Rusty Fears 6: Remnants of Fear
As we look ahead to The Magnus Archives 2, we will be resurrecting The Magnus Archives podcast feed with bonus content, looks behind-the-scenes and other fun things! We are also preparing for our Kickstarter crowdfunding on 30th October over on our Twitch channel with fun, games, and special guests including Alexander J Newall and Jonathan Sims themselves.
With all of that in mind, it’s time for one of our legendary horror writing competitions.
Rusty Fears has been a staple here at Rusty Quill, and with The Magnus Archives 2 on the horizon, we want to once again showcase some of the best in new and undiscovered horror writing talent, this time with our best ever prize.
As with all of our previous Rusty Fears competitions, six winners will be chosen to have their stories, read, produced and broadcast on The Magnus Archives feed. However, in our biggest ever competition, the winning stories will also appear on RQ Network shows, bringing your words to a huge audience.
And that’s not all.
From the six chosen winners, fans will choose their favourite writer, who will be given the opportunity to write a statement which will be included in the The Magnus Archives 2.
This year, we would like to read your tales on one of the following themes:
- Game show
- Beach
- Frozen
- Birds
- Window
- Telescope
How you interpret these is up to you, but we’ll be on the lookout for original takes and/or exploration of tropes that might be less well-known in traditional Western media.
Some important tips we’d also like to offer:
- We are not looking for The Magnus Archives style statements, or anything that is set in the Magnus universe or features Magnus characters or events. The overall winner will be given a specific brief with strict parameters and points to hit, in the style of any professional writer’s room, so do not waste your time trying to pre-write a statement!
- Try to think about how the story might appear in audio format (and listen to previous winning entries of Rusty Fears to hear how we usual produce them). Be careful to not have too much dialogue or too many characters as this can be too complex to produce in the Rusty Fears style.
- Entries should abide by the standards as presented in The Magnus Archives, and avoid lazy & inappropriate horror tropes like (but not limited to) queer-coded ‘evil’, sexual trauma and mental illness stigmatisation.
- Entries should be in prose, not script format. Do not write a “statement” in the style of The Magnus Archives.
- Entries should be submitted in GoogleDocs, or via a similarly accessible link. Entries we can’t open won’t get judged, so do double check you have your settings correct before sending.
For more information, please ensure you read the Terms and Conditions in full. If you have any further questions, please email mail@rustyquill.com.
Fears 6: A Rusty Quill Writing Competition
Terms and Conditions
- Competition opens at 4pm BST on Monday 24th October 2022
- Competition closes at 11:59pm BST on Sunday 4th December 2022
- Submissions should be made via this SUBMISSION FORM, with all relevant fields filled in.
- Any questions regarding the competition should be emailed to mail@rustyquill.com.
- There will be 6 (SIX) winning entries, and the prize for each winning entry is to have the winning short story recorded, produced, and broadcast by Rusty Quill Ltd.
- Of these 6, 1 (ONE) overall winning writer will be selected to have to the opportunity to write a canon statement to be featured in The Magnus Archives 2.
- Entries should be an original short story in the horror genre, with a word count between 1,000 and 2,500 words (not including title).
- Entries should incorporate one of the contest themes, either Game Show, Beach, Frozen, Birds, Window, or Telescope.
- Entries must be written in English (or English dialect).
- Due to data laws in the UK, all entrants must be eighteen or over.
- You may use first, second or third-person perspective for the piece.
- Entries submitted must not have been accepted for publication or recording elsewhere at the time of submission.
- We are looking for stories NOT statements. Please do NOT submit stories set in the Magnus-verse or use The Magnus Archives characters/events/IP in your submission.
- Entries should be in prose NOT script format, nor should it read like a statement that would be used in The Magnus Archives.
- Entries should be submitted in GoogleDocs format or via a similarly accessible link (e.g. link to a pdf in GDrive). Ideally, entries should be PDFs or google docs, with 1.5 line spacing. We recommend using a simple font (such as Calibri or Times New Roman) rather than one that may be difficult to read. However, these are just recommendations: we will not penalise an entry which is formatted or submitted differently, as long the text is legible and accessible to our judges.
- If a submitted link is inaccessible to the judging team, the entry will be deemed invalid
- No more than 1 (ONE) entry per person; collaborations are permitted but will not allow for those writers to submit individual entries as well.
- Please note that while collaboratively written stories can win the Rusty Fears writing competition, only one writer may win the overall prize of writing a canon statement for The Magnus Archives 2.
- Entries should abide by the standards as presented in The Magnus Archives, and avoid lazy & inappropriate horror tropes such as (but not limited to) queer-coded ‘evil’, sexual trauma and mental illness stigmatisation.
- The winning entries may undergo script editing before transmission.
- The winning entry will be read/voice acted by members of the Rusty Quill Crew and the episodes will be broadcast publicly in due course.
- Whilst copyright in the winning entries remains vested with the respective writers, the writers agree to freely licence the work and any adaptation thereof to Rusty Quill Ltd, who may use it as they see fit with appropriate credit given where due.
- This competition is not open to employees of Rusty Quill Ltd or their relatives.
- In the unlikely event that we do not receive any entries that meet our standards, Rusty Quill reserves the right to decline to name & produce any winning entries.
- Terms and conditions are subject to change.
- The judges’ decision is final and no communication with writers about non-winning entries can be entered into
- Due to the number of entries we received, we cannot offer individual feedback on entries.
Rusty Fears 5 winners
- Inheritance by Matrim Tait
- Casting Line by Sarina H
- Derailing by Josefin Berntsson
- Final Sale of the Remaining Works of E. Cutler by Cormack Baldwin
- Tower by Jennifer Hunt
Rusty Fears 4 winners
- Nazar by Anushka Mehrotra
- New Roots by Cecelia Morelli
- The Budding by Thekla Kenneison
- The Final Culling by Miranda B
Rusty Fears 3 winners
- Nox Mare by Elizabeth Wynn
- The Turning of the Gears by Duncan Watson
Rusty Fears 2 winner
- The Iron Gate by Cailyn Toomey
Rusty Fears 1 winners