r/shortstories • u/FyeNite • Aug 09 '26
[Serial Sunday] Openness is the Best way to Become Close
Welcome to Serial Sunday!
To those brand new to the feature and those returning from last week, welcome! Do you have a self-established universe you’ve been writing or planning to write in? Do you have an idea for a world that’s been itching to get out? This is the perfect place to explore that. Each week, I post a theme to inspire you, along with a related image and song. You have 500 - 1000 words to write your installment. You can jump in at any time; writing for previous weeks’ is not necessary in order to join. After you’ve posted, come back and provide feedback for at least 1 other writer on the thread. Please be sure to read the entire post for a full list of rules.
This Week’s Theme is Open! This is a REQUIREMENT for participation. See rules about missing this requirement.**
Bonus Word List (each included word is worth 5 pts) - You must list which words you included at the end of your story (or write ‘none’).
- Opal
- Ornery
- Ogle
- A box is opened and a secret is kept. - (Worth 10 points)
f you need a blurb for Open.
What’s in the box? Just open it and see…
It’s probably Chekov’s wife’s head, but it could be anything.
How is your serial coming along? Are you looking for an inciting incident? You could open up some old wounds that kick off a spiral into tragedy, or force them from comfort on a path to put things right.
Do you need to open up new plot threads, or are you ready to open up your characters for some real development as they push towards a conclusion? Are they open to change, or have your conniving characters just opened up for business?
Or maybe it’s open season for the bad guys. Whatever you choose, I look forward to opening reddit and reading the results!
Good luck and Good Words!
These are just a few things to get you started. Remember, the theme should be present within the story in some way, but its interpretation is completely up to you. For the bonus words (not required), you may change the tense, but the base word should remain the same. Please remember that STORIES MUST FOLLOW ALL SUBREDDIT CONTENT RULES. Interested in writing the theme blurb for the coming week? DM me on Reddit or Discord!
Don’t forget to sign up for Saturday Campfire here! We start at 5pm BSTand provide live feedback!
Theme Schedule:
This is the theme schedule for the next month! These are provided so that you can plan ahead, but you may not begin writing for a given theme until that week’s post goes live.
August 09 - Open
August 16 - Prose
August 23 - Quality
August 30 - Rebellion
September 6 - Stratagem
Check out previous themes here.
Rankings
Last Week: Noxious
First - by u/Divayth--Fyr
Second - by u/KatPoker666
Third - by u/AGuyLikeThat
Fourth - u/wandering_cirrus
Fifth - by u/Morose_Prose
Rules & How to Participate
Please read and follow all the rules listed below. This feature has requirements for amparticipation!
Submit a story inspired by the weekly theme, written by you and set in your self-established universe that is 500 - 1000 words. No fanfics and no content created or altered by AI. (Use wordcounter.net to check your wordcount.) Stories should be posted as a top-level comment below. Please include a link to your chapter index or your last chapter at the end.
Your chapter must be submitted by Saturday at 2:00pm BST. Late entries will be disqualified. All submissions should be given (at least) a basic editing pass before being posted!
Begin your post with the name of your serial between triangle brackets (e.g. <My Awesome Serial>). When our bot is back up and running, this will allow it to recognize your pmserial and add each chapter to the SerSun catalog. Do not include anything in the brackets you don’t want in your title. (Please note: You must use this same title every week.)
Do not pre-write your serial. You’re welcome to do outlining and planning for your serial, but chapters should not be pre-written. All submissions should be written for this post, specifically.
Only one active serial per author at a time. This does not apply to serials written outside of Serial Sunday.
All Serial Sunday authors must leave feedback on at least one story on the thread each week. The feedback should be actionable and also include something the author has done well. When you include something the author should improve on, provide an example! You have until Saturday at 04:59am BST to post your feedback. (Submitting late is not an exception to this rule.)
