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Short Story Contest 2015 Rules and Themes

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  • #1

    Short Story Contest 2015 Rules and Themes

    "The theme will be ‘The 23 Enigma - a Hacker Noir’. Fedoras and rain-slicked streets. Smoky back rooms and numbers that show up too often for coincidence. While the good people of Everytown dream away the dark hours, the data wars rage without ceasing. Sleepless vigilantes fight for the users, though the users may never know. No matter. A bottle of the good stuff, a fast connection and the room to do a righteous night’s work, that’s enough. It’s gotta be. It’s all that’s left."

    The Dark Tangent sips his beef tea, chews a bit of his tau fo, re-reads what he has just written, and sighs. Turning to his companion, he says "Not everyone will use the theme."
    Mournfully, Nikita replies "Oh well, nothing we can do about that."




    Now. DA RULES.

    The contest is now open and will close Monday, June 1st, 2015, 00:00(midnight) LOCAL LAS VEGAS, NV, TIME ZONE.

    People choice poll will be opened on June 1st and it will close June 7th, 2015 00:00(midnight) LOCAL LAS VEGAS, NV, TIME ZONE(7 days total voting time.)
    This will be a "public" poll, with results viewable by all.

    All winners will be announced on forum June 14th, 2015.

    WHAT WE WANT:

    Please submit to DCshortstory at gmail dot com.

    Please submit ONLY in a .txt file. You may include line breaks, specific formatting you feel is important to the tone of your story. "Bad" language is not proscribed, but do remember, your winning story will be published for all ages to read.

    Please keep your short stories an actual SHORT story. That means a file no less than 1,000 words and no more than 20,000. If you feel you have a story worthy of, and requiring, additional length(or works just fine as a haiku), include your plea in your submission email.
    Leave the manuscripts and 404 page novels to your publisher and agents.


    Please keep your stories in tune with our community, we want stories about hackers hacking, science, technology, nerdy things, geeky things, zombie things, making things work the way they were never intended to work, you all know the drill.
    Story must include the DEFCON convention in some way, either located at it, or influenced by it, or populated by characters connected to it, as a few examples.

    WHAT YOU GET:

    We will be putting ALL of the short story entries on the Conference DVD and we will be listing the winners in the Conference program in a short blurb, letting everyone know they can check the forums and dvd to read more.

    The winners will get recognition in the printed program. Time permitting, the winners will walk the stage and/ or be recognized at Contest Closing Ceremony.


    First place winner will receive two human badges, received at con, onsite.
    Second place winner will receive one human badge, received at con, onsite.
    Peoples choice winner ( voted by the community) will receive one human badge, received at con, onsite.
    Everyone will get their story on the DVD, and the winners will be announced in the program.

    *IN CASE OF NON-CON ATTENDANCE BY ANY WINNER, REAL NAME AND SNAIL MAIL ADDRESS WILL BE REQUIRED FOR POSTING OF BADGE*

    Tips for winning:

    Spell check, grammar check, watch your tenses and your "voice." Double check your dates, your math, your facts. We are paying attention. If you misspell on purpose, make sure the reader can tell it's on purpose!
    Follow the rules as mentioned above.
    Write a good story.

    *IMPORTANT: Communication/Updates/Contact at Con will be done through the Twitter account @DCShortstory. Follow it or you will miss things that are relevant to the contest.*

    Best of luck to all of you! Now get writing!

    Addendums and reminders:
    One entry per author. Please do not spam us with the "thousands of resumes sent out is sure to get me an interview!" technique. Write one GREAT story, not lots of MEH stories.
    Illustrations and graphics are not accepted. This contest is about the beauty of the written word. We don't want graphic novels. Show me a picture in my head that is painted with your vocabulary. Sexy!
    Please remember when submitting to include the TITLE OF YOUR PIECE and the AUTHOR NAME you wish to have published. Real or handle, that is up to you but include it in your .txt file. I can't be chasing you down for titles and names. It will go in as "Untitled" or "Author Unknown" if you do not. Thank you


    PS...for discussion about the theme, do refer to this link.

    [TheCotMan edited this post to try to diagnose the cause for links not showing up as links. Only change was to make this a link, or try to:]
    https://forum.defcon.org/forum/defco...cement?t=14096




    ​
    Last edited by eris; May 21, 2015, 21:20. Reason: Corrected submission day listing from Sunday to Monday (June 1st) Note: DATE did not change, day was simply in error.
    "They-Who-Were-Google are no longer alone. Now we are all Google."
    Tags: None
  • #2
    I also want to say...if you followed the Twitter account, you would have received the "soft launch" announcement and theme awhile ago. This illustrates how important @dcshortstory is to you and this contest.
    "They-Who-Were-Google are no longer alone. Now we are all Google."

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    • #3
      Deleted Deleted
      "They-Who-Were-Google are no longer alone. Now we are all Google."

      Comment

      • #4
        Writers: Good luck with your work! I do read all of the short stories submitted. I am not a judge, and an not part of this contest. Thanks for all your effort. :-)

        Originally posted by eris View Post
        I also want to say...if you followed the Twitter account, you would have received the "soft launch" announcement and theme awhile ago. This illustrates how important @dcshortstory is to you and this contest.
        Heya! We have an issue with links not being converted to links since the upgrade. I am trying to diagnose this bug. I edited your top post in only one way: convert the link text at the bottom of your post into a working link. Until I find the cause and resolve it, if you need to have a link be active, use the "url" markup like this: "[" then "url=" then whatever URL you want to use then "]" then re-paste the URL or the link name you want users to see, finally follow with "[/url]"

        The "WYSIWYG" editor options also has a URL/Link icon that may make making links easier, too, but that may be what has truncated URL -- I do not have a report on how those bugs were caused and what method was used to post those URL.

