The Flash Fiction Challenge 2021 (herein, the “Competition”, the “Contest”, or the “Contest”) “http://www.nycmidnight.com” (the “Contest Website”) The names “NYC Midnight Movie Making Madness”, “Midnight Movie Making Madness”, “Movie Making Madness”, “NYC Midnight”; the acronyms “NYCMMMM” and “MMMM”; the tag lines “Inspiring Challenges for Storytellers”; and the Internet website uniform resource locator (URL) www.nycmidnight.com, are all United States and international trademarks solely owned by NYC Midnight Movie Making Madness, LLC. No use of these trademarks, or any of them, is permitted, absent the express prior written permission of a Managing Member of the LLC on a case-by-case basis. All text and other material appearing within and otherwise posted or distributed in connection with the Contest is: 2021 NYC Midnight Movie Making Madness, LLC. All Rights Reserved. No copying, distribution, or any other use of these materials or the pictures, or accounts of the Competition are permitted, absent the express prior written permission of a Managing Member of the LLC on a case-by-case basis. “Official Rules” (Official Flash Fiction Challenge 2021 Rules & Participation Agreement) This Agreement, comprised of the Official Rules of the Contest as set forth herein, is made and entered into by and between the individual registering for the Contest (hereinafter, the “Entrant”), on the one hand; and NYC Midnight Movie Making Madness, LLC (hereinafter, the “LLC”), on the other hand. By paying the entry fee and registering for the Contest, the Entrant indicates that the Entrant accepts the terms and conditions in the Official Rules as set forth herein. This Agreement and the Official Rules shall govern Entrant’s participation in “The Flash Fiction Challenge 2021,” and the intended creation by Entrant of a short story as within-described, as part of that Competition, pursuant to the provisions set forth herein. Entrant and the LLC are hereinafter referred to as the “Parties”. The Parties hereby further agree as follows: 1. All Contestants Bound By These Rules - Entrant hereby agrees to take part in The Flash Fiction Challenge 2021, which will be conducted by the LLC and is currently scheduled to take place between July 9, 2021 and December 12, 2021. These Official Rules (herein, “Official Rules”) apply to The Flash Fiction Challenge 2021 and to each and every Entrant who enters the Competition. 2. Rules and Communications - Any Entrant that enters a story in this Contest or otherwise communicates with NYC Midnight Movie Making Madness, LLC (the “LLC”) regarding this Contest, shall be deemed to have carefully read, reviewed, and specifically agreed to all of the text of these Official Rules; and also to any prior, other, and further writings of text; including, without limitation, rules and postings relating to the Contest (collectively, “Communications”) which the LLC may in the past, present, or future issue, distribute, post, or otherwise make available (collectively, “Communicate”) to prospective Contest entrants by e-mail, by mail, by fax, by hand, via Internet posting, and/or otherwise in any other manner. E-mail alone shall suffice to constitute notice to any Entrant, if and in the event that such method is elected for notice purposes by the LLC for any specific Communication. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the LLC does not and shall not solicit any entered stories (hereinafter, “Entries” or “Entered Stories”) by the mail or by other electronic means; and rather, relies upon word-of-mouth within the creative writing, screenwriting and film communities to foster further recognition of the Contest and a resulting adequacy of the number of quality Entries. 3. Entry Fee & Entry Deadline (Individual) - The Entry Fee is US$48 on or before Thursday, June 10, 2021 (“Early Entry Deadline”) and US$58 after June 10, 2021 until 9PM EDT on Friday, July 9, 2021 (“Final Entry Deadline”). The entry fee must be received in full by the LLC on or before the Final Entry Deadline to participate in the Flash Fiction Challenge 2021. Once the registration is completed online and Entry Fee are received in full and in proper order by the LLC, a confirmation e-mail will be sent to the Entrant as identified in The Flash Fiction Challenge 2021 online registration form, to the e-mail address identified in online registration form, confirming the corresponding Entrant’s registration in the Competition. Refunds for the Entry Fee must be requested in writing by email to [email protected]. Any refund request that is received at least 24 hours before the Contest is scheduled to start will be refunded in full within 30 days of the Refund Request date. If there are less than 24 hours before the competition is scheduled to start or if the Contest has already started, the Entry Fee will become non-refundable. 