The only insult I can imagine you believe you received is that in my final list (which by the way you kept demanding to know) you came 8th. Is that an insult? No. As for the "I just would like people to understand my constraints, and factor this in" comment, that doesn't wash. It was a competition, where your story was judged against the other entries. It may well be that the other entries didn't face your constraints. Who knows? We could only judge based on what we were given to read, circumstances behind that have no bearing whatsoever. Finally the diamond comment. I don't recall anyone saying it wasn't. As before we were comparing the entries against one another, so I could argue that we had 8 diamonds to compare. How brightly each one shone was the deciding factor.

Check the Competition thread I have put there for you Orimus. When I have finished I will have reviewed every story in the competition there - you will get some new thoughts perhaps (just be sure to remember that my story is incomparable ) and I have far tougher stuff to deal with than you - both equipment and clearly life-wise - so what? It's not a handicap race - or I would win by every judge's tally hands down - trust me.

To my favorite proof reader Jordy - thanks. That's great. Some to the point feedback at last. Sorry, but I will correct the punctuation if needed, look at sentance lengths and compare them with the new correections I have already made - see my thread in the writing forum. But as for writing smoothe - that stays. It is a poetic modern and ancient alteration of that word that gives sought for connotations and intentional. That one is not a spelling mistake. Do not mistake the word smoothe for the word smooth. Just accept it and try to feel with it - imagine what I meant if you will.

As for the way I come accross in that post, that is for my friend Orimus, the up and coming writer in the hope that it will set him back on his heels a bit more and take stock of what he is up to. They are some of the thoughts others have made claer to me and that I have had of my own work - everyone has them an dusu we keep themn hidden. I also have total despair, this will never be good enough thoughts, and I take them, throttle them and put them in the dustbin where they belong - or I could not write ... gtg - later

Each judge is different and as such, has different thought processes on how to judge and what to look for. While certain things are listed in the rules, other, sub-conscious catalysts also played a role, I am sure.

We are sorry the rules and scoring criterion were not tailored to your liking, but there is really no way we could guard against that effectively without consulting deeply with every author. That is, of course, completely unfeasible. If you would something to be different for the next contest, please make an organized, clear-headed post, neatly listing contested parts and suggested ways of improving them. I'm sure Alex will take them into account for the next contest, should there be another.

Also, I'd like to take this time to say that, as judges, we acknowledge you don't care about our personal lives in regards to judging the entries, and would like you to acknowledge that we don't care about your personal lives in regards to writing said entries.

We judged the entries as we saw them, that is, the .doc files we received. Nothing more, nothing less.

This post has been edited by HaploTR: May 26 2008, 11:01 PM

I've kept an eye or two on the whole process from a safe distance, and I can assure you that all of the judges (except for the one that dropped out) put a lot of efford into this. I understand if people get upset with the rating of their work, that's why Buddhists don't like competitions in general. But please keep a civil tone and do not resort to personal attacks or completely silly speculation about ulterior motives, or worse, negligence or lazyness on the side of the judges.

It's rather unfair to these guys who have put a lot of time into this and I assure you we will not stand for it.


Also, if you decide to piss them off, they might not do something like this again. Something to think about.

And that is as it should be, and as it is with every contest I've come across. And something I explained to someone, who shall remain anonymous, who insisted the only way his story would get the recognition it would deserve, is if he were allowed to write down a list of tips, hints and explanations on how his story should be read and other such things.

It just doesn't work that way, your story should be sufficient on it's own, and other things should not have to be taken into account.


And I'd like to second what Haplo said, well not everything but his mention of us being very much open to good solid constructive tips on how to do such a thing next time. Any such tips posted in here would definitely be taken into account next time. Though of course it would be a good idea to keep in mind that you're dealing with judges who don't do this for a living, and are therefore to an extent, limited in their time.

Alex I applaud this initiative - I see it as something great and good and I would love for it to be repeated. But there should be deadlines, concrete ones, both for the submitters and for the judges. Please, I ask you in the future to make these concrete.



