TVTropes Writing Contests - Discussion Thread

It gets back to one of the points made, I feel: up to a certain level one could expect the readers to know their words, but above that it is the responsibility of the writer.

So a few examples to show what I mean. Let's say that I wrote the word "colour"; this is ... not exactly hard to pick up, what with its similarity to the word "color", so one can easily check it. It's an obvious variant of the word and something that either feels natural to you anyway and as such forcing you as a judge to look for those just to deduct points would be an added chore or feels like a weird word for you but should be easy enough to check and if you know that the writer is using a non-standard (for what it's worth) variant of English could be assumed by you without checking to be the same as whatever word it is similar to.

Another example. Say that I used the word "scrummy" (totally picked that one up with a thesaurus, by looking for standard words with synonyms marked as British; by the way, it's supposed to be a synonym of "luscious"), now if the word has enough context surrounding it this isn't an issue because that makes it understood well enough, but if it does not then and the author did not provide a glossary on their own that is their failure to make the work intelligible to a wider audience and as such you may feel free to deduct points for that.

Yet another example. Now the word I used is "grimalkin". Did I provide a glossary entry for such an obscure and archaic word? No? Well shame on me then and points down because just as the usual audience cannot be expected to know words like this so too cannot the judges be expected to take such an approach to one's readers as anything but what it is which is ineptitude of the writer.

One last example. Let's assume that I fancy using the word "Arete", always with a capital letter, but there is enough context in the text surrounding the uses of the word to let the reader piece together that it is ... let's go for an easy option and say magical energy of some kind. You may not have the full image but as far as the word's usage is concerned anyone who's ever been into fantasy can make parallels to the word "mana" or "magicka" and leave it at that, so the word is valid despite being a neologism of some sort because the writer made it clear enough with what they wrote what the word is to be taken to mean.

I hope that explains what I meant well enough. If something makes you as a reader go "what the fuck does this mean" and you have nothing to hang onto because there's neither a glossary entry for you nor enough context to tell you what to take it for then I feel it safe to assume that the word is not one the author should have used and as such you would not, as a judge, be faulted for marking it down for that.

Ah, now I get it. So, no changes, then?

Also, can I link that post in the contest thread OP, Kazeto?

Sure, why not. Just make sure I don't get people with pitchforks and torches if I ruin anyone's score with this.

Believe me, you won't be the only one who'll get an Angry Mob at their doors in that scenario, if that's any consolation.

EDIT: We have to have more votes in favor of it though, before I link it. We have roughly two days before the judgement period starts.

edited 22nd Sep '17 8:23:34 AM by Millership

I'm with Kazeto: it comes down to common sense. Does the work make sense without a translation dictionary? If yes, good! If no, points off.

At the end of the day, it shouldn't be too complicated.

First off, Kazakh? That's actually really cool! :3 I'm pretty interested in the different Turkic languages and cultures, although I have a great deal to learn, and obviously avoiding Orientalist obnoxiousness is important...

Secondly, I use Commonwealth spelling conventions and a number of regional Anglicisms (mithering, etc.) despite being an American because I find them more aesthetically pleasing. So it's fairly hard to baffle me with that sort of thing.

Thirdly, just on principle, I think penalising people for matters of dialect is a little insulting. Unless it's really intense and requires actual translation (Glaswegian Scots, Jamaican patwa and so forth), some simple differences in emphasis and vocabulary are just colour and add to the individual feel.

On-topic, though, I think that's enough consensus on the issue. Imma go and link Kazeto's post to the thread's OP.

P.S. Done. Ready your torches.

edited 23rd Sep '17 6:15:55 AM by Millership

It's about two days left till the deadline, with no evaluations posted so far.

The judges, what is your state of progress? Do you need more time?

I've been working on school stuff this whole time a deadline shift would be helpful for me to get my evaluations in

Just read through all the entries overnight and critiqued them. My post is here.

Eeeeexcellent!

With Aw Sam Weston having posted, and the remaining two judges having a busy schedule, I suggest them to simply critique when they'll have the free time, with no deadlines, if they're still in.

And since we have only a bare minimum of judges required to run a contest, I think we kinda have to find a backup judge, just in case. I have to ask you guys if you know any people who can (and willing to) judge a writing contest. Contact them and link them to both of the contest threads, please.

P.S. Posted a call to folks at the Character Development Thread.

