Literature Network Annual Short Story Competition 2007!

[Scheherazade]

Dear All,

The Literature Network will hold an annual short story competition, which will be open to all its members. The rules of the competition are:

1. The stories should be submitted as email attachments in MS Word format and should be minimum 500 and maximum 2000 words and include your Forum names as well. Please send your stories to [email protected]. Please do not post your stories on the Forum!

2. There will be 5 selections (in February, April, June, August and October) throughout the year and only the stories which have been submitted by the first of these months latest will be included in that month's elimination. The five stories which win the each selection will take part in the final voting in November and December.

3. Members can submit only one entry for each selection round. If their story is a winner, they will not be allowed to take part in other selections.

4. The Admin or Moderators are not responsible for editing or correcting of the stories and therefore the writers themselves are required to make sure that there are no grammatical or spelling errors. The submitted copy is final and further corrections by the writers will be disregarded.

5. Only those members with at least 100 posts by each voting period can submit stories for the competition and vote in the polls.

6. Those who enter the competition agree to keep the information on their identities and stories confidential till the end of that year (only the Admin and Moderators will have access to that information). Those who breach this rule will be disqualified automatically.

7. All entries should be your own original work and not have appeared anywhere else before. Authors retain the copyright rights for the stories submitted to the competition.

8. All submissions must be your sole creative work and written for this particular competition. Anyone found plagiarising will be disqualified from this and all future contests.

9. If one of the 5 entrants selected for the final vote are no longer a member of the site at the time of the final vote, they forfeit their entry and the second place entry for their leg of entries gets bumped to first place.

Good luck!

Those members who would like to take part in the first elimination in February can send their entries now (no later than January 31st).

--

Edited 8 Sept. to add:

Please still submit your stories in MS Word.docs. or Rich Text.rtf or Notepad.txt files, but PLAIN TEXT only.

If you want to FORMAT your stories, use the vBulletin forum codes, which can be found here:

http://www.online-literature.com/for....php?do=bbcode

[Virgil]

I was hoping we could extend the min word cout to either 2500 or 3000 words. That little extra makes a big deal sometimes.

[Scheherazade]

I was hoping we could extend the min word cout to either 2500 or 3000 words. That little extra makes a big deal sometimes.

I am not sure what you mean by 'min word count' (which is 500 at the moment) but, if you are refering to maximum word count, an increase is not being considered at the moment.

[Virgil]

I am not sure what you mean by 'min word count' (which is 500 at the moment) but, if you are refering to maximum word count, an increase is not being considered at the moment.

Oh sorry, I meant max word count. Senility you know.

[Scheherazade]

Senility you know.

Well, I don't but seems like you do!

[Scheherazade]

Please note that the last day for submission for the February elimination is January 31st!

[Virgil]

Please note that the last day for submission for the February elimination is January 31st!

I thought it was the end of February.

[Scheherazade]

Please note that participating members are not supposed to reveal their identities to others. If you have any questions, please contact me via PM or email!

[Adelheid]

Hi everyone!

I can't believe I missed the FINALS of 2006!!!! Waaah!!! I have been away for a long holiday since November of last year, and have been so absorbed enjoying myself that I totally forgot about the competition! Oh dear...

At least there's 2007's competition, though. BIG consolation! I can't wait to read all the stories and vote- I love to vote.

Oh yes- and January 31st is TOMORROW, everybody!!! Write hard, authors! :P

[Scheherazade]

A reminder:

Please make sure that your stories are in .doc format!

The last 10 days till the April elimination...

[PeterL]

Those members who would like to take part in the first elimination in February can send their entries now (no later than January 31st).

I had forgotten about the competition until I read the newsletter, but the maximum word count is a problem. I realize that the longer the stories are, the longer it takes to judge them, but 2000 words isn't much room for development.

[tudwell]

I agree with those who think the maximum word count is too low. 2000 words isn't much. It seems to me that, skimming through my several anthologies of "great" short stories, most of the stories are 20 some pages long. A thousand words on a double spaced Word page is usually about 8 pages. That's really rather short for a story.

[SleepyWitch]

I'm inclined to agree that 2,000 words is a bit on the stingy side, but something like 20 pages would be definitely too much.
i didn't vote in the last round myself, because I was busy and didn't even manage to read four 2,000 word stories. if the word limit was higher, the number of voters would probably be somewhere around zero.

plus, writing a 10-20 page story takes a lot of time and effort. submitting your story for the competition can spur you on to give your best, but on the other hand, you don't get instant criticism/discussions that way.
for a creature of direct experience like me this is a serious drawback (not of the competition as it is, but of submitting a longer and more elaborate story)

[Captain Pike]

Not necessarily a contributor, I was thinking that the 2000 word limit poses an interesting challenge. I mean, anyone can tell a story if they're allowed to ramble indefinitely, right? So then it becomes an exercise in word economy, maybe. Hypothetically speaking, that is.

[SleepyWitch]

where's the August stories old Scher? hurry up, or else I'll ship you to a nursing home ..
uh, oh. nice Scher?