Congratulations to our winner, Entry #2!
This was a close comp!

== == == ==

Welcome to the DLP Competitions for the Second Quarter of 2020!

Topic - HEIST!
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"There were once three stories who were written by a hive of scum and villainy amidst the Corona Twilight of 2020… —"

Q2 is going to be three competitions overlapping! There are many threads, but this one is yours (June).

The Nebula and Hugo Awards are two of the most prestigious science fiction and fantasy awards in the field. They require short story entries to be less than 7,500 words, so guess what our upper limit is going to be this time? …Yes, it’s 7500 – if you guessed wrong you’re a dumbass. I’ve added an arbitrary lower limit as well, just because I think that practice at meeting targeted word counts is typically a good thing.

Q2 2020 – June Competition (Short Stories)
Topic – ???
Word Count: 5000-7500 words
Deadline – June 10th​

You get the entirety of June 10th to finish your story. Send it to @Xiph0 via pm once you’re finished. Authors will be kept anonymous between the two of us. Feel free to use beta-readers but don’t post anything in WbA until after voting has ended.

Voting Rules will be posted shortly before the deadline. Expect these to be similar to our standard competition rules, with perhaps a few adjustments.

Q3 will be back to our standard format of 17,500 max with no min word count, so if you wanted to write something longer (or shorter) then there you go. Let’s DO THIS people! Practice for your future award winning short stories! I want to see your names on Anthology covers.

 

You know I have to vote for HP crossover. Basically all my stories are crossovers.

 

If not it’ll probably be a Q3 option.

 

Got about 2 weeks left on this one!

You've had since MARCH people, let's go. Should be either done or ready to rock it out. Chop chop.

 

Roughly 10 days left, give or take!

Reminder you've all had since March... I look forward to this. Actually a bit concerned that despite the excitement most aren't writing... or are you all? I mean, don't give it away, but if you're put off by the slightly shorter word count, keep in mind that most of Butcher's short stories were only around 8k!

 

One entry and 22 hours left to go.

 

Two in, four hours to go.

 

I'm going to be making the subforum with stories live tomorrow - I need to go to bed before midnight my time for work, but I don't want to cut off anyone submitting last minute.

 

Entries up.

 

Voting!​

Since there are only two entries this time, review and distribute 5 points as you see fit between the stories. You can give 3 points to one story and 2 to the other, 5 to one and 0 to the other, or any variation in between.

Please have your votes/reviews in by June 25th!

Please link to your reviews and please put your reviews in spoiler tags (these are requests, not requirements - the requirement is to review at all!).

Otherwise rules are similar as to the May comp with 7 points. I’ll type this up nicer once I’m at the computer.

 

I'm honestly kind of torn here. I found Entry 1 slightly easier to read but Entry 2 as a slightly better plot/story. Entry 1 was cute while Entry 2 was serious.

Both entries used more words than they needed in order to tell their stories. Either five words where two would do or backstory where it isn't needed, etc.

Let's get some more people reviewing/voting, yeah? Make sure we pick our winner with as many thoughts as possible.

As for my five point distribution...

• 3 points to Entry 1
• 2 points to Entry 2