Original Fiction Competition

zerohour

Well-Known Member
#1
Moderator edit: The contest has started. Link here,
Original Fiction Competition Launch!
-chronodekar

Posted here because this is probably where it belongs, and in the General talk section, because this area doesn't get very much traffic yet.

Since naming it Iron Man Fic in tribute to Iron fic clearly didn't work, let's try being a little less esoteric. I should probably work on coming up with a new name.

Anyways, the idea is that I would like to encourage people to give Original Fiction a try, so a competition (with prizes) to stimulate writing original fiction seems like a good idea to me.

Of course, I want to do this right, so I though I would run it by you guys, and hopefully fine tune this before launch.




Format:
-Like previous Iron Man Fics, this is not about a short burst of wild inspiration. This is about the long hauls, keepin up the motivation to a story come to life.
-Unlike previous Iron Man Fics, there will be a definite deadline. I plan on launching this on the first of the month, with the competition ending on the last day of the month.

My goal is that after one month of writing, "finished" stories will have a 10,000 word length. I want to choose a length and time that gives participants a chance to go through and proof their story and make sure their work is high quality and fits with the narrative, while not letting them slack off and lose their motivation.


-I'm currently considering two possible setup:
--One chapter per week, with a 2,500 word minimum
--One chapter every three days, with a 1,000 word minimum.
--Other suggestions are welcome.


Prompts:
I don't know if prompts would be appropriate for this. On one hand, it can give the participants a general idea of where to go with the chapter and the story in general. On the other, it can become problematic if they have their own ideas on where to go, and the prompts might hinder their ability to fully realize their story. What do you guys think?



Judges:
I would like to have at least three judges involved in this. Ideally, i would like to have four or five, so we have at least three judging each entry, even if something comes up.

Scoring: Not too sure on scoring. Probably something similar to Iron Fic, since there isn't much need to change the formula. Probably add in a few more points for meeting the minimum length requirement and for maintaining



Prizes:
I am will to put in one dollar for every thousand words written for the competition, up to one hundred dollars.

So if Writer A write 5,000 words, and Writer B write 8,000 words, that is a total of 13,000 words written, for a grand total of $13 in the prize pot.

Of course, if anyone else want to chip in money, short fiction, art, or whatever else they want to put in, I and any participants would be grateful.


So, what do you people think? What looks like it will work, and what looks like it needs improvement?
 

Meinos Kaen

Well-Known Member
#2
RE: Original iction Competition

Hmmm, I'd thought I'd pitch in as well. I can publicize this through my site, and, what about this as a prize.

To the winner, I will pay to publish the winning story on Amazon. That includes professional editing, formatting and a cover.
 

rukia8492

Well-Known Member
#3
RE: Original iction Competition

i agree
 

Amaretto

Well-Known Member
#4
RE: Original iction Competition

I like the idea, a prompt wouldn't be the best idea for a month long project but points awarded for character depth, originality, and genre should be considered as well. I think working a peer review/scoring into it would be good as well.
 

Meinos Kaen

Well-Known Member
#5
RE: Original iction Competition

Okay. First thing, who wants to judge? Since we're providing the prize me and Zero, of course. Who else? I'd say, at least three people.
 

Vog

Well-Known Member
#6
RE: Original iction Competition

Can't judge, have a terrible track record with actually explaining my scores. I will kick in 20 bucks for the pot though.
 

bissek

Well-Known Member
#7
RE: Original iction Competition

What's an iction?
 

Halibel Lecter

Well-Known Member
#8
I'm interested in writing for this. Also, barring that,

Of course, if anyone else want to chip in money, short fiction, art, or whatever else they want to put in, I and any participants would be grateful.
I'd be happy to donate a commissioned drawing for the winner.
 

zerohour

Well-Known Member
#9
Whoops. Fixed.

Holy shit Kaen. Can't believe we have such an awesome prize as getting it published. Vog being generous enough to chip is as well is great.

Current Prize: $20, A commissioned drawing, Getting your story published on Amazon, plus up to an additional $100 depending on overall participation.

Alright, so we have me and Kaen as judges, and are probably looking for another one, just to get a nice triumvirate up. Alternates would be nice in case life happens to one of us.

Hey Kaen, is a 10,000 word story long enough to publish? I don't have any experience with publishing, so I'd like your opinion on it. Sending you a PM about this as well

I might have an idea to add on to the judging system, but I'll have to do some tinkering and run it by Watashiwa first to see if it's possible.


Hm, how many people here have websites, write fiction, or that sort of thing? If people don't want to offer up material prizes, free advertising is always appreciated. Anyone else interested in popularizing one of our own?

Probably going to delay this until September, so we have more time to figure things out. I don't think we'll be able to get everything set in the next ten days. Guess we'll have to see how it goes.
 

