As mentioned in the NaNoWriMo 2013 thread and The Great 2014 Writing Thread, I would like to try something new - at least new to CFC.
To explain a little history, some years back when I was a member of a different kind of gaming forum (tabletop D&D-type role-playing games), one of the members thought up a writing competition for that forum's writing subforum. He called it Iron Pen, and modeled it after the Iron Chef TV show (where chefs would compete to produce dishes that required a "secret ingredient" that they didn't get to know about in advance, and had a limited time to prepare). I was a competitor at first, and when the member who started it decided to step down from his hosting duties, the last competition he did was to determine who would take over. I had the honor of winning that competition, and took over as host.
I've wanted to try Iron Pen here for years, as I know there are people here who enjoy writing and would find this an interesting challenge. For various reasons the timing was never right - until now. We just had a successful NaNoWriMo last November, interest in writing has picked up, Plotinus gave me the go-ahead to try this, so now seems an excellent time.
The basic rules are simple. Each competition runs over the course of 5-6 days, and involves 2 competitors at a time. The objective of each participant is to write, over the course of 48 hours, a short story that meets a minimum length requirement of words (could be longer, within reason), and includes a "secret ingredient" - in this case a secret theme - which the contestants will not know about until the time comes to begin writing.
To give you an example of a theme that could be used... one of the competitions I took part in (and won) was when we had to write a story using the theme of cabbage. Another competition had the writers using a zombie theme. The hardest one of all that I took part in used the theme of... nothing. I found out it's really not easy to do a good story about nothing. But there are lots of ways to interpret it.
One critical part of this competition is that there will a winner and there will be a not-winner (I don't want to say loser, because in my opinion, nobody who is willing to go through a competition like this could ever be a loser). In theory there could be a tie, but in my experience that happened only once. The stories were so close in quality, the scores ended up in a tie.
This brings up the matter of how to determine a winner. After the stories are finished and posted, everyone will have the opportunity to read them and post comments and constructive criticism. There will be no trolling, no flaming, no "this story sucks!" comments allowed. If you don't like a story, feel free to say so - but do it politely, and say why. Part of Iron Pen is to help people improve their writing skills, and constructive criticism is crucial for that. Of course it's also important to say why you do like a story. Knowing what works is every bit as important as knowing what needs improvement.
After the critique phase, people may vote for whichever story they think is the better one. I haven't worked out all the criteria on which to base these votes yet - your input and suggestions would be welcome for that. Basically the voting should be based on several things: Does the story meet the minimum/maximum length requirements? Does it effectively use the secret theme? Is it an entertaining story? Is it well-written (as in edited/proofread for errors)? When the voting period is up, the scores will be tallied and the winner declared. I would ask both the winners and not-winners to be gracious about the results.
This will not be a popularity contest where a good story might not win because of who wrote it. You won't know who wrote which story until after the voting is done and the winner announced. How this will work is that the competitors will choose a Pen Name, which only they and I will know. The stories, when finished, will be submitted to me via PM, and I will post them on the competitors' behalf. After the winner is announced, I will say who really wrote which story - unless the person wants to stay anonymous. In that case, the writer's true identity will stay a secret.
This reveal of which Pen Name goes with which competitor can be an eye-opening surprise. Sometimes the person you'd least expect to even participate in this could turn out to have written a wonderful story.
To minimize the chances of people guessing the secret Pen Names, I ask now that anyone who is definitely interested in participating let me know via PM only, instead of posting in the thread.
I don't have a definite date in mind yet. This is a chance to get feedback and suggestions from people, regarding story lengths, types of stories, whether anyone wants to tackle a poetry competition (I tried that on the other forum and was pleased with the results), scheduling, and so on. I can't emphasize strongly enough that this activity requires commitment. It's really hard to scramble at the last minute to replace someone who backs out a day before a competition is to start. That's not fair to the other competitor, and is really annoying. I understand that work, school, and other RL things can come up. All I ask is that if they do, you let me know ASAP so something can be worked out, rescheduled, and there's no last-minute scrambling.
What I had in mind was for the 48 hours' worth of writing to begin on Mondays. At the end of that 48 hours, the stories are to be PM'd to me (I'll take early entries if you finish early, within reason - no entries will be accepted within the first 24 hours). I will post them, and the comments/critiques can go on. Apparently only moderators can add polls after an OP is posted, so this is something I'd like feedback on - whether to post the voting poll immediately or later. I'd like to give people enough time to really read the stories and think about what they want to comment on, and what they think of the story before asking them to vote.
So... thoughts? Opinions? Suggestions? I know some of you have expressed interest in this - let's try it and see how it goes. I hope to make it an interesting and fun experience for everyone.
