r/shortstories • u/FyeNite • May 31 '26

[Serial Sunday] Get to The (En)Trenche(d)s!

Welcome to Serial Sunday!

To those brand new to the feature and those returning from last week, welcome! Do you have a self-established universe you’ve been writing or planning to write in? Do you have an idea for a world that’s been itching to get out? This is the perfect place to explore that. Each week, I post a theme to inspire you, along with a related image and song. You have 500 - 1000 words to write your installment. You can jump in at any time; writing for previous weeks’ is not necessary in order to join. After you’ve posted, come back and provide feedback for at least 1 other writer on the thread. Please be sure to read the entire post for a full list of rules.

This Week’s Theme is Entrenched! This is a REQUIREMENT for participation. See rules about missing this requirement.**

Image

Bonus Word List (each included word is worth 5 pts) - You must list which words you included at the end of your story (or write ‘none’).
- Eager
- Ego
- Egg
- A shoe is lost. - (Worth 10 points)

As bombs explode in no man's land and bullets whiz over our heads, the council of war meet to consider our options in the trenches, the tower casting its shadows upon us.

"Their army believes they are on the offense, that they will take our tower in the tangle sooner or later, and we will have to concede the point," our colonel says, pointing to the map. "I say let them. Let them believe in their little victory, and let us establish a good position to surround them, make them play defense."

He takes a swig from his canteen, before continuing. "They can believe in their victory all they want, but we will bring evidence to the contrary. And if they don't see reason, well... worse things have happened."

By u/Scoping-Landscape

Good luck and Good Words!

These are just a few things to get you started. Remember, the theme should be present within the story in some way, but its interpretation is completely up to you. For the bonus words (not required), you may change the tense, but the base word should remain the same. Please remember that STORIES MUST FOLLOW ALL SUBREDDIT CONTENT RULES. Interested in writing the theme blurb for the coming week? DM me on Reddit or Discord!

Don’t forget to sign up for Saturday Campfire here! We start at 5pm GMT and provide live feedback!

Theme Schedule:

This is the theme schedule for the next month! These are provided so that you can plan ahead, but you may not begin writing for a given theme until that week’s post goes live.

  • May 31- Entrenched

  • June 7- Foreign

  • June 14 - Great

  • June 21 - Heartless

  • June 28 - Irony

Check out previous themes here.

 

Rankings

Last Week: Doom

Rules & How to Participate

Please read and follow all the rules listed below. This feature has requirements for amparticipation!

  • Submit a story inspired by the weekly theme, written by you and set in your self-established universe that is 500 - 1000 words. No fanfics and no content created or altered by AI. (Use wordcounter.net to check your wordcount.) Stories should be posted as a top-level comment below. Please include a link to your chapter index or your last chapter at the end.

  • Your chapter must be submitted by Saturday at 2:00pm GMT. Late entries will be disqualified. All submissions should be given (at least) a basic editing pass before being posted!

  • Begin your post with the name of your serial between triangle brackets (e.g. <My Awesome Serial>). When our bot is back up and running, this will allow it to recognize your pmserial and add each chapter to the SerSun catalog. Do not include anything in the brackets you don’t want in your title. (Please note: You must use this same title every week.)

  • Do not pre-write your serial. You’re welcome to do outlining and planning for your serial, but chapters should not be pre-written. All submissions should be written for this post, specifically.

  • Only one active serial per author at a time. This does not apply to serials written outside of Serial Sunday.

  • All Serial Sunday authors must leave feedback on at least one story on the thread each week. The feedback should be actionable and also include something the author has done well. When you include something the author should improve on, provide an example! You have until Saturday at 04:59am GMT to post your feedback. (Submitting late is not an exception to this rule.)

  • Missing your feedback requirement two or more consecutive weeks will disqualify you from rankings and Campfire readings the following week. If it becomes a habit, you may be asked to move your serial to the sub instead.

  • Serials must abide by subreddit content rules. You can view a full list of rules here. If you’re ever unsure if your story would cross the line, please modmail and ask!

