ONC 2021 LONGLIST

ROUND II AMBASSADOR PICK

"Exclusive" banner above by astrophile!

EDIT 05/21/21: NSID MADE THE LONGLIST!! Thank you so much to everyone who's read, commented, and voted on this story! Here's a celebratory meme:

Hey! This is an entry in the 2021 Open Novella Contest (https://www.wattpad.com/story/255009856-open-novella-contest-2021). It uses this primary prompt:

47. A mysterious statue of an eye appears in a sleepy town. Nobody knows where it came from, but it seems to change locations every night when nobody is watching. One day, it appears on your front door.

With a little of this prompt:

37. "Catch that chocolate thief!" And it was shouted at a pumpkin with tiny legs and hands.

And apparently, there's a prompt with the Poe "dream within a dream" quotation I even reference in the story, but I completely missed it!

Unfortunately, 2020 was stressful in a way that demotivated me, and I've mostly had to work on revisions for stories on deadlines (yay!), but it's my hope to have some fun with this one. I will begin adding chapters once I have multiple of them finished and as I make some headway in the contest word count milestones.

Since this is a novella, the very general goal for this story is 20,000–40,000 words.

Originally formed out of the ONC prompts and my renewed Bloodborne obsession, the idea of this story is that it's based on H.P. Lovecraft Dream Cycle and Randolph Carter stories, so it's fantasy with horror elements. However, you don't need knowledge of those stories to follow the narrative.

I've always wanted more stories like, say, Coraline or Over the Garden Wall, dark stories oriented to younger audiences. Reading fantasy with horror elements when I was younger inspired my love for horror. This is less like my usual style and more aimed toward younger YA; the main character is fourteen.

Check this story out for:

-Weird, fantastical creatures and locations

-Cats

-LGBT characters

-One (1) sentient pumpkin

Thanks for checking this out! I'm always amazed by the kindness of the Wattpad writing community.