We are commissioning writers to inspire a storytelling contest that explores better futures

[nadia]

More questions and answers:

@yudhanjaya

Is it 3000€ for a single story? I thought our calculations at SFWA rates put it to ~$240-320 a piece?

@nadia

It’s up to 3K a piece. And it will depend on how much work people are putting into the work. I mean if their piece takes 2 weeks of deep research vs 3 hours, you see?

@yudhanjaya

Fair, if it’s going to be good work, they’re going to have to pore through a LOT of writing. By my very rough count the Witnesspedia is around 20,000 words right now.

Things you should specify, though:

Is it for each piece submitted? Or is it for a final piece picked out among submissions, like Grist did? How many final pieces will be there, if so?

PS: At those rates, I’m throwing my hat in the ring as well. -rolls up sleeves- Any limitations on entry, or are we looking for new writers only?

@nadia

Let’s put it this way, how would you answer your own questions based on what is realistic and fair?

@yudhanjaya

Personally, I would scrap this ‘starter’ concept completely. There’s more than enough starting material in Witnesspedia for a competent writer to write a story in, and another person writing the first 3k is only going to shoehorn a writer into a scenario and characters they may not care about.

I would organize it as -

Writing competition, use Witnesspedia, write a story set in any distrikt of your choosing. 3K top prize for best story (or stories, you pick n ). 1k each for n finalists where n is what you can afford. Explain the judges (community? panel? if so, who?)

Conditions:

1. Cannot retconn the canon (ie: you cannot change the past written in Witnesspedia) but you can affect the future.
2. Your story has to be centered around the economy and the livelihoods of people of the district you choose, either as a key part of the story or a major piece of the background of the narrative.

This way you’ll get a number of good stories, incentive to write well, without the limitation of having to fill in the blanks for a prose piece that someone else started.

@nadia

Makes sense to me - and we are sticking to the rate of 3000 Eur per selected story. The panel will consist of myself (@nadia) , @ivan, but our selection will be informed by the Witness community via an open discussion on our community forum.

@yudhanjaya

Sounds good!