Fanfic Contest Discussion Thread

[Cherry Lover]

I don't see why, particularly since it's only true if you are up against the overall winner.

Last year there was a prize for second place. Grand winner was the cup with drawing from Tusia, 1st places were figures and 2nd places were drawings by Artee.

Ah, OK, fair enough.

Still, if it's a lemon contest it won't have categories anyway (as much as I'm tempted to ask for a BDSM category , so it won't matter.

[Milbunk]

Another thing I'm concerned about is if you choose to make it a full on lemon contest, not a lot of people are willing to write lemons or will be too nervous to do so.  (For example we only had two lemon entries in my recent contest we only had two entries for lemon.)

[Alice]

Another thing I'm concerned about is if you choose to make it a full on lemon contest, not a lot of people are willing to write lemons or will be too nervous to do so.  (For example we only had two lemon entries in my recent contest we only had two entries for lemon.)

Yeah, that's a definite risk (while I'd probably consider trying, I know I'd be more than a little nervous, to be perfectly honest ^_^"). Another problem is that if I take on judging duty, I'll probably be somewhat limited in my judging capacity. I'm still on a bit of a learning curve when it comes to lemons, so it's possible my judging may not be the strongest for that type of contest. It may be possible to work around it though. Even if we can't pull off a lemon contest just yet though, there's likely something else we can do in terms of creating a unique and fun contest for people to enter into.

[Cherry Lover]

Another thing I'm concerned about is if you choose to make it a full on lemon contest, not a lot of people are willing to write lemons or will be too nervous to do so.  (For example we only had two lemon entries in my recent contest we only had two entries for lemon.)

Just because people don't write lemons for a non-lemon contest that doesn't mean they won't enter a lemon contest. For one thing, people have said before that the two don't overlap well, and lemons don't tend to do that well overall in a non-lemon contest.

Another thing I'm concerned about is if you choose to make it a full on lemon contest, not a lot of people are willing to write lemons or will be too nervous to do so.  (For example we only had two lemon entries in my recent contest we only had two entries for lemon.)

Yeah, that's a definite risk (while I'd probably consider trying, I know I'd be more than a little nervous, to be perfectly honest ^_^"). Another problem is that if I take on judging duty, I'll probably be somewhat limited in my judging capacity. I'm still on a bit of a learning curve when it comes to lemons, so it's possible my judging may not be the strongest for that type of contest. It may be possible to work around it though. Even if we can't pull off a lemon contest just yet though, there's likely something else we can do in terms of creating a unique and fun contest for people to enter into.

Well, yeah, it is a risk, but I think it's better than the alternative, which is to run a contest that is identical to the one run on BL a few weeks ago, only with worse prizes and on a forum that no-one is yet a member of.

[lantzblades]

so i had an idea, lemon or otherwise that maybe the contest should have a common premise for the entries. it makes it more like a straight contest and emphasizes creativity and makes it very different from bl.

[Cherry Lover]

The problem with that is that it forces people to write a certain type of story, and they might not want to write that particular type of story. And, it's difficult to design a premise that is fair to everyone (i.e. not excluding certain characters, settings or writing styles). Also, it likely means we'll get a large number of similar fics. I'm not keen on the idea overall, but if someone can suggest a good premise then it might work.

I had an idea for how to organise the contest. Basically, my plan was for the contest to have three categories, which would be porn, lemon with plot and non-lemon. However, rather than entering a fic into one of the three categories, a fic is entered into and judged in all of them unless the author requests otherwise. That allows people to write PWP, lemons with a plot or non-porn without having to subjectively compare a porn fic to a non-porn fic. Of course, each category would have different judging rules (in particular, the porn section would be judged on hotness and not on plot, whereas the non-lemon stuff wouldn't be judged on hotness at all), so the fics would get different scores for all three categories. Their overall score would be the highest of the three.

Also, to counter the problem the BL judges had, I'd add the possibility of judges to remove points outside of the designated scoring system for things like really awful presentation (where the writer has clearly not bothered with beta-reading), horrible OOCness (to the point that it's an "in-name only" fic) and, in particular, an otherwise good fic that is only tenuously related to the Nasuverse, if at all. Thatmeans that you won't need to set up the scoring system such that any remotely well-written fic will score at least 50 even if the plot, characterisation etc. are terrible (in particular, the "technical" aspect wouldn't need so many points allocated to it, because a fic that was clearly not up to standard would lose points for it) and it would also give the judges more discression to handle situations where the author really should lose points, but they can't find a good category for doing so.

[lantzblades]

you have a point still it would make it different.

[Cherry Lover]

you have a point still it would make it different.

Yeah, I don't deny that, but I'm not sure it makes it different in a good way.

Like I said, though, it's a total non-starter unless someone can come up with a good premise. Because, if we chose this option and a good premise doesn't present itself, we're going to get nowhere.

[lantzblades]

how about a poll to decide the contest's content.

[Cherry Lover]

how about a poll to decide the contest's content.

Well, it's possible, but honestly I'd rather we work it out sensibly. I do not want a contest that will end up failing because it's too similar to the BL one or because it has a premise that no-one actually is interested in.

In particular, I am not going to accept the "theme" idea until we actually have a theme, to demonstrate that it's actually viable. I do not want us saying "yeah, let's have a theme contest" and ending up getting horribly stuck because we can't think of a good theme to run it on.

[lantzblades]

I meant in general, if people are interested in writing normal fics or lemons in particular, and speaking of is anyone else still interested?

[Cherry Lover]

Well, I'm definitely still interested, but we need some judges, and also some entrants....

[lantzblades]

Given our influx of new members I think this deserves a revival

[Cherry Lover]

Yeah, although we definitely need someone to organise it. I will have some money soon, though, so prizes are a bit more possible.

[lantzblades]

Names Milbunk or myself should have the time, although the former two may correct me if I am assuming incorrectly.