The Winners of the
Twitter Writing Contest Are…

The results are in, and let me tell you… this was tough.

Just to review, the idea behind the Twitter Writing Contest was simple… compose a story in exactly 140 characters and post it on Twitter. I want to thank everyone who participated, because there are a ton of talented writers out there (even at 140 characters)!

Let me introduce the judges real fast before we proceed:

Lisa Hoover – Senior Editor at Linux.com and blogger for Weblogs, Inc. and the GigaOM network.
Tamar Weinberg – Social media power user and blogger/consultant for Lifehacker, Search Engine Roundtable, and Mashable.
Chris Garrett – New media consultant, authority blogging expert, and co-author of Problogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income.
Darren Rowse – Some guy in Australia.
Oh, and me… some guy not even cool enough to be in Australia.

If there’s one thing all the judges agree on, it’s that there were way too many great submissions for this to be an easy exercise. Voting was incredibly tight among the top tier of submissions.

We could have easily had 10 or more winners, but instead chose to expand the winner pool to five. So, there remains first, second and third places, plus two honorable mentions that will also receive prizes from late donors.

So here we go.

First Place:

“Time travel works!” the note read. “However you can only travel to the past and one-way.” I recognized my own handwriting and felt a chill.

Ron Gould

Ron is the lucky winner of the following swag:

An 8 GB iPod Touch thanks to the generosity of Start Cooking; plus…
$100 iTunes gift certificate to get you rolling courtesy of John Cow (also check out his Cowpetition for a chance to win $3,000 in other prizes); plus…
Three months access to Aaron Wall’s SEO Training Program; plus…
Full access pass to BlogWorld 2008.

Second Place:

Tony was a snitch, so I wasn’t surprised when his torso turned up in the river. What did surprise me, though, was where they found his head.

Anthony Juliano

Anthony scores the following stuff for his story:

4 GB iPod Nano courtesy of the Ajax Whois domain name service; plus…
$50 Amazon gift card courtesy of Planet Chiropractic; plus…
One full year of Business Plan web hosting, one domain name, and one WordPress installation courtesy of eVentureBiz; plus…
Better Business Blogging: The Simple 4 Step System to Attract, Sell and Profit through Smart Blogging (includes ebook, audio, transcripts and critiques of 6 business blogs).

Third Place

When Gibson hit that homerun in the fall of eighty-eight, my old man had never been so happy. He hugged me for the first time. I was eleven.

Thelonius Monk

Sorry, no jazz recordings, Thelonius. But we do have these other cool prizes for you:

Online Reputation Management ebook from Glen Allsopp; plus…
A 1-hour phone consultation with Confidential Hollywood Script Consultant Blair Richwood (Pretty Woman, Beaches, What About Bob?, etc.) on any part of film/TV writing you might be interested in; plus…
Landing Page Optimization ebook from Invesp Consulting; plus…
Four life coaching sessions from Professional Life Coach Tim Brownson; plus…
One month of First Blog Media’s professional podcasting service; plus…
A 6-session course from Link to Your Education entitled “Overview of Online Business Networking;” plus…
50 individual custom postcards from PostcardPerfect.

First Honorable Mention:

Happily sobbing she held the boy, her memory of his violent conception falling away. She had learned to love him, this would be her revenge.

Melissa Pierce

Melissa wins a freshly donated copy of the premium Thesis Theme for WordPress from Chris Pearson.

Second Honorable Mention:

The priest at the funeral home asked if she had been a loving mother. The children all stared at each other. The silence spoke volumes.

Derek

Derek wins a signed copy of Hypnotic Writing from Joe Vitale.

Congratulation once again to all the winners, thanks to everyone who submitted an entry, and special thanks to Lisa, Tamar, Chris and Darren for helping me with this tough (but enjoyable) task.

Winners, please contact me via email for information on collecting your prizes.

P.S. If you want to see a collection of most of the entries, check out the hard work done by Daniel Smith to create slideshows of the submissions.

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78 comments... add one

#1 The Tech Juice → 05.30.08 at 10:30 am

Aww, I thought mine was funny enough to stroke a chord in the minds of my judges.

Perhaps another time.

Thanks for letting me play, was fun.
#2 Daniel Smith → 05.30.08 at 10:31 am

Congratulations to the winners! I can’t imagine how tough it was to decide, with so many excellent stories.

