So, it's been about 9 months since any of the monthly writing contests have happened, give or take. Long enough for most of us to be refreshed, and itching for more. Long enough for some of us to have cooked up a bunch of neat ideas, but no time, reason, or motivation to flesh them out. That's where these contests come in, as well as to help bolster a dying fandom.

But for whatever reason, they got killed. I'm not going to speculate and say that the round robin idea was a failure and ruined it or anything like that. Instead, let's talk about how it could be improved.

1) Have the genre's decided ahead of time, perhaps make a list at the very beginning. Sure, it slightly defeats the purpose of having only 3 weeks to write it, but the benefits outweigh that. Several times during the last 'season' the new topic wasn't even revealed until a week into the new month, which seemed sloppy. This way, potential writers can plan ahead, and pick which ones they want to write. I'd rather have 5 great stories from one author, than 10 'okay' ones. This community is about quality over quantity, after all. This could also cause problems with some of the months with less popular topics, but I think having the entire list (or a good amount of it) ahead of time will be mostly beneficial.

2) Have a dedicated staff member. I think (but I don't want to speculate too much or make assertions) that some of the problems from the last contest came from lack of communication between the staff and each other, and the staff and us. It was like pulling teeth just to find out what was going on with the contests when it wasn't running on schedule. I suggest an active member with active interest in the competition have run of the special subforum, can be existing staff, or a fresh recruit with the sole purpose of running the competition. At the staff's discretion of course, but someone who would be dedicated is a necessity. They would be in control of selecting judges every month (at random) and making sure everything runs smoothly.

3) Reward/Prize? There needs to be something, I think, to act as motivation. Glory is enough for some, the thrill of writing, for others. Or even just getting the chance to get a story in the DLP C2 is enough for people like me. But I think there should be something extra as well. I'm not talking monetary, because that would be crazy. Perhaps a custom usergroup or user title and a little icon of a trophy or reward ribbon that links to the story, just something special that a normal user wouldn't be able to get otherwise.

I also think a set of firm baseline rules should be applied. An example would be no slash, since while it technically could be the best slash story ever written, it would be unfair to have to get judges to read it. Other rules could be decided as time goes on, but there probably won't be many.

 

I'm game for a reboot, and I agree pretty much in whole with your thoughts on it.

 

I wouldn't mind seeing the contests revived and would be willing to help with their prosecution if needed.

A few suggestions:

1. How about one contest every two months. This would give enough time for more substantial offerings, 10k to 20k words, as opposed to 3k to 8k (what I did for the contests I entered), and would allow for additional polish. While I only participated in four of the contests, it was a disappointment that many of the ideas I had for stories just didn't fit into the one-month (or 2.5 weeks, as happened on occasion) limits.
2. I like the idea of advertising in advance what the next contest(s) will be. Even knowing a bit about what the next story would be would have been helpful. Some of us have grey in our beards and need a bit of time to stew over an idea before we get traction. That doesn't always happen without enough lead time. (I had one story idea in particular--Hogwarts School of Magic and Assassination--that I really wanted to write, but for which justice couldn't be done in the time limits imposed. Pity.)
3. Tap a factor of two more people for judging than you think you need, and then do the judging with a hard deadline. If you are tapped and can't make it, well, your votes don't count (much like reviewing for the scientific journal Nature, incidentally). Such is life. Better to keep participants and readers engaged than to give an illusion that it's just a whatever thing, an amateur-hour competition. We're better than that.
4. I like the idea of honoring the winners in a tangible way--give them a trophy icon or something where the donator star would go. But also, I think that tangible recognition should go to judges as well. Let's give them an incentive to engage and do a good job.

While I've not been around as long as the real veterans here, it's my understanding that DLP was founded on the idea of distilling quality fanfiction from the chaff. Our members boast some of the most accomplished writers in the fandom, including many with professional chops. The contests were a way of framing ideas to give us all more good stuff to read. Let's do it right this time and make this another DLP-inspired jewel of the fandom.

