# Short Story Contest for Spring 2009



## ScottyDM (Jan 9, 2009)

...and no, I didn't skip a season. I call this one spring because of the new schedule.

This quarter's short story contest starts as of January 8th (which is probably yesterday by the time you see this).

The entry period is January 8th through March 7th and judging will be March 8th through April 7th.

The theme is A New Beginning.


> A birth, a wedding, the arrival at a new home--all represent a new beginning. Also consider a re-beginning; a second chance. But don't feel you must limit yourself to anthropomorphizing only animals. The plant world also has new beginnings and so does the mineral world.



Here are the rules for this quarter.

Have fun writing!

Scotty


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## Shouden (Jan 10, 2009)

I'm going to have a go at this one. hopefully, my computer will work long enough for me to get a story written, edited and submitted. Anyways, have fun writing everyone.


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## Gavrill (Jan 11, 2009)

I'll give it a go!


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## Oryxe (Jan 11, 2009)

Yay, sounds fun.


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## Ren-Raku (Jan 11, 2009)

I'll get on it.


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## Xipoid (Jan 11, 2009)

I feel enticed to enter but at the same time just to create.


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## ScottyDM (Jan 13, 2009)

There are a couple of minor bugs in the story entry page(s). The primary problem is that long and short titles are _not_ optional, but the system doesn't complain or force an author to go back and insert the missing data. Heck, I don't even know if it'll complain if you leave out the body of the story. That was kind of an oversight. Also, there's a small bug with left-leaning quotes around certain non-alphanumeric characters. I noticed this with the comments on some ballots (fixed by hand). So I need to tweak that function.

Sometime in the next few days I should get on this and fix the code. I'll probably do it live--which means that when attempting to use the entry page you _might_ see some really bizarre behavior such as error messages at the top of the page (in the green part), goofed up styles, etc. It's just me, so try again later. The other alternative is for me to block the page based on IP address, but who wants to look at a generic error message?

You may reenter your  story any number of times. That is, you can go back and change it as many times as you like up until the entry deadline. So if my code edits happen to mess up your story you can wait a few hours and try again.

The entry system I created is supposed to take all kinds of characters--not just plain ASCII--and even stuff like Cyrllic and Greek as well as unusual punctuation marks. If you're thinking of using such things feel free to torture the entry page code with the most convoluted things you can come up with, but then please report any limitations you find.

I'll announce when I feel the entry page modifications are complete.

Scotty


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## Shouden (Jan 16, 2009)

I think I'm going to be submitting two stories for this one. They will have similar plots, but different characters (although, they technically take place in the same universe....kinda.) But, this will allow me to assess which is better received. I just hope I can submit them in time.

That should make about six stories to be entered thus far. maybe more. should be an interesting contest this time.


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## Shouden (Jan 16, 2009)

quick question: would homosexuality and bisexuality be acceptable for these contests? I mean, as long as there isn't any actual sex or nudity, it should be fine, right?


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## M. LeRenard (Jan 16, 2009)

> quick question: would homosexuality and bisexuality be acceptable for these contests?


Keep in mind, I wrote about a college kid who jerked off to pictures of bugs in one of mine, and it was still accepted.  So unless Scotty's changed his mind, I would think homosexuality and the like isn't going to be banned.
But that's just an assumption.  I could be wrong.


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## ScottyDM (Jan 17, 2009)

Shouden said:


> ... as long as there isn't any actual sex or nudity, it should be fine, right?


Yes.

A reasonable test would be if it could be shown on American broadcast TV. Those subjects have been, but they've seldom been treated with seriousness or sympathy--a failing of American broadcast TV.

Now, some clarification. American broadcast TV has a tendency to be more accepting of violence than nudity--which is stupid in my opinion. Thursday night on CSI they had a lingering camera shot of a crime scene where over a half-dozen corpses of murdered women where shown. Sure, they'd rotted away to bones and dust, but still... Yet heaven forbid that Americans should catch a glimpse of a bare breast! It would probably corrupt us. Personally I feel boobs and butts are less traumatic and corrupting of our tender youth than blood and guts, but that's me

The test is that stories on the website are supposed to be "family friendly". That doesn't mean they must be approved by Tammy Faye, but that they must be acceptable to reasonable parents looking for something to entertain their youngish teenage children, or older.

