Looking for a little Friday procrastination in the form of a writing challenge? Close that Excel spreadsheet you’re working on, minimize your boss’ emails or postpone your daily chores (come on, nobody would rather change a litter box than write, right?). Take five: It’s time for our Your Story contest.
Basically, in every issue we give our readers a chance to get published in Writer’s Digest by responding to a writing prompt. Here’s the latest, from our November/December issue (featuring an interview with the awesome George RR Martin, I might add):
In 25 words or fewer, write the opening sentence to a story incorporating these three words: fresh, hair and tangled.
Want in? Post your entry in the Comments section below, and it’ll automatically be entered in the competition.
The rules:
- Your sentence (just one, only one!) must be 25 words or fewer, no exceptions.
- The deadline is Nov. 26, 2012.
- One entry per person, please.
- How it all works: We’ll select the top 10 entries and post them on our forum. In early December, readers will vote for their favorites to help rank the winners.
- This is a free writing competition. The prize is publication in WD.
- You can also submit your sentence via the form here.
- Finally, as we say about this contest in the magazine: “You can be funny, poignant, witty, etc. It is, after all, your story.”
Good luck! One of the most fun things we get to do around here every issue is read the entries, and we appreciate every single word that comes in.
Now, to return to our Excel spreadsheets and litter boxes …
Happy Friday.
—Zachary Petit is an award-winning journalist, and the senior managing editor of Writer’s Digest magazine.
Like what you read from WD online? Check us out in print, or on your favorite mobile device.
Need help brainstorming story ideas for fiction or nonfiction? On the hunt for some great writing exercises?
Where Do You Get Your Ideas? explores the processes professional writers use in turning raw ideas into marketable books. This new manual from author Fred White (currently on sale!) is designed to help writers both generate story ideas as well as understand where they come from, how they are developed and how to separate the good from the bad.
I stepped in fresh bear excrement and the leaves, twigs, and moss were tangled in my hair making this camping trip a catastrophe not adventurous.
I stepped in fresh bear excrement and the leaves, twigs, and moss were tangled in my hair, making this camping trip a catastrophe not adventurous!
One can’t say exactly how the fresh breeze seizes when scanning the vast expanse of majestic blue, but it’s felt, gracefully pulling through tangled hair.
His dark hair had turned gray, the once fresh face had aged; time had made it so, but I was tangled in memories of before.
Thomas awoke with a start. Parchment in hand and fresh ink tangled in his hair he leaped from his desk shouting, ” Get me Franklin!”
Looking down at the small body tangled in a mass of fresh linen, the young mother wept; tears spilling onto her son’s soft, downy hair.
The fresh, divine smell of richly pure blood suffocated the human, tangling her into the midst of immortality. Her hair shadowed her bloody mouth, as she left the sight; the blood still flowing in rivulets through the ice. It was a matter of time before the blood would dry up and the police wouldn’t find a single drop of her murderous and heinous crime. She would continue her search.
His hair was tangled and matted with fresh blood that upon closer inspection, was not his.
Yes, I know it’s past the deadline, but it was fun, so I did it.
Unshaven but clean, the woman’s hair formed a fresh, tangled web over her gangly legs.
I rode through the forest clutching the tangled mane of my pure white stallion, the fresh air whipping my hair wildly behind me.
As she came out of the shower I allowed my fingers to get tangled within her luscious hair as I smelt her body’s fresh scent.
Fresh air told Ning that he was outside the walls; and while this breath of freedom fortified his heart, his hands were shredded and his forehead pulsed as he comprehended that there was still a 20 foot fall from the end of his lifeline of hoarded hair, shreds of cloth and tangled barbed wire to the start of his race for home.
“Oh please no,”Spoke the girl,her hair in her face,fresh blood staining her clothes;she would be blamed for the cold tangled body.
Fresh tears blur her vision of the angry man before her, catching in her tangled hair, “I am sorry, I am not the one.”
It was a cool breezy morning, but somehow the scent of the oiled iron hot comb pressing through Angie’s tangled hair overpowered the fresh daisies.
