Literature Network Annual Short Story Competition 2007!

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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! :)

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

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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

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

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by Scheherazade

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.

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

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Originally Posted by Virgil

Senility you know. ;)

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

;)

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

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Originally Posted by Scheherazade

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

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:eek2: :eek2: I thought it was the end of February.

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!

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. :D

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

A reminder:

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

The last 10 days till the April elimination...

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Originally Posted by Scheherazade

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

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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.

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.

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)

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.

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

when is the next group of stories available

There is no joy in LitNetVille... http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l1...ne/weeping.gif

Pen? What's the matter?

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Originally Posted by RobinHood3000

Pen? What's the matter?

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i think he 'cried' because the August stories were posted late

However, the poll is still open for the usual one month periood :)

I gather Robin hasn't read "Casey At the Bat"? Overdone joke... Sorry!

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l1.../PuppyLove.gif

Aaaahhh, hahaha!! Gotcha. I follow.

May I be the first to congarulate the winner of August's round, the writer of The Whole World Is Closed! http://www.cosgan.de/images/midi/sportlich/a040.gif http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l1...Four/DaMan.gif

And to say that in spite of Logos' tremendous effort, voting was still on the low end of the scale. Some poor author didn't even garner 1 vote. This should not be. 19 total votes over a 30 to 31 day period is less than 1 per day. Why have these contests if you are not going to take the time to cast your vote? Here your vote very much counts, and we should support our fellow forum writers. It isn't easy to write and enter a story, knowing the whole LitNet is watching, but brave souls try. The least we can do is vote.

If you didn't vote, why? http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l1...ilies/ISNF.gif

I agree Pen. Why don't people vote? This is not rocket science and no one is asking to analyze stories. All you have to do is read them and vote for the one you liked best.

How come on this round votes were not public? We don't even know who voted and who didn't now.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaargh

am I late? I thought I could still vote today. BUMMER
been working on my thesis all day and I thought I'd read the stories to unwind, but there you go... :bawling:

~raises hand~ Poor author. Only fair, though - 'twas written out of boredom in an airport.

I'm surprised that this section doesn't garner more attention. I enjoyed all of the stories, and my hat goes off to everyone who submitted. Congrats to the author of The Whole World is Closed. Maybe the voter turnout will be higher for the October elimination.

Congrats to the winner of the August elimination! :thumbs_up :D

:banana:

Yay! Congratulations to the author of The World Is Closed! I wonder now who can she/he be. :p Loved the story and some others too. :D

Truth is, that these last few months i have read some very good short stories (for the competition) and i am curious as to who wrote each one of them..is there a thread where the authors reveal themselves?? Or is it against the rules?

manolia, the winners of each elimination round are not allowed to reveal their identity, of course, until next year after the final winner has been named.

But, anybody who does enter a story but does not win their elimination round can reveal if they so wish :)

That's weird - one of my posts disappeared. :confused: Did I say something wrong?

Thanks Logos, that makes sense :nod: I'll have to wait and see :) .

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Originally Posted by RobinHood3000

.... one of my posts disappeared ....

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mistakenly, now restored.