Welcome To The World Contest

Welcome to WTTW!

Salutations, and welcome to the Welcome To The World Science Fiction contest!

The WTTW contest is a science fiction/secondary world/steampunk/cyberpunk contest in which you must introduce us to your world. Create a deep world full of fleshed out details. Then, give us your best story which introduces us best to your world. We'll give you writing prompts to help you along your way, and to help generate interest in your stories! 

In order to be eligible for this contest...

Your story needs to take place in some kind of a secondary or alternate world. This can include futuristic, dystopic, post-apocalyptic, cyberpunk, steampunk, and anything in between. Worldbuild as much as you can! We will be posting a series of worldbuilding prompts to help get your creative juices flowing. We will accept fantasy submissions, but try to keep it within the science fiction realm if you can. We've found that the less orcs and elves in various worlds, the better. Come up with some original ideas!

However, this wouldn't be any fun if you were just giving us a world bible. So you also need to come up with a story and characters that really show off your world. Introduce us to your world through your plot. It doesn't necessarily have to be action. It could be romance, or a teen problem novel in your world. Not everyone is a phaser-wielding superhero. Superheroes and average schmucks welcome.

Because we love you, we aren't just going to throw you into this with no help. Over the next couple of months, before the final submission deadline, we'll be posting various worldbuilding prompts and exercises to really help you delve deep into your world. Those will not be submitted or judged (although you can certainly put them up on wattpad for your friends to see!). They are just to help you with your final submission, which is the story explained in the paragraph above this one.

Please, no rated M submissions. This includes graphic sex and overly graphic violence.

Your entry must be 5,000 words or fewer. We won't be sticklers about the cut-off being exactly 5,000, so 5.1k words would be okay. 5.5k words would be pushing it, and anything above that is not eligible. The goal of this contest is to see how well you can show off an epic world within tight constraints.

Your final entry can either be one long chapter from a contest book (just submit the single chapter's link), several chapters from the contest book (once again, just post the link to the first chapter, and in the A/N for that chapter, please put the chapters that the story comprises, i.e. chapters 12-16). Or, you can submit it as a short story in its own book. Whatever works for you!