Short Story Competition: Send Your 500 Words Story In!

27 Responses to “Short Story Competition: Send Your 500 Words Story In!”

1. tyf on July 14th, 2008 5:22 pm

   Will the stories be judged more upon the content and originality of ideas more than upon the grammar and spelling etc?

2. Don on July 14th, 2008 6:19 pm

   Do you really want to take a chance? Spelling mistakes are ugly and even grammar.

3. Maeve on July 14th, 2008 7:20 pm

   Tyf,
   Surely you wouldn’t think of submitting an unedited story!

   As one who has critiqued many a story and student essay, I can tell you that errors of grammar and spelling tend to distract a reader from content and originality.

4. Daniel Scocco on July 14th, 2008 7:20 pm

   The readers will vote on their favorite ones, so I guess content and originality. As Maeve said, though, grammatical mistakes can distract the reader.

5. Chris M on July 14th, 2008 8:39 pm

   I agree with Daniel. If there’s a story that has a lot of errors; spelling or otherwise, I will stop reading it and move on.

6. Raman on July 15th, 2008 4:39 am

   It is but mandatory for a short story that is meant to be judged to be free from grammatical and spelling errors. However, I am sure the readers will have their own parameters of judging. In fact, being ‘correct’ is again subjective as the spellings and sentence construction depends on the region where the writer is from, the region of the character conceived (in case of direct speech) and most important, the region of the reader. Since these minor things can be proofread, the writer should focus more on the concept and the flow of thought being brought out in a beautiful way. Once this is achieved, a thorough proofread will make the story worth publishing. But don’t be surprised if a story with a great concept but with a few errors wins over a technically correct, dud story.

7. Mary on July 15th, 2008 7:50 am

   When I read, I’ll keep in mind that some submissions will have been written in under a week. What about work, kids, and the time one sets aside between re-writes?

   Perhaps I misread the first comment. Did TYF ask permission to submit a story full of errors, or did TYF ask about the criteria? A dull story causes me more pain than an occasional misplaced modifier.

   What is the point of competing for software that checks grammar, punctuation, and spelling if one doesn’t make those mistakes?

8. Soham on July 15th, 2008 10:18 am

   I sent my story to info@dailywritingtips.com . Shall I be informed if it has reached you?

9. Daniel Scocco on July 15th, 2008 10:41 am

   @Mary, keep in mind its a 500 words or fewer story . One could write it in one day, and he still would have 6 days to review and rewrite it.

   I got 4 submissions within 2 hours of posting this…

10. Tony on July 15th, 2008 11:01 am

    Am I right in thinking that infoATdailywritingtips.com should read info@dailywritingtips.com.Anyway I have sent mine to the latter so I hope you get it.

11. Emily on July 15th, 2008 3:54 pm

    How will the voting be regulated? For example, can I vote for my own entry? Can I vote for it ten times? Can I ask my grandmother and my best friend to vote for my entry? (Neither of them is a regular reader.) Not that I would ever do such a thing :-), but I’m just wondering how you will regulate who votes.

    I can’t wait to enter! I’m so glad you’re finally doing this.

12. Daniel Scocco on July 15th, 2008 5:35 pm

    @Emily, one vote per IP address, that is the only rule that we will have.

13. Chris M on July 15th, 2008 7:43 pm

    Here’s something I just thought of, in the five hundred words does that include the title of the story?

14. Jordan on July 16th, 2008 12:43 am

    “Here’s something I just thought of, in the five hundred words does that include the title of the story?”

    I have a 200 word title.

15. CG on July 16th, 2008 3:48 pm

    Can anyone enter?

16. Emily on July 17th, 2008 2:53 pm

    Another question: will the voters be able to give feedback on the entries? I’d love to know why someone did or didn’t vote for mine.

17. Rhonda on July 17th, 2008 3:53 pm

    What a great opportunity! Thanks, Daniel.

18. kevin on July 17th, 2008 11:21 pm

    Thanks for running this competition!
    Reader feed-back is a great idea!
    kJ

19. Daniel Scocco on July 20th, 2008 11:08 am

    @CG, yes.

    @Tony, that is correct. Due to the large number of submissions we won’t be able to reply to each confirming. But we should get all of them.

    @Emily, yeah we can ask for that also, on the comments section.

20. Soham on July 20th, 2008 3:08 pm

    ALL RIGHT NOW. It’s the 20th. One day till we get to see our stories published in this site. I can barely wait!
    Erm…. Where can we actually see the stories?

21. flipper on July 20th, 2008 8:23 pm

    Is there still time to submit?
    Like are you going by GMT time or what?

22. steph on July 21st, 2008 4:29 am

    I think it will be fun to read everyone’s submission.

23. Daniel Scocco on July 21st, 2008 10:06 am

    @Soham, I will publish an article with them every Monday.

24. apurva on July 22nd, 2008 4:42 pm

    what is the timing and will it be online??????

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