In case folks missed my post on the original thread, I combined all the valid contest entries in a couple slideshows here. So if you want to do some light reading, head over and check out just how stiff the competition was.

Thanks for holding such a fun contest Brian!

Daniel Smith
Smithereens Blog
#3 Toblerone @ Simple Mom → 05.30.08 at 10:32 am

Bummed not to have won, but thoe are great! I’m impressed.
#4 Peter O'Connell → 05.30.08 at 10:33 am

Brian:

Congrats on a smart and fun promotional contest.

Best always,
- Peter
#5 Patrick Sullivan Jr. → 05.30.08 at 10:34 am

3rd place and the 2nd Honorable mentions were bone-chilling.

Good times Brian.
#6 Milena Thomas → 05.30.08 at 10:34 am

Not to be whatever, but you could have gotten a lot more contests and drove traffic if you had spread out some of your prizes over more than just this one contest!

I think the generosity was awesome, but you could have capitalized on it. Just think - 4 or 5 more contests - tons more buzz…just a thought!
#7 Aaron → 05.30.08 at 10:35 am

Congrats to the winners. It’s nice to know that I lost to some really great stuff
#8 6 Entries in the Twitter Running Story Contest @ Run to Win → 05.30.08 at 10:39 am

[...] Update: @Copyblogger Twitter Contest Results [...]
#9 Blaine Moore → 05.30.08 at 10:43 am

Very cool - great stories, all.

Looking forward to finding time to at least sampling the vast multitude of stories…
#10 Dean → 05.30.08 at 10:43 am

Am I the only one here who thinks Brian’s description of Darren Rowse as “some guy in Australia :-)” is absolutely LMFAOAROFL-worthy? :))
#11 Sonia Simone → 05.30.08 at 10:45 am

Wow, these are all so good. There were a lot of really strong entries, kudus to everyone who played!

@Daniel Smith, I love the slide show you did for the entries, very cool indeed.
#12 Sonia Simone → 05.30.08 at 10:46 am

Kudus? What are kudus? Make that kudos.
#13 Tee → 05.30.08 at 10:48 am

Lots of endings and lots of gunshots - and thanks Daniel, for the TwitLit slideshow. Fun to watch.
#14 Twitter, concurso de escrita | Repeat Until Keypressed → 05.30.08 at 10:53 am

[...] And the Winner is: “Time travel works!” the note read. “However you can only travel to the past and one-way.” I… [...]
#15 Dean → 05.30.08 at 11:03 am

It honors me to be able to copywrite a Copyblogger post.

Brian, you said, “hear we go”. May I correct you and say it should’ve been “here we go”?

(Check just above the first place blockquote.)
#16 Roberta Rosenberg → 05.30.08 at 11:03 am

Wonderful entries all!
#17 Denise aka The Blog → 05.30.08 at 11:12 am

I loved this whole concept and the contest. Really appreciated @Daniel Smith’s slide show too! Thanks for including our Better Business Blogging program as a prize for the second place winner. We look forward to connecting with Anthony.
#18 Anna → 05.30.08 at 11:15 am

Second place was my fav…

Congratulations to the winners
#19 Perma → 05.30.08 at 11:26 am

Congrats to the winners. And now, a moment of silence for the late donors.

…
#20 Jonathan Mead → 05.30.08 at 11:39 am

I’m also glad to know that I lost to these great entries. I thought mine was decent, I wonder where I ranked. Top 400 I hope.
#21 Miranda → 05.30.08 at 11:49 am

Good stuff! And great choices. I can see why I didn’t win
#22 Blair Richwood → 05.30.08 at 12:04 pm

Delighted to be a prize sponsor of such a clever contest — judging must’ve been a blast (and difficult — these winners were A-list!) Let’s make this annual.

A great display of using CHOICE in writing; you can SEE every scene these winners paint. Perfect proof that “Evocative Economy” is a valuable skill, a useful talent, and a joy to read whether in sales copy, infotainment, fiction or screenplays. Bravo!
#23 Barbara Ling → 05.30.08 at 12:18 pm

Wonderful stories!! Kudos to the winners. I especially liked the time travel one.

Barbara
#24 silverfire → 05.30.08 at 12:26 pm

Congratulations to all of the winners! How fantastic and fun this was.

