The Yuri Garden Writing Competition (2020) has now launched~!

To those who are totally new, this is the Yuri Garden’s annual competition that runs from June 1^st to July the 31^st (with voting in August). Entries are short, all level of writers are welcome, and the competition is deliberately designed to be won by skill, not popularity.

To those who are joining us again, welcome~! There have been some changes to the format this year and, once again, some changes to the rules.

Although you’ll have to read the rules thoroughly before you take part, here’s a snapshot of the changes:

• To avoid vote tampering in favour of more well-known authors, submissions will now be anonymous until voting is over. This means that entries will have to be DMed to me and that I’ll be hosting them here on the Yuri Garden’s Scribble Hub account in single “novel”. There are other rules to safeguard against voting in bad faith.
• There are clearer rules surrounding what types of story aren’t allowed. This is partially to push entries in directions that benefit the community (i.e. aren’t tired copies or cop-outs) and partially to ensure that we stay within SH’s content guidelines.
• The upper limit of the word count has been slightly increased this year, but the lower limit remains the same for now.

New submissions will be posted together on Saturdays.

Note: From this point on, to prevent hints from accidentally being given out, questions about the competition must be sent to me in a direct message. I'll publish answers that are helpful to other people as well while keeping the identity of the question-asker anonymous.

Prizes:

First, second and third place will have their chapter titles changed to reflect their achievement and will be moved to the beginning of the “novel” in order. They will also be mentioned in the “novel” description.

The top three winners will also be immortalised on the Yuri Garden’s opening post, with links to as many of their author profiles as they wish, and links to any other yuri they write, whether now or in the future. (Just let me know when you post a new one.)

In addition, as is the tradition, winners will receive a prize of nuffies (NUF’s forum money – NOT real money). Unfortunately, NUF rules forbid me from offering prizes with real monetary value.

This year’s nuffie prizes are:

First place: $3000 $5282 $6492 $8918 $10,428 $11,344 $12,014 $12,924 $22,665

Second place: $2000 $4281 $5490 $7914 $9423 $10,338 $11,007 $11,916 $21,656

Third place: $1000 $3281 $4490 $6914 $8423 $9338 $10,007 $10,916 $20,656

(Prize nuffies increased thanks to donations from @Yandere Devil, @Ddraig, @AsianessPride (x2), @Seraphic, @Aisha Ann, @Nekorin, @Barnnn, @HamsterOverlord-sama and @BB_Tensei)

The rules will be split into two sections to make them easier to navigate.

Submission Rules

1. Your story should be an original piece of fiction that has no relation to any works existing, i.e. is not fanfiction and is not a spin off or Alternative Universe version of a story that you have published elsewhere. Your short story cannot have been published anywhere else previously and cannot be published anywhere but the SH YuriGardenAllotment account until after the competition results have been announced.
2. The minimum word count is 1500 words, and the maximum is 3000. I will be strict about this – 1499 is unacceptable, and so is 3001. Your title will not be included in the word count.
3. Your story must be sent in a Private Message to me (Moonpearl) either here or on NUF before 23:59 on the 31st of July 2020, BST (GMT +1), when submissions will close.
4. Multiple entries are permitted, but each submitted story must have absolutely no relation to each other.
5. After your first submission is accepted, you'll be provided with a personal delay period, different for every participant. Participants are not allowed to tell anyone that they've submitted/entered until their delay period has ended. You cannot tell anyone what your delay period is, even after it ends.
   (You can say that you intend to enter before submitting, and can continue to say that you plan to enter and are writing your piece until your delay period has ended.)
6. Participants are permitted to tell people that they’ve entered, but not how many stories they’ve entered or what their submissions are. You are not allowed to provide hints either. (This is serious. Any attempts to break the anonymity of the competition will result in immediate disqualification, announcement of the fact, and potentially a ban from all future Yuri Garden events.) Note: Posting statuses or sharing hints about what you're writing before submission also count towards this, and will prevent me from accepting your submission.
   
7. You can withdraw from the competition at any time by letting me know.
8. You can publish your story on your own SH account after the results are announced, if you so wish. I have checked with Tony and this kind of “double posting” of stories is allowed.

Content Rules:

1. Your story must be yuri. In other words, there must be a significant romantic or sexual relationship between at least two women in your story, and one of those women must be the protagonist regardless of who the narrator is. This relationship should be the focus of your story in some way. Casual passing flirtation and/or a character who just happens to be a lesbian will not count.
2. No lolicon. This includes but is not limited to:

• Relationships between characters who are 18 or over and characters who are under 18
• Sexual content with characters below the age of 18. This includes but is not limited to sex involving those characters, sexual contact involving those characters (e.g. hickeys, fondling/groping), and the sexualisation of those characters (e.g. using erotic description)
• Characters intended to look like children and/or much younger than they really are, regardless of what age you try to claim them to be

          There are no loopholes in this rule. I reserve the right to refuse any story that tries to find a way to circumvent it.

3. Relationships between characters who are below the age of eighteen can only have a two-year age gap at most. The rule about a character being much younger in all but name still applies here.
4. No incest or futanari.
5. Gender bender will only be permitted if the change is “male to female” and the character(s) undergoing the transformation identified as a woman/women prior to the change.
6. No depictions of rape, bestiality, necrophilia, or other illegal sex acts. Mentions of them should also be kept to a minimum (none at all, if possible) and only in a negative light.
7. No stories where characters are “turned straight”, end up with someone who’s not a woman, or leave a woman for someone who’s not a woman. (Your characters can have had relationships with non-women in the past or leave one for a woman.)
8. NSFW is allowed but do note that, if you plan to publish your story on your own account afterwards, stories on Scribble Hub cannot be purely smut or “porn without plot”. A few smutty stories in a collection, as the submissions will be hosted as, shouldn’t fall foul of the guidelines.
9. To clarify, transgender characters are allowed and are encouraged. Gender bender is not required for this.

If you have any questions about the competition and its rules, please message me about them. I promise that I don’t bite~!