Mythic Beast Studios
Once upon a time, Mythic Beast was my favorite baby.
It was a Greek-myth-themed quarterly short story contest.
I announced the short story theme, and writers had about three months to put together a short story based on it.
I read and judged every entry, awarding the winner a cash prize.
The idea was that once a year, my filmy friends and I would turn one of the four winning stories from the year into a short film. ‘
At first, the contest was free to enter.
But it was always my plan to eventually start charging an entry fee for the Mythic Beast contest. I made no secret of this to my followers.
I would still award a cash prize. And a percentage of every entry fee that came in would go to increase that prize. Another part of the entry fees would go toward financing the films we made about the short stories.
At the contest’s height, I was getting several hundred short stories every time. That meant the final award would have been around $900 (if not more).
In theory… great concept!
And everything worked just as planned for awhile.
We even made one of the contest winners into a short film—FRIGID, a creepy-ass retelling of Pygmalion by author K.N. Johnson.
So what happened? Why’d Mythic Beast go belly-up?
Weird story… the contest got too successful.
As word about the contest spread, I just couldn’t keep up with all the reading. And the quality of the stories that were coming in was better and better. Judging was TOUGH. It took a huge amount of mental energy.
And it also cost a lot of money to run.
When it came time for me to start charging entry fees for the stories, I was 100% up-front with my followers.
However, I knew there’d be backlash.
In the screenwriting contest world, entry fees are expected.
In the short story contest world, entry fees are usually frowned upon. I don’t know why screenwriters are totally okay with paying entry fees, while fiction writers feel deeply insulted by it. But such is the chaotic and confusing nature of our so-called world, Nancy.
I knew it, and I was prepared to deal with it.
I also knew that when I started charging a fee, the number of contest entries I’d get would drop dramatically. It would take time—perhaps years—to build the number of entries back up to 100 or more for each contest.
And as the prophecy foretold, that’s what happened.
When I started the entry fee, the number of contest entries seriously dropped.
On one hand, that was great! Now I actually had time to run the contest!
On the other hand… I was already burned out. My mental reserves were gasping their last breaths. Mythic Beast felt more like a chore than a fun project I was sharing with other fiction writers. I didn’t want to do it anymore.
So when people stopped submitting stories… I stopped running the contest.
It’s possible that there’s a way to run Mythic Beast in a manner that wouldn’t deplete my energy and financial resources. But I didn’t find that way.
Maybe I will in the future.
Meanwhile… go read some excellent mythology-themed stories by badass short fiction writers.