[Community Writing Competition] A War of Stories- Preliminary Interest Check

[Sutoratosu]

Alright soldiers, ol Surge is here today to tell you about something that I thought up to give back to this community here on these Subforums. Let's get marching.

"You're here because you have potential. Because each of you is capable of creating Worlds with your mere minds, of creating individuals from thin air and making them seem as though they actually exist. You are among the most ambitious and the most competent Authors this world has to entrance itself with. And you're here today to decide which one of you is most worthy to go onto to greatness, and which will fade into obscurity. As once said, 'There can only be one'."

Soldiers, what I'm here to present to you is something a bit different than what we have here already; An RP... that at the same time will serve as a Writing Contest to help improve the skills of those who participate.

That's right, you heard me. A Writing Competition. Now, understand me well:

this is BY NO MEANS complete at this point, I am simply putting this interest check thread because there's no point in even doing this if myself and those who will be working alongside me for this don't even know for sure that people will be interested and actually participate. Basically, why should we all go and use our valuable time on something if we don't have assurance it will be appreciated when the final product is ready? hence why this thread is here, soldiers.

First, let us discuss the ground rules:

1. You will respect all standing Community Rules, as well as the pre existing rules of this RolePlaying forum. You have no excuse for breaking them whatsoever.

2. No Plagiarizing

-Self Explanatory. I'm going to say it right now; we will have a zero tolerance policy for it. If it can be proven that someone willfully and intentionally stole the intellectual property of another competitor, or of some outside source if it comes to light, then the penalty will be immediate expulsion from the program, along with a perma ban from ever re-entering.

Those are on the only two drafted rules currently. more will be drafted when we know of the interest levels. they should be enough, but if more are proved to be needed because people can't conduct themselves sensibly and maturely, then I can alway draft up more as needed. And remember, the Mods are Watching you; They're both involved in this, cadets.

Now onto how this will work.

Soldiers, in this RP/ Writing Competition, you will be taking on the role of an Ambitious young author who is taken from their everyday life and thrown into a competition against other fellow authors from all across the world; The prize for coming out on top, to prove yourself the best? it is achieving what you deserve for your skills. It is the World knowing of your gifts as a story teller, while your peers who fell short fade off into the winds of obscurity, their novels doomed to be relegated to the shelves of a Dollar Store at the very best. (This will yes, be a Low Fantasy RP.)

Conducting this competition, are a strange and mysterious group of individuals, known only as the "Tribunal", a panel of judges, each skilled and excelling in a certain area of writing and story telling. You shall be challenged on a tri weekly basis, and at the end of each trial, your fate will be decided by the Tribunal. Those who do well will be rewarded in the end... but only in the end. in other words, it's not over until it's over. And working along side the Tribunal will be the War Masters, individuals tasked with overseeing and directly administrating these competitions. They will be responsible for handing out prompts and challenges and explaining them, and monitoring the field to ensure all goes smoothly.

So, who are these people, you dare to ask? well I will apprise you, Cadet:

On the Tribunal:

-Rosesong

-Flux

-Hukuna

-Acquiescence

Serving as War Master: Myself, Surge/ Stratos

Serving as Backup War Master: Notus (And possibly Murdoc at some point, still haven't gotten confirmation about that)

On to how this would actually Function:

Their will 2 threads total: the War Thread, where the IC action of the RP will take place, and the lounge Thread, which will function both as an OCC and a submission thread for the competition. Participants will be given a prompt, given a set amount of time to write something for it, and then be required to submit it to the Lounge before a certain date. After which, the IC action will happen in the War Thread for that challenge week, while the Tribunal evaluates the works submitted and decide who is the winner of the challenge.

Every Challenge would be conducted in a three week period, with one week intermission between each new challenge cycle.

Here is what the schedule would look like

Week 1 of Each Challenge- Writing and Submitting work to the Lounge

- The prompt is given on the designated day that is to be decided upon here, in both IC in the War Thread, and OCC in the Lounge thread, Descriptions and primary advice and warnings, etc. from the War Masters pertaining to the challenge will be presented.

- The clock starts ticking. Participants have one full week to type their submission for the challenge prompt and post it up in the lounge using a certain format to prove they finished it within time.

Week 2 of Each Challenge- The actual IC action & when Judging is conducted

- This week will serve as to purposes, the War Masters will go in and Man the War Thread and the Story in which this "Competition is taking place in will unfold. While at the same time, the Tribunal will be deliberating amoungst themselves as to determine the winner of the challenge, and apprise the War Masters of their decision.

Week 3 of Each Challenge- Announcement of Winner, the handing out of constructive criticism, awarding of points and personal effects.

- on the agreed upon day this week, the winner will be announced in both the OCC and War threads. Points will be awarded along with any personal effects, and pointers and Constructive criticism will be handed out to all participants based on the order in which they submitted their work that week. The reason this will be an entire week instead of just a day, which is really all that's needed since the winner will be decided before that date, is so that encase something comes up and the Week 2 agenda has to drag on a little, we have some wiggle room for extra time.

As for how the IC will work... that's still a bit of a work in progress, but currently the concept would be similar to the Fate series in a way; basically what you write more or less comes alive and dukes it out with the other competitors. (Again, still very much a work in progress right now.

Alright. I have presented you with the basic mission intel soldiers. The only question is: Who's interested? Any questions?