 

I think a set of actual judging criteria should be created as well, so all judges uses the same scale, but their own opinions still factor in. A quick idea would be a point system out of 100, with 10 categories have 10 points each. One category could be originality, another could be grammar, another could be length, another could be writing style, whatever.

 

I don't think a strict judging criteria should be required; while some of the judges of previous contests may have taken their time about it they generally came to sensible results.

I also don't agree with any hard and fast rules (like no slash), beyond sticking to the theme - anything that violates an unspoken DLP rule and doesn't make up for it in quality will suffer in the judging.

Otherwise, sounds good.

 

Aw yeah, I was hoping to see these again. I like the ideas presented. Having a list of the genres at the beginning would be a good idea. As it would also give time to people who like that genre and could apply as a judge (maybe have an apply button next to that date/genre for people who want to judge). That way you can get judges who want to read the stories and would be more willing to give fast results and better assessments due to actually liking a premise.

Either way, I want to see this start back up.

 

I like Pers' idea regarding every two months... but why not make it every three months? Essentially, it would be a Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter format. That would give time for the DLP mothership to come up with a suitable prize... say, for the summer, a gift certificate for an online beachwear store? Just a thought...

I would be interested in writing for it again, but I don't find enough time monthly to do it. I like the idea of being able to put as much as 30,000 words into the story, which is still rather short, while also giving you plenty of time to go back and change discontinuity errors, transitions, that sort of thing. It would improve the quality of the stories in the contest dramatically, and thus, improve the number of stories available for the C2.

 

In agreement with Lord Anarchy, a set of judging criteria would be a swell idea meaning each story would get a fair chance, as opposed to I like this - 5 stars/ hate this-1 star.

 

I say the length of time depends on how the genres are given. If it a list of them is put up for a year, so that we know what is coming. I'd say do two months in between. That way it is more than just four topics and if you need a lot of time to write, just pick a topic later in the year, that will still give you a variety to choose from and the time to prepare. Then we just have a higher bar for the later stories. Like the last one for the should have some amazing stories (C2 quality) as you would have had a year to do them.

Of course if you want to make sure it is done in the specified writing time then that really doesn't work.

 

The contests didn't use the five star system. The judges all gave a mark out of a hundred, I think. I disagree with the idea of a strict judging criteria. Maybe a set of guidelines would be good. But since everyone puts different importance on different aspects of writing, I think a strict criteria would be unhelpful.

 

All stories are going to be judged subjectively no matter what sort of criteria you make. All that having a set of criteria does is assign arbitrary weights to certain aspects of the stories which the judges might not necessarily agree with. Some might not give two shits about spelling/grammar, but I'd feel frustrated if I could only take off 10 points out of 100 if there were gratuitous mistakes littering the story.

Edit: Sniped.

 

I don't like the idea of them all being given at once... it makes it less of a challenge that way. If you give, say, two months and two weeks to turn in a story starring Ron as the main character, then you have plenty of time to do something creative, but not in such a way that people just put it aside for months at a time. The time constraint puts more pressure on the author, but makes it more fun, imo.

Not totally against your idea, though; other people might like it that way.

On a seperate note: I support anything we can do to make the contests something we all want to read...

For example, we should start a thread concerning what plot bunnies (for lack of a better word) everyone wants to see used. Like... the people who haven't already signed up to write, that is.

Imagine:

January 1st we declare we're doing a Humor Fic, and it's due at the beginning of March. Judging ends by April, and the winner is chosen, to much fanfare I'm sure, followed by the revelation that - bip - we're doing Independent Harry, and so on...

Amongst ourselves, since it's a Humor fic, we have decided on a few topics:

7th year Harry, after Voldemort's death.
6th year Harry, at Slughorn's party
Post-Hogwarts Harry, baby-sitting Ron and Hermione's kids

and so on...

Basically, we'd have a bunch of cool topics to pick from, and you'd also be able to grade the stories by how well they followed the various topics (or if they combined two or more, or whatever...)

