Other Writing - Writing Challenges Discussion [READ]

So, this is my feeble attempt at getting this place a bit more active or at least making it worth checking out every once and awhile. XD;

Let's see..I don't have much of this planned, but it's at about...stage one of getting it ready. Basically, I want to see if you, as writers, can write well and begin a story with a pre-set subject/plot and expand it into something greater and completely your own. The idea is...probably not too interest and/or hard to understand, so obviously drop me a PM or post here with any questions, comments, additional ideas, or whatever you could possibly think of. XD

If you need a..simple example (for now) of what I mean, it'll be like this:

The genre of story needs to be about zombies and an ice-cream man (Horrible example). Your story must begin with the words, "On a hot, summer's day..." and must end tragically.

Obviously this is just..an example, but everyone is welcome to add their own input as to what they'd like to see in this.

And then, you'd type your story here or sometimes. XD;

And I figure...it'd be too hard to deal with just two judges or so, especially since this place is fairly quiet. I'm going to go ahead and say we'd just have everyone vote on which story (besides their own) was their favorite and then whoever wins the most votes could get to choose the next topic, rules, etc. for the next month's competition.

So yeah, go ahead and give some input, please. XD

*looks it over*

Hmm... not bad. Having something like this around for the fun of it can be good, along with keeping writer's skills sharpened after the long war that is NaNoWriMo comes to an end.

Maybe I'll bite on this, depending on how well my attack on NaNoWriMo 2008 ends up.

Lurker says what?

Curiosity speaking (and this may be a stupid question), but aside from the forum rules, what would the rules of the challenge be? Is this restricted to original fiction, or can we write fanfiction (non-Pokemon) as well? I ask this mostly because some people may feel uncomfortable about reading fanfiction in a fandom they're not familiar with, so decent stories in obscure fandoms may be skipped over. For example, I'm not a fan of Final Fantasy, so I feel as if I might be lost if I read EmeraldSky's fanfic, even if it's otherwise good.

I don't know. Maybe it's just me here. Otherwise, I think it's a cool idea and would probably participate in it.

I don't like the idea of popular vote, for that matter. I'd prefer a much more critical perspective. :/ On that note, I could volunteer to be a judge. That's two. Astinus is there aswell, that's three. Niko's been regaining activity. EmeraldSky seems like judge material to me already. There's more people than you think...

If we went for judges, the issue Xanthine brought up wouldn't be an issue in the first place.

Xanthine said:

Curiosity speaking (and this may be a stupid question), but aside from the forum rules, what would the rules of the challenge be? Is this restricted to original fiction, or can we write fanfiction (non-Pokemon) as well? I ask this mostly because some people may feel uncomfortable about reading fanfiction in a fandom they're not familiar with, so decent stories in obscure fandoms may be skipped over. For example, I'm not a fan of Final Fantasy, so I feel as if I might be lost if I read EmeraldSky's fanfic, even if it's otherwise good.

I don't know. Maybe it's just me here. Otherwise, I think it's a cool idea and would probably participate in it.

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Oh, the rules wouldn't be...rules necessarily. They'd just be what the winner/theme chooser wanted. An example of what sorta rules there could be are...:

Your story must contain at least one flying tricycle and you must use the word, "French" at least three times.

I dunno. It's not gunna be restricting your ideas, and I won't let anyone pick ridiculous guidelines.

Aaand, you can set it in any genre you want, I suppose. :x If you want your story to be in the Dragon Ball Z universe, then you can certainly do so. If you prefer it having an original idea, then that's your deal. But I figure if the person who set the guidelines wants zombies and an ice-cream man in their story, you should follow that if you want to get a better score (if we do judging, which I'm leaning towards).

Basically, you may write original fiction or fanfiction. It's to your discretion to extents.

Careful With That Axe said:

I don't like the idea of popular vote, for that matter. I'd prefer a much more critical perspective. :/ On that note, I could volunteer to be a judge. That's two. Astinus is there aswell, that's three. Niko's been regaining activity. EmeraldSky seems like judge material to me already. There's more people than you think...

