Serious Garnering interest in a Cong short story contest

[Martin]

Hi, so this is something that I brought up in the mod convo a few weeks ago that I never got around to sorting out. Basically what this would be would be we set a theme or synopsis and a word limit and get people to write a short story to match. However, there are a few logistical things that'd need sorting out before I can get it up and running, so this is to just ask a few questions:

• No-one other than myself volunteered to act as a judge or suggested people to approach to about it when I asked in the Cong mod convo; would anyone be interested in helping me with the judging side of this? This'd be a voluntary thing obviously but it'd definitely be something that would be taken into consideration if/when we decide to nominate people for social forums ladybug/CC in the future.
• Would anyone actually be interested in taking part in something like this? I know a lot of people on the site do writing in some capacity just based on "writers on smogon" and the poetry thread, but even if there were a monetary incentive (e.g. if the winner got like a $20 or $30 Amazon voucher or something; probably not more tho because I'm poor :s) would anyone actually submit anything? I don't want this to go down in flames like the Christmas Congtest did.
• How long should I leave the submission period open for if this does end up happening, and how many rounds should I do?
• Does anyone have any other questions about how this'd work or any suggestions for themes/synopses/word limits/whatever else?

Any responses I could get would be great, so thanks in advance.

Edit: notes for self

The following people have expressed interest in helping with judging:

• p squared
• blizzardy
• seraph's fire
• Gato
• HeaLnDeaL
• Magikingdra
• Lou

 

[chimp]

Id volunteer to judge

 

[Seraph's Fire]

I usually lurk here instead of posting but creative writing major incoming
I'd definitely make an effort to submit something (key: make an effort; sometimes I'm too swamped with essays for leisure writing), and am also willing to judge I guess if it's needed/wanted

As far as the rules go, I recommend:
2,000 to 5,000 words
3-4 week submission period
Loose prompts that allow for a diverse set of stories (more inclusive; if a certain prompt doesn't allow for the kind of story someone wants to write, you lose someone who might otherwise submit); images are good prompts for this stuff, and multiple prompts a round to choose from is also a good idea
If you do want to have multiple rounds with multiple stories, probably reduce the submission period and go for 1,000 to 3,000 words, and you could maybe do themed rounds (like a sci-fi round and a horror round or something)
The rules also depend on how willing you are to include CW material (stuff including topics like depression, self-harm, extreme gore, erotica, etc); making it clear what is and isn't acceptable is very necessary
Also, I recommend disallowing posting the stories publicly until the period is over; just have them sent privately to the judges

 

[internet]

I tried this in circus a long while ago and it was a Damn GOod time but then everyone flaked rip

depends on if im feeling inspired

 

[Rugi]

yeah but I'd need time, busy with school rn

 

[GatoDelFuego]

Themed rounds would be awesome, probably make it easier for people to come in with some kind of prompt. I doubt I'd find the time/effort to make a submission but reading a bunch of stories would be totally rad. I'd love to see what users could come up with.

 

[vonFiedler]

I honestly don't remember you bringing this up, but I'd be interested in participating.

 

[Martin]

I honestly don't remember you bringing this up, but I'd be interested in participating.

It’s the last post in the convo, but ye it was like a month ago so i don’t blame u for not remembering

 

[Tera Melos]

I'd absolutely be interested

 

[Nuked]

yeah

 

[HeaLnDeaL]

I'd be willing to help judge :D The overall idea sounds p cool.

 

[Magii]

Id love to judge, swamped rn with school newspaper so I can’t contribute.

 

[Acklow]

I tried this in circus a long while ago and it was a Damn GOod time but then everyone flaked rip

depends on if im feeling inspired

HEY. DONT FORGET THE TIME WE DID STUFF FOR FIREBOT.

Except it wasn't a short story contest, but it did involve great minds using great amounts of creativity. We gotta collab and do this again lol.

 

[Lou]

I have to say I love writing and reading as well. This might be a really good idea, we should give it a try. Count me in either to judge or participate!

