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Fanfic Contests: The stuff you'd would you like to see
Started by
Guest_Shorty_*
, Oct 31 2009 01:08 PM
12 replies to this topic
#1
Guest_Shorty_*
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Posted 31 October 2009 - 01:08 PM
Pretty simple and straightforward. What kinds of fanfic themes would you like to see done in the future? I hope I'm not stepping out of line by making something like this, I just thought it'd be a good idea for people to share opinions over what they want so that contest makers could get a good idea of how well thier ideas would be received/who'd be likely to participate.
#2
Gojira007
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Posted 31 October 2009 - 07:26 PM
I'm a fan of "do a story where participants are given a specific scenario ("Knothole is on fire", for example) and asked to write a story, short or full, about it", myself.
"These hands of ours are BURNING RED! Their loud cry tells us..."
"To grasp happiness!"
"ERUPTING GOD FINGER!!! SEKI..."
"HA!"
"LOVE LOVE TENKYOKEN!!!"
-Domon Kasshu and Rain Mikamura, G-Gundam
"To grasp happiness!"
"ERUPTING GOD FINGER!!! SEKI..."
"HA!"
"LOVE LOVE TENKYOKEN!!!"
-Domon Kasshu and Rain Mikamura, G-Gundam
#3
Vlad Yvhv
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Posted 31 October 2009 - 08:43 PM
Indeed. Without guidelines and goals to shoot for, it would be fairly difficult to to award a winner on anything more than basic stuff like coherency, spelling, etc...
Projection: If Intruder Organsim reaches civilized areas...
Entire world population infected 2,7000 hours from first contact.
#4
An7imatt3r
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Posted 31 October 2009 - 09:10 PM
Do you mean genres(i.e comedy, romance, action), type (novel, short story) or scenarios like Gojia sugested? I personaly think its a cool idea. It would give everyone a chance to kind of write about how they picture things.
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An7imatt3r is my XBL gamer tag. I can also be found on Steam by searching it as well.
An7imatt3r is my XBL gamer tag. I can also be found on Steam by searching it as well.
#5
Guest_Shorty_*
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Posted 01 November 2009 - 05:15 AM
QUOTE
I'm a fan of "do a story where participants are given a specific scenario ("Knothole is on fire", for example)
I've always wondered why, despite Robotnik's knowledge that the FFs lived in the great forest, did he never attempt do so much as burn it. It might make for an interesting contest theme. Robotnik attempts to burn the Great Forest, and, despite the Freedom Fighter's attempts to stop the fire, they've lost a lot of their food provisions in the process. Will they journey elsewhere to find food? Is there some place to somehow fix/heal the damage done to the forest? Keep the idea's coming, guys!
QUOTE
Without guidelines and goals to shoot for, it would be fairly difficult to to award a winner on anything more than basic stuff like coherency, spelling, etc...
A point well taken. I spent yesterday fishing for some critique guidelines on the web until I found something I felt was satisfactory enough. http://www.crayne.com/howcrit.html
Most of this is from a list of subcategories you'll find on the site. I edited it somewhat to filter out the uneccessary stuff, and added in a few things of my own. Here are some ideas I think you'll find useful when judginging a story.
OPENING:
Do the first few sentences or paragraphs of the story grab your attention? Do they present the protagonist's main problem? Remember how you judge a book or story when you first see it in a bookstore. Don't we often base our decision to buy or not buy upon those first few sentences? Did this author grab your attention fast enough?
CONFLICT:
1) By conflict, I do not mean lots of slam-bam action. Conflict is "The mental or moral struggle caused by incompatible desires and aims. That is the kind of conflict that makes stories vitally alive." - Ben Bova in "The Craft of Writing Science Fiction That Sells".
2) Is there emotional conflict WITHIN the main character? Between the main characters? Emotional conflict is part of what gets readers interested. For example: love vs. loyalty; greed vs. duty; fear vs. desire; revenge vs. self-doubt.
3) Are there too many or not enough conflicts? Even in parodies/humor stories there has to be some sort issue that the characters try to solve even if they aren't all that dramatic.
PLOT
1) Was the main plot clear and believable? Why or why not?
2) Did the characters have a clearly defined problem to solve? Did you feel by the end of the piece that this problem was solved or did the character become resolved to live with it?
