The Beast's Lair Fanfic Contest (2013 Edition) (Discussion Thread)

[NewAgeOfPower]

Yay! We can make up now instead of beating each other to death!

[RadiantBeam]

No, beating each other to death is too much fun.

[Dark Pulse]

No, beating each other to death is too much fun.

...No, Kohaku, not that kind of beating.

[Neir]

All looks good to me.

[Dark Pulse]

Alright. I'll wait for Elf and (ideally) Mil's opinions before editing Mil's post to reflect that, but I'm fairly sure it's happening.

[RadiantBeam]

...No, Kohaku, not that kind of beating.

It worries me that you have to tell her something like that.

[Neir]

The wave motion cannon is firing all over the place!

[Elf]

If you have a drama piece that has action in it, the action serves to up the dramatic tension. If you have an action piece with drama in it, the drama should serve to emotionally heighten the action. Are you trying to get people to identify with Martin Brody, or are you trying to get them to freak out when Jaws jumps on the boat?

Okay, this metaphor wins at life, just saying.

An other thing, I know we don't have a "general" category, but something that was picking my brain is what happens if someone write something with pretty much all the categories? Like say there's drama, there's some humor, some romance, and some action. That's what I'm worried about. Something that doesn't sit neatly on the shelf.

Here's what I'm thinking:

• Toss the "10k word limit" as it's awfully confusing. Instead, simply make it a recommendation (but not a requirement) that stories try to fit within 10k words.
• Add Romance as a category. Naturally, the focus of these stories will be characters developing at least a close, and possibly intimate, relationship. People who feel the need for some smut, but don't want to make it the entire focus of the story, and would rather have us score on a more "full-bodied" story would do well to have a story here, but naturally, smut is not required in this category if the author feels less-than-confident in their ability to write it, or just plain feels it is not necessary. The focus here is the relationship, the feelings, and the emotions between the characters - not the potential result of those.
• Add Lemon as a category. In this, the focus IS about the smut, so it's mandatory, and in this case, technicals plus artistry would be basically how well written the smut is from a skill point of view as well as its hotness, whether things go at a realistic pace or if girls are just dropping their panties while already magically sopping wet, etc. However, just because it's lemon, does not mean it will not be scored against the rubric, so things like characterization will still apply. In other words, if you have Shirou going and seducing the track girls one by one, there'd still better be an attempt to make them all in-character, or to have a plausible explanation as to why they'd be different, otherwise your score in that rubric will drop. Don't expect Pimp Emiyas to work well without some serious cleverness. (Rin controls the harem anyway, let's be honest.)
• Remove "Overall" as a scoring rubric (really, isn't our final score basically the overall one?), put its 10 points into "Characterization" instead. Thus the scoring becomes 30 Technical, 30 Artistry, 20 Characterization, 10 Concept, 10 Uniqueness = 100 points total. This weighs points in the things that will really matter.

How does that sound?

That's cool, I'm up for that.

Just remember, I'm judging, and I will be harder on a lemon than a normal fic. :3

[dminon]

Um, I'd like to ask if it is breaking any rules if I have some help fine tuning a servant stat sheet over at the Create-a-servant thread.... Uh, kind of posted one there.... please don't kill me

[ItsaRandomUsername]

Alrighty. I've decided. Definitively put me down for action, though there will be some drama in there as well.

Action ahoy.

[RacingeR]

• Remove "Overall" as a scoring rubric (really, isn't our final score basically the overall one?), put its 10 points into "Characterization" instead. Thus the scoring becomes 30 Technical, 30 Artistry, 20 Characterization, 10 Concept, 10 Uniqueness = 100 points total. This weighs points in the things that will really matter.

Well, if the judges want to comment how they would rate the fic overall, and how much they liked it, they could just put an unofficial scoring at the end that wouldn't have any influence on the final score.

Adding 10 more points into Characterization seems alright to me, but I still see some problems with how things currently are. I am still opposed as putting 30 points into Technical, as it seems too much. Furthermore, technical problems are something that can be easily solved by using many betas.

And there is still the problem of the Uniqueness score, as not only it is somewhat hard to define, but is of dubious importance for the enjoyment of a fic, or for fic writing in general.

I suggest, at least for now, that we should remove 10 points from Technical and put them in Concept.

[Dark Pulse]

Um, I'd like to ask if it is breaking any rules if I have some help fine tuning a servant stat sheet over at the Create-a-servant thread.... Uh, kind of posted one there.... please don't kill me

As long as this has nothing to do with your eventual entry, there should be no problem.