Sometimes violence and pain are required to move a story forward, but there should be a balance between what is shown (or described) and what is left to the imagination. Sometimes sex and nudity are required to move a story forward, but there should be a balance... etc. Foul language? Sure, for the depiction of some characters it's necessary. Of the three, bad language bothers me the most--primarily because it is seldom necessary. And I know of one other regular reader who not only comments on bad language, but will knock down a story by several points for it. You can get around that limitation by using the W.C. Fields technique--make up swear words.



M. Le Renard said:


> Keep in mind, I wrote about a college kid who jerked off to pictures of bugs in one of mine, and it was still accepted.


Ah yes, but you handled that bit artfully. If I may quote:





> Well, Vince didnâ€™t think so. Vince couldnâ€™t think of anything more beautiful than a six-legged chitin-shelled segmented monstrosity with feelers and fangs. That last sentence there probably would have given him a hard-on, if Iâ€™m not too crude for saying so.


While "hard-on" is pushing it, I don't remember anyone commenting on that. Or on the following paragraph where you said something about him "coming out of his own funny little closet" and that he's got "a thing for cockroaches and grasshoppers."

So yea, say it artfully and it's good to go.


In the summer 2007 contest one story, _The Cost of an Heir_, had a bit of in-scene lovemaking. It fit so smoothly into the story that I didn't realize it was in violation of the rules until a reader mentioned it in their comments on the story. 	  But it was artfully done with language like "the aroma sent his passions soaring" and "he lost his battle to his desires." So it wasn't actually in violation of the rules... I think.

Then in fall 2007 FA's own Vixxy Fox did an early entry about a teenage skunk-boy who attempted to stuff a pumpkin seed up a teenage skunk-girl's "perfume hole" as a sort of joke. Her early draft used several terms, some of which came close to not allowing much imagination as to exactly where a perfume hole is located on a skunk. So I suggested a change. Yea, the real location is pretty intimate and catching a glimpse, let alone stuffing a pumpkin seed up a girls... umm... perfume hole, is more than highly suggestive. But I relied on the fact that most people aren't all that sure about skunk anatomy, and if they suspected they probably wouldn't believe it anyway. So other descriptive terms were out and "perfume hole" was in. Not only did no one complain that the story was suggestively erotic, but it won. I know I enjoyed it, but then I'm a badger and badger anatomy is similar enough to skunk anatomy that I knew _exactly_ what she was writing about.

Scotty


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## Shouden (Jan 18, 2009)

alright. That's what I thought, but was just making sure. Anyways, time to write the first draft of the second story, later.


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## ScottyDM (Jan 23, 2009)

ScottyDM said:


> There are a couple of minor bugs in the story entry page(s)....
> 
> I'll announce when I feel the entry page modifications are complete.


The "acceptance of a story without both types of titles" bug is now fixed.


Also, first entry already, but I haven't had a chance to look at it yet. I need to fix it so it's easy for me to view entries.

Scotty


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## Shouden (Feb 2, 2009)

dang! I might have resubmit my first submission then.....if this stupid PC lets me see my external HDD, so I can edit it. Otherwise, I'll have to steal it off the website there and edit it and stuff. Oh well.


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## Shouden (Feb 9, 2009)

Done a bunch of editing on my entries, so, hopefully this time, I will score a little higher, seeing as the spelling errors and things have been my biggest setback in the past couple of entries.

Just out of curiosity, is there a limit to how many stories you can enter? I think I remember a contest were Poetigress entered three stories or maybe it was four, and was wondering if there's a cap to the number of stories you can enter at one time.


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## Poetigress (Feb 9, 2009)

Shouden said:


> I think I remember a contest were Poetigress entered three stories or maybe it was four, and was wondering if there's a cap to the number of stories you can enter at one time.