Thanks to Brian, the judges, and copyblogger.com for this wonderful idea.

I hope we will see another contest in the future, because it was a blast, and actually put a fire under me to start writing again.

Thanks to everyone who contributed. I thoroughly enjoyed reading your entries.
#25 I didn’t win, but « The Word Trade: An Evolution → 05.30.08 at 12:45 pm

[...] The Winners of the Twitter Writing Contest are posted here. [...]
#26 Bucktowndusty @ FromThePen.com → 05.30.08 at 12:46 pm

Brian, I do believe the contest entry was your highest commented post yet, right?

Shows the power of contests and social media tools.

Buck
#27 Bucktowndusty @ FromThePen.com → 05.30.08 at 12:49 pm

ps. Ron Gould. Nice work, but if you’re the same Ron Gould of terraflora, I’d make sure your twitter info lists this. Don’t miss the link juice this contest win will get you?
#28 julien → 05.30.08 at 12:54 pm

congratulations! #1 is by far my favourite, totally awesome.
#29 LearningNerd → 05.30.08 at 1:41 pm

Wow, those are some great stories! I love #1 and #3 the most. I can see why mine didn’t stand a chance. Congrats to the winners, and thank you to Brian and all of the judges for this fun contest!
#30 Adam Snider → 05.30.08 at 2:46 pm

Wow! Those are some amazing entries. Each one of those stories definitely deserved to be a winner.
#31 Jehzeel Laurente → 05.30.08 at 4:09 pm

wow finally the list of winners are here too bad i did not make it hehehe
#32 Bill Stevens → 05.30.08 at 4:12 pm

Yes, congrats to the winners and I still think it was just an absolutely fun contest that really gets the creative juices going and by the response in the comments of the original contest post it was incredible. Fun stuff to read.
#33 Award Winning Fiction in 140 Characters - BuzzYA! → 05.30.08 at 5:09 pm

[...] “Constraints drive innovation and force focus,” according to 37Signals in their popular “Getting Real” book. If that’s true, then Copyblogger’s Twitter Writing Contest, announced a couple of weeks ago, should have had writers brimming with creativity. The task? Write a short story in 140 characters. Not less than 140 characters, exactly 140 characters. That’s no easy task, but the contest still fielded over 300 entries. Today, Copyblogger revealed the winners. [...]
#34 Jeff Crites → 05.30.08 at 5:19 pm

Great contest … congrats to the winners. And let us know when we’ll do this again
#35 Allena → 05.30.08 at 5:21 pm

those were SO fun to read!!!! Let’s see, the one I want to read is…hmm…I want to read the “violent onception” one. Also the funeral one. Wow everyone, that was fun.
#36 Award Winning Fiction in 140 Characters → 05.30.08 at 5:50 pm

[...] “Constraints drive innovation and force focus,” according to 37Signals in their popular “Getting Real” book. If that’s true, then Copyblogger’s Twitter Writing Contest, announced a couple of weeks ago, should have had writers brimming with creativity. The task? Write a short story in 140 characters. Not less than 140 characters, exactly 140 characters. That’s no easy task, but the contest still fielded over 300 entries. Today, Copyblogger revealed the winners. [...]
#37 John Hoff - eVentureBiz → 05.30.08 at 7:02 pm

Those were awesome entries by everyone. Congratulations to the winners. Nice work!
#38 Douglas Karr → 05.30.08 at 7:23 pm

You all need to join the Tweet140 Club at http://www.tweet140.com/
#39 kristarella → 05.30.08 at 7:49 pm

Wow, they are so good! Congratulations.

p.s. Submit comment button is a bit messed up (Camino Mac OS X - it’s outlined and there’s a text word “submit” over the image), don’t know if it’s always like that, don’t remember commenting before.
#40 Anthony Juliano → 05.30.08 at 8:41 pm

A huge thank you to everyone involved. After seeing some of the other winners, I feel very lucky to have been selected. This would have been fun even without the prizes…but the prizes make it even better!
#41 Monika Mundell → 05.30.08 at 11:43 pm

Congrats to the winners and the runner ups and all the others who got creative and chugged out some awesome stories.

