Twenty participants, nine challenges, and hundreds of votes later, we've reached the end of Last Drabble Writer Standing, round 4. First of all, I'd like to congratulate ifanciful and saraannette for making it this far. I know this has been said several times already, but both of you are extremely talented writers and definitely one of the most talented final pairs we've ever had.

( Results and banners under the cut )

Voting is now closed, and I'm working on counting the votes and making the banners. Results will be posted tomorrow :)

Thank you to ifanciful and saraannette for getting your drabbles in! It was tough, and both of you just barely made it, but the drabbles are all outstanding.

Identities will NOT be screened this weeks in hopes that readers will take into account not only this week's drabbles, but also both contestants' previous drabbles when voting.

The rules for voting are as follows:

1. There are two groups of entries. The first consists of drabbles written for the prompts the authors came up with for each other, and the second consists of free choice drabbles. You will be asked to vote for your favourite of each group, and then vote for which author you believe should be the last drabble writer standing. Each vote in the first two polls counts for one point, and each vote in the third poll counts for two.
2. The drabbles are all rated PG and may contain hints of femmeslash. Proceed no further if that offends you.
3. Read with an open mind, and vote fairly. Please try to remember that the length and pairing of a drabble should not affect your judgment of its quality.
4. Contestants are not allowed to vote for themselves. If you vote for yourself, your vote will not be counted.
5. ** PLEASE TAKE NOTE OF THIS ** Voting will remain open until Thursday, June 26 at 11 PM EST. This should give readers time to both review authors' past drabbles and read this week's drabbles. The final results will be announced on Friday.

( Drabbles and voting )

This is just a friendly reminder for our final two authors, ifanciful and saraannette.

Your drabble entries are due tomorrow. Please post them as comments on this post before 11 pm EST tomorrow (that's 10 pm on Friday if you're in the midwest, 8 pm on Friday if you're on the west coast, 4 am on Saturday if you're in the UK, and 1 pm on Saturday if you're in Sydney), or you'll be disqualified.

Thank you, and good luck writing

Thank you to both saraannette and ifanciful for getting your challenges in on time :)

( Prompts for the part one of the final challenge )

ifanciful has requested an extension, which means the deadline for both drabbles will be moved to Sunday, June 22 at 11 PM EST. Don't forget that drabbles must be submitted as comments on this post.

Good luck writing!

This is just a friendly reminder for ifanciful and saraannette. Your challenges for each other are due later today (Friday, June 13) at 11 PM EST. Please email them to shmexsay@yahoo.com. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask :)

Challenge 9: The Final Challenge

For our last LDWS challenge, contestants will, once again, submit two entries. Anonymity will not be maintained, which means that for the first time, readers will know who they're voting for.

For the first drabble, we'll continue the tradition of having the participants challenge each other. Each of the final two must come up with a challenge for her opponent and email it to shmexsay@yahoo.com by Friday, June 13 at 11 PM EST. This is to ensure easy back-and-forth discussion of the challenge if needed. Once I've checked the challenges and deemed them equal in difficulty, I'll post them to the community. Both contestants must then post their drabbles as a comment on this post by Friday, June 20 at 11 PM EST.

The second drabble is, once again, free choice. Contestants may submit their free choice drabble any time between now and the June 20 deadline.

- Challenges for the first drabble must be emailed to shmexsay@yahoo.com, NOT posted as a comment. The deadline for challenges is Friday, June 13 at 11 PM EST.
- Drabbles must be between 100-499 words.
- Comments on this post will be screened. Please comment with your submissions and the following template:
<b>Title:</b> <b>Author:</b> This will be removed until the results. <b>Rating:</b> <b>Warnings:</b> <b>Word Count:</b>
- Both entries are due by Friday, June 20 at 11 PM EST.
- Please do not post your entry anywhere else until voting is over.
- If you have any questions regarding the challenge, feel free to comment on this post with them. All questions will be left unscreened in case anyone else is curious about the same thing.
- To ensure that all challenges and entries are turned in on time, please let me know if you need an extension. I am willing to extend both deadlines a few days if needed.