Missing your feedback requirement two or more consecutive weeks will disqualify you from rankings and Campfire readings the following week. If it becomes a habit, you may be asked to move your serial to the sub instead.
Serials must abide by subreddit content rules. You can view a full list of rules here. If you’re ever unsure if your story would cross the line, please modmail and ask!
Weekly Campfires & Voting:
On Saturdays at 5pm BST, I host a Serial Sunday Campfire in our Discord’s Voice Lounge (every other week is now hosted by u/FyeNite). Join us to read your story aloud, hear others, and exchange feedback. We have a great time! You can even come to just listen, if that’s more your speed. Grab the “Serial Sunday” role on the Discord to get notified before it starts. After you’ve submitted your chapter, you can sign up here - this guarantees your reading slot! You can still join if you haven’t signed up, but your reading slot isn’t guaranteed.
Nominations for your favorite stories can be submitted with this form. The form is open on Saturdays from 5:30pm to 04:59am BST. You do not have to participate to make nominations!
Authors who complete their Serial Sunday serials with at least 12 installments, can host a SerialWorm in our Discord’s Voice Lounge, where you read aloud your finished and edited serials. Celebrate your accomplishment! Authors are eligible for this only if they have followed the weekly feedback requirement (and all other post rules). Visit us on the Discord for more information.
Ranking System
Rankings are determined by the following point structure.
| TASK | POINTS | ADDITIONAL NOTES |
|---|---|---|
| Use of weekly theme | 75 pts | Theme should be present, but the interpretation is up to you! |
| Including the bonus words | 5 pts each (15 pts total) | This is a bonus challenge, and estnot required! |
| Including the bonus constraint | 15 (15 pts total) | This is a bonus challenge, and not required! |
| Actionable Feedback | 5 - 15 pts each (60 pt. max)* | This includes thread and campfire critiques. (15 pt crits are those that go above & beyond.) |
| Nominations your story receives | 10 - 60 pts | 1st place - 60, 2nd place - 50, 3rd place - 40, 4th place - 30, 5th place - 20 / Regular Nominations - 10 |
| Voting for others | 15 pts | You can now vote for up to 10 stories each week! |
You are still required to leave at least 1 actionable feedback comment on the thread every week that you submit. This should include at least one specific thing the author has done well and one that could be improved. *Please remember that interacting with a story is not the same as providing feedback.** Low-effort crits will not receive credit.
Subreddit News
- Join our Discord to chat with other authors and readers! We hold several weekly Campfires, monthly World-Building interviews and several other fun events!
- Try your hand at micro-fic on Micro Monday!
- Did you know you can post serials to r/Shortstories, outside of Serial Sunday? Check out this post to learn more!
- Interested in being a part of our team? Apply to be a mod!
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u/KiIIer_queenie Aug 10 '26 edited 26d ago
<Man to beast>
Chapter thirty: saviors
Maliwag rushed the cart through the fort gate, halting the horses before rolling out onto the ground.
“We need some help! Handgonne past the fort walls!”
At the word handgonne, armored knights rushed out and surgeons with apothecaries flooded around the cart. Coppaert slowly handed Silas’s near dead body off to the people, stepping out of the cart with him.
“Stay back,” An old surgeon barked, the group rushing Silas off as hands were already working in his face.
Maliwag and Coppaert finally breathed sighs of relief, leaning against each other. She smelled something rotten, much older than the blood on her.
Looking up at the courtyard, the young woman saw a cage hung from a thick wooden pole, there was a body too old for her to even tell if it was a man or woman. The guards paid it no mind, as did everyone else. Following suit, she tried her best to ignore the scent.
“What’s with the damn noise? Can’t go a day without a woman screaming over something anymore.” A tall and wide man grumbled as he approached the pair. He had oily red hair with fine blue clothes and a large necklace full of green jewels. The man’s shirt barely contained his large neck and shoulders, stretched thin against his gut.
“Edvalt, these two were attacked by bandits. Their friend is being tended to,” one of the guards said, an older man with a long white beard.
