contests

Favorite Writing Tips

November 11, 2013 by Nathan Bransford 3 Comments

Thanks so much to everyone who entered the #FaveWritingTip contest! We had several hundred excellent entries, and I collected some of the best responses below. The! Winner! Is! Lela Gwenn, who had the good fortune of having random.org shine upon her and she also happened to have some solid advice with her tweet: #FaveWritingTip Write. […]

5th Annual Blog Bracket Challenge!

March 18, 2013 by Nathan Bransford 9 Comments

It’s NCAA tournament time and we’re back with the 5th Annual Blog Bracket Challenge! Who is the greatest literary bracket prognosticator of them all? Whichever of you knows least about basketball. Or the most. Or somewhere in between. THESE THINGS ARE TRICKY. In order to enter, all you have to do is pick winners in […]

And the Stupendously Ultimate Winner Is!!

February 11, 2013 by Nathan Bransford 27 Comments

Thanks so much to everyone who entered the 5th Sort-of-annual Stupendously Ultimate First Paragraph Challenge coinciding with the release of Jacob Wonderbar and the Interstellar Time Warp! Please do check out the trilogy. It’s fun for you! Fun for you too! Fun for you, person in the fancy sweater in the back! Yeah. Especially you. […]

The SUFPC No. 5 Finalists! (As introduced by the Dowager Countess)

February 8, 2013 by Nathan Bransford 140 Comments

Goodness me! It pains me to have been forced to judge an affair as middle class as a first paragraph contest. Are we now to share our inner thoughts with one another in public? Are we all artists, running naked in the streets? How horrid. Lord Bransford told me that the caliber of entries was […]

SUFPC #5 Word Cloud!

February 8, 2013 by Nathan Bransford 22 Comments

Back because it’s tradition, the Stupendously Ultimate First Paragraph word cloud! I took all 100,000 words in all the entries and here are the most common ones. As always, “like” looms large. Thanks to the good people at Wordle for the tool: Finalists will be announced tomorrow! Yes, really! I will have read all 800+ entries! And judged […]

The 5th Sort-of-Annual Stupendously Ultimate First Paragraph Challenge!

February 4, 2013 by Nathan Bransford 842 Comments

UPDATE: TIME’S UP! COMMENTS CLOSED! It’s the grandaddy of them all. The big kahuna. The 32 oz porterhouse with a side of awesome. It’s our FIFTH Sort-of-Annual um don’t point out that the last one was two years ago oops too late Stupendously First Paragraph Challenge!!! Do you have the best paragraph of them all? […]