I know I missed the deadline so this is more for me…
“Don’t you get fresh with me, mutt,” Ty erupted, grabbing his daughter’s hair into a tangled rope of rage.
As I stand watching her sleep, her fresh smelling hair lying like a tangled halo about her head, I realize she is my angel.
The air is thick, making my tangled hair stick to my neck. I long for the fresh, cool air of home. A tear falls.
The single, exhausted mother with sweaty and tangled hair got refreshed once she looked at the fresh and innocent smiles from her young children.
“You tangled with the wrong bitch,” Moira said to the girl she held firmly the hair while the fresh cut on her face oozed slightly.
Darn deadlines
Her unbrushed hair smelled fresh, and her stolen fruits felt tangled, she thought, as she jolted down the streets, leaving her pursuers far behind her.
Tangled in her thoughts of the past month’s happenings, Jenna brushed her daughter’s hair, realizing just how fresh her father’s death still was.
Floating tangled in an umbilical cord; I realized the silver lining of an elderly death—to be born again with a fresh head of hair.
She delighted in a squeal as she buried her face into a fresh pillow, her hair and thoughts still tangled from last night’s sin.
Plucking a fresh beetle, black and tangled, from the remaining strands of her daughter’s hair, she left a kiss on her forehead.
Her hair no longer tangled, Stephanie exited the hair salon with a sigh of relief, and inhaled a deep breath of the fresh autumn air.
She began to pry open a fresh can of paint with her father’s screwdriver, pausing briefly to brush the tangled hair from her wet face.
I don’t see my entry do I post it here as well.
I could not say anything intelligent to Linda; the scent of fresh lavender from her long hair tangled my senses rendering me speechless.
The words hair, fresh, and tangled seemed completely arbitrary, but she knew if she didn’t crack this code soon, they’d kill her son.
Dark hair peeked through the fresh rip in her tights as she gingerly liberated her scuffed boots from the tangled pile of limbs.
Coming within a hair of being capsized, Colin cut his tangled line, re-rigged his pole with fresh bait, then cast where he’d seen Nessie surface.
She rose above the grave, hair tangled around her neck, fighting the fresh soil with her hands, no longer dead, and not yet alive.
Knots tangled in his stomach when he saw the fresh corpse and the clump of hair in his hand.
Taylor Streitz
19 words
My eyes dilate at the scene of fresh, recently killed humans; strings of hair are tangled together, and my self-indulgence transforms into lunacy.
Tangled hair hung in her face, soaking up fresh tears as she made the call “It happened again -worse-, I’m driving, lost and…I’m naked!”
He should have known not to tangle with a married woman. Fake ID and black hair die. It was time for a fresh start.
Sara Jacobelli
24 words
I wonder “How can the sky be so clear, the air so fresh and yet the world we live in is so tangled?”
Bill fought with the tangled string of lights, the fresh wet snow had soaked his shoes, and his sweaty hair made his scalp itch.
Freeing my tangled hair from the bush, I wondered once again why the scent of fresh blood made me forget look before I changed.
Shoots, didn’t proofread good enough, Should be
forget to look before I changed.
Randy smiled, determined not to insult his new wife’s cooking ability, but the zombie’s hair, fresh and undercooked, tangled with his tongue for mouth space.
In the mornings after, Nick left fresh trails of tangled heartstrings and torn out hair when he disappeared; he struggled against his bindings… Not today.
With fresh blood trickling from his hairline, Sergio shook his scraggly hair from his eyes and wrenched the thick, heavy rope tangled at my feet.
Tsami put the tangled mass of what looked like wet seaweed in her mouth; it tasted like hair- fresh, oil-soaked hair.
Tsami picked up the tangled mass of what looked like wet seaweed from the pot, and put it in her mouth; it tasted like hair, fresh hair soaked in coconut oil.
Walking down the street, fresh out of the beauty parlor, my hair suddenly got tangled in the propellers of a rogue remote-controlled airplane.
The tangled mess of murder in his eyes was so fresh and haunting, the hair on the back of my neck stood on end.
