Proposal: Fanfiction Competition!

[Kagayaki]

SOTM has a nice intro post that sets out guidelines for submissions, and a voting post too. Having an entry thread and a voting thread for each round (in addition to a general contest organazation discussion thread) seems to be a good setup. Going through these line by line give might us an idea of the types of things that should be considered when planning something like this.

Spoiler for submissions:

Originally Posted by Solace

!!!Welcome to the SOTM!!!

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~Congratulations to Frailty for winning the December Contest!~

The theme chosen for January is - Silhouette!.
What is that? See here for details.

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About the SOTM:

The Signature Of The Month contest is open to all members of the Animesuki Forums. The goal of the contest is to provide a fun and competitive way of showing off and improving the signatures and personal skills of contestants. The winner of each months contest is given the privilege of choosing the theme for the next month.

The contest begins on the first of each month and consists of roughly two weeks of entry creation/submission, one week of voting, and one week off. The entry and voting periods may be extended or shortened slightly as needed.

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About the SOTM Theme:

Each month prospective contestants are given a theme to base their entries on. This theme is decided by the winner of the previous contest. The theme can be anything, as long as it does not break forum rules regarding inappropriate material. At the end of the month, voters choose which entries they liked best out of all submitted entries and a new winner is decided. Themes cannot be used twice in a row.

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The Rules of the SOTM:

1. Contestants are allowed to create, work on, and submit their entry from the start of the contest until two weeks from the start date. This period of time is specified by the organizer every month. Once the entry period expires, all submitted entries are gathered up and sent to the Voting Thread.

2. Contestants must submit original works. This means you cannot simply cut a picture out, slap your name on it, and call it your own. Claiming someone else's work as your own is also not allowed. Anyone caught doing this will have their entries removed from the contest.

To further expand on this rule:

2A. Unless proven otherwise, all entries made by contestants are derivatives of works made by someone else. Thus, no claim of "ownership" shall be made in reference to the image(s) used in the signature entry.

2B. Misrepresenting someone else's signature work for your own is prohibited and will result in an immediate expulsion of the entry and disqualify the contestant from the current month's contest.

2C. In the spirit of originality, "crop" sigs are frowned upon, but not discouraged; however, the contest organizer can call upon all contestants to show the source of their entry(ies) at any time.

2D. Also in the spirit of originality, new signatures are encouraged. However, if you feel one of your older signatures is perfect for the theme and wish to enter it, you may. Just remember that the signature still has to follow the rules stated above.

3. Contestants are allowed to create as many entries as they wish, but are only allowed to enter one. To submit an entry officially, the contestant must mark the post in the Offical Entry Thread containing that entry with the words "Final Entry", or they can submit the signature to the contest organizer using the private message function.

4. Contestants who wish to keep their entries private until after the submission period can private message the contest organizer with their entry. The entry will not be displayed until submissions are closed, unless the contestant displays that entry publicly.

5. Entries must comply with Animesuki rules regarding signature size. This means each entry can be no larger than 500 x 160, and must be less than 50,000 bytes. They must also comply with forum decency rules. If you think your entry will be offensive or reported to the moderators, don't post it, even as a joke.

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About the SOTM Entry Process:

Every month, a new entry thread is created. Each month's entry thread is a central spot meant to give contestants a chance to create and improve their entries as well as their skills, in addition to providing them a place to post their official submissions.

The thread is solely about helping contestants with entries, and as such these things will not be tolerated:

1. Nonconstructive and negative criticism (if you truly dislike something about an entry, be polite and helpful)

2. Comments, questions, or complaints about General SOTM affairs

3. Flaming, trolling, and other uncivil behavior that breaks Forum Rules

Anyone disrupting the thread will be asked to take it privately, to the SOTM Generic Discussion Thread, or if the offense is severe enough - reported to the moderators.

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This Month's Entry Period::

This months entry period officially starts Wednesday, January 5th, 2011 and lasts until Friday, January 21st, 2011. Entries will be gathered and put up for voting on Sunday, January 23rd, 2011. Voting will end on the following Sunday.

The due date ends at 11:59 (midnight basically) UTC/GMT. The polling will be up one day later after 11:59 (again, midnight). I will try to be as lenient as I can with last minute submissions but only slightly.

