Sword & Saturday & Warrior Wednesday: February Prompts

Alright, it was suggested via a humorous misunderstanding that I was hoping to transfer the fantasy celebration day to Saturdays. This was wrong, however I’ve thought about it and decided that we should have both, because fantasy is all about having your cake and eating it.

So here’s me announcing that my hope is to have the darker, pulpier and more horror tinged fantasy stories set on Saturdays, while fantasy stories of all other kinds for Wednesdays (if you want you can post the pulp stuff on Wednesdays they’ll be accepted, as never forget Tolkien wrote some S&S & Howard wrote epic-mythological stuff, really there’s very little difference between S&S & Epic Fantasy).

Naturally, as I’ve little skill in writing in the more Howardian style I’ll mostly collect them, review them and enjoy them while Dan (my partner in crimes on this Substack) will write pulp/S&S of a Howardian variety as he has an interest in such things (it will be under the moniker of the working title of the ‘Laird of the Western-Isles’ as most of the stories take place there and will have a decidedly Scottish hue). Tbh, I might write some French S&S stuff (it is easier to write like Howard I find in French), but those will be of secondary importance I imagine to Dan’s stories (insofar as this substack is concerned).

The rules of engagement are such; there are few if any rules. I have no interest like DMR to police and say stupid rules like; ‘No Orcs, and no female leads’ when tbh these are stupid rules. Truth is, Howard wrote using female characters and did so excellently (Valeria, Dark Agnes, and Belit come to mind), and S&S’s revered Red Sonja is also an example of a decent character (might write an article on her down the road). As to no Orcs, I have no idea why that ever made it’s way into their rules, but whatever they also have the rule no ‘Tolkienian’ fantasy which is dumb.

So what we’ll be doing is this; if you want a more Tolkienian story, sure.

The first prompt will be this; Short-Story of no less than 10,000 words but no longer than 20,000 words. Reason I’m not saying the cap is 10,000 words is that weirdly I’ve seen few writers in pulp able to write more than 5,000 words so that I’m curious to see what folks will come up with.

Also as it’ll be due on Feb 17th and must have at least one love interest, and she must not be a magic-user, nor must she be a warrior, or be a past lover of the lead. Let’s see what everyone can come up with.

Now as to the Warrior Wednesday Prompt of the 14th of February, that’ll be slightly different, I’m thinking 12,000 words is the cap (you can go higher if you must).
I’m going to say here your male lead must be of higher rank than the female one. I know a great many guys like the princess or something trope, but we’ll put it aside this one time, next prompt guys I’ll include it (I’ve something awesome in mind for March).
Female lead can’t be a mage (sorry too many of those out there), or a seductress.
Due date is on the 14th (a Wednesday)

If you like details from the first prompt and prefer to apply the 10k to 20k rule to Wednesday that’s fine, and same goes for a 12k S&S story. The important thing is to write and share each other’s stories. Remember though, we want to be able to share these stories later with Richard from IronAge Media as a surprise, as I plan to bring the story to him and the other members of Iron Age Knights’ youtube channel in Feb, if I can, and to maybe read the stories and review them on youtube, if folks would like (if you don’t want that let me know, and I’ll not do it). There’s no guarantee of increased subs, but I’ll at least do my part to raise awareness for all those participating.

Best of luck, and remember that if your hero goes down that he goes down fighting and takes as many of ‘em down with him!