3) Are there scenes which do not seem to further the plot? (Big Lipped Alligator Moments, anyone?)
4) If the piece was a short story, were there too many subplots? If the piece was a novel, could it be improved by more attention to the subplots or have more subplots? Conversely, does it have too many subplots and you got confused about what was happening?
5) Was every subplot useful? Did it add to the overall story or did the author seem to stick it in just for complexity?
6) Pacing: Did the plot/subplots move fast enough to keep the reader's attention?
7) Resolution of conflict: Did the conflict and tension in the plots and subplots come to `being judged for the quality of their writing, they need to write under the impression they're doing a quality work. Do they touch on what places such Knothole and Robotropolis are? Do they properly introduce to viewers who the main cast is and what they're fighting for, or do they brush all that aside and write everything in a way that simply expects people to know about what they're writing about?
8) Did the author use good enough names for people, places, and things? Names help set the tone for a story. Did some names seem inconsistent with the character or for where they lived?
9) Is the timing and order of events in the story consistent? For example, did John drive his new car on his vacation in chapter six but it wasn't until chapter ten that he bought it?
CHARACTERIZATION
1) Were the facts about the characters accurate and consistent?
2) Did you get enough of a sense of paradoxes within the character? Enough of their emotions, attitudes, values?
3) Backstory: Were you distracted by too much background information of a character at one time? Did the author seem to dump a lot of information on the background of a character in one or two long speeches, or did we learn about that character here and there in smaller pieces?
4) Did the did the focused protagonist undergo some change in the story? Are they getting development over and established problem? Are we learning something new about them? Does none of the aforementioned happen and the story, as a result feels as though it were written simply for the sake of writiing one? What are we gettiing out of reading this?
DIALOGUE
1) Did the words from the mouths of the people in the story seem consistent with their personalities?
2) Was there too much or not enough dialogue, in your opinion? .
3) Did any character tend to talk in long monologues?
4) Were you able to sense the conflict, attitudes, and intentions of each character in their dialogue without the author telling you of these directly?
5) Did the dialogue seem easy to speak? Does it flow or do you have to stop at points because it sounds unusual?
6) Did the author use dialect that was too heavy, making it difficult to read?
7) In an exchange of conversation, can you easily tell who is speaking if you didn't have their names or gender attached to their sentences? This was a problem I experienced repeatedly throughout Ken Pender's writings.
POINT OF VIEW
1) Was a given chapter or section written from one person's point of view? Are there too many points of view in the story?
2) Did the story skip around between the first person or third person point of view (POV)? Were the changes in POV signaled clearly? There is nothing inherently wrong in changing POV, as long as it is not done too often.
3) If the story was written in the third person POV, as most stories are, did the story stick with the omniscient (all knowing) POV, use a limited POV (where we don't know everyone's motives except by clues from their words or actions), or did the author mix the two? Did the author's choice seem right to you?
4) When the POV changed, were you able to quickly sense who the new viewpoint was from?
SHOW VS. TELL
1) Did the author describe exactly how the people acted?
2) Was there too much abstract language where specific details would have made a greater impact on the reader?
3) Were there many instancesere of words like "very", "much", "really", "great", or "nice" when a more detailed description would have been more colorful?
4) Did we get the chance to interpret what the characters were feeling or did the author just tell us directly?
GRAMMAR AND SPELLING
1) Was the English readable? Were there too many grammatical errors, misuse of punctuation, run-on sentences, etc.?
2) Did you point out any typos or misspelling? How many times have you missed that in your writing because you passed over it without seeing it? Were there so many such errors that they made reading the piece difficult for you?
3) Did the author use too many exclamation points?
4) Were there any cliches in the narrative? (Ex: "better late than never!" "Holy Mackarel!") In dialogue cliches are okay if the character would speak that way.
5) Did the author use melodrama? A good example I can think of from the top of my head is during one issue of ArchieSonic where 'Sonic' (Scourge) and Mina were going out on a date. Mina starts feeling guilty about cheating on her boyfriend and inwardly thinks 'But I can't hurt Ash! How could I hurt him so?!' "OH THE DRAMA!!1"
THEME
This one wasn't on the website, but since this is a contest, I'm suggesting it. How well do you think the writers in question followed the theme/requirements for the story and why? Did they incorporate it enough, were the written requirements hardly signiffigant to the overall story?
