Register for the challenge and join us on YouTube for live streams and discussions.
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You’ll come up with your romance trope and how you’re going to subvert it. We give you the tense and parameters in which you need to use it. This exercise in creative flexibility will challenge you to think of tried-and-true tropes in a new light!
Submit your finished 2,500 word short story for consideration for the prize draw from AutoCrit. Remember, your story remains yours and all work is submitted via our secure platform.
Welcome to the Cupid’s Gone Rogue Writing Challenge—where love gets a plot twist and tropes are flipped on their heads!
From February 1 to February 25, unleash your creativity and craft an original story that subverts a classic romance trope. The basic rules? The short story has to be complete and no more than 2,500 words, you have to subvert at least one classic romance trope (and tell us how you did it), and it needs to be in past tense (except for dialogue!). Let your imagination run wild with this one!
Whether you’re flipping the “enemies to lovers” script, deciding if it will be “just one bed” or perhaps too many beds, or reinventing the “love triangle”, this is your chance to show how unpredictable romance can be.
(Need inspiration before we start? Check out our recent blog post about reverse tropes: AutoCrit Reverse Tropes in Fiction)
Enter the challenge now!
Let’s see how far outside the heart-shaped box you can go. ❤️
Nope. It’s free! To participate in the challenge, you don’t have to be an AutoCrit Professional Member. However, all challenge participants will become AutoCrit Free Members. This will allow you to access the AutoCrit Hub and Writer’s Desk, which will be useful during the challenge.
If you choose to, yes! By the end of the challenge, we hope you’ll have crafted a new, 2500-word short story based on the template we provide. Submit your work to our judges, and we’ll choose a selection of the most striking or creative to win a prize. AutoCrit will make no claim to any rights whatsoever regarding your story – it remains entirely yours to publish wherever you like.
The prompts will be revealed on the first livestream and will also be emailed to you. Make sure to stay tuned to future livestreams and keep an eye on your inbox for the various twists along the way!
Schedule:
Live Stream 1: Saturday, February 1st - 11am Eastern US
Live Stream 2: Saturday, February 8th - 11am Eastern US
Live Stream 3: Saturday, February 15th - 11am Eastern US
Live Stream 4: Saturday, February 22nd - 11am Eastern US
Live Stream 5: Tuesday, March 4th - 1pm Eastern US (Winners announced!)
For the best benefit, we recommend you subscribe to the AutoCrit YouTube channel so you don't miss out on stream notifications.