Today On The Premises announced that I got second place in their 44^th “mini-contest.” The prompt was to “write a story up to 50 words long in which some kind of board game plays an important role,” and you can read my winning entry by clicking here. I’m rather proud of what I came up with, and I hope that you find it funny. Also, I’m not sure why, but writing about characters that are totally oblivious really cracks me up, and I used every single word to my advantage—count if you wish!

Besides getting a bit of recognition and money, the result of this contest is really satisfying because I’ve unsuccessfully entered other On The Premises competitions (link to the related blog post, if curious). And those rejections were A-OK; the stories On The Premises chose as winners instead were stronger than mine. It’s just hard to write something coherent in 50 or 75 words, and I’m really happy that in this case I got it down. Additionally, I have no idea where the idea came from, but I wrote this all in a night while sitting in bed and it was fun.

Check out the other entries on the site. For this go around—Mini-Contest #44, Board Games—there are a few pieces that really crack me up. First place is pretty good, but also, the first “Honorable Mention” I think is the funniest thing on the page. Of further note, it’s interesting that one story that’s up is serious, which I think is probably something I could never pull off. And now I’m looking forward to the next contest, so hopefully more announcements like this to come!

–Jeff and Leah