The Character Skirmish

November 2026 round · Entries and voting open until 30 November

A story begins to live the moment a reader believes in one person. This skirmish asks you to build that person on the page. Bring a single character to life in a few hundred words. Show us how they look, how they sound, what they want, and above all the contradiction that makes them real — the soldier who is afraid of dogs, the miser who tips too much. You may describe someone from your own book or invent a stranger for the occasion. Your entry can run as long as you need, up to 4,000 characters (about 650 words). One entry per scribe each month, open to every rank. Here is the kind of entry we hope to see: Marguerite Oyelaran-Voss kept the lighthouse at Skerry Point for thirty-one winters and was never once seen to hurry. She was a broad woman with a sailor's squint and hands like knotted rope, and she spoke to the lamp the way other people speak to a difficult husband: firmly, fondly, and with a great deal of sighing. She distrusted the sea, loved the sea, and would have tolerated no one saying either thing aloud. Every evening she wound the clockwork, polished the brass and lit the flame, muttering “Well. Off we go, then,” as though the light were a child being sent to school. The village whispered that she was waiting for someone to come home. Nobody said it to her face. She would have handed them a mop.

Prize: A free month of the Lorekeeper tier, sent to the winner by email when the round closes.