Fortnightly Writing Contest VOTING ENDED, Winner announced!

[Tuomas]

Welcome.

The American Girl Scouts have decided, as for means of collecting money, to publish a book of their own. Now, as a member o our society YOU have been chosen to write an entry that will then take part in a larger scale contest throughout the continent!!!

Taking part is not obligatory, but everyone who enters will receive a price and of course, the winners will be in the book: "AGS - Cookies and Cooties" and will receive a free edition of this collection.

This year the theme is, regardless of the heading, unpopularity of writing contests.

You will write an essay or a short story, whatever you like the best, at around 200-500 words (normal private school essay lenght).

The text must be uploaded as .doc, .odt, .txt or .rtf and presented with a header and the writer's name under it.

So to make a long story short, write about why writing competitions often just tend to die out, especially here at AGS. And the essays will be voted by a board that is chosen from within the ranks of AGS. That means basically everyone who wants to because we're not picky.

The entry must be public no later than the first day next month, which gives you a lot of time to work on it, and most importantly, have fun with it!

PS: on an important note, the contestants are allowed several entries! But remember, two as good entries might steal each others votes!


EDIT:
Lack of Participation: Why
Death of a Contest
The Year Nobody Came
http://www.iamnotfredrich.com/wcnst.doc

[Oddysseus]

I didn't want to go through the fuss of uploading a file, so I thought I'd just post my entry here.  I hope that's alright.

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Lack of Participation: Why
by Oddysseus

The main reasons for the lack of participation in writing competitions are threefold: first, the nature of the community they take place in; second, the rules of the actual competitions; and third, the nature of creative writing itself.
   Since the AGS community is primarily oriented around the creation of games, most competitions involve making actual, usable game content (sprites, backgrounds, music, etc.)  However, the writing competition tends to focus more on short stories and general literary pursuits rather than usable game content i.e. dialogue, plot structure of a game, etc.  This limits their appeal in the AGS community.  The competitions may be more popular if they were posted in a place that focuses on short stories, like a creative writing forum.
   Secondly, arbitrary word limits can prohibit creativity more than they stimulate it.  A lot of entries in past competitions seem artificially inflated to fit the word counts, and would have been better if they were shorter.  High minimum word counts scare away casual or busy writers.  Or, some people may come up with a great, short idea that they don’t feel would benefit from being stretched to fit a random word count.
   Finally, creative writing is more dependant on ideas than, say, sprite creation.  While a sprite artist needs only a basic character concept to start the physical process of spriting, writing is entirely based on ideas.  There are no computer tools or reference material to provide shortcuts or assistance.  Each sentence must be dragged out of the author’s head one by one and molded to fit with the whole.  This requires a degree of dedication that a random contest on the interwebs may not justify to some people.  Or the topic of a specific competition may be uninspiring or too vague to generate the seed of an idea.  Or an author may just be going through a dry spell.
   All of these reasons and more may contribute to the lack of actual participation in writing competitions on the AGS forums.  However, they do not diminish my enthusiasm for reading other people’s entries.  When I joined the forums a year ago, the writing competition had been put on hiatus because of an apparent lack of interest.  I hope the current melodramatics about lack of participation do not lead to the competition being killed off again.  The writing competitions may not attract the crowd that the sprite jams and coloring balls do, but they are still a valuable catalyst for creativity in the community.

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414 words.

[DanielH]

Just a quick entry, like Oddysseus, didn't want to upload anything.

Death of a contest
By DanielH

   Sitting at my desk, I found myself clicking tentatively on the new post- Fortnightly Writing Contest 18.07-1.08. The subject? Writing competitions. How original. I sighed to myself and clicked reply. The typing began.
   As I was typing away aimlessly, my mind drifted from the work I was creating and I thought about the heaps of other work I had piling on my desk. Very suddenly, I realised- why am I writing this when real work could be done? Nevertheless, I relentlessly typed onwards. I thought more and more about the many other competitions- MAGs, OROW, Colouring balls, Sprite jams, and the list goes on. Yet these competitions are usually busy competitions, even the most complicated, such as MAGs, which require a whole game developed in just one month usually have a good turnout. The last Writing competition, however- two entries appeared. That is, in my eyes, just disappointing.
   So why has writing died? Why has it ground to a halt? Why am I writing about it? Boredom, mainly. I’m entering the competition to pass the time- but that’s also why it’s dying. Few people enter the writing competitions for the joy of writing anymore, the fun of sharing a tale. Many would rather enter a drawing competition, which, albeit entertaining, I’ve found isn’t quite the same as reading someones story, reading someone’s imagination almost. What if the competitions do stop? How many will cry over their lost Writing Contest? Few, if any; that is why the contest is dying.
   Suddenly, My mind gathered itself- why am I still typing? I’ll probably only be one of two or three entrants anyway. I’ve got other things to do- I’ll finish this later.