No, I haven't yet entered more than one story at a time -- "Childish Things" one quarter, and "In the Greenwood" another.

I think the limit is still two stories per author per quarter, but I'll wait for Scotty to confirm that in case it's changed.


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## Shouden (Feb 9, 2009)

well, then it must have been someone else who entered three once.


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## ScottyDM (Feb 9, 2009)

Two stories per quarter is the cap. And that's enforced by the website code.

S-


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## Gavrill (Feb 9, 2009)

I'll have to drop out, I'm trying to keep up with a writer's meet and their assignments @.@


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## Shouden (Feb 9, 2009)

thanks for that info, Scotty. Appreciate it.

That sucks that you're dropping out, Shenzi. See ya next quarter I guess.


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## M. LeRenard (Feb 14, 2009)

Yay... I got something written for this now.  It's a little hardcore, maybe, but we'll see how people react to it.


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## Shouden (Mar 4, 2009)

3 days left, and I've changed one of my stories for the contest. Now, I have two stories that actually take place in the same world in the contest. should be interesting to which places higher.


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## M. LeRenard (Mar 12, 2009)

I believe judging for this is open now?  Though I'm waiting on the official word from Scotty, in case there's anything wonky with the system that we should know about.  Of course, nothing is stopping anybody from starting to read all of these, I guess, which I have done.


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## Xipoid (Mar 12, 2009)

Do we need to sign up for judging specifically or do we just register for the site and such a feature is inherent?


Never mind. I answered my own question quite quickly.


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## ScottyDM (Mar 12, 2009)

*Time to Judge the Stories*

The judging period opened a few days ago and will run until the end of the day, April 7th. Day's end is measured by GMT. And I was just being lazy about posting this message. The judging period was ready to roll about 8 hours after entry closed, which is pretty good.



> *Cityscape Epilogue: Hero Retirement*
> 
> It has been a long time since I or any woman has been able to bask out under the sun in nothing but a bikini without fearing for her life and safety. The fact that my lover and I were both out by my pool laying in a couple of beach chairs in bikinis was a tribute to a job well done. We had worked hard for this moment; all of us heroes had sacrificed a lot so that the inhabitants of this city could finally live in peace. Today would mark the success of that mission.





> *The Swoopiness of Ferrets, Genetics, and Time*
> 
> If something blows your mind enough, there is not a sense of being scared, for there is a limit to being scared. When the level of fear plateaus, only a level of wonder remains, dumb, unadulterated, wonder.
> 
> Of course, many get killed in this state so itâ€™s not advised that you enter this state often. Running and fleeing donâ€™t help much either, but just standing there while thereâ€™s some beast frothing overhead is NOT to be recommend if you want to breathe just a few more breaths.





> *They Called It â€œNew Beginningâ€*
> 
> Twenty years.
> 
> But on such a ship, that meant very little. A year was just the ticking of a clock on the wall, the changing of a digital expression on a plastic watch, the sun rising and falling, the moon going through its phases, and the stars making their casual way through the sky. Twenty years was twenty revolutions of the planet Earth, which was very far away at this point.





> *Glass Floor: Naiive Flaws*
> 
> He stood still on the pavement, turning his head to gaze at the police escorts as they stormed toward the northern side of town, the echo of their sirens bouncing around the tall buildings, night hulks glistening with vast panes of black glass.
> 
> ...





> *Starting School*
> 
> Amanda Graives breathed slowly as she did her morning exercises with her mother. It had been a ritual for the two wolves since Amanda was four. At seven, Amanda already knew quite a lot of martial arts and enjoyed this time with her mother. This day was a little different though, as her grandfather was also stretching with them. He had volunteered to teach both of the ladies some wrestling moves. But, that would have to wait, as one of Lauraâ€™s human maids came down the stairs and stood at the entrance to the dojo.





> *How Things Used to Be*
> 
> Old Bosco was a beaver. He ran the sawmill, was missing three fingers off his left hand, and was miserable at cards. Right angry old coot, too. Couldnâ€™t take kids near him, so Momma Duck and her collection steered clear of Muldoonâ€™s Saloon Saturdays. Sundays, Bosco tended not to have any money left to get medicated on, and Momma Duck might treat the kids â€“ if theyâ€™d been good â€“ with a lemon ice on the way back from church.





