The Beast's Lair Fanfic Contest (2018 Edition) (Discussion Thread)

[Milbunk]

Happy 2018 everyone! With a new year comes a new fanfic contest hosted by yours truly. And with so much new Type-Moon material coming out it can only mean that the ideas for fanfic potential is just as numerous. Let us see what our glorious writers can come up with this year.

I have decided to do a simplified form of categories this year due to the surge in a specific type of content, mostly fate. But same as before the format for this will be easy to recognize.

Rules for 2018:

• You cannot enter something that is already released to the public. (Anything you submit must be new to us BLer's and no posting pieces that have been posted on sites like the fanfic forum, if you've been working on something but haven't shared it with the public you can enter it if you want.)
• We have no official word count limit per se. Obviously, however, we do not want a 100 word fanfic, nor do we want a 100,000 word behemoth (unless it's really, really good). We will recommend that authors, in general, stick to a limit of 10,000 words, but again, this is not a hard-and-fast rule. You can go under this limit or over it, but please keep in mind the judges might have to read dozens of fics, so if yours must be longer, then that is fine, but make it worth their while!
• While there is no limit please keep in mind that you can't just put one word down and throw it out as a oneshot, entries that attempt to do so will be ignored altogether. I will be cracking down on this a lot more this year so beware!

Other important things to know:

• Since this is a Type Moon contest fanfics must take place in the Nasuverse or any related materials. (So, Extra, Mahoyo, DDD, Notes, GO, even the Anime are all fine.) There will also be no crossovers outside of the Nasuverse as that would complicate things and it's just overall simpler to not do them, Crossovers between Nasuverse works are fine.
• If you want to enter the contest but don't want to show people that you are entering, you can choose to enter anon therefore keeping who you are private to only myself and the judges. After that if you choose to reveal yourself then you are perfectly free to do so.
• You can enter the contest at any time even 5 minutes before the deadline, just make sure you provide your entry in time before the deadline. I'll accept entries past the deadline if there is a good reason for them being late otherwise there will be some sort of small penalty for late entries.

Contest Prompts:

This year it will be a blend of being freeform while adhering to very light categories with an exception. These are as follows:

Fate: Anything that relates to Servants and Masters or a Grand Order as a whole.
Not-Fate: Everything else. If a character is a magus as long as they are not a Master they can be included in this category. The trick will be to create a story that is not involved with Fate whatsoever. Which thanks to the growing popularity of Fate will make this all the more challenging.
Grail War: This is a special challenge category I'm going to try this year. The concept is simple. State that you wish to enter the Grail War category. I will then use this sight http://hgwsim.tumblr.com/ to create a war for you and it will be your job to create some sort of oneshot based around your group. There are no restrictions as long as it is a grail war and the characters that show up relate to the group you will be given.

Judges and Judging:
Since they worked out so well last year we shall stick to the same three judges this year!

1. Alf
2. IRUN
3. Dark Pulse

The judging itself is as follows:

Artistry (30 Points): Everything that contributes to the enjoyment of the story. How did a fic make a judge feel? Emotional impact. Flow. Beautiful language. Engagement. In the case of lemons, how hot the pairing and events are. Does the fic connect with readers? Remember, a story is more than just a piece of technical writing!
Characterization (25 Points): Faithfulness to the source material (accounting for OCs/AUs). Accuracy in character mannerisms, thoughts, and speech. Realistic reactions to a given situation. Essentially, is this really a Type-Moon fanfic, or just a story with characters named the same? Would the characters have plausibly acted as they did in these circumstances? Do the rules of the world actually work? For Original Characters and AUs, do they make sense? Do they blend in seamlessly with regular Nasuverse characters/concepts?
Setting (20 Points): Are you going to set it in tried-and-true Nasuverse places, or are you going to put it somewhere new? How believable is your depiction? How well does the location feel like it fits into the Nasuverse? Does it feel like it's connected to his world, or does it feel like it's just existing?
Technical (15 Points): This is basically how good your grammar and punctuation are, and if you can follow the rules of the language. Clean (understandable!) sentences, well-structured paragraphs, and clear writing will all help your score here. Most people should get a pretty high score in this as long as you make sure to have your fics read through and checked for errors.
Uniqueness (10 Points): What sets your fic apart from the rest of the pack (or general TM fanfiction)? Plot, character focus, a future world, a certain je ne sais quoi... what did you dare to attempt? Did it make the fic better... or worse? As a side note, for the Grail War category points will also be considered based on how well you follow the prompt given to you.

The maximum score a writer can attain is 300 but to reach that with such harsh judges is no easy task.


Prizes:

This year I will be giving a grand price of either a 10 roll or 10 roll equivalent up to 40 dollars for any mobile game in the world. If I can give the money to you then there are no restrictions. There will also be two smaller prices of 10 dollars for a steam game or online equivalent for 2nd and 3rd place.

Deadline:

The deadline for the contest will be April 7th Saturday at 12:00 a.m. Central Standard Time

And of course if you folks have any questions on anything feel free to ask or pm me.

Contestants:

1. Milbunk (Non-Fate)
2. SpoonyViking (Fate)
3. Leftovers (Non-Fate)
4. Levnekov (Fate)
5. Sir Jackets Off
6. Draconic (Fate)
7. Sky (Fate)
8. Kirawins (Fate)
9. Ruler (Fate)