Fiction Competitions

Hey, gang, it's your friendly Fiction Tribune.

As you can likely tell by the topic, the purpose of this thread is to discuss ideas for fiction competitions that I will be running. Here are the ideas I already have:

-Murder Mystery League
-Epic Competitions (you know, the ones that are fifty pages and take three months to write)
-Lower Ranks Competitions
-Co-operative Fiction/"Points of View" (I give pairs of writers a series of events, and each writes from their own perspective)


Thanks to Alanna for helping me come up with these ideas. Now, for the rest of you, do you have any more fiction ideas that you'd like to submit? Ones that you especially like? Poetry competitions, since I seem to have a distinct lack of those? Feel free to throw your ideas in here. Who knows, you might even get shinies if I use your competition idea (and it's not one of the ones I've already listed).

I like the idea of character development competitions, any thing that gets member to think about and flesh out their characters.

Aside from that, I’m always partial to a good graphics comp (I know it isn’t fiction but hey!)

hmm...

I think we should split it onto competitions for those who begin fiction and those who have mastered it
quite a bit. With [moderate] and [advanced]comp

This way, everyone can join without fearing they wouldnt be good enough. Those who need to learn will
learn while those who already learned have a nice training/dust up.

Just a though

Interesting idea. How would we determine who's moderate and who's advanced? Maybe a point system?

we could just open it up for everyone, but just judge on more stuff like grammar and spelling and techniques on the advanced besides the story plot.

With the moderate we could just go easy on them and focus more on characted development and plot (including realism, ofcourse)

A fine idea Ylith, I would definatly go for something like that.

I try ^^

Maybe we should have a new kind of award for fiction, the Dark Side Scroll
is good but used for almost everything, while gaming has more awards to
choose from.

Just dont think very difficult and just go for a quil or something. Like
Crescents only for Writing comps coming from the Tribune.

Like a Bronze, silver and gold Quil

This way gaming and fiction would be leveled up to about the same height.

just a thought ^^

Crescents are a catch-all that aren't just for gaming, and are supposed to be used for writing comps, too. Dark Side Scrolls are just supposed to be given out as a reward for submitting something worthwhile enough to put into the Dark Voice, and other such publications.

as of such I believe it would be better to seperate them, keep it more organised.

Crescents will be referred to gaming mostly, unless for minor comps for example Battle Team
comps and Minor House Comps.

For clan and DB wide comps we should consider splitting them. As we see it now, the Crescents are
given for everything and when getting one, I doubt anyone will look surprised or glance at it.

With the Quills we can mark people better as a writer or as a gamer, regardless of order.

I know this is a bitch to get trough, but I believe it's do-able.

again, just thoughts though

That's because in the grand scheme of things, Crescents are a lesser reward. They don't get "much wow appeal," just because they are for singular things. Some of the Crescents are for minor things, some are for more major events; hence, why there's five "levels" of Crescents. If you split them up, you're not organizing things, you're just creating more rewards. Why do we need separate gaming and writing rewards? That just puts writers and gamers on separate fields, and creates no similarities or equivalencies.

I can understand what you're saying; we do seem to have an over-abundance of gaming rewards compared to writing rewards. But think about this for a minute. The standard gaming reward is actually the Cluster of Fire. You get those for gaming matches. They used to be awarded for wins alone, but they are now given out for wins and losses (though wins net more). The standard writing reward is actually the Crescent; more writing competitions give out Crescents than anything else. Dark Side Scrolls are mostly a specific reward to the people who submit to the Dark Voice, or other specific publications like that.

Placement awards for gaming used to be Dark Crosses and such; that was changed, just because leadership felt like those rewards were becoming too meaningless just because of how often they were given out, and the standard was changed to Crescents for placement rewards. If you really wanted to balance things out, participation rewards for writing comps would be the answer (since that's basically what Clusters of Fire are now), and it's be just as simple to make CFs the participation reward for writing comps, too.

