Writing Contest

Submission Guidelines:

Stories should be sent as an email attachment to submissions.bigwhitebox@gmail.com by the contest deadline. RTF (Rich Text Format) or Microsoft Word .doc format ensures that the judges will be able to read your story.

 

Double space your entry and include the following information about you:

 

Name

Location  (city, state and country only)

Word count

 

The title of your story should appear on the first page. "Submission: Writing Contest" should appear in the subject line of your email.

We will notify winners at the email address from which the submission was sent.

 

Story length:

Our writing contests have a 1000 word limit. If you can tell a great story with fewer words, that's up to you. Word count can be measured in Microsoft Word and most word processing applications. While we are somewhat flexible on this, please don't greatly exceed the expected count. (1200 words is not 1000 words).

 

Judging criteria:
Tell a great fictional story with interesting characters and plot. Make us forget where we are and that the sink is full of dirty dishes. Move us to laughter or tears. Paint a picture with words and create intelligent metaphors.

 

Things to avoid:
Languages other than English. Racism, sexism, ageism and other nefarious 'isms." Gratuitous sex and violence. Thinly disguised political screeds. The judges are not easily offended, but we have our limits. Try for PG-13, or at most an R rating equivalent. Punctuation and grammar are important, but you will not be rejected due to a typo.

 

The judging process:
Stories are read and assigned to one of two categories - finalist or other. Finalists are read and ranked by all judges. Using the                     rankings, we pick the top 10. These 10 are then re-read to determine a winner.

 

Other Considerations:

• By entering the writing contest, you certify that you have read these guidelines in their entirety and that you agree, on winning the contest, to allow Big White Box to publish your winning entry only on this website. We ask for the non-exclusive electronic right to publish the winning story. We don't take any rights at all from other entrants. Winners and others may, of course, publish their stories elsewhere.

 

• Stories must have a title.

 

• We never share or sell emails, phone numbers, addresses or names with any other person or company. We do not publish the email addresses of the winners of our writing contest on our website.

 

• Do not send your story more than once. We will use the first version of the story you send.

 

• Late stories are disqualified.

 

• The decision of the judges is final.