Francophone
Expressions

BY YOUNG WRITERS
IN FRENCH

SHORT STORY AND POETRY WRITING CONTEST

TERMS AND CONDITIONS
RULES TO PARTICIPATE

Eligible candidates are those who are

  1. Indian citizens.
  2. Enrolled as a student in an Indian Govt. or Private educational institution (part-time course, full time course, correspondence course) during the current academic year (not necessarily in French language studies).
  3. Amateur authors and do not have professional earnings from writing. 
  4. Aged minimum 15 years and maximum 30 years on the last date of application.

Three Different Levels of Participation

If the candidate does not have DELF, then s.he has to provide its equivalent

  1. Students who are native speakers of French language. 
  2. Students who have French as their mother tongue.
  3. Students who come from a country where French is an official language or is considered a language of communication.
  4. Students who are studying in an academic institution which offers bilingual mode of instruction/ teaching and have French as one of the two languages.
  5. Employees of E&B, and their immediate family members; E&B’s contributing editors and correspondents; E&B’s Workshops instructors.
  1. Manuscripts in French must not have been published prior to the competition. 
  2. Manuscripts in French must be original work by the author. The text should not be copied in part(s) or in its entirety from any source. In case any part of the text is found to be copied from another source, the entry will be disqualified. 
  3. The entry must be original, in French, unpublished and unproduced, not accepted by any other publisher at the time of submission. Any piece posted online, anywhere other than a personal blog, is considered published. 
  4. E&B assumes all entries are original and are the works and property of the entrant, with all rights granted therein. 
  5. Submissions must not contain any content or material that: 
    1. infringes upon or otherwise violates the copyright, trademark, trade secret, or other intellectual property or proprietary rights of any person or entity; 
    2. is defamatory or constitutes an invasion of privacy; 
    3. is unlawful; 
    4. would reasonably cause harm or injury of any kind to any person or entity; or 
    5. discriminates against any person or entity in any manner whatsoever. Each winning entrant is responsible for obtaining all necessary permissions for use of excerpts and quotations from third party works prior to submission. Excerpts and quotations must be properly credited according to accepted manuscript standards.
  1. Entries may be submitted through the Form available on this website for this purpose.
  2. Please submit text only; illustrations are not accepted.
  3. The candidate is responsible for posting and sending the entry/manuscript, the completed application form and other relevant documents.
  4. Entries must be written during the contest year. 
  5. Cover pages are not requested or necessary.
  6. The author has to submit the entry using her/his personal e-mail. Entry submitted by any other person will not be accepted. 
  7. Entries must be accompanied by:
    1. Teacher’s/Academic institution’s/ Institutional authority’s  duly filled form regarding the enrolment and French lavel of the candidate. 
  8. A candidate may enter one or more short stories and/or poems for contests. 
  1. Any author/ entrant will not be able to edit the entry once it has been submitted. All edits should be done prior to uploading the file. 
  2. Once an entry has been submitted, no edits, replacements or exchanges will be accepted. If you wish to submit an edited version of a previously submitted entry, you should enter it as a new entry (fees at the time of submission do apply; you need to edit the title slightly as well so that you can differentiate them).
  3. If you enter the contest multiple times with multiple entries, please excuse duplicate emails, as you may receive an email for each separate entry.
  1. Short stories: Word Count must be 2,000 words or less.
    1. Themes for short stories: 
      1. Action
      2. Adventure
      3. Comedy
      4. Crime/ Thriller
      5. Fantasy/ Mystery
      6. Historical fiction
      7. Political
      8. Romance
      9. Science fiction
  2. Poems:  Line Count for any style of poem, must be between 20-32 lines.
    1. Rhyming Poem 
    2. Non-rhyming Poem.
  1. Story entries:
    1. It refers to all words making up the story (no matter the number of letters in the word). 
    2. It does not count the title in the word count.
  2. Poetry entries: 
    1. For poetry entries, supply a line count instead of a word count. 
    2. Line counts should include all the lines containing text. 
    3. It does not count blank lines between stanzas.
    4. It does not count the title in the word count.

Entries not respecting the word/line count requirements will be disqualified.

 

Evaluation for short stories will be based on the  following criteria

Beginning:  

Does writer engage the reader’s attention immediately?  

Is the tone, setting and character established quickly?

Characterization:  

Are characters believable, well-rounded?  

Actions and interactions consistent and well motivated?

Plot:  

Does progression seem inevitable without being too predictable?  

Is story interesting and compelling to read? 

Conflict:  

Does protagonist have a problem serious enough for the reader to care about? 

Is it solved satisfactorily? 

Style:  

Is writing fresh and free of clichés? 

Does it reveal writer’s own vision and attitude clearly?  

Are viewpoint changes and pacing handled smoothly?         

Mechanics:

Is grammar and punctuation correct? Spelling accurate?  

Does the manuscript have the qualities of a professional output?  

Are historical details consistent and correct?   (in case it is a document with historical inputs)

 

Evaluation for poetry will be based on the following criteria

1

Theme Development   

2

Choice of words/Phrases

3

Rhyme/Rhythmic Flow

4

Originality of Thoughts

5

Impact of Poem

In case the judges/advisors deem fit, they may conduct an online interview or a telephonic interview with the entrant to compliment their final evaluation of an entry.

  1. On entering this contest the candidate/ entrant agrees to have read all the terms and conditions related to FE mentioned in this document as well as on the website of E&B and agrees to abide by all of them.
  2. The entrant also agrees to follow the updates in rules which shall be announced by E&B during the contest.
  1. E&B retains exclusive, royalty-free commercial publication and reproduction rights for the winning entries to be published in full or in part in an E&B’s publication or through its partner publishing house for a period of five years. 
  2. The Author/ entrant gives his permission to E&B to publish the full entries, extract of entries, name of the authors, on its website, facebook, e-mailer, newsletter, promotional material in the context of E&B activities as and when required for a period of five years.
  3. For the avoidance of doubt, the scope of full reproduction / full publishing is limited to publishing the story in an anthology and / or e-book format.
  4. E&B is not liable for any copyright infringement on the part of the entrant and will not become involved in copyright disputes. The responsibility remains and lies entirely with the candidate/ entrant.
  5. A completed and signed Copyright Waiver Form must accompany your submission (template provided by E&B). 
  6. Authors retain all ownership of their work.
  1. E&B may, in its sole discretion, prohibit any person from entering the Contest whom it believes to be abusing the rules of the contest. 
  2. Such abuse includes but is not limited to falsification of information and/or identity, plagiarism, racial discrimination and bigotry.
  3. In case an entry is found to be inappropriate and containing provocative/conflictal elements for general public, the judges/advisors have the right to reject that entry. The judges/advisors are not liable to provide any justification to the entrant or any other person/entity. No communication in this regard shall be entertained.
  1. E&B is not liable for failure to perform their obligations under these rules if such failure is as a result of Acts of God (including natural disasters and pandemic), Acts of War, civil unrest, usurped power or confiscation, terrorist activities, prevention by statutes, or interruption or massive and sustained failure of electricity, internet or telephone service.
  2. Any extension / reduction of contest and / or the judging window will be at the sole discretion of the organisers, and will be notified on the website if extended.
  3. E&B Governing Body reserves the right to change, amend, modify, suspend, continue or terminate all or any part of the contest either in an individual case or in general, at any time without notice.
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