#6
John Roberts
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Posted 03 November 2009 - 09:02 PM
Quite a thorough guideline for judging a fanfic contest. If the entries were close that would certainly make it easier to find a winner.
What's wrong with a little bit of melodrama, by the way?
What's wrong with a little bit of melodrama, by the way?
6620
9:06
9:06
#7
Vlad Yvhv
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Posted 04 November 2009 - 08:34 PM
I think that might be a bit too many guidelines... #6 of Dialogue, for example, could be done away with. Characters and dialogue tend to be less believable if they sound like they're written by an english teacher, rather than a real person. Real people don't do stuff like repeating the question in their answers, or avoiding contractions, fragments, etc. So, following the rules that english teachers love may actually hurt the quality of the story. I'd say tone it down a bit, but keep stuff like "is it coherent?" and "is it punctuated correctly?" and in general the rules that're there to make sure that it's actually readable. Personally, I tend to have an informal writing style, which clashes with a lot of the stricter grammar rules, but tends to provide more of a connection with my readers.
He probly did, with similar results to his other schemes...
QUOTE
I've always wondered why, despite Robotnik's knowledge that the FFs lived in the great forest, did he never attempt do so much as burn it.
He probly did, with similar results to his other schemes...
Projection: If Intruder Organsim reaches civilized areas...
Entire world population infected 2,7000 hours from first contact.
#8
salamander
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Posted 04 November 2009 - 10:20 PM
maybe-
have a contest focussed on a single character, or relationship between two characters. Like, "a day in the life of Lupe" or "Sonic and Uncle Chuck go on a camping trip" or something along those lines.
alternate-universe or "what-if" stories: like "what would the FF's lives be like if the coup never happened" or "what if all the FFs had super powers" or something else non-canon. This includes parodies and crossover-type stuff ("what if Robotnik was like the Jigsaw killer" or something)
That's the kind of stuff I'd like to read, anyway.. Something relatively short and tightly focused. I have a short attention span
have a contest focussed on a single character, or relationship between two characters. Like, "a day in the life of Lupe" or "Sonic and Uncle Chuck go on a camping trip" or something along those lines.
alternate-universe or "what-if" stories: like "what would the FF's lives be like if the coup never happened" or "what if all the FFs had super powers" or something else non-canon. This includes parodies and crossover-type stuff ("what if Robotnik was like the Jigsaw killer" or something)
That's the kind of stuff I'd like to read, anyway.. Something relatively short and tightly focused. I have a short attention span
#9
Vlad Yvhv
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Posted 05 November 2009 - 05:20 PM
Now that could be fun... "The Freedom Fighters of Hazzard"...
Projection: If Intruder Organsim reaches civilized areas...
Entire world population infected 2,7000 hours from first contact.
#10
Guest_Shorty_*
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Posted 06 November 2009 - 06:30 AM
QUOTE
I think that might be a bit too many guidelines...
These weren't written with the assumption that they'd be rule criteria (although Mods/Admins and judges are free to emphasize on some of them, and these can be rule material for fics that're tied or something on that level) so much as they are meant to help guide the judge in articulating his or her opinion. After all, When scoring a fanfic, you can't just say "it was good" or that "it sucked" and leave it at that. Judges will be expected to explain to everyone why they felt the way they did, and had given it the score they did. This is just here to help you sort yourself out and get the ball rolling for your critques.
QUOTE
I think that might be a bit too many guidelines... #6 of Dialogue, for example, could be done away with. Characters and dialogue tend to be less believable if they sound like they're written by an english teacher, rather than a real person. Real people don't do stuff like repeating the question in their answers, or avoiding contractions, fragments, etc. So, following the rules that english teachers love may actually hurt the quality of the story.
I'll delete it since Dialogue's #5 covers the signiffigant parts of #6.
Since we're just a small group right now, I've been meaning to suggest this partly to challenge and rise incentive for people to write. That the fanfiction contests can serve as their own continuity, in which, the winner determines the story that will become canon for the others to follow. So for instance, the backstory for Knuckles in future stories will be based on the fanfic that won. This also allows other themes to be made with comparative ease. You can for instance, write a theme about a character (made up or not) using material in the winning story.