If we went for judges, the issue Xanthine brought up wouldn't be an issue in the first place.

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Well, like I said, this is merely our brainstorming thread, so all ideas are considered and welcome. And if I've got support for judging, not peer-voting, then that's what we'll do.

Hehe, do you need someone to help you with the challenge prompts, Popwar, or do you have that covered? :]

Popwar Bunny said:

And if I've got support for judging, not peer-voting, then that's what we'll do.

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In that case, I think I'll second CWTA,P's vote for judging over peer voting. ^_^; I agree that a panel of judges sounds a bit more trustworthy in eliminating the problem I mentioned. At least, a panel would hone in on general quality, rather than focus on canon and skip over stories because of content. They could, of course, mention a thing or two about canon, but I'd imagine that with a panel, the decisions would be made by people who would feel obligated to review all entries. With popular vote, you might have things like people who vote but don't quite understand the idea of standards, vote for their friends' fics, or vote only for fics in their favorite fandoms. (That's basically my concern about fandoms, really. A writer could probably follow prompts -- like putting in zombies and ice cream -- into any fandom, including a DBZ fic, but someone who isn't familiar with that particular fandom may not like the idea of Goku blasting the head off a crowd of zombies with a Kamehameha as much as they might like Dean Winchester of Supernatural doing the same thing with a shotgun -- particularly if they don't know what a Kamehameha is and write it off as a deus ex machina.)

As for who should be judges, I'd trust CWTA,P (given that I've seen him weed out subpar fics when he modded Pokemon Fan Fiction) and Astinus (for her present work -- and if she's up for it). I admit I don't know the others he's mentioned well enough to vouch for them. Additionally, I could volunteer myself if possible. I'm mostly active over in PFF, and I'd like to think I'm fairly critical in my reviews. (If you'd like examples, I can totally provide some.)

Just for laughs, why would we need judges? I'm not disagreeing with the idea of judges being involved. I'm just wondering why.

This whole idea sounds like the Fanfiction Challenge I had running over in PFF&P. A prompt would be given, and people would write their fics based on said prompt, post, and we'd all have some good fics to read. It wasn't judged at all.

I do like the idea of judging over peer-voting, for the reasons others have already said. I'm unsure yet if I want to say that I'll definitely judge this right now, because of future plans. I am willing to be a judge, however, so that's fine.

Plus, I would assume that the judges would focus more on the general mechanics when reading the story, since when you open fics up to a wide spectrum of fandoms, it's going to be tough to determine whether or not the fic is canon-kosher, especially if no one is sure on the fandom. XD

Competitions award prizes. Bragging rights or other perks we may be working on *looks at Astinus and Klippy* so that always hooks more people and besides it's fun.

I've got something planned as a prize for whomever the judges find as the winner, along with the option of choosing the next challenge. :D So, hopefully that gets some people interested. But right now, this is just our planning stage, so all ideas are welcome.

Yay! I completely support this idea. It's been such a long time since we had some fun PC writing activities (Frostweaver had some, if you even know who I'm talking about), and I miss them. Count myself in as a willing and eager participant!

Lostt said:

If you do give a genre type thing.. like Final Fantasy it should have to have a second thing, as some may not know of Final Fantasy, or not enough to write a story about it. So it should be like Final Fantasy/Naruto, or something like that.

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Nitpick: Genre =/= fandom. Genre is the kind of story it is (mystery, romance). Fandom is in what universe the story is set in (Final Fantasy).

That aside, personally, I don't think this would be a good idea. It could get rather messy because forced crossovers sometimes don't work. I mean, if you have a fanfiction concept, it's a bit difficult to bring in another fandom and attempt to bend your plot to fit around the concepts of the other fandom. For example, let's say I wanted to write about a heist the crew of Serenity attempt to pull off. But then I realize not everyone knows Firefly, so I try to bring in something they do know: Naruto. They're two incompatible fandoms because the universes are completely different. (Futuristic distant solar system vs. Japan.) For something that distant, it can only really work if you try the stereotypical "one fandom gets sucked into the world of the other fandom" angle or if you write crack. (I'd suspect you'd end up with a similar feel for Final Fantasy and Naruto, considering they're pretty distant in terms of the way the world works.) Of course, you could possibly pull it off with creativity, but I really don't think it should be done just so your audience knows at least half of the canon you're talking about.

