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Short Story Contest #9

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'~- Prelude -~'
"The guardians of books have been sucked into the very secrets they were guarding for so many years. With not a single person, alive or dead, left to guard and keep the vicious mysteries of the library, some books started to unravel and corrupt their sisters. In the Forbidden Section, the cold pages about murders, lies, treachery and treason attacked the first neighbor section they could easily reach and corrupt: the Fairy Tales."

'~- Explanation of Theme -~'
Contestants are required to write a story that uses a single fairy tale as a reference, wrapped in a set of new happenings that occur in the book. The stories must possess the dark atmosphere or situations. Characters can be freely added or subtracted to/from the story, but main characters should remain, as the story should be a darker version of the original. You can pick any fairy tale you'd like to transform. The stories don't necessarily have to be completely referenced to the original: you can just take characters and the base idea of the story and craft a new one. Definition of Fairy Tales and useful reference links can be found on Wikipedia.

'~- General Rules -~'
~Only one submission per one user is allowed.
~Your entry has to be entirely done by yourself, however, asking someone to give his/her opinion about your story is not considered as teamwork.
~Contest's Judges can't participate in this contest.
~Entries have to be posted before the deadline. Short crossing over it (read: maximum of 2 hours allowed) can be done (avoiding time zone issues).
~Detection of spam, trolling and flaming of other users will not be tolerated and will be punished without excuses: please, keep this section clean.
~Blacklisted users' votes, entries and judge applications won't be accepted.
~If you're unable to post the entry within the deadline, you are allowed to request a short extension for a maximum of 24 hours. This extension can be applied only once per contest, and most participants have to agree with it. It has to be requested at least two days before the contest ends.
~At least two WIP* submissions must be made before your final entry.

*WIPs
WIP stands for Work-In-Progress. These are short overviews and previews of the current state of your stories, posted for the sake of keeping the contest active and alive, as well as getting some critique and useful reviews about your entry. These also prove that your story is actually yours.

'~- Contest's Rules -~'
~Stories have to possess at least 2500 characters (including spaces and interpunctional signs), and can have up to 10000 characters. Slight crossing over the limits will be accepted.
~Your final entry and WIPs have to be posted within a
tag. Attaching files to external sites or The Hiveworkshop's Pastebin is not allowed.
~All entries have to be written in English language.

'~- Judges -~'
Current Judges:
1. *Available Slot*
2. *Available Slot*
3. *Available Slot*

~If you want to judge this contest, you must prove your skills first, no matter how recognizable guarantor is there for you. Your previous judgements in contests can be used to prove you are qualified to do such a task. Please do not accept this task unless you have time, skills and will to review the entries. You must take a great load of responsibility on your mind:
~You mustn't be biased;
~You need to efficient and suggestive when judging the entries;
~You must post your judging results before the poll closes.
~Your final judging results must be delivered to the Arena Moderator, and they must be kept in secret until the contest ends. However, you can contact other judges from this contest for an exchange of opinions about a certain story (point sharing is forbidden).
~If you think that an entry should be disqualified or given negative points, please contact the Moderator of the contest.
The Arena Moderators will decide your qualification by sending you a short preset story to judge in order to test you.

Breaking any of the listed rules will result in you being (depending on the severity of the case):
~Disqualified;
~Given Negative Reputation;
~Given an Infraction;
~Blacklisted from future contests as a Judge/Participant/Voter, permanently, or for some time.

'~- Contest's Scoring -~'
70% of the final scoring will be decided by the contest's judges.
30% of the final scoring will be decided by an open public poll.

