Greetings, ladies and gentlemen of the Chorrol forums!

This the official thread for the Chorrol 1Q 2013 writing contest (because there might be more later. I don't know). That is right, a contest; a competitive scene pitting you writers against one another in a blood-soaked battle to the death that won't actually have any blood in it and if there is any death it's almost certainly unrelated to the contest itself.

The winner will receive nothing more than bragging rights, but this is an excellent opportunity to push your writing skills above and beyond their usual level and earn yourself some nice, lovely forum kudos. Maybe you'll get a badge or something, I don't know.

How it will work

In order to make the competition as fair as possible, all entries will be posted up anonymously; to enter, you PM your entry to me. Once the deadline is reached, as the official* competition judge I will read and evaluate every story and from there create a shortlist (there will be either five finalists, or ten if the volume exceeds thirty). I shall then post up the shortlisted entries, either on this thread or on a new one, and then will follow a one week voting period where people will PM with their vote on who they think should be winner. In the event of a tie, the tied entries will go to a second round of voting. From there, our victor shall be picked.



*Okay, it's not official, but I've got mALX, Elizabeth Hollow and King of Beast's votes. Do you?


Vitalstatistix

In order to give writers something to work with, a common thread to tie the competition together and to discourage people simply being lazy by dusting off an old work of theirs, the competition is centred around the theme of Absolution.

In order to make reading things managable within a reasonable timeframe, the wordcount for entries is going to be 3000-7000 words

The final deadline for entries is Midnight GMT, Friday 15th March 2013. An entry can be sent to me at any time between now and then.


Rules

1. All entries cannot have appeared on this forum before, and must only be sent to me via PM, with the wordcount included in your entry. Any entries that have been posted on the forum or anywhere else before will be disqualified. Any entries that I find are just an 'Elder-Scrolled-up' version of existing stories will also be disqualified.

2. In order to make the number of entries being read managable, there is a limit of one entry per person. The first entry you make will be the only entry considered, and all others will be disregarded.

3. To make sure that all voters and readers are able to appreciate every entry to the fullest, and to make the competition as fair as possible, entries are to be set in the Elder Scrolls universe only. Works of original fiction, or set in other intellectual properties such as the Fallout or Mass Effect universe will not be considered.

4. Stories that are either above or below the wordcount or sent after the deadline will be disqualified.




Any questions or queries about the contest can be posted up on this thread here, I'll try and answer them as quickly as possible.



Also, while I'm here, I have an offer for you all. As part of my position as not-so-official official judge, I'm going to be making thorough notes and collations of my thoughts on entries in order to help me work out the shortlist. If you want to hear the thought of somebody who's only real qualification for this role is a few book reviews, a job as an advance reader for a publisher and an English A-Level on how good your story is, just add that in to your PM and I'll send you what I've put down. I will be in full-on dickhead book critic mode, mind, so don't start crying about me being mean about your story if I'm harsh towards it. It's nothing personal; I'm going to be like that with every entry unless it's up there with Shakespeare.



Now go! Write, my pretties! WRITE!!

Cool, I'll send mine in July.

I have an idea. I think I will take a crack at this.

gah, double post.

YAY! I'm so excited!!

Ah, I'll go fix that one now...

When you post the stories up, are you going to set up voting through or on the page itself so we can all excitedly watch the tallies progressing on here while waiting for the winner to be announced?

I don't see any reason why not to. I'll do that.

WOO HOO! Thank you! (That's half the fun of entering, lol).

Two questions:

1. When is the deadline

2. What is the theme(if there is one)

It is right up there in Mustard's post, but I'll quote it for you here:

Sex and Skooma.

Hmmmm...

What is Absolution?

EDIT: WAIT!

Is This the correct definition for absolution?

No, this is!

Please tell me you're kidding, because I'll end up writing about that if I'm not sure

Drink the second one while writing about the first one - just stay out of the kitchen when you do it, and don't play with the flusher on the toilet.