4. Exercise of Skill - This Contest requires an exercise of skill, only, and is NOT a game of chance in any respect whatsoever. Page 1 of 7 | The Flash Fiction Challenge 2021 5. Competition Schedule – The Contest has a total of 4 writing challenges and 3 rounds of competition. Every registered writer is guaranteed to compete in 2 writing challenges and as many as 4 challenges based on their placement in each round. The schedule of the challenges is below: 1st round - Challenge #1: 11:59PM EDT on July 9, 2021 until 11:59PM EDT on July 11, 2021. 1st round - Challenge #2: 11:59PM EDT on September 10, 2021 until 11:59PM EDT on September 12, 2021. 2nd round - Challenge #3: 11:59PM EDT on October 29, 2021 until 11:59PM EDT on October 31, 2021. 3rd round - Challenge #4 : 11:59PM EST on December 10, 2021 until 11:59PM EST on December 12, 2021. 6. 1st Round (Challenge #1: July 9, 2021 - July 11, 2021) : Each properly-registered Entrant will be placed into a “Group” in the 1st Round which will include a number of other Entrants against whom the so-placed Entrant will initially compete. There will be up to 150 Groups in the 1st Round. Each Group will be assigned a genre, location and object as chosen by the LLC.. Each group is assigned a genre, a location and an object (“Genre, Location and Object Assignment”) that must be included in the story. Once the judging is complete, writers receive points based on what place they end up in the challenge (see below): 1st Place 15 points 6th Place 10 points 11th Place 5 points 2nd Place 14 points 7th Place 9 points 12th Place 4 points 3rd Place 13 points 8th Place 8 points 13th Place 3 points 4th Place 12 points 9th Place 7 points 14th Place 2 points 5th Place 11 points 10th Place 6 points 15th Place 1 point 7. 1st Round (Challenge #2: September 10, 2021 – September 12, 2021) : Writers compete in the same group they were placed in for Challenge #1. Writers receive a new Genre, Location and Object Assignment which must be included in their story. Writers receive points based on what place they end up in the challenge (the same points listed in above in paragraph #7). The total points from Challenge #1 and #2 are added together, and the top 5 writers in each group advance to the 2nd Round. For example, if a writer comes in 4th place (12 points) in Challenge #1 and 13th place (3 points) in Challenge #2, than his/her total points for the 1st Round is 15 points. If 15 points is among the top 5 highest point totals in the group, than the writer will advance to the 2nd round of the competition. In cases of ties, the writer with the highest placement in either of the challenges will advance. For example, if two writers are tied for 5th place with 16 points, with one writer placing 1st (15 points) and 15th (1 point) in the challenges and the other writer placing 8th (8 points) and 9th (7 points) in their corresponding challenges, the writer who placed 1st in one of the challenges will advance because of the higher placement. If a winner can still not be decided (i.e. both writers highest placement is the same), then the writer that places higher in Challenge #2 will advance. Points are not used beyond the 1st Round of the competition, and the placement and point totals of each writer in the 1st Round will have no bearing on future rounds. 8. 2nd Round (Challenge #3: October 29, 2021 – October 31, 2021) : Writers are again placed randomly in Groups. There are up to 25 groups in the 2nd round. Each group receives a new Genre, Location and Object assignment that must be included in the story. The top 3 writers in each group will advance to the 3rd round of the competition. 9. 3rd Round (Challenge #4: December 10, 2021 – December 12, 2021) : The top 3 writers from each group in the 2nd round are placed in the final group, with a total of up to 75 writers. The group receives a new Genre, Location and Object assignment that must be included in the story. The results of the previous rounds have no effect on the judging in the 3rd Round, and the writers that are chosen as 1st Place, 2nd Place, 3rd Place, etc… in the 3rd Round will be the overall winners of the Flash Fiction Challenge 2021. 10. Groups - No Entrant shall gain any advantage based upon the story genre, location and object to which they are assigned. Each of the Entrants has, at the outset, an equal chance of winning their Group, subject to the requisite exercise of skill cited hereinabove.