Christmas Competition, 2025

Each year, we at Friday Flash Fiction hold a Christmas Competition for new, original stories of 100 words in length. Entry is free, and there's a prize of £50.00 in the winner's own currency. Payment is usually made by PayPal.

THE FORMAT

The Christmas Competition uses our now standard format for Classic 100-word contests. This year, though, there will be one major change: your story must be EXACTLY 100 words long.

In another change this year, there will be EIGHT judges, whose identities remain unknown to even to each other, are invited to select one story that they think is best. Those eight choices then form our official Short List. Their choices will be purely subjective, of course, but if you're looking for an idea of what makes good flash fiction, there's some help here. After that, the voters (our active circulation list) then get to vote for the one they like best, which will win the prize of £50.00 in the winner's own currency.

There will also be a slight difference in the voting system this year. Readers/voters will get to make "1st", "2nd" and "3rd" choices, allocating points accordingly.

There's not really a theme, but as it's Christmas your submission should somehow reference Christmas or celebration. The story doesn't have to be happy, though.

TIMING

Entries will be accepted from Saturday 29th November at 00:01 until 23:59 on Friday 12th December 2024. At this point, the judges will take a couple of days to draw up their Short List, which we hope to announce in the run-up to Christmas. Then, around the Christmas period itself, we'll give each person on our mailing list just a few days to vote for their favourite story, and the winner will be the one that gets the most votes. The result will be announced as soon possible thereafter.

The Rules

Entry is free (as in "free")
All entries must be exactly 100 words in length not including a title.
Should be in the English language.
Should not have been previously published by Friday Flash Fiction, or anywhere else before 29th November 2025.
Entries must be submitted through the approved Christmas STORYBOX on the Submissions page. Entries that are emailed, or sent as a Word document, will not be accepted.
Each individual is limited to a maximum of two entries.
Your story must relate to "Christmas" and/or "celebration".
Closing date 23.59 GMT on Friday 12th December 2025.
Winner will receive £50.00 prize or the equivalent in local currency paid electronically*
A short list will be selected by the judges, which will then be subject to the vote amongst the FFF voters. The winner will be the story with the most points, while the remainder will be awarded "Highly Commended" status.
By submitting to Friday Flash Fiction grants non-exclusive publishing sights to publish. This means that rights to all stories remain with their authors, but FFF reserves the right to use prizewinner's and highly commended's stories for FFF publicity purposes elsewhere.
Wilful breaches of any of the above rules will result in disqualification and invalidation of all submissions.

*It will be necessary to pay the winner directly into their bank account, or using PayPal.

A prize of £50.00 will be awarded to the story judged to be the best. There is no entry fee, and you can submit ONE OR TWO ENTRIES.

Entries are now open until 11.59pm on Friday 12th December, 2025 GMT.

Note to entrants: submitting an entry doesn't guarantee acceptance for publication – stories must continue to meet our basic standards. For details, see the "SUBMISSIONS GUIDANCE" on our Submissions page. Please bear in mind that, particularly during the competition itself, we can't enter into discussions on the merit or otherwise of submissions.
It would also be unfair if one of the judges edited your story to make it acceptable.