In the summer of 2017, with the rush of incoming Stories Untold entries in the air and Daastan’s social media teeming with writers, poets, thinkers and dreamers, the team decided to dish out a series of writing prompts to encourage the flow of ideas. What started as an all too simple social media post to get conversations going, caught the eye of Daastan’s Founder, and he decided to turn it into a competition and put a reward at the end to motivate the writers even further. Thus, began the campaign of Mukhtasir Daastan, which lasted months and earned almost all those who participated goodies and discounts from various sponsors.
Magic:
A total of seven such prompt based competitions were initiated, each with a unique theme, requirements and prizes. What ensued was a flurry of creativity crushed into six-word stories. The first sponsored prompt was put up in collaboration with Jadugar and Co., a freelance graphic design company, and the theme was aptly titled “Magic”. The winners were given prizes which included discounts and a personalized typographic design.
Smiles:
The second in the series that followed was sponsored by Smiles.pk. They asked the audience to help them write their tagline, in return of a gift prize of 2500 PKR. Smiles.pk ended up choosing not one, but two winners. They liked two of the entries so much that they just couldn’t narrow it down to one.
Travel:
The third in the series of Mukhtasir Daastan was sponsored by Aurochs, a premium leather products manufacturing company which designed highly functional pieces with ease of use in mind. The theme of the six-word story competition was “Travel”. The top five finalists received a 50% off coupon on their products, while all those who participated also received a small discount as well.
Youth:
The fourth, and final one which was sponsored by another company, was held in collaboration with Forever21 magazine, a bi-monthly magazine seeking to empower youth. The magazine requested the authors to let their creativity flow, and no word limit was imposed. The winner received a gift bag in reward for her eloquently written piece on the theme “I want to be 17 again because…”
By Qissa Authors:
The last three prompts of the series were sponsored by the authors published with Qissa. They fished out one lettered theme of their books, such as “Adapt” for Unveiling the Unknown by Tooba Arshad, and asked the writers to come up with a heart touching six-word-story on it. The winners and participants were awarded multiple levels of discounts on the books from which the themes were taken.
The final gift though, came from Daastan. It was promised from the very start of the series of Mukhtasir Daastan, that the team would hand pick the best ones out of all those who participated, compile, and publish it into a book, eternalizing the bird-like thoughts of each of the writers featured in it.
If you are a writer and want to see your work published, drop us a message on Daastan!