Meinos Kaen

Well-Known Member
#10
zerohour said:
Whoops. Fixed.

Holy shit Kaen. Can't believe we have such an awesome prize as getting it published. Vog being generous enough to chip is as well is great.

Current Prize: $20, A commissioned drawing, Getting your story published on Amazon, plus up to an additional $100 depending on overall participation.

Alright, so we have me and Kaen as judges, and are probably looking for another one, just to get a nice triumvirate up. Alternates would be nice in case life happens to one of us.

Hey Kaen, is a 10,000 word story long enough to publish? I don't have any experience with publishing, so I'd like your opinion on it. Sending you a PM about this as well

I might have an idea to add on to the judging system, but I'll have to do some tinkering and run it by Watashiwa first to see if it's possible.


Hm, how many people here have websites, write fiction, or that sort of thing? If people don't want to offer up material prizes, free advertising is always appreciated. Anyone else interested in popularizing one of our own?

Probably going to delay this until September, so we have more time to figure things out. I don't think we'll be able to get everything set in the next ten days. Guess we'll have to see how it goes.
Heh. I'm finally in the writer community, I may as well start acting like one. :p

Yes, 10.000 is a suitable length for a short story. And anyway, thinking about it more, what about this.

For the winner, we have prize money, but what about we publish all the stories that get submitted in one anthology? That way, everyone gets exposure.

Edit: Halibel, that would be great. We can make the drawing the cover of the book. Winner gets prize money and to get to be the cover of the anthology.

Also, this is exclusive to Forum Dwellers, right?

Edit2: About the publishing, I thought I should come clear with this first. To publish on Amazon, the book can't be free. It must be priced at least at 0.99$. It can be circumvented via Smashwords to make it free for all, but it requires a lot of work and a type of formatting that I'm not familiar with. Also, books with a big amount of pages but with a low price or free get glossed over as the price being an excuse to cover bad quality. So, it needs to be priced well.

Now, I was thinking to enroll the resulting anthology in the Kindle Direct Program, which basically means that you make the book exclusive to Amazon for three months -you can decide periodically if to keep on enrolling it or not- but also means that you can make it free for a certain number of days for each three months period. This is what I did with my book and what I will do with all the next ones, because:

1) Amazon is the leading eBook provider and the only one who provides decent exposition for Indie authors.
2) Free days for a priced product are a great way to get it exposed. People go like 'wow, this PRICE thing is now free for a limited time! I MUST HAVE!'.

Any and all sales made for the thing, we could put into a fund to be used for the next edition, if we want to turn this into a periodical thing.

One last thing: Amazon doesn't pay by the sell. It sends you payment only once you reach a roof of profits, so to speak. If you sell 8, you're not going to see them unless you sell 10.
 

zerohour

Well-Known Member
#11
An anthology? That certainly seems like a better idea than publishing a single, 10,000 word story. I think we would need to establish a minimum score to keep the quality up and prevent someone from just saying "balls" ten thousand times.

Nothing huge, but around 70% of the maximum judge score seems reasonable. Maybe a bit higher if I can figure out a good way for TFFers to vote for the story.

How much on average does publishing on Amazon cost? Assuming it's not prohibitively expensive, we might be able to do this on a regular basis, depending on how many of us participate, donate, and how popular the anthology turns out to be.

I'm sure to think up more stuff later. I'll try to catch you on tff chat later.
 

Meinos Kaen

Well-Known Member
#12
zerohour said:
An anthology? That certainly seems like a better idea than publishing a single, 10,000 word story. I think we would need to establish a minimum score to keep the quality up and prevent someone from just saying "balls" ten thousand times.

Nothing huge, but around 70% of the maximum judge score seems reasonable. Maybe a bit higher if I can figure out a good way for TFFers to vote for the story.

How much on average does publishing on Amazon cost? Assuming it's not prohibitively expensive, we might be able to do this on a regular basis, depending on how many of us participate, donate, and how popular the anthology turns out to be.

I'm sure to think up more stuff later. I'll try to catch you on tff chat later.
Publishing itself? 0. It's completely free. I will also take care of formatting, and if Halibel takes care of the cover, all that's left is the typesetting and editing. The latter depends on the length and the kind of. Since we'd only need it for grammar, I think all in all... No more than 100$ for both. Again, it depends on how many words are there to edit.
 

zerohour

Well-Known Member
#13
Nice. Assumign we get enough participants and/or donations, we could make this a monthly thing...

Maybe every other month, just to give writers down time...

...I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's just focus on this one instance for now.
 

Meinos Kaen

Well-Known Member
#14
zerohour said:
Nice. Assumign we get enough participants and/or donations, we could make this a monthly thing...

