GUESS THE AUTHOR IS BACK!
Get to your keyboard and get those betting slips ready, because it’s Guess The Author time again! This is the third annual GTA! Wow!
But what IS Guess the Author? It's a writing challenge and a guessing game, all in one!
Our fabulous authors will have until THE DEADLINE to write a new work (or dust off an unpublished thing you’ve had rotting in your drafts, we won’t judge) and post it to our anonymous collection.
Don’t worry if you don’t have any clue who’s who- we’ll publish a list of our authors to make guessing easier. From there, readers will have one week to guess who wrote what!
After that week, we’ll reveal the collection in full and you can see how you did! It’s like Guess Who, but with more block men and word documents.
THE DEADLINE WILL BE JULY 6TH, 2025, AT MIDNIGHT EDT.
(Here’s a handy little countdown clock for you!)
You have until THE DEADLINE to get your work in the collection, and you can find instructions to do that by checking our handy post right here!
All that fun aside, we do have a few rules:
-THERE WILL BE ABSOLUTELY NO EXTENSIONS TO THE DEADLINE. We will not make exceptions. If your work isn’t in the collection by THE DEADLINE, it’s not getting in. If you don’t make it, you shouldn’t despair- post it anyway! This challenge is all about getting people writing, not some silly collection. That said, we will not reopen the collection for any reason.
-Your work must be Hermit-centric! This is a Hermitcraft event, we’re Hermitcraft fans. Feel free to have other people show up, but the focus should be on at least one Hermit! (NPC’s or Hermit characters such as NPC Grian, Grimdog, Goatman, EX, Hels, and so on are all fine!)
-No smut. Period. Sorry. Cut around it, fade to black, heavily imply it, just no onscreen NSFW action. Everything else is fine!
-Use of AI tools such as ChatGPT or whatever flavour of the Plagiarism Machine is popular this week is strictly banned. This is a writing challenge for human creativity, and we want to hear your own unique voice! Any submitted works found to be AI-generated will be removed from the collection and you will be blacklisted from this and future challenges.
-Don’t do anything that breaks TOS. Tumblr’s or AO3’s.
-Minimum wordcount is 50 words. There is no maximum wordcount.
-A maximum of ten posted works per author, please! If you want to have more, consider creating a single “Collection” piece where each chapter is a new work. Thank you!
-The mod team reserves the right to remove works from the collection that violate these rules or violate the spirit of the challenge. That means, for example, please don’t add a work that’s a part of your ongoing series! That’s just spoiling the fun.
-If AO3 implodes on launch day again, the mod team reserves the right to scream.
Other than that, do what you like! We don’t care! There are no rules around content. Horror, shipping, high school AU’s, space opera, Shakespeare…go nuts! We can’t wait to see what you create!
You’re encouraged to lie, misdirect people, write in another author’s style, write about Hermits you don’t usually write! Any trick you want to use is fair game.
For those wanting a more formal schedule for their calendars, here it is:
May 4th, 2025, 12:00 PM EDT: Event begins, collection opens! That’s right now!
July 6th, 2025, 12:00 AM EDT: THE DEADLINE. Writing period ends, collection closes, and guessing begins!
July 13th 2025, 12:00 AM EDT: Guessing concludes! All works are de-anonymized, and readers and writers celebrate! All works will be promoted on the blog for readers to pick through at their leisure.
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask the blog. We have five mods:
What are you waiting for? Get out there and get writing! Can’t wait to see you in the collection!
Lastly, if you want to chat about your work anonymously, head over to our NEWLY OFFICIAL buddy blog @hcguesstheauthormessageboard!
