Hello my fellow authors and RPers. I was getting bored with how few oppurtunities there are to write new ideas with the forum limit of one Fan Fiction per person, and decided to test a few of my ideas for novel length stories with short excerpts in the form of short stories. As I already have a Fan Fic out there, I could not simply write them like normal, and decided it would be a good idea to make it into a forum wide contest.

Here's how it would work: I believe we are to make a seperate forum for just this reason, as soon as we get it up, I'll gladly link it here. You all can write to your heart's content, and read other author's stories without all the trouble of reading page after page, tens of thousands of words. Your fellow forummites would read, review, and eventually vote on their favorite short story in several categories.

However, before the story is posted, anonymously, it is reviewed by a board of judges. If it passes said board, I will promptly post it and you all may begin commenting on it. Meanwhile, the judges will vote on which stories they think are best for several categories (taken straight from Lady Nerevar) including:
1) Creativity (Is it unique and original? Is it a retelling of OB's main quest?)
2) Story (Does it make sense? How is it developed during writing?)
3) Characters (Are they round? Are they believable? How do they interact?)
4) Feel (Does it fit into the ES universe? Does it invoke a clear mood/tone?)
5) General Impressions/Judge's Pick (Judge's thoughts over all. Great plot twist? Horrible English?)

Then, after all stories are graded by judges, we will open up the polls for the popular election. We ask that anyone voting take equal time to read every story.

The word limit will most likely be from a thousand word minimum to a max of three to four thousand. Everyone's stories will be graded against one another regardless of the skill of the author, by popular demand. We also ask that you finish your short before sending it to the judges.

If any of you have ideas, suggestions, or opinions on this concept, please feel free to post on this thread. If I get enough people thinking it should happen, then we may begin the festivities We are also currently accepting judges. I believe we have Redsrock, Evil Pigeon, Shades, myself, and I'm not sure about Burnt Sierra or Lady Nerevar.

Thanks, and keep up the good work :goodjob:

If I left out any rules, let me know.

i'd be very interested in this contest. what kind of contests would they be divided by size, content(like humor, horror) or what? size would probably be the best way to go.

Actuually this would be nice just to practice certain area's of writing, without having to make a whole story. And by posting in a single thread, you can ensure it will (hopefully!) get commented on at least once or twice.

Let me put in my two-cents.

Have one thread at a time for each genre. Have the first participant put his/her story up, judge it, allow it a few comments, then allow the next one to be put up. It goes that way through each genre. Length of stories would be the only problem with this idea though. Some people write REALLY long tales, others don't.

May we use fanfic we have already written? Carstein Chronicles is my writing at its peak, and I don't want to start a new story for this before I finish C.C.

Meh... if this wasn't exclusive to fan-fics then I'd definitely enter.

As opposed to what? An rp???

I think he means non-ES writing.

Though if it was an RP contest, I would totally win.

Yeah, I meant non-TES. Which is sort of ridiculous for me to say I suppose... since this IS the fan-fiction forum.

I'm in. I normally just host my fics on Fanfiction or Fiction Press. I've found that they get more traffic that way, but less comments.

However, short stories would be a good change of pace. Most of my stuff is novel length.

I think that this is a fantastic idea. As others have said before me, however, we'd probably need to divide the different genres.

If somebody sets this up, I'll definitely enter.

I'm not sure I'd be allowed to participate.

I think we might just split the threads up by size, then do categories for each one. Not really genres as much as iscar style awards like: best story, best protagonist, best antagonist, best flow, etc.


My thoughts exactly ^_^


Well, we could have something for judging other fan fics, but the point was to submit something new and prefferably shorter than a fan fic.


Why not? You can only win one award per story, and I'm sure we would all judge yours more critically. Although it might be a good idea to have people like you, FC4, and the other really good writers all in one thread.


I'll keep thinking up categories, and if any of you have ideas, let me know This seems to be working out nicely. I still need to know if the mods would let people that already have stories put up the thread, because if so few of us could. Thanks again.

Hmmm it looks interesting but I doubt I'd join. I don't think I would do very well. But still I'll read what everyone writes!

I'd happily go and make a thread right now if you want. Would you like me to pm you some of my ideas Darkom? I've been on many a forum with competitions like this and know how to make them successful .

