Christopher Paolini's Fantasy Fiction

We are thrilled to have celebrated author Christopher Paolini on board as Head Judge in our latest Fantasy challenge. We’re asking you to submit your best work of Fantasy following the prompt below for a chance to win $10,000 and — how exciting is this? — an exclusive meet and greet over Zoom with Christopher, internationally-bestselling author of Eragon and the Inheritance Cycle.

​​The Prompt

In our Fantasy Prologue Challenge this summer, we invited you to start thinking about dragons — now you know why. We received thousands of submissions to this challenge, and we’re so glad to spotlight once again a genre that is both a classic and a favorite among the members of our community. Over the years, the Vocal creative community has demonstrated a keen affinity for stories themed around deep magic, debonair heroism, faraway lands, and mythical beasts. Dragons especially, of course.

“Community is incredibly important,” Christopher told us when we spoke to him, “which is why I’m participating in this challenge with Vocal. Because the act of writing – and reading – is so solitary, making connections with other people in that world and in that community becomes all the more crucial.” We have not one but three exclusive interviews with Christopher — read the first one here and we’ll be posting the next two during the course of the Challenge. Christopher’s words will definitely encourage you as you build your stories!

The Prizes

Grand Prize: $10,000 & Half Hour Zoom Call with Christopher Paolini

Second Place: $5,000 & Half Hour Zoom Call with Christopher Paolini

25 Runners-Up: $50

Judge

Christopher Paolini is the author of the international bestsellers Eragon, Eldest, Brisingr, and Inheritance, as well as The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm. His debut science fiction novel, To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, is now available. He resides in Paradise Valley, Montana, USA. Christopher was fifteen when he wrote the first draft of Eragon. His family decided to self-publish the book and spent a third year preparing the manuscript for publication. In summer 2002, author Carl Hiaasen, whose step-son had read a copy of the self-published book while on vacation in Montana, brought Eragon to the attention of his publisher, Alfred A. Knopf Books For Young Readers, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books. Michelle Frey, executive editor at Knopf, contacted Christopher and his family to ask if they might be interested in having Knopf publish Eragon. The answer was yes, and after another round of editing, Knopf published Eragon in August 2003.

Still need some help getting started?

Christopher has put together a few writing tips tailored to this challenge.

Tip #1 – PLOT!

Tip #2 – Pick an Idea You Love

Tip #3 – Worldbuilding

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Pro Tip: We generated the cover image for this challenge using DALL·E 2, a free AI text to image generator. You can use it to create a hero image for your submission.

For your story to be eligible, it should be between 600 and 5,000 words and adhere to our Community Guidelines. Stories published on Vocal and entered into the contest up until November 8, 2022, at 11:59 PM ET will be entered for consideration. Official Rules for the Challenge can be found here.

The Fantasy Fiction Challenge with Christopher Paolini is exclusive to Vocal+ members. To learn more and upgrade to Vocal+ visit https://vocal.media/vocal-plus.

To be eligible to win the grand prize, second place, or runners-up prizes, you must be over the age of 13 and residing in a country where Stripe is available at the time of entry. A complete list of countries where Stripe is available can be found here—winners will need to have a Stripe account created and connected in order to receive the prizes. For this reason, entrants located outside of any of these countries will not be eligible to win.