My hand was securely tangled in her hair as I pulled her head back, exposing the fresh bruises on her throat.
Immediately, the fresh scent of decay assaulted my senses; the hair stood on my neck and my scream got tangled up in my throat.
“Oh what a tangled web we weave…” she thought, as she slowly brushed her freshly washed hair.
Hoping for a fresh new video evaporated when the toddler bounded out with her ducky towel saying “let down my hair;” another night watching Tangled.
Tufts of bloody hair indicated a fresh trail leading into the tangled underbrush of this dying forest; I whispered to my team, “We’re close.”
“The trail is fresh,” muttered a cloaked figure as he ran his fingers through his tangled hair, while he contemplated his standing with his employer.
The feelings of my dysfunctional home and the home I had known as a child became tangled like matted hair and I just felt lost.
Fresh roadkill would not have warranted the rubbernecking now thwarting my morning commute were it not for the tangled mass sporting Tagg’s punk pink hair.
Feeling tangled between thyself and my roommate for stealing my last fresh pair of socks, I grab her hair and yank viciously, screaming,” you
The fresh breeze from the window of the basement blows her hair and becomes as tangled as the thoughts in her head.
The road lost my attention with her freshly painted toes dancing on my dashboard and her tangled hair tapping my shoulder; I pulled over.
He thrust his fist against the tangled fresh corpse ,spiraled hair enclosed his hand in self defense almost by its own accord.
Each summer, it was her job to shape the tangled threads of spun sugar into bouffants of pink candy hair.
Even while showering I’m in despair – the latest treatments mean his thick hair shall never tangle again after the use of our fresh peppermint shampoo.
For sale: one hair, tangled, with the fresh bulb intact. One dollar.
The image of Delia, her raven hair tangled and sprawled across his pillow, remained fresh in Evan’s memory long after he awoke from the dream.
One fresh morning last April, I left my home for the first time in twenty-three years, seeking a remedy for my horribly tangled hair.
Fresh air poured across the hood, up the windshield, and flooded the convertible’s interior; her tangled brown hair undulating against a sea of autumn wind.
I dance harder, shake out my freshly-washed hair over my shoulders, raising my arms above my head, moving faster now, tangled in the crowd.
Still able to smell the fresh shampoo– I tuck her loose hair into the bag and, without hesitation, dispose of my twin’s tangled body.
Still able to smell the fresh shampoo– I tuck her loose hair into the bag and, without hesitation, depose of my twin’s tangled body.
The scent of fresh-spilled formaldehyde scalded my nose hair as I learned the now breathless old man, with the tangled beard, shared my fingerprints.
Such a tangled taunt he speaks; opening wounds fresh pulling hair and gnashing teeth.
The fresh breeze cooled Janet’s sunburnt face as she tangled with her bridesmaid outside of the hair salon on the morning of her wedding day.
Her body hung from tangled branches, her lifeless nose upturned like she smelled fresh salmon, and my hair dirtied her sweater, DNA of a killer.
Hair down the drain signaled success; with a gut full of gumption and a fresh razor I’d decided I’d no longer be “Timmy Tangled Pubes.”
Holding a clump of his rival’s hair, Luca watched his fresh start disappear over the cliff’s edge alongside the tangled mess of hooves and horns.
Have you ever bitten into a fresh chocolate-chip cookie and ended up spitting out a tangled-up piece of hair?–story of my life.
His tangled hair smelled like a combination of cigarettes and fresh laundry – the domesticated, bad boy.
“I used to hate being in the fresh air because it made my hair so tangled,” she laughed, as she brushed her tears away.
I lean out the window of the train, the wind tangling my hair, and I inhale the fresh morning scent, feeling tears on my cheeks.
He noticed her hair first, an elegant riot of color like the fresh fallen tangled leaves from the Japanese Maple outside his study window.
With wicked longing, he tangled his hands in her hair, jerking her head back revealing lips dripping fresh with the blood of her last victim.
The tangled gold chain glittered from the depths beneath the koi, a fresh competitor’s bauble perched in the rippling reflection of Vivien’s hair.
