Challenge Dear Diary Challenge 2018|New year, new challenge.

I thought I was going to do an NSW half-diary but after reading a very cool short story I decided to do an SW half-diar. First post linked below.
Long & Winding Path

 

Voting for the 2017 Challenge - Open now through January 15

Hi everyone! It's January 1st, which means that the voting round is here for the 2017 diaries that made it to the end. We're lucky enough to have five amazing diaries to choose from this time.

Congratulations to @Lady_Misty, @earlybird-obi-wan, @Ewok Poet, @Jedi_Lover, and @Briannakin for all their hard work. It's great to see so many of you made it all the way to the end and you have all earned some serious kudos!

To vote:
PM the Diary_Challenge_Sock with one (just one!) story that you want to vote for out of the following diaries.

2017 Diaries Eligible for Voting:
(see here for the original index)

Memory Books and Personal Logs by Lady_Misty Completed 2017 December 27

Healer on Moniron by earlybird-obi-wan Completed 2017 December 18

Doaba Ke'demii: The Diary of a Young Comradette by Ewok Poet Completed 2017 December 24

The Journal of Talon Tantiss: [Part 5]-Secrets Revealed Vol 2 by Jedi_Lover Updated 2017 December 19

[The West Wing] Canadians in the East Wing by Briannakin Completed 2017 December 30


Other Notes:

A big thank you and shout out to everyone who has read and reviewed, beta read, and otherwise helped writers in the Diary Challenge this year. Any fanfic writer knows how valuable your kindness and support are for an undertaking like this.

Though these stories are not in competition, I also want to thank @Raissa Baiard, @divapilot, @A Blind Prophet (with two diaries), @DARTH_MU, and @Ewok Poet (for the incomplete second diary), all for sticking around in the Out of Competition category. It's been great to see some of these stories continued!

And I want to thank @leiamoody, @JediMaster_Jen, @Lea-El, Volund Starfire, @mavjade, and s_heffley for contributing their stories as well. (Sorry for the weird tags, some of you. The system doesn't seem to be able to tag everyone correctly for some reason.) There were a lot of gems among those early diaries, and some of you made it at least halfway to the end -- which is impressive in and of itself.

Hope to see you all again for 2018!

 

That incomplete diary may take a while to re-think, but I will finish it someday.

Aaaand voted. I didn't vote the last time around, don't report me to the authorities!

 

Sent in my vote as well.

 

I have begun with

Team guy

 

I've begun the insanity again. To Be Married To Leos is up! Lets see if I can do another 48 entries in 2018! But it's already so much fun!

 

Perhaps the diary challenge doesn't seem so hard at first: you only have to write twenty-four entries (with those challenge guidelines to keep you honest/scared/did I type that?) over the course of a year. And they can be as short as only one sentence! But those who have done this challenge know it is anything but easy. It is a year-long challenge, and both life and the diary's plot can be unpredictable.

Also--though I can only speak for myself here--I never once posted a one sentence entry.

So: I invite those with experience in the challenge--both those who are returning to write again this year, and those who are not--to share what they have learned.

 

Like I already don't have enough to do, I decided to get back into writing SW with a half-marathon diary!!! Just Pan is now up.

Also, great discussion question. I'll have to think about it.

 

Is it too late to enter this year's challenge?

 

@gaarastar58: Not at all. To quote the pertinent rule: The deadline for posting the first two entries is January 31, 2018.

 

Yay, my topic made it to this year's thread, my topic made it to this year's thread!



Okay.

I took part in two DDC competitions and I'm taking a break in 2018, becausebecause...

- I'm completely and totally worn out from having done it twice (and failing once, with the NSWFF 201x diary);

- I want to focus on epics and challenge responses - DDCs tend to take it over;

- There's only one thing I could explore now, and that will be more effective through flashbacks;

- I need work and money and a lot of stuff that comes with it. I want to YOLO.

But, since I managed to complete a 60K+ one and a 40K-ish one, I will share my tips.

- Make one file for the entire diary, split it into headlines and have a navigation list. In Word or whatever rich text processor, that is. Title those headlines (Chapter 01, Entry 01 - whatever...) and add the date you intend to post them to the title - that way you'll see your little "deadlines" in the navigation bar.

- Make sure you have a character list, if writing OCs. It helps, even when they're already in your OC Index entry.

- Link to any related material. People should know what they're reading, especially if it's a continuation, or an item in a series.

- Do not set your goals too high - my 2016 DDC had 52 entries and wow, that was HARD.

- Do follow the rules and DON'T start before the clock strikes 00:00 on January 01st, but if you want to finish the same month or whenever - that's okay. The seat of pants approach is more fun, but nobody guarantees you that DRL won't get in the way. The only reason I managed to finish the last year's diary is because I had realised I was losing my ability to write and I crammed it up with the last atoms of my power. If you feel like you want to binge - BINGE.

- Read other DDCs, learn from the authors. The winners usually know what they're doing, but so do the others. Plus, interaction RULES.

- This one is a personal thing, but it works for me: straight-up first person narrative without dialogue flows very naturally. You can be your protagonist!

Hope this helps somebody.

 

Hi everybody, just a last minute reminder that we are nearing the end of the voting period. Votes are due tomorrow on the 15th.

More info in the original voting post here:
http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...r-new-challenge.50047167/page-2#post-54769961

 

I couldn't have put a reminder in the title. Stupid new board - IT TOOK THAT AWAY FROM US.

