You've tried National Novel Writing Month, now get ready for a new challenge: to write a short story every day in May! 

How to participate: 

Set a personal challenge from your Dashboard. You can set a new challenge for every story you write, or just set one long challenge and write multiple short stories in the same document. To set a challenge, click "Yes please!" from the invitation box on your Dashboard. 

Set your word count goal based on how many stories you plan to write, and how long each story will be. For example, if you want to write a story each week, that's four stories total, and if each story will be about 5,000 words, then your total goal will be 20,000 words. You can ask an adult for help with the math if you get stuck, or if you're having a particularly un-mathy kind of day (it happens). 

Educators, if you want your class to participate, set a classroom challenge from the Challenges area of your classroom (otherwise you won't be able to track students' progress). 

Read author interviews and prompts to stay motivated:

Get short story tips and writing dares from published authors interviewed as part of Short Story Month.

• "Write what you care about." — Jerry Spinelli
• "Your voice is one-of-a-kind, and it matters." — Abby R. Cooper
• "Creativity is all about breaking the rules!" — Martine Leavitt
• "Eat your dessert first." — Sarah Aronson
• "Storytelling is part of the human DNA." — Tory Christie
• "What's the secret to writing humor?" — Lisa Doan
• "Write every day, not someday." — Colby Sharp, Pablo Cartaya, and Jacqueline Resnik
  

Are you writing flash fiction? Check out these how-to articles.

• "7 Tips for Writing Flash Fiction" — Fiction Southwest
• "How to Write Flash Fiction" — Simple Writing
  
  

Get started with our "How to Write Short Stories" webcast: