TVTropes Writing Contests - Discussion Thread

Participating, sorry for not clarifying.

I would be interested in participating if ~Millership would clarify what the rules actually are here and how this whole process will take place in one post instead of, y'know, how the last page has been. I appreciate everyone's enthusiasm, but this is kind of a mess. >~>

P.S. Markup is complicated.

edited 2nd Aug '17 8:19:39 PM by JHM

As far as I understood, there are no changes in process from the last contests.

Entries must be 2000-5000 words, original work written for the contest. The theme of the contest is Eldritch Location. Judging is out of 25 points:

• 5 points for conventions (spelling, grammar, capitalization)
• 5 points for theme (and staying within the word limit)
• 15 points for general critique (plot, characters, setting, writing style, etc)

Entrants usually have about 4-6 weeks to submit an entry (we agreed on the deadline of August 30); after the deadline, judges have 1 week to post their scores. Judging is anonymous. Each contestant posts his or her story on Free Text Host (www.freetexthost.com), then sends the URL to the anonymizer, who may be one of the contestants, via Private Messaging. The anonymizer then PMs the judge all the entries. The identities of the contestants are revealed after the judges have all posted their scores.

Man, I think a separate thread for the contest is due for creation...

EDIT: Created the thread

edited 2nd Aug '17 10:31:10 PM by Millership

Are we alive, people?

It's less than ten days left to the deadline, but I haven't received even a single entry to the contest.

Should we move the deadline forward? Should we freeze the contest for now? Or am I getting ahead of myself and we should keep the things as they are?

I'm not participating in this contest, but I'd like to see it succeed to justify future contests (which I might actually have time for). So I'd like to chime in with my opinion.

The people who said in either of the two threads that they have interest ought to be PM'd, including the contestants and the judges. I think (and this really is just my personal opinion) that the judges should take a more public and engaged role with either this thread or the other one. I don't know how exactly, but it might encourage people to participate if there's an active discussion.

I also think that whatever happens to the deadline ought to depend on how many people have something to actually submit. So if nobody's ready, extend it by a month, but if less than half of them aren't ready, extend it by a week (to give them a fair shot at finishing their work). Or consider accepting late work if it's really chaotic for even the judges (with a penalty to the final score). Remember that school is starting in many places during August and September.

OK. PM'd Dealan, Kazeto, bravo104, ilili and IF Wanderer - that's the Contestants.

Will PM the Judges - Aw Sam Weston, JHM and Movie Reference.

P.S. Done.

edited 21st Aug '17 7:50:27 AM by Millership

I'm still in

Still in, aiming to finish within the next few days.

I'm still more than happy to judge, whether it's now or later. Yes, even with a crowdfunding campaign for my first feature film starting in a few weeks!

Got the PM.

I'm also still in and expecting to finish before September 1st. As for the deadline, I think Water Blap's suggestion works pretty well.

Still willing to judge.

Well, that's ... a bit awkward.

The reason for why I'd replied the first time and then no more aside, any attempts at participation from my side require having free time to try writing something. At least until the end of the month, my work schedule leaves me with basically no free time, which is why I haven't confirmed my participation when you've moved from the other thread to this one. I could try, but I'd basically be starting now and I don't really have the time to do anything, so it's probably better if I don't because something written in a week when one doesn't have time to write is bound to be toxic to the readers.

As for the idea of extension, I will say this: considering that due to the lack of time I'd put the idea of participation out of my mind and it is not guaranteed that my work schedule will get more free-time–friendly the next month (and I'll only find out in a week or so anyway so I can but guess right now), I honestly do not feel that I am in any way qualified to say anything about it.

Thanks for coming by and clearing that up.

Well, ilili and IF Wanderer hadn't replied yet, but it seems that we're going to extend the entry admission time for at least a week. The contest can't go without contestants, obviously, and the more time they have at hand, the more competitive and polished their work can be. I propose to move the deadline at least to September 10th. That's two and a half weeks from now, and most of this time will be in the next month. Do you think you can cook something up in these conditions, Kazeto? We could extend the deadline even further, depending on what the rest of the contestants say. I think there's no such thing as "too much time to write a work", yes?

