Hola everyone!
Today we wanted to announce the start of a new contest:
Maple's First Writing Contest.
Maple loves writing. She loves creating new characters and seeing how they will interact within her stories. But she finds it difficult to set aside time to write. Life is busy!
She did manage to start up her own story blog and she is very proud of it:
So she would love to encourage all of you to write stories as well!
For this contest, anyone can enter - but if you are younger than 18 make sure you get your parent's permission.
The first prize winner will get a $20 AG gift card - which we will mail to him/her (hence why your parents should know you are entering if you are younger than 18).
So for the first time we are trying this type of contest there will be one first prize winner (who will get the gift card), and two honorable mentions.
We'll gauge how popular the contest is to see if we should keep doing them, and if we should offer more than one prize.
What should you write?
1) A fictional story! No real-life stuff. Real-life is overrated. It can be science fiction, or historical fiction, or fantasy, or a mystery, or a romantic comedy, or an adventure, etc. etc. - any genre you want to use. But it has to be fiction.
Sure, it can be grounded in your own experiences and your own mindset - but make sure you aren't just telling us that exciting thing that happened at Applebee's last week. Be creative peoples!
2) Also it needs to be age-appropriate. In other words - nothing adult or too violent. If you wouldn't want a nine year old girl to read it - then you know it won't work for this contest.
3) We are looking for something between 5 to 8 pages in length, i.e. approximately 1250 to 2000 words. If it is less than 5 pages - that is fine, too. But we thought 5-8 would give you more of a chance to engage your reader.
4) Your entry can be a complete story or a snippet from a story. So don't think you have to have a beginning, middle, and end all in 8 pages.
Think about what you can accomplish in that length and use it to your advantage. It can be overwhelming to say: "I'm gonna write a book!" But it is much less scary to say: "I'm gonna write 8 pages!"
So your entries are due one month from today:
April 22nd, 2012.
Hopefully this will allow people to work it into their schedules. :-)
Please email them to nora.demington@gmail.com.
You can attach them as Word documents or copy and paste your text into the email itself.
If you want to include an image or two, feel free to do so.
But as usual - do not send us pictures of yourself or your family.
Feel free to use a drawing, or a stock photo, or a picture of your dolls, etc.
All of the entries will then be posted on a specific "Writing Contest" page here at The DW,
which will be accessed by a tab in the top menu.
So yes - the whole world will be able to see your entry. :-)
We will most likely try and post people's entries as they send them in.
We will most likely try and post people's entries as they send them in.
Readers will have a chance to read them and vote on them.
Perhaps we will create a button that those people who entered can use on their blogs or FB pages to mark that they entered this contest.
Any questions?
Feel free to comment with them below!
We hope you are all excited about this contest. :-)
13 comments:
Oh wow! This contest sounds like it'll be fun! I'm not really allowed to enter, but now I want to write, anyways! :D
~Miranda
I write all the time! =D
Some stories are short, some long.....some crazy, some realistic - but all with a ton of humor. I can't wait to enter!!!
AH!!!!! You accepted my idea!!!!! AWESOME!!!!! I look forward to entering one of my stories and seeing what everyone thinks of it!!!!! :D
I have a blog where I post a book//story I'm writing; but is it still OK i enter with the beginning off it? I love writing and really want to enter! (:
~ Tilde
Oh; and are you allowed to enter more than once? My inside-writer is goning lose! Haha (:
~ Tilde
One entry per person, just to make it more fair.
We may do more of these writing contests in the future though - so there should be more chances to enter your pieces for those contests.
Yep, you can enter something you have already written (and shared on your blog) - That is allowed. :)
Question--what if it's longer than 8 pages? I have a story I'm working on but it's already 9 pages and not very near the end. Maybe if I made a shorter version to submit? I am under 18 years of age and I have my parents' permission, by the way. :)
Well we think you should aim for about 8 pages. You can imagine that if we get a lot of entries, readers aren't going to want to read a huge amount of stuff just to vote.
So if you could a) make a shorter version or b) just submit a teaser/snippet of your story - That would be best.
Again, the story doesn't necessarily have to "conclude" - you can leave people guessing about what happens next, and be curious to read more.
In addition, you can finish the whole story - Post it on your own blog and we can add a link to it at the end of your contest entry. That way people who want to read the complete version can.
This is so exciting .. cannot wait to share a story .. KEWL
Danielle - We didn't get your entry yet. Can you send it again?
nora.demington@gmail.com
So when do people just start voting whenever? I was just curious because when you do photo contests everyone sends in their pics and people get a week or some to vote, I was kinda confused on the voting process.
Thanks!
The entries are due on or before April 22nd, but we are posting them as they come in so that people can read them at their leisure.
Voting will be for a little more than a week after April 22nd. We'll announce when voting officially begins, but if people want to send in votes before April 22nd they can.
nora.demington@gmail.com is the place to send votes. Readers can vote for more than one entry.
Nora/Maple....
This sounds super cool! I just sent in my entry. :o)
~Madeline
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