A Thousand Words Contest: 2022 Mar 17 - May 29 · 12:24pm Mar 18th, 2022
commissioned from: applejackofalltrades
Welcome!
Hello friends!
I sure have been doing a lot of contests lately, haven't I? But one thing I noticed that keeps happening is that some writers get really into a story idea that spills out into fifteen, twenty, or even twenty-five kilowords, and then it is a struggle to get it all done in time. Even writers of medium-length stories sometimes end up panickedly rushing to the deadline! As someone who has been there for every contest I've entered in myself, I felt for each and every one of you.
So let's do something a bit more chill this time! How about a contest only for short stories? And not just short stories, but the kind that are so short that they cannot be even a single word shorter and still be publishable on FimFiction? That's right! This contest, running until 2022 May 2629, is only for stories that are exactly a thousand (1000) words long.
Of course, stories that are exactly a thousand (1000) words long can be in very different genres trying to do very different things, which makes them difficult to compare. So I looked through the list of stories on FimFiction that are exactly a thousand (1000) words long and came up with five categories, which covered most of the kinds of stories people write at that length. You will be submitting your entries to one or more categories, and we will be choosing winners for each category separately.
Categories!
Angst
Description: More sad/heavy than happy/light
Common tags: Drama, Sad, Tragedy
Examples:
Fluff
Description: More happy/light than sad/heavy
Common tags: Romance, Slice of Life, Comedy
Examples:
Grim
Description: The unsettling, grim, dark, and grimdark.
Common tags: Dark, Horror
Examples:
Humo(u)r
Description: Funny stuff!
Common tags: Comedy, Random
Examples:
Experimental
Description: Let's see some weird, downright bizarre stuff.
Common tags: Slice of Life, Other
Examples:
Prizes!
Note that all prize amounts will be sent by PayPal. If you are unable to receive money by PayPal, I, Bicyclette, will try my very best to arrange an alternative that works for you, but please be aware that it may not work out.
Thanks to me, Bicyclette, we have a total prize pool of $335!
In each category, two prizes will be awarded:
- Best: $40
- Runner-up: $15
In addition, each judge will bestow a Judge Prize of $15 on any entry of their choosing.
Judges!
I am very excited about each of these wonderful people who did me the honor of agreeing to judge this contest with me. Including myself, here is the full list:
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 asked to withhold commenting on entries until after the release of contest results.
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 contest folder, which is an official requirement.
Rules!
- 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 exception to this are Experimental and Humo(u)r fics. In those, feel free to use whatever non-words, weird formatting, or other trickery you please!
- T-rated and E-rated stories may be of any rating or content. M-rated stories may be disqualified, so authors are encouraged to clear the content with a judge ahead of time to make sure this does not happen. No pornography, erotica, or mindless gorefests.
- Stories based on Equestria Girls, Pony Life, the My Little Pony comics, and MLP:ANG (G5) are allowed.
- AUs, crossovers, sequels, and side stories are allowed as long as they can be understood without having read their source material.
- The deadline is 2000
2629/05/2022 UTC-4:00 (8:00PM of May2629, 2022, ET). Stories must be published and completed, and placed in the appropriate subfolders of A Thousand Words Contest Submissions folder by this time in order to qualify. There will be no extensions or exceptions.- The one exception to the above is if a fic is stuck in the moderation queue (because you are a new writer, for example), or the auto-queue. In this case, you must PM me, Bicyclette, with the contents of the fic before the contest deadline in order to qualify (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, do this just in case, as otherwise any stories that fail to be published by the deadline will be disqualified!
- You may edit a published fic all the way up to the deadline time, at which point a copy will be saved locally. It is disqualifying to make any changes to the content after the deadline, unless they are the most minor of formatting and spelling changes, and even those will be frowned upon. Even after the deadline, feel free to make changes to the shortdesc, longdesc, chapter titles, cover, and fic title, though the last should be done sparingly.
- Authors may submit a fic into multiple categories, but they may only submit one entry into each category. This means that authors may submit anywhere between one and five fics, if they desire.
- Co-authors are not allowed.
- If you feel like your idea, despite technically meeting all these rules, might go against what we might reasonably expect from a good-faith entry, or if you have any questions or want to clarify anything, please don't be afraid to discuss it with me, Bicyclette! The last thing we want is for you to spend a lot of time working on an entry and then have it not qualify at the end. We understand there will always be corner cases to consider.
- For legal and job reasons of myself, any submission under the same account as fics that would be illegal to publish in the nation of Australia (a certain subset of pornographic material) are disqualified. This is the only requirement based on factors outside of the actual submission itself.
Other Contests
If this contest is not enough for you, try:
- My Maud Contest, ending 2022 Mar 31
- RockstarRaccoon's Operation: Crackfic Storm - 2022, ending on 2022 Apr 01
- Reactception's March 2022 Sunset Shimmer x Villain Contest: "Second Chances", ending on 2022 Apr 08
That's it!
Good luck!
Ooh exciting!! This is going to be such a great challenge... I hope you get a lot of participation! These should be some really tight stories!
cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/395396915107463169/954447614403821588/unknown.png
The secret to more easily getting the correct wordcount is to make the meta do the work for you.
I have the stupidest idea for this. Stop making contests or I'll never get my ongoing projects done. Anyway, time to switch gears again.
5644599
me too! i am very excited to see what people do with the premise
5644612
cdn.discordapp.com/emojis/931733878559895612.webp?size=96&quality=lossless
5644651
meta fics are highly encouraged!
5644668
but i thought of this contest idea specifically so that people can participate if they want and still have time for other projects
and yes please continue your personal projects!
Probably a stupid question, but are OCs allowed? Maybe I can’t read, but it’s not really made clear
Good luck!
Are OCs allowed
5644698
5644852
OCs are allowed for this one, sure!
5644863
Okay, thanks!
Deciding which category (or categories) to enter a story into might be pretty hard this time, with this contest's special (but reasonable) rules.
How about creating an exta folder, "Not Yet Sorted / Category TBD," so writers can show everyone their stories before choosing the category (categories)?
5645332
categories aren't considered final until the deadline, so feel free to change them around before the end!
5645374
I am not in any way tempted by this.
Seeing this just reminded me that I never submitted anything into the crackship contest :(
anyway on the off chance I am able to make up for it:
My numerous short-ass stories:
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5645955
if i don't see some really weird stuff from you this contest is an official failure
Maaaybe I'll take a crack at this one too.
Or multiple cracks in multiple categories.
Only one submission allowed, correct?
5646770
one submission per category, so you can submit up to five if each is in a different category
I have a feeling I know what this is but I'm not 100% sure. I only have one raunchy fic posted which might include said content but again I can't be sure what it is. I'm gonna write the story anyway, but it'd be nice to know if I would be disqualified from what is already on my account!
Oh boy, this looks like the perfect opportunity to write something random and have an actual reason for it
I would like to join in, please.
All my sympathy to these judges. Feels like half the site's submissions these past two months have been towards this thing.
Remember to drink water and rest your eyes.
5660389
derpicdn.net/img/2013/11/27/483578/medium.gif
OK, it's my fault, but I was only interested in this contest at the moment... so really too late.
Do you plan to start another one later? I have an idea that has been in my head for a while that once adapted to 1000 words would fit perfectly in the experimental category, but even without my difficulties with English which is not my native language it's dead for tomorrow...
5660485
if i do run this again, it will likely be at least a year from this point! but there will be other contests with other themes
I'm sorry to have missed this one. There were two solid concepts I tried to put together into stories, but it wasn't happening. (Surely my discovering this event's existence less than a week ago helped nothing.)