The Contest

Small Wars Journal and Motive International are opening a call for 1,200 to 1,800-word flash fiction submissions from fiction writers interested in envisioning the future of strategic influence. The contest will be judged by a panel of judges including the author of the bestseller World War Z Max Brooks and author of the Tom Locke series Dr. Sean McFate.

SUBMISSIONS WILL CLOSE ON 00:00 EST November 03 2024

GRAND PRIZE

  1. A $350 Cash Prize

  2. Personalized feedback & mentorship from each of our panel of judges.

  3. Opportunity to expand their story into a 5000 word short story to be featured in Small Wars Journal

  4. A very special invitation…

Winning Prizes

  1. A $100 Cash Prize

  2. Personalized feedback from the judge that nominated their work to the podium

  3. Opportunity to have their story featured in Small Wars Journal

Our Judges

  • Picture of Max Brooks, author of World War Z

    Max Brooks

    Best Selling Author of World War Z, and Devolution.

    Max's Work

  • Sean McFate

    Best Selling Author of The New Rules for War

    Sean's Work

  • Dr. Ajit Maan

    Founder and CEO of Narrative Strategies

    Dr. Maan's Work

  • Dr. Robert Schmidle

    Lieutenant General (RET), U.S. Marine Corps

    Robert's Work

Submission Guidlines

Word Count

Submissions must be between 1200 and 1800 words.

Title

Your work must contain a title, author, and date.

Originality

The work must be previously unpublished and must be your own work.

Use of AI

The use of generative AI for grammatical editing is permitted, the use of LLMs to produce the entire work or substantive portions is disqualifying. (ChatGPT, Bard, Writer X, etc)

Multiple Entries

You may submit a maximum of three (3) entries, one per unique prompt. Multiple entries received for the same prompt will be removed from consideration.

Prompts

Read or listen to the scene-setter and then select one of the prompts to be your primary focus.

Allowed Filetypes

Entry may be a .docx or .pdf file with no password or encryption.

Explicit Content

Please refrain from submitting stories with graphic sexual content, gratuitous violence, or excessive explicit language.

File Naming Convention

Please make sure your file name or each entry follows this convention:

LASTNAME_PROMPT#_TITLE