Tangled up in stifling traditions, I nervously studied the photograph – an older man, fresh-faced despite the graying hair, chosen to be my husband.
The fresh wind blowing from my left sat in sharp contrast to the severed head held at my right, its hair tangled around bloody fingers.
Nauseous from the coppery stench of her own blood-caked and tangled hair, Angela relished that first breath of fresh air outside the cellar walls.
Her iridescent auburn hair unfurled and tangled in the fresh, crisp California air as she leaned hard into the sharp turn on Dead Man’s Curve.
“Fresh Peaches” read the roadside sign as I sat helplessly tangled in my seatbelt and puked the acid of the morning’s hair of the dog.
“How am I going to survive Montana?” Kayla wondered as she tried to pull her boot from the tangled barbed wire without falling into the fresh cow pie and horse hair.
Too many words. I can’t count that late at night. Sorry. Here’s the rewrite:
Kayla tried to pull her boot from the tangled barbed wire without falling into the fresh cow pie and horse hair.
The farmer is losing his hair, his life tangled in piling debts, but this month, the crop he produced is fresh – so he smiled.
The fresh faced kid removed his cap revealing a head full of tangled hair and said, “You got some nerve asking me to do that!”
Oh, what a tangled web our fingers weave in our hair when trying to come up with a fresh idea for a first sentence.
I do not know why this thread exists because this is the same writing prompt as competition #46. Do I need to enter it here, too?
She–supine, now, head cradled by a bloodied mass of tangled hair, the blood-scent still fresh and sharp and metallic as a knife–died.
He grabbed her head, tangled his hand in her hair and meeting her eyes said lovingly, “stop being so fresh or I’ll spank you.”
Teen’s in crowds seem tangled, tightly twined by the tail of a single hair resembling chandeliers, exchange fresh idea’s, the future hangs in the balance.
I mutter as I fight the tangled wires of our VCR , the children’s voices whining for fresh play-doh, the sweat collecting in my hair.
My hands tear through my hair, in attempts to pull away the tangled thoughts that produce anguish as fresh as the day it occurred.
In my fresh baldness, my sympathies were with Gorillaman ripping out his hair because he, too, loathed how the bitch of a mate tangled it.
One gains a fresh perspective on life after you tangle with a Denenbian slime-devil and escape merely by a hair.
I thought for certain that I had read the challenge to originally include the word tangle, rather than tangled.My mistake, I suppose ?
She stepped out of the shower, fresh and clean, her hair a tangled mess when she was suddenly startled by the door bell.
Tangled hair placed neatly in an envelope can give a fresh start to the cancer conqueror.
I remember. Wind fresh with ocean scent. Lights flashing. Mouths moving. Silence. Hair that was my comfort now tangled in a bloody mess.
My 12 year old sister’s hair held a fresh scent of vomit as it lie tangled on the bathroom floor, the harsh reality of chemotherapy
The fresh catch of Octopus was tangled like windblown hair.
The fresh scent of the piney woods still perfumed her hair as she pulled the dry brown needles from her sultry tangles.
I held my breath as a raked the comb through the tangled, not so fresh smelling hair of a ragamuffin found staggering along the roadside.
As Melanie teased strands from the tangled knot in her daughter’s hair, she fought hard to hold back a fresh batch of tears.
She stood over me with mussed tangled hair and beguiling eyes, as she moved to turn out the lights I could smell a fresh scent.
“I was never good at hair,” I lamented as I combed the tangled tail of Unfailing, who whinnied and dropped a fresh one.
WTH? This is competition #46, which I’ve already entered. Do I need to enter here, too?
Determined to forget her tangled past, Marissa caressed her newly-bobbed hair as she savored a fresh cup of coffee, hundreds of miles from Dallas.
I remember her face, once fresh and vibrant, concealed by inky locks of hair as her tangled body pressed motionless against the pavement.
Yes, the mat of blonde hair tangled up in my braces creeps me out, but the taste of fresh brains is so worth it.