To explain a little history, some years back when I was a member of a different kind of gaming forum (tabletop D&D-type role-playing games), one of the members thought up a writing competition for that forum's writing subforum. He called it Iron Pen, and modeled it after the Iron Chef TV show (where chefs would compete to produce dishes that required a "secret ingredient" that they didn't get to know about in advance, and had a limited time to prepare). I was a competitor at first, and when the member who started it decided to step down from his hosting duties, the last competition he did was to determine who would take over. I had the honor of winning that competition, and took over as host.
I've wanted to try Iron Pen here for years, as I know there are people here who enjoy writing and would find this an interesting challenge. For various reasons the timing was never right - until now. We just had a successful NaNoWriMo last November, interest in writing has picked up, Plotinus gave me the go-ahead to try this, so now seems an excellent time.
The basic rules are simple. Each competition runs over the course of 5-6 days, and involves 2 competitors at a time. The objective of each participant is to write, over the course of 48 hours, a short story that meets a minimum length requirement of words (could be longer, within reason), and includes a "secret ingredient" - in this case a secret theme - which the contestants will not know about until the time comes to begin writing.
To give you an example of a theme that could be used... one of the competitions I took part in (and won) was when we had to write a story using the theme of cabbage. Another competition had the writers using a zombie theme. The hardest one of all that I took part in used the theme of... nothing. I found out it's really not easy to do a good story about nothing. But there are lots of ways to interpret it.
One critical part of this competition is that there will a winner and there will be a not-winner (I don't want to say loser, because in my opinion, nobody who is willing to go through a competition like this could ever be a loser). In theory there could be a tie, but in my experience that happened only once. The stories were so close in quality, the scores ended up in a tie.
This brings up the matter of how to determine a winner. After the stories are finished and posted, everyone will have the opportunity to read them and post comments and constructive criticism. There will be no trolling, no flaming, no "this story sucks!" comments allowed. If you don't like a story, feel free to say so - but do it politely, and say why. Part of Iron Pen is to help people improve their writing skills, and constructive criticism is crucial for that. Of course it's also important to say why you do like a story. Knowing what works is every bit as important as knowing what needs improvement.
After the critique phase, people may vote for whichever story they think is the better one. I haven't worked out all the criteria on which to base these votes yet - your input and suggestions would be welcome for that. Basically the voting should be based on several things: Does the story meet the minimum/maximum length requirements? Does it effectively use the secret theme? Is it an entertaining story? Is it well-written (as in edited/proofread for errors)? When the voting period is up, the scores will be tallied and the winner declared. I would ask both the winners and not-winners to be gracious about the results.
This will not be a popularity contest where a good story might not win because of who wrote it. You won't know who wrote which story until after the voting is done and the winner announced. How this will work is that the competitors will choose a Pen Name, which only they and I will know. The stories, when finished, will be submitted to me via PM, and I will post them on the competitors' behalf. After the winner is announced, I will say who really wrote which story - unless the person wants to stay anonymous. In that case, the writer's true identity will stay a secret.
This reveal of which Pen Name goes with which competitor can be an eye-opening surprise. Sometimes the person you'd least expect to even participate in this could turn out to have written a wonderful story.
To minimize the chances of people guessing the secret Pen Names, I ask now that anyone who is definitely interested in participating let me know via PM only, instead of posting in the thread.
I don't have a definite date in mind yet. This is a chance to get feedback and suggestions from people, regarding story lengths, types of stories, whether anyone wants to tackle a poetry competition (I tried that on the other forum and was pleased with the results), scheduling, and so on. I can't emphasize strongly enough that this activity requires commitment. It's really hard to scramble at the last minute to replace someone who backs out a day before a competition is to start. That's not fair to the other competitor, and is really annoying. I understand that work, school, and other RL things can come up. All I ask is that if they do, you let me know ASAP so something can be worked out, rescheduled, and there's no last-minute scrambling.
What I had in mind was for the 48 hours' worth of writing to begin on Mondays. At the end of that 48 hours, the stories are to be PM'd to me (I'll take early entries if you finish early, within reason - no entries will be accepted within the first 24 hours). I will post them, and the comments/critiques can go on. Apparently only moderators can add polls after an OP is posted, so this is something I'd like feedback on - whether to post the voting poll immediately or later. I'd like to give people enough time to really read the stories and think about what they want to comment on, and what they think of the story before asking them to vote.
So... thoughts? Opinions? Suggestions? I know some of you have expressed interest in this - let's try it and see how it goes. I hope to make it an interesting and fun experience for everyone.
