Competition

SMOLDR -

Entering the Lake Covington SMOLDR Contest is as painless as getting bitten by the love bug. Here’s all you’ll need to know to get started:

First, you click the "Enter Contest" button at the upper-right hand side. This will take you to our Submittable site. There, you’ll see both Gold Man Review (our cousin site) and Smoldr logos. Scroll down until you find the “SMOLDR Romance Contest” link.

From there, you’ll click the link, enter your address, and pay your contest entry of $5. Make sure you list an email that you use regularly and check often. We are not responsible for emails that fall into spam folders or get eaten in the ether. Within 24 hours, you’ll receive a couple, a romance trope, and a location. If you do not, please follow up with an email to our Administrative Editor, Ash Rich, at arich[at]smoldr.org.

The couple will have names, occupations, and blurbs about each that will act solely as a springboard for your creative minds to get the romance cooking.

The trope will be a classic romance trope, such as Fish Out of Water, that is used predominately throughout the genre. You’ll be given a brief explanation of the trope along with some examples to help get you on track. The examples are NOT a reflection of what we are looking for. Their only purpose is to ensure you have a good understanding of the trope that you have been assigned.

The location is a special spot in Lake Covington that you will incorporate in your story. It doesn’t have to be where the main action occurs, but we do want it to be a prime location within your story that is recognizable and important to the plot.

Once you have your couple, trope, and location, it is up to you to create the best romance story for our couples that leaves us breathless and wanting more. We ask that your stories must be no more than 5,000 words. Anything over will be instantly disqualified.

We’d like your stories formatted with 1-inch margins, double-spaced, and in Times New Roman. You should have included a cover page that has the title of our story, couple names, trope, and location. Make sure you save your document with the name of your trope along with your last name. Such as: MeetCute.Robinson.

When you’re ready to submit your contest entry, email it as an attachment to submit[at]smoldr.org with the title and your name in the heading. List your cover page information in the body of the email.

For information on deadlines, please click here