Short Story Competition

[Nicole Wilson]

Writers Digest is starting their annual short story competition for genre fiction. Here's some info:

Deadline: September 15. 2015

If you write short stories, don’t miss your chance to compete in the Writer’s Digest Popular Fiction Awards. There’s sure to be a category created just for you, Romance, Thriller, Crime, Horror, Science-Fiction, and Young Adult. Choose your favorite genre(s) and enter your best in 4,000 words or less.

And grand prize winner gets:

• An announcement of the winner on the cover of Writer’s Digest (subscriber issues only)
• $2,500 in cash
• A paid trip to the ever-popular Writer’s Digest Conference!
• An interview with the author in Writer’s Digest’s May/June issue
• $100 off a purchase at www.writersdigestshop.com
• A copy of the 2016 Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market

For info on the other place prizes and the contest, here's the link.

http://www.writersdigest.com/writer...ar-fiction-awards?et_mid=773476&rid=250805114

 

[Carol Rose]

4000 words max. That's a challenge. The shortest story I've written and had published is 10K. Hmmm….

 

[Jason Byrne]

Damn. I have a short story at about 5k, and another at 8k.

 

[Carol Rose]

Damn. I have a short story at about 5k, and another at 8k.

Trim time.

 

[Jason Byrne]

The 5k I could probably cut down by 20%. I can sure as hell cut 20% for $2.500! My darlings have a price, after all...

 

[Nicole Wilson]

Yeah, I actually don't have any stories to submit this year. The few that I had under 4000 I've already put on the interwebs, and the rest are far too long to cut to 4000.

 

[Carol Rose]

The 5k I could probably cut down by 20%. I can sure as hell cut 20% for $2.500! My darlings have a price, after all...

Cutting out 1K is nothing. Eliminate any sentences starting with conjunctions, trim sentences so they're shorter, cut out anything that does not move the story forward or impart new info, cut out any info not totally essential to the story, cut the dialogue to everything except the essentials. Cut out chit-chat, greetings on phone calls or in person, etc. Take out "that" "so", etc. except where absolutely necessary for sentence clarity.

 

[Jason Byrne]

Cutting out 1K is nothing. Eliminate any sentences starting with conjunctions, trim sentences so they're shorter, cut out anything that does not move the story forward or impart new info, cut out any info not totally essential to the story, cut the dialogue to everything except the essentials. Cut out chit-chat, greetings on phone calls or in person, etc. Take out "that" "so", etc. except where absolutely necessary for sentence clarity.

Good advice in any event. Putting my murdering boots on...

 

[Jason Byrne]

Murdered about thirty words-worth of so and that. The strange thing — this particular short story has no dialogue. It is 100% narration. It's a weird little story, so next will be cutting down my generally verbose style.

 

[Jason Byrne]

I managed to cut a little over 400 words, down to 4,559. I'd welcome a fresh set of eyes for The Space in the Wall, if anyone woke up this morning and felt their day would be much improved by some weird fiction!

 

[Nicole Wilson]

I managed to cut a little over 400 words, down to 4,559. I'd welcome a fresh set of eyes for The Space in the Wall, if anyone woke up this morning and felt their day would be much improved by some weird fiction!

Send it my way! I'll kill your pretties for you.