The following is a page dedicated to explaining, in more detail, exactly how to submit. Let’s go through this point by point.

1. Buying your ticket.

The reason you need to do this is that this is a charity event, and we don’t get much money to give to good causes if you just submit stories for free. You’ll need PayPal, or access to a Credit/Debit card that you have permission of the owner to use. When you buy a ticket, you will receive a PDF of it. You can buy a ticket from the following link!

Make sure you keep this! It’s important! And it’s also important that you keep hold of an E-Mail receipt you will receive when buying the ticket. This is because it will have a section in it that says “Order #: XXXXXXXXXX-YYYYYYYY” See why that matters in a bit.

2. Writing your story.

Your story should be using standard manuscript format. This means one inch margins all around, double spacing, no extra spacing between paragraphs, indented lines on the first line of each paragraph, a clear font (for our purposes here, we’re only accepting Times New Roman or Ariel), with page numbers and the title on each page.

At the start, there should be a page that is completely blank except for the story’s title, which should be at the top and in the centre.

Your name should NOT appear anywhere on the manuscript. This is to enable the judges to judge blind.

Also, a brief word on formatting within the story. Not that I expect anyone to do this, but just in case NO COLOURED WORDS. We’re publishing this on Kindle, and Kindle does not see in colour. Bold, italics, underlining and strikethroughs however are fine.

3. Saving your story

When you save your story, save it as either a .doc or a .rtf NOT a .docx please. Also, save it with the following file name format:

DFTBASSC Title [Story Title] ON [Order Number]

Your order number will be on the e-mail receipt. That’s so we can track down who wrote what story without knowing their name. Again, that’s part of judging blind.

4. Sending your story.

Send your story as an attachment in an email to the following address.

dftba[DOT]short(DOT)story{DOT}contest<AT>inbox{DOT}com

Making the subject line “DFTBA SSC Submission - “[Story title]” by [Your Name] ON [Your Order Number]”

This is so its very easy for us to search through the inbox to find everyone’s name.

DO NOT paste your story into the body of the email. It won’t get read. Sorry.

Also, be sure to attach your ticket PDF.

In the body of your email, please include your name, the title of your story and the story’s word count.

5. Being sure that your story has been received.

Since this is all a manual operation, it’s not going to be all that quick and easy for me to reply to everyone letting them know there stories have been received. However, what I shall be doing is sending out a series of emails every Sunday from the 29th April onwards until the end of the contest, acknowledging receipt of the story. So please, be patient.

If you do not see your name or story title on that list within two weeks (just in case you send it on Sunday, and you don’t make that particular round), please email me to voice your concern. Make the subject line “DFTBA SSC - Missing Receipt” and in the body of the email, let me know of roughly when you sent the email, what the story was called, your name, and your order number, so we can find your story quickly.

If you have any other questions, please email me, or send a message on Tumblr. If you’re emailing, use the subject line “DFTBA SSC - Query”