[felix]

I am a little confused about this "2 separate" themes that keeps being brought up. I did bring up the topic last page, but nowhere there did I mention anything about being forced to pick just one of the two. Mario's post now is the second to use that interpretation.

But anyway, no matter.

Originally Posted by papermario13689

Having a theme cannot be helped. I've entered competitions where there was no theme set, and my goodness was it busted. The judges could be insanely biased by picking something they like over something with quality, and the fact is that when you're granted limited omnipotence with your writing, you will get writer's block in some way. Happens to me EVERY time this rule is set.

I can understand having no limitation may create a writers block. However, that doesn't address the point on the first page, about how a theme (as we have them implemented) seems to generate a lot of awkwardness, unreasonably favor the creator of the theme, as well as ironically create a different kind of writing block. Also, there have been plenty of people and discussion both here and the other thread who've voiced they want to write, but can't because of the limitations are unreasonable...

Which brings me back to the earlier point, isn't this contest about writing? If Harper Lee and Shakespeare were here they'd probably wonder the same thing.

Since currently we seem to have reach some pitfall in the debate whereas apparently we're going nowhere because we lack alternatives to please everybody I'll get the ball rolling and propose one...

---

Challenge System

The idea is simple, truth supports itself. As such, based on the general opinions in the thread (and the other thread), limits give better results. Thus, the statement should be able to support itself...

(for simplicity, namely avoiding floating point calculations, all units have been multiplied by 1000)

You may submit any entry you wish, the only limitation is that you follow the style rules and keep it all into one post. Once submitted your entry is given a base rating, which will be used in the voting phase. The base rating is awarded as follows:

• 650 points, for entries that have more then 1500 words (poetry is not excluded).
• 1000 points, for short stories
• 1200 points, for poetry
• 1250 points, for poetry that can be classified as haiku

Each contest contains a set of preset challenges. The challenges are picked by the winner or winners of the last contest. Challenges increase your base rating, equally they can decrees it. Challenges that increase the rating are called buffs, while challenges that decrees are called penalties. Be it buff or penalty the following are mandatory: challenge title, description, exception clause (when applicable), and points awarded or subtracted

Example challenges:

Everyone loves a pervert! [Buff]
Your story/poetry must contain or imply the presence
of a pervert; or otherwise show perverted actions.

Story: +50
Poetry: +100

Moonwalker [Penalty]
Everything must happen during the night, or the
presence of day not implied in the current setting.
Day with out daylight is permitted.

Story: -50
Poetry: -50

Wordsmith [Buff]
You must use the following words somewhere
in your text: <list of 3 to 10 words>

Story: +100
Poetry: +100

Loudmouth [Penalty]
You may not shout.

Story: -50
Poetry: -50

Anon.inc [Penalty]
You may not name your protagonist. If you do
not have characters the penalty does not apply.
It is not necessary for your character to actually
not have a name; only that you keep it secret.

Story: -50
Poetry: -50

Harem [Buff]
Introduce more then <number> of girls over
the course of the story.

Story: +100

Attack of the clones [Buff]
The word with which you start the first verse
must appear in every other <number>ed verse

Poetry: +100

Mai Recycling [Buff]
You must have a character with the family
name <name> and the following description:
<physical description only>

Story: +100

Kiss of death [Buff]
Someone must die.

Story: +100
Poetry: +100

Sharpshooter [Penalty]
No too characters can exchange more then
<number> replies.

Story: -100

Small world theory [Buff]
You must have the following place names
whenever you refer to a location:
<list of ambiguous names>
These may be interpreted as anything you
wish in your story; only the presence of the
name is important. You can have others as
long as you have these. If you must have
at least two (and no other locations) to
qualify.

Story: +300
Poetry: +300

etc etc

Any kind of writing habit or writing strategy is valid, however any kind of forced writing is invalid. The following are examples of invalid challenges:

Ninja wars [Buff]
Your story must contain ninjas

Story: +100

Robots [Buff]
Your story must contain robots

Story: +100

Oblivion [Buff]
Your story must be about death, destruction
and the apocalypse.

Story: +100

All of these are invalid because they force a plane for the story, and equally force a direction. A challenge should be no more then a point in space which the writers are free to intersect via any plane or direction they desire. A good hint of this is the complexity of deciphering if a challenge is met, if it requires thinking, it's probably not very good.

Anyone can submit a challenge, the process is as follows:

• challenge is submitted to general discussion thread
• a grace period of a week is given to offer support or debunk it
• based on feedback the contest operator chooses to add it to the list of challenges.

Winner(s) choose from the available set of challenges. Obviously if they want their own, they would have had to submit it at least a week prior; and it would have had to be accepted. Only a few limitations apply when choosing.

• you may choose as many as you want
• the total Buff bonus must not exceed +500
• maximum points awarded (though buffs) to story must be equal to that of poetry
• you can add up to 10 penalties
• no two challenges must be mutually exclusive

Once chosen Buffs are given each their own color. Contestants need only color the "proof", such as words, character names or a notable sentence to get the reward.

Voting Phase

Everyone is free to vote for as many people as they like. As long as you vote for at least one. You can not vote for yourself since that is already counted by default.

Everyone's rating is then calculated. Your buffs are added directly, however penalties work differently. If penalties exceed -200 points they are simply taken as -200 points. With your rating calculated, it is then simply multiplied by the number of votes you got. Everyone's score is then compared and winner(s) decided.

---

Notes on system:

• the idea is to make it really easy to win if you play by the rules
• if the rules are not helping, then you can always discard any of them (if you think it's more advantageous)
• this allows for any kind of entry to be submitted
• because challenges are writing oriented they are a much more direct way of improvement (compared to some random theme)
• because challenges are precise entries are far more similar to each other (from a writing point of view) then compared to the theme system now where entries seem to just do their own thing, and similarities are barely there
• challenges are mechanical, so doing them is accessible to anyone and helps explore certain creative corners.

Keep in mind this is just a proposal. I tend to... overly engineer these things, so don't treat it as some kind of final product. I'm sure there are other methods we could use as well; that have nothing to do with the one I just described.