Discovery short story competition - discuss

[jammi]

Theme should be broad enough to allow creative leeway and shouldn't be so focused as to favor any one section of the community over another.

This'll be the case, yes - the theme will be generic enough that you can turn it to most characters with a bit of imagination.

Also, word limits should be a range, not set in stone. Personally speaking, 5000 words is hardly three cock tail napkins worth of writing.

Leeway would probably be about 10%, so 500 words over the top. The whole point is to force people to creatively condense work. Sprawling narrative arcs are all well and good, but it takes a slightly different knack to press an entertaining, well formed and creative story into a much smaller space.

Finally, anyone who helps organize or come up with the theme itself should not be allowed to participate. I would offer to help myself, but I intend to participate (and win!)

This'll probably be the case. It may well be that judges can submit material, but would be excluded from prizes. So just for personal fun and honing their own writing on the leaderboards.

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