Besides, you're going to end up having to worry about the other half your audience isn't familiar with either way. For example, regardless of how much people know about the ninja techniques in Naruto, as soon as your Final Fantasy half decides to have Snow Villiers come riding in on Shiva (the ice elemental that's also a motorcycle), if your audience doesn't know too much about the games (compared to their knowledge about Naruto), they're probably going to still be lost here.

That aside, if we go with a contest format, I agree with the idea about the winner choosing the next prompt. It could be that they could also have a place on the judges roster for the next round (with the other judges being a fixed panel of regulars, perhaps). Along with, of course, whatever else is being planned.

Anyway, rambling and possibly lack of helpfulness aside, good luck with the rest of the planning.

Yep I see your point. So, I guess if you don't know how to write that type of fandom, you just sit to the side, or quickly google it and read up on it the best you can. I liked what you said about being creative and mixing the two things, although that could be a bit troublesome..

Lostt said:

So, I guess if you don't know how to write that type of fandom, you just sit to the side, or quickly google it and read up on it the best you can.

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Yeah, if you're one of the judges trying to get a handle on the fandom enough to make sense of it in X amount of time before the participants get anxious, trying to do this poses a bit of a problem. Otherwise, yeah, you can go with that.

Mm, well..this isn't a "Who-can-do-the-fandom-the-best" contest or challenge. Besides that, I don't think we'll be including fandoms at all, unless the participant wants to include their own.

So, if the challenge goal is to, "Write at least 10,000 words and include the following subjects: Zombies, ice cream trucks, and a goat." You could easily place that into any fandom you want, I suppose. And you don't have to do specifics. I.E. It doesn't have to be an ice cream truck. If your story is set in the Middle Ages, then make it an Ice Cream Vendor or something. Just flow with the fandom, if you so choose.

So, as an example, we'll do the previously stated challenge goals (except the 10,000 words) and I could easily place it into a fandom. I'm just going with...the Mario Bros. fandom, since I'm not familiar with Final Fantasy or Naruto. :x


Obviously the bolded words are related to our challenge goals and we who judge can easily copy/paste the entire story of yours into Word and do a quick Word Check/Count to see if you actually acquired the right goals. If you didn't meet the 10,000 word goal, then it wouldn't be a disqualification, but points off of your total score and length met score.

I'm thinking the rating system for judges might be this way, but it's all adjustable for the end goal This would be on a scale of one to ten probably.


So obviously give your opinions on this all. It's getting nearer to starting this, just a few loose ends to tie.

Popwar Bunny said:

Mm, well..this isn't a "Who-can-do-the-fandom-the-best" contest or challenge.

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Well, the problem is that in some fandoms, there's going to be things that are normal that, if you don't know anything about it, will just hit WTF territory. For example, as I've said before, if you don't know what a Kamehameha is, seeing it in a fanfiction will of course start triggering alarms because it's so blinking powerful. Likewise, watching a guy ride in on an ice goddess who has taken the form of a motorcycle might not make sense unless you know Final Fantasy.

So, in a sense, my concern about fandoms isn't whether or not the judges know whether or not something's in character. It's whether or not the norms of the canon would make sense to judges who aren't familiar with the fandom. This may take away from the judges' score because you'd probably lose the judge early on if you tried to include things that were just normal for the fandom but they might not be familiar with. It might be a turn-off, and as a result, the writer may lose points for the "interesting" score because he just lost the judge.

For another example, let's say we've got a hypothetical judge who knows absolutely nothing about Pokemon. As in, absolutely nothing except the fandom name. A writer comes along, and they decide to write a story in which Team Rocket tries to steal Ash's ice cream, but Ash sends Pikachu out to blast them into high heaven. The story goes along with the canon in saying that Team Rocket survive the entire ordeal, but the judge who has absolutely no knowledge about the way physics work in this fandom writes the ending off as unrealistic and lame -- which it usually is, despite the fact that it fits the canon.