So, when I proceed to write a story where Harry defeated Voldemort at Slughorn's party, then I'd receive bonus points for that, though I'd risk hindering anything realistic moving forward, at least I'd be humorous, which is really the point.

Also, imagine if we picked certain phrases and things for the author's to use, and they received bonus points for that as well...

Hermione's a slut
Elder Wand
Ron and Lavender
Luna bathes in blood
Sharks
The Polar Ice Caps
seventeen dinosaurs

And so on...

Is any of this making sense? Would it even be worth the extra effort when we already have a good thing going? Some of the ideas are legit though... like Luna bathing in the blood of sharks with the Elder Wand sounds awesome

 

It's an interesting idea. It would turn the contest more towards the writing challenge I think.

I think the time allotment for each story should depend on how many genres there are. I can't see us repeating Dark Arts every fourth contest, but once a year, sure. Also, we don't need to know all the genres in advance, just the upcoming one, just so there's no wasted time in between. That way you have the option of writing for every challenge, or you can spend two months on the next one.

My idea on judging is just an idea. It's to set limits, and prevent judges from putting too much stock in any one criteria. A story that is very original with atrocious grammar would rate the same as a story that is very cliche with perfect grammar. It's to limit bias,but not remove it completely. My idea to have extra rules like no slash is to fit in with the judging criteria, since technically a story with slash could rate could rate 100 if it fulfills all of them perfectly.

But hey, these are just ideas, and until anything is decided by the top brass, talk is good.

 

It feels like the thing that let the contests down the most was the judging: you'd get a good amount of submissions each time, but then when it came around to the deadline any feedback got sucked into a black hole.

I'd say the best ideas for improving the contest are going to come from improving the judging. Bear in mind that the longer we give people to enter stories, the longer the entries will be, and the more of them there will be. If we couldn't get a group of judges to be motivated enough to read and review the few short stories before, I shudder to think what it will end up like after.

This is why most contests impose a word limit - though that's restrictive in a big way. I'm all for longer submission times, but I think a better plan for judging/making judging easier should be our first priority.

 

Not sure about making it constant thing, but it would be quite interesting theme of one contest. Let say that we start a thread where everyone can post just one idea that can't be longer than, I don't know, 160 characters. Then Thumbs Up could be used to show which one we like. Lastly, the writers would choose which one of five (or so) most popular they want to write about.

 

I would be willing to become a mod for this and be up to date on shit. Thank you all for the support you've shown me, I think we now leave it up to the admins to promote me.

And I'm gonna throw out some thoughts here: We can funnel money from the travel fund towards prize money here. Seriously, on the one hand, to use an example: $100 dollars to Vash to fly all the way to the east coast for a meetup and on the other hand, use it as prize money which can possibly greatly increase participation + as an incentive, etc. The fact that we've never held a huge, with prizes, fanfiction writing contest is a shame really. In fact, just make one huge 3 month contest with something like $500 in prize money. Now that would be crazy awesome.

Let's get DLP back to its roots.

 

Wouldn't that mean we would be paying someone to write fanfiction? Or is this another gray area for that? (Not sure how contest prizes would affect on Copyrights.)

Or are you just trolling?

Personally, a little symbol to put in your sig or above your avatar would be pretty awesome, and surprisingly something I would shoot for. The reboot would be cool, but I felt that towards the end we weren't having as many people submit as in the beginning, loss of excitement, I think.

I'd say have it every three to six months, with two months prior for authors to get their shit together. So authors don't feel compelled to keep writing things for the contests.

If this does get restarted it would be cool and having more time to get a decent plot going would be great. Though last time around I only got around to submitting for one contest.

 

No. This is a very bad idea.

 

Keep the prizes below $50, and don't make it cash, make it an object DLPers (and non-DLPers) would want... like, I don't know, a free subscription to something for a year? I'm not the best gift-giver, so I'd suspect someone would have a better grasp of what-want.

I do like the little symbol to put in your sig idea though. Encourages us all to prove dominance.