I’ve always found the contest section of the forum interesting. In times of yore, I would read the entries and write critiques on each one. I’ve always felt the single best part of the contest wasn’t seeing how you stacked up, but getting feedback on your work. Seeing how you stack up against your fellow competitors is great, but knowing how to improve is how we can better our next contest entry and even our next RP post. 

I won’t be awarding any points to any of the entries. But I would like to talk about them a bit. 

[hider=The Mysterious Mayor]
The writing here is very polished and clean. I didn’t have any difficulty hopping from word to word as Callie’s little village was recreated.  Keiko’s observations were interesting, but didn’t quite lapse into purple prose. It used almost the entire word limit but felt concise. The writer managed their word budget well and was smart enough to know where to spend them. There may be some typos or grammatical errors, but I didn’t notice anything on my first read. 

If I had a real critique, it would be that the story was very safe. It didn’t do anything bold or exciting, only aiming to satisfy the criteria for the contest as simply as it could. Keiko went on a quest to fight the mayor. It felt like the sort of post you’d see when you just want to move your character to the next objective. The cool fight or big event is happening in the next post. 

But it was a well written entry and I enjoyed reading it. I’m curious if Keiko is out there in an RP or if this was her first appearance. Regardless, I would love to know who the author of this story was, as I might consider joining the next RP they participate in. 
[/hider]


[hider=Misfits there, Oafs here]
I’m not really sure how to describe this one.

On one hand, it was amusing. It was zany and crazy and it’s been a while since I’ve read something that made me smile like that.

On the other, a good chunk of it is rendered almost incomprehensible by some of your word choices. Thesauruses are good in moderation, but using more common words would make things a bit more legible. 

I did not expect to read about someone farting. 
[/hider]

[hider=Training the village]
I feel like trying to objectively review my own work would come across as vain or an attempt to seek attention. So instead, I’d like to use my experience of writing my entry to review the contest itself. 

So to start, you got me [@Calle]. I thought this was going to be a simple, fun little contest that I could join and be casual with. I thought I could get away with just writing a post and dusting off my hands. After all, that’s the idea isn’t it? It’s supposed to feel like I’m writing a post. 

And to most, to me, it looked like that was going to be easy. You gave a rudimentary post for us to respond to, some details to work into our posts, it was great. It was a little unclear what we needed to include and what we didn’t, but I ultimately decided on this:

-Everything in your starter post didn’t need to be stated, as that was a post that all of the players should have read and been responding to.

-The extra stuff, on the other hand, was not. Everything in there HAD to be included in our posts somewhere. 

-As an added challenge, I wanted to use a character that wasn’t ideal for the contest. Someone who most certainly wouldn’t be walking around a feudal village. 

And I got to work. And I wrote for a time, and I was almost done. And do you know what I noticed?

THE WORD LIMIT WAS ONLY 1000!

Most of my posts these days are around the 600-800 word mark, but this was different. This was the first time most people would see P.T., so she needed to be sufficiently described. I also needed to include all of these extra details that you wanted, and I [i]also[/i] needed toi write a scene that was going to be uniquely my own. I wanted to showcase what made P.T. different from all of the other contest entries, as I feel the character is pivotal in a contest like this. 

And I mean, I did it. I was reminded how powerful “show don’t tell” can be when used right, and is definitely something I’m going to work more into my writing. It also made me realize how unimportant some details can be. A lot of P.T.’s characteristics were left on the cutting room floor. But none of that stuff was important to the story. I don’t think anyone is going to care what behemoth incense is really made of or who P.T. works for. As a player it’s easy to get hung up on this stuff, but the readers often won’t miss or care to see such information if it isn’t relevant. 

That is to say that while you can make some good posts in under 1000 words, it wouldn’t hurt to see that raised to 2000, or even 1500. Just so that we have enough words to do something  S P I C Y  if we feel like it. 

In closing, I’ll say that I think this type of contest holds a lot of potential. I’ll likely join the next one when it rolls around, and hopefully it’ll get more interest. But I do think some consideration needs to be made for what can reasonably be done with a tight word limit, and it wouldn’t hurt to be a bit more clear on what you expect out of the contestants. 

Also whew, we’re coming up on the three year anniversary of you becoming a contest mod aren’t we? Or was it longer? Congratulations! I don’t know how you do it! 
[/hider]