![](https://res.cloudinary.com/jerrick/image/upload/c_fill,f_jpg,g_auto,h_670,q_auto,w_670/62cc608ff6b4f7001de17081.jpg)
The Runaway Train
Write a fiction story set aboard a runaway train.
Prizes
- Grand Prize:
- $10,000
- Second Place:
- $2,500
- 25 Runners-up:
- $50
Status
CompletedTimeline
Submissions opened
Jul 12, 2022
Submissions closed
Aug 03, 2022 3:59 AM CUT
Results
Aug 16, 2022
Prizes
- Grand Prize:
- $10,000
- Second Place:
- $2,500
- 25 Runners-up:
- $50
Status
CompletedTimeline
Submissions opened
Jul 12, 2022
Submissions closed
Aug 03, 2022 3:59 AM CUT
Results
Aug 16, 2022
About this challenge
Do you dream about being a fiction writer? Want to prove you have what it takes to write an action-packed adventure story? Here's your chance.
From Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express to E. Nesbit's The Railway Children to Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series, the ironclad power and imagery of trains has inspired storytellers for hundreds of years. Now it’s your turn. Join these masters of locomotion and write the next great adventure story. 🚂
The Prompt:
Write a story about someone who wakes up on a train. They have no ticket and no memory of how they got there. Oh, and one more thing: the train shows no signs of slowing down.
You have the prompt, now the rest is up to you. What’s the genre? What’s the time period? Who are the characters? What’s the story? We can’t wait to find out. Enter the Challenge today; we'd hate for you to miss this train.
The Prizes:
- Grand Prize: $10,000
- Second Place: $2,500
- 25 Runners-up: $50
How to enter
For your story to be eligible, it should be between 600 and 5,000 words and adhere to our Community Guidelines. Stories published on Vocal and entered into the contest up until August 2, 2022, at 11:59 PM EST will be entered for consideration. Official Rules for the Challenge can be found here.
The Runaway Train Challenge is exclusive to Vocal+ members. To learn more and upgrade to Vocal+ visit https://vocal.media/vocal-plus.
To be eligible to win the grand prize, second place, or runners-up prizes, you must be over the age of 13 and residing in a country where Stripe is available at the time of entry. A complete list of countries where Stripe is available can be found here—winners will need to have a Stripe account created and connected in order to receive the prizes. For this reason, entrants located outside of any of these countries will not be eligible to win.
Open challenges
Challenges you can enter now for a chance to win.
Challenge resources
Travel Snaps Challenge Winners
Travel changes us — if we let its lessons in. It’s possible to wander the world, even to take pictures, with our eyes as good as closed, never opening to the new self that a new place might make of us. So many of the entries to our Travel Snaps challenge were by creators who really wanted to look at the world, and themselves, anew. They were all inspiring to read — and to see, because photography was an important part of this competition. To us, the ‘quality’ of the photographs wasn’t the point; it was that these images were yours. It was a reminder of how much more that can mean — certainly when it comes to personal essays — than widely available or AI images. We really loved seeing these snaps.
By Vocal Curation Team12 days ago in Resources
Poemosaurus Rex Challenge Winners
Hard to conceive, now, how extraordinary it would have been to find the bones of those terrible lizards in the earth — in a time before humans had conceived of anything other than a Great Chain of Being, a static creation. Yet long after Darwin they still have a hold over us, these creatures which are the ancestors of sparrows and seagulls. All hail the dinosaur! They are at once real and mythic, objects of science and objects of wonder, exhibitions in museums and children’s toys. No wonder Vocal Creators responded with such a variety of work to our Poemosaurus prompt.
By Vocal Curation Team17 days ago in Resources
Just a Minute Challenge Winners
Thanks again to Vocal Creator, Breezy, for suggesting the Just a Minute Challenge — one which you all interpreted in a wonderful variety of ways. Sometimes a minute can feel like an eternity, sometimes it can pass in the blink of an eye… to describe the passing of sixty seconds is no simple matter.
By Vocal Curation Teamabout a month ago in Resources