'~- Judge's Scoring -~'
Giving points to an entry will be divided to eleven categories. Maximum score a single participant can acquire is 200, plus 22 additional 'bonus' points**. Minimum ammout of score is negative 200***.
ThemeHas the story followed the theme? Has the participant sticked too much to the main course of the requested theme, or has he/she felt the freedom to experiment? If the answer to later is positive, how succesful was it? Does it possess new way of telling it?30 Points
OriginalityWas the story plain imitation of the original? In which ratio? Are there any surprising knots and moments that are making the whole story different and unique?30 Points
CharacterizationHow well are the characters developed: their psychical and mental appearance?30 Points
PacingHow fast or slow the story goes? Is it too fast? Too slow? How dramatic it is? Is it jumping between the past and the present? Are there switches of time with every sentence? Are there undefined time happenings?25 Points
PunctuationThis includes separation of sentences, sections and parts of the stories with different interpunctional signs, as well as paragraphs and overall, the readability of the story. This section also includes grammar.20 Points
EmotionsA good story never lacks emotions. Are there any? How well are they developed in the characters? How they affect the story?20 Points
Fun FactorHow fun the story is to be red? Would you read it again, or was it too blank and boring?15 Points
CreativityOverall ability to create and develop scenes and characters. How successful was it while bound to the limits?10 Points
DetailsIs the story lacking them, or are there too much of gushing details? How well are visuals developed?10 Points
Reading DegreeIs the story too simple to be red, or it requires superb knowledge in words and lecture?10 Points


**
Bonus Points
Can be given by judges to stories that are of great quality. If, for an example, the entry has incredibly good pacing, next to the maximum score, a judge can add one or two bonus points to that section. These points can only be given when maximum points in one section are reached, and only one award per one section. These points are also counted when calculating the winner of the contest, and every participant will acquire reputation in a "2 bonus points - 1 reputation award" ratio after the contest ends, per judge.

***Negative Points
Earned by breaking down the rules, and are applied to the final score.
Mature Content: 30 score penalty, your name on the Black List for the next contest.
Unfinished Stories: 50 score penalty.
Partial Story/Idea Theft: 100 score penalty; your name on the Black List for the next contest.
Complete Story/Idea Theft: 200 score penalty (disqualification); your name on the Black List permanently.
Cheating with vB system and Poll: 200 score penalty (disqualification); your name on the Black List permanently.
Bribing/asking members and judges to vote for you: 200 score penalty (disqualification); your name on the Black List for 120 days.

'~- Final Results -~'
Counted by calculating points from the judges and points from the poll.

First Place: 50 reputation points, golden award icon with an image of your choice, displayed on your profile page and under your avatar.
Second Place: 35 reputation points, silver award icon with an image winner picked, displayed only in your profile page.
Third Place: 20 reputation points, bronze award icon with an image winner picked, displayed only in your profile page.

All contestants with submitted entries will get 5 base reputation points as an award, rounding up for bonus points given by the judges.

'~- Deadlines -~'
This contest starts on: 21st of August and ends on 21st of September (30 days in total).
The poll starts on: 21st of September and lasts until 21st of October (30 days in total), during which the judges must complete their reviews.
The results will be posted shortly afterwards.
 
Level 6
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Loving this idea, but wouldn't it be alot cooler if the contest would require you to mix a minimum of 2 fairy tales or smth?
Being forced to stick with a single fairy tale seems a little restricted to me.
Also i got a feeling we would get some rly awesome stories if we were supposed to/allowed to mix several fairy tales :)
I think i'll join this contest if so hehe i've never been much of a writer, but i think i can dish out something cool for this, btw mature content, what do you mean by that?
Because alot of fairy tales have some gruesome happenings like disembowelment, dismemberment, cannibalism etc.
I'm guessing you mean sexual content, but then you should say that instead of mature :p
 
Level 14
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Punctuation shoud have less points than Emotions and Creativity. Not everyone here has english as mother language and that limiting his score in the end is just unacceptable. I say put Creativity to 20 points and lower punctuation to 10.
 
Woah, this is intense. I did not even read 10% of this, mainly the scoring table, and it's too much to bear as a contestant here. It's like professionally judging a whole book of 1500+ pages or some classic literature. Entering a contest under those circumstances doesn't look like fun to me, at ALL. No offense, by the way, if anyone should feel offended.
 
Level 6
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I agree with Lordkoon, the "Punctuation" section there shouldn't count that much, but being able to grab an extra 10 pts for doing very good in that section seems reasonable.
And, atleast imo, creativity should be way more important, i feel you should atleast award up to 20 pts there, maybe even more.

I have no problem with there being so many categories we would be judged on, that just makes it more interesting imo :)
But you might scare away judges though hehe
 
Level 30
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More categories means better judging, so you'll specifically know what you were doing wrong, and a larger point poll is helping with overall judging and helps with better division of points among users.