> *Animal I Have Become*
> 
> Itâ€™s happening again. The feeling of rage, anger, powerâ€¦I can feel it washing over me, obliterating everything else. Even pain. If only that guy hadnâ€™t been thereâ€¦ I might not be in this mess.
> 
> About an hour ago, I was a normal human being. Well, maybe normal isnâ€™t the best word, but I was still human nonetheless. Iâ€™m an orphan; for the last seventeen years, I was moved from foster home to foster home, making many enemies and few friends.



Have fun reading and let the authors know what you thought of their stories.   

Scotty


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## Xipoid (Mar 12, 2009)

Hey Scotty. Nothing too important but I noticed a typo on the "Scoring" section of the web page. Under the description for Enjoyability.

"Did the anthro-characters seem to be true to their species, or *where* they â€œhumans in fur coatsâ€?"

I believe you meant 'were' (unless I'm an idiot).


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## ScottyDM (Mar 12, 2009)

Xipoid said:


> Hey Scotty. Nothing too important but I noticed a typo on the "Scoring" section of the web page. Under the description for Enjoyability.
> 
> "Did the anthro-characters seem to be true to their species, or *where* they â€œhumans in fur coatsâ€?"
> 
> I believe you meant 'were' (unless I'm an idiot).


 :roll: 

Now you see, that's one of the reasons I'm not a fan of self-publishing. That typo's been there for years. Thanks.

S-


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## Shouden (Mar 12, 2009)

I'm impressed with the entries in this contest. It'll be hard to determine a winner when everything is this good. Usually there's a story that just blows everything else away, but not this time. Anyway, I have two more stories to read through.


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## Poetigress (Mar 12, 2009)

There's only one of those openings above that makes me want to keep reading. The last time this happened, the story that hooked me ended up winning.  We'll see what happens this time...


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## Shouden (Mar 12, 2009)

yes, we'll see what happens.


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## Shouden (Apr 2, 2009)

Just a reminder to everyone. You have 5 days left to turn in your votes/scores for the stories.


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## Poetigress (Apr 3, 2009)

A question...  Which of the four scoring areas does plot fall under (as in, whether a story has one, instead of being just a series of events happening to a character)?  It seems like "creativity" just focuses on whether a story is original and innovative, and "technical" seems to be more of the mechanical aspects of writing instead of the structural aspects.  Would that area affect the "enjoyability" score?


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## foozzzball (Apr 3, 2009)

That is a huge problem lately.

Personally I'd make it technical. The fact it makes the story less enjoyable to read is a whole seperate, but related, issue. Also, it is kind of not quite so creative to just string events together instead of finding some unified reason for the events to all be there.

I don't really know if there _is_ just one area to score plot for. It's kind of holistically all around the fabric of a work.


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## M. LeRenard (Apr 3, 2009)

I'm not sure what the official rule is, but I do what foozzzball does and just incorporate it into pretty much everything as I score.  If I were to pick one category, though, I'd stick it under 'creativity', because I do think about plot when I grade that particular aspect.  If I've seen the plot a million times and there's no creative exploration of the old idea, in other words, I knock down creativity.
But that's just me.


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## ScottyDM (Apr 4, 2009)

Hmmm, never thought about that.

IMO there are two basic skill sets someone needs to write a compelling story: The ability to write well, and the ability to tell a story. Plot would come under storytelling skills. But are storytelling skills part of technical or are they something else?

Can't use the *theme* score since it has nothing to do with plot. I think theme should be the easiest to judge, but sometimes I see ballots where the reader just didn't seem to get it. Ah well, the score is the score.

I suppose you could ding the *originality* score for a lack of plot, since lack of plot is common amongst Web-published stories. But such reasoning seems a touch silly.

