The Twenty-Four Hour Fast Fiction Challenge

UPDATED on 14^th March with the final six challengers!

15^th March 2013 is Red Nose Day in the UK, when comedians and people (note to self: check whether comedians are people) come together to raise money for Comic Relief.

I’m going to be doing my bit this Red Nose Day, writing fast fictions for celebrities who’ve challenged me, following the “usual rules”. So I’m going to be challenged with a four word title and a single word to include in the tale, in response to which I’m going to write a story of exactly 200 words.

Twenty-four times.

In twenty-four hours.

I’ll be starting at 12:30pm on Friday 15^th March, and writing for 24 hours straight. And I want your money while I’m doing so.

My Red Nose Day giving page is here, and you can sponsor me to write the stories, to complete the twenty-four hours and – immediately after the challenge is complete – you’ll be able to buy an ebook of all twenty-four stories for the perfectly round sum of £1.00

I’m part of Mitch Benn’s #twittermillion team – he’s creating a comedy album from scratch during the same 24 hours, in the same room! The venue where all this lunacy will take place is: The Vineyard Community Centre, The Vineyard, Richmond TW10 6AQ. Check out his plans here. There’ll be a live webcast covering both events – details to come.

I’m incredibly excited about the people who’ve challenged me to write stories for them. I’ve released the names of the challengers six at a time, and the full list is below, the names in bold are the newest challengers…

• Ian Rankin
• Neil Gaiman
• Tim Minchin
• Richard Curtis
• Rory Bremner
• Marcus Brigstocke
• Caitlin Moran
• David Arnold
• Rufus Hound
• Emma Kennedy
• Laurie Penny
• Robert Llewellyn
• Kim Newman
• Robin Ince
• Lauren Laverne
• Jon Holmes*
• Mark Watson
• Dave Gorman
• Andy Salzman
• Jenny Colgan
• Ben Aaronovitch
• Sarah Pinborough
• Andy Nyman

and of course…

• Mitch Benn

* Any comments about the story written for Jon Holmes obviously being necessarily a very short story are unwarranted. But true.

Twenty-Four Hours. Twenty-four stories. Way too many coffees.

And it starts at 12:30 on Friday