It is up to you as a contestant to know what your time zone is in relation to UTC/GMT. I cannot do this for you.

Here is a site that can help you figure that out: http://www.worldtimeserver.com/convert_time_in_UTC.aspx

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Good luck to all contestants, and most importantly, have fun!!!

Spoiler for voting ... is there a way to quote from a locked thread?:

This is the Voting Phase for the December SOTM Contest.
Please read the following rules very carefully before casting your vote for your favorite entries.





The Voting Process - How do I vote?:
1. Look at all the entries in the second post, and pick one, two, or three that you like.

2. Take the number and name of the entries you like.

3. Make a single post with the number and name of the entries you are voting for.

Format for Voting - How do I correctly cast my vote?:

When you make your vote, please use the number of the entry and the name of contestant. Example:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bram Stoker

1. Dracula
14. Vlad the Impaler
32. Alucard

I will tally the votes during the contest and once again at the end of the contest. The winner will be announced when the final day for voting passes.



Voting Rules - Things every potential voter should know:
1. You can vote for up to three of your favorite entries. You do not *need* to vote for more than one, but you can vote up to three if you wish.

2. All votes are equal. I will remove votes from anyone attempting to influence others vote choice.

3. Do not confuse the voting process by changing your votes or by trying to vote more than once. It's a simple format, and if you don't follow it, I won't count your vote.

4. You can vote for yourself, but we'd rather you didn't. If you are going to vote for yourself, you must vote for at least one other person.

5. In the event of a tie, there will be a second voting process. If that voting also results in a tie, the contestants in that poll will all be declared winners and will decide together what the theme for the next contest is. If they cannot decide by the time the contest begins for the next month, the organizer will decide based on community input.

6. To cut down on any potential cheating, any accounts registered a week before, and up through, the voting period are not eligible to vote. The exception to this rule is any account with an entry in the contest.

*I reserve the right to reject votes if I deem any account suspicious.*




Voting begins on Monday, December 27th, 2010, at 12:00pm, and ends the following Sunday, January 2nd, 2010, at 12:00pm.

The timezone I am using is UTC/GMT.

Use this site to figure out what time that is in your timezone: http://www.worldtimeserver.com/convert_time_in_UTC.aspx



That's it! You can comment in this thread, but I will not tolerate any vote swaying or contest rigging. Any suspicious activity will be reported to the mods, so please, keep this clean and fair.

Questions, comments, concerns, or suggestions about the general voting phase or how the contest is run can be directed to me using the private message function or to the SOTM Generic Discussion Thread. Drama is not tolerated, so be civil. *If it's a concern about a contestant or entry, please PM me before discussing it publicly.* Thank you.


ANYONE NOT FOLLOWING THE VOTING PROCESS WILL NOT HAVE THEIR VOTES COUNTED. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Good luck contestants, and most importantly, have fun!

I was thinking a length limit might be a good idea (akin to the SOTM 50K filesize limit). On the other hand, it may end up being somewhat self-enforcing (voters probably won't read a 20 chapter fanfic).

edit: Encouraging short entries would probably also attract more voters and make the contest less intimidating for potential entrants.

[BoxQueen]

I love the sound of the idea ^^ I agree with Cello that the stories should be based on "Theme" since there isn't much discrimination between voters and writer as much. Though the question of mine is that people who participate are going to write their own original stories?

[Hiroi Sekai]

Originally Posted by Kagayaki

SOTM has a nice intro post that sets out guidelines for submissions, and a voting post too. Having an entry thread and a voting thread for each round (in addition to a general contest organazation discussion thread) seems to be a good setup. Going through these line by line give might us an idea of the types of things that should be considered when planning something like this.

Spoiler for submissions:

Spoiler for voting ... is there a way to quote from a locked thread?:

This is the Voting Phase for the December SOTM Contest.
Please read the following rules very carefully before casting your vote for your favorite entries.





The Voting Process - How do I vote?:
1. Look at all the entries in the second post, and pick one, two, or three that you like.

2. Take the number and name of the entries you like.

3. Make a single post with the number and name of the entries you are voting for.

Format for Voting - How do I correctly cast my vote?:

When you make your vote, please use the number of the entry and the name of contestant. Example:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bram Stoker

1. Dracula
14. Vlad the Impaler
32. Alucard

I will tally the votes during the contest and once again at the end of the contest. The winner will be announced when the final day for voting passes.