Interested People:

GotWala

Damiano

Rielly987

Exlink32

Darklight

Typhlosionrulez

Commander218

Zephyrenyalios

Chimchain

[GotWala]

Ahh, this looks incredibly fun! Consider me as signed up as possible for this event, haha!

My only questions revolve around how the IC would work, but it seems that you guys don't have that completely though out. Thus, I'll just wait until you have that hashed out, haha.

Oh, I just thought of a question: Will some of these War Masters and Tribunal members be participating as well? I highly doubt they would be, but it would make the competition interesting when I have to face off with professionals, haha.

Edited December 7, 2014 by GotWala

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

We might use that as a challenge sometime, but no, The Tribunal is mostly there for Judging purposes only.

[Damiano]

Sir, I'm interested! Though I'm the type who wants to know what they're up against before they sign up for anything. I'm not very competitive, but it's nice to read other peoples art sometimes.

[GotWala]

Ahh, that's a shame, haha. I suppose the closest I can get to that is just seeking all of your collective approval for my wordsmithing.

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

This is too help other members of the community sharpen and hone their skills. ((the tribunal are the people we deemed very strong in their areas.)). And we don't have it all sorted out yet Damiano, we are just checking if there is any interest at all, before we go into all out work mode. ((not much sense putting too much work into something you have no clue if anyone would even what to do it.))

[GotWala]

Haha, that makes sense.

Man, I'm really pumped for this! I hope more people show interest like me and Damiano, haha.

[Rielly987]

Sounds interesting. Let me get something cleared up for my sake, The OOC is where we post our creative writings, along where we post our thoughts on the contest and discuss it. Thinking about the prompts being something like Army Assassin and then all the Army Assassins are brought into the IC thread and fight it out based on the how judges see it. Right or did i mix something up?

No matter what im interested.

Edited December 8, 2014 by Rielly987

[Sutoratosu]

Yes, the OCC will act like an OCC for the most part, but the prompts will be put up there first before ever being put in IC.

as for the second part, Again, we aren't very far in the development of this, we're just checking to see if there's enough interest to make it even worth devoting the time and effort towards.

[Aurorix]

This seems cool, I'm in. (Even though I suck grammatically. )

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

Have you seen my grammar Exlink? It is so bad lol. Legibility will probably be something that is graded by the way. Cause if we can't figure out what is going on, your story will suffer. ((we aren't going to super crack down on that, but we will bring some up too help you improve.))

[DarkLight]

If this gets going, I want to join too. I would like to have some criticism on my writing!

[Ragnar]

Why not?.. sounds like a challenge. I'm in, even if my writing is doomed to fade in obscurity in shelve at a cheap dollar book store. lol. welp atleast i get the chance to improve myself.

[Chevaleresse]

leggo

[Commander]

Like Darklight, if this gets enough attention, I may be interested in joining as well.

[Zephyrus the Priestess]

Whatever we write comes to life in the IC... so the stories we write around bound to overlap with those of others.

I'm not sure how the mechanics and stuff will work, but this is pretty interesting; I'll keep an eye on this thread xD

[Chim]

A competition? I might as well give this a go.

*secretly hands Rupees to Hukuna* Vote for me!

[Sutoratosu]

Bribery will not save you, my friends... only your merit and willingness to learn from mistakes will.

[Flux]

Maybe I should have been the grammar judge... I'm subconsciously a nazi when it comes to that. Especially when they're my own mistakes.

Then again, I like my current place, and I feel like a grammar judge would just irk some people.

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

((pssst, Grammar can be a part of detail if you want me to make is so, just say the word and Hukuna will give you evil powers. But actually, remember though Notus, we stated we didn;t want to grammar nazi people, while it is important to writing, it isn;t the only important thing and I didn't want an emphasize on it unless someone was really having trouble. [with which we would try and help them improve if we could.]))

Also Chim, I don;t take bribes, it is an insult to my honor, are you prepared to duel me to the death now? It is the only way to settle such an insult for a gentleman like me. *smiles wickedly.*

I do think we have enough interest to begin work on it, so, we are probably going to try and make the system as robust as we can, figure out how everything works etc.

[Rosesong]

LET'S GET DOWN TO BUSINESS! *shot* But in all seriousness, glad to see the interest in this!

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

Hukuna Shang is in the house. Time to whip you guys into shape and get this project rolling. And you lot who join up better be ready too. GET PUMPED!!!!

((and yes....yes I do have this lying around lol.))

[Rosesong]

Kuna, you're amazing for that

[Commander]

@Huk: If you're not sure how to handle anything or an issue or concern comes up, feel free to PM me. I've seen, done, and co-hosted enough of these that I'd be able to tell you just about everything that works and doesn't work.

As for grammar, I generally label it under flow. If I have to spend time trying to figure out what the word or symbol is supposed to be, you're going to hear me complain about it (I'm not a co-host so you probably won't). Editing is something I emphasize (well at least when I have time and it's not 2 in the morning) because you can't just expect to draft one complete novel from scratch and for it to be golden.

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

I will be sure to give you a poke if we do need some help setting up what we wish to do. ((however, we got 4-5 minds working on it, I think we can work most of it out. It is the IC thread we mostly need to structure for the time. We are figuring out how that will work currently.))