Constrained writing contest #10 + winners of constrained writing contest #9

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Most writing contests give you a writing prompt or at least a couple of words to work your idea around, which is why I decided to host a slightly different contest.

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A constrained writing contest

Instead of giving you an idea or a writing prompt, I will allow you to choose the topic completely by yourself, be it fiction or not. But, varying from week to week, I will come up with different challenges.

You will be required to omit certain words, use a word of your choosing in every second sentence, use a given sentence unchanged, ... or a combination.

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Winners of constrained writing contest #9

First of all, I owe an apology to all the participants and more importantly, all the winners. Due to various reasons I do not have the SBD to pay out the prize with the current prizing system.
Therefore, I have decided to pay out the entire payout of this post (SBD and STEEM) and spread that among the winners. That way there is zero profit from this contest for me. It's all given to you, the contestants.
I hope you find the compensation fair and I thank you for your understanding.
The previous prizing system was a mess. Each entry was worth 0.5 SBD, no matter if the upvote on this post was worth 0.00$... So there was a discrepancy in funds that resulted in me taking a large wallet hit. I believe you understand why it needed a change.

There were a total of 9 entries this week. It was very, very hard to choose the winners as each and every one of the entries was amazing! I thank everybody again for their entries, I had a very good time reading them.
Here are the winners:

• 1st place: 1.549 SBD + 0.758 STEEM
  @felt.buzz with the entry "Falling in love again".

What had happened in that story was tragic. Very tragic. But it made for an amazing story that started off romantic and ended by breaking your heart in a million pieces and leaving a hole where your heart once was with its sheer brutality.

• 2nd place: 0.929 SBD + 0.454 STEEM
  @dfrankle with the entry "The utility monster".

At first it feels as if the story starts off not at the start... but at the middle. It throws the reader into a new, unknown world and only near the end does it reveal what it is about. It forces the reader into a second reading, effectively turning 255 words into 510 words. A very smart concept by @dfrankle and very good execution!
@dfrankle is also joining us as a judge this week but more on that in the "Judges" section.

• 3rd place: 0.619 SBD + 0.303 STEEM
  @hidden84 with the entry "The secret of our dreams".

Albeit there is no doubt there were some grammar mistakes that hurt the reading experience, the creativity behind this story is nothing short of amazing! I dare not tell you what the story is about (for I want you to read it yourself) but it starts off with happy children... and ends with... well.. Unhappy children. Let's leave it at that!

Congratulations to the winners!
Honorable mentions in no particular order:

• @thot2word with "Cat-fished"
• @pyrowngs with the entry I dared to title myself; "Contest"
• @simgirl with "The watch"
• @godo with the entry I dared to title myself; "The fare"
• @byn witht "The unfinished goodbye"

You have all written amazing stories and have given me a very, very hard task to pick the winners. I hope to see more entries from all of you in the future. Each and every story was an absolute delight to read.

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Proof of payment:

Or you can always check our wallets ;D

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With that out of the way, onto constrained writing contest #10!

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Rules:

• Write a story where every sentence is a question,
  @dfrankle (this week's judge) was so kind as to even provide an example story. You can find it here.
• The story must be at least 250 words long
• Upvote this post
• Resteem this post
• Post a link to your entry in the comments below
• Include tag #constrainedwriting among your other tags

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Prizes

Due to complications with the previous reward system, I am adopting the "post payout" reward system.

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I will pay out the post's payout in full, both SBD and STEEM!

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That way your upvote is directly tied to the prize pool and hopefully there won't be too many 5% upvotes.

• 1st place: 45% of post's payout
• 2nd place: 27% of post's payout
• 3rd place 18 % of post's payout

I will take a small cut of 5 % for hosting, writing and editing the contest,
and the remaining 5 % goes to the judge of the competition (this week that's @dfrankle)

I also resteem all contest entries.

*In case I receive any donations for the contest, the payout percentages apply to the donation itself as well.

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Judges

This week is the first time we have an external judge joining us!
@dfrankle contacted me with an idea I absolutely fell in love with.
This week it's all him! He's deciding the winner based on his own preference.
Again, @dfrankle was so kind as to provide an example story following his constraint rule. You can find it here.

If you wish to apply for a judge and make up your own rules, send @svashta a hearty hello on steemit.chat.

*Disclaimer: I will only allow fellow writers as judges to keep the competition high quality.

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Deadline

• Entries are accepted until this post's payout
• Your entry post must be newer than this post

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Good luck!

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