Cemetery Dance Writing Contest

[Nik Houser]

I'd love to see a 1st Chapter contest for horror/suspense novels here (for selfish reasons, yes, but also because I'd love to see what people put up). My own entry for this one's finally almost done. I've never had to be so merciless with the delete button. Looking forward to seeing where this contest goes.

[Dan Hocker]

I'm so glad everyone seems to be excited about this. Hopefully it goes well and we can do many more, or similar things in the future.

[Kit Russell]

It's been a great learning experience taking the idea I initially came up with and making it work as a short-short. Thank you so much for running this contest!

[JJ Holden]

I'd love to have a go at this. If I can find some quiet time this weekend...

[HorrorScribe]

Greeting from Massachusetts! Though I'm a bit technophobic, I'm happy to be amongst such pleasant company on this forum. In fact, this is my first online discussion contribution ever. Anyway, I'm looking forward to posting my story at midnight on June 1st. Been working (and re-working and re-working, etc.) this tale for almost two years now. I think that's a personal record. Well, I'm finally content with the newest version, and I hope all of you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Best of luck to all of the contest entrants! This one's going to be tough to win, but we're in it for the guts and not for the glory. Well...perhaps for a bit of both.

[Dan Hocker]

Here's another update. We just decided that the submission section will no longer be "Publicly" viewable. This means you will have to be a registered user to view the contest entries. Thanks!

[Dan Hocker]

::rubs grimy little paws with glee::
A couple of picky little questions:
1) Can anybody read the entries, or will access to the actual entries be restricted to registered members? I ask because some markets consider a story to be previously published if it's posted on a public site that anyone can access. (A different board which held an online contest dealt with this by posting the entries on a board that was only accessible to registered members who needed to enter their passwords to access the board.)
2) For the 10,000 character limit, are you including spaces between words? If so, is it OK to have a single space between sentences rather than two spaces?

As of right now, the entry section is publicly visible. I will however confer with Brian tomorrow to see if we need to change that. I will make a post if we do, but for now assume it will be publicly viewable. As for the characters, it's what the forum software is set to. So your story has to fit in a single post on the forums. I have no problem with a single space between sentences.

[portrait in flesh]

::rubs grimy little paws with glee::
A couple of picky little questions:
1) Can anybody read the entries, or will access to the actual entries be restricted to registered members? I ask because some markets consider a story to be previously published if it's posted on a public site that anyone can access. (A different board which held an online contest dealt with this by posting the entries on a board that was only accessible to registered members who needed to enter their passwords to access the board.)
2) For the 10,000 character limit, are you including spaces between words? If so, is it OK to have a single space between sentences rather than two spaces?

[Nocdar]

I may just have something for thissss

[Dan Hocker]

Is it free to enter?

It sure is!

[Nik Houser]

Whew, got the rough draft done, just gotta trim it down from 24,000 characters to (gulp) 10,000. I've got a "delete" button, but is there a "dismember large swaths of text" button?

Anyway, howdy folks. Nice to be here. Longtime CD fan, first time poster.

[lilbirdy]

Is it free to enter?

[Reader/WriterJNT]

Great news, this contest idea rules! Can't wait until June, I think i have something that will be ready by that date.

[Dan Hocker]

What is the exact timeline for submissions?

We will be open for submission on June 1st and will remain open for 1 week (so June 1st through the 7th). We do recommend that you get your submission in as early in the submission window as possible.

[Pooks]

Contest

What is the exact timeline for submissions?