A Short Story Writing Contest

Starting July 14, I'll be running The Exceptional Summer Shootout, a short story writing competition that gives authors an opportunity to test their writing skills against their contemporaries, and receive valuable feedback at the same time, while competing for a shot at publication. I've run a few of these for different publishers in the past, but this is the first one I'll be running independently.

The shootout concept is simple. Participating writers are given a prompt and one week to write a short story based on that prompt. The subsequent week, the stories are reviewed by the participants. Story authors remain anonymous until the reviews are final, and the reviews are kept anonymous for fair and unbiased opinion. This is done 3 times in a row, and then we have a finalist round for the top-scoring writers. The winner of the final round will have their story published in an anthology that I will be putting together for Hall Brothers Entertainment.

Most of the writers in these contests are Fantasy & Sci-Fi authors, so members of this forum should fit right in.

For full details about the competition, visit the sign-up thread.

 

The shootout starts on July 14. On that day, the first "prompt" will be released to those who have signed up in the following thread. The writers will then have 1 week to write a short story based on that prompt, after which there will be a review week, where the writers will be rating some of their competitors' stories (4 to 8 stories will be reviewed by each writer, depending on the number of participants we have).

Once the reviews are in, we do it all over again, twice. In this manner, writers get the fun of competing head-to-head with their contemporaries, and receive valuable feedback about their stories. And they get to read some really entertaining stuff for free. After 3 rounds, the top scoring writers on each "team" will then compete in a finalist round, where they will write a story based on the promt that will be used for the Anthology I will be putting together later this year. The winning story from that round will be published, and the winner will also receive a small monetary payment.

It's really a fun competition for those who have the time and stamina to participate. I'd love to see some more volunteers.

Also, keep in mind that open submissions to the anthology will start soon after the shootout contest. Participants may have an added edge to gain acceptance.

 

Tomorrow is the last day to sign-up for the shootout. Just a reminder for those who might still be considering it.

 

Things will be coordinated on the shootout forum. That's where everyone will go to get their story prompts and other important information. Participants will submit the stories they write & their reviews via email (I'll give everyone instructions and my email address once we kick things off on Saturday).