The Writers’ Block Sci-Fi Challenge--UPDATE 12/12
One thing I’ve seen with all the contests circulating around Steemit lately is a lot of entries that could be really strong contenders for The SFT and mainstream literary publications…with a little editing. So I had an idea to host a contest that requires editing, to hopefully shuffle the deck a little.
With that in mind, I’m closing the competition to anyone who has ever been curated by The SFT. This frees up many of our best writers and editors to act as mentors during the process. Participants will not post their stories on Steemit or any other public website. Instead, entries will be submitted to the fiction queue at The Writers’ Block titled “Sci-Fi Challenge: [whateveryourtitleis.]” I’ll provide a link at the bottom of this post that will take you directly to The Writers’ Block on Discord.
After submission, each entry will be evaluated by our team of editors, who will offer feedback and suggestions. Authors who survive this experience will then revise and resubmit. Based on the resubmissions, we’ll choose five candidates to move to the next round. We’ll rank those entries once that round is judged and award SBD or Steem prizes, depending on the external markets. Third place will receive 5 SBD or Steem, whichever is lower in market value at the time, and second place will receive 10 SBD or Steem, whichever is lower in market value at the time. All entrants except the top finisher are free to publish on Steemit at this point and hopefully by then, we can secure them some hefty upvotes.
The top finisher will be awarded 10 SBD or 10 Steem, whichever has the highest value at that moment. We want to make sure our winner is rewarded well. Although we are at the mercy of the market, we hope the USD conversion will be somewhere around $100. That’s because we believe your effort is worth something.
HERE IS THE UPDATE: The literary magazine we planned to introduce the winner to will be unable to participate. This is due to circumstances beyond my control. But because the "hard sci-fi" aspect of this contest was due to their submission requirements and not my personal preference, we can forego that stipulation and just ask for some seriously kick-ass science fiction stories. How does that sound?
The contest opens with publication of this post. You may indicate in the comments that you’re submitting an entry through The Writers’ Block, but links dropped here on Steemit or in the Discord chat channels will be automatically disqualified. There is a submission queue in the pinned posts in The Writers’ Block Fiction Workshop. That is how you submit, with “Sci-Fi Challenge: [whateveryourtitleis]” marked clearly as the Google Documents title. Once you’re in the Writers’ Block, our folks will be very happy to help you take the next step. This first and broadest submission window closes at midnight on Friday, December 22. The lengthy time frame will give people plenty of time to research and draft a top-quality piece of short science fiction.
Word count would ideally be between 1,000 and 3,000. A higher or lower word count will not negatively affect your chances, but do keep in mind that lengthier submissions may not upload properly to Steemit.
Good luck! I look forward to seeing your submissions in the queue.
I'm really excited to take part in this. I'm not too well-versed on hard sci-fi, but I'm sure some reading and a little bit (lot) of help from the folks at the block will make up for it. I'll get thinking right away.
You absolutely have the right mindset!!! I'm actually pretty excited to get your stuff in the queue and work with it. Methinks you'll be a strong contender in this one. ;-)
I'm in. Half my work is sci-fi and the other half fantasy, so I'm happy with your genre choice. Hard sci-fi is a little more difficult to come by though. There's plenty of time so maybe something new. Nice to see the word count isn't hard and fast. Some stories are as long as they need to be after all.
Thanks for organising this, Rhonda :)
Thank you for participating! I can't wait to see what you toss into the ring. :-)
Great! This gives me a reason to write part 2 for the piece I wrote for the contest by @gmuxx. I probably won't win, your rules are too strict for me :), but this gives me a motivation to write. Thanks
Motivation to write is a fundamental reason we love contests at the Writers Block. We’ve been discussing ways to get people more invested in what they produce, and how to get them used to the editing process. There are a lot of good writers on steemit that just need some polishing. This was the best way we could think of to encourage that. :-)
What you guys do at Writers' Block is amazing. WB is a great asset to the platform. I wish I had patience for editing though :)
This is a great idea. Look forward to reading the submissions!
I will be available on the block to help!
I would really like to know how to properly count words.
Do you mean counting the strings of characters separated by white space?
Or is it 5 characters, or 6, if you count spaces?
Also, I would like to know... I know that everything in our current science books are wrong. They will be thrown out in a couple generations. So, my understanding of science is constantly bumping heads with many "science trained" individuals.
Its like bringing up the flat earth, but far worse. People will stake their lives on Newton's theory of gravity, although it has been proven wrong.
I should write a story about how to build a free energy device. It will, of course, be considered hard science fiction.
Can you all deal with that in your contest?
We’ll deal with anything. It’s the mainstream publisher who might tell someone to take a hike.
If you use Microsoft Word, just use the word count it gives you. Google docs, which is required for submission, Has the same feature.
OK, then I am out. I will not touch those two systems.
But, I would still like to know how to count words. Is "elephantine" one word or two?
I'm curious @builderofcastles - what "system" would you use then that would allow for community editing and revisions of your draft in real time? And why not on Google docs - a pretty darn widespread open source software everyone can access?
Boogle's motto is:
BE EVIL
I will have nothing to do with them.
Boogle Docs is only, mostly, open source. Sorta, kinda.
Do a Boogle search for "Google Docs Open Source" and what you will get is a bunch of sites for alternatives to Boogle Docs that ARE open source.
You have to have access to a Boogle drive, and a Boogle login to be able to use Boogle Docs. It is not open to everyone.
In using it, you give Boogle rights to your writing.
Your writings are also given to many other alphabet agencies.
I’m not particularly a google supporter at all, but it is simply not true that in using google docs you give them rights to your work product. I support your right to not support any corporation you choose but I’d appreciate you not spreading incorrect information that might stop people from entering the contest. Thanks.
Then read their terms of service
Then read copyright law
Then read such world binding agreements like the TPP
and tell me how I am wrong.
I am not spouting untruths.
But, I guess, we shouldn't worry too much about copyright rights, as they will become unenforceable with our lifetimes.
One word. If you don't want to work in Google docs, but would like to enter, you can work up your draft in the app of your choice and copy the thing in a doc you made just for the sake of submitting... I think some others at the Writer's block do this too.
I am not a computer novice.
I would prefer to use my own book writing software.
But, what they want with boogle docs is the collaborative editing.
So, it comes back to me, and then back to them... it has to stay in boogle.
And, by using boogle docs, you give up too many rights to your works.
So, even if it is only a copy/paste, I will not do it.
Well, I am a computer novice.
Do you know of another way to allow people to do collective editing? I'd like to learn more.
If you use Startpage and Boogle "google docs open source" you will get several links to such collaborative editing tools.
Such as:
Etherpad
Libre Office
Open-Xchange
Libre office requires that we DOWNLOAD your work. Many of us do editing on a variety of devices, such as tablets and cell phones. Google is compatible with all that and is easy to use for our many not-techy members. It doesn't sound like we can help you if you don't trust the software that we're comfortable with.
Sound really good
I'd submit, that all sounds really swell, but I'm just not very great at Sci-fi, and definitely don't have to know-how to make it convincing. I totally wanna read all the submissions though!
This is amazing.
Edited - just saw what I missed the first time!
Yep. :-)
Thank you!
As soon as I scrolled back up I saw it, was too busy reading about hard sci-fi in all of these other tabs!
💛
Looking forward to all those submissions... I'm out of my sci-fi stash.