P.P.S. In addition to the above suggestion: if we'll find two backup judges in the following week, I say we set up a judging deadline of October 29th for everyone, that way we'll at least have two more guaranteed evaluations. If not, then, well, we play the waiting game.

edited 6th Oct '17 6:57:41 AM by Millership

I'd just like to remind the other judges that we still need to review the submissions and finish the contest.

Well, it would seem that, for what it is worth, the contest is basically left as-is as one of the declared judges (JHM) is busy and so will get to it, if they do get to it, somewhen in the future, and the other one (MovieReference) is active enough on the forums and doesn't give a single fuck about the contest anymore. And I will note that I am being blunt here because someone who doesn't have time for this but is on the forum daily is capable enough of getting here and at least notifying people of what's going on, and that this hasn't happened just can't be taken positively.

So ... yeah, that's that.

PS. It's a tad late for that, but for what it's worth now or anywhen since I didn't get to see four of the five work, I'm kind of satisfied with your scoring, AwSamWeston.

edited 1st Nov '17 10:05:31 AM by Kazeto

I've PM'd both of the judges recently and they both told me that they're gonna rate the entries eventually. So I'm inclined to ask the rest of the contestants to be patient, regardless of the judges' activity on the forum, since giving critique is a rather mentally demanding task (especially if there are 5 works to be judged), as you can tell by the current state of the Constructive Criticism thread. If someone could find a replacement or backup judge, it would be even better.

edited 1st Nov '17 10:59:45 AM by Millership

In the meantime, to make the wait easier, could all the contest entries be made public? There doesn't seem to be any particular reason why they have to remain hidden until all the judges post their evaluations. The only downside I can think of is that a public discussion may influence a judge's opinion, but that's solved by, you know, not discussing them until the contest is over.

Well, no opinion on the "making the entries public" from me, since I am curious but know how hard it is to not say (well, write) anything when you actually know and can guess and speculate because you know.

As for them being busy, well ... I'm not trying to blame you, Millership, but it would have been nice to know because of the apparent complete inactivity, I could have avoided writing an unnecessary post ... though we got some activity because of it so hey, not a total waste of time.

When the two judges asked for more time since they are busy IRL, it was clear, at least to me, that the contest went "hibernating", since real life always takes priority before any kind of online hobby you're engaging in. For this reason, I thought that posting "the judges will post eventually" would simply be redundant, since it's the default state of the contest, and it wasn't specific enough. I mean, neither told me when exactly they are going to post. There isn't any additional info or info on the changes in the current state of things in that message.

And due to the fact that it's not clear when we will get the entries, and because, on the other hand, believe it or not, I actually want this damn thing to come to a successful conclusion, and because discussing the contents of the entries will achieve a diametrically opposite result, I'm voting against putting the entry texts on public before the judges evaluate it.

P.S. Late thought. Although, on the other hand, not publishing the entries won't stop anyone from discussing their own entry, so that wouldn't make much of a difference. It is a bigger temptation, though. I'm fine if everyone will promise that they'll be silent about it for the time being.

edited 2nd Nov '17 9:40:36 AM by Millership

Thing one, don't worry, I just grumbled about it for a bit because it made me look stupid and I've just had to deal with too many situations that went awry precisely because the flow of information wasn't there at all so people were thought to have gone AWOL or other negative stuff so I'm more inclined to grumble about it, there's no hard feelings or anything involved and I get your reasoning.

Thing two, I don't have any problems with promising that, though my stance on that one is already known so ... yeah.

No hard feelings on my part, too. We're cool.

I'm fine with opening up the entries to public viewership as long as the entrants are okay with it and as long as we don't discuss them until the judging process is over.

Although that said, I'm probably biased since I've already put my opinions out there (*wink*)

I'd like to update where I am in the judging process. I already PM'ed Millership about this.

I've read all the entries and I have allotted points. I'm going to revise my comments and possibly change the point allocation by plus-or-minus two points here and there as I reconsider things.

Also, the word count of my general critique comments is about 1,700 words total (averaging at about 340 words per entry). I did not mean to write that much, LOL.

I expect to post my scoring on Sunday.

Cool.

If you're not sure how to format your scoring, you can use AwSamWeston's post as a guideline.

So, Movie Reference has just contacted me, saying that they're dropping out.

Another update: I posted my scoring.

And what a great, detailed and to-the-point scoring that is!

That said, contestants, do you think two scorings is enough to wrap this up? Or should we wait for JHM's evaluation (I'll contact them if needed)?