The patient’s right hand tangled along with the side rail jerking hair with the bandaged intravenous needle causing fresh blood to stain the bed sheets..
The mongrel, lured by fresh blood, forced the assassin to step away from his victim and set the hair trigger on his pistol.
Oops, when I shortened to 25 words, tangled was left out. Oh well, I’ll try again next time.
He tangled his fingers in the earth’s swollen roots, feeling for the pulse of the fresh ground and the hair of his whispering lover.
Eery, I like this!!!
Reminds me of a Tim Burton movie. It’s amazing how much of a punch you packed into a mere 25 words!
Her hair lay flush against her back as its freshly woven tangles formed a ladder on which he could climb up to grab her thoughts.
Frenzied hounds following her fresh scent led investigators to the murky river, where they discovered strands of silken hair tangled in an overhanging branch.
As she inhaled the fresh ocean air from the lanai, she spotted a tangled fishing net with a decapitated head with seaweed in its hair.
“What fresh hell is this?” she growled, stuttery under the tender mahogany gaze, egg-eyes peering out from the beast’s tangled mass of eyebrow hair.
Emily Blake, fresh out of second grade, pulled her lucky cap over her tangled blonde hair and wished that summer would make things better.
Yesterday, pale-aired Autumn felt fresh and free from summer’s demand to tuck beach wind ‘neath his hair, but since, the doctor’s life had tangled.
She fingers her wet tangled hair and passes by, a subtle breeze – the fresh scent of linen follows, trailing her footsteps; Lay, I wait.
Fresh brisk air swept tangled hair from her face and death stole her gaze.
Alyssa struggled desperately with her long hair, now hopelessly tangled into the grate, as the sharks, frenzied with fresh blood, smashed into it, only inches from her bleeding head.
Who would believe in the Fresh Hair Fairy who turned up with her hair tangled into a bird’s nest?
Applying a fresh layer of gel to his greased hair, Paul looked as if he’d just tangled with a stylist rather than a neighborhood thug.
His bandanna, sunglasses and tangled hair in the toilet, he feels his fresh shaved face, adjusts his stolen uniform and leaves cell block 42, unnoticed.
More than once, Anthony Luxe had tangled the sheets with this blue-eyed, brunette whose hair smelled of fresh flowers and now here she lay, murdered.
Fresh face for Washington, or just another globalist with a hair trigger for genocide and an eagerness to tangle with US patriots?
Fresh coming from him, bastard, his eyes bloodshot – tangled with little red veins – his dirty greasy hair sticking to his forehead, he shouldn’t have…
No, “that” hair—you try to make it smell fresh and sexy with your lavender sachets—but to me, it’s a nasty, tangled mess.
She woke up with her hair tangled and a fresh bouquet of roses neatly placed by her hospital bed.
The Roman soldier removed his helmet, revealing hair tangled with blood, as he looked for fresh pasture beyond the bloody battlefield.
“Oh that’s fresh,” Angus mocked, “your heart’s so tangled with envy that your hair has turned green.”
Mr. Noah Hair got his foot tangled up in my garden hose and plunged face-first into my fresh-picked melons.
Fresh out of her sham of a marriage, she awoke one morning tangled up in his arms, hair still clutched in his fingers………..finally alive.
Curls of bright red hair were just visible under the tangled mass of rebar and concrete, scarlet with splatters of fresh blood.
His dreadlocked hair shook with mirth as he held up his fresh yellow jack and I struggled with my tangled line.
“How in the hell did you get your hair tangled in the lawn mower?” she asked as she sipped a glass of fresh lemonade.
I pried my eyes open, smelling the fresh dewy morning air and observing my surroundings as I ran my hand through my tangled hair.
Rookie mistakes, thought Eli with a sneer as he put a single hair found in the tangle of sheets into a fresh evidence bag.
The smell of fresh blood filled my nose as I yanked my tangled hair from the gate, wondering: how’d I get into this mess again?
Megan awoke to malicious grumpkins snickering through the gap in the closet door and a fresh dollop of Widowshanks Wart Remover tangled in her hair.
