Short Story Contest 2015 Rules and Themes

[eris]

Got it!
Thanks for the great information, and assistance, as always, you rock Cotman!

[TheCotMan]

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. :-)

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.

[eris]

Deleted Deleted

[eris]

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.

[eris]

"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