I don't mean to argue or anything here. I'm just trying to bring up problems with writing fanfiction for this kind of contest that I feel uncomfortable about because every fandom works with a different set of rules. The more you try to remove those rules with the hope that you don't compromise the reader's understanding by forcing them to know what you would consider to be the basics of canon, the more you're delving into what is essentially original fiction with character names. For example, I just consider yours to be original fiction because other than Toad and Mario, I really don't see many ties into the fandom itself. You could very well replace the character names with any other name you can think of to put it into any other fandom.

Does that make sense, or am I just rambling here?

It makes sense, honestly. But the whole point of this contest thing isn't to be a perfect storyteller or canonical perfectionist. I understand your concerns for the confusion of a fandom for the judges, but I'm not going to pick incompetent judges to score you all. The deal I'm seeing with your concern is that whether the story goes deep into the crazy things in Final Fantasy or the different chakra forms or whatever they're called in Naruto, it really doesn't matter. The judge isn't there to hand out points if your story is canonical or deep-rooted into the fiction.

The whole concept of "Creative and Interesting" isn't for how well the judge relates to the story. If you are creative enough to keep myself and whoever else judges interested in your story, you'll get your full points or whatever the judge thinks is deserving. Whoever does judge won't be going by how much he or she can relate to the story. It's all based on if the writer actually completes the goal set to them. I know it's somewhat contradictory to say it's based on if the goal set is completed, but also have a score for creativity, but the reason we're giving a score for Creativity is to keep someone from just posting:


Obviously that's not a story. That took little effort and was hardly creative on my part. So, obviously we'll give the person who types something like this zero points in the Creativity and Interesting area, but because they still completed the goal set, they'd get ten for completing the goal set. Obviously the real challenges will have a word-goal also, to keep people from posting short things like above. If the word-goal was set with the story above, the Goals Completed score for that person would be lower than a ten.

I hope you understand everything I'm trying to get at. :x It's really not about the fandom, but more about if people can enjoy themselves, be creative and still finish the goal set. Thanks for giving your opinion though, I'll take it all into consideration before anything officially gets put in stone. :D

Popwar Bunny said:

The deal I'm seeing with your concern is that whether the story goes deep into the crazy things in Final Fantasy or the different chakra forms or whatever they're called in Naruto, it really doesn't matter.

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Actually, no. My deal with that particular concern is that there's very simple things that might not make sense to a judge but would seem incredibly basic to a normal fan, like the bit I mentioned earlier about Team Rocket. Having them survive a fall from a couple hundred feet after being electrocuted by several hundred volts of juice might seem like an improbable copout to someone who isn't familiar with the fandom, but it's a very basic fact that that's what happens to Team Rocket to someone who's used to it. I would assume an analysis of the general quality of a written work (logic, plot, characterization, language, et cetera) would factor into the judging of a story because otherwise, it doesn't really make sense to have judges at all. After all, you'd have an entire host of stories that all fit the same criteria (but do it differently and with enough detail so that you don't simply have a one-line story) and no further guidelines to set them apart from one another.

Why would logic fit into Creativity and Interesting or anything for that matter? :x I can understand a judge confusing realistic with stylized, but if anything at all, I've already said what Interesting and Creative is for. Quality can be addressed if you want, but there's not going to always be something logical about the challenge goals either. And I'm almost sure anyone allowed to judge knows there are stories that shred the boundaries of space and time, along with any and all logically conclusions to things. Zombies buying ice cream from a goat sure isn't logical, so does that mean I'd get a low score for having such? No.

Plot, characterization, creativity, interest, and general quality all factor in to the score. But logic has no reason to be a factor as some writings are going to strain logic as is.

Now, if someone were to post a story containing one ice cream man falling seven feet off from a building onto the pavement below and he died, but then in the next scene having another ice cream man fall 2,000 feet onto the ground without dying and no reason (logical or illogical) is given, that could easily get the writer a point off because they previously had a set logic of people dying when they hit the ground from so high, but without any reason for the second ice cream man dying, it's defying their set limits on all that. :x