Monthly Fic Contest: Going Once, Going Twice...

[WearsHats]

Still have only one entry. Submissions open until tomorrow night. (Sorry I forgot to update the countdown in the topic. Anyone working on anything?

[ThroughTheWell]

Nope. I got life in the way, and, I thought I'd have the whole month.

[Krulle]

Indeed. No time to keep up with the forum right now. I'm rather happy to keep current with the transcriptions... :)
Proposal: make the contests only every month, so that one has a full month to work, then the next month to read and vote.
Special things like an Easter-story or so can, of course, have a different time limit, to fit to the calendar.

[RedwoodElf]

Well I whipped out a quick one in about a half hour so you'll have at least two...just one isn't really a "Contest" after all...heh

[WearsHats]

Thanks!

And, yeah, it always seems that people don't have enough time to write. It's never been more than 3 weeks, but maybe it should be. After this, we can try bimonthly.

[Liesmith]

I always do my best writing off the top of my head, at the last minute, while half asleep. Everyone should try it!

[WearsHats]

Stories and voting thread have been posted, as usual, to The Writers Corner. Please read and vote. And maybe even comment.

Also: Two things to vote on in this thread.

1. Please give me suggestions for the next prompt. And/or choose your favorites from the list below.

2. It's been suggested that we go to a bimonthly schedule in order to give people more time to write. Please let me know what you think of that idea. And if you have any other ideas on how to increase participation.

[BootToTheHead]

I thought both stories were well written, but I'd have to vote for the second one.

The bimonthly might work better entries-wise. Maybe if you have someone that's good at fanart or something to do a prize for the winner, it might encourage more participation? IDK
I'd enter, but I'm too ashamed of my writing skills.

I don't know about prompt-wise...
Maybe something with Valentine's Day since it's coming up?

[Krulle]

Valentine's day? Great topic, tight limit...
Easter/Bunny themed after that?

Anyway. It's hard to choose between stories one and two.
I'll vote ONE (Axe of Violence), but it's extremely tight.

[WearsHats]

First off: Please vote in the VOTING THREAD. It's less visible now because people aren't replying there to bump it up, but that's where voting happens. There's a poll at the top where you may select either Story 1 or Story 2. So far, only one person has voted. (And it's not me.)

No reason to be ashamed of your writing. We're not pros here or anything. We're just friends having fun.

If we went to bimonthly, I'd give you roughly 6 weeks to write. So the prompt would go up in February and the deadline would be mid-March. Which isn't to say that a Valentine's story wouldn't work at all. But we'd be well past the holiday when stories went up. Also, when I tried "unlikely romances" as a prompt, no one seemed to like it.

[Krulle]

Oops, done. Thanks.

[WearsHats]

Last chance to vote for your favorite story! Voting closes tomorrow night!

Please vote in the poll at the top of the story voting thread for your favorite story.

Please vote here for the Feb/March prompt. List your top 3 suggestions, and we'll see what inspires.

[RedwoodElf]

Prompts eh?

In no particular order:

History Book: Write what future historians of Thuntworld would write in the history books about some or all of the events in Goblins.

How We Got Here: Write a backstory of one of the characters, of some event that we know happened, but hasn't been shown "on screen" (For example, "How Klik got in the cage" or "Biscuit's run through the dungeon crawl we found him in") - Try to stick to one that's unlikely to be a major plot point, like "How Kore got cursed" for example.

Steampunk/Sci Fi: You know there have to be alt universes in a nonfantasy (or at least non medieval)setting. Write a story about one such universe.

I haven't reviewed the past prompts...sorry if I overlapped one thats been used already.

[WearsHats]

Past prompts and suggestions are listed in the first post of the thread, if you want to review. We've done alternate universes. Steampunk has been suggested. I'll add sci-fi to the list. Thanks!

[Liesmith]

My prompt votes:

1: Sci-fi
2: Steampunk (Wonkatech)
3: Modern

[WearsHats]

January winner announced!

It's a tie!

Congratulations to Liesmith and Redwood Elf. Well done, both of you. And thank you for participating.

We're now on a bimonthly schedule. You have until March 15 to send me your stories. The prompt is:

SCIENCE FICTION

Goblins in the future! Goblins in space! Goblins with ray guns!

No more of this magic and fantasy stuff. Now goblins are aliens and the Axe of Prissan is a nanite-filled tesseract and Kore is a Manhunter robot!

Or something like that. Or maybe something completely different. You decide! And tell us the story!

Sound good? Any questions?

[Liesmith]

Awesome! I'm very happy for sci-fi! Although, you did use literally all of my ideas as examples in the prompt, so I need to think of something *shudder* original.

[RidcullyJack]

Cool. I don't know if I'll have time to write something, but the theme is very tempting. I have all kinds of corny ideas, I just have to see if they coalesce into something vaguely sensible.

[Zwums]

what length are you looking for?

[WearsHats]

Whatever you want. You can check out stories from previous contests in the Writer's Corner. Most have been on the shorter side, but I generally believe in making a story as long or as short as it needs to be.

[Zwums]

I would totally agree. I've just finished college and am in need of some creativity, I may join in.

[BeanDip]

I'll be writing something.

[RedwoodElf]

Maybe two months is a bit long...feels like such a long time...heh

[Liesmith]

I think it worked out this time...I don't feel much of a muse with this sword of Damocles hanging over the comic's head at the moment.

[RedwoodElf]

Well to give everyone something to do other than watch the emerging flamewars and eating popcorn, maybe the story submissions so far could be posted, sans a vote thread until the 15th, and we can see if we have more than 2 entries this time...heh.