Announcing: The A Thousand Words Contest III (2024 Jun 09 - Jul 14) · 12:06am Jun 10th, 2024
copied from the forum post below the break:
commissioned from: applejackofalltrades
Welcome!
We’re back, again! Just like last time and the time before that, we are looking for stories that are exactly a thousand (1000) words long, the minimum length to be publishable on FIMFic and not a single word longer! How long are we looking for these? Until 2024 Jul 14, of course! And just like last time, you have a choice between five categories to submit to!
Judges!
Now last time, there were 168 entries total, which is a lot to ask someone to help read and judge in their free time! So this time, the five categories will be split between a wider range of judges, and treated as separate contests from each other. (Thus, judges can themselves enter in the categories they are not judging.)
The judge panels will be listed in the categories below. Please keep in mind that while judges can encourage authors to enter and be excited that they are, they are not allowed to preread, edit, or brainstorm any entries with the author before the contest results are released! In addition, judges are required to withhold commenting on entries until after the release of contest results.
Categories!
Drama
- Required Tag: Drama
This type of story focuses on the realistic, emotional reactions of characters involved in some serious life-affecting problem. It explores the various characters’ conflicting feelings between each other and within themselves.
Judges:
Examples:
Not That Anon · 1000 words · 130 1 · 1.3k viewsSparklingTwilight · 1000 words · 24 5 · 603 viewsMoproblems Moharmoney · 1000 words · 29 1 · 513 views
Slice of Life
- Required Tag: Slice of Life
A story focusing on daily, normal experiences. Unlike adventure, the story is not driven by action or discovery of new, exciting things, rather bringing the mundane to attention, such as attending school or a dinner party.
Judges:
Examples:
Pascoite · 1000 words · 60 3 · 569 viewsheartlessons · 1000 words · 36 1 · 497 viewsKodeake · 1000 words · 71 1 · 975 views
Horror
- Required Tag: Horror
The purpose of horror stories is to scare, terrify or otherwise horrify your readers by inducing fear through what happens to the characters or building a justified expectation of things going to end up badly for them.
Judges:
Examples:
Incandesca · 1000 words · 31 1 · 669 viewsdaOtterGuy · 1000 words · 192 8 · 2.8k views[Unpublished stories cannot be embedded]
Reviewfilly · 1000 words · 92 4 · 1.5k views
Comedy
- Required Tag: Comedy
Stories marked with the comedy tag focus on humor, but aren’t necessarily limited to slapstick or randomness. Comedy can be random or it can focus on a subject and draw the ludicrousness of an aspect of it to the fore through more subtle dialogue or scene descriptions. The point is to bring a smile or a laugh to the reader. Sometimes situations are ridiculous or the reactions of the characters are at odds with expectations. As long as the purpose of the story is humorous, this tag can be used.
Judges:
Examples:
Dewdrops on the Grass · 1000 words · 99 10 · 1.8k viewsTheDriderPony · 1000 words · 117 5 · 1.2k viewsTCC56 · 1000 words · 387 4 · 3.4k viewsThe Red Parade · 1000 words · 82 4 · 1.1k views
Experimental
- Required Tag: N/A
- Category Description: Fics that defy convention in format, tone, focus, genre, or something too unexpected to appear on this list.
Judges:
Examples:
JimmySlimmy · 1000 words · 122 1 · 1.9k viewsMockingbirb · 1000 words · 43 7 · 1k viewsShrink Laureate · 1000 words · 163 4 · 1.4k viewsRB_ · 1000 words · 62 3 · 916 viewsScarredVirtue · 1000 words · 27 1 · 385 views
Prizes!
All prize amounts will be sent by PayPal. If you are unable or unwilling to receive money by PayPal, alternative arrangements in the past have included redirecting winnings to other people, or a donation to a mutually agreed-upon charity.
In each category, at least three prizes will be awarded:
- Gold Medal: $50
- Silver Medal: $35
- Bronze Medal: $20
Depending on turnout and judge discussions, other prizes and Honorable Mentions may be added.
Community!
The group A Thousand Words has been created to both host the contest and collect stories that are exactly a thousand (1000) words long. Please join the group to have contest updates in your feed as well as to submit your entry into the category subfolders of the A Thousand Words Contest III Submission Folder, which is an official requirement.
Rules!
- As I, Bicyclette, must interact with all entrants, please keep in mind my DNI policy, which disqualifies accounts with published fics of a certain subset of pornographic material. This is the only requirement based on factors outside of the actual submission itself.
- The deadline is 2024 Jul 14 7:59PM ET (2359 14/07/2024 UTC). Stories must be published and completed, and placed in the appropriate subfolders of the A Thousand Words Contest III Submissions folder by this time in order to qualify. There will be no extensions.
- The only way an entry not meeting the above to be eligible is for the author to PM me, Bicyclette, the contents of the fic before the contest deadline (a fic password, or link to a public Google Docs, or the text of the story itself). If you are cutting it close to the deadline and might get stuck in the queue, please do this just in case.
- The story must be exactly a thousand (1000) words long as seen on its card or longdesc. It does not matter if the word counter in Google Docs, Scrivener, or even the FimFic editor says a thousand (1000) words, all that matters is what the website says!
- The gratuitous use of non-words, weird formatting, or other trickery to get a story to exactly a thousand (1000) words is not allowed, and we will be checking. The only exception to this are purely Experimental fics. In those, feel free to use whatever non-words, weird formatting, or other trickery you please!
- Authors may submit a single fic into multiple categories, but can only submit up to one fic in any particular category. Thus, the maximum number of fics an author can submit is five, with one in each category.
- T-rated and E-rated stories may have any tag except Fetish. M-rated stories are discouraged, and anything that is pornography, erotica, or mindless gorefests are not allowed. Also please do not submit stories that are technically within the rules but have the goal of satisfying a personal fetish rather than telling a story for a general audience! Some of you have done this in the past and if you thought you were being subtle, no you were not!
- Pre-readers and editors are freely allowed. Co-authors are not allowed.
- Stories based on Equestria Girls, Pony Life, the My Little Pony comics, and G5 are allowed.
- AUs, crossovers, sequels, and side stories are allowed as long as they can be understood without having read their source material.
Other Contests
You are encouraged to submit entries to this contest to other contests as well, if applicable! Here are some that are running as of this post:
- The Dialogue Only Contest, ending 2024 Jun 15.
- The Sunset Shimmer X Aria Blaze Competition, ending 2024 Jul 07.
- The Tropical Post-Apocalyptic Story Contest, ending 2024 Jul 26.
- The Rainbow Rocks 10th Anniversary Shipping Contest, ending 2024 Aug 03.
That's it!
Good luck!
So many good stories come out of this. Can;t wait to see what comes out this time. n_n
While I am very doubtful that the uptick in attendance can possibly repeat yet again for this contest – 168 is more entires than any contest has seen since probably 2015 – the division of 11 judges across the contest, with only yourself judging them all, does thereby allow the remaining ten to participate in select categories. That should make a difference!
I wasn’t able to cook up anything last year, but this time? Well, as always, if the right idea strikes and the drive’s there. I would certainly like to, make to mistake. We’ll see how it pans out.
5785588
same!
5785592
good luck with writing! and yeah, i would be very surprised if we get 168 stories again but i am sure there will be more amazing stories than there are places on the podium and that is what matters!