[HalcyonSpirit]

The Writing Competition Thread

News

1/2/2011: The submission and especially the voting participation has faltered lately. Make your 2011 resolution to participate more this year!


Current Stage: FREEFORM SUBMISSION
Contest Dates:

• Submission: 0:00 UTC 1 January, 2012 - 23:59 UTC 31 January, 2012
• Voting: 0:00 UTC 1 February, 2012 - 23:59 UTC 14 February, 2012
• Results Posting: 0:00 UTC 15 February, 2012 - 23:59 UTC 16 February, 2012

General Info:
The Writing Competition Thread holds competitions starting at the beginning of every other month, with the submission, voting and judging stages usually lasting six weeks followed by a short break. There are three categories that our competitions fall under: short story, poetry, and freeform. Each competition focuses on one of these categories. We aim to be a non-threatening competition, and to help our entrants improve their creative writing skills. If you are interested, please enter regardless of your skill level. We try to give feedback and helpful tips for entered works once each contest is over.

Submission Rules:

• Late submissions will not be counted.
• Entries should reflect the category of the competition. If an entry is deemed to not fit into the correct category, it will be ignored.
• Only entries written within the time frame of the submission stage will be considered. After all, the idea behind the competition is partially to promote creativity within a particular time frame, and inherent in the idea of creativity is the act of creation.
• Only one entry per person is allowed.
• Finish your work before you post your submission, or if you make a revision, identify it clearly and do so before the submission deadline. Edits of submissions after the voting phase begins will be ignored.
• Competitions, to be viable, must have at least three (3) entries. Additionally, if a minimum of four (4) entries are not submitted before the end of the official submission stage, the submission deadline will automatically be extended one (1) week.
• If the current round of the competition does not meet the minimum entry requirement, the round ends without a vote. Entrants, if they so choose, will be allowed to be resubmit their piece, unedited, in the next competition it is eligible for.
• Remember to include a title, or at least something for people to call your work during the voting phase.
• Please post your piece directly into this thread whenever possible! Otherwise it may get overlooked. If your piece is too long to fit conveniently into a forum post, please find some alternate form of hosting such as Google Docs or FictionPress.com and link us to it instead.
• Uploading your finished works to hosts such as Google Docs or FictionPress.com and sharing the links with us is highly recommended! While not necessary for entering, it will help us archive the entries from each competition.

Category - Short Story:

• No fanfiction. Fanfiction will belong in the Freeform category. Why? Because creating and developing your own characters in a limited amount of space is a significant challenge. Working with existing characters in existing universes is like remixed music; it's one thing to remix a song, but something completely different to make it from scratch.
• Fiction and nonfiction are both welcome.
• Please limit your submissions in this category to 3000 words.
• Feel free to label your work according to its genre, style, etc. This will help people understand and better judge your piece.

Category - Poetry:

• No fanpoetry. That is, nothing that qualifies as fanfiction, but in verse form. See above for the reasoning behind this. Also note that allusion is one thing; basing the majority of your work on another person's creative product is another.
• Poetry can be almost anything. You need not adhere to a particular form unless you wish to. Anything from sonnets to haikus to free-verse belongs here.
• Please limit your submissions in this category to 1000 words.
• Feel free to label your work according to its form, e.g., ballad, villanelle, palindrome, limerick, free-verse, acrostic, etc.

Category - Freeform:

• If it has words, it belongs here. Examples could be Maddox-style rants, journalistic articles, how-to documents, or really whatever creative idea you can come up with.
• Please limit your submissions in this category to 3000 words.
• Feel free to label your work if you think it will help.

Voting Rules:

• Early or late votes will not be accepted.
• Anyone may vote, even if he or she does not have a current submission. If foul play is suspected (i.e., an entrant finding a bunch of friends or alt accounts to artificially support their entry) an investigation will occur.
• Scoring: If the voter has submitted an entry this round or in the past, he or she will be allotted 6 points to distribute. If the voter has NOT submitted this round or in the past, he or she will be allotted 3 points.
• When voting, you will award your allotted points to any two or more entries as you choose. Note: this means you may not award all of your points to one and only one entry.
• A voter may allot up to one point to his or her own entry if he or she so chooses.
• Please submit all votes via PM to me (HalcyonSpirit).

