Approved: Writing Competition

[Astinus]

PCX's Writing Competition
Judged bu Astinus, icomeanon6, and Dragonfree​

Welcome everyone to PCX's Small Writing Competition! Ready to write a story based on this year's prompt that will impress the three judges and the rest of PC? Great!

But first, a few rules to keep in mind.


Rules

1.) Follow PC's rules and Fanfiction and Writing's rules.
2.) The stories written for this competition must be completely new. In other words, they must not have been written before and not posted anywhere else until judging is over.
3.) You must PM your entries to all of the judges. (This is so if someone loses their PMs the others still have them and so forth). The judges in question are Astinus, icomeanon6, and Dragonfree. You also must post in this thread when you send your PMs so we can confirm you did send us an entry.
4.) One entry per member only, sorry.
5.) You have until the end of the the PCX event timeslot to send in your entry: 11:59 PM EST on Thursday September 27
6.) The story can be based on Pokemon or be original fiction. Note the judges may not all be familiar with any other fandoms.
7.) The entry can only be a completed one-shot as this is a small writing competition - no chaptered entries, please!
8.) Please don't publicly post your stories until the competition is over! Once the scores are posted and the competition is over, you may post your story in Fanfiction and Writing so that others may see it. Make sure to add [SWC] to your title if you do!

If you have any other questions, ask away!


Scoring

Each entry can have a maximum score of 30, with the points broken down into three categories equaling 10 points in total like in previous years. The categories are:

Spelling and Grammar
Characterization, Plot, and Description
Relevance to Prompt


The prompt is "secrets", so good luck with making use of that in your story!


Emblems
First Prize
TBA

Second Prize
TBA

Third Prize
TBA

Participant
TBA

--

I don't think that there really is that much to do for this. We keep the same format every time, so...

Just need to decide on a prompt, how many days should be given for this (three as usual with four for judging?), and if we need a third judge.

Speaking of judging, it'll go again as follows, I assume:

Mechanics (spelling/grammar) - 10
Characterization/plot/the fancier stuff - 10
Relevance to prompt - 10

Oh, and we need emblems too. Which I'm not sure how to go about getting.

 

[icomeanon6]

Whee, planning. By the way, I found last year's contest thread, which we can use for reference I guess: https://access.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=257263

Is this thread open to the public? Wouldn't want to toss around prompt ideas where everyone can see them. EDIT: Tried finding it while logged out, couldn't. That answers that.

As for days, three sounds fine for writing, but I'm not sure four will be enough for judging. It's going to depend on how many entries there are, of course, but last year I think it took a little over a week. The threads stay open pretty well past the end of the get-together, as I recall.

Scoring system's perfect. I like the heavy weight it gives to actually proofreading your work.

I think I'd be more comfortable with a third judge (good number, three). Anyone you have in mind?

Easy thing would be to reuse the emblems from last year, I guess. I actually have no idea what black magic goes into emblems. I think a cool emblem would be like an image of the first page of a book, and it says "First/Second Place" and beneath that the body of the text reads "It was a dark and stormy night."

 

[bobandbill]

Isn't it that the event itself can run for the week (max), and the judging has about a week after to wrap things up? That's how it's been previous times too.

Agree with same layout and judging critera. 3 days for writing is okay but could always extend a bit if need be (as was done in the past).

I can be a reserve judge if needed but I do not know how available I would be. The GT week is during my week off, but the week after (ie where some judging is done) is back to uni for me (albeit I have monday off because public holiday here!) (Plus I wouldn't mind entering instead for a change if I can manage it =p). At any rate maybe consider someone else as I am not yet 100% how useful I would be at mass-reviewing-judging sprees once again. =p

Emblem details include size of images being 80x80. Could go with 3 (1st, 2nd, participation), or a 4th emblem for third place (we are allowed 5 max now, not three).

I guess the other thing to discuss is prompt! Relevant to it being an anniversary/th number 10, or just keep it separate to it?

 

[Astinus]

I can be a reserve judge if needed but I do not know how available I would be.

I'm also going to be busy that week at work, so...

But maybe anon and I can come up with another judge so you can finally participate.

