporated, and a specific word that must be used exactly as it is written. This assignment is posted on a Friday at 11:59 pm, with a deadline to submit a story of 250 words or fewer within 48 hours, by 11:59 pm that Sunday.
Last week, I learned that I had placed in the top ten of my group for Round 1 of this year’s competition, good enough to move on. Round 2 kicked off two days later, this past Friday at midnight. While there are strict rules about sharing one’s entry from the current competition (must wait at least ten days after that round’s results are announced, or something along these lines), I thought I would mark the anniversary by sharing my submissions from last year.
Only when seeing the entry numbers from this year’s contest did my achievement from last year really sink in—the kind of results which ultimately mean nothing for the competition (being among the top losers yields the same prize as first round elimination) yet mean so much to a writer like me who is passionate about growing in the craft and the business. In Round 1 of last year’s competition, I placed first in my group. Along with the top ten who move on to the next round, five others receive Honorable Mention. And when I first saw those results, I believed I had placed first out of fifteen contestants. To be clear, I was elated to be judged tops in any size gathering and to advance in the competition. Upon closer look, however, 4,100 entrants in the 2024 competition were whittled down to 125 by the third and final round, which, given the number of groups, means there were many more participants in our Round 1 group than I had realized.
Ultimately, I made it to the final round of last year’s contest. I neither placed nor earned Honorable Mention, but I was one of the last 125 standing, which I wear as a badge of honor, and, at the same time, an immense pressure to replicate and hopefully build on those results this year. But, of course, none of this works linearly; luck plays such a significant role in the fit of the assignment to your own strengths or predilections, in the timing—whether the muse is with you in the designated 48-hour writing period, and in the panel of anonymous readers who may or may not connect with your writing.
Last year, my Round 1 assignment was Genre: Ghost Story / Action: inflating / Word: “soak.” This was my submission:
Against the Windowpane
Light the candles. Run hot water. Shut the door, though you live alone. Strip off the day, and step into the tub.
No noise but the whisper of flames.
Rest your eyes.
Soak.
The squelch of latex, like a stifled whimper, wakes you. At the cracked-open door, an apparition—crimson diamonds frame black eyes against an oil-caked white canvas with an ivory smile that lingers, even as he inflates the balloon.
Blink.
The image is gone.
Flickering candlelight whips back shadows to reveal a frayed bowtie quaking as furious hands shape the sheer material into a giraffe.
Submerge. Wash away the mirage. Wash it all away: your past, the thin latex stretched and twisted into knots for the supposed pleasure of a seven-year-old girl, parents never curious enough about their daughter’s whereabouts.
Emerge, hair clinging to your cheek, eyes squeezed shut.
Images cannot hurt you; they are only ghosts pressing their faces against the windowpane of your memory.
But a burning aura creeps closer to your eyelids, a familiar musk of whiskey and ointment. You could not look into his face, aglow in the darkened bedroom that night, so it’s the smell you remember.
The hairs on your arms tingle as if drawn by the static of a long-necked balloon animal. Calloused flesh wraps around your wrist—the innocent entreaty of a giraffe’s tongue, you try to imagine. But the suffocating musk becomes hot breath behind your ear.
Your heart pounds.
The ghosts demand to be seen.
Open your eyes.