SHORT STORY WRITERS CONTEST -- April 2024 -- TIME -- TIME2024

This is an Official ATS Short Story Writers Contest!

It is open to ALL members of ATS.

This area is a safe place for our 'mighty fine creative minds' to gather. If you'd like to participate, know that the Terms and Conditions of your membership are strongly enforced. Profanity, Political baiting, Personal attacks, are not allowed or welcomed at all. Want to talk about something else? Then go to the other forums here at ATS. We only discuss the stories in here written by YOU, the membership.

By submitting a Short Story in an Official ATS Contest, you agree to the following;

Your Entry Has to be Original Fiction & posted in it's own thread HERE in the Short Stories forum,. Then in this contest thread, create a post with a link to your story. If you need any help with Spelling or Grammar-checking, Word-Counting, and more please visit; Writer Tools; Spell Check and More

Your Story Should be written and edited with paragraphs. We have noticed that stories copy & pasted from 'mobile devices' might lose their formatting. Please review how it looks on the ATS Thread and add the proper editing (as you have only about 20 minutes to make edits/corrections). This is a contest, no one wants to read a solid block of words.

A.I. Technology can not be used in the stories creation. Only ATS members are allowed to participate in the Contest.

You may enter more than once, but you can only win one prize.

"The END" needs to be at the bottom of your story, it wont add to the word-count.

You will be awarded "Writer" Status if you win 1st or 2nd in the non-writer category, please add in your stories title 'non-writer'.

The contest will run from NOW to Wednesday, May 1, 2024. Any submissions after that date will be disqualified. A period of ONE WEEK after the closing of the contest will be provided for reading & voting.

Contest Winners get to choose the next Contest Theme. This contest theme is courtesy of our last winner Lumenari and is entitled: TIME - TIME2024 --
In what may be the last contest here on ATS, the topic is wide open. Time. TIME!! Time's up. End Times. Time of Your Life. Life Term. Over Time. Time is on My Side.

RULES OF ENTRY (are simple)

* Entries must be original fiction. ATS members cannot be characters.
* The Contest is for Humans only: No AI submissions.
* Entries MUST include - TIME2024 - in your Stories title. ( e.g. Looking Back - TIME2024 - non-writer).
* This is a 'SHORT STORY' Contest. Stories that run past the OP are accepted but no points given for additional posts.
* You need to post a link to your story here in this contest thread so others know that you made up an entry.
* You must stay within the Terms and Conditions (please read)

WINNERS and SCORING

ATS "Writer" status, prizes as follows:
1st -- 5 Applause, and gets to choose the next contest theme (Repeat winners can choose to pass to another for the theme of a future contest).
2nd -- 3 Applause
3rd -- 1 Applause

non-writer will receive the following:
1st Place -- 3 Applause & Writer Status
2nd Place -- 2 Applause & Writer Status
3rd Place -- 1 Applause

How the Contestants get points to win all depends on you! You can give FLAGS to your favorite story and add STARS to your favorite stories opening post.

We then tally up the scores of 'Flags' (worth 2 points each). And 'Stars' in the opening post (worth 1 point each)

And that's it! Got a question? We're happy to try and answer anything about the
contests/rules etc. But ENJOY this new contest, GOOD LUCK, HAPPY READING and HAVE FUN!

Note: New OP contest format, thanks to JohnnyAnonymous. Artwork for this contest courtesy of Encia22

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

Glad to see that Encia22 is back and kicking butt on the graphics...

A funny aside... I gave the honors of choosing the next topic to chr0naut but it seemed I had to pick it anyways so in honor of him winning the Writer's title I decided to theme it after him.

chr0naut.... Time Traveler.

It seemed fitting.

Write away!!!!

originally posted by: Lumenari
a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

Glad to see that Encia22 is back and kicking butt on the graphics...

