by Stephanie Morrill
Stephanie writes young adult contemporary novels and is the creator of GoTeenWriters.com. Her novels include The Reinvention of Skylar Hoyt series (Revell) and the Ellie Sweet books (Playlist). You can connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and check out samples of her work on her author website.
Contest time!
Here’s how the game is played:
1. The prompt sentence must be the first sentence of your paragraph. It cannot be altered. You cannot insert words or change the punctuation. The parentheses are there because I wanted to let you pick your own character name. Or if you’re a first person writer, you may use “I” instead. For example, you could write: Charles Bartholomew Hugginsworth III would need a lot of luck to make it out of this alive. (Though I don’t recommend it.) or you could simply write, I would need a lot of luck to make it out of this alive. Or Joe Campbell would need a lot of luck to make it out of this alive.
2. Your paragraph must be NO MORE THAN 115 words (the prompt sentence + 100 words.) That means your entry can be 105 words or 99 words or 87 words, but not 116 or 243.
3. Your paragraph should read like the opening of a story, which means it should do the same things you want the first paragraph of a novel to do.
4. You must be 21 or younger to enter. One entry per person. Your entry needs to be in English, but writers from all countries are welcome to participate.
5. Your paragraph must be turned in by Wednesday, November 19th. (We wanted to provide extra time due to NaNo.)
Entries will be judged using this form.
Finalists will (hopefully) be announced Tuesday, November 25th , and then the three winners will be announced in December. Those in the top three will have their entries published on the blog (if they want).
Something special about how this contest will be judged is that it’ll be like a reader’s choice award. Shannon Dittemore is mentoring a group of junior high and high school writers. Together they’ve been studying the craft of fiction writing and will now be using those skills to judge our contest.
You enter by using the below form. Important: Entries are anonymous. The judges will not see names on any of the entries they read. We only use your name and email address to return your feedback to you and, if you final, to list your name on the website. Yes, you may use a pen name.