Phantasmorgia~ Contest of Terrifying Tales

Phantasmorgia

Gather around the fire and hold hands, dance naked, or just twirl.

In the spirit of campfire stories, as the leaves lay dying beneath our feet I summon Wombats to weave a tale of terror. Send forth your short story or vignette for critique and voting- see official rules below. The winning entry will receive the soon-to-be coveted Wombat Medal for Terrifying Tales. No you don't win by back combing the fur on your rump! 

Draw your inspiration from The Picture of Dorian Gray, Fall of the House of Usher, Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Frankenstein, or even The Shining. We are going for horror here, not extraneous graphic violence. Let's try to avoid SAW movie inspired tales- while fun, not the goal. Your scale of horror should weigh more heavily on the psychological rather than physical.

To get your creative juices flowing may I recommend the following?

<a href="http://www.magiclantern.org.uk/history5.htm"> Magic Lantern Society</a>

          I ran across Etienne Gaspard Robert's tomb in the famous Parisian cemetery La Pere-Lachaise. Outstanding in its narrative and the one that intrigued me the most, I took a couple of <a href= "http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pif&GRid=20963&PIgrid=20963&PIcrid=639018&ShowCemPhotos=Y&"> photos</a> ( I can't find mine so see provided link) for the beautiful stonework and thought nothing more about it. The next day I took my fiancé to the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie, a science museum and was amazed to see a familiar name assigned to the Phantascope. After making him pull up the previous day's photos to verify that they were the same person. Voila! Talk about synchronicity, well that's what I call it, but he just calls me a witch.

<a href="http://www.loc.gov/folklife/halloween.html"> Halloween: The Fantasy and Folklore of All Hallows</a>

          For the witch or wee folk inspired, enjoy browsing through the origins of Halloween.

<a href="http://www.victorianweb.org/science/sciov.html"> Victorian Science: An Overview</a>

          Drifting toward science fiction  in a Shellyesque fashion, then this site will help remind you of the leaps in man's knowledge. Everything from Charles Babbage and the birth of computers to Charles Darwin and Origin of Species.

Contest guidelines and rules were borrowed heavily from the Writin' Wombats First Quasi-Semi-Annual First Paragraph Competition- thank you Ken for sharing your format!

The Ten Official Rules

 
1. The grand prize will be a Writin' Wombat Terrifying Tales Medal. Second prize will be...there is no second place, there can be only ONE! Alright, alright I hear whimpering- second place gets a virtual Wombat silver medal and all the Trader Joe's autumn stickers I can wheedle for the next month. Third place gets, does anyone still care? Gets a virtual Wombat bronze medal, but NO stickers!

2. The contest will start on Saturday September 22nd and end on Monday October 29th. No votes will be accepted during this period. On Tuesday, October 30th, votes, via email to vividlyalive, will be accepted during the hours (0:00 - 24:00). The winners will be announced on Wednesday, October 31^st. Votes will be submitted via ballot. The ballot will be posted in this Gather article site, watch for it.

3. Links to entries will be posted in this Gather group site. General discussion will be in the then-current Writin' Wombat forum which can be found here: <a href = "http://writingwombats.gather.com/">Writin' Wombats</a>

Entrants are allowed to edit, improve and repost their paragraphs throughout the contest.

4. In order to be qualified to vote, you must be a Gather member at the start of the contest and have at least 25 Gather Points.

5. Anyone submitting an excessively long entry will be ridiculed publicly. Complaints can be emailed to whatdoyouexpectfromacontestnamedafterawombat@gather.com (this is the official address for all Wombat complaints) This email address does not exist, thus the email would be pointless, but you can do it.

6. Each person will vote 10 times, with one vote of 10, one vote of 9, etc. This means you will have one vote of 1 and an infinite number of zero votes. Mathematicians, statisticians and other nit-picking worldly philosophers are ineligible.

7. The winners will be selected based on the total score. In case of tie, the prize will be decided by coin toss, done by my assistant. It is recommended you don't vote for your own entry. You'll feel soiled if you vote for yourself. If caught, the administrator (me) will pretend the spam filter ate your email and your votes will be ignored.

8. Sock puppets, astroturf voters and other nabobs of negativity will be disqualified from voting based solely on the discretion of the administrator.

9. The final scores will be published by the administrator, but voters' names will be secret. Results will be available for audit by select mature Wombatians.

10. The rules may or may not change in a maddening manner at the whim of the administrator.

10. Submissions must be the original work of the submitter. It is the sincere hope of the administrator that serious entries that are part of a current or future project will be entered and that frivolous entries and their authors be mocked incessantly and mercilessly. How this might be officially enforced is unknown and probably impossible. As a standing rule, Pat S has official sanction to enter any damn thing she wants, but is required to submit something. No guts, no glory. Be bold and mighty forces with come to your aid. Insert other motivational words of wisdom here. Others wishing special treatment can make a polite formal request prior to being denied. Each person shall submit one and only one contest entry except Pat who can (but won't) submit three.

10. If in the event of no submissions, I will brand you all dullards and sulk in the corner until the whim moves me or I'm compelled by Ken's twirling or an endorphin induced haze as result of too much chocolate makes me forget temporarily.

10. Anyone disagreeing with the rules and rulings of the administrator is completely free to create his or her own damn contest. The administrator will not submit a contest entry or vote but will be allowed to make rude comments and make unhelpful suggestions.