These rules and guidelines are adapted from the official ONC book, as the core of this festival will for the most part follow the ONC structure.

#NONC2022 will officially launch with the Open Novella Contest on February 1st, 2022.

The goal of #NONC2022 is the same as that of the ONC: to challenge participants to write a whole novella (between 20,000 and 40,000 words) in 13 weeks. In the ONC, these novellas must be posted after February 1st, and must contain or be identifiably inspired by one or more prompts from a list that goes live in the ONC book on February 1st. 

In NONC, we're a little more flexible. Participants can choose the degree to which they want to follow the ONC rules, and while full adherence is encouraged (it's meant to be a challenge!) it is not required. Want to make a cover and throw it on Wattpad in advance of the festival? No problem. Have an idea you're desperate to write, that doesn't end up fitting anything on prompt day? Go for it. Want to twist a prompt, steal its breakfast, invert its offspring, and make it gay as hell to boot? We got you, friend!

Our cross-promotion, likewise, does not require your novella to stay a novella. If you opt into the cross-promo, but then reach Round 3 and discover you're actually writing the opening chapters of a trilogy, you'll still be eligible for almost all the community events that are part of this festival.

Speaking of rounds.

Festival Structure: The Core "Contest"

The ONC contains three rounds that NONC will be following. You'll be challenged to reach a certain word count milestone for each of those rounds. 

Round 1 - 2,000-word milestone 

Round 2 - 8,000-word milestone

Round 3 - 20,000-word milestone

The writing period will last a total of 12-and-a-bit weeks unless extensions are made to some round or other (this tends to happen) in the ONC. We will follow these extensions. The full N/ONC schedule can be found in the chapter immediately after this one, and will be updated whenever the ONC one is.

After completing each round, you will be submitting your entry to us via a Google Form. While the ONC starts its judging here, NONC is not a judged contest. Instead, entries that make it to the round milestones on time will be eligible for entry in a prize draw, with prizes that will be listed in the Prizes chapter of this book whenever they are finalized. All prizes will adhere to Wattpad's Community Standards.

Everyone who reaches a word count milestone by the deadline will receive an exclusive NONC sticker to showcase on their cover. These will be made in-house by members of the Chucks community, just like the rest of our NONC graphics.

The final round of the festival (corresponding the the third round of the ONC) will also feature a draw, this time with a much bigger prize. If you finish your novella within the contest timelines, you will be eligible for entry in this draw.

What Can I Write?

Anything, so long as it adheres to Wattpad's content guidelines for work posted on the site! Write to your heart's content. Any genre. Any spice level. Original fiction or fanfic. Mature or otherwise. 

If you choose to follow the ONC prompts, you can choose how closely you want to adhere to them. The ONC requires at least one prompt to be identifiable in a submitted novella, but if you want to diverge, we're not judging—literally. Like in the ONC, too, don't worry if a prompt is listed under a certain genre. You can take it to any genre and in any direction you prefer.

How Do I Enter?

You must be a member of the Chucks Discord server to participate in NONC. Discord will be the main channel of communication and organization for this festival, as well as the location of most of the festivities. If you want to participate in NONC but aren't in Chucks, see the previous chapter for how to get in contact with us!

For those who are members of the Discord server, make sure you've self-selected the #NONC2022 Festival role from the #rules-and-roles channel. This will be our all-purpose tag for keeping people up to date on administrative matters relating to the festival and all its constituent parts.

The Google Form for submitting your entry to each round's prize draw will be made available after the festival kicks off. You can submit your entry as soon as you've met the next milestone, at which point you're perfectly free to keep writing—in fact, please do! Every year in the ONC, there are people who finish and post their entire novella in the first round, and that's totally fine.

You will have to resubmit your story at each round, but we'll keep you up to date on that in the Discord.

Further Questions

Confused about anything? More information is available in the FAQs chapter in this book. If you have a question that isn't there, feel free to ask it on Discord, in an in-line comment, or anywhere on this profile, really. We'll answer it as soon as we can. If we think it's something other people might ask as well, we'll add it to our FAQs, too!

Is that all? Far from it. This is, after all, more than just the ONC.

(Credit to flowerghostqueen for the adapted gif)