Only on Defenestrationism.net ,
we are pleased to announce our
twelfth annual
FLASH SUITE Contest
Winner: 75$
Runner-Up: 60$
The 2024 Contest is now live. Go straight to the Contest.
Contest will post daily throughout December.
FAN VOTING will continue until January 13th.
Winners are to be announced MLK Day (US) which is January 15th.
2025 FLASH SUITE Contest submissions will open in September of 2024.
About us: Bonafides and Circulation
Masthead: meet the editors
How we Judge
View the 2023 Finalists
view the 2022 finalists
view the 2021 finalists
view the 2020 finalists
view 2019 finalists
view 2018 finalists
view 2017 finalists
view 2016 finalists
view the 2015 finalists
view the 2014 finalists
What is a Flash Suite, you may ask.
Our team defines, albeit loosely, a flash suite as follows,
“A series of at least three flash fiction works that correlate, and build to something greater. Recurring characters, extended motifs, harmonious subject matters, and/or sustained narrative are such correlations– but we encourage innovation and new ideas.”
Go crazy with it, kids, flash your faces off.
Finalists are selected by owner, co-editor Paul-Newell Reaves
and submissions-reader Chantelle Tibbs.
These finalists are then published daily, before winners are announced,
followed by at least two weeks of Fan Voting.
Winners are selected by our panel of four Judges, with Fan Voting counting as an additional judge vote.
How we Judge.
Expect harsh words of criticism if guidelines are not followed.
Otherwise, we’re all lovey-dovey.
GUIDELINES:
– Word limit of 1,000 for each individual piece of flash. The entire suite combines each 1,000-or-less word piece into a longer work– which may be any reasonable length.
-Flash fiction in suites, not a short story divided into parts. Each individual piece of flash should function as a stand alone work, while still building, correlating, and what have you, within the larger suite. Short stories may be submitted to the Defenestrationism !Short Story Contest! in the summer.
-A single piece of the suite may have been published before, otherwise, no previously published material.
–Edit, comrades, edit till there is no editing left to be done. We ask you go through at least TEN read-through edits before submitting.
-Grammar is no list of rules, no series of hoops. Punctuation is an art form, remember that– punctuate like there’s no tomorrow.
-Incomplete sentences must serve an obvious purpose, toward narrative or character development, dialogue, theme or style.
-Titles: we find titles frequently distinguish the best Flash Suites, especially with more abstract works. We highly recommend individual titles for each piece of flash, and a general title for the total work.
-Please, please, no Zombie fiction. We do not encourage work whose central theme is the braindead. All other Sci-Fi, Fantasy and stories of Dis-reality will be considered.
-Seriously, you should edit more. Here are our Editing Tips
A.I. Policy:
[if you take pride in writing, skip this section]
You can try out A.I. for our contests, if you truly worry your writing skills are that flimsy. But you should probably trust your own abilities more.
I trained LLMs in creative writing, so not only will I probably recognize their work, I’ll even give you some hints:
A.I. doesn’t generate original ideas– that’s the fundamental premise of the software, it rips off stuff that’s already been published– so you’d definitely better come up with your basic conceit by hand. As to the work itself, in order to make A.I.’s writing remotely interesting, stylistically, you must be very specific about which authors’ style you want the software to write in. Pick two or three writers you enjoy reading, and put their names in the box along with your concept. Most importantly, revise the automaton’s work– and I’m not talking about typos.
That’s almost the entirety of the writing process, really– creating your concept, reading your favorite authors for inspiration, then the extensive revision– if a bot will get you over your initial writing block, I guess that’s a good use for the tool. Just don’t be satisfied with mediocrity. Your readers certainly won’t be. (and with that fun, little worm in your brain– the bit about mediocrity, you know, that the work could always be just a little bit better if you only change one thing more…– A.I. won’t save you all that much time, percentage wise.)
Writing is a joy– an outlet, a passion– and if you’re using A.I. on Defenestrationism.net contests for only our meager prizes, good luck with your life and the state of your soul…
We no longer read multiple submissions. Sorry.
Simultaneous submissions are just peachy.
Email all you wish us to consider in a SINGLE, DOWNLOADABLE document.
No PDFs, please, as they are difficult to transcribe to our site.
Include the title of your overall work at the beginning of the file name of the downloadable document that you submit. If that sentence is confusing, feel free to query, because it really helps us, actually.
MUST— email Subject: FLASH SUITE Contest
pnrenterprizes@gmail.com
— that’s
PNRenterpriZes[AT]gmail[DOT]com
Include a PHONE NUMBER, in case our emails end up in your spam.
It will not be distributed.
If our good side is something you care to be on,
check our illuminating submission pointers.
Feel free to compliment us on our concrete and exact guidelines. Most of the worst writing we’ve had the displeasure of reading comes from editors trying to explain and individualize their tastes for a publication.
We adhere closely to the CLMP Contest Code of Ethics.
Please do not submit have you any association with any of the Judges.
We require only Electronic Rights, including Electronic Archival Rights. Author maintains all Future Rights.
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