Folklore writing contest!

[Blade Barrier]

Does anyone remember me?

Meh, doesn't matter.

Anyway, I'd like to present you with a writing contest that I find interesting. I'm not one for building up drama, so I'll just cut to the chase.

The goal is to write a fable or folklore style story. Your characters and setting should be simple, with an emphasis on teaching a moral or lesson to the reader. Your story can take place in any setting as long as it does this. Sounds easy right? Well, there's a catch...

It has to be under 500 words!

I know what some of you are thinking. "500 words!? it'll take me that long to describe the protagonists boot straps!" But that's the point. Back in the day before writing became common place, stories were passed by word of mouth during gatherings. People didn't have the ability to read off a long page of intricate details. They had to remember the decisive parts and tell them. I feel the bargain-basement-low word count will force you to tell a story in this manner. You will have to choose your words carefully, and not squander them. I also think the 500 word limit will make the contest more accessible to people with less time or perhaps a lower writing skill level.

For those of you who bravely accept this challenge, you have a full month, until September 11th to submit your work. Then the voting starts.

I haven't decided exactly how to do that part yet, but it will work something like this. I will rate your stories on a 1 to 5 scale. if I give your story a 5, that counts as 5 votes, if I give it a 1, that counts as 1 vote, etc. Then the forum has a week to vote for their favorite, and then by the 18th, the votes will be tallied and a winner will be declared.

The winner will get a super sexy signature made by yours truly. I never won SOTW, but I think you'll enjoy your reward. You will be allowed to chose the sig's theme and I will do my best to make it what you want. (if you're lucky, I'll post some samples)

I'm also willing to expand the judge panel to 2 more people if they're willing. I'd prefer if they were more renown on this forum. I'm hoping for lots of small entries, so it would be appreciated.

now, on your marks, get set...

UNLEASH THE KRAKEN!

[Blade Barrier]

DP, because of important update!

I found my old stash of sigs!

It's not all of them, but it's some of my better work I think. Take a look!









If we get over 10 entries, I'll offer to make a wallpaper. Here are a few I submitted as contest entries, but alas, none of them won. Personally, I think the judges were biased.

https://2img.net/h/oi46.tinypic.com/292nse0.jpg

https://2img.net/h/oi44.tinypic.com/29w3la9.jpg

https://2img.net/h/oi42.tinypic.com/2u53qkw.jpg

I confess, I'm an anime nut, and I like heavy GFX. I can't find any of my other type of work, but I hope this persuades some of you to join.

[Blade Barrier]

A little over a week left. Don't let somebody sneak an entry in here last second and win it.

[Kalon Ordona II]

Oh whoa, how did I not see this before? o.O
I dunno if I have enough time now, since I'm in the current FOG contest. :/
Man, I woulda been all over this. Maybe I'll see what I can do if I have time left.

[Blade Barrier]

How can you host a contest for a month and give away things for a measly 500 words and not get any entries?

I dunno folks. Maybe folklore isn't FoG's strong point? maybe the site's dead? Maybe my SiGs are ugly? You know better than I do Fog.

[Kalon Ordona II]

I think it was because somehow the contest wasn't seen by people. :/

Perhaps, in preparation for a re-start to this contest, you could make a non-contest version for people to just randomly post 500-word fairy-tale/folklore type stories?

You could put some of your own up, too, if you have any.

It might help people to see an example or two, get some discussion going, and then try a contest.


Another pert of it is that, yes, the site has been slow of late, but from what I've observed, the same has been true for role-play sites all over the internet. For some reason forum role-playing seems to have been in a bit of a decline. :/

[Tartra]

I don't like how you presented it. The sigs are fine.

Also: this thread has over 180 views. So people saw it. I'm throwing that out there.

[Kalon Ordona II]

Ouch, what's with the bluntness? That doesn't seem very helpful. Anyway view counts tend to be deceptive.
What specifically did you dislike, and how do you think it might have been done better? That would be a more constructive critique, wouldn't you agree? :/

[Tartra]

Hmmm. Yes, I see how that's dismissive. Alright! In the spirit of community, I'll elaborate. We don't want any unnecessarily hurt feelings around here when it's better to talk.

First, the contest doesn't seem finalized. You still have in your original post that you're not sure how you'd rank the entries, and that cuts away the contest's structure. Then you don't bother to explain why we're voting at all, because with your ranking system taking the lead on entry opinion, voting comes off as a tacked on 'Oh, but this isn't my contest. This is our contest'. Sure, you're more than welcome to give your thoughts separately, but there's nothing saying why I should care about yours in particular. You don't even care if we know who you are. By the way, I'm super excited to join someone's contest who meh's away what could have otherwise been a two-second 'Hi, I'm Blade Barrier!' Nice job. I've got an amazing impression of you.

