Guidelines

We will be establishing some guidelines for SixWordStories, including what makes a six word story, what sort of things are allowed and what are not allowed. It would be in your best interest to follow these, if only so your deviation doesn't get declined. We don't decline many anyway, but we will always explain why your deviation is declined if it is.

We will be enforcing these from now on, so first, please read What is a Six Word Story? to get a general idea on what our definition of one is. Hopefully that will help.


Titles

Titles do not interfere with the six words word count if they are contextual. If six word stories stand on their own (makes sense on its own and acts as a proper story), then titles can be used to give context to the piece i.e influences the piece so that there are alternate interpretations.

However, if the title leads into the story, then more words are added, in that sense, and we do not allow those into the Group as the story does not make sense or act as a proper story on its own.


Batch Six Word Stories

We do not allow these anywhere, partly because you lose out (Members will simply remove stories that they can't fully read in the Preview). We did allow them in Freestyle, but we feel that it cheats the one deviation, per month rule.

If you come up with a batch, choose the best one and submit that one.


Contractions

We will allow contractions, but only one contraction will be allowed in the story. This will count as one word.

If there is more than one contraction, one will count as one word and the rest will count as two words.

If the word possesses another word like "Mother's cat", this does not count as a contraction and will be seen as two words.


Things we allow that do not count as one word at all:

Punctuation

Symbols/Abbreviations in front/before numbers (%, $, #, PM, GMT)


Things we allow that count as one word

Latin & Non-English Abbreviations (i.e, e.g, etc., P.S, R.S.V.P)

Common hyphenated words (ex-husband, will-o'-the-wisp, twenty-two). Thus, the uncommon count as two words.

&

Old English ('twas, 'tis)

Years (1978, 2001)


Things we do not allow

Text Speak (STFU, WTF, LOL, ROFL,)

Emoticon Symbols (:D, :P)

Math Symbols (+, = )


If you have any queries at all, please don't hesitate to contact us by commenting on this blog or sending us a note!