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While I’m waiting for results from the Writers’ Playground contest, I entered another contest from WritingBattle.com

WritingBattle is another interesting contest with a set of writing ‘genres,’ object and character prompts and a word count limit to smash your face against to cause pain.

The prompts I got were ‘In Plain Sight’ which they call a genre, though it’s not a genre, it’s a trope maybe? Maybe a concept? A scenario?

Hard to say.

But I got that.

My other prompts were statue and denier.

All interesting enough that I stuck with my first set of prompts. They allow you to re-roll prompts if you choose, up to twice for ‘genre’ and I think seven or eight times for the object and character type.

For this contest, it’s a Swiss style tournament, which is interesting. In the first round, you’re randomly paired against another story in your ‘genre’ two different times.

Subsequent rounds attempt to match you against peer level writing. So, if you win both of the first round pairings, you’ll end up against other successful stories.

All interesting enough.

Now, I’ve judged five different story matches and I’m not going to get into specifics, but for people who may blunder onto this website asking for answers, here’s what I valued.

Complete stories. Emotional draw. Prompt integration. Eighteen other things. Prose.

Prose is overrated.

The best stories I read were simple, accessible. I hope my story ticks those boxes, but I’m already dreading having submitted what I did.

Wit of the staircase and all that.

Anyway, I’ll update this when results come in.

There wasn’t a ton of information out there about this one, so I’m going to track my experience with this 2026 Writers’ Playground contest for anybody who’s considering entering a future contest.

Oh yeah, here’s an article with a few more interesting contests. I’ve done one through NYC Midnight, but that was a short screenwriting contest many moons ago. Unrelated.

For folks who don’t know what it is, welcome to the club. As I understand it, you pay your entry fee, for this year it’s $34, and you’ll receive an email when the contest begins, giving you a list of stuff your story must have.

There will be five character types to choose from.

Pick one of five different locations.

One object that must be included.

The main character doesn’t have to be one of the five character archetypes, but one of the characters in the story has to be, and they need to be integral.

The length is capped at 3000 words, but they give you a 100 words worth of padding. So, it’s really 3100 words maximum, at least for this year.

I think the whole concept is pretty interesting, so we’ll see how it goes.

I’ll update this post with the actual information and maybe briefly talk about what I’m thinking.

I’ve been trying to practice by randomly selecting character types and locations, then objects. Haven’t written anything, but it’s been fun to try to make connections between random things. The real challenge, I think, will be falling in love with somebody else’s idea of a character, location, and object.

I’m not used to that.

But, yeah, that’s the intro. What follows is the actual requirements for this year’s contest. Unless they yell at me for giving away secrets. But let’s face it, they’d be the first visitors to my blog, so maybe they’ll go easy on me.

Okay, here’s the prompts from the email.

PROMPTS – (Open to creative interpretation but it must be clear to the judges, as readers. If you are uncertain at all about your interpretation, reach out to us and ask.)

CHOOSE ONE OF THE CHARACTERS LISTED BELOW. This character does not have to be your protagonist but they must play a significant role in your story.

1. Someone living sober after quitting the use of alcohol and/or drugs
2. A lottery winner
3. A masseuse
4. The child of a celebrity (can be any age)
5. A serial killer

CHOOSE ONE OF THE SETTINGS LISTED BELOW. Can be set in any time-period, including the future, unless specified. Can deviate slightly from the selected prompt but the majority of the story must take place in one of these settings.

1. A first date 
2. A cenote
3. Set in the 1980s (anywhere)
4. A country club/members’ club
5. An indoor shopping mall

THE ONE THING THAT MUST BE INCLUDED IN ALL STORIES IS:

• A rusty bicycle (a rusty tricycle or unicycle would be fine as well)

I’m going to wait to post my thoughts on all of these, but I’ve actually finished my first draft. (Honestly, it’s an 8th draft.)

It took about 48 hours and I’m at 3050 words, or so. Anyway, it’s been a fun experiment in writing something I had no intention of writing.

We’ll see how it goes. After the deadline comes past, I’ll add a part two to this post about how and why I chose what I chose.

Oh, whatever, I picked the child of a celebrity and the 1980s as the setting.

Some of the others were interesting though.

I’m guessing a lot of people pick the country club, the mall, and especially a serial killer on a first date. But, who knows!

Just read an excellent post on Substack I thought I’d share to my zero readers, mostly because I want to save it to read again down the road, and, maybe, help the algorithm find a solid article even more.

Here’s the thesis statement.

Getting published requires skills in (1) storytelling, (2) writing, and (3) identity—stories that are uniquely you. Together. All at once. Working cohesively. Not two out of the three. Not two and a quarter. All of them in the same manuscript at the same time, layering on top of each other in the most satisfyingly original way.

I think there’s a lot of truth to it and considering my position right now, I’m already regretting having queried too early.

The Thing Nobody In Your Discord Will Say To Your Face

(Insert some meme about how I don’t have Discord.)

My query stats so far. Fourteen queries sent, 3 haven’t replied and I don’t expect will, one full request that, again, I’m kind of regretting. Not because of the agent, she seems excellent, and very editorial, which is something I’m looking for. But, I worry that I didn’t give her enough of these three categories to see the value.

Oh well, lesson learned. I’m already about 10% through my next thing in just 4 days. At this pace, I could be done in a couple months, at least the fat first draft.

And keeping in mind, storytelling, writing and identity has helped keep things going in one direction. It’s interesting, I’m already not overwriting, which I guess could be good or bad. But either way, it’s flowing faster. That’s good.

And if I keep up the trend of writing faster, I’ll have the 4th thing done in a solid 3 day weekend. That wouldn’t be good.

Hey, I’m Alex, and I’m just getting started with this new website. I’m hoping to turn this into a sort of writing community, where people can find like-minded writers for critique partnerships and all of that. Plus, I guess I’ll be blogging a little bit too, as I wade into the query trenches with my would-be debut novel.

Oh yeah, I have a substack too, which I’ll probably be using along side this blog. I’m sure that will get more traffic than this, so check it out.

https://substack.com/@alexhaynesbrown/