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Hey guys!
If you’re in the mood for some Halloween themed shenanigans, I wrote and posted a fun little story for the Swell Tales (a story site with a focus on expansion themes) Story Contest.
There are a total of 16 stories submitted, and you can go through and vote for your favorite. Please don’t vote for mine without reading the other stories and judging fairly , as I’m not trying to use my awesome followers to win, simply to bring some attention to the site along with the contest.
There were specific requirements for entry, mainly that it involve pumpkins, be horror themed, focus on hourglass expansion (my favorite!), and include a few other things, including ghosts, candy, and that kind of thing.
Now, you may be asking why Haley is the image for this, and if she has anything to do with it? Not exactly, I was simply working on a set of Halloween renders for her and realized that using a redhead on a farm fit the theme well. I'll have more renders of her to post here shortly.
The story follows Isabel as she returns from college for the summer and is tasked by her father to grow a giant pumpkin for the Harvest Festival Pumpkin Growing Contest along with her sister, Sandra. The girls catch up from the previous year, and we learn Isabel has a reputation for being "the girl who has a creepy ghost stalker that scares away her boyfriends".
Later, Sandra's boyfriend gets a visit from the creepy ghost stalker as well, and the girls team up to find out who or what is behind it as the guys in their lives are scared to even talk to them. It helps, however, that both of them are growing bustier over the summer.
I had fun working using this little contest for practice writing in a different genre. Lately my goal has been to keep things tighter and follow the original outline more instead of letting the characters run off and do their own thing. This mostly happened, although it was the deadline that kept me honest. Speaking of honest, I should admit I wrote the entire third act in the final hours before the deadline, meaning I didn’t go back to polish up, or have much time to check if I left myself notes or anything. Pretty sure the spelling of the main character’s name changes. So it’s not perfect, but I’m still pretty happy with how it came out.
Later I'll go back to touch the story up a bit, including fleshing out the ending and doing a better job to pay off some of the earlier setups, but for now I believe the story still holds up, despite the lack of polish.
Where to find the story? The contest can be found here:
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My submission is the very bottom one, and is titled Pumpkins by Mike Hawk (the pen name I started writing with).
Happy Halloween!
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