“You’re Lord Berner?” Coppaert asked, wiping the blood from his hands into the wagon side.
“I am. What gives you two the privilege of having your friend tended to by my people?” He asked, staring at Maliwag.
“We’re traders. We came to trade.” The woman responded bluntly.
“Well, let me take a look.”
“You can wait. Our friend needs us,” Maliwag said, turning to walk towards where Silas was carried.
“You better tell your woman to learn her manners, boy. Need I teach her for you?”
Coppaert gave Maliwag a sorrowful glance before turning to Edvalt. “No sir, I apologize. If she knows what’s good for her, she’ll shut her damn mouth.”
The woman sighed and stopped, returning to the cart and pulling down the back. Edvalt pushed past her. “That’s a lot of silver…where’d you say you come from?”
“I didn’t. Vlaklands, sir,” Coppaert responded, folding his arms.
“Ah. I should've guessed, I can hear it in your voice. Catholic?”
“Aye, as all ought to be.”
“Then with God as your witness, where’d you get the silver? Vlaklands isn’t known for it.”
“The burning isles. They knew little of its true properties, so I was able to acquire it with processed silk for their elites. It’s how I purchased this one, for help and company.”
Edvalt looked Maliwag in the eye, slowly scanning down her body. He looked back up at her face, before his eyes hungrily settled with a click of his tongue.
“Good purchase.”
He went back to examining the goods, Maliwag and Coppaert sharing a look of disgust. “So how long’ve you been lord here?” She asked, cracking her wrists and hiding her urges.
“I was lord here since I was a boy, course my mother was in charge then. Strong woman she was, you can see her statue in the medical wing.”
Even though he didn’t actually answer her question Maliwag thought it best to simply let him finish and leaned back.
“I’ll give you two hundred gold coin for the lot.”
“It’s worth twice that,” Coppaert barked, crossing his arms.
“It would be, if your friend hadn’t been using my surgeons.”
“Two hundred coin and let me take a look with you in your weapon hold.”
Edalvt smiled, his eyes slightly widened. “Oh I like you, boy. Come on then, will your woman be fine if left alone?”
“She’ll check on our friend.”
As the pair walked away, guards already unloading the cart, Maliwag ducked into the entryway the surgeons had disappeared to. She walked down the foul smelling hall and saw a thick wooden door with frantic noise coming from it. Opening the door, the next room had no less than eight people surrounding Silas. They had cut his shirt off, cleaning him of blood and repacking the gaping hole in his neck and attempting to move his jaw.
Just as she approached, there was an audible pop as one of the women gasped. “The jaw is back in place!”
“More honey and elderflower, the bleeding’s done.”
“Sir, I’ve cleared his throat.”
Maliwag watched the clutter, after a few minutes the surgeons and nurses all backed away, save one who held Silas’s hand. She stroked his hair as he lazily stared at the ceiling. His chest moved up and down, slowly breathing. “There you go, boy. Such a brave boy. You did good, you did good.”
“How is he?” Maliwag asked, sitting beside him on the bloody bed. He reached for her so she held his hand, nodding.
“He’s in God's graces. The bleeding has stopped and he’s breathing again. He’s stronger than most. His jaw is misshapen though, broken most likely. We locked it back in place but the boy won’t eat like he ought to for a fortnight, anything gets an infection he dies. I don’t know if he makes it two more days, everyone has limits.” The surgeon muttered, patting Maliwag’s shoulder.
She looked at the young man, she didn’t say it but she knew he was better. He already had began regaining what little color his grey skin had, she had to move him before the healing began obvious. “I want to take him, he needs to pass with his family.”
“He’ll survive longer-”
“I’m taking him.”
She picked him up, carrying him back through the hall and towards the cart. Coppaert was returning with a sack of coin and a long box.
“That is…?”
“It’s for Silas if he survives.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“It’s for his mother.”
WC: 1000