Iron Pen 1: The Challenge Begins!

Greetings, and welcome to CFC's first-ever Iron Pen Writing Competition. We have two fine challengers, ready and eager to test their skills by writing a short story within a specified time period, word count, and incorporating a secret theme which will not be revealed to them until the competition starts.

Because this is a competition and there will be voting to determine a winner, each contestant is identified by a Pen Name. This is so the stories will be judged solely on their own merits, without regard to the true identities of the authors. After the voting is over, the authors' names will be revealed.

The competitors will have 48 hours from the time stamp of this introductory post to write and submit their stories to me, via PM, so that I may post them. I will not accept any submissions during the first 24 hours. After the 48 hours are up, I will post both stories, along with a poll so voting can take place.


Contestants, please take note: Your stories will be judged partly on the following requirements:

Length. The stories must be a minimum of 600 words, not counting the title (yes, you need a title!). The maximum number of words allowed is 1000.

Mechanics. Please proofread your story for spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc. Typos can happen, but overall presentation does matter.

Entertainment. The end goal of any story is to make it enjoyable for the readers, whether they find it funny, thought-provoking, scary, etc.

Secret Theme. Iron Pen is much like the Iron Chef TV program, in that the competitors are expected to incorporate a “secret ingredient/theme” they don't get to know about until the competition begins. It is up to the competitors how they interpret and incorporate the secret theme into their stories. It is up to the readers to judge how effectively they have accomplished this.

Please keep CFC forum rules in mind. If your story requires profanity, please refer to CFC's guidelines. It would be a shame for an Iron Pen author to end up with an infraction, so if you're uncertain about a word or phrase, feel free to PM either me or Plotinus for guidance.


And now the time has come to begin the competition. Please welcome the challengers:

Our first competitor is Iron Pen Lady wombat.
Our second competitor is Iron Pen Shagranoz .


The two worthy opponents take their places on opposite sides of Iron Pen Stadium, where they find all manner of writing implements and supplies – everything an author could possibly need to turn out a well-crafted story. The only thing they will need to bring with them is their own creativity.

The Hostess of Iron Pen Stadium comes forward, and announces the secret theme that each writer will use in the stories:

“Clouds.”


Iron Pen Challengers, your 48 hours start NOW. When you are finished, please PM your stories to me and I will post them for you.

May your Muse smile on your efforts. We, your audience, await your stories.

I am glad things moved ahead! Am eager to see the stories.

But a couple of questions regarding the criteria of judgement

"Length:" Does this mean one will be able to exceed the maximum length but will receive some kind of penalty or is this rather an absolute rule?
"Mechanics: [...] Typos can happen, but overall presentation does matter." How will it matter? Again - will there be some type of enforced penalty system? To be blunt - while sorta relevant this seems very much irrelevant when compared to the actual quality of the story (assuming no entry of textmessage spelling and grammar quality will be submitted, to be a bit hyperbolic).
"Secret Theme.".. Hm, so am I supposed to assume there will be a four-tier system where one has four equal valid categories to attribute points to?

Overall - I just lack any idea about how this is going to be down.

Terxpahseyton said:

I am glad things moved ahead! Am eager to see the stories.

But a couple of questions regarding the criteria of judgement

"Length:" Does this mean one will be able to exceed the maximum length but will receive some kind of penalty or is this rather an absolute rule?
"Mechanics: [...] Typos can happen, but overall presentation does matter." How will it matter? Again - will there be some type of enforced penalty system? To be blunt - while sorta relevant this seems very much irrelevant when compared to the actual quality of the story (assuming no entry of textmessage spelling and grammar quality will be submitted, to be a bit hyperbolic).
"Secret Theme.".. Hm, so am I supposed to assume there will be a four-tier system where one has four equal valid categories to attribute points to?

Overall - I just lack any idea about how this is going to be down.

Click to expand...

Not meeting the minimum length or exceeding the maximum length is something the voters should take into consideration when making their decision. There needs to be some kind of restriction on length, or we'd potentially have a situation of one person writing a 500-word story and his/her opponent might turn in a 2000-word story. Since longer doesn't necessarily mean better, there has to be a way to offer a bit of flexibility without making it too unbalanced.


"Mechanics" is a term my high school English teacher used, and it's stuck with me all these years. I'm not going to go through the entries and correct anything. What the authors PM to me is what gets posted, unless something weird happens (such as a formatting glitch, a smiley somehow gets into the text, or some other problem).

Look at it this way: When you buy a book, you don't expect to see typos, spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, or any other kinds of mistakes. Of course it's sometimes a judgment call, as when an author might choose to write the characters' dialogue to show them speaking in dialect, or using foreign words. I do hope that the critiques aren't going to include any picky "grammar-Nazi" stuff. It's constructive to say that somebody should take more care with proofreading. It's not very considerate to go through and itemize every single mistake (of course if the author wants help with that, that's the author's choice).


Secret theme... This can be interpreted in many different ways. I look forward to seeing how the current competitors use the theme of "Clouds" in their stories - because I have no idea how they'll choose to do it. I chose the theme at random.


You can give whatever weight you want to these aspects of the stories. Or you could base your vote on some other criteria I never even thought of. I mentioned these four because they're the things that are most pertinent to the kind of competition this is. They're criteria to consider, not an absolute checklist, and they give people a jumping-off point for offering critiques.


As I mentioned from the outset, this competition was first done on another forum, over 8 years ago. It went through several structural changes in rules and voting, but the objective has always been the same: two writers taking part in a writing challenge, having to meet a few minimum requirements but otherwise free to write their stories as they want. It can be stressful sometimes (I speak from experience as a competitor who needed every last second of those 48 hours to finish my stories), but my main hope is that it will be a fun way to practice the art of story writing and get feedback.

Our intrepid authors have finished and submitted their stories.Time ticks away during the first Civilization Fanatics Iron Pen Writing Competition...

5...4...3...2...1...DING!

Time's up! The 48 hours have now passed, and our two competitors have submitted their stories.

Please welcome the authors who are taking part in this challenge: Iron Pen Lady Wombat and Iron Pen Shagranoz. After the voting period is over and the winner determined, their true forum identities will be revealed.

I have posted their stories here, in a new thread. A poll is included, where you may cast your votes to determine which story you think is best.

The poll is multiple-choice, and you are asked to vote for TWO choices - once for Lady Wombat and once for Shagranoz. Please do not vote for more than two choices, or the poll will be unfairly skewed.

The poll is anonymous.


And now... on with the stories!