Also just and idea but you may want to stablish a limit of words/paragraphs or pages that can be used to make it a little harder and to secure that stories are short.

 

[Magii]

I have to say I love writing and reading as well. This might be a really good idea, we should give it a try. Count me in either to judge or participate!

Also just and idea but you may want to stablish a limit of words/paragraphs or pages that can be used to make it a little harder and to secure that stories are short.

I’d say anywhere between 2-5 pages, max 2000 words.

 

[Lou]

2-4 pages is ok imo

Also, something that just came to my mind: We could make it a weekly event or maybe twice a month and publish the winner story in our social medias (Facebook, Twitter, and also Youtube—someone can read it like an audiobook or something—)

 

[Magii]

2-4 pages is ok imo

Also, something that just came to my mind: We could make it a weekly event or maybe twice a month and publish the winner story in our social medias (Facebook, Twitter, and also Youtube—someone can read it like an audiobook or something—)

That'd be nice, but there would have to be a lot in advance. IMO the average user can't write a high quality short story in a week.

 

[Martin]

If this were to become a regular thing it'd probably be monthly at the very least btw, although I imagine bimonthly or quarterly would probably be easier just to allow a month for submissions, a week or two for judges to finish up judging any submissions they haven't read+judged yet and to allow ample time to make sure that judges know what their long-term schedules are before agreeing to judge the next comp (so that they don't make commitments that they can't keep due to exams/major work projects).

Anyway, thank you everyone for the responses. I'll probably make a convo with the people who volunteered to judge sometime this week so that we can work out the panel for the first official contest and so that we can figure out what we want our theme/limitations to be. This thread's staying unlocked for the forseeable future, so if anyone else wants to voulunteer to join the rotating panel or if anyone has any other questions/suggestions keep them coming.

 

[Lou]

Did not had the time factor on count :/ but what about this? We can do it monthly (first week to submit ideas for theme of the month and weekend to vote and pick the winner, two weeks as deadline to send stories and one last week to judge them?) imo, it can works this way but we can also test this method for the first three months and see how it goes.

What do you think?

 

[Magii]

Did not had the time factor on count :/ but what about this? We can do it monthly (first week to submit ideas for theme of the month and weekend to vote and pick the winner, two weeks as deadline to send stories and one last week to judge them?) imo, it can works this way but we can also test this method for the first three months and see how it goes.

What do you think?

Nice. I think we can do a prize list of-
Custom Title
Custom Avatar (PS)
Custom Avatar (Smogon)
Etc.

Winner would pick 2.

 

[Lou]

Or maybe one of those + publishing winner's story on social medias, as I suggested above. Two of those seems to be too much (at least for me)

 

[Magii]

Or maybe one of those + publishing winner's story on social medias, as I suggested above. Two of those seems to be too much (at least for me)

True. Any ideas on how to rate the stories?

 

[Lou]

Was thinking on rate them regards to quality, creativity, originality, and some others.

Also, instead of choosing a story to win, we could give every story a rating within 1.0 and 5.0 to create a ranking and calculates the final results (so the chances of getting a tie are really low)

 

[Martin]

How to handle judging is smth I'm gonna work to figure out soon-ish when I make the judge convo (if I were to take a guess it'd probably be done by the panel discussing and deciding on a shortlist and then individually scoring the shortlist, but I'm going to read up on how bigger story contests handle it and maybe use that as a part in deciding on the system), but I'm thinking a banner would be a good prize, similar to what you get if you win the Official Mafia; the banner can "expire" after 12 months without a win or something so that people get to keep it for a reasonable amount of time (i.e. not lose it after 2 months) without it feeling like a permanent prize that you can get once and then idle for eternity with. I might also give an Amazon gift card or something to the winner but, once again, it comes down to what my personal monetary situation is like at any given point in time.

 

[Ampharos]

i should check this forum more, apparently

would be down for this