Welcome one and all to the TCS Write-Off December 2017!
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 December 1st 2017 to January 1st 2018. That's an entire month to write, folks!
- All story submissions must be PM’d to Marcuse before the end of January 1st (that is, you should have it in by 23:59 GMT).
- The voting will not start until we have a minimum of 5 submissions.
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 Marcuse, 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 Marcuse, please PM him for clarification or to report any problems.
Theme - The theme of this contest will be: Fantasy
That can be anything from swords and sorcery to medievalism. The important word is fantastic so make it something unnatural, outlandish or breaking the general laws of how life works here. We're looking to escape into a world where the boring shit no longer matters and that barbarians really do have loincloths.
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 1st December, submissions will be due by the end of the day on the 1st of January, and the voting will one week after all entries are received. So what are you waiting for? Get writing!