Life — May 20, 1915 — page 12: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“aie EVE How Short Can a Short Story Be? LiFE will pay one thousand dollars for the best shortest short story OW short can a short story be and yet be a short story? Lire would like to know. So would every writer, and, therefore, all writers are invited to join with Lire in making a practical test. Lire invites contributions of short stories. For the best ones received before noon of October 4, 1915, it will award three prizes of $1,000, $500 and $250. Extremely important is the fact that no story must ex- ceed fiftcen hundred words in length, Read carefully what follows: All manuscripts which are accepted for publication in Lire will be paid for at the rate of ten cents a word for every word under fifteen hundred words which the author does not write. To illustrate: if the accepted story is one hundred words in length, then the author will re- ceive $140, or ten cents a word for the fourteen hundred words which he did not write. For what he does write he receives no pay. If, on the other hand, the accepted story is fourteen hundred and ninety-nine words in length, the author will receive ten cents, This story, how- ever, will stand an equal chance of winning the prize with one which is very much shorter (say, one hundred words), as each story will be judged strictly on its merits as a story. ~ The stories will be published in Lire as soon as possible after they are accepted, and will be paid for on acceptance upon the basis which has just been defined. When they have all been published, then the final awarding of the $1,750 in prizes will be made in the following manner: The Editors of Lire will first select, out of all the stories published, the twelve which are, in their judgment, the best. The authors of these twelve stories will then be asked to become judges of the whole contest, which will then in- clude all the stories published. These twelve authors will decide which are the best three stories, in the order of their merit, to be awarded the prizes. In case, for any reason, any one or more of these twelve authors should be unable to act as judge, then the contest will be decided by the rest, Each of these twelve judges will, of course, if he so wishes, vote for his own story first, so that the final result may probably be determined by the combined second, third and fourth choices of all the judges. This, however, will not affect the result. In case of a division among the judges, the Editors of Lire will cast the deciding vote. There is no restriction placed upon the kind of story to be submitted. It may be humorous or tragic, as the author feels it, The final award will be announced as early as pos- sible after the last story has been published in Lire, Of this there will be due notice. Manuscripts will be ac- cepted from now on as fast as they can be read and passed upon. In every case they should be addressed, “To the Editor of Lire’s Short Story Contest, 17 West 3ist Street, New York City”, and the author’s name and address should be plainly written upon the manu- script, which should be accompanied by return postage in case of rejection. The editors will exercise due care in returning unavailable contributions, but will not hold themselves responsible for loss. Contestants are advised to keep duplicate copies. All manuscripts must be in Lire office by noon of Mon- day, October 4, 1915. No manuscripts received after that date will be considered. Each contestant may send in as many manuscripts as he desires. If any of the rules of this contest are violated the Editors of Lire reserve the right to debar the contri- butions. 7 “HASTE TO THE WEDDING”