I know that most contest entries are posted on the last day, but so far, I’ve only seen one other person interested in entering, and I don’t think I’ll be able to get mine finished on time.

7355927 Possibly, but I'd have to be convinced that there was demand for it. I've counted nearly a dozen folks interested in entering (although in practice roughly half that doesn't end up getting it together), but none of them (bar you) so far have mentioned extensions.

It's entirely possible that we will see more request an extension, at which point I may consider it again, but what I'd prefer not to do is throw in an extension that only serves to make folks procrastinate (which counterintuitively often ends up slowing writing down, at least in my experience).

I'd recommend writing as efficiently as you can, and on the off chance I only have a small handful of participants, well, that's where the prize money goes. If you have, however, an unforseen matter come up that really does hamper your ability to write, do send me a PM and I'm sure we can work out specifics. I would hate to penalise folk for having a particularly bad week, for example.

7355940
I honestly believe maybe the lack of participants could be because of the difficulty of the task. It was interesting to write with these constraints but when I arrived at the last part of the story where I had to write like 1600 more words, I dropped it because it would just be me inflating the ending that I had arrived to, so honestly more time wouldn't have made a difference in my case.

7355948 Kind of what I expect.

Pretty fascinating that even with a lot of money to be won and hundreds of folks being aware of the contest, a site filled with writers struggled that hard with something as basic as matching a three-act-structure to a word-count, even given complete freedom on content. I guess we should all remember that writing as a profession often entails writing to similar limitations (particularly in shows), and that perhaps before offering criticism, considerations should be made regarding the format of writing. There are lessons to be learned even with difficulties, and I for one feel like I've learned a lot watching folks attempt this on discord and in PMs.

I would recommend that you continue working on your story, though; particularly with few entries, you could quite easily secure an easy win. If you'd prefer to have two versions, one with the padding and one without, I would be happy to accept it as there being two chapters; one which is your version which doesn't match the word count limits, and a second chapter that has been extended in the necessary areas.

7355927

7355940
I'm still planning on submitting! I've finished the story and am just going over it with a fine comb.

7355974 Noice! I look forwards to reading it. : )

7355957

I guess we should all remember that writing as a profession often entails writing to similar limitations

Almost every time I told to someone that I liked writing they "kindly" informed me that I would hate a writing profession, and that it would be the death of my creativity.
Thanks to this contest I can confidently say that they can go F themselves because they are wrong. It took a lot of effort, sure, but I loved the end result, and only stopped because I was happy with the story that was told.

If you'd prefer to have two versions, one with the padding and one without, I would be happy to accept it as there being two chapters; one which is your version which doesn't match the word count limits, and a second chapter that has been extended in the necessary areas.

I could add a second end chapter with the apropiate overall wordcount, or maybe expand the finale a bit with some ideas now that I've left the story for a while. If I manage, I will submit it to the contest with the necessary clarifications. Either way, this was really fun and I thank you for the chance to test the writing skills.
Have a nice day.

7355977 My personal belief is that creativity comes from overcoming restrictions, not the absence of restriction. I'm quite glad you enjoyed the end result of the story! I think it's always pretty nice when folks get something cool out of a challenge or approach they didn't expect.

If you do get around to it, I look forwards to reading your entry! Good luck.

7355940
Deadline is when the last timezone enters Sunday, right? 13 hours after Greenwich Saturday-to-Sunday midnight? If it's that I'll probably manage to finish on time, hopefully.

7363015 Yup, pretty much! Go go go go go!

Maximum belief!