the rules
Write your story (or essay, or whatever). It must be under 2,500 words according to a common word processing application (Docs/Word/Pages). It must include a great surprise.
Submit your story via Writing Club. Writing Club is our free online writing community where 100s of writers write alongside each other weekly, give feedback, share good writing, and more. You don’t have to do any of that to submit - you can just create your account and send your writing - but it’s designed for exactly the kind of folks who enter writing contests :) Create a free account and submit here - takes 30 seconds.
You may only submit one entry. Once you submit, you cannot edit.
"What are the actual criteria for the judges?!"
The winner will be what judges consider the 1/ best writing with 2/ the best surprise. Writing something unbelievable for pure shock value is likely not a good strategy; you should aim to produce an excellent piece of writing overall.
A bad example of a surprise might be writing a basic narration about taking your dog for the walk, and then ending your story with the line “by the way, my dog is a god and rules over seven universes simultaneously.” It’s true that we wouldn’t have seen it coming, but it’s not a good surprise.
As for what a good example is, well... That’s up to you.
Good luck and happy writing.