Maybe every other month, just to give writers down time...

...I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's just focus on this one instance for now.
Yeah.
 
#15
>>editing
>>costs money
Wait, TFF is full of very capable grammar Nazis. We could peer-beta, and avoid paying for a copy editor.
 

Watashiwa

Administrator
Staff member
#16
Halibel Lecter said:
>>editing
>>costs money
Wait, TFF is full of very capable grammar Nazis. We could peer-beta, and avoid paying for a copy editor.
There's a HUGE difference between the quality of the work that a professional editor does and what a bunch of internet grammar nazis can do. Editors don't just correct mistakes, they suggest changes, additions and removals as well as ways to make a story more readable as well as saleable. Most importantly perhaps, professional editors are good at getting their authors to willingly make the necessary changes, while a peer editor isn't likely to be able to exert the necessary leverage.

Anyway zerohour, I've posted the announcement. It's on you now; good luck!
 

violinmana

(Hardcore) Gamer
#17
I'm definitely going to participate in this then, this will be good practice for writing stories for my upcoming game (which is going to take at least two more years, I swear I no longer have time for extra shit.)

I'll also write the blurb for the anthology, since Meinos liked mine so much for /his/ book.
 

Meinos Kaen

Well-Known Member
#18
violinmana said:
I'm definitely going to participate in this then, this will be good practice for writing stories for my upcoming game (which is going to take at least two more years, I swear I no longer have time for extra shit.)

I'll also write the blurb for the anthology, since Meinos liked mine so much for /his/ book.
And I'll write the introduction. Deal? :p

Okay, before continuing on the rules, we have to establish what the competition should be about. Theme competition? Genre competition?
 

violinmana

(Hardcore) Gamer
#19
Forgot to say this earlier, but I'll match Zero's contribution to the prize pool, even though I'm participating as well.
 

The Ero-Sennin

The Eyes of Heaven
Staff member
#20
Not gonna lie, gettin' hyped for this contest. I want in on it.
 

zerohour

Well-Known Member
#21
Meinos Kaen said:
violinmana said:
I'm definitely going to participate in this then, this will be good practice for writing stories for my upcoming game (which is going to take at least two more years, I swear I no longer have time for extra shit.)

I'll also write the blurb for the anthology, since Meinos liked mine so much for /his/ book.
And I'll write the introduction. Deal? :p

Okay, before continuing on the rules, we have to establish what the competition should be about. Theme competition? Genre competition?
Aw... that doesn't leave anything for me to write...

I guess I could write an unjudged story... assuming that would be acceptable.


As for theme/genre, I'd like to suggest Tarot Cards. Each card has it's own unique meaning, and it gives the writers a high degree of flexibility while still keeping a core theme.

Of course, it could be too broad... Anyone have any other suggestions?


Hm... three confirmed participants. Still plenty of time to get more people confirmed, and of course, surprise entries once this finally launches.
 

Meinos Kaen

Well-Known Member
#22
zerohour said:
Meinos Kaen said:
violinmana said:
I'm definitely going to participate in this then, this will be good practice for writing stories for my upcoming game (which is going to take at least two more years, I swear I no longer have time for extra shit.)

I'll also write the blurb for the anthology, since Meinos liked mine so much for /his/ book.
And I'll write the introduction. Deal? :p

Okay, before continuing on the rules, we have to establish what the competition should be about. Theme competition? Genre competition?
Aw... that doesn't leave anything for me to write...

I guess I could write an unjudged story... assuming that would be acceptable.


As for theme/genre, I'd like to suggest Tarot Cards. Each card has it's own unique meaning, and it gives the writers a high degree of flexibility while still keeping a core theme.

Of course, it could be too broad... Anyone have any other suggestions?


Hm... three confirmed participants. Still plenty of time to get more people confirmed, and of course, surprise entries once this finally launches.
Tarots? Hopefully we won't get a long list of Part3 inspired stories :p Well, maybe Tarots is too broad... What about a Tarot Card, each time different? We could call this the Fate Writing Competition or something :p
 

violinmana

(Hardcore) Gamer
#23
Dear god no, please. Maybe themes loosely based on the Arcana, but then we would need to assign each arcana to each contest entry, which is just... well. Stupid.

Overlapping theme gets my vote.
 

zerohour

Well-Known Member
#24
violinmana said:
Dear god no, please. Maybe themes loosely based on the Arcana, but then we would need to assign each arcana to each contest entry, which is just... well. Stupid.

Overlapping theme gets my vote.
What wrong with Tarot? There are plenty of cards to choose from, which effectively gives the writers free reign over what they write.
 

violinmana

(Hardcore) Gamer
#25
Because if we do go with a tarot theme, then we would need a sizable number of people just to get a decent representation in the anthology.
 
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