It is time for a new competition just in time for the Holidays. This competition will run from Dec 7th, 2014 until Jan 16th, 2015 and the winner announced at the end of January. Late submissions will not be accepted.

A Drabble is a micro fiction story that has to be exactly 100 words excluding the title. Not a word more or less. No exceptions. Please use this word counter to ensure it is exactly 100 words. http://www.storiesspace.com/resources/count-characters.aspx

Only one submission is allowed per person. Once submitted, it can't be changed. If you remove your story from the comp, you may not resubmit anything new. Please ensure you take your time and think it through before you submit.

Site rules apply. The moderators will not do any edits to your story and will send it back if there are any grammatical or spelling errors to fix. This will not be done on your behalf.

Every text editor has a slightly different way of counting words, it seems, therefore stories must be 100 words according to the counter on our Submit Story screen. Also, formatting must be done a certain way so that the word count is accurate.

For greatest accuracy, submissions should follow these guidelines:

• Do not include the title or any notes in the body of the text.
• Use straight quotes, not curly quotes. Make sure the quotation marks butt up to the text being quoted; if there is a space between a quotation mark and other text, the quotation mark will count as a word.
• When using special characters, such as an em dash, there should be NO space before the character and ONE space after. If there are spaces on each side, the special character will be counted as a word. If there is no space on either side, the word counter will see the words abutting the special character as only one word instead of two.
• Failure to follow these formatting guidelines will disqualify your entry. If you are having trouble formatting your submission, you MUST include a Note to Moderators explaining the issue.

To make it more challenging, you will be required to start your Drabble using one of the six below sentences! The theme should be surrounding the holidays, but not necessarily limited to Christmas.

"It's not what it looks like," he/she said...

“She/he really hated the Holidays…”

“The Christmas present ticked…”

"Not guilty, Your Honor..."

"You got what for my mother?"

“She/he woke up ecstatic…”

Prizes will be announced at a later date!

Have fun and we look forward to seeing your submissions!