And so on, and so forth, blah blah, blah. It's not that it's a "bitch to get through," it's that this conversation has been had before; you're not the first to bring up the idea. And it always ends up with the same results. We don't need to add more medals (even as much as that may seem like a good idea) when we can just work within the system we already have.

Maybe, and I have been reading your explaination BF, just throwing in Idea's, we could
use the same time of awards for ACC's and ACCLive!'s. Like the Cluster of Fire's.

I know this maybe is a high ground. But Clusters are also given for writing, yet ask anyone
around here and they will say it's a gaming award, as such it lost its glance at writing in total.


therefore, we scrap my last Idea since BF just explained it wouldnt do any good anyway, we could
rather have something similar to the cluster, and I would like to stick to my Quill Idea for that one.

Maybe something in the line of 'Quill of Blood'

so you will have the Cluster of Fire (CoF) and the Quill of Blood (QoB)

I am sorry if I am hammering on this one, but I really think this could work out pretty well. Maybe not
in the scale as I wanted to be previously (see above) but maybe in this way it could work out.


Again, just throwing in Idea's. nothing more...

In terms of adding awards, I would have to agree with BF's assessment. Not only that, but (and I'm going out on a limb here) to say that we need a separate award for fiction is basically reaffirming that fiction and gaming aren't in the same league. If gaming and fiction are really equal, why do we need separate awards for them? I understand your feelings, Ylith, and I do agree that fiction needs to be set apart from other Brotherhood activities in some way. I just feel that creating a separate set of medals does more to reinforce the double standard than it does to break it down. The other really important reason is that if we go to Jac and Goat about creating new medals, they'll ask exactly the same questions Bf did: "Why do we need new medals when we have perfectly good current ones?"

Now, having said that, I think your ideas about the different types of fiction competitions ("regular" and "advanced") are very good, especially the different grading schemes - quite honestly, that's something I hadn't thought of, and I'm glad all of you gang did. It's definitely something I'll incorporate into my competitions.

Actually, the idea of a "Quill of Blood" is an interesting one, and it's something that could be talked about. But just as I said before, every time someone has brought up this topic, the same questions are always asked. Just like Erinyes said, "Why do we need this award? Can't we do the same thing with what we have? Is it going to make gaming and writing equal, or just further distance them?"

Your mind is in the right place, Ylith, and you're going onto good subjects to think about. It's always good to try and make sure gaming and writing are on equal playing fields, it's just how that equality gets implemented is where issues come up. Maybe look at what we already have, and try to modify it towards equality? Try to look into what ideas you can come up with that puts what we have on more level ground with regards to gaming and writing? Feel free to hit me up over IRC or Email, too; I'd be glad to hash ideas out with you.

I am glad to see people aqtually like it, lol

I will contact about you BF. I think that, even though we want
gaming and writing to be as one large brotherhood medium, we
should at least have a medal like the Cluster for writing.


As for the compeitions, using the two can be very nice, but we need to see
who is at least a bit more experienced or better than others, else people
will only the the moderqted ones because they're easier.

Another reason why we should have the awards, that way we can see who is a fair writer than someone else.


Sorry to keep pushing onto this, but this was a plan that kept growing on inside of my head ^^

About the ACCLive!, there is only a select number of people who play it,
I wonder why, my personal guess is that they dont get the sufficient amount of
CF's in comparison to gaming. I mean, half an hour of gaming can bring in more CF's than an ACCLive!
Yeah I know, tiring, but with the QoB, we could get people interested again because you can win a whole other award.


ok, now to go off of that topic... sorry ^^


Maybe it is nice to have somekind of lesson thing. Unlike the SA and
just on IRC, people will have a channel in which once a week people
can come and discuss fiction or just ask about certain things. May it be
ACC or grammar stuff.


hehe, Enrinyes, if you need any further personal help, feel free
to drop me an e-mail, I'll be happy to discuss stuff about this, and BF
I'll catch you on IRC

Actually, one of the projects I'm working on with Anshar is called the "Writer's Workshop". They'll basically be short guides to certain aspects of writing, like effective use of descriptions, tips for writing fight scenes, a guide to writing the Force, different styles of poetry, creating moods in writing, and all sorts of other good stuff. The first set of those might even be out before the end of the month.