Thanks to Daniel and hit TwitLit we can see them forever now.
#42 Gregor Spowart → 05.31.08 at 2:47 am

First place was fantastic - a deserving winner!
#43 Writing Practices » Blog Archive » Very Short Writing for Three Prompts → 05.31.08 at 4:26 am

[...] Writing Tips and Copyblogger have both posted about very short story writing lately. Copyblogger even held a contest for very [...]
#44 Graham Strong → 05.31.08 at 9:47 am

Congrats winners!

And thanks to Brian — that was certainly a fun challenge!

~Graham
#45 La mejor historia de ciencia ficción en Twitter | La Interfaz → 05.31.08 at 8:16 pm

[...] El señor se hizo acreedor a un iPod Touch de 8 Gb, $100 en iTunes Store, entre otras cosas. [...]
#46 Ajith Edassery → 05.31.08 at 10:44 pm

Should have seen this a little early hmm…

Ajith
#47 twitter写作竞赛，冠军奖励iPod nano | SilenceWolf → 06.01.08 at 9:23 am

[...] 更新：结果已经出来了，请看这里。第一名是Ron Gould的科幻小说。 [...]
#48 A Story in 140 Characters « Chasing the Southern Cross → 06.01.08 at 9:30 am

[...] 1, 2008 Check out the winners of Copyblogger’s Twitter Writing Contest - their short (really short - Twitter messages have to be 140 characters or less) stories proved [...]
#49 4fthawaiian → 06.01.08 at 4:25 pm

Wow. I actually picked the winner! (seriously, in the comments for the contest) I LOVED Ron’s story. It made me actually pick up my quill and enter. I’m MOST pleased that none of the winners used bizarre abbreviations, etc to squeeze their story in.. Good picks all by the judges (although mine deserved a mention :P).
Congrat’s to the winners!
#50 Twitter Writing Contest Results! « Blogscapes → 06.01.08 at 7:36 pm

[...] the results of the Twitter Writing Contest are out and posted in Copyblogger’s latest [...]
#51 Concurso de mini ficción de 140 caracteres en Twitter: Blogforos → 06.01.08 at 10:16 pm

[...] ReadWriteWeb | Imagen: La Interfaz Concurso de mini ficción de 140 caracteres en [...]
#52 140字符写作比赛最精炼科幻小说现身 | 《计算机应用文摘》杂志官方博客 → 06.01.08 at 11:18 pm

[...] 这里可以阅读其他获奖者的作品。 [...]
#53 Evert de Ruiter → 06.02.08 at 3:13 am

Congratulations to the winners. Ron Gould did a great job and so did the other winners.

And there are some really nice prices handed out. If I knew about this contest earlier I would defenitly entered.
#54 思响» 140字符的Twitter获奖小说 » 新先/思响~科技开颜，思想远播 → 06.02.08 at 4:12 am

[...] Twitter 短消息的字符数），有300余篇作品参赛，Copyblogger 发布了获奖名单。 [...]
#55 Wow, I Won Something! — Hirlpoo → 06.02.08 at 11:49 am

[...] but I’ve been a lurker there for a while. On a whim I entered his Twitter Writing contest and won a second honorable mention. the contest? Write a story in 140 characters or less. My [...]
#56 先睹为快：140字符推客获奖小说 | 江湖一双 → 06.02.08 at 8:29 pm

[...] 比赛由Copyblogger发起。要求写一篇140字符的短小说，不多不少，要刚好140字符（正好是一条 Twitter 短消息的字符数，如果换成中文就是一条手机短信息，70个字，包括标点符号），有300余篇作品参赛。 [...]
#57 Save the Short Story » Twitter-Winner → 06.03.08 at 12:13 am

[...] Check out all the runner-ups and their stories here. [...]
#58 The Japanese Haiku has a challenger — Online Observations → 06.03.08 at 7:01 am

[...] the results page to see details on who the winners were as well as the prizes they [...]
#59 faaabulous » Les résultats du Twitter Writing Contest → 06.03.08 at 8:04 am

[...] que le Twitter Writing Contest ?, me demanderez-vous avant même que j’aille plus loin. Simple: c’est un concours où [...]
#60 Mitchell Allen → 06.03.08 at 4:40 pm

This was absolutely more fun than the finale of American Idol.

Congratulations to all entrants. You have demonstrated your ability with all three of the scholastic “R’s”.