A funny aside... I gave the honors of choosing the next topic to chr0naut but it seemed I had to pick it anyways so in honor of him winning the Writer's title I decided to theme it after him.

chr0naut.... Time Traveler.

It seemed fitting.

Write away!!!!

Thank you. I fully endorse a 'temporal' theme (I actually didn't realize that I had won until today).

And Encia should get a reward for their contribution, too!

originally posted by: chr0naut

originally posted by: Lumenari
a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

Glad to see that Encia22 is back and kicking butt on the graphics...

A funny aside... I gave the honors of choosing the next topic to chr0naut but it seemed I had to pick it anyways so in honor of him winning the Writer's title I decided to theme it after him.

chr0naut.... Time Traveler.

It seemed fitting.

Write away!!!!

Thank you. I fully endorse a 'temporal' theme (I actually didn't realize that I had won until today).

And Encia should get a reward for their contribution, too!

You wrote a damn good story and deserved what you got.

In your absence I had to do something so thank you for the endorsement.

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

Thanks to DTOM for giving us another contest. If it were to be the last one, I encourage everyone to participate and make it the greatest ever.



@Lumenari, thanks for the encouragement and I love the theme you chose. It inspired so many ideas for the artwork, but I settled on the enduring hourglass as the centrepiece.

@chr0naut, I appreciate the nod and I look forward to reading more from you.



I'm still not up to speed on the domestic front, but I'll be reading all the stories... although, I may not be able to comment in a timely matter. No worries, I'll catch up in time.

Let's get writing, the clocks are running and time is melting away...

a reply to: Lumenari

This will be the best contest! Thank you for the amazing time!

Great theme. Thank for at least one more contest.

I am going to be first to this idea now.

Little People Armageddon

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

It’s tme to open those aqua eyes! www.abovetopsecret.com...

Writer

My entry!

The establishment of the throne TIME2024 - non writer

Thank you DTOM, Encia, Chr0n, Luminari for this fine contest. We will keep going until we can't, right? Wonderful. I will try to sharpen my 'time' wits and deliver. Much fondness to you all.

a reply to: argentus

I do hope you have time to enter.
Your stories are always a treat to read.

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

Second entry. It’s a sad one but a true story

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Writer

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

And here is my lucid dream adapted into...

Odd-yssey

Love this. Def gonna try my hand at it. very difficult to detect gpt writing but LOL I'm sure you'll be confident whatever I come up with is original.

I'll try my best not to offend anyone

a reply to: Attentionwandered2

It's great to see new writers join in!

You need one more post (5 in total) in order to post your story.

Also, you will be able to Star posts, but 20 posts are required before you can Flag on ATS.

I look forward to your submission.

And no worries, I think most of us can spot A.I. generated prose... at least for now.



By the way, if you were locked out of your old ATS account, DM DTOM or Djarums in order to get it back.

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

Here's my last entry.

Thanks to RAY1990 and astronomy for the inspiration...

Sol & Luna

Time Tricks...TIME2024

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Still plenty of days left to enter.
But, boy time sure does fly......

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

This is the first time, since I have been here at ATS, that I have worked on a short story, put it down, took it up again. Usually, a concept pops into my head, and over a day or so, it fills in. Then, I do about an hour or so of research and then sit down and write it and type at superspeedfasterthananyhumanshould, and the story is done.

This time, I am working on it, doing some research, then working on it again. You know what? It's not going to be ANY better than the previous way, because the previous way engages a part of myself than spins tales and I type at superspeedfaster.... in order to keep up with my thoughts and enjoy the extremely unique space where I feel as an observer, just recording, not sure even myself what will happen next. That is the best of things.

But now, I have killed that energy. Still, I am dilligent, and will hopefully finish this story. I hope to never use this framework again for short stories. I MUCH MORE enjoy the organic fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants-let-'er-rip style of story fabrication.

Just in case anyone was wondering what was taking me so #ing long.

a reply to: argentus

I am like you just start with some idea and type. Both ways your story will be awesome!