Other fanfiction themes, such as creating a "New Character" or "Introducing a canon, non-SatAM character" can be reoccuring ones that return to the limelight every now and then. If you lost for instance on the new character contest, you can always come back and re-submit your story after prefferably taking some advice from the judges.
Other themes I thought of were:
1) A space adventure: We hardly know much about Mobius' neighboring planets; whether they were habitable and had their own civilizations, or if the people of Mobius had advanced enough to make contact with these worlds prior to Robotnik's reign.
2) Dan Drazen fanfiction challenge. I think some people have added onto his fanfictions before. Simply, you take a fanfiction of Drazen's and make another story about what was written.
3) A Sonic CD-themed contest. Or, you could also view it as, a how would you have written "Blast to the Past". Amy, Metal Sonic, and Miracle/Little Planet are required for this story. Little Planet since it'll make things easier for introducing characters like Knuckles.
4) A Sonic 3-themed contest, which IMO would probably be more necessary than Sonic CD's as Knuckles is the type of character that, unlike Amy, would be difficult to introduce without a proper, prior introduction into something SatAM related.
5) NiGHTs into Dreams crossover.
And a theme Lord Exor asked me about:
That Robotnik manages to kill or long-term roboticize at least one Knothole Freedom Fighter. It might not be something I'd personally start with, but the theme, this kind of loss, would be kind of cool for later when we've delved further into these contests and the characters.
#11
Vlad Yvhv
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Posted 08 November 2009 - 05:54 PM
Hmm... While that "the winner's stuff becomes canon" would provide additional challenges with each winner, it could also drive off some future competitors... It could be quite interesting to see how that turns out, however...
Projection: If Intruder Organsim reaches civilized areas...
Entire world population infected 2,7000 hours from first contact.
#12
Guest_Shorty_*
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Posted 09 November 2009 - 05:55 AM
QUOTE
Hmm... While that "the winner's stuff becomes canon" would provide additional challenges with each winner, it could also drive off some future competitors...
Of course, that's assuming every contest will only have one winner, which I don't think needs to be the case. I understand that people put a lot of time and effort into their stories, so at the very least, we can widen the probability of them getting rewarded for their works most of the time. For certain, pivotal themes however (ex: the introduction of Knuckles, Freedom Fighter death etc.) only one will be able to win for obvious reasons.
Also, keep in mind that even if a participant doesn't win a contest or get into a place, certain themes may become reoccuring and they can feel free to re-submit what they wrote. Judges are also here to guide people in where they might've made mistakes, so this would hopefully rise their probability to win the next time.
#13
Guest_Miko_*
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Posted 23 November 2009 - 05:26 PM
Here's one:
Reboot contest idea:
This actually takes place something like the Archie unierse but, the objective is to reboot or retcon the story and/or status quo back to it's SatAMish roots. Why am I interested in this? Because while I see many people complain about Ian's work, I don't see how people would take things back. Another story on the same tangent is perhaps, would be to pretend you're about to meet with SEGA and while you want to pitch an idea that's like SatAM, you have to be mindful of their interests. In short, making your own Sonic verse that while greatly influenced by SatAM, considers more modern concepts to the franchise. Today, there are so many mainstream characters like Knuckles and Amy that never even saw the light of day in the show. Tails could've been handled better too.. I think it'd be quite a challenge no? But on the subject, I've seen enough petitions for SEGA relating to fanprojects (and NOT just Sonmanics) that fell through the cracks because fans didn't think of this issue. Or at least it's one of the reasons..
Reboot contest idea:
This actually takes place something like the Archie unierse but, the objective is to reboot or retcon the story and/or status quo back to it's SatAMish roots. Why am I interested in this? Because while I see many people complain about Ian's work, I don't see how people would take things back. Another story on the same tangent is perhaps, would be to pretend you're about to meet with SEGA and while you want to pitch an idea that's like SatAM, you have to be mindful of their interests. In short, making your own Sonic verse that while greatly influenced by SatAM, considers more modern concepts to the franchise. Today, there are so many mainstream characters like Knuckles and Amy that never even saw the light of day in the show. Tails could've been handled better too.. I think it'd be quite a challenge no? But on the subject, I've seen enough petitions for SEGA relating to fanprojects (and NOT just Sonmanics) that fell through the cracks because fans didn't think of this issue. Or at least it's one of the reasons..
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