Remember to check out the voting post to see who wrote your favourite drabbles.

( Results and banners under the cut )

The final challenge will be posted shortly.

Thank you to all three finalists for getting their drabbles in on time! This week, they each had to write two drabbles, the prompts for which can be found here.

The rules for voting are as follows:

1. There are two groups of entries. The first consists of drabbles written for one of the three prompts given, and the second consists of free choice drabbles. In both groups, entries are listed in random order, which means Prompted 1 isn't necessarily written by the same author as Free Choice 1. To vote, you must read all six drabbles, then answer ALL FOUR QUESTIONS at the bottom of the post.
2. The drabbles are rated PG-13 and may contain slash. If that offends you, proceed no further.
3. Read with an open mind, and vote fairly. Please try to remember that the length and pairing of a drabble should not affect your judgment of its quality.
4. Contestants are not allowed to vote for themselves. If you vote for yourself, your vote will not be counted.
5. You're free to post about this competition on your personal journal, but do not tell your friends which drabble you wrote. It's unfair to your own writing abilities and to the other participants.
6. ** PLEASE TAKE NOTE OF THIS ** Voting will remain open until Monday, June 9 at 11 PM EST. Results and the final challenge will be posted later that night.

( Drabbles and voting )

Though everyone probably already knows by now, the deadline for the final three contestants to submit their drabbles has been extended to June 7th at 11 PM EST. That's exactly one day after the original deadline. Please refer to the reminder post below this for time zone conversions.

ifanciful, lady_game, and saraannette: please post your drabbles as one comment in the challenge thread. Make sure you fill out a header for each drabble.

This is just a friendly reminder to our final three contestants:

ifanciful
lady_game
saraannette

Your drabble entries are due in about 26 hours. Please post them as comments on this post before 11 pm EST tomorrow (that's 10 pm on Friday if you're in the midwest, 8 pm on Friday if you're on the west coast, 4 am on Saturday if you're in the UK, and 1 pm on Saturday if you're in Sydney), or you'll be disqualified.

Also, if you need an extension, please let me know before the deadline, and I'll arrange it for you as long as the other contestants have no objections.

Challenge 8: The Final Three

First of all, congratulations to the remaining three drabble writers! All of you are extremely talented and deserve to be where you are.

This week’s challenge is a little different. Each of you will have to submit two entries.

For the first drabble, you must choose one of the following three prompts (make sure to note which one you chose in your warnings):

1. Regret
2. Epistolary
3. Amortentia

The second drabble is free choice.

- Drabbles must be between 100-499 words.
- Comments on this post will be screened. Please comment with your submission and the following template:
<b>Title:</b> <b>Author:</b> This will be removed until the results. <b>Rating:</b> <b>Warnings:</b> <b>Word Count:</b>
- Submissions are due by 11 pm EST on Friday, June 6.
- Please do not post your entry anywhere else until the challenge is over.
- If you have any questions regarding the challenge, feel free to comment on this post with them. All questions will be left unscreened in case anyone else is curious about the same thing.
- To ensure that all entries are turned in, please let me know if you need an extension. I am willing to extend the deadline a few days if needed.

As always, don't forget to check out the voting post to see who wrote what.

( Results and banners under the cut )

We're now down to three contestants. There's no doubt that this is one of the most talented top threes we've ever had. Who'll be the last drabble writer standing? Well, it all depends on how the voting goes in the next two weeks :D

Challenge 8 will be posted shortly.

Gah, again, I apologise for the late voting post. My internet always seems to have problems Friday night, and I was out all of today. Voting will be extended to 8 PM EST tomorrow to make up for the lost time. I think I might just make the voting deadline later from now on, since the time period seems to work better for most people -- we got twice as many votes as usual last week. That way, I can post the challenge immediately afterwards.

that_september has been eliminated for not turning in a drabble on time.

