Congratulations to the winner - The Last Summer of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, 1996

Congratulations also to the runner-up, Moonlit Death

There's no "Winner's Circle" thread this time, since they don't seem to be super popular, so just use this thread for discussion of this competition! Story threads will be open until the newest poll closes, but otherwise keep it in here!​

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Welcome to the Q3 2019 Story Competition!

Topic(s): EITHER What the Professors get up to in the summers OR Ritual Magic!

Word count: 17.5k max (no minimum)
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Last competition had a fantastic turnout and I'm ready for more. This time we have two prompts from the previous winner, a prompt from the runner-up, and a prompt from the prompts thread to pick from. If you don't at least intend to write, don't vote!

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Deadline: September 9th (Neptune at Opposition!) at midnight Eastern time (I think that's Xiph0's new time zone?) This means you get the entirety of the 9th to polish your story.

Voting: September 10th - 23rd (Equinox!)

Send your stories to @Xiph0 once you're done. Authors will be kept anonymous between the two of us, and I will not know who you are until after the competition has ended. Feel free to claim credit for your story if you want it but we'll keep it confidential otherwise.

Feel free to use beta-readers but don't put your competition entry in WbA until after voting has ended. If you figure out who one of the entrants is then don't tell everyone else.

Voting Rules

• Read and review all entries, leaving at least 200 words of useful feedback.
  • Put the bulk of your review into a spoiler tag.
• After you have read and reviewed ALL entries, post in this thread with your top three stories ranked.
  • Please link to your reviews when you do this.

A guide on "how to review" in general is available here. We'd prefer that you not bias yourself by reading other reviews before making your own, but that choice is yours.

One of the rewards for authors participating in this competition is the feedback, critique, and overall useful commentary on their work. Don't dial it in. If you don't know how to leave useful feedback then comment on the plot, pacing, characters, prompt usage, and anything else that comes to mind. You'll find that 200 words flies by.

If you rank a story as #1 it will get 3 points, #2 will get 2 points, and #3 will get 1 point. Highest score wins. There will always be a winner. There may or may not be a runner up, depending on the number of entries and how close they are.

Note2: Got an idea for a future prompt? Put it in this thread!

Note3: I don't bite. If you have an issue with how the competition is run and whether or not it's unfairly biased in some way, PM me.

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I have it set to display votes publicly but doesn't look like I can get it show everyone who voted by name?

 

Adding it - is there a ... way to get it to display in my thread properly? I don't see a thing to insert code.

 

My idea for the professor one is... Ugh. I want a happier idea, damnit.

Edit: Just been reading entries on all the faculty and staff at Hogwarts to try and get ideas and... Apparently Harry made a joke about Pince and Filch at one point so the fandom has them pegged as a couple? Who knew. O.O

 

Dude, you never know? Just not the happiest attitude there. Don't let it get you down.

Everyone starts somewhere and everyone can improve!

 

Use the black and white theme you fucking savage.

 

Thanks - I typically pick colors assuming everyone uses the green DLP skin or else black and white.

I'll fix it shortly.

EDIT: I said I'd fix it but I lied. I was going to change the background color around the yellow font, to provide contrast regardless, but apparently that's not an option. I guess I could stop using fancy colors but *sadface*.

 

Nah we're not doing another poll. It's the winner or a tie. People can change their votes.

But - like Azkaban - if there's a very popular second choice it will turn up on the poll again for a later competition.

 

It's strange, I was sure we would get a lot more Azkaban stories out of the last competition but it turned out to be 80% Daphne. Goes to show you can't tell what people will actually end up inspired by, even if the choice seems obvious.

 

That or we still have people voting who have no intention of writing.

 

I I'dthink that's a little restrictive. I'd rather people vote, intend to/want to write and then life gets in the way than be afraid to vote incase they get judged for not producing something and not engaging at all. Having 40 people interested in the competition is a good thing, even if they don't all produce an entry this time, they might next time, or they might read/review etc. So long as they plan to engage in a meaningful way I don't see why they should not be part of the process.

We might also need to think about what happens when the amount of stories we are asking people to review gets too much, we had 11 different stories this time, that's min 2200 words per person plus time to read. If we get 20 entries next time it might be putting a lot of pressure on people to get them all done in the timeframe.