If it does... well, remember, we're going to judge stories based on the content in and of itself. The judges are not going to read other things for "details" on your story - everything should stand on its own within the story itself.

Well, if the judges want to comment how they would rate the fic overall, and how much they liked it, they could just put an unofficial scoring at the end that wouldn't have any influence on the final score.

Thing is, we already do that in a general sense, whether the score is there or not. I just feel no need to give up to 10 points formally for summing up their review, when realistically all the judges will probably do this anyway out of force of habit, and really the final score they give is supposed to be their overall score of the fic as opposed to "overall" being a 10 point tally which... then gets tallied into a final score. Just makes little sense to me. Last year, I literally calculated my "Overall" score by adding the four other categories together, dividing by four, and rounding as appropriate.

All the judges (and Mil) have agreed to this change, however, so it's going to go into effect.

Adding 10 more points into Characterization seems alright to me, but I still see some problems with how things currently are. I am still opposed as putting 30 points into Technical, as it seems too much. Furthermore, technical problems are something that can be easily solved by using many betas.

It should be, but we definitely got fics last year that still had technical errors. Furthermore, if you do really horribly at the technical side of writing it, it will cause serious detriment to the enjoyability of your fic - so it's one of the two most "weighted" to basically allow the judges to grade it with finer precision. In other words, instead of going "A, B, C, D, F" like the 10-pointers, these allow us to go "A+, A, A-, B+..."

And there is still the problem of the Uniqueness score, as not only it is somewhat hard to define, but is of dubious importance for the enjoyment of a fic, or for fic writing in general.

That's why Uniqueness is only worth up to 10 points. After all, you can have the neatest idea in the world... but if your technical writing sucks, if your artistry at making it work is subpar, and your characters aren't where they should be, is Uniqueness going to magically elevate your fic? The natural answer is no.

I suggest, at least for now, that we should remove 10 points from Technical and put them in Concept.

That allows one to simply reward one who has a good concept but lacking in the other areas. A good concept will draw you in, but again, if everything else is off, is it likely to keep readers around and interested? I don't feel so, and neither do the other judges.

They've all agreed to my proposed changes, so I am going to be updating the first post in the thread shortly to reflect those (after I go through the last few pages and see if anyone needs to be moved over). If anyone would like to be moved to the new Romance or Lemon categories, let me know and I'll shuffle you off in their direction.

Also, I'd like to announce that I've decided I'll be giving prizes to the winners: The top-placing person in each category will be allowed to request me to do a fanfic for them (up to about 7500 words or so). Contents are completely and totally up to the winner. I will eventually be putting these up elsewhere, of course, but the winners will be the ones to tell me what they want to see, and they'll be the first to get to see them. The grand prize winner may also be able to get an extra prize, depending on certain factors (which I would have to ask the winner about).

Hopefully that sweetens the pot a little more!

[I3uster]

Yeah, pls reduce technical further.

I am no good grammar, would like better if weighted less than actual what makes a story things.

[SeiKeo]

Pls make all grammar.

[Arashi_Leonhart]

I'd his grammar.

[Dark Pulse]

Yeah, pls reduce technical further.

I am no good grammar, would like better if weighted less than actual what makes a story things.

You no good grammer, you has beta reed.

(Also, Artistry is an equal score to Technical, so when you get down to it, grammar is equal to "how awesomely written it is.")

[I3uster]

So what you are saying is that you make a good third of the score for a given piece dependent on the choice of beta?

Does this contest have some kind of required friendship-destroying quota I don't know about?

[Arashi_Leonhart]

Make better friends?

WAIT

Make beta friends?

[I3uster]

I can't, I and all of my friends are alpha as fuck.

[Dark Pulse]

So what you are saying is that you make a good third of the score for a given piece dependent on the choice of beta?

Nope, I'm saying that if between you and your derpy friends you can't figure out spelling mistakes, grammar errors, and so on, you probably deserve to get docked a bit. Realistically, someone who is thorough and goes over the fic should get 25 points in technical easy, and even with a few mistakes, you basically would have to be terrible to get anything under 20.

The only difference is that as-is, we'd give you 10 out of 30, whereas if we removed 10 points, you'd be getting 7 out of 20. It's still going to reflect the "general amount" for lack of a better phrase, just with better shades to do it in.

I can't, I and all of my friends are alpha as fuck.

To quote George Carlin, "I'm an Alpha Male on Beta-Blockers."