That's right, we're back! And we've got some slight tweaks that we're going to highlight in bold for you just in case you're a veteran and want to get right to the changes.
This is the place for TCSers to flex their literary muscles, and compete with each other for the most interesting and compelling stories we can come up with.
Let’s go over the rules and how things work:
- Story length is up to 4000 words total (including any asides or additional notes).
- Please include a title for your piece. If you do not choose a title, you are implicitly giving us permission to title your piece whatever we want; "Moldy Bread" "Baby's Feet" "I, {Username}, Love Donald Trump" (Oh yes we would).
- Stories can include images, but are limited to a maximum of three per story.
- All stories must follow the usual TCS rules.
- Instances of plagiarism will not be tolerated, please make sure all works are entirely original.
- The contest will run from October 13th 2017 to November 13th 2017. That's an entire month to write, folks!
- All story submissions must be PM’d to Kate before the end of November 13th (that is, you should have it in by 23:59 PST). Voting won't go live until I wake up the next morning, but will absolutely go live on November 14th...unless.
Here is a big change, guys! The voting will not start until we have a minimum of 5 submissions.
Fake FAQ About This Change
To be very clear, this does technically mean you can submit after the deadline if not enough entries have come in yet, but first of all, that's a pretty big gamble, and secondly, doing that on purpose isn't very nice or considerate of the people who run the contest or the other people who have entered.
- All submissions will be posted by Kate, anonymously, in random order, in a locked thread created for that purpose. All stories will be posted under the TCS Writebot account.
- Stories will be judged by poll created when the thread of stories is posted. Voting will continue for one week, ending exactly one week after it is posted. The story with the highest vote wins.
- The winning story will be featured on the front page of the site under the name of the winning author. Every story will be kept in the Fridge, and the posters changed to the authors of the story, and the thread unlocked for comment.
- Questions, confusion and disputes will be handled by Kate, please PM her for clarification or to report any problems.
Theme - The theme of this contest will be: Post-Apocalyptic/Dystopic
In the words of the person who suggested this theme in the first place,
Marcuse wrote:The world has ended, long live the world. It is the future, somewhere in it anyway, and the world is different. How is up to you. The heart of this theme is that human society has collapsed, is collapsing, or has been rebuilt in an unrecognisable form from the one we have today. Basically this is an opportunity to build a world that has different parameters from the one we inhabit, maybe corporations have forgotten pesky things like human rights exist? Maybe we nuke each other until the survivors don't even know what the hell happened? Maybe we augment ourselves to the point where we become a completely different species? The (crapsack) world is your oyster. Just...don't eat it. Probably off or something.
A note on critique - it is often preferable to seek the critique of other people before posting something to a contest, this is true here. However, for those critiquing, please remember to keep your points constructive and designed to help the author improve their piece. This is advice for private criticism, and strongly advised for post-contest comment. We’re meant to be building up here, not tearing down.
The contest will officially begin on the 13th of October, submissions will be due by the end of the day on the 13th of November, and the voting will one week after all entries are received. So what are you waiting for? Get writing!