Once, long ago, the tangled scent of spruce and pine drifted fresh through the meadow, and the sun dried the river from her hair.
As I fall, the gelid wind of death blows my hair in this tangled situation,
foretelling the end. Splash! Fresh blood on the street.
Nothing aroused Sam’s sleepy senses like the aroma of fresh brewed coffee, but the musky scent of his wife’s tangled morning hair sure came close.
She held her breath: the smell of fresh blood teased her, and tangled blue veins stood out on the backs of her hands as she adjusted the wire to the hair-trigger of the trap.
Oops! Must have hit “post” on the unedited version. I should not try to work on two things at once. Fun exercise, anyway.
“You are a fresh, young bastard for sure, with your pretty hair down to your waist and entangled with your belt and all,” said Barbarous.
The fresh scent of body wash lingered on his skin as Amanda traced her fingers through his chest hair, their bodies still tangled in the sheets.
I floated in the sea, tangled in a fresh burst of seaweed and spray like hair laced through the tines of a tortoiseshell comb.
A tangled spiderweb, a hair of my husbands back and the fresh prince of Bell-Air were to be the ingrediences in a deadly cocktail.
Early in the morning, fresh air blew her dry tangled hair as she jogged along the beach
Del awoke ten feet from where he stood when the mine exploded, his skin burned, S.C.B.A tangled in his hair and fresh blood pooled inside his ears.
Waving goodbye, the hard lines of the yellow bus blurred from fresh tears; Kate’s tangled hair screamed for help like she did only hours before.
The fat caliph lay perspiring, tangled in fresh sheets, as his odalisque absentmindedly stroked his wooly hair, silently grieving for her spent youth.
Needing a fresh start from the tangled web weaved the night before, she downed her morning potion of ‘hair of the dog’.
Walking out into the fresh air, her hair blowing around her face; she realized what a tangled mess her words had created.
Chasin’ that rabbit is pure trouble, all barkin’, runnin’, sore paws, and tangled hair for nothin’; perhaps a fresh perspective is required.
Every morning mother would harvest the fresh hair from the trees in the back yard before it became tangled.
Groggily, in the fresh spring air wafting through the bedroom window, I woke to find my hair tangled in the fist of a slumbering toddler.
I’ll admit, tangling with a kraken for fresh seafood wasn’t the best thing I could do for my hair this morning.
His name was Remo and his fingers were tangled in the hair, scalp and brains of yet another smart-mouthed, fresh, young punk.
(Channeling Warren Murphy, Richard Sapir and Will Murray FTW)
“The name’s Fresh, ” he said as he drew the comb from his hair to conquer the tangled headphone cord he’d knotted in anticipation.
The air was fresh and steamy he ran his fingers through her tangled hair as she started to scream.
A tangled trio of fresh taffy, gooey gum and malice is a hair-trigger situation waiting to happen.
The air was fresh and crisp as she stepped out into the morning sun and threw her tangled mess of hair into a sloppy bun.
I watched silently as the small girl with tangled hair took a tentative first step out of the dilapidated cabin into the fresh air.
Brandy Torety was a tall, lean muscular man with shaggy tangled hair, but suprisingly it was very fresh.
We lay there tangled together under the fresh linen, and he brushes my hair from my face; I know what this is.
Screaming as her tangled hair was pulled further into the machinery, the wolves approached, the smell of fresh blood making them bolder.
“Fresh after what operation?” he asked, and the hair on the back of his neck spiked as he withdrew in horror from their tangled limbs.
Storm clouds roiled overhead and hair whipped around my face as I tangled my fingers in the fresh wounds of the pulsing mass below.
He whipped his greying unwashed hair back, unveiling a fresh face of excitement while the strum of each guitar chord tangled in the air.
“Fresh,” was all she could say to his tangled way of thinking; getting next to her would take more than just lusting over her hair.
She put her hand to her tangled hair and felt fresh blood.
“What fresh evidence?” she tried to focus, her thoughts all tangled like overcooked angel-hair pasta.