The sigs are fine. Double nice job 'allowing' us to choose our theme. "But Tartra, that's only a word!" Yeah, and you're on a role playing website. I read. It's such a noticeable phrasing that doesn't mesh with how polite the rest of the paragraph was that it seems like a genuine belief: if we win, by your choosing (oh, and everyone else's, and two more judges if you're willing to have them), then we get signatures that you don't bother to show SUPER UNLESS we're lucky, and that are totally great and only didn't win contests because, as you didn't fail to add, the judges were biased (but that's just your personal opinion), and you add that last part to your bump with sig samples (yay, we were lucky). Despite you being nervous enough to bump at all, you trot out to offer - only offer - to make a wallpaper if - only if - you get over ten entries. Optimistic? At that point, it's willfully arrogant. You don't seem to be able to stop bouncing between being modest and condescending. Then only after no one enters, you decide to ask for feedback? Really? Because it sounds like (but this is just my opinion), "FOG, APOLOGIZE. TELL ME WHY YOU DIDN'T JOIN - BECAUSE I KNOW IT'S NOT BECAUSE YOU DON'T LIKE FOLKLORE. THIS IS EXACTLY UP EVERYONE'S ALLEY. YOU TELL ME WHY YOU DIDN'T PARTICIPATE." I added the caps for extra effect. I don't really imagine you being that furious. You threw out the 'I guess folklore isn't FoG's strong point' as an adorable jibe to explain it, so I know you're just pooh-poohing us rather than yelling.

All that generosity to basically give away your signatures - and after you made all that effort to introduce yourself and make sure we were interested in this novel idea (not like there was another contest going on or anything, but that's been on for longer than a month and you might not have seen it) - for a mere 500 words! It's like we did this on purpose just to spite you! God, why even bother with us? Because you haven't said any hints about trying again. You wanted to know why we didn't like this contest, not whether you could improve in the future. You don't need to have it improve. We should sort out the problem on our end. It's not even the signatures' fault because you said they were super sexy and that they could have won contests if the contests weren't against you. We should apologize for making you doubt your work, too. I'm sorry, BB. Friends?

So that's me toning down on being blunt. I guess concerning constructive criticism... maybe next time don't be such a pretentious dick? Crap, that was blunt again. What I meant to say, of course, was not that.

[Guest]

Tartra may be blunt, but she has some very valid points. And I firmly believe that a lack of comprehensive criticism is more harmful than blunt critcism. Stepping around his toes doesn't explain why his contest didn't get any entries.

[Blade Barrier]

Guys, the last post was kind of my way of wrapping up the contest. I wasn't asking for your opinion on why my contest failed (though it's appreciated that you took the time to write your opinions). I was hoping that some people would join or offer suggestions as time went by and the rules would gain structure and become more tailored to the contestants as time went on. However, I was wrong to make that assumption, and it would seem that some of the people who saw the contest felt that it was all set in ugly stone and just didn't bother. I really don't think it was any one thing though. I think most of my problems came from getting out classed by another bi-monthly contest.

I found Tartra's first post acceptable. The structure was quite poor, and she said my sigs were fine, so it's not like she was riding my balls or anything. The second post I couldn't even get through the second paragraph. You presented your critique like an internet debate, pretended to be me commenting, then forming a clever counter post to something that you think I would have said. Do not insult my intelligence. Critique is suppose to give the receiver insight. it's not an opportunity to empower oneself.

Tacos taste best with salsa. "But I think hot sauce works better!" that's cuz' you're a n00b, the power of hot sauce covers up the flavor of the meat.

The above phrase is something that would appear in Tartra's "critique". A better write up would be like the phrase below.

Tacos taste best with salsa. The temptation is to put on hot sauce, but the power of hot sauce covers up the flavor of the meat.

Notice how the new phrase doesn't sound like it's coming from a condescending internet dweeb who's only high in life is correcting others. It feels selfless, informative, and above all, modest.

In the future, I will go with my gut and just write the contest the way the official FoG contests are written. It's not the best way, but it is what everyone's familiar with and it is a lot better with what I have here.

Peace out homies.

*drops mic and walks off stage.*

[Kathryn Lacey]

Tarta, while I felt that many of your points were valid, I felt that you could have formulated them in a less insulting way. Instead of giving a comprehensive critique, you basically masked the entirety of it with unnecessary rudeness and sarcasm. By doing so, your critique may as well simply be dismissed as a way for you to try to bring down another member, and that kind of flaming is unacceptable on FoG.

Blade, while I understand that you're simply retaliating to provocation from Tarta's earlier rudeness, you should know that what you did was also rude. Name calling, even if you argue that it's simply "implied" because you weren't "directly" calling Tarta a "condescending internet dweeb," is not acceptable behavior.

I'm sorry that your contest didn't garner enough interest, but the idea of working with folklore appeals immensely to me, and clearly it appeals to others as well. I'm wondering if you would mind if we use this theme for one of FoG's future official contests? It wouldn't be beyond the realm of possibilities that you could - if you so desired - be a volunteer/member judge for the contest if/when it takes place, too. I just don't want you to feel offense if this theme is used in the future because folklore is a feasible topic, but I don't want there to be cries of ripping off/stealing ideas and such.

[Tartra]

D'awww - you called my comment clever! ^_^ Well, I learned a lot from that, Barrier. I was wrong to call you pretentious and my ego took a bruising, so I think I should make amends.







@Kathyrn - You're right. I should have written it in a friendlier way, and I'm sorry I didn't. I don't retract what I said, but I agree that how it was said wasn't following FoG's rules like it should have been. It won't happen again.

On the bright side, I didn't tell someone else I was trying to ride their balls.

[Blade Barrier]

Kathryn Lacey, you may use my theme however you desire. I haven't copy written it or anything, nor would I even consider making such a strange claim. I would even be willing to make a sig for the winner if you so desire, something material vs being immortalized in a section nobody really goes into.

I think this can get a lock now.

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