 

Okay, now to get back to this:

I've done the DDC every year since 2011 with the exception of 2016 (and if you are curious about my track record, 2011: finished, 2012: TEH MOVE killed it so not my fault, 2013: Darth Real Life happened and my muse just up and left in general, 2014: finished, 2015: finished, and 2017: finished a double narrative).

So, yeah, experience. I'll echo two of Ewok Poet's suggestions

- somehow make your word document easy to navigate so you aren't scrolling through endless entries trying to find something you've wrote in a previous entry. I use the writing program Scrivener (Mav suggested it a long time ago) and I sing it praises to both fanfic writers and people who need to use footnotes styles of citations (but that's besides the point). Your whole 'project' is basically in a 'binder' and you can make as many different documents in that same binder and even have separate notes and it is just so easy to keep ideas organized but also view the whole story at once. Anyways, I always highly recommend it for anything, but particularly the DDC. It's a bit of a learning curve and there are so many features I don't even use, but it is very intuitive. Plus it is only $40(ish) which is so reasonable compared to other software. ANYWAYS: Keep organized.

- link to anything else that may be helpful your otherwise give your readers some background information. If this is a whole new OC or something as classic as Luke during ANH, tell your readers (but I think thats also a general tip for fic writing)

- whether you have a strict plan; have a vague idea of your beginning, middle, and end; or are completely 'pantsing it', be flexible with yourself. If you are writing this over an extended period of time, be aware that your muse might want to change directions. My first diary started out as canon but half way I just was not into where I was going and running out of ideas so I completely made it an AU.

- listen to your narrator. If they want some stupid filler entry, let them have it - your readers will understand that coming up with 24 (or 48) entries is hard. Don't be afraid to go in a new direction. If your narrator decides, when you are writing the second entry for your SW diary, that their childhood best friend is also their ex, then don't be afraid to say "Okay... let's see where this goes."

I probably have more, but thats all I can think of right now.

Edit: also, don't be afraid to either make the narrator self aware that they are writing a diary, or, on the flip side, don't really address the diary at all.

 

2017 Diary Challenge Results

Voting is now over--and we have some winners to announce!

First Place: Doaba Ke'demii: The Diary of a Young Comradette by @Ewok Poet

For Second Place, we have a tie: Memory Books and Personal Logs by @Lady_Misty and The Journal of Talon Tantiss [Part 5]-Secrets Revealed Vol 2 by @Jedi_Lover.

Congratulations to all of you--and to everyone who participated in the challenge, whether in or out of competition. We hope to see another good year of diaries in 2018!

 

Woohoo jinkies @Ewok Poet and @Jedi_Lover & @Lady_Misty !!!!!

Congratulations also to all those who finished diaries, in or out of competition & those who even made the attempt.

 

Tied for Second Place? I am honored!

Thank you everyone!

 

Congrats Ewok Poet, Lady_Misty and Jedi_Lover!

 

Wow! Awesome! Thanks everybody! And congrats to the other winners!

 

Congratulations!!!!!

 

Congrats to @Ewok Poet for a wonderfully in-depth journey that left me appreciating both how far Doria has come and how far she has to go. Fantastic work!

Congrats also to @Jedi_Lover for the intrigue-filled further adventures of Talon Tantiss, and to @Lady_Misty for a mysterious look into the far past with Linza and David.

 

Thank you, everybody. Since I won twice in a row, I'm kind of even more glad not to be taking part this year.

I did want the diary of this dude, but that's too weird, even for me. Hint: he can't say anything else, just combos of these seven words.

The "how far she has to go" is the key and YOU ALWAYS NOTICE THESE THINGS, OMG.

Doria learned a lot during her final year at FAIS, but she still didn't learn 1239082340 things that she should learn. A reminder to those who don't remember/don't know: the next afternoon, from the third person omniscient has her angry with the world and actually using that weird graduation speech. After that, she's rude to Tendra (while Porky and Dak act like Porky and Dak and Jan just looks on), then she argues with Maris, decides that life sucks and goes to bed. She has A LONG way to go.

 

Congratulations, @Ewok Poet, @Lady_Misty, and @Jedi_Lover!

*

Thank you for sharing your diary-writing suggestions, @Ewok Poet and @Briannakin.

As for my advice: I am tempted to just write "Whatever I have done--do the exact opposite."

But basically--after taking part in the challenge twice (2009 and 2016) and finishing the challenge once, and never having finished either actual diary--I'm not a good example to follow. I could tell you to outline--whether it's having an idea of the general shape of the story in your head, or a written out skeleton; or, echoing the "rulez," write ahead, write far far ahead, write months ahead if you can. Of course, I followed all that advice I learned in 2009 in 2016, and still ended the year with about 1/4 of a WIP.

I could just suggest that one write more quickly than I do, except that it would be difficult to write more slowly.

And write your whole diary by March if you can. It's better to revise--than to write in a catching up frenzy as though a hurricane made of wolves were catching up with you.

 

By March?

If anybody is capable of that and it's not a bunch of short things, I would love to hear more about it.

In 2016, I wrote randomly and kept on filling the blanks where necessary. To this day, I wonder how something with that many characters won an award, let alone two. O_O

And gosh, I am only three entries into your 2016 diary, @Pandora - not proud!

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