Thanks for those who expressed and interest and offered feedback for this feature. This will be evolving as I get more feedback and see how well things work as it goes along, but here’s how things will work for now:

There will be two separate ones running concurrently. One will run every other week, and will be lighter with a tentative suggested length of 300-500 words (or less if there’s an interesting prompt idea that doesn’t call for that many words.) The other will run monthly (i.e. every four weeks), and have prompts that call for longer responses. (Tentative suggested length: 1000-3000 words.) Remember the suggested lengths are just that, suggestions. I might implement a cap at some point if necessary.

This discussion is just for announcing the prompts and discussion. People will post their entries in the discussion posted in two/four weeks. I will also announce the next prompt in the same discussion.

Discussions for this will be posted every other Friday at 2 PM Eastern. I’ll split it into separate discussions for the biweekly and monthly contests.

First Prompt (short, biweekly)

Write a Reddit-style AITA post

(Open for submissions Friday, March 12 at 2 PM Eastern.)

For those not in the know, AITA stands for “Am I The Asshole?” for situations in people’s lives where they’re not sure if they’re the ones being unreasonable or if the other person is the unreasonable one. It’s best known for ridiculous posts, often fake, where it becomes very clear which person is in the wrong, either the question-askers or the other parties. Try to see what outlandish situation you can come up with. This is just for fun, so try to keep it light.

Second Prompt (long, monthly)

You awake to find yourself in a Kafkaesque “transformation”; what have you transformed into and how do you respond? (Credit to Martha Chill)

(Open for submissions Friday, March 26 at 2 PM Eastern.)

(Note: I copied the idea as Martha wrote it, but you’re welcome to write it in third person.)

Kafka’s Metamorphosis is a story where a man turns into a cockroach overnight, and his family must deal with the hardship of taking care of him and losing his income. Write a story about a different type of transformation.

Here are some of the rules so far:

• The biweekly contest will have a limit of 2 submissions per person. The monthly contest will have a limit of 1.
• Constructive criticism is opt-in. Specify in your post if you would welcome constructive criticism. Do not offer criticism if not requested.
• When suggesting prompts, avoid prompts that require knowledge of specific pop culture properties, unless it’s broad strokes knowledge most people can be expected to know (e.g. mutants, The Force, etc.)
• Site guidelines, of course, apply to all submissions.

As before, any feedback or ideas to improve the feature are welcome. Have fun!