I guess the other thing to discuss is prompt! Relevant to it being an anniversary/th number 10, or just keep it separate to it?

Might be better to go separate, since previous years were separate. But this is a special GT, so maybe a special related prompt would be good. I still prefer separate.

So yeah, prompt and a third judge. Those should be figured out before emblems (which we still need to figure out how to get).

 

[icomeanon6]

Perhaps we should post a volunteer thread in the Writer's Lounge.

I also would rather keep the prompt separate. Something like "anniversary" would result in too many similar stories.

 

[Astinus]

I just made a thread in the Writer's Lounge. Hopefully we'll get some responses to that.

As for the prompt, I just can't think of one. I've thought about it throughout the past several days, and nothing good is coming to mind. I keep getting stuck on "memories" which isn't that good of a prompt. It's too close to "anniversary" which will lead to a lot of similar stories. EDIT: Though we shouldn't discount those prompts in case nothing else sounds good.

Ugh. And the only other things currently on my mind are dog food allergies and high school murder. Neither of which would make good prompts either.

I might have to pull a few random ones off my lists of one-shot prompts I have floating in my room somewhere and see how we feel about any of those.

 

[Astinus]

Did we use "mysterious secrets" before? It's a very common prompt, even when there's more information given. ("Someone shows up at your door one day. They hand you a note. What does it say?")

So I'm leaning towards that one because there's a lot that can be done with it.

Secrets okay as a prompt? Or is there one better?

If this does work as a prompt, then all that's left is the emblems, which isn't really that much of an emergency.

 

[icomeanon6]

Actually, that sounds really good. I vote Secrets.

Also, I notice that Dragonfree is the third judge, so it sounds like we're almost set. I'll see if I can't get some decent looking emblem pictures made up by the start of the Get-Together.

 

[Dragonfree]

Hello everyone! Yes, I am apparently judging. I look forward to it!

I like Secrets as a prompt; there's lots that can be done with it and determining relevance should be reasonably clear.

 

[Astinus]

I quickly used last time's opening post wrote up a first post draft for the new thread. Someone can look at it and make suggestions if needed. Other than that, I think it's okay. As for the ending date for entries, I just wrote down a date towards the end of the week but it'll be easy to extend it. When I get home from work, I'll add any suggestions.

It's also not fancy because I don't want to deal with editing CSS poo poo.

--

PCX's Writing Competition
Judged bu Astinus, icomeanon6, and Dragonfree​

Welcome everyone to PCX's Small Writing Competition! Ready to write a story based on this year's prompt that will impress the three judges and the rest of PC? Great!

But first, a few rules to keep in mind.


Rules

1.) Follow PC's rules and Fanfiction and Writing's rules.
2.) The stories written for this competition must be completely new. In other words, they must not have been written before and not posted anywhere else until judging is over.
3.) You must PM your entries to all of the judges. (This is so if someone loses their PMs the others still have them and so forth). The judges in question are Astinus, icomeanon6, and Dragonfree. You also must post in this thread when you send your PMs so we can confirm you did send us an entry.
4.) One entry per member only, sorry.
5.) You have until the end of the the PCX event timeslot to send in your entry: 11:59 PM EST on Thursday September 27
6.) The story can be based on Pokemon or be original fiction. Note the judges may not all be familiar with any other fandoms.
7.) The entry can only be a completed one-shot as this is a small writing competition - no chaptered entries, please!
8.) Please don't publicly post your stories until the competition is over! Once the scores are posted and the competition is over, you may post your story in Fanfiction and Writing so that others may see it. Make sure to add [SWC] to your title if you do!

If you have any other questions, ask away!


Scoring

Each entry can have a maximum score of 30, with the points broken down into three categories equaling 10 points in total like in previous years. The categories are:

Spelling and Grammar
Characterization, Plot, and Description
Relevance to Prompt


The prompt is "secrets", so good luck with making use of that in your story!


Emblems
TBA

 

[icomeanon6]

Looks good to me.

Just one suggestion: I'd like a reminder that people can post their stories in FF&W after the results are in, preferably with the [SWC] tag.