Cheers,

Mitch
#61 There is no such thing as a successful book « The Rally Flag → 06.03.08 at 5:30 pm

[...] Sometimes a successful story is 140 characters long, like a text message or a tweet. [...]
#62 stark raving calm » Twitter Writing Contest: Deconstructing the Winners → 06.03.08 at 10:11 pm

[...] now you’ve heard that Copyblogger’s Twitter Writing Contest is over, if you were following it. Of the dozens of prizes handed out, the best prize was [...]
#63 Patrick Byers → 06.04.08 at 2:17 am

I love this contest…just wish I would have finished up an entry and got it in on time.

Writing well is tough enough. Great writing in 140 characters? Now that’s art.

Keep up the great work.

Patrick Byers
The Responsible Marketing Blog
http://responsiblemarketing.com
#64 The Benefits of Lifestreaming and Microblogging for Bloggers | I'm Blogging That! → 06.04.08 at 2:49 am

[...] recently held a Twitter writing contest which was a great display of the many creative things people can do with just 140 [...]
#65 Can you tell a story in exactly 140 characters? | eduFutureBlog → 06.05.08 at 1:56 am

[...] Die Gewinnerliste von Copyblogger: [...]
#66 140字符小说比赛 | paikia.com → 06.05.08 at 11:06 am

[...] 来源：copyblogger « [视屏] Windows 7触摸界面Demo [...]
#67 Weekly link roundup | November 1973 → 06.06.08 at 2:04 am

[...] The Winners of the Twitter Writing Contest Are… Grabbing somebody’s interest in just 140 characters is tough. I think these people all did a fantastic job. I’d love to see all the entries. [...]
#68 Link love for 10-06-08 → 06.10.08 at 5:02 am

[...] The Winners of the Twitter Writing Contest Are… [...]
#69 E-club » Blog Archive » It’s the fun little things that can make your day → 06.18.08 at 5:57 am

[...] would test the most accomplished writer. Read the ones at the site or the ones that won the Twitter competition for inspiration. Wordle can act as a tool for displays, presentation of the main themes of a novel, [...]
#70 just in time composer → 07.11.08 at 6:49 am

[...] travel works!??? the note read. ???However you can only travel to the past and one-way.??? I rechttp://www.copyblogger.com/twitter-writing-contest-winners/Content Composer Review - Manuel Viloria.comApr 4, 2007 … Content composer is a program that [...]
#71 Cirip.ro - Ciripeste cu prietenii » Blog Archive » Literatura in 140 de caractere - invitatie intr-un grup Cirip.ro → 08.08.08 at 8:06 am

[...] a scris despre Winner Twitter Writing Contest; rezultate, cele 331 de note participante şi marele [...]
#72 The Social Lites » Blog Archive » Microblogging Explained → 08.20.08 at 5:07 pm

[...] worn.” He’s said to have called it his best work. Also, check out Copyblogger’s Twitter Writing Contest. Big creativity in small [...]
#73 Microblogging Enables Authors | Microblink → 09.03.08 at 1:38 pm

[...] - Copyblogger held a Twitter writing contest where users submitted an entire story in 140 characters. Ron Gould, Anthony Juliano and Thelonius [...]
#74 MediaVision Blog : Search Engine Marketing » The long and the short of marketing stories → 09.10.08 at 9:03 am

[...] also launched a version of the very short story competition when they invited Twits to compose stories in 140 characters or less. First place went to Ron Gould for his time travel [...]
#75 Peter Szabo → 09.15.08 at 9:48 am

Congrats to the winners. And now, a moment of silence for the late donors.
#76 MediaVision Blog : Search Engine Marketing » The long and the short of marketing stories → 09.26.08 at 2:18 am

[...] Copyblogger also launched a version of the very short story competition when they invited Twits to compose stories in 140 characters or less. First place went to Ron Gould for his time travel story: “Time travel works!” the note read. “However you can only travel to the past and one-way.” I recognized my own handwriting and felt a chill. [...]
#77 Stefan Wurz → 09.28.08 at 5:57 am

Congratulations to the winners. Ron Gould did a great job and so did the other winners.
#78 Alex Griffin → 10.04.08 at 8:41 am

Congratulations to all entrants. You have demonstrated your ability with all three of the scholastic