Alex, and stargelman, I am not sure to what degree your recent posts are directed at my lengthy screed, but I will assume for a moment that they are. Alex you write that you know "for certain each judge has judged to the best of their ability". I have no problem with the "to the best of" part of your sentence. For the record, I would like to say it's wonderful that they have been fair, and should be praised for doing their work without prejudice or compensation. I do have a problem with the "their ability" part of your sentence. I have honest, legitimate concerns about the ability of the judges to make their conclusions.

Alex your sarcasm is lost and your logic is flawed. Consider, if you please, the Michelin Guide for restaurants. The criterion there is not "did the critic enjoy the meal" which is such a subjective criterion it is laughable to even consider since some people like Coquilles St.-Jaques, for instance, and others don't. Even the notion of having a single criterion is ridiculous. Instead, what you get in a Michelin guide is single score that is the result of a combination of subscores. I would recommend that, for future instalments, Chorrol would do something similar. Examples of CONCRETE criteria could be: (one) originality (two) coherence of plot (three) meaningfulness to the world of TES (four) imaginative power (five) believability of the characters etc. etc. etc... This would have benefits for the submitters of the stories and also for the judges, and it would make the process a bit more transparent. If a clear set of criteria existed from the beginning, I am sure that this thread would be many pages shorter.

And yes, while we are all rushing to defend the judging and the judges, bear in mind that it won't matter if people lose interest and nobody submits any more stories. It's thanks to the writers, not the judges, that there's anything to see on this website in the first place.

And I will say it again it is a shame that Dagothlivion receives no points and no mention. The fact this remains so does Chorrol no credit. Lest somebody gets the wrong ideas, let me be clear - I am not the mysterious bqggz. I did not write this story. Yes, I wrote a story and submitted it to the competition. When I read Dagothlivion I felt humbled. I hope the person that wrote this story reads this post - Baggz you have written a fine piece and you have a fine creative mind. The results of this competition do you no justice, so just ignore them.

It's probably worthwhile to point out that even with "concrete" criteria like this, any judging process is inherently subjective.

Everyone who competes in anything and doesn't win feels like they got "robbed". Only on the internet do those people have the cheek to complain about it to the faces of the people who worked so hard to make the competition happen. Put a mature face on it, and try again next time.

Well said kementari. Seriously, by the Azura, paragenic how old are you?



No judges, no competition, no entries => no fun! It's always thanks to both!

I unterstand all the dissapointment in participants who did not recieve the desired scoring, but people everything can be said in a mature way and not with such sharp words. I wonder who of you complaining would dare to say same things in person. Especialy in a week or so, when your blood cools off a bit.

Oh? On what are you basing that? On the fact that the judges choices differed from your own?

LOK, OK. Glad you didn't feel my post was insulting to your work or anything. I suppose I'm something of a grammar/spelling Nazi, though I think that in creative (as opposed to academic) writing it's fair to play with certain grammatical rules in the pursuit of a particular style or effect. An obvious example being fragmented sentences, which are - as MS Word never stops chiding me - grammatically incorrect; but to insist on complete sentences all the time is quite a heavy restriction on creativity.

I can't say I've ever come across the word "smoothe" before, but I'll take your word for it, as I take your point that it's included in order to create a particular effect.

As for the competition results in general, the biggest surprise to me was that "Barricade" didn't do better. I've read this one before on ff.net and was very impressed. I thought it was a dead cert. for a high ranking, if not top.

Not sure really what I could say about my own baby...it was ultimately ranked joint ninth out of 27 entries, which isn't bad at all. I'm very pleased with my writing and use of language in it, but I realised from the start that competition-wise, it was at a disadvantage for two reasons: firstly, it's based directly on an in-game questline, and while I believe I fleshed it out and put my own mark on it, it couldn't really have garnered points for an original plot. Secondly, it's written from the POV of someone very keen on Lucien Lachance - what I had in mind while writing was a kind of cult of personality - so while I tried to avoid slushiness like the plague, or making Lucien sweet or nice...if you don't like him quite a lot, maybe it's not really going to speak to you. Essentially, I wrote it for myself as a kind of catharsis after being traumatised by the ending of the Dark Brotherhood quests.