        We also have another bug where URL are for some reason truncated, as has happened with Crypto & Privacy Village and another forum. Sorry about these link bugs. We keep finding more and more bugs and squashing them. This upgrade has been worse than most.

        Comment

        • #5
          Got it!
          Thanks for the great information, and assistance, as always, you rock Cotman!
          "They-Who-Were-Google are no longer alone. Now we are all Google."

          Comment

          • #6
            "People were declared outlaws and they were cast out of the community…. Outside the law in the countries they came from—I don't think they were trying to be outlaws . . . I was never trying, necessarily, to be an outlaw. It was just the place in which I found myself. By the time I started DEF CON I was riding with them and it was clear that it was no longer possible for me to go back and live within the law. Between EFF and PRISM—a whole generation was criminalized in that time. You realize that you are subject to being busted. A lot of people grew up with that attitude. There were a lot more outlaws than me. I was just a computer geek. I wasn't trying to be an outlaw hacker. I never heard of that term; somebody else made it up. But we were all outside the law: Dmitry Sklyarov, Kevin Mitnick, Aaron Swartz ; I didn't have a gauge as to who was the worst outlaw. I just recognized allies: my people."
            -Unabashedly Parodied from an original quote by Hunter S Thompson, just for fun.

            Hey. You. Yes, you. In the black tshirt, sitting in the dark. And you! The one with the Arduino powered, LED hula hoop! ARE YOU WRITING YET? You should be!
            An exercise to get your creative juices flowing would be to take a well known paragraph or quote, and re-write it, with the theme and culture of DEF CON instead! Three more months(approximately) until submission and judging, lets go people!



            https://forum.defcon.org/forum/defco...e-announcement

            "They-Who-Were-Google are no longer alone. Now we are all Google."

            Comment

            • #7
              Originally posted by eris View Post
              "People were declared outlaws and they were cast out of the community…. Outside the law in the countries they came from—I don't think they were trying to be outlaws . . . I was never trying, necessarily, to be an outlaw. It was just the place in which I found myself. By the time I started DEF CON I was riding with them and it was clear that it was no longer possible for me to go back and live within the law. Between EFF and PRISM—a whole generation was criminalized in that time. You realize that you are subject to being busted. A lot of people grew up with that attitude. There were a lot more outlaws than me. I was just a computer geek. I wasn't trying to be an outlaw hacker. I never heard of that term; somebody else made it up. But we were all outside the law: Dmitry Sklyarov, Kevin Mitnick, Aaron Swartz ; I didn't have a gauge as to who was the worst outlaw. I just recognized allies: my people."
              -Unabashedly Parodied from an original quote by Hunter S Thompson, just for fun.

              Hey. You. Yes, you. In the black tshirt, sitting in the dark. And you! The one with the Arduino powered, LED hula hoop! ARE YOU WRITING YET? You should be!
              An exercise to get your creative juices flowing would be to take a well known paragraph or quote, and re-write it, with the theme and culture of DEF CON instead! Three more months(approximately) until submission and judging, lets go people!



              https://forum.defcon.org/forum/defco...e-announcement
              A side-effect of multiple themes including a light and dark theme is selecting a dark font on a light theme works in the light theme, but does not work in the dark theme. I've replied to your post, leaving your post as-is, but removing the color tags so the font will auto-adopt the theme's default font color for its text. The above quoted text should be readable in all themes/styles we have.

              Comment

              • #8
                Oh, I had no idea that happened. Thanks.
                "They-Who-Were-Google are no longer alone. Now we are all Google."

                Comment

                • #9
                  We have received our first entry to DC23 Short Story contest! All the way from New Zealand! How is your entry coming along? Deadline is fast approaching!
                  "They-Who-Were-Google are no longer alone. Now we are all Google."

                  Comment

                  • #10
                    Hoping to get one in!! Just having a little writers block at the moment...
                    __________________________________________________ __________________________________________________
                    TRS80's, BBS'es, 1200 Baud, Token Ring, UniSys Icon QNX, and most importantly... ANSII Snipes! These things made me the geek I am today.

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                    • #11
                      Sorry it's taking us so long, but me and princess are furiously burning our story out. :) Almost done.
                      A fox in a box of bricks and blocks.

                      Comment

                      • #12
                        Two more stories, including an entry all the way from the Ukraine! Way to go!

                        Keep em coming folks, time is slip, slip, slipping away!
                        "They-Who-Were-Google are no longer alone. Now we are all Google."

                        Comment

                        • #13
                          All done, me and Princess have submitted our story to the e-mail at the top. We hope you have as much fun reading it as we had writing it. Please let us know if you either don't get the submission or have any problems with the file. :)
                          A fox in a box of bricks and blocks.

                          Comment

                          • #14
                            Sorry to be obtuse or ignorant about how to tell time but is the deadline "will close Monday, June 1st, 2015, 00:00(midnight) LOCAL LAS VEGAS, NV, TIME ZONE" the midnight that occurs between Sunday May 31 and Monday June 1 or the one at the end of June 1 before June 2 begins?
                            “I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.”

                            Comment

                            • #15
                              Link added to show exact end date instead of words to explain....see next post
                              Last edited by eris; May 31, 2015, 23:54.
                              "They-Who-Were-Google are no longer alone. Now we are all Google."

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