Wall of text, as you call it, has everything like before, with an exception of a new Bonus System and WIPs explanation, and with new judge selection criteria. It's not THAT much T_T


People have decided in the Poll that this would bet the next theme, jolly_jumper. I agree on creativity, thought, and I'll 'correct' that.
I'm in a progress of discussion with Phar about new systems, mostly the Bonus and Negative points, so they might get out from the idea, but the theme is still there. We might also wait for the mini contest to end before this one gets launched, so be patient.
 
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I'd still like to back an anonymous entry campaign. WIPs to arena/mod/judges (who would then post them, so players can give feedback on them without knowing who the author is).

Because alot of fairy tales have some gruesome happenings like disembowelment, dismemberment, cannibalism etc.
I'm guessing you mean sexual content, but then you should say that instead of mature :p

What Fairy Tales have you been reading? :hohum:
 
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Grey Nightmare said:
What Fairy Tales have you been reading? :hohum:
Hehe^^
Disembowelment:Little Red Riding Hood(the woodsman cuts open the wolf's stomach and saves grandma+red and after that he takes out all the guts and fills his stomach with stones and tell him to go drink(i might be mixing this with the three little piggies, not sure, still thats a fairy tale aswell)
Dismemberment: The Tinman from Wizard of Oz...the Wicked Witch from the east cursed his axe so he would allways hit himself, and he replaced his missing limbs with tin until there was no flesh left, not even a heart
Cannibalism: Hansel und Gretchen, the witch is going to roast and eat them

And if we were to make this even more macabre it would be pretty mature imo^^

It's really a shame that we can't mix several fairy tales=/ Then i don't think i'll be participating, sounded so cool if we could mix, alot more to judge on then aswell :p
 
Level 14
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Perhaps wait for the short story mini-contest with the 'Dead soldier' theme to end and give the winner from there a chance ot be judge here. Since nobody actually signed in for judging there I doubt the picture would be diffrent here.

p.s. Remove the dates. I don't think the contest has began already.
 
Level 12
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Oh God. How did I miss this?

Just some things I'm a bit vague on.

Reading Degree. Does this mean that the more complicated the language of the story is, the less points you obtain or vica versa?

Pacing. Seems a bit odd too judge. Some people may prefer writing slow-paced stories while others like it quick. Unless you deduct points for inconsistency.

And 20 points for punctuation?
 
Level 30
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ASAP Phar gets back active once again, this thread will be recycled, and this contest will be officially launched with this theme, since we already had a poll to decide the theme.

I'll check to see if I have time to participate (and try to win, lol), and if not, then you have your favorite SSC judge :razz:
 
Level 35
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Wait is this started or not - deadlines on first page seems to indicate that its over - but from the talk I figure it has yet to begin. In that case I would like to take part as a contestant - and in that case, just to be certain when we are talking fairies it also covers people like snow white, Hans and Grete and so forth right?

Like the concept btw. :thumbs_up:
 
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Actually, you CAN write your stories now - there's no possible way I can discover have you stored and uploaded them later and lied that you wrote them in contest's progress. But that's very low, lame and jerky way to participate. I, for an instance, couldn't live if I've done that, considering the fact that other participants have been deadlined.

Other than that, just to make sure such idiot-guys won't do this, we can do this: the theme can require something, like a small but significant change in theme.

Phar, people are in for this, right now. Ask Drake if he wants to participate so that we know should we wait for him or launch the contest. The mini story contest is gone to judgement phase, it's not an excuse :razz:
 
Level 35
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Actually, you CAN write your stories now - there's no possible way I can discover have you stored and uploaded them later and lied that you wrote them in contest's progress.

Well in my case I guess you would rather easily determine it, as all stories I have stored is writing in Danish :grin: Except for one about a flower. :wink:

But I agree with you; lets get the show on the road before something catches up to me and I lose the time I have available to write.
 
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Fun Factor How fun the story is to be red? Would you read it again, or was it too blank and boring? Btw apheraz saw this quote is should be "read" xD not red ;o

Also apparently pharaoh will be free in a week or so hopefully. :D also i might join this i think
 
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