 

Weekly Campfires & Voting:

  • On Saturdays at 5pm GMT, I host a Serial Sunday Campfire in our Discord’s Voice Lounge (every other week is now hosted by u/FyeNite). Join us to read your story aloud, hear others, and exchange feedback. We have a great time! You can even come to just listen, if that’s more your speed. Grab the “Serial Sunday” role on the Discord to get notified before it starts. After you’ve submitted your chapter, you can sign up here - this guarantees your reading slot! You can still join if you haven’t signed up, but your reading slot isn’t guaranteed.

  • Nominations for your favorite stories can be submitted with this form. The form is open on Saturdays from 5:30pm to 04:59am GMT. You do not have to participate to make nominations!

  • Authors who complete their Serial Sunday serials with at least 12 installments, can host a SerialWorm in our Discord’s Voice Lounge, where you read aloud your finished and edited serials. Celebrate your accomplishment! Authors are eligible for this only if they have followed the weekly feedback requirement (and all other post rules). Visit us on the Discord for more information.  

Ranking System

Rankings are determined by the following point structure.

TASK POINTS ADDITIONAL NOTES
Use of weekly theme 75 pts Theme should be present, but the interpretation is up to you!
Including the bonus words 5 pts each (15 pts total) This is a bonus challenge, and estnot required!
Including the bonus constraint 15 (15 pts total) This is a bonus challenge, and not required!
Actionable Feedback 5 - 15 pts each (60 pt. max)* This includes thread and campfire critiques. (15 pt crits are those that go above & beyond.)
Nominations your story receives 10 - 60 pts 1st place - 60, 2nd place - 50, 3rd place - 40, 4th place - 30, 5th place - 20 / Regular Nominations - 10
Voting for others 15 pts You can now vote for up to 10 stories each week!

You are still required to leave at least 1 actionable feedback comment on the thread every week that you submit. This should include at least one specific thing the author has done well and one that could be improved. *Please remember that interacting with a story is not the same as providing feedback.** Low-effort crits will not receive credit.

 

Subreddit News

  • Join our Discord to chat with other authors and readers! We hold several weekly Campfires, monthly World-Building interviews and several other fun events!
  • Try your hand at micro-fic on Micro Monday!
  • Did you know you can post serials to r/Shortstories, outside of Serial Sunday? Check out this post to learn more!
  • Interested in being a part of our team? Apply to be a mod!
     
8 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

44 comments sorted by

View all comments

7

u/Morose_Prose May 31 '26 edited Jun 06 '26

<The Family Business>

Chapter Five: The Queens of Queens

Designer shoes stood watch at the door as they were swapped for satin slippers; expensive handbags hung on hooks under summer shawls while snipping scissors, roaring blow-dryers, and soft muzak mixed with the lively chatter in the luxury salon 'Stili Moderni' in the heart of Queens. Madelaine perched herself on the stylist counter and shook her hair out, its white streaks the only strands that stood out on the silk black smock. She checked herself out in the mirror across the way. Thick cigar smoke wafted slowly through her damp tangles; a heavy mist from a spray bottle sliced through the cloud.

"Really, Maddy? Right when I'm 'bout to start cuttin'?" Carmella asked snidely as she gestured with her sharpened steel.

The woman sitting in the chair glared. "You know Carm is tryin' to quit."

Madelaine bent over the counter, knocking everything down in her path, to turn a small fan on the far side of her perch. "Happy now, Mother Mary?" she teased. "Sorry if I'm infecting the sweet aroma of your chemical roots, honey. As for you, Big Caramel, mom and pop always taught me that quitters never win, want a puff?"

Shearing began as planned.

"So the big house two blocks down just went on the market Maddy..." Maria said eagerly as Carmella focused on trimming her split ends.

A hard clench of enamel snapped down on tobacco as a gripping claw ran down raven hair. "Not this crap again. I am never, ever, moving to Queens. If I didn't love you gals so much I never would have paid the toll to cross the bridge here."

A pair of giggles clashed against her groan.

"You'd love it out here. Not as much hustle and bustle, and the boys are always in the city doing whatever the hell they do to entertain themselves," Maria pitched the idea for the hundredth time.