The *enjoyability* score should be the most personal. For example if you hate murder mysteries and a story is a murder mystery, but it's fabulous in all other respects, then feel free to give it a bad enjoyability score because enjoyability is about how you _feel_. Yea, weird and arbitrary, but then so is life.

Personally, I think of *technical* as stuff like grammar, spelling, etc. And it's things like, do fruit bats echo locate, or if you had a million people camping in a forest could you see them all from the chief's campsite? I think the fruit bat/million people questions are storytelling issues.

*So maybe put plot issues in technical. Or use enjoyability. I suspect it probably doesn't matter too much as long as plot faults are reflected in one of the scores.*


The way the website code is setup, I can have any number of judging criteria. And I can give arbitrary weights to the criteria--they don't have to be equal. Also, I can change the rules from quarter to quarter while still preserving the old rule sets. So, any suggestions for future contests?

For example should technical be split into writing issues and storytelling issues? Should I reduce the importance of originality? Should I do something else?

Scotty


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## Poetigress (Apr 4, 2009)

ScottyDM said:


> The *enjoyability* score should be the most personal. For example if you hate murder mysteries and a story is a murder mystery, but it's fabulous in all other respects, then feel free to give it a bad enjoyability score because enjoyability is about how you _feel_. Yea, weird and arbitrary, but then so is life.



Um, that really doesn't seem fair.  People are going to be arbitrary enough unconsciously without openly encouraging them to dock a story in one area purely because it's in a genre they don't happen to like.  I thought the judging criteria were intended to force the scorers to focus on quality issues rather than just picking what they liked best?

Based on the description given on the Contest Rules page, I thought the 'enjoyability' score had more to do with character development, sensory detail, and emotional impact -- how much I was able to _connect_ with the story based on the author's skills in those areas -- not how much I liked it.  That's how I've been scoring it, anyway.  *shrug*



> Should I reduce the importance of originality?



I don't think so.  This is a genre with as many clichÃ©s as any, and I like being able to reward authors who come up with something different.


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## Xipoid (Apr 4, 2009)

I would think to rate enjoyability as the ability of the author to pull me in from their flow, word choice, development, and whatnot. This was more how the story came together as a whole, all other things considered.

Technical I thought more was their ability to keep me from being distracted by grammar errors and problems with flow.


Plot, I would not score. It seems silly to separate plot from flow/development, since it sounds like you would be criticizing the story based on where the author wanted to take it which is too subjective to merit being judged. Examining how they progressed the story would be fine though.


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## Shouden (Apr 4, 2009)

why not just suggest that Scotty add a place to judge the Plot? As in - give it it's own judging point. Or there could be a skill spot where you can judge it there.


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## Poetigress (Apr 4, 2009)

Xipoid said:


> Plot, I would not score. It seems silly to separate plot from flow/development, since it sounds like you would be criticizing the story based on where the author wanted to take it which is too subjective to merit being judged.



I'm not talking about judging what happens in the story in the sense of "I didn't like it because the character did X instead of Y."  I'm talking about judging plot in terms of structure -- as in, do the events of the story build on one another in some kind of purposeful manner, to some kind of climax that results from the characters' actions or inactions, which resolves the story's problem in some way.

To me, plot is what separates a short story from a vignette or a scene, so if an entry lacks a coherent plot, I think that's something that warrants being considered in the scoring.  *shrug*  But I know everyone scores based on their own opinions of what's important and what isn't, so this might not carry the same weight with others as it does with me.


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## ScottyDM (Apr 4, 2009)

The purpose of *enjoyability* is not to reinforce your other scores, but to give the reader an outlet for what is sometimes an unidentifiable something that boosts or cuts a story's impact. After all, the first sentence of *enjoyability* says: "How did the story make you feel?"

For example if you really hate a story then try to score *theme*, *creativity*, and *technical* fairly, but feel free to give that story a "1" for *enjoyability*. Or let's say the personality of the characters really tickled your fancy, but the grammar sucked and it was a story you've seen before. Give it a "5" for *enjoyability* and try to score *technical* and *creativity* fairly (in this case low).

