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bibliophile20
In progress ATM; I was planning on doing some of it this past weekend, and I ran into some trouble with my computer--the kind of trouble that requires about eight hours trying to boot into safe mode after trying nearly every other approach, and another six spent in safe mode fixing things.
Zen Shooter01
Discussing the length of our submissions here could damage the authors' anonymity when the stories actually go up.
Zen Shooter01
Knasser, I was puzzled by the 5,000 word maximum from the official website, too. That's a really short story. And it's not like the website has production costs by the page. Why not allow longer pieces?

Besides that, they said they'd start putting up fiction...how long ago? And...how many pieces have appeared? I submitted If You Meet The Buddha to them, I can't remember when. The editor at the time sent me some notes, I replied, and then I never heard from them again.
Glayvin34
QUOTE (Zen Shooter01 @ Jan 22 2008, 06:45 PM)
The editor at the time sent me some notes, I replied, and then I never heard from them again.

I think we all have experienced a similar situation. Whenever I picture the Shadowrun web fiction editor, I see someone rocked by concussive explosions and in the midst of gunfire, trying to pound out an email on the beaches of Normandy while Matt Damon and Tom Hanks take cover behind their desk. So when I don't hear from them, I assume they've been shot, are holding their best friend's guts in, or are writing a more important email given their priorities.
tisoz
QUOTE (knasser)
Mine is "done". But depending on how long it takes for the actual competition to happen, I may complete and enter a different piece. The one I have at the moment is currently accepted (I was told so at least) for the Shadowrun webfiction, but it's been accepted for over a year now, so if nothing happens by the time your ready for it, I'll withdraw it and enter it here. If they publish it, I'll enter one of my other pieces. Let me know when your close to printing the submissions and I'll send it. How many are you waiting for?

-K.

QUOTE (MaxHunter)

usually it is until he gets ten submissions / or just enough and he gets bored. Whatever comes first... =)

Cheers,

Max


That is pretty close to how it works.

I would like to get 10 submissions. Sometimes things drag on and the authors can not stand waiting to get some feedback and post their story anyway, or threaten to do so. At that time, they, the authors, are usually right (that things have ground to about a standstill), then I set a deadline date (hopefully short enough to appease the authors and long enough to let the laggards finish), wait to the deadline and post the entries I have.

I try not to read any of the submissions until I post them. This means if someone got their entry in two months before someone else, they both are new to me. This is also why I like to have Title/Fiction Contest in the PM header so I can just let it sit in my mailbox until I am ready to post, but still not worry about deleting it. Revisions should probably just go by Title1.1/Fiction Contest, etc.. Sorry for bolding all that, but I wanted to draw attention to it. I think I asked someone once to follow a format so I could clear out 3 or 4 messages/story versions they PMed me that I could not distinguish without opening them and reading the story to figure out if it was the current edit. I have not lost anyones entry yet, and do not want to do so. I also want to make it as easy for myself as possible, and the more of these contests I run, the more I see what makes them easy for me to manage.
tisoz
QUOTE (Glayvin34)
QUOTE (Zen Shooter01 @ Jan 22 2008, 06:45 PM)
The editor at the time sent me some notes, I replied, and then I never heard from them again.

I think we all have experienced a similar situation. Whenever I picture the Shadowrun web fiction editor, I see someone rocked by concussive explosions and in the midst of gunfire, trying to pound out an email on the beaches of Normandy while Matt Damon and Tom Hanks take cover behind their desk. So when I don't hear from them, I assume they've been shot, are holding their best friend's guts in, or are writing a more important email given their priorities.

Wow!

We have wildly different visions of what the editor is doing.
Zen Shooter01
Tisoz: I'm ready.

I'm concerned about preserving the paragraph spacing and italics in my entry. If I cut and paste from Word to PM, will that work? Or would it be better for me to email the story in its original formatting as an attachment?
tisoz
QUOTE (Zen Shooter01 @ Jan 24 2008, 12:27 PM)
Tisoz: I'm ready.

I'm concerned about preserving the paragraph spacing and italics in my entry. If I cut and paste from Word to PM, will that work? Or would it be better for me to email the story in its original formatting as an attachment?

Try cut & paste to PM. Self check by sending/saving a copy to yourself, then I think if you click the quote function the text will appear with the spacing and things like bold and italics tags. This is the text that I want to be able to cut & paste into the final thread. If you sent me a copy at the time you saved your copy and discover needed changes, then resend the updated version with a new Title1.1/Fiction Contest in the header. I'll keep that copy and delete older copies. While using the DS software, you could also run the text through its spell checker to find any obvious typos.