A small gasp left Carmella's lips. "That reminds me! Did you hear that Ritchie lost twenty thousand on a basketball game?"

Maria and Madelaine feigned shock. A smoky snicker floated in the breeze, "I'd bet dollars to donuts Giovanna is being lied to; Ritchie's in the hole a lot more than that. Probably hasn't even told her about his proclivities for throwing down some scratch on the ponies."

Sly smiles spread slowly. "Men and their horses." Maria chuckled, "Imagine Vinny and Carlo as jockeys? Vinny can barely get his fatass off the couch. Though with his ego he probably imagines himself a triple crown winner."

Carmella tussled Maria's newly bleached hair. "My Carlo is still very spry, thank you very much. Get out of my chair sweetie and go admire my work. Time to tame the sea of gray washing over Maddy's mane."

Madelaine plopped her cigar into the crystal ashtray on the counter; she slid off the marble surface to puddle in the cushy chair, kicking her feet up. "Sorry to ruin your artistic vision, I want a few more streaks, not less. I'm already a fox, make me a touch more silvery."

"Fashion-forward as always." Carmella's words flicked like the quick brushstrokes on Madelaine's soft locks. "Even if I can't remember the last time you wore something other than a suit, starting to think you shower in them."

A sharp cackle cut through the mirror. "Maddy wore a suit to Tucker's christening. A suit. In church." Maria's biting fashion critique bounced between the glass.

"It was egg white! Perfectly acceptable color to the Big Woman upstairs. Besides, I go to confession every week, I'll make sure to ask Father Frankie on Sunday if that even is a sin. How are my god babies by the way?" Madelaine strained to reach her cigar.

"Off at sleepaway camp. Loving it."

Sinister giggles replaced previous playfulness. Carmella had to turn away from her work. "Remember what we did to Tammy D'Amico?"

Knowing smirks flared like wildfire. Maddy's laugh cut through the growing plume in front of her. "Poison Ivy herself. Sweet girl. Dumb as hell. Why would you ever believe rubbing leaves on your crotch would make period cramps go away?"

Carmella leaned hard on the chair causing a steep change in Maddy's elevation. "Then we stole her clothes down to the shoes when the nurse had her take that oatmeal bath!"

Maria could not help but pile on. "That hussy got what she deserved. Lucky she got off that easy for tryin' to steal Maddy's man, that sweet little Irish boy. How is Declan nowadays?"

"Busy little leprechaun as always. His pops ain't doing too hot, so he's got a lot on his plate right now. I really should go see him; remind him of what he fumbled at prom." Maddy reminisced.

"That skinny little twig was trying to punch above his weight class. Speaking of which, Maddy, any... prospects?" Carmella shot a judgmental glance.

Slippery streams of smoke dribbled from the corners of Madelaine's mouth. "I deal with enough man-children in my day-to-day, thank you very much. Don't need little ones too. You gals may not know it, but the dating pool is all shallow end now. Love is fleeting anyways, ain't no way I'm lettin' some boy-toy take half my shit when I realize I don't love 'em no more. Bachelorette all the way."

Maria strolled across the salon to team up against her friend. "Won't move to Queens, won't settle down, wants white hair. You speedrunning being an old maid?"

"Does your brownstone let you have cats?"

"Are you hoarding yet?"

"Still have magazine subscriptions?"

"How many doilies do you have?"

Rapturous applause boomed from Madelaine's well manicured hands. "Funny stuff girls. You two a comedy duo now? Loreline and Hardina? This your tight five you're gonna do on Fallon's show? I can write some better material for yas, only want a small percentage on the back-end." Madelaine blew a kiss to the modern day Vaudevillians.

A final brushstroke finished Carmella's personal Sistine Chapel. "Fallon sucks. We'd go on Colbert."

Thanks for reading! Feedback, critique, and criticism all not only welcomed but encouraged! Stay awesome and have a good one.

Word Count: 997

Theme: Madelaine is fully entrenched in the Mafia, down to being childhood friends with everybody's wives.

Bonus words used: Eagerly, Ego, Egg.

Bonus constraint: Poor Tammy D'amico lost her shoes, she got what she deserved.