I say try, but sometimes our feelings for one aspect spill over into other areas. For example if the storytelling is insanely great, then we tend to ignore misplaced commas, too many "ly" adverbs, and other issues.


Normally the scoring criteria are the same four: *theme*, *creativity*, *enjoyability*, and *technical*, with equal weights for each. But for winter 2007 I added a fifth criteria: *plot*. Rather than a simple theme, I had a theme plus an optional plot. The theme that quarter was transformation and I outlined the plot on the theme page. And here's the scoring criteria for that quarter. As a sample story I used Andersen's _The Little Mermaid_, although the Disney version also perfectly fit the theme and plot despite the significant changes they made. 

One fun aspect of that particular *plot* and *theme* was that _A Little Slice For Desire_, the second-place story, used an object for "character B", chocolate. Character A was an anteater and she loved chocolate, but couldn't get her mouth to open wide enough to to really enjoy its rich creamy goodness. So she underwent a surgical transformation. The author is a veterinarian and was really able to show the scene in the surgical theater with some realism. That story earned the highest creativity score, but did get couple of low scores for *theme*--I guess some felt that surgery as a mechanism for transformation wasn't fair or something.

_Loveâ€™s Discretion_, the first-place story that quarter, had a significant wow factor in the way the nonhumanness of the characters was shown. This story earned the highest *enjoyability* score. How it fit the *theme* was easier to grasp and so it earned a higher *theme* score than the second-place story.

I had a bug in the site code that allowed anyone to score *plot*, although the rules said I would be the sole judge of that criteria. I simply ignored all those spurious *plot* scores, but it was interesting to see how people felt. _The Magic of Music_, fourth place, followed the suggested plot exactly with no deviations or twists. However, I remember that at least one reader gave it a "1" for *plot*--a clear indication that person didn't understand the purpose of that criteria. Maybe he or she thought the plot was boring.


In some respects more criteria might give readers a way to break down how they evaluate a story and remind them of story aspects they should be thinking of when they score the stories. On the other hand more criteria might confuse or intimidate some readers. You'd think the evaluation of something like *theme* would be simple for most stories, but I sometimes see ballots where the reader didn't seem to have a clue. And of course some readers wouldn't recognize typos, tense shifts, and spelling errors if their lives depended on it, so *technical* scores on some ballots are much higher than they should be.

Poetigress is a fan of using experts to judge the stories. Awesome idea, except one of the goals of Anthrofiction Network is to promote anthrofiction as a genre, and a great way to do that is to get the public involved. The next best thing is to use a panel of experts whose collective score counts as a significant percent of the total. So the experts might count for half and the public might count for half. The site code supports this, and I used experts for 2006, but it was a whole pile of extra work for me.

Currently the only way to manage the site is via FTP, which makes it a bit tough to have co-managers. I need to continue to update the site code and one of the major goals is to push management onto secure web pages. I also need to get away from running the databases out of text files and move them into MySQL. With co-managers to take some of the workload I could handle the extra effort of having a panel of experts.

Lots of potential for improvement with the site and the contest, but it'll take a lot of work on my part to get things going. However the good news is that adding judging criteria isn't difficult. Should we do that?

Scotty


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## Poetigress (Apr 5, 2009)

ScottyDM said:


> For example if the storytelling is insanely great, then we tend to ignore misplaced commas, too many "ly" adverbs, and other issues.



Personally, I find it very difficult to ignore that sort of thing, although I know I'm in the minority there.  I'll give some leeway to "ly" adverbs, but not to awkward sentence structure, poor grammar, or basic spelling errors.



> Poetigress is a fan of using experts to judge the stories.



That's simplifying my position somewhat.  If I remember correctly, the main thing I've said on the topic is that, if you get to the point where there are more than, say, 10 stories per quarter, it's unrealistic to expect the general public to read even the majority of them, and I know part of the idea is to get the voters to read as many of the stories as possible before scoring them.  At that point, I think it might be beneficial to have a judge or panel to choose the top 5 or whatever, and then let the public vote from there, or, as you've suggested, have a panel score in addition to the public score.



> However the good news is that adding judging criteria isn't difficult. Should we do that?



