Prose Contest?

[Iluvatar]

Well, I'm sure you all remember this thread before the server troubles, but anyways, here it is again. I ask you, is there an interest in doing a short story contest? It'll be smoother and easier than the poetry contest, I can almost guarantee. What say you?

[Snoop]

Sure - lets do it. How short is short?

[Iluvatar]

Wow, that was quick. Short probably means between 2-25 pages in a word processing program. Long enough to tell a good story, but short enough to not be a Novellete, Novella, or Novel. And not to bore us to tears.

[FruitandNut]

10 - 4 (is that short enough?)

[Iluvatar]

Well, for a response. But you may have to lengthen it a bit when we get to entries. :)

[Iluvatar]

It seems that we have enough interest where I will try it. We'll probably just vote on all the entries in a direct vote. I'll start the submission thread on the 18th, to give people time to write their stories. If anyone feels up to writing two stories, that'll be the limit, though most of us will probably only do 1. Good luck!

[Xanadu Moo]

Hey, Iluvatar,
What if there was an "under 2000 words" category and an "over 2000 words" category? Some may choose to write the shorter variety due to time constraints, but it could be hard to compete with the 10,000-word entries. They seem to be different animals. And thus we see the prose and cons of such an exercise. Does that complicate things? By the way, for the anal retentive there could also be an "exactly 2000 words" category.

I don't know if 2000 is a good cut-off, or maybe 3000 is. What delineations do the English professors have in terms of length for their assignments?

[Iluvatar]

Hmm...An excellent idea. My only worry is if we don't get enough entries to create a decent competition. But, since we have 5 votes now, we might as well. I fiddled around with a word counter, and 2000 seems a good divider. We'll do <=2000, and >2000.

[FruitandNut]

Damn assignments. I thought I had escaped from 'word counting' and compression. Can we do a plus (or minus) 10%?

I will kick off mine with an experiment - writing about the past and the present as if 'one'. And another about a moment of adolescent 'rite of passage' I experienced in Germany.

[KevinBrowning]

Yep, I want to see it. I saw one Fysh. started writing, and that one featuring me that you started 'Tar, but otherwise I've just seen poetry here.

[Iluvatar]

Damn assignments. I thought I had escaped from 'word counting' and compression. Can we do a plus (or minus) 10%?

For those who want it, here's an Online Word Counter (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 3 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.). And sure, if it's 1900-2100, specify which category you want to be in when you submit.

[FruitandNut]

[b]We Want The Comp. Thread!!!!!! Got Two Awaiting The 'Slip(pery)way'. ;? :rolleyes:

[Iluvatar]

Oh man, the 18th was yesterday...I'll get right on that. I'm eating lunch now, but I swear, the submission thread will be up by the end of the day. Worry not, my fearless prosists! We shall have our competition!