All in all I'd say I'm satisfied with my place; obviously I'd like to have done better, but wouldn't everyone? (except the winners, of course)

I guess what it all comes down to for us all is that every story sets out to achieve certain things - you can't fulfill every possible literary goal in one story - and what you're doing in your story just may not be what a judge really digs, for want of a more eloquent word

I made a point of at least skim-reading each entry, and I'm happy to say that there wasn't one I'd consider really bad, although there were a couple of people who obviously didn't have English as a native language and were struggling with it. But I've seen some fanfic competitions based on a very famous game character where said character was butchered beyond recognition, and most of the prose was just laughable. I think the overall quality here was good.

When I said blatant in my last post, I did so out of annoyance. Alas, despite my stoicism I let my feelings get the best of me. The insults I recieved were veiled, or maybe, unintentional. But in short, everyone is calling me lazy for my grammarical errors. This also rectifies my other post: I didn't want special praise for my lack of time, I just want people to get off my back about it. Normally this would be constructive, but my errors are known to me, and of little consiquence anyway. People arn't outrightly calling me a moron, but

"For Orimus, I think you are very lucky to have got feedback. But I will say this: this is a writing competition and most of the terms thereof were open. If you couldn't be bothered or failed to take the time to go through your entry and correct every tiny little mistake then YOU are to blame. Really you have failed on the basis of one of the most elementary criteria to respect the competition. As in the other writers and the efforts they have made.

I suggest you read my story and tell me if you can find 1 single spelling or other gramatical error or weakness. There are a couple there, but hard to spot I think. I had not finished polishing when the deadline arrived = my bad."

Pretty insulting I'd say. I explained my inability to have done more, but I'm still getting heat for it. I don't want a congrats, and if it sounded like I was hinting at it then I sorry for the misunderstanding. I've remained calm and logical throught this whole process, and now I want out. No more quotes, be it to agree or condemn me further. I want out. All I asked for, a little feedback, I got, and I thank the judges for that. This should've ended at Chiglets post, but I kept getting dragged back into it to defend myself from grammar Nazis. I will respond if someone wants clarification on something I said previously, but otherwise, leave me alone and GB2 4chan. Acctually, scratch that, you ask me a question, but if it's too much BS, I just going to ignore it. "To err is human, to forgive is divine."

I fear I am misunderstood. It is because I care about this competition and would like for it to be organised again in the future, hopefully in a form where there's less panic at its conclusion, that I am making all these remarks. If nothing changes, I do not think I will invest the hours and hours of time that I've put in to be in this past competition. Actually, yes I did participate in this event and the investment of my personal time was significant. At a certain level I echo the sentiment of a previous poster that it does feel like something of a slap in the face, especially when you consider how the previous competition was organised. But out of respect to the organisers, I haven't even mentioned this yet.





I believe what you are seeing there is the expression of strong opinions. Perhaps I've misunderstood what "sharp words" mean but I believe I have been proper in the tools I have used to express them. Your suggestion I am acting like a immature, bitter loser, however is incorrect.





Hello, BSD-IES!

No, that would be silly. The source of my concerns are twofold: First, I sense that with criteria (that I believe someone with more experience would be able to judge as semi-objective) we would see very different choices being made. Things like coherence of plot, consistency and believability of characters, or originality, if taken into account, would certainly not give the same results. But, as I've learned, this doesn't seem to be the point and that is my second concern:

If Shakespeare himself were to descend among our midsts and write a masterpiece about Oblivion, and of the three judges, none liked plays, Shakespeare would walk away from this competition with zero points and zero feedback. And frankly, I think this is wrong. There should be more to the judging than the pure relative amusement of three people who are protected by anonymity and free from the need to justify their decisions.

When I entered this contest, I saw on the forums that another contest for short stories had been organised just the month before. Every (let me repeat) EVERY single story received some constructive comments. Perhaps I was naive to believe the competition would be organised consistently and that this would be repeated.

