the pink alpaca awards 2024

Eligibility & Judging Criteria

Here are the basic eligibility criteria if you are aiming to join this contest. Your story needs to:

🪐 Be completed and marked so. A guide on how to mark stories complete on Wattpad will also be posted as an inline comment;
🪐 Have under 100K reads (yes, for both categories);
🪐 Not be in the following genres: Erotica, Horror, Fanfiction;
🪐 Not have graphic smut and gore. More of this in the FAQs;
🪐 Not contain any of the Wattpad cliches (CEO-drama, alpha-drama, badbois) without any attempt at subversion;
🪐 Have readable prose and reasonable grammar;
🪐 Be written in English;
🪐 Not in the Originals Program (because I'm broke af);
🪐 Follow Wattpad's Content Guidelines; and
🪐 Be the first book in a series. Or if part of a series, be a standalone where knowledge of other books is not needed.

Additional Criteria for The Rookie Cadets category:
None of the stories with a 10k+ word count in your profile have been selected in/won any user-run or Ambassador-run contests. Reading list features are okay, as well as being part of book clubs or the likes. You should also have been writing for less than 3 years since applying for this contest.

Additional Criteria for The Seasoned Veterans category:

The stories in your profile are one or all of the following:
🪐 Winners in any user-run or Ambassador-run contests;
🪐 Have been writing for 3+ years on or off Wattpad;
🪐 Have experience in publishing/querying, whether indie or traditional;
🪐 Have more than 100k reads (not necessarily the one you entered, but just one that sits there in your profile. This means that at one point, you got famous or smth)
🪐 Have been added to Official Wattpad Promotion lists like Editor's Pick, Curated Lists, or HQ Featured ones
🪐 Are in Originals Program (not necessarily the one you entered)

If you, yourself, are/have been part of the Creators/Stars, you are considered a Veteran.

Now, we get to the part where I explain how the process will work in judging. Who are the judges? The answer: me. And only me. Will I open hiring and stuff? No. This is done purely because of my own enjoyment of dealing with stories, whether by writing, reading, or critiquing them. So, it's only going to be me. Lol.

How will the judging happen? Stories will be accepted based on their payments and whether they are eligible or not. Once put into the queue, I will proceed to read the first chapter of your story and come up with a sort of longlist that tackles most of the preliminary things I have to check before starting a story. Hence, here are the preliminary judging rubrics to make it to the longlist:

Cover - 5 points
Blurb - 10 points
Hook - 20 points
Grammar/Prose - 15 points
Total: 50 points

All categories will follow this rubric, and all of the stories that reach 30 points and above will move to the longlist. At this stage, I will continue reading up to five chapters of your story to decide on the following:

Grammar/Prose - 10 points
Characterization - 10 points
Worldbuilding - 10 points
Plot Execution - 10 points
Narrative Voice - 10 points
Total: 50 points

All of the works that reach 30 points and above will move to the shortlist. At this stage, I will continue reading up to ten chapters of your story and come up with points based on the following:

Interest Retainment - 10 points
Character Development and Dynamics - 10 points
Pacing and Prose - 10 points
Writing Style - 10 points
Creativity and Innovation - 10 points
Themes and Arcs - 10 points
Dialogue and Scene Setting - 10 points
Total: 70 points

All of the works that reach 50 points and above will move to the final slate where I pick a single winner from both categories across the different lengths of work. That means I will declare one winner for the short story/novelette, novella, and novel category in the rookies and the veterans, a total of six works.

Why only one for each? Because reading whole works and providing reviews for 'em isn't going to be a walk in the backyard. Plus, I won't have a lot of time in between writing, life priorities, and other things like...say, doing a thesis.

Please also note that when I say "up to x chapters", I don't necessarily mean I'll read the specific amount for every story. I may only extend when I need more information on how to score the other categories more accurately. When I already got what I wanted from the minimum requirement of the stage (ie. longlist), I will stop reading and proceed with the judging. The chapter count isn't a guarantee, especially if there is a lot of stuff I noticed early on that carries over to the next chapters.

If I run out of chapters to read, especially for the shorter forms, and they reach past the longlist, they will be judged as a whole instead, so I don't have to re-read the full thing later on.

The possibility of there being not enough entries in each length category is entirely plausible, so I reserve the right to not make any get farther provided that the scores just aren't enough to move through. It's possible to not declare a winner in a select category.

Submissions will be open for a month, and judging will take place as soon as it closes. The results will be out depending on my schedule for the rest of the year, but I aim to announce winners in all categories on or before November 30th, 2024 (the profile's anniversary!). The reviews will take time, but rest assured they will be posted in the months to come.

Please remember that I'm doing this alone, and while I'm not expecting a ton of entries, wading through a fraction of them will still take up some time.

At the end of each stage, I will be posting updates along with the scores of the qualifying stories and some explanation on why I gave such a score. This means that you will get feedback along the way about the criteria in each stage, and if you reach the final slate, you're lucky because you already got half the full review I will offer the winner. This also means that I only need to comment on the ending of the winning stories and how they tie off the other feedback at the beginning of the contest. Also, the review of the winning stories will feature points for improvement as I have done in The Pink Alpaca Reads before.

Brace yourself, though. I don't hold back on my scores nor my comments.

Still here? Proceed to the next part to learn more about the payments, the prizes, and the submission guidelines.