While I don't think I'll be entering (unless you have a competition for articles too), this should definately be interesting to observe. I always preffer short stories to full blown fanfics as I like to read from the start to the end in one sitting, so this'll be a good chance to read some goodies.

You're not serious are you? What you think is good I may think is awful. You can't just put "the best" writers in one thread. For the record, though, I am a fan of FC4's work.

Certainly, but hold up on making it just yet.


I never said I would be the one deciding. I would either have it be a vote on kind of thing, or let them join of their own choice. If you think you can compete with the upper crust, feel free. I'm not kicking anyone out of the voting for any reason. Thanks for the criticism though That's the reason I made a planning thread.

Oh, and Anticlere, I'm not sure how many would be willing to participate in such an article type contest, but if you want to and can find others that want to...

As I said last night, I won't be entering. How many judges do you want? Are there any openings left? I'd be interested in judging.

I oppose this idea highly. I do not like being singled out, for one, at the cost of others. And for two, why would you judge the 'best' more critically than everyone else's? Seems off to me. All should be equally judged, and it would just be too much work and a contest in itself to determine who would go in this 'bests' category.

On reflection I myself don't think that idea would work after giving it more thought and I don't know what was I thinking when I churned it out randomly; I think it wouldn't work not because of unwillingness of people to participate but because it'd be very hard to do. The articles done from what lore gives us would fit more in the lore section (because from what I've seen it's more about some mumbo-jumbo I won't probably ever understand nor attempt to, much to do with Gods and stuff) and since articles are to be judged not how they are written but how accurate they are, how much do the views in them make sense... It'd be very hard to judge, say, which of the two articles about agricultural practices in High Rock, since we don't know whether the Bretons are already familiar with the three-field crop rotation system, whether there is serfdom or not and yada yada. Say one of the judges could say that serfdom is not in practice and the peasants have been freed and fields privatised in exchange for a tax to the nobles previously owning the land, while another may decide that serfdom is in practice and nobles still directly control their land and instead of taxes the peasants have to give up a part of their yield. It'd take lots and lots of effort to standartise the beliefs and what not.

Basically what I meant to say forget that idea of mine; I will still be watching this though.

I was thinking the judging would be done via a poll, added at the end of the set time or thread. But that might work too...


You don't have to, I just thought it would be an equally bad idea to have you all compete regardless of skill, due to the fact that there would be a sort of advantage compared to less skilled writers like me. Think of it as varsity football (or whatever sport) and junior varsity or freshman leagues; the less skilled people would compete with one another, while the better writers could write against each other. How much fun would it be to watch a freshman team play a varsity team? They would be crushed every time, and would probably be discouraged from even participating.

And sorry if using you by name made you feel singled out, I just wanted to give an example of the types of people I was talking about.

The idea was not to have judges all rate stories, but to have everyone take part in choosing winners. And as I said, the "bests" category would be your choice to join. If you feel that you are not adequate to compete in the "varsity" league, so to speak, then you do not have to. However, for those that feel that it would be unfair to others to continuosly deprive the lesser writers of an oppurtunity to compete with one another, then you may participate in whatever level you would like.

And I'm not entirely sure what you mean, but everyone shall be judged the same. Please avoid all bias.

PS My vote won't count any more than anyone elses, everyone gets equal say in who wins. It would have some flaws, but only if someone deliberately cheated. And seeing as how there is really no prize, I see no reason why any of us would cheat the poll by having others vote or some such thing.

Oh, and Anticlere, that is true. I simply didn't want to deny you the right to create such a contest should you so choose, although the idea is flawed.


Ideas poll up.

Sounds good. I'd like the chance to work on my writing without having to worry about some huge story I'm trying to work my writing into.

Once the format is sorted please consult a moderator before going ahead with it. I for one don't want to see the forum full of different topics for the various categories, and I don't want to see it just turn into a rating/popularity contest.

The idea is fine, just the implementation needs sorting.

It's okay, no need to apologize, and the singling out I spoke of had nothing to do with using my name. I'm also agreeing that no bias should be present. I just had a gut feeling that it was a bad idea, that's all. And all people's tastes are different, so some 'good' writers might actually lose votes to other, newer writers because a person felt they're work was better.

Plus, I would hope most writers here are mature enough to have good sportsmanship, and participate rather than decide not to simply because some 'greats' are and they feel they won't win. This contest has another purpose; compare works, and learn from others.