Voting Rules - Things every potential voter should know:
1. You can vote for up to three of your favorite entries. You do not *need* to vote for more than one, but you can vote up to three if you wish.

2. All votes are equal. I will remove votes from anyone attempting to influence others vote choice.

3. Do not confuse the voting process by changing your votes or by trying to vote more than once. It's a simple format, and if you don't follow it, I won't count your vote.

4. You can vote for yourself, but we'd rather you didn't. If you are going to vote for yourself, you must vote for at least one other person.

5. In the event of a tie, there will be a second voting process. If that voting also results in a tie, the contestants in that poll will all be declared winners and will decide together what the theme for the next contest is. If they cannot decide by the time the contest begins for the next month, the organizer will decide based on community input.

6. To cut down on any potential cheating, any accounts registered a week before, and up through, the voting period are not eligible to vote. The exception to this rule is any account with an entry in the contest.

*I reserve the right to reject votes if I deem any account suspicious.*




Voting begins on Monday, December 27th, 2010, at 12:00pm, and ends the following Sunday, January 2nd, 2010, at 12:00pm.

The timezone I am using is UTC/GMT.

Use this site to figure out what time that is in your timezone: http://www.worldtimeserver.com/convert_time_in_UTC.aspx



That's it! You can comment in this thread, but I will not tolerate any vote swaying or contest rigging. Any suspicious activity will be reported to the mods, so please, keep this clean and fair.

Questions, comments, concerns, or suggestions about the general voting phase or how the contest is run can be directed to me using the private message function or to the SOTM Generic Discussion Thread. Drama is not tolerated, so be civil. *If it's a concern about a contestant or entry, please PM me before discussing it publicly.* Thank you.


ANYONE NOT FOLLOWING THE VOTING PROCESS WILL NOT HAVE THEIR VOTES COUNTED. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Good luck contestants, and most importantly, have fun!

I was thinking a length limit might be a good idea (akin to the SOTM 50K filesize limit). On the other hand, it may end up being somewhat self-enforcing (voters probably won't read a 20 chapter fanfic).

edit: Encouraging short entries would probably also attract more voters and make the contest less intimidating for potential entrants.

Wow, that is very detailed; thank you for posting that! Will give it a thorough read right now.

Originally Posted by BoxQueen

I love the sound of the idea ^^ I agree with Cello that the stories should be based on "Theme" since there isn't much discrimination between voters and writer as much. Though the question of mine is that people who participate are going to write their own original stories?

Yes, stories or any form of composition. The entry just has to be associated with the theme somehow. ^.^

Originally Posted by Daniel E.

Depends on how you guys decide on things. If you are going to use a submission thread (ala SOTM) you'll need a mod to close the thread at a given time.

Ah, I see. I suppose we'll have to select some people to maintain the competitions...or something.

[Mr. Wang]

Okay, so this is gonna be a fanfiction contest... question is, would an original story contest be... well, better? I admit, I love fanfiction, me being a proud author of several fics myself, but how would we accomodate for fictions written for fandoms that some of other authors have no knowledge of? Perhaps a judge might know and like one anime/fandom, but not know of another? That's my biggest concern right off the bat.

[Hiroi Sekai]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wang

Okay, so this is gonna be a fanfiction contest... question is, would an original story contest be... well, better? I admit, I love fanfiction, me being a proud author of several fics myself, but how would we accomodate for fictions written for fandoms that some of other authors have no knowledge of? Perhaps a judge might know and like one anime/fandom, but not know of another? That's my biggest concern right off the bat.

Actually, by "fanfiction" I was hoping the original story part would be automatically a part of it. ^.^

Also, we opted to leave out judges and anime in general. Instead, we'll let the readers vote, and we'll use themes instead of anime-specific topics. I suppose the word "fanfiction" would be a misnomer in this case. XD

[Mr. Wang]

Well, in that case, then I fully support this. Though I'll still say, now this current thread's name is sorta misleading...

[Hiroi Sekai]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wang

Though I'll still say, now this current thread's name is sorta misleading...