If I end up drinking the first one while writing the story, my story will end up like this:


Chhdjdhjsitistioosxkfgxursujstsitsktsitciiixitkfzjtxkfxjtxktxkgxktxk

THE END

Now we'll know which story is yours! Lol.

NOOOO! MY PLANS HAVE BEEN REVEALED

I thought this was the theme.

Okay, here is where I earn my dumb-dumb points...

What does Absolution mean?

I'm not alone!

I had no clue what it meant either so I googled it:

Absolution:

1. Formal release from guilt, obligation, or punishment

2. An ecclesiastical declaration of forgiveness of sins

Synonyms:

Pardon; forgiveness; acquittal; remission

DUH! Why didn't I look it up and save my Dumb-dumb points? haha.

Chaarrss KoB! Now to get the ideas flowing...

Guys XD

A quote I fell in love with today-

"Write drunk. Edit sober."

Lots of great writers were constantly intoxicated off of one thing or another, liquor being the preferred choice of many.

Bwaahaa!




Hemingway was a known partier and was actually quite wild in his private life. (IE his "Venis (with a P) Fly Trap" he wore to costume parties. (According to people in Key West that knew him).

Mmmm...

Alcohol

Ok, let's pin this shall we, so it doesn't disappear. And nice to see you guys setting this up again!

Thanks very much, Burnt Sierra!

Temporarily unpinned so it's at the top of the updates...

By my reckoning, there's now just under 24 hours to deadline.



Good luck everyone!

I can do it. I'm an adult!!!!

Oh damn, I'm late to the party, aren't I?

Oui, and I completely forgot about it until I read the post at work, lol

Yeah, we should have started this weeks ago.

I had the document all titled and everything, but work got inthe way as well as my current fic. But I can do this! I just need booze!!

Ah...

Colonel? How many entries have you received so far? I'm wondering if my attempts at being helpful by pinning the topic have backfired, as people seem to have forgotten about it. Eek...

How many entries?

None. Nobody entered. At all. You could send me 3000 words of gobbledygook and you'd probably win through default right now.

Bah.

None?

Okaaay. Perhaps we could put the deadline back a bit, to give everyone who forgot time to submit one?

And also perhaps have people who are planning on entering one, say so here - then they can be mercilessly mocked if they fail to do so Nothing like a combination of guilt and fear of public humiliation to beat a deadline...

I thought we had till midnight tonight?

Yep

It could be that people were just waiting until the very last minute before submitting? In which case - great! I was just afraid after the previous posts, that people had forgotten completely about it (and I felt guilty, as I'd pinned the topic thinking that was a good thing - but I suspect that if it had remained where it had been with normal updates, people might have paid more notice to it).

Public humiliation doesn't affect me as much anymore XD

I don't think that hurt anything Burnt, I think we're supposed to PM them to Mustard so the submissions are kept anonymous. (then he posts them).

Once the voting starts maybe it should be in the regular forum so it stays in sight though.

I'll wait until midnight tonight before I make any moves in regard to the deadline, but if the current number of entries I've received stays the same (that is, zilch), we're going to have to move it forward.

tbh, Burnt Sierra, I've got a feeling that once we'd got the initial Q&A posting out of the way, the thread would have dropped down to the bottom of the board in any case.

Yes, we have had a posting frenzy on the Fic forum this past week. Even people actively posting are moved to the bottom quickly, lol.

6 hours left... ... ...

I'M WORKING HARD. I GOT THIS, Y'ALL!!!!

Kind of.

GMT. Less than 2 hours left... Why the hell did I never learn to type properly, this one finger on each hand malarky is doing my head in... I swear, the typing it up is taking longer than the writing it in the first place...
Can we change it to USA time? I might actually get it typed up by then!

Damnit, GMT?? I'm screwed if that's when it is. I'm opting for Central, lmfao.

GMT? German Mountain Time?