If this proves a problem, we'll go from there.

JBlades has offered edit time, so you may want to send him the original and save to yourself to begin. Then there is another person to help figure things out.

From past entries, the layout problems seem to be paragraph breaks (I do not know if it was originally formatted using the TAB key or not) and italics. Instead of using TAB just use the double space that posters normally use here on DS. Italics (and other tagged passages) should have their tags clearly displayed during the "quote" phase, if not then you may have to key them in to your PM text before sending.

This is all making it sound harder than it probably is, because I am trying to go over all the past problems and how to find and possibly fix them. One way or another, the text will get worked out.

Oh, last but not least, thanks for your participation, and good luck.

PS. Which reminds me of a question that usually gets asked but has not come up yet. Yes you may submit multiple entries. There are Pros and Cons to doing so. Pro: you submit the first 10 stories and are almost guaranteed of winning unless they all suck so bad, I think you were playing me for a free book. Pro: more stories give you more chances to win. (If you have a strong piece and maybe a weaker piece that you want feedback on, this could be a way to get the feedback and avoid splitting the vote.) Which means - Con: people who like your style and would vote for one of your submissions split their vote, so even though your stories may have the most total votes, another author's story may have a single vote more than any of yours. (The good news is - there is likely to be future contests so saving a story for it is a possibility.)
HMHVV Hunter
How long do we have to turn this in?
tisoz
QUOTE (HMHVV Hunter)
How long do we have to turn this in?

I have one story. The time it takes to get 8 more.
JBlades
...
tisoz
QUOTE (JBlades)
Indeed, shoot them over to me if want a little free editing. See the word free? Why not take advantage of free? smile.gif

You can send it to me either through the DS mail system or my gmail account, whichever you want. (I will be passing them to tisoz through the DS system, so having it in there might be easier for formating and such, but whatever works.)

My gmail is: the(dot)taoist(at)gmail(dot)com if you really want to go that route.
Don't send me spam, plz. wink.gif

I would rather you work with the author and let them submit what they consider the final edit. This will help keep them organized in my PM folder as the author will be listed as sender.
JBlades
Ok, sounds fine. Sorry. smile.gif
CrystalBlue
I've got a story. Well...the beginning of one. I'm just wondering if it's up to the challenge. It's got three parts to it, parts that link together in some way...but because it's only the start of a story, I don't know if it'll make much sense. I guess it'd be a good teaser. I guess I just don't know if I should add it yet or not.
HMHVV Hunter
I'm getting things set up to write my story - working out his stats as per SR4 right now (I prefer to establish those things beforehand).
kanislatrans
I'm still in and should be ready for an edit by end of week. wish I had more time to write but between family and job responsibilities I am only getting an hour or two at night to focus on it. In my next life I wanna be born rich instead of good looking.(grin) spin.gif
tisoz
QUOTE (JBlades)
Ok, new system is officially being wacky. I tried to edit my above post and ended up double posting here...

What are your qualifications for editor again?

Oh, yeah. Free! wink.gif
JBlades
nyahnyah.gif lol
Zen Shooter01
Any new developments with this contest?
tisoz
QUOTE (Zen Shooter01)
Any new developments with this contest?

Nothing new to report in the last 2 or 3 days. I will post when I get submissions to let everyone guesstimate how much time may be left.
Critias
Meh. I'm probably out. Too much other stuff going on right now that needs me a-typin' on it.
Tobias
Hopefully I'm not too late, I've been changing computers which has knocked me offline for a bit. Should get something together ASAP
HMHVV Hunter
Just started work on it Saturday, Feb. 2. I'll type it up as soon as I'm able.
MaxHunter
Excellent! I am eager to read your stories. Keep it up, everyone!

Cheers

Max
kanislatrans
first draft finished. working on fluff and pre-edit-clean-up phase.





anyone know a good fluffer? biggrin.gif
Sponge
QUOTE (kanislatrans @ Feb 4 2008, 04:41 PM) *
anyone know a good fluffer? biggrin.gif


Yes, but he's more of a fantasy style fluffer wink.gif

HMHVV Hunter
Finished the prologue (which will be about a quarter to a fifth of the story).
JBlades
QUOTE (Sponge @ Feb 4 2008, 01:56 PM) *
Yes, but he's more of a fantasy style fluffer wink.gif


Oh! Does he speak in proper Elizabethan English when his mouth is full?

[/derail]
tisoz
I have received the second entry. 8 spots left.
knasser

Felt a little inspired so have written a new story. Ooops. Almost said how long it was then. I probably need two or three more paragraphs to tie together the separate parts (I wrote it in bits), but it's almost done. With a bit of luck, I'll send it along this evening.

