This time, just the bare bones

Horror master Edgar Allan Poe believed a really good scary story should be read in one sitting.

No wonder he was in love with the short fiction format—the more bloodcurdling his stories, the shorter they get. In fact, just about his entire life's work comprises short fiction and poems, with only one novel in the mix. The novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838), one might argue is the least scary of his works.

Most of Poe's legendary short stories, from "The Black Cat," to "The Fall of the House of Usher," to "The Pit and the Pendulum" range somewhere from 10 to 20-ish pages. One of his best, "The Tell-tale Heart," a story about a heart-beat that just never stops, a story that has been hailed by Stephen King as "the best tale of inside evil ever written," runs for barely six pages. That was it–six pages was all that Poe needed for this masterwork of exploration into the guilt-ridden psyche, a work that has been homaged again and again in literature, television, and cinema.

Horror, more than other genres, lends itself to the flash fiction or micro-fiction format; send a chill down your reader's spine, and end it before they have too much time to think about it and the scary thing starts to appear ridiculous in the light of day, or before other activities have intervened, drowning the atmosphere in the mundane.

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Why so serious?

Horror, by its nature, is immersive. Once you are in it, you don't want to be pulled out, because then it can be hard to get back in. There is nothing more annoying than being in the middle of a really good horror film and then having a commercial pop-up–thankfully most Millennials and Gen Z no longer watch traditional TV and are firmly in control of the pause button when viewing on our computers.

But it's not possible to stay immersed in a fictional world for hours without the interruptions of the modern world, so a bite-sized blast or two of a good scare after dinner might be just the trick, and (hopefully) won't harm your sleep, even without a doctor's prescription.

Consider the following, which I collected off the internet:

You hear your mom calling you into the kitchen. As you are heading down the stairs you hear a whisper from the closet saying, "Don't go down there honey, I heard it too." (33 words)                                              

Let's look at another one.

After struggling desperately to move any part of his paralytic body just to alert the doctors that he was conscious before the first incision, he was relieved to see that one of the nurses had noticed his pupils dilating from the bright light. She leaned in close, and in a whisper that tickled his ear, said "you think we don't know you're awake?" (63 words)

OK, one last one, because burial-obsessed Poe would have loved it:

I can't move, breathe, speak, or hear and it's so dark all the time. If I knew it would be this lonely, I would have been cremated instead. (28 words)

The Triwizard Tournament, hosted by Talespeople

If these compact-but-hair-raising doses of fear are your drug of choice, then we warmly welcome you to the upcoming Triwizard Tournament, which is an annual Halloween team flash fiction challenge hosted by Talespeople–the same group that brings you the Sehri Tales challenge every Ramadan.

Here is the gist of how it works: Participants are sorted into four "Houses" or teams, and have two days to complete a bingo board of prompts for maximum 250-word horror stories (Sehri Tales participants will be deeply familiar with this word limit by now!). The first House to complete all 25 prompts will be declared the winner.

This year, Kraftz is sponsoring us, and the members of the winning house will get a 10% discount off their board games. We are also happy to have Daily Star Books choose a Grand Winner from the tournament, who will win a board game from Kraftz. Participation is easy, just go to the Talespeople group on Facebook and instructions for being sorted into a house are all there.

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Spooky October reads for Halloween

As part of the Talespeople team, it has always been a pleasure to see the amazing quality of the work, and the immense enthusiasm that comes out during these Talespeople flash fiction events. Our goal here, as always, is simply to foster a sense of community, encourage creative work, and have a bit of fun. As always, writers retain the rights to their own work, and Talespeople does not profit from it.

But that's enough of me talking: We want to hear from you! There's no time like the spooky season to start working those story-telling muscles once again, and if you are already a seasoned writer who is writing all year round, this may be a good time to just have some spine-tingling fun and flex your range. So let's see it–may the skeletons in your closet come and join us…

Abak Hussain is a writer, and a director of Talespeople.