I understand that by criticising the organisation of this competition, I might not be making myself popular around here, but these things need to be said. A less-subjective judging system and more feedback are what are needed to take this forward and let this evolve into something more. If these changes are not made, this will stay a mom & pop forum with competitions involving amateur writers and amateur judges.






This post has been edited by paragenic: May 27 2008, 05:47 AM

Excuse me.

As to the "mom & pop"ness of this competition:

As I am given to understand it, the judges were prominent figures on the most popular Elder Scrolls fansites on the internet, as well as one employee of Bethesda.

If they didn't have the collective time to organize helpful feedback for each and every person to offer a submission, that is entirely their prerogative, and not indicative of sloppy or mismanaged judging in any way, shape, or form.


Have you ever competed in any writing contest before? Or, for that matter, any contest? The judges for national writing competitions don't give feedback to the losers. Judges for intramural diving competitions do not sit down with each diver to go over what they might have done better. Improv theater competitions, dance competitions, and music competitions - the judges do not give individual feedback to everyone who participates.


Where exactly do you get off, implicating that volunteer judges for a for-fun competition like this should be giving individual feedback to the winners, much less the losers?

Show some respect.

Kementari,
I'm sorry, but I must disagree to some small extent, though I am loathe to enter another arguement, alas, I feel I must. I've competed in many organizations of various sizes: karate, fencing, band, chorus, percusion, poetry comtests, swim contests, biking contests, welding contests, artistry of all sorts, story comps. (besides this one), xbox live (that doesn't really count though), and tons of other crap. I've come in last place very often (or close to it) and I almost always have gotten a special little chat with the superior of the event, even in karate with a class of over 300 participating members, and not just a few words either, but a whole conversation on what i did wrong, and what i can improve. And in the few cases I wasn't approached by a superior, I went and asked one, as I had to do in this comp. I do agree that Paragenics post was a little rough. But hey, I asked, and i recieved, so if you really want feedback, or like me entered for the sole purpose of critique, then follow suit:
"I'd like a PM, I'd also like to see all eight entries stacked against one another, not just the top five"
Normally I wouldn't quote myself (cuz' contrary to popular belief, I don't have a big head), but I think amount of politeness vs. urgency was just right. Maybe with the politeness lagging a bit, but at that time I was quite honestly pissed, but refrianed from showing it as much as I wanted to. (Ok, maybe I do have a big head

This post has been edited by 0rimus: May 27 2008, 06:58 AM

Yes, I "got off" at the short story competition of March 2008, on Chorrol.com! This is exactly what happened, and I am scratching my head as to why they broke with this established pattern. I am also confused by your reaction - before entering the April 2008 competition, did you not see the process of the March 2008 competition?

You imply that I lack respect because I took the time to learn about the way contests on forum were organised in the past. Your analysis is flawed.

Ok, I like someone else (too "lazy" to look for post/can't find it) have cooled down further, but still stand by everything I said. I tried to stay on the line, not right-wing or left-wing (but I didn't do a good job thougth, lol). So now that I'm all zen again, I'd like to propose ideas to both the judges and writers of a very constructive nature, that I'm sure (god I hope...) that everyone (mostly) can agree upon:

Judges:
1. Give more time to us, and unto thy selves.
2. Be prepared to critique the writings, wether by memory, or even just some joted notes, it may be arduous, but I don't think it'd be worse than this thread.
3. Solid, unflinching rules clearly stated (you guys did a pretty good job though)
4. I'd like to be able to say something about the second hottest item of debate, the end results/judging in general, but I can't. I've put myself in your guyses shoes, thought about judging, my opinion, and people questioning it. There is no set bar in writing, I know people who hate Eragon, and those who love it, it's a matter of preference the only sure-fire way to be a better writer is spelling and grammar, which is more than likely the reason i lost, lol.