-K.
MaxHunter
Sorry to ask, but, was there a suggested word count?

Cheers,

Max

P.S. Wishing to have time to write newly born idea, If only these pesky people at work stopped pretending that I actually do what they pay me for. Ah, bunch of philistines! smile.gif
tisoz
QUOTE (MaxHunter @ Feb 13 2008, 10:07 AM) *
Sorry to ask, but, was there a suggested word count?

Cheers,

Max

No.
QUOTE
Length - Long enough to tell the story, short enough to avoid ADD. An editor could help here. You can write a War and Peace length novel as far as I am concerned, but make it a bit livelier than W&P or it will probably not be read by many who have also not bothered reading W&P. The only real problem with a lengthy submission (other than boredom) is making the page take longer to load when all the submissions are posted. My hint is to save the page and read it offline.

I think the only time a specific length has been mentioned is concerning the official web site's submission guideines.

I thought I had a bunch of this stuff in the first post. frown.gif Maybe it was the other forum before the merge and this became the popular thread. I'll try to get the first post edited. I know I put them in a last post at one time.
tisoz
I have just received a third story entry. Number 3 is accepted.
tisoz
QUOTE
I really appreciate the edit. Jblades found some things that I had somehow missed in the 30 or so edits and re-writes here on my end. thanks again.

This was done pretty quickly, too. I got the story, forwarded it to JBlades, he edited it and forwarded it to the author, who looked it over and resubmitted it to me - all in 14 hours over-night.
JBlades
I r a quick troll, and rite goodly too! embarrassed.gif
tisoz
Update:

No new entries this past week, holding at 3.
masterofm
I have a short story, but it is only a few pages long will that be good enough? It tells a fairly interesting story or are you looking for more then a short story?
Jaid
all the stories are short stories. or at least, if any of them are novels, then that will be a completely new thing to these contests afaict.

as was said earlier, make it long enough to tell the story, but keep it interesting. if that turns out to be 2-3 pages, then make it 2-3 pages.

(note: i'm not official or anything, i just read what's above is all)
masterofm
Thanks for the info. The only other question is where will all of the short stories be shown as I would love to read them all.
Jaid
assuming it is done the same way as last time, they will be posted right on this forum. naturally you will be more than welcome to read them all, because you will be (one of many) judges wink.gif

basically, when tisoz gets enough of them together or gets tired of waiting for more, he will post them on these forums with a poll. you then pick which one you liked best and vote for it, and whoever has the most votes wins wink.gif
tisoz
Fourth entry received.

Thanks, Jaid, that sounds about right, Now if I could only get someone to do all my other work.
martindv
I'll have my submission in by Tuesday.
Zen Shooter01
Tisoz, you might want to go with five or six instead of ten. Ten is going to take a long while to accumulate the entries.
Jaid
QUOTE (Zen Shooter01 @ Feb 24 2008, 10:21 PM) *
Tisoz, you might want to go with five or six instead of ten. Ten is going to take a long while to accumulate the entries.

he's not waiting for ten, that's just a result of the fact that the most options you can (could?) have in a poll is 10. thus, once he gets 10, it's time to post them up whether there's more out there or not, but if it goes too long with not getting 10 he'll post it up before then. (maybe you should get a mod to volunteer to delete some polls as quick as you post them to check what the new boards can do tisoz?)
tisoz
Fifth entry received.

QUOTE
Tisoz, you might want to go with five or six instead of ten. Ten is going to take a long while to accumulate the entries.

Just thinking of the past uproar when I suggested changing deadlines is enough to make me answer I don't think so. Besides, the entries are arriving about as I anticipated. Authors are seeing the slots getting filled and quit procrastinating.
masterofm
I think my friend's story could use an edit = )
tisoz
I have received the 6th submission. Are you slackers starting to feel the pressure? The end is close...


Just a peculiar aside - only 1.5 out of 6 actually followed my submission guideline of putting fiction contest following the title in the message subject header. I have not really looked to see what other guidelines got ignored, but I noticed some only put the title in the subject heading and not with the actual story. Hint: make things easy for me and keep me happy. My vote really counts alot. wink.gif
JBlades
Just dropping a reminder that free editing is available. As it stands, I have a free 3 day weekend and nothing to do, so drop a note in your submission to tisoz, and you could get my full, undivided attention, or I could go play a lot of WoW...
ludomastro
JBlades,

Heads up. My story is coming your way for editing purposes.
ludomastro
JBlades is an awesome editor. Use him.
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