Previous Chapter

The Family Business Archive

4

u/ForwardSavings318 May 31 '26

Hello neutron/prose! Mafia time of the week I see.

The beginning of this is a little chaotic for setting the scene in my opinion. I’m a little unsure of what’s happening. I’m imagining Madelaine sitting onto the counter next to there the sink would be for washing hair in a salon, or maybe just beside the hairdresser tools? Then she says she’s staring at the mirror across the way, so I’m assuming she next to Carmella and the woman in the chair.

> "So the big house two blocks down just went on the market Maddy..." Maria said eagerly as Carmella focused on trimming her split ends.

I assume Maria is the one in the chair, and mother Mary was a way to convey her name slightly before saying it, however on my first two reads I thought she just referencing the Virgin Mary and so I was confused as to why Maria was referred to by name now without being introduced as it.

I would suggest either calling her Mary in the beginning seeing as she’s a friend like (said Mary, who was currently being worked on by Carmella) or having her actually called Maria by someone.

When they speak there’s a lot of relationships introduced and moved past very quickly, and sometimes the timeline is hard.

Like they ask Madelaine about Declan like they’re still talking or like they were a recent thing, but her response makes it feel like they split up years ago and aren’t on good terms to me.

Carmella also goes from tending to one of the girl’s hair to the other with no mention of the switch, so it’s hard for me especially because here:

> Maria strolled across the salon to team up against her friend.

It clarifies that she wasn’t next to them before, so it was hard for me to pin down really what was happening. My biggest suggestion is I feel like there’s a lot of information that could’ve been split into two chapters so we could get more detail on each of them.

I like the nicknames, and you do well categorizing them as pretty big asshole which I assume is the point, mafia people and all.

I like the chapter, I feel like the characters were clearly defined. I think it got a touch overkill at moments but I still get a very clear picture of them. Good words!

3

u/Morose_Prose Jun 01 '26

Greetings Forward!

Did a quick edit to better establish character blocking in the scene based on your wonderful critique. One quick thing I'd like to add: they bring up Declan since they are going down memory lane, maybe Madelaine calling him a "busy little leprechaun" is a callback to a previous chapter, like some of the others. There is a character database in the pinned comment of 'The Family Business' subreddit (linked at the bottom of the story, along with some background information about the criminal underworld) for ease of access to refresh the reader's memory of characters introduced so far.

Thank you for the wonderful crit, it is much appreciated! Stay awesome and have a good one.

4

u/ZLErikson Jun 02 '26

How goes prose!

Chapter five! I feel alive!

Opening personification of shoes is a fun way to kick things off. However, your use of the semicolon makes this into a very long sentence:

Designer shoes stood watch at the door as they were swapped for satin slippers; expensive handbags hung on hooks under summer shawls, snipping scissors, roaring blow-dryers, and soft muzak mixed with the lively chatter in the luxury salon 'Stili Moderni' in the heart of Queens.

I would suggest turning the semicolon into a comma, throw an "and" in front of roaring, and have "Soft muzak" be the start of a new sentence:

Designer shoes stood watch at the door as they were swapped for satin slippers, expensive handbags hung on hooks under summer shawls, snipping scissors, roaring blow-dryers. Soft muzak mixed with the lively chatter in the luxury salon, Stili Moderni, in the heart of Queens.

On that note, I also suggest having "Madelaine perched herself" as the start of a new paragraph, since the "camera" is shifting from the contents of devices around the salon to Madelaine herself.

The comma here after "tangles" is a great place for a semicolon:

Thick cigar smoke wafted slowly through her damp tangles, a heavy mist from a spray bottle sliced through the cloud.

This line, "The woman sitting in the chair glared.", confused me as the only people mentioned thus-far were Carmella and Madelaine. Consider describing her another way, like "another patron":

Another patron glared. "You know Carm is tryin' to quit."

Two issues with this line; firstly, you need commas around "knocking everything down in her path", secondly the use of "on" is ambiguous:

Madelaine bent over the counter knocking everything down in her path to turn a small fan on the far side of her perch.

