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| Thread: New short story contest |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · NEXT» |
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Lady_Milena
Honorable
Known Hero
Grannie Sweet Cheeks
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posted April 13, 2006 03:22 PM |
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New short story contest
With Val's blessing, I have put forward a new writing contest!
Rules of contest:
Each participant can submit up to TWO stories. Stories must range from 1,000 to 10,000 words. All genres are accepted, no exception, but entries with pornographic content will be automatically disqualified by me. Have in mind HC has a lot of minor members, so please, keep obscenity to minimum, none if possible. Only complete submissions will be accepted, ONLY in English.
All entries MUST include the following 5 words: hero, rekindle, apple, degrade, shortcoming . NOTE: you can use the plural or continuous or past or perfect form of the words. Ie, "apples" is acceptable, "degrading" is acceptable, etc. However, you must use ALL 5 words in your story. Failure to meet this requirement would lead to penalizing your score.
The contest will be channeled anonymously. Let's face it, this is the only way to keep personality and artwork critique seperate. It's in fairplay's interest to keep the judges unbiased. This is why all participants are invited to send entries to one of these emails: ladymilena@gmail.com or thepraxis@hotmail.com . Please, send the story as a txt or doc attachment and subject your mail "HC contest" - otherwise I may think it's spam. Make sure to include your HC handle in the mail of course. As soon as I receive an entry and read it, I'll post it in the Coliseum myself. Failure to abide the rule of anonymity will result in disqualification.
EDIT: clarification. The rule of anonymity implies this: do not post your own stories. Send me an email instead, let me do it for you. In other words, if you post your own story yourself, you will be disqualified. I have explained above why I'd prefer not to disclose the ID of the authors before the end of the contest.
Participants
Everyone is free to submit a story! The contest is not limited to HC posters only, so tell your friends about it! Non-HC members will be expected, though, to register and say a few words about themselves.
Sign up now!
Please, express your readiness to participate in the contest here. I would like to see at least 4 or 5 people taking part to make it worth. Everyone will be free to sign up and participate until the last day of the contest but I need to see how many of you are interested to begin with.
I will announce the beginning of the contest in about a few days up to a week, then it will be open for 8 weeks before closing. I will post reminders about that, though.
Judges
I need 2 or 3 volunteers to read the stories and act as a jury. A participant cannot become a judge! A judge is expected to have been active for at least six months, have the intetion to stay around until the end of the contest and have a level head. Judges are subject to approval by Val and me. Votes will be submitted to me and I'll keep close track of them.
Judges will evaluate each story and give a mark from 1 to 10, 1 being poor and 10 being excellent. There will be seperate marks for creativity and style. The final mark will be the sum of these two by each judge. Example: Judge 1 gives a story 7 for creativity and 9 for style. Judge 2 gives a story 5 for creativity and 8 for style. The final score is 7+9+5+8 = 29.
End of the contest
Voting will be secret until the end of the contest. This is also when I will also reveal who wrote which story.
Awards
But of course, what is a contest without awards! To give you all a bit of additional incentive, I have decided to give first place and second place award. The authors of stories rated #1 and #2 by the judges will be rewarded with gift certificates from amazon.com worth $25 and $10 respectively. Any winner who cannot get shipping from amazon.com may get the item of their choice through me.
Additionally, Val has volunteered to grant a QP to each winner. Of course, he will have the final saying on this at the end. (Thank you for the courtesy, Val)
For information
I'm going to run the contest, so if any questions arise, feel free to drop me an email or PM me. I will try to reply as soon as I can.
NOTE: please, use this thread to sign up and express your intention to participate. I will run seperate threads for the stories.
Good luck,
Milena
~Edit: Thread stuck~
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God does not need exist to save us...
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Zeldor
Known Hero
The Bringer of Pestilence
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posted April 14, 2006 04:14 PM |
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If I don't participate then I could be a judge  What is the deadline?
