Announcing: The Writing Wombats Slushpile Simulator Competition

Announcing: The Writing Wombats Slushpile Simulator Competition

My intent is to confound those who think the Writing Wombats are short on writing and long on miscellaneous chat.  As an incidental side-effect, I want to give each of us an opportunity to look at a series of stories the way a first reader would look at them, searching the first few paragraphs or the first two pages at most for a reason to read on.

The Ten Official Rules (Blatantly ripped off from Ken Coffman)

1. The grand prize will be a $50 gift card from your choice of Borders, or Barnes and Nobles, or Amazon.com, and (to steal directly from Ken) an official certificate printed on genuine paper with a picture of a wombat on it. Second prize will be a $25 gift certificate from one of the stores mentioned above, and certificate. The third prize will be USD $10 from Borders or Barnes & Nobles and certificate.  In addition, the contest administrator will issue two certificates based on criteria to be specified in rule 10.  As with Ken's contests, it is a near certainty that bribes will NOT affect the contest outcome. However, like Ken, the administrator likes POD dollars just fine (hint-hint, wink-wink).

In the highly unusual event that a tie for any position occurs, the prizes will be duplicated.

2. Entering the contest: Contestants will submit one or two entries by sending to the contest administrator via Gather email.  Entries may be submitted starting Monday June 16^th for a period lasting until midnight Central Standard time Tuesday July 8.  The administrator will then publish the entry in a special group set up for the contest without listing the name of the contestant who wrote it.  During the period between June 16^th and July 8 contestants will hopefully receive feedback.  However they will be allowed to alter and resubmit the entry only once.

Voting in the contest will start on Wednesday July 9 at 5 PM CST and end on July 10th at 5:00 PM CST.  Votes will be accepted via email to dale c.  The administrator will announce the winners, probably without Ken's flair, after 5:00 PM CST on July 11. Votes will be submitted via ballot. The ballot will be posted in special group set up for the contest. 

3. Links to entries will be posted in this Gather group site. General discussion will also be in this Gather  group site.

Entrants are allowed to edit, improve and resubmit their stories one time during the contest. One of the goals of this contest is to help writers perfect their craft.  On the other hand, allowing writers to resubmit at will is just not practical if we want to keep entries anonymous and the contest administrator sane.

4. In order to be qualified to vote, you must be a Gather member at the start of the contest and have at least 25 Gather Points. In other words, no Sock Puppets need apply.

5. You may submit up to 650 words.  That's approximately two double-spaced pages, probably the absolute maximum amount of space a writer has to convince a first reader to read on.  Entries longer than that will simply be truncated to that length.

6. Each person will vote 10 times, with one vote of 10, one vote of 9, etc. This means you will have one vote of 1 and an infinite number of zero votes.

7. The winners will be selected based on the total score. Please don't vote for yourself; you'll feel soiled. When caught, the administrator will pretend the spam filter ate your email and your vote will be ignored and you will be exposed to public ridicule.

8. Sock puppets, alter egos, unobombers, and astroturf voters will be disqualified from voting based solely on the discretion of the administrator.

 9. The final scores will be published by the administrator, but voter's names will be secret. Results will be available for audit by select mature Wombatians.

10. The rules may or may not change in an annoying manner at the whim of the administrator.

10. Entries must be the original work of the submitter.  The administrator may enter multiple times but is not eligible for the prizes.  All entries are permitted to use the word 'stygian' without penalty and are encouraged to do so.  Character or characters named Rico will result in disqualification. 

10. The gift certificate prizes awarded in the Wombat Slushpile Simulator contest will be bought from money earned selling POD books at local bookstores and from online sales. If you see a stigma attached to money earned in this manner, then this may not be the right contest for you.

10. In an effort to simulate slushpile conditions, contestants are asked to maintain anonymity as much as possible.  To create an incentive to do that, voters will be asked to guess the identity of the contestants.  The contestant identified by the fewest voters will receive a certificate, as will the voter who correctly identifies the most contestants.

10. In an effort to simulate slushpile conditions, voters should carefully consider the marketability, originality, and overall quality of the entries, and then feel free to vote for whichever ones they happen to like for whatever reason they choose.  (Not cynical much am I?)

10. The number of entries may be capped at no less than 100 at the discretion of the administrator.  If such a cap is necessary, the cutoff will be based on time of submission..

10. These rules, and especially the dates are subject to change at the administrator's sole discretion.  However, any such changes and the reasons for them will be posted in a timely manner.

10. Entries must be fiction.  However, genre and story length are not restricted.