Amph SFF Writer's Guild Writing Contest: February 2006

<center>Welcome to the SFF Writers' Guild Writing Contest!</center>

<li>RULES:

- This contest will run periodically, currently based off a six-week cycle between each new contest period.

- Entries must be entirely original stories written by the submitting author within the contest period, based on that month's prompt (see below).

- Entries must be either science fiction or fantasy stories. Either genre is acceptable, as well as subgenres.

- Fan fiction (stories based on pre-existing characters or worlds from film, television, or books, including but not limited to Star Wars) is currently not accepted.

- This contest is open to all registered posters of the Jedi Council Forums. You do not have to be a regular poster in the SFF Writer's Guild thread in order to enter this contest.

- Entries must adhere to the JC Terms of Service. If you have a question if your story or a story element is within the TOS, PM the host or a sponsoring moderator to ask. Stories that violate the Terms of Service in any way will be disqualified.

- From the date of the prompt (typically the first of the month) you have three weeks to write your story. You may submit your story any time within the three weeks, but it is recommended that even if you finish early, you take the opportunity to revise and strengthen your story.

- Final entries have a minimum wordcount of 2000 words, and a maximum wordcount of 8000 words.

- Entries must be submitted in a common text format (Microsoft Word, .txt, or .rtf).

<li>JUDGING:

- Entries will be judged by a group of volunteer judges, to be selected by the host. The number of judges will be no fewer than 3.

- Entries will be distributed to the judges without the names of the authors, to ensure unbiased scoring.

- Distribution will be facilitated by posting them under a Writing.Com portfolio. Stories will be set to be viewable by registered Writing.Com authors only. The private nature of the postings will preserve all authors' first publication rights. Judges will be required to register a (free) Writing.Com username, if they have not already done so, in order to view the stories.

- If the host deems the number of entries too large to be judged en masse, s/he will divide the stories into manageable groups and randomly assign no less than two judges to each group of stories.

- Judges will score each entry out of 10 possible points in several categories:

<li>Overall Creativity
<li>Writing Ability
<li>Grammar/Mechanics
<li>Use of the prompt
<li>Entertainment Value

The scores for each story will then be averaged, and the story with the highest score will be deemed the winner.

- Along with the score, each judge must write a brief paragraph describing why s/he chose their particular scores. These paragraphs should be honest, but constructive.

- Judges must read all stories assigned to them in full (if no specific assignment is made, they must read all of the entries).

- Judges will have three weeks to submit their scores. Any judge who does not fulfill his or her commitment will not be allowed to participate in the contest in any form, judge or entrant, for two iterations of the contest following.

- Judges may not submit an entry for contest period in which they are judging.

<li>DISCUSSION:

- Once judging has concluded, the stories will be made available for public viewing, unless the author specifically requests otherwise. This thread will then facilitate any discussion about any of the stories, until the next contest comes around.

<li>WINNERS:

The winning author will receive VIP status, title, and choice of colors for one full week.

After winning, an author may enter a story into the following month's contest. If the same author wins twice consecutively, s/he will not be permitted to submit an entry for the third month in a row, and will have to wait for the next contest after

 

FINALLY!!

I'll get to work on it right away!

 

Good Luck everyone!

 

I would like to apply for the position of Judge.

I bring a background in Literature and a B.A. in English from the University of New York at Purchase.

At some point in the future, I have considered becoming a teacher or professor so I would like this experience to help in a possible future career in having to grade papers.

~Jada

 

This sounds like excellent fun. I look forward to seeing what people make of the prompts.

 

Woohoo! We finally got our prompt!

An interesting choice, Dorkman.

Good luck all!

 

Just for a bit of clarification, a .txt file is Microsoft Notepad?

 

I love the prompt!

-The Scummy-

 

Yes, but you can save files to the format in Word.

 

Excellent prompt!!! I'll get started in a jiffy! *gets his *

The Hooded Soul

 

What an excellent idea and the prompt is great! Now to see what plot bunnies I can capture!

 

I'll put myself forward as a judge.


I'm an avid reader and sometime author (I may enter one day) I read most genres from Sci Fi and fantasy through to military and general ripping yarns.

 

Fantastic!

Hmm . . . very interesting prompt, Dorkman.

 

Oh, well that will make coming up with something more challenging.

 

I'm going to try this one, i'm fairly busy doing my screenplay for class but I might get some time.

dkt

 

Well it is a good thing because you need a good challenge!

 

Originality will be difficult since a big fan of FF. Hopefully down the road, we can do some non-SW Fan Fic (I know this one is set in place). Only reason Book 7 of HP. I'm working on many projects right now. Hopefully I can squeeze this one in.

 

Up.

 

Im going to try and submuit something

 

So far two folks have volunteered to be judges. Anyone else?

 

I'll give this a shot.

 

Upon seeing the prompt a vision appeared in my head. It was the story that I would write for this contest. It was fully formed as though all spellchecking and revision had already been done. All that was left for me to do was type it out and submit it. It would be about me waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. A cold sweat because I had given up the JCC cold turkey a few days before. The story itself revolved around my struggle to break few of my addiction for good.

Unfortunately, as I was about to begin typing, I realized that it had to be a Science Fiction or Fantasy short story. I was crushed. My vision was rendered useless. Suddenly though, I had a second, substantially less awesome vision. My story would consist of me trying to break free of my addiction to the JCC in the year 3033. Then I realized that this vision had not come fully formed. It would require me to produce this story in the usual, workmenlike fashion.

As I sat there pondering what to do, a third vision, my final vision appeared. In it, instead of actually writing a short story, I would produce a post detailing how I had come to post this post. Right away I knew that this was the vision that I should listen to.

 

Any JCCer voluntarily quitting is so unlikely as to be Science Fiction.

YJCC is really a form of mind control. There's a whole real world out there, you know . . . it's a bleak, cold, lonely wilderness, but it exists . . .

 

I sent a PM to DorkmanScott that I'd volunteer, but he never replied, so I'm not sure if I'm offically signed up or not . . .

 

It's a great idea for a story prompt, but I just can't think of a way to turn it the way I need to. I'm not well versed enough to even try for a Science Fiction story, so it would have to be Fantasy.