Royally Inspired Tournament
The First Annual WhiteCrown Princess Moments Contest
Hear ye, hear ye! You’re invited to don your writer’s armor and prove your mettle in a battle to the death…er…publication!
What Is the Royally Inspired Tournament?
In this writing contest, you write a short story based on one of the book cover images linked above–there are nearly 30 to choose from! When you submit your story, start by saying which image it goes with (for instance, “Contemporary 3”). We will choose FOUR winners, which will be published with the image you selected as the cover (we’ll of course add your title to it!).
What are Princess Moments?
Princess Moments are short fiction that give readers that “ahhh” moment that royal fiction is famous for—the one where a royal steps up or accepts the proposal or finds their inner strength or wins the day or realizes their own true worth. Princess Moments are published exclusively on WhiteCrown’s website and are free for readers to enjoy.
How Long Should the Entries Be?
Current Princess Moments range from 500-2000 words. This is a great guideline, though we’re not super-strict about word counts on these. Keep it a “short,” but feel free to use however much space your story needs. (The “official” definition of a short story is 1,000-7,500 words.)
How Many Entries Can Each Writer Submit?
As many as you like! You can submit multiple stories for the same image, or a story for different images! Entries will be anonymized before they’re sent to the judges, so each entry will be judged on its own merits alone.
Is there an entry fee?
Nope! The contest is free to enter!
Are there any restrictions on who can enter?
Nope! You can be published or unpublished, any age. Just keep in mind that WhiteCrown readers are teens and adults, so we’d like to see short stories that target teen or older.
Who Are the Judges?
The Royally Inspired Tournament will be judged by royal experts—WhiteCrown’s existing authors and editors!
What Do Winners Receive?
Each winner will receive a contract for publication on the WhiteCrown website, as well as a special edition WhiteCrown original paperback of their choice with printed edges.
Things to Know About WhiteCrown?
WhiteCrown is a line of royal fiction under the WhiteFire Publishing Group, a Christian publisher. While faith themes don’t need to be overt, especially in short fiction, there should be nothing in your entry that would mark it as incompatible with our publisher, including foul language, explicit sex scenes, or graphically described violence. All stories published by WhiteCrown must feature royalty. To know what kind of stories we most love, you should read our existing short fiction and/or novels.
Feeling royally inspired? Then get writing!
Deadline for submissions is November 15, 2024.
Winners will be announced on December 6, 2024.
Entries should be emailed to princessmoments@whitecrownpublishing.com
using a subject line of “Royally Inspired Tournament Submission”
Please include WHICH IMAGE your entry is meant to match,
along with a TITLE for your story!
We can’t wait to see what stories these images inspire!
This sounds incredible, and these covers are amazing! I’m definitely looking forward to entering. ♡
Woah, this is so cool! Royalty is one of my favorite topics to write about so this contest is right up my alley. 😊 So excited!
Ooh, I’m super excited for this contest!
Best of luck to all entrants!
Good morning! I had a couple of questions.
1. If I plan to submit multiple entries, should I send one email per entry or fit them all into one email?
2. If I write under a pseudonym, should I include that in the submission?
Thank you very much for this opportunity!! I am so excited to participate’
Hi, Sarah! You can send both in one email or multiple emails as you finish them–whichever is easiest for you. =) And just put something like “Jane Doe, writing as Jayne Deau” for your pseudonym so we have both your real name and your name as it would appear on the cover.
Okay. Thank you!!
I hope you don’t mind, but I have a quick question about the submissions.
How should the story be submitted? Should I attach a document or just copy and paste the text in the email?
Thank you,
Ella
We’ve been getting them both ways, and either is fine. An attached Word doc would save us a step, so a preference for that, but either does work. =)
Okay! Awesome! Thank you so much 🙂
Hi! Can I submit a Google Doc or does it have to be a Word Doc? Thank you <3
Word doc, please. If you write in Google Docs, you can convert it to a Word doc and download and send us that. =)
Okay, thank you!
Does the formatting need to be in a certain font and size?
I’ll be making them all uniform, but if you want to save me a step, go with Times New Roman 12, double-spaced, with a 0.5″ first line indent. (No worries if it’s not exact though! They’ll all be put into that format before they’re sent to judges.)