Words: 284.

[Tuomas]

I added both to the first post for easy access, however, I'm unpleased in the format and would appreciate some extra 10 seconds from the next competitors. Of course, having included these, I cannot demand it. But you do realise, that a CV asked for a job interview can't be written on a napkin with lipstick. 

[Jack Sheehan]

This very competition is contributing to the demise of the creative writing competition, things are far too constrained as it is and when the thing lapses into self parody you know you're doing something wrong.
In the next competition there should be:
1.No word count limit or minimum. This stifles creativity, no one wants to shoehorn their 2000 word epic into 400 words or likewise stretch a clever little idea over 1500.
2. A vague Title. 'Beach' was good. 'Something Stupid' was not. You should not pin it down to a genre or location, nor should you put ideas in the writers heads. Ideas should come naturally.
3. More openess. Voting should not be restricted to entrants, nor should it be a crime to discuss the stories before the end of the competition.
4. No limit on the medium. Post it here or host it somewhere else, and the responsibility is with the Competition host to collate them into the top post.

Finally, don't give up hope, give this one another shot but make it less restricted and I guarantee that you'll have more entrants.

Enter this as an entry or not as you wish.

[olafmoriarty]

I have chosen to interpret the "around 200-500 words" limitation as a very loose limit, and my short story has 650 words (30 % more than the max limit, header not included). Let me know if that's way too much, and I'll try shortening it. Also, I'm not sure if you meant that the text had to be specifically about AGS writing contests, in that case my text is of course not a valid entry.

The year nobody came (RTF, appr. 10 kB)

Not a very good text, but I'm lazy and this is the best I'm willing to take time to write. Sorry.

[Jack Sheehan]

Bizzarely, this is becoming popular.

[olafmoriarty]

Bizzarely indeed. I think we can say for certain that restrictive rules have something to do with the unpopularity of writing contests as none of the four contributions so far has followed all the rules given :-)

[Tuomas]

Not to mention how I won last time Well I can't say I'm not happy for all the entries we've got already. looks pretty good, if I may. Hope it won't die there, do post people!

[Tuomas]

Hurry up with those last entries people, we're closing the contest tomorrow at midnight GMT, that's 10pm in Finland. Then the 2 day voting will initiate.

[Fyntax]

My entry, it still needs some polishing


http://www.iamnotfredrich.com/wcnst.doc

[Tuomas]

great to see your entry Fyntax!

Sorry I was a bit late. Anyway, the voting has officially started. You are to vote for one of two of the following entries by naming the headers to the texts, after first reading them through of course (each voter is given two votes to use, one per entry. Yet onw is allowed to use only one if he or she so wishes). The votes will be counted and the winner announced by me at 0:00 GMT on saturday this week. Any questions regarding the process are still welcome but no more entries will be accepted. The winner chosen by the audience will be given the keys to open up a new contests as soon as possible. And to make a long story short, here are the 4 entries (in no particular order):

Lack of Participation: Why
Death of a Contest
The Year Nobody Came
http://www.iamnotfredrich.com/wcnst.doc

[olafmoriarty]

But... But... I want to vote for Jack Sheehan's entry!

[DanielH]

I vote The Year Nobody Came. The twist at the end made me think of Hammer House of horror, strangely enough, which is good .

olaf: I too, want to vote for Jack Sheehan!

Sadly, I cannot justify voting for myself. My entry was poor, at best.

[olafmoriarty]

My second vote goes to "Lack of Participation: Why" by Oddysseus.

[Tuomas]

I'll vote for both of ya.

No wait, that leaves us with a draw... I'll vote for olafmoriarty - The Year Nobody Came because it's the only one that really followed the rules. Also, while it's not an essay and the other one is, I can't really compare them as equal. Both are nice and both give a result. However, Oddysseus's result would be the way to solve the issue, while olafmoriarty foretold what would happen in the voting as it did now, as it did when nobody came. Nice job guys, now, olafmoriarty, please, feel free to start a new one. Finally this is no longer my problem!

[olafmoriarty]

I'll be darned. So now I get a book about girl scouts with my story in it? Fascinating.

I didn't follow the rules, I violated the word count to extreme lengths, but ... oh, well. New contest coming soon.

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EDIT: Uhm, I see that making new threads in this forum is restricted and should not be done without permission. Is winning synonymous with getting permission to start a new contest?

(I just want to be sure before I eventually break the rules. I know Tuomas said I was free to start a new one, but since his name is not listed among the moderators, I ask anyway. Better safe than sorry.)

[Tuomas]

(I just want to be sure before I eventually break the rules. I know Tuomas said I was free to start a new one, but since his name is not listed among the moderators, I ask anyway. Better safe than sorry.)

Should be listed, darnit. But yeah, just go ahead, that's what they all do.