@CheddarTrek, voting closes today at midnight, or is it inclusive with Jan 3rd?

 

I second this. I still have to leave reviews on two remaining entries and I'll have a couple of hours to spare to do this tomorrow.

 

Just a reminder to all who have reviewed: Your reviews will only count if you have reviewed all stories.

 

@CheddarTrek

I haven't been able to review the stories this time due to being busy and feeling like I would be unable to do them justice in such a short amount of time.

However, I think that while keeping the first three categories that you named out of 5 possible points, the other should be made out of 10. This can also be called overall or anything of the sort. I think that this is important because more than bad mechanics or pacing or plot, it's how these three things fit into the story that's important. The most important thing is how everything comes together. How does the story strike the reader. You could have a technically good story just based on a terrible idea. Or it could be that the characters feel like robots. A variety of problems is possible. Weighting is very important and this overall/other category clearly means the most.

That's my two cents. I hope this helps you.

 

One thing I seem to be noticing is that there seems to be a bit of a disconnect between vote score and actual feeling about a story. Perhaps that's intentional in an attempt to be more neutral as a whole when judging, but something just feels a bit off. Like, what exactly is the end goal when a bunch of people (including myself) say that Story X is technically the best (and voted as such), but we all enjoyed Story Y more?

 

Is there a place for us to submit prompts for the future? I have a few ideas (and some which I would love to write for).

It would be pretty great if there was an anonymous place to put our ideas on prompts, that can be looked at by the admins and selected (or, perhaps voted for if people are interested, it might bring more submissions if tons of people love a certain prompt).

 

In general, more of these prompts (one every two/three months or so) would be a great thing. I didn't participate in this one at all, but that's down to not enough available time, which will hopefully get better around May/June this year.

 

I don’t know about the staying neutral bit. I didn’t personally make an effort to separate my personal feelings on the entries from their ‘objective’ quality at all really, nor do I think that’s necessarily the way it should be done.

If we do decide to go that route then I’d like to second or third or whatever the call for a ‘overall enjoyment’ category to be added to the technical scoring sections we already have.

 

This is exactly why I suggested creating an overall category worth the most amount of points...I really hope that idea is taken into consideration.

 

Will a new thread be created in Announcements for 2018 competition winners or will it all stay here in the Story competitions thread?

 

How long does Joe have to come up with a prompt? How long will voting be open? ‘Cause if we want a January competition people will need time to actually write as well obviously.

 

Prompt: Harry will leave Hogwarts and start a softball team, with sexy results.

...this is what happens when you rush me.

 

Asking for a friend, but can we veto that? = P