Judging Rules:

• After the deadline for voting has passed, I (HalcyonSpirit) will tally the votes for each submission and post the results no later than the end of the judging stage.
• The submission with the most points will be declared the winner, and the submission with the second most points will be declared the runner-up.

[HalcyonSpirit]

Current Submissions
for the September 2011 Short Story Competition:

Bobert's Boredom by Mirby
NOBODY by Jax Mandrake
Savanna Dream by Simplicity

Results
for the September 2011 Short Story Competition:

1st Place: Savanna Dream by Simplicity
Runner-Up: NOBODY by Jax Mandrake

The vote tally:

Savanna Dream by Simplicity - 10
NOBODY by Jax Mandrake - 6
Bobert's Boredom by Mirby - 2

[Imagist]

Haha. Write your little hearts out, indeed. And if you guys are still around in two years, I'll be sure to come back by.

So, I'm all critiqued out on your poem, Random Hajile. Yeah, it took me three months, whatever. Now I'm going to finish my thoughts on Washington Maverick's story, and I may even have time to put together one more little surprise for you guys... but for that, you'll just have to wait and see.

Critique of "Walk" by Random Hajile (linked because it's too large for one post)

[Jam Stunna]

Hey guys! I apologize for not being as active back here as I should be, but I hope to change that. Poetry is by no means my strong suit, but when short stories come up again, I'd like to help critique pieces.

[JH Sounds]

Originally Posted by Jam Stunna

Hey guys! I apologize for not being as active back here as I should be, but I hope to change that. Poetry is by no means my strong suit, but when short stories come up again, I'd like to help critique pieces.

No one's stopping you from critiquing the short stories that are already here...

[Jam Stunna]

Originally Posted by just64helpin

No one's stopping you from critiquing the short stories that are already here...

Will do, sir.

Okay. I just read your story, and I'm not really sure what to say. It was well-written, and nothing really stood out, but I suppose that's the problem. There was no sense of mystery or discovery to this story; we knew from the beginning that they were hunting a UFO, and then they found it. The moment that your main character encountered the UFO was almost anti-climactic, and I was left feeling, "That's it?"

You only used 1/3 of the word limit, and it feels like 1/3 of a story honestly. There's so much room left to take this in some direction, any direction. What do the people do about this conspiracy? What did the aliens do with this information? How did your main character react a few days later? This is just the beginning of what could be a good story, and I hope you choose to expand on it.

[HalcyonSpirit]

Wow, time's really crept up on me this month. I guess that's what happens when you've got many things to worry about at once...

Alright people! We've got one week left for submitting your piece! Get a move on, go go go!

[Random Hajile]

The Name


What would you say to me
If I told you that all things
have a name?

A name, created forever ago-
A name singular, secret and sacred,
A name that grants form?

What if I told you
That if you cried out
The name of the moon,

You could bathe at midday
under its dappled falling shine;
taking in its light?

That if you called to the skies,
You could surround yourself
With a span of azure infinity,

Paint sun-songs with hidden words,
Or build a house of clouds while
floating in blue nothingness?

To think; You could merely utter
The name of oceans - That
vast implication; You could

Summon distant, breaking shores
for your own inspection and approval-
to satisfy the merest curiosity?

Would you say it was fantasy?
Something august to ponder;
And then regretfully forget?

That to guide a symphony of creation
with mere words and intention
Is a blasphemy?

Or maybe you would think it over -
And softly, sadly say,
"I could never..."

But what if... what if
I gently spoke to you the name of love,
Tender yet bittersweet?

Would you scoff at my audacity,
To arrogantly manipulate its meaning
by not letting it go free?

Or would you see that sadly, I'll
never be able to find the name
for what you mean to me?

[HalcyonSpirit]

Come on now, people. There has been one submission this round so far. That's not good. I don't want to have to extend the deadline for my first competition at the helm!

You've got about a day and a half left to submit. Let's see some writing!

[ubernym]

Sorry guys, I can't write poetry.