PRIZE POOL: £1,000

PARANORMAL FLASH FICTION CHALLENGE 2025

Prizes:

1st Place: £500

2nd Place: £300

3rd Place: £200

Words: 600 (max, no minimum)

Deadline: 23:59 (UK time) 28th April, 2025

Winner Announced: 26th May, 2025

Tickets:

How the Tickets Work:

To keep our competition accessible and fun, we offer two types of tickets: lucky dip tickets and golden tickets.

Lucky Dip Tickets:

Lucky dip tickets are the standard option. With these tickets, you’ll be randomly assigned a paranormal entity or phenomenon from the list below. If you don’t want to spend much and you’re happy to write whatever is assigned, simply buy one lucky dip ticket to join the competition.

If there are some paranormal entities that interest you and others that don’t, you could buy a couple of lucky dip tickets to ensure you get something that appeals to you while still keeping the cost affordable.

You can even buy multiple lucky dip tickets if you want to submit a few different stories.

You can buy as many lucky dip tickets as you want; each one will give you a different entity/phenomenon, and then you simply submit the story or stories that appeal to you from the selection. You certainly don’t have to submit a story for each ticket.

Golden Tickets:

Golden tickets are more expensive, but they let you choose your own paranormal entity from the list. So, if there’s a specific entity or phenomenon you really want to write about, the golden ticket is perfect for you.

You can also combine both ticket types! For example, you can buy one golden ticket to guarantee your preferred entity and one or more lucky dip tickets to try your luck with other random assignments. This way, you can focus on the story you want to write, while still exploring the surprises the lucky dip tickets offer, thus allowing you to submit multiple entries while still ensuring you get to write that one story that really excites you.

Ticket Prices:

Early Bird Lucky Dip Ticket: £3 (You will be randomly assigned a paranormal entity or phenomenon from the list below)

Early Bird Golden Ticket: £15 (This ticket allows you to choose your own paranormal entity or phenomenon from the list)

These tickets will be available until 4th April!

General Lucky Dip Ticket: £6 (You will be randomly assigned a paranormal entity or phenomenon from the list below)

Golden Ticket: £20 (This ticket allows you to choose your own paranormal entity or phenomenon from the list)

These tickets will be available from 4th April until 23rd April!

Late Lucky Dip Ticket: £9 (You will be randomly assigned a paranormal entity or phenomenon from the list below)

Late Golden Ticket: £30 (This ticket allows you to choose your own paranormal entity or phenomenon from the list)

These tickets will be available from 23rd April until the contest closes.

THE CHALLENGE:

All writers retain full ownership of their stories, including the winner. We only publish the winning stories on our website. We welcome international entries!

It's time for another Globe Soup writing challenge!

For this paranormal flash fiction challenge, each participant will be randomly assigned a paranormal entity or phenomenon. Once you receive your assignment, you’ll have until the deadline to craft a complete flash fiction story—600 words or fewer—that features this paranormal entity or phenomenon at the heart of the narrative. There’s no minimum word requirement, but your entry must stand alone as a full story.

Your piece can be eerie, heartfelt, romantic, thrilling, darkly humorous, or anything else. This definitely isn’t a horror contest—though you can submit horror, of course. The only requirement is that the paranormal takes center stage. So, we advise against submitting a story where one of your characters just happens to mention your assigned paranormal entity in passing!

Our judges aren’t looking for strict adherence to folklore or mythology though, but rather how you choose to engage with the assigned entity. As long as your story clearly incorporates it or is inspired by it, you’re free to interpret it in your own way.

The paranormal entities we’ve chosen for this year’s challenge are:

1. Kraken

The kraken is a massive, tentacled sea creature from Scandinavian folklore, often described as capable of dragging entire ships beneath the waves. First mentioned in 18th-century accounts, the kraken was likely inspired by real giant squids, but its legend has grown over time.

If assigned the Kraken, your task is to incorporate it into your story in a meaningful way. How you interpret its nature and purpose is up to you.

2. Doppelgänger

A doppelgänger is a person’s exact double—an eerie, unexplained duplicate that appears without warning. Rooted in folklore and superstition, these lookalikes are often seen as omens of bad luck or even death. Throughout history, tales of doppelgängers have ranged from malevolent beings that seek to replace their originals to warnings of an impending fate. But you’re welcome to reimagine your doppelgänger in any way you choose.

3. Vanishing Town

A vanishing town is a mysterious place that either disappears without a trace or only appears under specific conditions before fading away. Found in folklore and paranormal tales, these towns may be ghostly illusions, cursed places wiped from existence, or time anomalies that briefly intersect with reality.