Oh, the days I wish I had the power to change thread titles. XD

Also, I think having a few mods help run this would make things fair and organized. Of course, it's not a demand but more of a hopeful request. Just wondering if any mods were interested. :P

[felix]

Originally Posted by papermario13689

* Entries must be written in English.
* Entries must not be kept under the "Mature" level. This is a competition for all ages.
* Unlimited entries can be created, but only one can be submitted.
* Entries must associate in some way with the theme.
* All forms of composition are accepted. (Poems, short stories, etc.)
* All entries must be submitted within the time limit, which will be specified for each competition.
* Your entry must be an original creation. Plagiarism will result in instant disqualification.

That one is a bad idea. It should be a very precise as to what is or not allowed. I think it should also specify a minimum/maximum length, allowed/disallowed formatting, etc. ...so as to create equality between entires.

You can call your contest whatever you like however it's the limits that actually make the contest work that way! While it's hard to get it wrong (a contest is still a contest), it's not easy to get it just right. SotM contests for example tend to be very "who can find the better source" more so then creativity, even though Solace would have you believe it's some "show of skill" the discrepancy between quality of the source and quality of the effects is pretty large.

Originally Posted by papermario13689

I was thinking we'd have 3 or so official judges (that don't submit entries). We could have several sub-awards under the actual competition. (Most creative, judge's mentions, etc.)

Like this idea.

Originally Posted by Cello

*punches internet*

I think it'd be better to follow the example of the other competitions, like the SotMs. Like the highest voted chooses the next theme, and so on. Since the guidelines are like a literature form the soTM, I don't see the problem with following that example.

I'm not good at this, sorry. i think we need a moderator to sort this stuff out. XD

Every sensible competition uses judges, because by doing so you get a answer of "why X is better then everything else" and so on (preferably from each one) - some state reasons, some just have each judge give a mark. All serious contests I know of use judges. Polling is only good when the public is the one measured, not when the public is suppose to measure something else. If I take a 10m long beam and ask 100 people how long it is (with out instruments) do you think I'll get 10m as a result of the poll? Probably not. This is not a extreme analogy, when it comes to polls people (sadly) generally go by gut instinct alone, one way or another.

Polling also works best when it's indirect. When you get questionnaire for example it doesn't ask you for the answer it asks you instead questions that together imply the answer, as well as trap questions to determine if you can actually give a serious answer at the moment in time.

Now I'm not saying you should go with one or the other. What I'm saying is, if you want a serious contest, you'll use judges, or a very sophisticated polling system. If you're going to use just a poll (or the SotM system) it's nothing more then just for fun. As with most things, neither is wrong, but different people will gather based on which one you choose, similarly people will put different amounts of effort in it based on that choice as well. Serious contests get more fierce competition, while more 4fun contests are less scary and thus more open (ie. more contestants).

ps. If you're going to do nominations/vote counting and so on, try to use ways that don't require you to do it manually.

[Kagayaki]

Originally Posted by felix

That one is a bad idea. It should be a very precise as to what is or not allowed. I think it should also specify a minimum/maximum length, allowed/disallowed formatting, etc. ...so as to create equality between entires.

I agree. What about:
- All entries must be plain, unformatted text with no decoration (line breaks and single space allowed)
- If we're looking for a short story contest, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_story#Length, entries must be 2500-7500 words. (It could be called Short Story of the Month)

it might be hard to judge short stories and poetry in the same contest.

Originally Posted by felix

Every sensible competition uses judges, because by doing so you get a answer of "why X is better then everything else" and so on (preferably from each one) - some state reasons, some just have each judge give a mark. All serious contests I know of use judges. Polling is only good when the public is the one measured, not when the public is suppose to measure something else. If I take a 10m long beam and ask 100 people how long it is (with out instruments) do you think I'll get 10m as a result of the poll? Probably not. This is not a extreme analogy, when it comes to polls people (sadly) generally go by gut instinct alone, one way or another.

Polling also works best when it's indirect. When you get questionnaire for example it doesn't ask you for the answer it asks you instead questions that together imply the answer, as well as trap questions to determine if you can actually give a serious answer at the moment in time.

Now I'm not saying you should go with one or the other. What I'm saying is, if you want a serious contest, you'll use judges, or a very sophisticated polling system. If you're going to use just a poll (or the SotM system) it's nothing more then just for fun. As with most things, neither is wrong, but different people will gather based on which one you choose, similarly people will put different amounts of effort in it based on that choice as well. Serious contests get more fierce competition, while more 4fun contests are less scary and thus more open (ie. more contestants).