Writers:
1. Don't throw out crap just to see if you can win with it, (I don't think anyone did this though)
2. Obviously, write about something you care about (goes with #1)
3. Follow the rules to the letter, even (if you get the benefit of talking with the judges) if it's only hinted at.
4. Don't cut corners, use common sense, even if you're told something won't count against you, you'd be better off fixing it anyway (cough...cough, damn grammar...) better safe than sorry, I speak from experience.
5. Don't rush it. Unless you're a greedy ho, who only wants the prize, you might be better off holding it back, or using a reserved story. I should've held my story back and filled all the holes/made repairs, and submitted it here, where I'd have gotten just as much, or even more critique than from the contest.

I might come up with more later. Seems like (I've got a big head) I've satiated both sides= you both got some constructive critizism. Now go and make mirth upon the provinces of beautiful Tamriel!

No, I imply that you lack respect because you seem to believe these individuals owe you something. Regardless of what happened in the past, if these judges a) didn't promise you feedback and b) aren't seeing any money from you, they don't owe you a thing.

It is your comprehension, not my analysis, that is flawed.

This post has been edited by kementari: May 27 2008, 07:43 AM

Oh, while I'm at it, and since I've gone from depressed and angry to somewhat joyful, I'd like to offer my unique help. I thought about posting this in the help with writing thread, but it's not quite the same subject. Alot of TES is about fighting, and I have alot of experience (specifcally swords and fist-fights) in this area. I also go on "survival" trips alot, akin to Man vs. Wild, Survivorman, for those who want to make their TES stories more realistic in that regard. PM me, or mayhaps I'll just start a new thread...

Hm, I'm not sure your example really applies, there's quite a time difference between eating a meal, and reading a book. And above any time related concerns, let's not forget the fact that those critics, be it food or literature critics, are paid professionals who can take all the time in the world to read something 5 times etc.



I beg to differ, I'd say it's a group effort by both authors and judges. As to a single story, again as I've mentioned earlier in this thread, and as others have mentioned as well, there's always a chance that some people will love a story, and some others judging it on the same criteria will hate it. That's actually the content of my sarcasm and with respect, I don't think it is flawed.

Though I like what BSD said before even better, we had to pick a winner, so if all the stories are considered to be diamonds, which many of them are, then we had the hard part of selecting the most flawless diamond of them all. Doesn't mean the rest are rubbish, just that in the eyes of the jury, they were not as good as the winners.




Ah, but you're missing, or not including something there. The past competition also had three judges, but only 8 entries, which all had to be fewer then 2000 words. At max that brings it to 8*2000 = 16000 words. That's nothing compared to this new competition where we had 60+ entries. Not to mention the fact that many fans choose to comment and review and criticize those 8 stories of that last competition and very few fans choose to criticize their peers stories in this competition.

So comparing the two and judging them with the same criteria, is not possible IMO.




Unfortunately, such is the nature of the internet. We can't hold it against anyone though, I mean we knew what we were getting into when we choose to judge the competition




Yeah, you know you're right, this was an amateurish competition, with amateur judges (well most of them) and amateur writers (well most of them), but everyone knew that going in. You knew before you entered who the judges were, you knew (if you know them or had contacted them) that they were amateurs, willingly giving up their time for the community to judge this competition. Boy, I hope the ones who haven't posted here won't read this thread, I don't think I'd ever be able to convince them to sacrifice their precious time again to judge a competition when the entrants appear so demanding and yes, ungrateful. Well some of them anyway.

We can make something more professional, by hiring professionals. But unfortunately, our budget only goes so far, and while we were all very thankful to Bethesda for providing us with such cool prizes, I somehow doubt I would have been able to convince Gstaff to hire 9 professional story critics, as convincing as I may be.

I think my diamond needed another grind lol. Oh dear... I already hate doing this, especially since I've done it a couple time... Oh wait! I asked people to stop quoteing me, oh snap! I changed my mind, quote/insult/comment away! I'm too valuable to this arguement, j/k. No one was quoting/saying anything about the points I've brought up, so I went and assumed that people weren't reading my crap again. Good thing I luked moar. Whew! *wipes brow* Now seriously, the things I brought up are pretty good................ right? I'm now ASKING for quotes, and in turn for punishment, I was pretty good when I was ticked off, and now I'm level headed, so bring it. *equips Umbra* *smirks*