So you get your revenge …

 ... by making me have to decide on a favourite from a whole field of favourites.

With effort, I narrowed it down to four posts, from three of you, then swithered back and forth for an age, finally deciding on the basis that I read traces of my most-favoured fictional heroes in Perry's 'Hero'. But please, please, the heel-snapping rest of you, do not despair: if this was a horse race you'd all have muddy faces. 

 this week’s words are:  scalp tine vague

 Entries by midnight Thursday 5th November, new words posted Friday 6th

 Usual rules: 100 words maximum (excluding title) of flash fiction or poetry using all of the three words above in the genres of horror, fantasy, science fiction or noir. Serialised fiction is, as always, welcome. All variants and uses of the words and stems are fine. Feel free to post links to your stories on Twitter or Facebook or whichever.

Nothing took anyone's fancy?

Or did shyness keep you from stating a preference?  Last week's words certainly threw up a challenge (you are not alone in cursing the person who chose them!) but at least I can say, with confidence, that my favourite this week, for its elegant subversiveness, was Patricia's 'The Before Times'.

 this week’s words are:  casual  inherit salubrious 

Entries by midnight Thursday 29th October, new words posted Friday30th

 Usual rules: 100 words maximum (excluding title) of flash fiction or poetry using all of the three words above in the genres of horror, fantasy, science fiction or noir. Serialised fiction is, as always, welcome. All variants and uses of the words and stems are fine. Feel free to post links to your stories on Twitter or Facebook or whichever.

Schedule for Friday 16th October

I thank you for your choice of winners from last week, while I visited what, to my husband, was the Jurassic coast, and to me was Hardy country, two books of whose referenced the hotel we'll be staying at.  

 this week’s words are: beard public rune

Usual rules: 100 words maximum (excluding title) of flash fiction or poetry using all of the three words above in the genres of horror, fantasy, science fiction or noir. Serialised fiction is, as always, welcome. All variants and uses of the words and stems are fine. Feel free to post links to your stories on Twitter or Facebook or whichever.

Birds at the scarlet berries

Whatever the saying is about lots of berries meaning a hard winter, all I know is that I don't recall what has recently been identified as a whitebeam – a decades-old "free tree" opposite my kitchen window – ever having berries, never mind the quantity there this autumn. Only time - and snow - will tell.

In the meantime, I have to tell you I'm off again next week, so next Friday will schedule new prompt words and I'll ask you, once again to choose your favourite.

 This week, it's my turn, and, after two weeks off I find I'm sadly out of practice when it comes to making a decision about a winner, especially when the criteria, the factors that give pleasure vary for each and every one. In the end I decided Jim deserves a mention for his ability to keep me reading through eight episodes of 'The Box', despite the gruesome horror, but the second paragraph of Perry's 'Exiles' was so delicious that it had to be awarded first place.

 this week’s words are: proof tendon yawn

 Entries by midnight Thursday 15th October, new words posted Friday16th

  Usual rules: 100 words maximum (excluding title) of flash fiction or poetry using all of the three words above in the genres of horror, fantasy, science fiction or noir. Serialised fiction is, as always, welcome. All variants and uses of the words and stems are fine. Feel free to post links to your stories on Twitter or Facebook or whichever.

Words for Friday 2nd October

 Thank you for last week's entertainment - please do name your favourite, then do your best with the  following:

this week’s words are: former, lake plaster

Entries by midnight Thursday 8th October, new words posted Friday 9th

  Usual rules: 100 words maximum (excluding title) of flash fiction or poetry using all of the three words above in the genres of horror, fantasy, science fiction or noir. Serialised fiction is, as always, welcome. All variants and uses of the words and stems are fine. Feel free to post links to your stories on Twitter or Facebook or whichever.