My preference would be to simply have the plot aspect folded in to one of the existing criteria (I was figuring "enjoyability," but obviously I've misunderstood what that criteria was supposed to be all along), and add some relevant questions to that area's description of the rules page.


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## ScottyDM (Apr 6, 2009)

Poetigress said:


> My preference would be to simply have the plot aspect folded in to one of the existing criteria (I was figuring "enjoyability," but obviously I've misunderstood what that criteria was supposed to be all along), and add some relevant questions to that area's description of the rules page.


You did not misjudge. Here's the full text of *enjoyability*, broken down into bullet points:


> How did the story make you feel?
> 
> A good story should touch your emotions without resorting to tricks or clichÃ©s.
> Does the author leave you wanting to read more, or were you temped to stop reading part way through?
> ...


Most of these are subjective criteria and I wrote them to give readers some clue as to what to consider. For example elsewhere in this subforum some people have stated that they _prefer_ "humans in fur coats" and so the effect of #4 would be reversed for them (the subjectivity of the criteria).

*Looking at this list most of these items are storytelling issues. Therefore lack of plot, which is a storytelling issue, should be included in this list.*


It's time I started preparing for the next quarter's contest. Judging ends on the 7th (Tuesday) and I need to have the new quarter ready to go on the 8th. I could modify this judging criteria to add a sentence about plot issues for this next, and following, quarters.

I have a theme for summer. Now I just need to write up a bit of text to suggest how one might interpret that theme. It should be an easy, summery theme, and kind of fun.

S-


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## Poetigress (Apr 6, 2009)

ScottyDM said:


> Therefore lack of plot, which is a storytelling issue, should be included in this list



Okay, that'll work.  

My scores are in...


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## Shouden (Apr 9, 2009)

pssst....umm...anthrofiction is down again. I think this just means Scotty is loading the updated codes for everything, but if not, I figure that it should be noted. Anyways, I'm eager to see the results of this contest.


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## ScottyDM (Apr 9, 2009)

*The Results Are Calculated and We Have a Winner!*

*They Called It â€œNew Beginningâ€* by FA's very own M. Le Renard won with a score of *4.04*.

*How Things Used to Be* by foozzzball earned a score of *3.70*.

*Glass Floor: Naiive Flaws* by Fere earned a score of *3.38*.

*The Swoopiness of Ferrets, Genetics, and Time* by George Holmstrom earned a score of *3.15*.

*Animal I Have Become* by wingmansrt10 earned a score of *3.14*.

*Starting School* by Azola earned a score of *3.08*.

*Cityscape Epilogue: Hero Retirement* by Azola earned a score of *2.79*.

Congratulations to Monsieur Renard and all the authors for a great contest quarter.

Scotty


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## foozzzball (Apr 9, 2009)

Well done, MLR!


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## M. LeRenard (Apr 9, 2009)

Holy nuts... I actually won?  I really didn't think I would.  And considering some of the comments, it looks like the reaction to it was as mixed as I thought it would be.  Apparently at least one person completely misinterpreted everything, which was something else I thought would happen.  So this must be your doing, Scotty.  Thanks.
But thanks to everybody else, too!  I did work hard on this one.

Congrats to the runners-up. Looks like most everything scored above a 3.00, which is great.  I'm glad your story got at least second, foozzzball.  I figured that one was going to win.


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## dietrc70 (Apr 9, 2009)

Congratulations MLR!  Your story was my favorite, and I was hoping it would get first place.


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## Shouden (Apr 9, 2009)

I do have to say that it's easy to tell which comments are fooz's even if he doesn't leave his name on them.

Congrats to MLR!

And Note to self: Do more proofreading


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## ScottyDM (Apr 9, 2009)

M. Le Renard said:


> Apparently at least one person completely misinterpreted everything, which was something else I thought would happen.  So this must be your doing, Scotty.