P.S. Hell, if the deadline will be as far as September 10th, I think I can participate myself.

edited 23rd Aug '17 6:59:33 AM by Millership

Well ... since I still don't have the foggiest how much time I'll have once the calendar goes into September, I cannot guarantee that what I write will be reader-friendly because it may so happen that I won't have the time to polish it any (though "any" time for just writing I should have ... probably) and any writing will be a very wild ride, but that's enough time to gather ideas and put it in the "maybe" bin and at the very least try. I mean, "what's the worst that could happen" or something along these lines, we'll just slap a biohazard warning on my writing and let the readers suffer.

edited 23rd Aug '17 2:28:39 PM by Kazeto

Alright, I'm gonna go ahead and say that I approve of the one week extended deadline... on the condition the entry I previously sent in (on the impression I only had a week left to finish the thing) is removed and I can use the remaining time to edit and proofread before finally submitting. Anyone have a problem with this?

I think it's only fair that people who already submitted can use this extra week to further polish their work.

I'm all for extending the deadline. Gives me time to be lazy in the pre-judging phase. Tee-hee!

Sure.

Extended the deadline.

Now, there are several organizational issues that need to be resolved:

1. There are only 6 contestants so far, and we might run into the situation where we need to move the deadline again, if a certain number of people will not be ready in time. How many finished entries there need to be to validate the contest and make the deadline final? Personally, I'd say the number is 3.

2. If the deadline has passed, what the penalty for the late admissions should be, if there's a need for it at all? Or we should not allow the late admissions? Keep in mind, that people might join the contest lately, and thus will have less time to write, putting them in unequal position. I included the links to the contestants' applications in the thread's opening post, just in case.

3. The judges' deadline. Currently it's a week after the submission entry deadline. The existence of deadlines is to make sure the Contest would not run forever. But if there's a way to enforce the contestants' deadline by subtracting the points, for example, there's no such way to do that for the judges'. The reason for the inclusion of the judges' deadline is, TBH, purely arbitrary - it was done in the previous Contests, in which I didn't participate. So the effect of the judges' deadline is entirely psychological - for there to be a deadline. Some might be motivated by it, some might not. Does there need to be a deadline for the judges? How much time do the judges need to assess (potentially) 6 entries? Judges' deadline could also act as the late admissions deadline, should we decide to allow them.

edited 26th Aug '17 1:36:20 AM by Millership

No penalty for a late entry but whether or not the late entry is accepted will have to be sorted out by how much time we have to five the final scores for the entries.

We really should have a minimum of three entries before we finalise the deadline, but I'd really prefer there to be at least five before we proceed, so maybe that should be the line for when the clock starts. After that, we set a fair deadline, take some time to have the entries sorted, and begin the judgement period, which I personally think should be ten days to a fortnight. After that, scores are final, what's done is done, et cetera.

ilili has retired as a contestant

So, to sum up:

1. The minimum entry count is three.
2. After I receive that number of works, we decide on the final deadline.
3. The contestants that already have sent their entries can use this time to improve their works.
4. After the deadline passes, I should organize the entries and PM them to the judges.
5. Judges have two weeks to evaluate the works.
6. The contestants can send their works after the deadline and they will not be penalized for it, but whether the entries will be accepted depends on the judges' free time at hand.
7. After the two-week judgment period has expired, the contest is over.

Is that correct?

edited 3rd Sep '17 10:33:31 AM by Millership

This is cool. Is it still possible to join in?

Well, the deadline hasn't been finalized yet (it's September 10th for now), so if you're okay with that and with the contest's theme (Eldritch Location), then visit the contest thread (link in my signature), learn the rules, post your contest application containing who do you want to join as, and you're officially in.

Okay, thank you! ^.^

By the way, does anyone know a better text hosting website for future contests? Fixing up the formatting that gets lost on copy paste is always such a pain.

edited 8th Sep '17 4:06:48 PM by Dealan