Breakthrough!

Signing Up. To sign up for this activity, just let me know by posting in the forum below.

Content. There are absolutely no restrictions on content other than the word counts provided above. Items may include any subject matter or sub-genre, and ratings up to and including XGC are acceptable. For each Stage, you must write a different original story.

Word Count. You must post a word count at either the top or bottom of each entry.

Judging. The judge(s) are only here to ensure that you meet all the requirements for each Stage. At the very end of the competition there will be prizes for the best items, but otherwise you are not competing against anyone other than yourself for this activity. The judge(s) will only take quality into consideration if a particular item has been sloppily thrown together or appears to lack genuine effort. Aside from those hopefully rare situations, the judge(s) are only here to check for adherence to the rules and give you their stamp of approval to move on to the next round.

Individual Prizes. The primary prize for which everyone is eligible is simple: 1 GP per word. These gift points are awarded based upon the final word count of your item for each Stage; for a 600-word Stage 1 item, you get 600 GPs for that item. If you write a 2,634-word Stage 4 item, you get 2,634 GPs for that item. Assuming you finish all five Stages and write the maximum number of words possible, that's 19,375 GPs in prize money! And in addition to the GP reward, the following prizes will be given to anyone who completes all five Stages:

          An exclusive Breakthrough! Merit Badge.
          An Awardicon for the judges' favorite of your five items (value chosen at judges' discretion).

Grand Prize. The judges will award a high-value Awardicon (100K or higher) to the single best item among all the participants. You need not complete all five Stages to win this prize; all items submitted for any Stage of the activity will be included in the consideration for this prize.

Other Contest Eligibility. Your items must be newly-written (no work created before the opening date of this activity is accepted), but anything you create for this activity may be used in other contests provided you follow all the guidelines of both activities. If you want to write a Stage 1 entry and have it also count as an entry for "The Weekly Quickie Contest" , for example, that's totally fine as long as your story follows the requirements of both this activity and TWQ (including word counts, prompts, etc.).

Donations. Donations are gladly accepted. Any donations of 50,000 GPs or more will get a merit badge from my personal funds. If you donate more than 100,000 GPs, I'll make it one of our exclusive Breakthrough! badges!