Format for Official Mastermind Competitions (Seasons 9+)
Every few months, the Mastermind Creative Writing Community will host a two-week-long competition under “Mastermind.” We will let everyone on our Discord know about any upcoming seasons by posting an announcement at least one week before the season premieres.
During the two weeks of the competition, any member is welcome to participate in writing and posting responses to a single writing challenge, which will take place in the Mastermind Season Submission Thread. All participants who choose to compete and respond to the writing challenge must attach their file submission/link to their reply on the same thread post.
After the two weeks, all opportunities for submissions will be closed and any community member (including members who did not participate) is welcome to take a look at everyone's submitted work and discuss them on our Discord.
More importantly, the judge(s) will grade each submission and post scores and feedback on the Mastermind Season Results Thread.
Please give our team at least two weeks to return the feedback and scores. Once the scores are finalized, the results thread will become available. Scores are assigned based on the following marking criteria:
At the end of the competition, we will contact you via email from info@mastermindbp.com if you are eligible to receive a prize. We will not use any other email address to give out the prizes.
All prizes come in the form of PayPal donations so you need to have an email that is connected to a PayPal account to receive the award(s).
The submission(s) with the highest average will win the 1st place $100 USD prize. The submission(s) with the second and third-highest averages will receive a $50 USD prize each.
If you have any questions or queries, please stay up to date with us on our Discord Community. Note that you need a Discord account to do so and you can create one for free.
Link to our Community Discord: https://discord.gg/xkXqs7YwhF
Rules for Official Mastermind Competitions (Seasons 9+)
Respect everyone on a basic level. This includes but is not limited to avoiding harassment and spamming.
Plagiarism and any use of AI is strictly prohibited and will result in immediate disqualification.
In your reply to the Season Submission Thread, your submission must be attached as a PDF or Word Doc. The maximum file size is 500 MB. We will not accept links to Google Docs.
You can submit your response any number of times before the deadline but we will only grade your most recent submission. If possible, please delete your previous submissions from the same season so then we can identify which file we want to grade.
In the Season Submission Thread, your submission can only contain your file submission. You cannot reply to anyone's submission in this thread but you can address anyone’s work on our Discord if you want to give and/or receive constructive feedback.
After the submission period has ended, you are not allowed to edit your submission.
Prizes come in the form of PayPal donations. If you are eligible to receive a prize, you will be contacted by email or through the chat system on our website.
Please direct any questions you have to our Discord (note that to do so, you must create a Discord account and it is free).