You raise some good points here, but your assumption is that the purpose of the contest is to measure skill. The issue is that we're an anime forum. Why would we be trying to run a serious literary competition? People who want that should be looking at something like http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/t...contesthub.htm rather than AS. I mean, there are so many competitions out there that have legitimate judges and give cash prizes. I don't know why we would be trying to imitate them.

Rather than attempting to measure skill as objectively as possible, I would argue that the purpose of a contest like this is to encourage writers to produce as much interesting work as possible. We're not trying to find the "best" work, we're trying to find the work that the most thread viewers will enjoy reading.

The benefits to writers:
- They know other AS members will be reading their work. (The more viewers this has, the better. Also, voting encourages thread viewers to actually read all the stories.)
- They'll get feedback on their work. (Perhaps we need something to the effect of "all votes have at least 2 sentences of justification in order to be valid.)
- They'll find out what their peers enjoy by seeing the reactions to other people's work. (The more entrants, the better)

The benefits to readers:
- Reading fun stories by other AS members. (So whatever the most people enjoyed was the most effective at this, right?)
- Ideally, these stories would be somehow anime-related, so the contest would offer something you couldn't get by just going buying a book of short stories by a really great author. I don't have any idea how this would work though, with not everyone having watched every series and such.

So yes, this should be a "4fun" contest (AS is not the place for a serious contest). The more contestants and viewers this has, the less likely it is die or never get off the ground in the first place. Contestants and voters are what keep competitions like these alive.

[Hiroi Sekai]

Originally Posted by Kagayaki

I agree. What about:
- All entries must be plain, unformatted text with no decoration (line breaks and single space allowed)
- If we're looking for a short story contest, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_story#Length, entries must be 2500-7500 words. (It could be called Short Story of the Month)

it might be hard to judge short stories and poetry in the same contest.



You raise some good points here, but your assumption is that the purpose of the contest is to measure skill. The issue is that we're an anime forum. Why would we be trying to run a serious literary competition? People who want that should be looking at something like http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/t...contesthub.htm rather than AS. I mean, there are so many competitions out there that have legitimate judges and give cash prizes. I don't know why we would be trying to imitate them.

Rather than attempting to measure skill as objectively as possible, I would argue that the purpose of a contest like this is to encourage writers to produce as much interesting work as possible. We're not trying to find the "best" work, we're trying to find the work that the most thread viewers will enjoy reading.

The benefits to writers:
- They know other AS members will be reading their work. (The more viewers this has, the better. Also, voting encourages thread viewers to actually read all the stories.)
- They'll get feedback on their work. (Perhaps we need something to the effect of "all votes have at least 2 sentences of justification in order to be valid.)
- They'll find out what their peers enjoy by seeing the reactions to other people's work. (The more entrants, the better)

The benefits to readers:
- Reading fun stories by other AS members. (So whatever the most people enjoyed was the most effective at this, right?)
- Ideally, these stories would be anime-related, so the contest would offer something you couldn't get by just going buying a book of short stories by a really great author. I don't have any idea how this would work though, with not everyone having watched every series and such.

Also, the more contestants and viewers this has, the less likely it is die or never get off the ground in the first place. Contestants and voters are what keep competitions like these alive.

I agree with most of this. I wasn't really hoping for a serious competition, just one to allow everyone to write and enjoy themselves.

I'm really hoping not to knock out poetry; it seems to be a strong part of many writers on here. Making 2 separate competitions would only clutter things up. I might suggest something like a hybrid; a major competition with multiple awards for different types of entries. I think this method would get more people involved as well, because they aren't overshadowed by somebody else every time and have a chance to win in another category.

[Otsdarva]

Make sure you get all the rules you want down, you know? I think we're going a steady pace.

To summarize some things up: All entries will be original, so there is no necessity for prior knowledge or a chosen fandom to be solely involved. The competition/Of the month itself will be myriad entries, that way it can be anything from original works, to excerpts, to poetry (And long as they fit the theme and don't go beyond the 18+ mark, everything should be fine).

I'm not good at this, so I'll just leave it up to the logicians. Me? I'm going to participate and just give words of advice right now.