The rules for voting are as follows:

1. The drabbles are all rated G and should be fairly safe.
2. Read with an open mind, and vote fairly. Please try to remember that the length and pairing of a drabble should not affect your judgment of its quality.
3. Contestants are not allowed to vote for themselves. If you vote for yourself, your vote will not be counted.
4. You're free to post about this competition on your personal journal, but do not tell your friends which drabble you wrote. It's unfair to your own writing abilities and to the other participants.
5. Voting will remain open until Sunday at 8 PM EST.

( Drabbles and voting )

Posting early today since I'm at work :)

This is just a friendly reminder to all five of the remaining participants:

that_september
ifanciful
mossyjade
lady_game
saraannette

Your drabble entries are due in a little less than 28 hours. Please post them as comments on this post before 11 pm EST tomorrow (that's 10 pm on Friday if you're in the midwest, 8 pm on Friday if you're on the west coast, 4 am on Saturday if you're in the UK, and 1 pm on Saturday if you're in Sydney), or you'll be disqualified.

Challenge 7: Expecto Patronum

For the seventh challenge, write a drabble in which a canon character casts a Patronus for the first time. Why are they casting it? Which positive memory are they using? What shape does the Patronus take? These are all questions to consider, although it’s not mandatory to answer all of them.

- Drabbles must be between 100-499 words.
- Comments on this post will be screened. Please comment with your submission and the following template:
<b>Title:</b> <b>Author:</b> This will be removed until the results. <b>Rating:</b> <b>Warnings:</b> <b>Word Count:</b>
- Submissions are due by 11 pm EST on Friday, May 30.
- Please do not post your entry anywhere else until the challenge is over.
- If you have any questions regarding the challenge, feel free to comment on this post with them. All questions will be left unscreened in case anyone else is curious about the same thing.

The authors of the drabbles have been revealed in the voting post, so make sure to head on over and check out who wrote what!

( Results and banners )

Congratulations to the top 5! Challenge 7 will be posted shortly.

Sorry for the lateness of this voting post! My internet has been acting up, and I wasn't able to contact any of the other mods about posting the voting for me. The voting will be extended to 6 PM EST tomorrow to make up for the time lost.

The following participants have been eliminated for not turning in their drabbles on time:

my_quorum (dropped out)
i_claudia

Please note that if you did not turn a drabble, you've been disqualified and will be banned from participating in round 5.

The rules for voting are as follows:

1. The drabbles are rated up to PG-13 and should be relatively safe.
2. Read with an open mind, and vote fairly. Please try to remember that the length and pairing of a drabble should not affect your judgment of its quality.
3. Contestants are not allowed to vote for themselves. If you vote for yourself, your vote will not be counted.
4. You're free to post about this competition on your personal journal, but do not tell your friends which drabble you wrote. It's unfair to your own writing abilities and to the other participants.
5. Voting will remain open until Sunday at 6 PM EST.

( Drabbles and voting )

This is just a friendly reminder to all eight of the remaining participants:

mandy_jg
that_september
ifanciful
i_claudia
mossyjade
lady_game
my_quorum
saraannette

Your drabble entries are due in less than 24 hours. Please post them as comments on this post before 11 pm EST (that's 10 pm if you're in the midwest, 8 pm if you're on the west coast, and 4 am on Saturday if you're in the UK) tomorrow, or you'll be disqualified.

Thank you, and good luck writing!

Challenge 6: Twists and Turns

JK Rowling is known for introducing unexpected changes in the direction of the plot of her books to keep her readers hooked and guessing. For challenge 6, write a drabble that includes a major plot twist. Drabbles can be about anything you want, as long as the specified literary technique is used.

- Drabbles must be between 100-499 words.
- Comments on this post will be screened. Please comment with your submission and the following template:
<b>Title:</b> <b>Author:</b> This will be removed until the results. <b>Rating:</b> <b>Warnings:</b> <b>Word Count:</b>
- Submissions are due by 11 pm EST on Friday, May 23.
- Please do not post your entry anywhere else until the challenge is over.
- If you have any questions regarding the challenge, feel free to comment on this post with them. All questions will be left unscreened in case anyone else is curious about the same thing.