The Ugly Contest:

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Well, we want you to kick some dirt into the eye of anyone reading your piece of poetry or prose!

Get Your Ugly On

This competition is open to all writers who feel they’ve got a little bit of ugly in them. Y’see, beauty is everywhere. It’s in the notes of a songbird, the fire of a sunrise, or the curves of a lady (or man, whichever is your interest). We don’t want any of that rubbish. We want to see the places where the cracks open up, where the make-up comes off and the true image is seen*. We want to get a feel for the streets through the holes in our shoes. After reading your piece, we want to wake up cold and hung-over, dragging grimy clothes over our grimier bodies to go and work in a grotty little kitchen washing disgusting dishes caked with pork fat**. We want to see the breaking point of human decency in the line at a soup kitchen***. Corruption, desperation, betrayal, and despair -- these are the tools of the trade when approaching this contest.

BUT WAIT!

Let us get one thing clear -- this is not an invitation to write badly. You can’t have every word being profane (unless it’s some really clever story device -- in which case go for your life), you can’t have wooden characters with no depth doing things that are gruesome for no reason. You can’t have badly worded paragraphs explaining how ‘she liek ttly wanted 2 kil herselff cos she wuz ugly omg’. Writing ugly without writing badly is just as difficult as writing beautifully without writing badly. We want you to make friends with the flip side and present it as well as you can. Make us be there, make us want to get a little filth on our hands, or maybe make us want to wash it off.

What kinda guys do you need for this?

You call yourself a writer? We want you. That means poets and prose monkeys.

Okay, I’ve heard your demands, now what’s in it for me?

Winner takes all. Life doesn’t give prizes for second and neither are we. The list of prizes is looking like this:

A 1-year subscription, print of equal or lesser value, or dA T-shirt;

A $30 Amazon books gift voucher (donated by *Adeimantus);

A copy of the current issue of Mimesis (donated by ^PoeticWar;

A trend mentioning the winner in signatures. This means that everyone who wants to is invited to link the winner’s account in some way shape or form in their signature. This can be abuse, praise, saying you know him/her, whatever you like;

A trend mentioning the winner in journals. Rather than a dreary old journal feature, we’re going to gather up some of the best writers on the site and get them to write whatever bullshit story they like about how they ‘know’ the winner. Everyone with a pulse is invited to do the same;

A recording of your story or poem by the histrionically accurate *salshep. The recording will then be featured in the awesome Soundzine;

A one-hour feature, critique, and discussion of the piece in #dalit with a half-hour general Q&A with the author beforehand (strictly enforced);

A stickied thread in the Lit Workshop forum where several members of the lit community have agreed to give the winning piece and one other chosen piece of work from the author's gallery advanced critique. This will be followed by advice on where to turn to try and get your piece published;

A miscellaneous journal features of 3 of the writer's works + the winning piece from whoever doesn’t have the balls to write a story about them.

Of course we are VERY amenable to further contribution to the prize list by members of the deviantART community, so if you are feeling this contest, feel your god damn wallet out from your pants and show your support!

Right, who do I see to get this gig going?

To help you along with getting the right idea for the contest, here are some links to extracts from some pretty ugly writing executed well:

Irvine Welsh – Porno (Warning: 18+ Material)
[link]

Chuck Palahniuk -- Choke
[link]

The Sin City Comics
Unfortunately since the movie came out, it’s pretty much impossible to give you an example of the comics, however since I’m sure you’ve all seen the movie (and if you haven’t you’re immediately disqualified from the contest****) you’ll know what I mean when I say that they are ugly done damn well.

Money: A Suicide Note – Martin Amis
[link]

When's the hit due?

You've got around two months from the date of this news post. To make it easier to remember, we'll set it as November 1st. Please note, this doesn't mean that you can wait until the last week and then rattle off the first thing that comes to your head. We'll be taking note of who is trying to get critique on their work, and who is really putting in the effort to try and get their piece polished for the due date. The literature workshop forum is there for anyone that wants to use it, as are chat rooms such as #damnlit, #dalit, and, occasionally, #litffs. We want polished pieces people -- half-arsed rambles need not apply.

Fine, I'm interested. Where do I send my application?

Note =apocathary with a link to your story. Any questions can be directed to him as well.

Spread the word, and good luck!





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_{*Please do not take that as the signal to write about some prom queen who is really very ugly when she takes off her make-up.
**No stories about dish cleaners either.
***We think you’re getting the picture.
****How would we find out? Honestly, think before you kick up a fuss.}