[Solace]

Originally Posted by felix

SotM contests for example tend to be very "who can find the better source" more so then creativity, even though Solace would have you believe it's some "show of skill" the discrepancy between quality of the source and quality of the effects is pretty large.

I don't go out of my way to call entries a "show of skill", but I do promote the SOTM as a way of improving your skill through regular competition. It's the nature of the contest and how it allows any source, providing it fits the theme, that encourages people to find the best "base" they can work with. I don't control voting either, through any kind of criteria beyond "pick the ones you like".

The SOTM was never envisioned to be a fierce competition, but I never wanted it to be either. There's plenty of sites and forums for "serious" gfx designers...I just felt that it would be nice to have something for our forums that people could participate in regularly, whenever they felt like it.

Anyway, I have no issue if people want to retool the SOTM format/rules for their purposes. I'm also open for any questions about advice in running it.

[Khu]

I'd be up for giving this a whizz to get it started. Not sure whether I'd be a regular competitor or not though

[felix]

Originally Posted by Kagayaki

You raise some good points here, but your assumption is that the purpose of the contest is to measure skill.

I made no such assumption. I said if you pick this you get this, if you pick that you get that. Good luck with your choice. Maybe I should have phrased it as: if you set the bar too low, over multiple iterations people will lower themselves to that standard when creating entries to the contest.

Also, we should have some form of prize. It doesn't have to be anything meaningful, something like official sig-slivers that can be used on the bottom/top or right/left of the signature showing you got 1st, or 2nd or 3rd in the contest would work fine.

[edit]

Originally Posted by Kagayaki

- All entries must be plain, unformatted text with no decoration (line breaks and single space allowed)

I was thinking more along the lines of setting a common pattern to follow.

• Special fonts not allowed
• Colors not allowed
• bold, underlined and italic text is not allowed
• All text is to be aligned to the left, unless the submission is poetry, in which case it's left to the submitter to decide.
• Please write properly. A comma has no space before it and a space after. Same with a period, semicolon, etc.
• If you need to convey a certain emotion, instead of special fonts/colors write it like this:

  "So WHAT?" he shouted.

• Dialog needs to always be in quotes (ie. "dialog goes here"). Normal dialog should be very clear on who is talking:
  

  "Blah blah blah" the fist in command said. For which the captain replied "Blah blah blah"

  Using bold text for the names is permitted when writing the dialog in a list format. Example:
  
  Code for reference:
  

  [table]
  [tr][td][B]Captain[/B][/td][td]"Ship to starboard Mr. Hanks!"[/td][/tr]
  [tr][td][B]Navigator[/B][/td][td]"Aye captain." the navigator whispered.[/td][/tr]
  [/table]

Originally Posted by Kagayaki

it might be hard to judge short stories and poetry in the same contest.

Agree.

[Larthak]

Oho~? Now, this thread is a gold mine! I'd love to read some stories from fellow AniSuki members. Best idea I've heard in a while.

[Hooves]

Originally Posted by Larthak

Oho~? Now, this thread is a gold mine! I'd love to read some stories from fellow AniSuki members. Best idea I've heard in a while.

I agree with this idea as well. It would be nice to see the capacity of our story-writers and how creative they are.

[Suomi]

Perhaps we should have a separate category for poetry and short stories...? like you can submit a short story OR a poem?

[milan kyuubi]

I love the idea Just I was thinking on how the themes will be chosen (this is one of the problems). Clearly the winner can't chose some Anime as the month theme, because some fanfiction writers have never watched those shows. I think the winner would only have to chose certain genre as the month theme. Like this month theme it will be 'romance/humor'. I also think this is more challenging, because it's very difficult to bring certain emotions in the fic. This is alos bring more quality into the fic.

[Otsdarva]

I think if you chose a genre, it'd dry up eventually. So I think it should revolve around something in particular that is more free-form, a la ghost as a topic/theme. I don't see the problem with labeling your work as it's genre, though. Idunno, am I being too trivial?

[BoxQueen]

@ MK: Genre is tends to be a little closed space for certain people. While people likes to write tradegy or something and other enjoys writing romance with drama/humour. Though it may challenge people, it does give leeway to people who usually write that genre. A theme is better because it does present an 'idea' that needs to be protrayed in the story. (IMO)

Also I'm very nitpicky about the 'humour' genre...