If you do feel like helping out, I'd appreciate any time you can spare before the GJW. Just to warn you, most of the work I'm doing right now is boring legwork, though. Which is probably why I don't mind help for it. Just e-mail me at the address in my profile.

mail sent

nice Idea, that should work for quite a bit

what I was also thinking, maybe we could let the CS 'officially' count
for more fiction than just the ACC. Could be a nice thing to keep in mind
to check on CS's when doing the Advanced comps.

Hmm... I both agree and disagree with that. The attribute ratings on ACC sheets could be useful in determining a character's general makeup, but sometimes, the skills are disproportionate - the ACC is restricted by numbers and "game balance" to make sure no one person gets too powerful, to keep things fair. But in fiction, those limitations are out the window; who's to say that someone can't be good at everything, especially a senior Dark Jedi? Other problems are more matters of practicality than anything; some members don't have ACC profiles, I'd have to discuss with Dalth whether I could "officially" use comparison of fiction with ACC sheets as a means of grading things, etc.

I see where you're coming from, and I think the principle is good. For better or worse, though, fiction writing is a little too fluid to be able to use overly concrete rules. For me personally, although I've used ACC sheets to determine realism before (I mean outside the ACC as well as inside), the hallmark has always been whether it's well-written and realistic given the circumstances.

Having said that, though, I think the fiction judges will have to agree on some kind of standard for realism. Your idea may well come into practice after all.

I have two pressing questions: Will the "Writer's Workshop" encompass both the technical and creative parts of short story writing? And will the Workshop work on a personal level or be one large, generic "course" as is the staple of the Shadow Academy?

I can see where the Workshop would be a boon to the Brotherhood so long as it follows a structured, but loose, format and applied in a small group setting in lieu of the standard "Here's how you should be writing by following guidelines A, B, C, and D. Remeber to punctuate as appropriate (with link to Purdue's OWL or dianahacker.com or something)." The latter really will not do a whole lot for budding writers except define the "rules" of the short story, and cannot envision it going past "This is how it's done (example here) or like this (another example)," with maybe some links to stuff by short story writers (Capote, Joyce, O'Connor, Poe, ad nauseum).

There will be kind of a combination of both of those. For the sake of simplicity, when the Workshops are first posted, it'll be closer to the "course" idea, although broken down into discrete articles on both the technical and creative parts of writing.

However, that's not to say there won't be dialogue. While it's not really practical to have a couple of people sitting in an IRC channel all day waiting for questions, there will be opportunities for the members to e-mail myself and other Fiction Tribune staff and say, "what do you mean by this, and how will it help with the piece I'm writing?" (That, and I think we've just stumbled on another facet of the Writer's Corner.) There's also the distinct possiblility of having open sessions on IRC once a week where people can come into a channel and bombard the Tribune staff with the same sorts of questions.

Thanks for bringing those points up. The interactive component had slipped my mind, but it's definitely an important one.

Just a thought, but this is something that I've been using heavily with my Apprentices, and I picked up at University - reading before writing. Not to say that people can't write, but I've found the level of writing improves dramatically when the person learns to read first - pick up nuances in the story, why some details are heavy and others are light or non-existant, why one word was used over the other, why is an image important, etc.

How long do you think is too long of a history? Because the level of detail I am going to put into Krayn's is going to level out to be around.....120 pages, and its going to expand from there.

Uhm. If that was a typo to say 10, 12 or 20 pages, that's cool. 120 pages, well, the longest fic piece I've ever seen on here was just slightly over half that. Quite frankly, I don't think anyone would be able to finish reading it.

Maybe start with five pages, then see what happens?

lol 120 for a history...talk about day to day description

I hope it's a typo. Also, I know this is a little old, but I really like character development fictions seeing as how when I write I like to get really into the characters and their thoughts and feelings. Just my opinion on the matter