Short Stories Are Coming!

Introducing the Inagural Vividus Short Story Contest!

Many of us have been members of forums which have had a short story contest. Vividus has not had one yet. Until now.

As the man who has died over 25 times said, short stories are coming! In this month of September, we are going to be holding our very first short story contest over a five week period! Interested? Then keep reading!

Who can participate? All members of Vividus are eligible! So get writing! Oh, and did we mention writing isn't the only way you'll be participating? *foreshadowing*


When is it? A thread titled September Short Story Contest Submissions will be provided in the short story section starting September 2nd. This thread will be open until 11:59pm Central Time in the US on September 23rd, after which the thread will be closed and no more submissions will be taken.


How will the winner be selected? This is where you are able to participate in addition to writing. You, the Vividus Community, are going to play a big role in helping us determine our winner!

When submissions end, a discussion thread will appear with a poll listing all of the submitted stories. You guys will then be given an entire week to discuss and vote on the stories you like and dislike. Keep in mind people can see who you voted for .

After a week, the polls will then close. The three stories with the most votes will move on to the fifth and final week of the short story contest, where the staff will discuss behind the scenes not only who they think has the winning story, but break down the things they think work in these three displays of literary art. At a later date, an announcement will be made saying the order of our top three, along with a breakdown of their stories in which other members can learn from as well!

If the staff determines the winner between the final three, can they write stories too? For this contest, the Vividus staff can submit stories. However, if they make the final three, they will not be included in the deliberation process.

What is the prize? Here at Vividus, we have to work on college budgets.

1st: Story featured in the winner's announcement, custom title, story linked into select staff's signatures.
2nd+3rd: Story featured in the winner's announcement.

If I do not place, will I get feedback on my work? Due to our limited time, we will only be doing a breakdown of our top three. This is why when we are doing our examination of the top three stories, we will do our best to look for things which can apply not just to our winners, but to everyone. But you are more than welcome to post your story in the short story section after the contest so that you can get more feedback on it. In addition, FTAK has been kind enough to offer to give feedback on your stories if you ask him nicely.

Alright, I want to get going! What are the rules? What is the theme?! Hey now, where did I say there was going to be a theme?! There is none. You can write about love, life, death, zombies, any theme you want, so long as your follow these two rules.

1. Your story does not exceed 3000 words.
2. Your story must have one of your characters commit an action that leads to their death. This moment can be a huge event or small event in the story, or even just explained and be off screen. Just make sure it's in there! If you need inspiration, I heard Sean Bean's mastered this art quite well .

If you have any questions or have one that wasn't answered, feel free to ask in this thread. Otherwise, get writing! Good luck and have fun!