Hi, is there a maximum word count you don’t want us going over?
Per the official definition of a short story, keep it under 7,500 words. =)
Hey, quick question 🙂
I know the official terms of a short story and that you have a tendency of publishing stories around 2,000 words previously but is there a sweet spot you are looking for in this competition? Is there a preferred window of space you would like to see come through your inbox or do you plan to publish a range of story lengths overall?
Thanks! <3
We have no preference on length! Make it however long your story needs to be. I mean, as long as it doesn’t become a novel. 😉
I just wanted to check if the cutoff time on the 15th November is midnight or earlier in the day?
Well, we’ll be compiling them on the 16th, so as long as the entries are in before we start that process, it’s all good. =)
We’ll be compiling them on the 16th. Just make sure it’s in before then!
Can we use this as a magnet for our readers?
If we choose your story for publication, we ask for a 12-month window where it’s only available on our site. After that, you’re welcome to do whatever you like with it!
Hi again, I was wondering, the deadline says the 15th of November, so that means if we turn it in on that day, we have to turn it in before 11:59 pm at whatever timezone the comments are in, right? And if not, when is the absolute last chance we can turn it in before the deadline ends?
Well, we’ll be compiling them on the 16th, so as long as the entries are in before we start that process, it’s all good. =)
Hi, the email given on the website, princessmoments@whitecrownpublishing.com is not it working for me. Gmail is saying it is not a valid email address. Do I have the correct email? Is there an alternative email I can try?
How odd! We’ve been getting lots of mail there… Go ahead and send it to me at r.white@whitefire-publishing.com and I’ll forward it to the other address so it lands in the right place. =)
Thank you so much!
Hi, Gmail is saying email on the website princessmoments@whitecrowpublishing.com is invalid. Is this the correct email? Is there a different one I can try?
Are we allowed to include the cover we chose in the Word doc?
Sure, that’s fine!
Can we write about a prince instead of a princess?
Absolutely! Any royal will do. =)
I was just wondering if there was any benefits of sending in our stories earlier than the deadline? Does the judging take place before the deadline as well as after or are they all judged after the deadline?
Thanks!! <3
Nope, we’re not doing anything with them until after the deadline. =)
What would happen if we went just a little bit over 7500, like say we end it somewhere between 7500 and 8000? Like not a crazy amount of words over so it’s still technically a short story and not quite even a novella?
That would be fine. =)
Hi!
I’m just curious, any editing on our entries must be completed before sending them in, correct? There won’t be any kind of edits made after that?
Thank you for taking the time to respond!
Get it in the best shape you can. =) Our editors will go over any winning story before it’s published, but obviously the better the shape, the better the chances of winning. =)
Okay, thank you!
What happens if our story gets rejected? Could I still publish it elsewhere?
what time do submissions close tomorrow?
Submissions close at midnight. Though I won’t be doing anything with them until I get up on Saturday morning, so anything that comes in by then is fine. =) (East coast time.)
thank you!
Absolutely! You retain the rights to your submission either way. If you’re not selected, you can do anything you want with it; if you are, we ask for a 12-month window where it’s available only on our site. =)
Are we required to include our legal name? Or can we just include our pen name?
Pen name is fine for the entry itself. Anyone whose stories end up on the website will receive a simple contract, which will require legal name and will specify the writing credit, which is where you put your pen name.
Hi! Quick question, I don’t live in the USA, can I still submit? Thank you!
Absolutely!
How much time do we have left to submit our stories?
Midnight tonight. (Technically eastern time, but I won’t actually check them until morning, so midnight in any time zone is fine.)
What will you do if my story is, maybe, say, around 650-ish words over 7500? Will it still be entered and turned to the judges?
That’s fine. =)
Unfortunately, I didn’t get my story done before the deadline. Will there be another similar competition to this in the future?
Yes, for sure! It was such a success we will definitely be doing it again! At least annually, but maybe more often. Keep an eye on WhiteCrown on socials and/or subscribe to the newsletter to see when the next one launches!
Awesome! Thank you! 🙂
Sent in my entries and got a cool confirmation email saying they were received, so all should be well. Now comes the fun part of waiting to find out who wins. 🙂