4. Banshee

A banshee is a supernatural figure from Irish and Scottish folklore, known as a harbinger of death. Typically depicted as a wailing woman with long hair and a mournful cry, she is said to appear before a death in the family, either as a sorrowful messenger or a chilling omen. But you are free to interpret the banshee in any way you choose.

5. Astral Projection

Astral projection is the phenomenon in which a person’s consciousness separates from their physical body, allowing them to travel in an "astral plane" or spirit realm. Often described as an out-of-body experience, it is said that the soul or "astral body" can wander freely, exploring distant locations or even alternate dimensions. Some claim to have experienced vivid sensations of floating or moving through solid objects, while others describe encounters with otherworldly beings or landscapes.

6. Chupacabra

The Chupacabra is a legendary creature from Latin American folklore, particularly in Puerto Rico and Mexico. Its name translates to "goat-sucker," derived from its reported behavior of attacking livestock, especially goats, and drinking their blood. Descriptions of the creature vary, but it is often described as reptilian or alien-like, with spines or quills along its back, sharp teeth, and glowing red eyes. Some versions of the legend depict it as a vampiric creature, while others suggest it is more dog-like.

7. Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP)

Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) refers to unexplained voices or sounds captured on audio recordings that are not heard at the time of recording. Often associated with paranormal investigations, EVPs are believed to be voices from spirits or otherworldly entities attempting to communicate with the living.

8. Black-Eyed Children

Black-eyed children are a phenomenon in modern folklore, described as children who appear at people’s doorsteps or in isolated areas, asking for help or permission to enter. Their most chilling feature is their pitch-black eyes—no sclera, just a dark, empty void where the whites of their eyes should be. These children are often described as being unnaturally calm and eerily polite, and those who have reported interactions claim to feel an intense, almost hypnotic compulsion to let them inside.

PLEASE NOTE: PARTICIPANTS IN THIS COMPETITION ARE NOT ALLOWED TO EXCHANGE TICKETS WITH OTHER WRITERS TAKING PART. WE HAVE ALLOWED THIS IN THE PAST, BUT IT’S CREATED A LOT OF EXTRA ADMIN FOR US. AN INCREASE IN THE AMOUNT OF ADMINISTRATION WORK WILL ONLY RESULT IN US HAVING TO INCREASE THE PRICE OF ENTRY AND WE’D RATHER NOT DO THIS.

How to Enter:

1. Please read the official rules of the contest here.

2. Buy a ticket. If you want to choose your own paranormal entity or phenomenon, select the golden ticket option. If you prefer a lucky dip, you’ll need to pick one of the eight lucky dip tickets, labeled A, B, C, D, and so on. Each letter corresponds to a paranormal entity or phenomenon from the list, but the assignments are random—so you won’t know which one you’re getting until after purchase! You can buy as many tickets and submit as many stories as you want, and you can even buy a combination of golden and lucky dip tickets. You don’t have to submit a story for every ticket you purchase.

3. After you select your ticket and make the purchase, you’ll be sent a link to download your ticket. This download will contain your assigned entity/phenomenon (if lucky dip) and the submission instructions.

4. You then have until the deadline to write and submit your story.

Join the Community:

All participants can join our Members-Only Facebook Group—you’ll receive the link when you purchase a ticket. Here, you can meet other writers taking part in the challenge, ask questions, and get advice. The Globe Soup team is also on hand to offer any support and guidance you may need. At the end of the challenge, you can even receive extensive feedback on your story or stories.

Please consider joining—the community aspect of these challenges is often the best part!

Plus, we run free monthly mini writing contests in the group, exclusively for members, with additional cash prizes up for grabs. Once you're a member, you stay a member for as long as you like. This means you'll have access to a network of like-minded writers and free entry to our mini contests for life.

Feedback From Previous Challenges:

"This was tremendous motivation to continue writing and I will always be grateful for the encouragement that Globe Soup has provided me. Globe Soup has also managed to create a wonderful community of writers who motivate and inspire each other. I'm very thankful to be a part of this community." — Nimisha, Mumbai, India

"This competition helped me reignite my passion for writing, so much so that it has started some new writing projects for me.” — Rachel, United Kingdom

“Really enjoyed that it gave me a steady and clear writing goal!” —Fódhla, Ireland

“I wouldn’t have been confident enough to start my MA in Creative Writing if it hadn’t been for Globe Soup. Such a great group to be a part of." — Fhionna, Clyde Valley, Scotland.

“I won’t ever forget that first win, it was an amazing feeling!! (I was in floods of tears, my husband didn’t get why!) You set me on my writing journey and so so much has grown from that first seed of belief, thank YOU!!! — Katrina, Llanfairpwll, U.K.