Owl Canyon Press is now hosting a short story contest with $6,000 in prizes. The contest has a twist: They provide the first paragraph and the 25th paragraph, and the story must be fifty paragraphs long.

They call it a hackathon. This follows the success of their first hackathon earlier this year.

According to the contest page:

“Writers are invited to create and submit a short story consisting of 50 paragraphs. The contest provides the 1st and 25th paragraphs, and the short story writer crafts the rest.   First prize is $3000, 2nd prize is $2000, and 3rd prize is $1000 with the winning short stories published in a short story anthology, as well as an invitation to give a public reading at Inkberry Books in Niwot, CO. The twenty-four (24) Finalists will also have their short stories included in this anthology.“

Note that if you are a finalist, you won’t be paid, but you will still be published.

Each paragraph needs to be at least 40 words, which means your story will be at least 2,000 words long. There is no word count limit.

The deadline to enter is December 1st, 2018.

To learn more, and to enter the contest, visit this page.