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FriendOfGunnar
Honorable
Legendary Hero
able to speed up time
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posted April 14, 2006 06:15 PM |
bonus applied. |
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I'm in, I'm writing the story whether the contest goes or not.
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Echo_
Tavern Dweller
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posted April 14, 2006 07:18 PM |
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orbvius
Adventuring Hero
Oblivious
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posted April 16, 2006 10:01 AM |
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hero, rekindle, apple, degrade, shortcoming
What an odd combination. I suppose I can eat the apple, cant I?
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baklava
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Mostly harmless
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posted April 16, 2006 06:39 PM |
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Uhm... why apple? Everything else is ok, but... apple? Demons, dark elves and the undead have absolutely nothing to do with bloody apples. The only solution is to insert the following sentence in the end or the beggining of the story: "This story has absolutely nothing to do with apples"
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Lady_Milena
Honorable
Known Hero
Grannie Sweet Cheeks
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posted April 16, 2006 10:43 PM |
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I chose the words because I thought it would be a challenge. Of course, I may say instead, think, picture, delight, mirror, do but it would be so damn easy to fit these into ANY story you already have. It's cool to see creativity and imagination. There is no point in dusting off an old story from your archive for the purpose of trying for a QP and a free game or something.
Still, if you believe that these words are just too hard to fit into one story, it will be my pleasure to replace a few of them with easier ones.
Also I want you to have in mind that just because we're on a HoMM board, it does not mean all writing must be dedicated to fantasy. In fact, I am DYING to see historical fiction or a crime story or sci fi or action or a thriller. It would be *really* refreshing. There are so many good stories about elves and orcs and wizards but there are so ... many of them. Hehe.
Any input is quite welcome, so be my guests and share it. :-)
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God does not need exist to save us...
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2XtremeToTake
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted April 17, 2006 11:33 PM |
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It can be of any topic, am I correct?
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I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met.
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Lord_Woock
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Daddy Cool with a $90 smile
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posted April 18, 2006 12:16 AM |
bonus applied. |
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Quote:
Also I want you to have in mind that just because we're on a HoMM board, it does not mean all writing must be dedicated to fantasy. In fact, I am DYING to see historical fiction or a crime story or sci fi or action or a thriller. It would be *really* refreshing. There are so many good stories about elves and orcs and wizards but there are so ... many of them. Hehe.
I think that's a yes.
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orbvius
Adventuring Hero
Oblivious
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posted April 18, 2006 09:58 AM |
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Does an entry "anti-hero" fulfil your term that hero is used?
Quote:
In fact, I am DYING...
If you are dead you cannot read the essays, so do keep yourself well and alive.
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william
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
LummoxLewis
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posted April 18, 2006 10:12 AM |
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Can I get my story that I made from another thread that I have made and put it into here.
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~Ticking away the moments that
make up a dull day, Fritter and
waste the hours in an off-hand
way~
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Guitarguy
Responsible
Supreme Hero
Rockoon.
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posted April 18, 2006 03:46 PM |
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Quote:
Can I get my story that I made from another thread that I have made and put it into here.
I don't think it can, William, since the story has to be posted by the contest personnel anonymously. The stories need to be submitted by email, as opposed to just posting it with people already knowing that it was by you. Hence, I'm afraid they can't use your story.
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Despite my HEAVY college workload, I'd like to participate. My only hope is that participating won't clash too seriously with my priorities...
-Guitarguy
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kookastar
Honorable
Legendary Hero
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posted April 22, 2006 11:53 AM |
bonus applied. |
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Am registering, hope to have something for you by the due date
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Lady_Milena
Honorable
Known Hero
Grannie Sweet Cheeks
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posted April 23, 2006 08:19 AM |
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CLARIFICATION
Please, when you send me your submission make sure to give me the name on your primary profile! Don't make aliases first of all because when the contest is over, everyone will want to know who you are and give you the kudos, second, should you win a QP, it will go to the name mentioned in the email. Since I coordinate the contest, it's inevitable that I will know who you are - which is OK because I'm good at keeping secrets ;-)
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God does not need exist to save us...