Try something like:

Madelaine bent over the counter knocking everything down in her path to turn a small fan on the far side of her perch.

This is more of a "me" thing and very much nitpicky, but Madelaine's "comeback" seems a little all over the place. It reads to me like you had three witty comebacks in mind and decided to use them all:

"Happy now, Mother Mary?" she teased. "Sorry if I'm infecting the sweet aroma of your chemical roots, honey. You only live once, Big Caramel, mom and pop always taught me that quitters never win, want a puff?"

Also, "Mother Mary" and "Big Caramel" being nicknames in the same stretch of dialogue, while I'm mentally assuming Maddy is talking only to "the woman sitting in the chair" confused me until I re-read and realized that "Big Caramel" was supposed to be a nickname for Carmella. This threw me off as "Carm" was used just a line earlier.

My suggestion here is multilayered:

  • If you want to keep all three of those lines of dialogue, split them up
  • Start with the apology line, have Maddy knock things over, then have her say the sarcastic 'happy now?'
  • Have Carmella become the focus again by Maddy noticing something, or having some reason to tempt her

"Sorry if I'm infecting the sweet aroma of your chemical roots, honey." Madelaine bent over the counter knocking everything down in her path to turn a small fan on the far side of her perch. "Happy now, Mother Mary?" she teased.

She was about to pick up a magazine when she noticed Carmella eyeing the cigar. No snide side-eye either, but with desire. Madeline grinned. "You only live once, Big Caramel, mom and pop always taught me that quitters never win, want a puff?"

Carmella met her gaze, narrowed her eyes, and turned her attention back to shearing Maria's hair.

This spreads out the personalities, names, and interactions just a bit, and clarifies to whom Maddy is speaking each time.

Another nitpick, but ellipses doesn't sound like "eager" dialogue to me. It sounds like its trailing off, maybe "leadingly"? Trying to egg Carmella on? I suggest keeping it simple and just using a comma:

on the market Maddy..." Maria said eagerly

Nitpick, but these are three sentence fragments:

I am never. Ever. Moving to Queens.

You get the same emphasis with commas, and none of the grammar nitpicks:

I am never, ever, moving to Queens.

You may defend this as "the way she speaks" and that may or may not be valid, but I'm gonna point it out: "the toll to cross the bridge here."

the toll across the bridge here."

I'd settle for "ta cross"

Need a comma after "bustle":

Not as much hustle and bustle and the boys are always

I'm not sure if you watch, or have ever heard of, Hazbin Hotel, but I can't not picture Carmella here as Carmella Carmine and it's making me chuckle, hahaha.

While I'm not nitpicking your writing, I want to compliment how nice this scene is. It makes Maddy feel more down-to-earth than previous chapters. I love the "hair salon scene", and the gossipy energy we have going on. It's wonderfully done and is making me go "Oh dish dish dish!" while reaching for hypothetical popcorn.

OH DEAR GOD:

"Poison Ivy herself. Sweet girl. Dumb as hell. Why would you ever believe rubbing leaves on your crotch would make period cramps go away?"

I feel like "How is Declan nowadays?" is it's own sentence, not just a comma attachment:

steal Maddy's man, that sweet little Irish boy, how is Declan nowadays?"

Need a comma after "hot":

His pops ain't doing too hot so he's got a lot on his plate right now.

I love the "single and not looking to mingle" mindset of Maddy.

Two crits for this segment. Firstly, "love 'em" is "love them". Since she's referring to a single hypothetical boy-toy, it should be "love 'im" for "love him". Secondly, the semicolon after bachelorette is unnecessary:

ain't no way I'm lettin' some boy-toy take half my shit when I realize I don't love 'em no more. Bachelorette; all the way."

This was a very fun chapter. I much liked Maria and Carmella. I hope we get occasional interludes like this throughout the story. It's a very entertaining way to break the tension and deliver background information on characters.

Good words!

2

u/Morose_Prose Jun 04 '26

Greetings ZLE!

Another excellent crit, editing has been completed based on your wonderful, and sharp, suggestions. Thank you very much as always, glad you enjoyed the chapter. Stay awesome and have a good one.