Are you entering the contest?

[The Lightning Tree]

Thanks for the responses. In my experience, different magazines have different definitions, so I'm just wondering what the official definition is re. the FF anthology

[Neila]

I am going to do my darnedest to enter the contest! I've got a number of short stories brewing that I hope will fit the bill!

[Overlord]

Question: when the rules say the story must be previously 'unpublished', does that exclude stories which have previously been posted on non-professional writing communities? I.e. sites where you can post your own stuff just for personal development reasons? E.g. here: http://www.elfwood.com ??

The rule is that it has to be removed if you submit it. If you have submitted it for critique and people have given you advice - that is fine. If it is up online for free at the time the anthology is published, we are obviously doing people who purchase the anthology a disservice. So, what I would recommend is that you take down the story you submit to the anthology at least until the winners are announced because upon selecting the winners we will be doing a search through the net (using some specialise software - similar to how universities search for plagerism) and should your story be found anywhere online it will be disqualified. This isn't just to keep people submitting stories that they have online either, it is to stop people copying and pasting stories from forums and sending them over to us as their own for the prize money

Hope that helps and doesn't sound too brutal!

[The Lightning Tree]

No no, don't worry - that sounds very fair. Thanks for letting me know!

[silverback]

Yep - am going to enter and am 100 words in....what's the deadline again?! 

[Autumn2May]

Yep - am going to enter and am 100 words in....what's the deadline again?! 

Deadline is June 30th.  So you have some time.

[Nyki Blatchley]

At 100 words a day, you could write a novella by then 

[AshKB]

I'm certainly going to try! I have two possible ideas, and one I'm working on now. And if nothing else, it'll be good to have a deadline to finish something!

ETA: just to double-check - I have an RPG on dreamwidth that is a 'sandbox' game, where people can just toss in characters (canon or original) to play against others, but there is only what continuity you want. I tend to use it as a rough'n'dirty way of fleshing out characters in my mind as I write them (although, obviously, the stories they come from don't refer to the game at all; it's an 'alternate universe', so to speak), and I've been tossing around at least one of the characters I plan to write the short story about. So, just double-checking that the game doesn't count as 'published', because it's just a version of the characters on the internet already, not their story or interactions with each other.

[Jaedia]

Who else is planning to enter but struggling to think of a solid idea that would fit as a short story? D:

[Elfy]

Who else is planning to enter but struggling to think of a solid idea that would fit as a short story? D:

Me! Actually I'd LIKE to enter, but can't get a good handle on a standalone short story idea that fits the criteria.

[Jaedia]

Me! Actually I'd LIKE to enter, but can't get a good handle on a standalone short story idea that fits the criteria.

That's exactly my problem! I want a nice, unique idea that carries across well and is a good read but I'm totally drawing a blank.

[Overlord]

Unique is good - but don't get too caught up thinking you have to do something that has never been done before. The great thing about Fantasy as a genre is that we know roughly what to expect when going into it and therefore you are 'allowed' to write things into your story that are familiar

We have received a lot of stories that I would call 'new weird' or 'speculative fiction', but there is always room for Traditional Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Epic Fantasy (well... as epic as you can be), Sword & Sorcery, Steam Punk, etc in this kind of anthology What we want to do with the Fantasy-Faction Anthology is give people a taste of just how vast fantasy is and the many different types of fantasy that exist

[Lor]

Who else is planning to enter but struggling to think of a solid idea that would fit as a short story? D:

Oh yeah, I wrote 5000 words of a story then realized it didn't really work as a short story after all! I think I've got a working idea this time, we'll see what happens! 

[Z.N. Singer]

Thing is, that word limit is a killer. Very few of the short stories I've written and liked best are under 8,000 words. How much leeway might there be? My favorite favorite is thirteen thousand, no chance, but I have another very good one that's about nine thousand words. Otherwise, I'd have to make something up, and I'd rather keep my novel going, I'm not very good at that as is.

[Jaedia]

Unique is good - but don't get too caught up thinking you have to do something that has never been done before. The great thing about Fantasy as a genre is that we know roughly what to expect when going into it and therefore you are 'allowed' to write things into your story that are familiar

We have received a lot of stories that I would call 'new weird' or 'speculative fiction', but there is always room for Traditional Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Epic Fantasy (well... as epic as you can be), Sword & Sorcery, Steam Punk, etc in this kind of anthology What we want to do with the Fantasy-Faction Anthology is give people a taste of just how vast fantasy is and the many different types of fantasy that exist

Oh of course, it shall be fairly familiar but I don't want dé ja vu Just trying to work out if it'll be urban, epic.. something else.. That and I'm desperately lamenting my lack of Scrivener!