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Sirano_Simons
Tavern Dweller
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posted April 24, 2006 03:10 AM |
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Sign me up.
Nice idea with the contest. With the tight restrictions on the official comp, its really nice to have this much freedom to work with.
You're judging on creativity and (writing) style. That's cool, but what about characters? It's a real talent being able to dream up interesting characters and bring your vision of them to life through skillful writing. Would that just be a part of the creativity? I just want a little bit more clarification of what exactly we're being judged on, if you don't mind
Its probably the case that you're judging 50% on writing style and everything else about the story (plot twists, character arcs, dialogue etc) is in the creativity half of the marks. Better safe than sorry though eh?
Lastly, thanks for putting the effort in to host this comp. You deserve some credit for this so well done.
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Zeldor
Known Hero
The Bringer of Pestilence
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posted April 24, 2006 08:18 AM |
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Grammar, interpunction and so on is judged too And no smilies...
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Lady_Milena
Honorable
Known Hero
Grannie Sweet Cheeks
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posted April 24, 2006 10:26 AM |
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I was actually posting this on PM to Shadowcaster, who volunteered as a judge [everyone now is the time for cheers to Shadowcaster!]. Quite unfortunately I lost the PM but I figured if it's best to put it down here anyways.
I have noted the mechanism of evaluation above, so please refer to it first. As you already know, the evaluation itself will include two seperate categories, creativity and style. Each of these will be on a 1 - 10 scale, 1 being poor, 10 being outstanding.
Creativity is the skeleton of the story. It weights the general idea, concept, in other words originality of the story. Example, if it's a story that you say "grabbed your attention", made you "hold breath" and left you "shaken/speechless/impressed", it should definitely get higher score. I would like to point out that copycats should be discouraged by the judges. Nigh above anyone can take a story, change a few of the characters' names, give it a glossy new title and have it enter the contest.
Style If creativity is the skeleton, style is muscle and skin. Even the best ideas fail if the author has no skills of expression. Style measures the flow, the fluency and eloquency of the text. Higher score in this category should get stories defined as "well-written". Here is the place to note that while we don't have a seperate category for language, this will inevitably reflect the score. Why? Because if your grammar or spelling are poor, judges are likely to have to reread the sentence a couple of times to understand its meaning. Naturally, this disturbs the flow of the text. It's easy to run an automated spellcheck, so I'd strongly recommend that to everyone.
Judges, please get back to me when you read the stories on the forum and give me each grade. If you don't do this within a reasonable amount of time, I will PM you with a reminder.
Zeldor, I am still awaiting your reply on PM - please let me know of your final decision.
If any questions arise after this, please feel free to ask, in PM or on the board. I will try to reply in a timely manner, in the best way that I can.
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God does not need exist to save us...
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Zeldor
Known Hero
The Bringer of Pestilence
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posted April 24, 2006 10:38 AM |
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Lady_Milena:
I have replied to all messages, can You send me the last one again? HC messenger is not perfect [I had once to send one message 10 times].
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orbvius
Adventuring Hero
Oblivious
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posted April 24, 2006 12:58 PM |
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Gotta cook up something dark, twisted and cynic but probably not a very original story if you read a lot.
Are you still going to implement the 10,000 words limit? I find that it is limiting on the words to build the settings and story for plot.
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Lady_Milena
Honorable
Known Hero
Grannie Sweet Cheeks
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posted May 06, 2006 12:06 AM |
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I'd like to post a reminder now
CONTEST IS STILL IN ACTION
I haven't received any submissions in a long while and I'm still waiting for more people ready to fight for their right to win. It's not such a good idea to wait for the deadline to come and then do everything in a hurry.
You still have around 6 weeks. 
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God does not need exist to save us...
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