Hey guys! Back by popular demand, we’re doing another short story contest! We were so inspired by your work beforehand that we knew we needed to give Subject 4 another chance to wow us with their creativity and passion for the world of Project 863!
As we said before, we want to give some of you the chance to have your very own work showcased on our Substack and be stamped with the canon approval seal from the writers behind Project 863 and become an official part of the story! This means that the characters and scenarios you create will come to life in the 863 world!
PROMPTS
Here are some optional prompts that you can pick to write your story around! You DO NOT need to use one of these prompts to be considered, they are just helpful starting points if you find yourself struggling on where to begin!
- “A Day In The Life of _____” —> Pick a character and write a story pertaining to them and their life! This can be someone from Project 863, Syntec, the REDACTED, and so on! You may used characters from Season 5 and Season 6, if you wish!
- “Next Time On Project 863” —> Write a story that could be an episode on the Project 863 channel! This could be the team discovering a new device, meeting a new player in the world of Syntec or dealing with emotions from an already existing episode; sky’s the limit! If you would like an excellent example, please read Project Dreamcast on the Substack!
- “What If?” —> Here, the lines may get a bit blurry. Write a story that puts a twist on an event that has already happened in the 863 canon! Some examples can be Deb was the one killed in the Mountaineer by Wesley, Jordan Kendall was the one that merged into the 863 timeline instead of Scott Clarick, or Nelson possessed Bailey instead of Matthias. PLEASE NOTE that this is not an excuse to change canon in timeline 863 or 864, these events would need to exist in a different timeline and have some thread connecting it to the main timeline's lore. For example, because Wes dying is a confirmed Absolute point, he would not be able to survive because that goes against what the canon has stated. We want you to be creative but also keep that in mind.
RULES:
- Stories needed to be 2.5-4.5k words long: no longer, no shorter.
- Please do not change the current canon in your story. It will automatically be passed over.
- While we encourage everyone to enter, the best written stories are going to be the ones that win. So please try your best! Any story that is filled with numerous misspellings or grammatical errors will likely be passed over, so make sure to copyedit as best you can before you submit!
- There is no rules on the genre (comedy, mystery, romance, thriller, etc.).
- HOWEVER, please remember that Project 863 is a cozy mystery, so anything NSFW like smut, large amounts of cursing or highly disturbing content is not allowed. Our rating is a soft PG-13, so keep that in mind.
- In terms of ‘romance’ as a genre, please be respectful. This is not an invitation to write fan fiction between the real life people (Spellbound staff) or between real life people and fictional characters. Romance should ONLY be between said fictional characters and still needs to connect to the story and have a purpose.
- If your story is chosen, you will be contacted by one of the writers. From there, any edits that need to be made before it’s published will be noted and a date will be given for when the edits need to be completed. Said edits can be anything from tweaks to canon, grammatical, word choice and so on.
- One submission permitted per person.
- PDF is HIGHLY preferred, but Docx is acceptable.
- We are only accepting submissions from those 16 years of age and older.
- The deadline for submissions is May 22nd at 11:59pm PST! The form will be disabled at midnight PST on May 23rd so if you don’t get it in by that time, it will not be considered.
- Please note that all winning authors will need to sign NDAs and story releases.
- In the description on Jotform, please give us a brief description of your story! It will let us know you read all the rules correctly. ;)