2K Terrors Horror Contest 2023
Welcome to our first-ever Horror competition! This is a competition with a top prize of $150 and a total prize pool of $650 for the top 25–but also a fundraiser so we can start paying authors in our coming anthologies. Sign up via the Eventbrite link to join in this week-long contest!
The contest costs $15 to register, plus Eventbrite fees. All proceeds from the competition will be used to pay authors in our next call for submissions and 100% of all sales of the collection will go to Scares That Care.
We are also proud to offer each entrant guaranteed feedback on their story from the judges. Offering writers a chance for feedback is one of the Press’ core missions, along with our philanthropic mission to create anthologies to benefit charities.
This feedback means we only have 300 spots – once they’re gone, they’re gone!
Registration opens September 25, 2023, and closes on October 19, 2023.
The competition begins at 12:01 am on Monday, October 23, 2023 and ends at 11:59 pm on Sunday, October 29, 2023.
You can find all of our rules and regulations here on our website.
Click here to register on our Eventbrite page!
How does it work?
The 2K Terrors Competition will last for one week, beginning at 12:01 am Eastern time on Monday, October 23, 2023 and ending at 11:59 pm Eastern time on Sunday, October 29, 2023 Eastern time. Each entrant will receive two individual prompts at the beginning of the competition: A character, and an object or situation. Each entrant must create and submit a 1,000-word original short story in the Horror genre by the end of the competition time.
The judges will read, score, and provide feedback on each story to create a Top 25 Winners list. The top 25 stories will be announced, and prizes will be given to the winners as well as an eBook publication made of the top stories to benefit Scares that Care (more below under “Publishing”).
How can I join?
Sign up through Eventbrite before the registration deadline ends at midnight, Eastern time on October 19, 2023, or before the 300 slots fill up.
You will receive an email at 12:01 am (or a few minutes after given mass email lag) on Monday, October 23, 2023, with your individual prompts and the form to submit your story. You will have until 11:59 am on Sunday, October 29, 2023, to write and submit a 2,000-word-maximum short story based on those prompts.
Fundraising
This competition is a fundraiser to enable the TL;DR Press to pay its authors for future anthology submissions. The prizes for this contest are the first priority; once prizes are fully funded, all contest fees will be used to pay authors for our next call for submissions. Also, the Press will retain none of the proceeds of the eBook sales – 100% of sales will go to Scares That Care, as is the case with all of our charity collections (and thus why we need a separate fundraiser!) In the event that we cannot fully fund the prize money, we will do everything in our power to raise the money through other means. We will refund any tickets sold should the competition be cancelled for any reason.
Prizes
1st Place: $150 USD and a free eBook copy of each of our TL;DR Press collections to date
2nd Place: $80 USD and a free eBook copy of each of our TL;DR Press collections to date
3rd Place: $55 USD and a free eBook copy of each of our TL;DR Press collections to date
4th-10th Place: $20 USD and a free eBook copy of each of our TL;DR Press collections to date
11-25th Place: $15 USD and a free eBook copy of each of our TL;DR Press collections to date
Publication
The Top 25 Winners will be published in an eBook anthology in addition to their prize money. The anthology will benefit our charity of choice for this project, Scares That Care. They are an IRS approved, 501(c)(3) charity. Founded in 2006, “Scares That Care!” to date has raised and donated over $300,000 to organizations and families with a child affected by illness, burns or women fighting breast cancer.
Our house style (which we will also include in our email to participants) is simple:
- Double spacing.
- Typed in 12 pt. and in a standard font, such as Times New Roman, Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, etc.
- Submit in a .doc or .docx format. Do not submit a PDF.
Find other rules such as anonymity and title page in the rules and regulations. Only anonymity (not putting your name INSIDE your document, we will scrub document titles before judges receive them as Google Forms tends to add names and that is a known issue), including the prompts, and word count are necessary to be considered.
We are welcome to experimental styles. While we may make copyediting/formatting changes to stories that will be published, we will not penalize stories for not staying within a specific style. If you have any questions, please ask us through tldrpress@gmail.com
We want to make this a fun and rewarding experience for all participants, and thus we are not citing a specific, extensive style to follow.
Community
Competitions are better together. Share using the #TLDRTerrors hashtag on Twitter, Bluesky, or share our competition on Facebook!
Need some eyes on your entry, or just some encouragement along the way? TL;DR Press manages a writing community on Slack, apply here to join!