I misinterpreted everything? :lol: While I'd like to take credit for at least some of the chaos in the world, sadly, that wasn't me... this time. :wink: 

Hmmm, those seeming random low scores... I will not name names, but a couple of readers were like a ravenous beasts and attacked the stories with a flurry of 1s and 2s. It wasn't vandalism--you can see they put thought into their scores and one of them left comments on each story. One never gave single score higher than a 2.5 while the other did manage a couple of 5s, but passed out a lot more 1s than 5s. There were other low-scoring readers too, but these two stuck out.

There were also a couple of readers who never gave a single score below 3. However, no one gave a perfect score to any story. The highest composite score from one of the high-scoring readers was 4.88 and the lowest from one of the low-scoring readers was 1.25.

This gives me faith in the public scoring method. It's okay if some readers tend to score low and others tend to score high as long as both groups read and score most of the stories. The statistical nature of the universe tends to smooth things over so the cream rises to the top.

And check out the swoopy graph for "technical" on the Swoopy Ferret story. Nothing but halvesies!

Scotty


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## Xipoid (Apr 9, 2009)

On scales like this, I see 1 as "utterly insufficient" and 5 as "perfection", which means I am extremely reluctant to hand out either. I more start everyone out at 3, "average", and move them up or down accordingly. I do not remember my scores so I cannot say if I'm particularly harsh or lenient.


Would it be possible for you to add in somewhere where you can see what you rated the story as well as your own private comments to the author (unless I'm totally missing this current feature)? I rated some of them a while ago, and I do not recall what exactly I put down.


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## ScottyDM (Apr 9, 2009)

Xipoid said:


> On scales like this, I see 1 as "utterly insufficient" and 5 as "perfection", which means I am extremely reluctant to hand out either. I more start everyone out at 3, "average", and move them up or down accordingly. I do not remember my scores so I cannot say if I'm particularly harsh or lenient.


I never give 1s for things like theme or technical. There are entry standards for the contest and if I think a story so badly fails at theme (for example) that I'd give it a 1, then I don't allow it in the contest. If someone else doesn't see at least a glimmer of the use of the theme, then they may feel free to give the story a 1.

Back when Nadan was running the contest (2005) his fall theme was apples. Rather than enter stories in a system, we just stuck them somewhere on the Internet and submitted the links. One author submitted late and Nadan didn't accept it. This author's use of the theme? His character had lunch and ate an apple. One sentence. :roll: IMO that's a 1.

I suspect some people score on the curve, where they pass out as many 1s as they do 5s. So someone could do pretty good at something, even better than average, and still get a 1. Or a 5 if their pretty good happened to be the best that quarter.



Xipoid said:


> Would it be possible for you to add in somewhere where you can see what you rated the story as well as your own private comments to the author (unless I'm totally missing this current feature)? I rated some of them a while ago, and I do not recall what exactly I put down.


That's an interesting idea.

I'd like to somewhat decouple the stories from the contests to the extent that an author could upload and hold stories on the site at any time, edit and change them, then enter them into a contest as they see fit. Once the judging period starts the story would be frozen. After judging I'd like to allow an author to hide or show a story, or replace it with an edited version, or point to the story on some other website. I have a field in the story database that will allow me to implement some of these features. The keywords for this status field are:

entry   = entry: entered, story text hidden except to author
tryit   = entry: not entered, story text hidden except to author
judge   = judging: only manager can change status during judging
lock    = results: story text visible, user can change status to hide
hide    = results: story text hidden, user can change status to lock
show    = results: story text visible, editable, used for rewritten story
delete  = results: text removed from website but record remains
invalid = invalid record do not use
I'd also like to let people respond to the comments after the judging period, somewhat like how responses on some blogs work. Or add new comments after the judging period ends.

The comments are in the ballots database (with a separate file for each quarter). Then I extract the comments and put them in little "helper" files, one for each story, that the page generation code sucks up and displays as part of the page. It's lame and backwards and wants fixing.


Eventually I'd like to set up an online critique system that's separate from the contest. Upload a story and others can comment on it. That's partly why the story acceptance code (the webification code) so strongly emphasizes paragraphs. Click on a paragraph and a text box will open below it. Then you can comment on that paragraph. However a critique system will be a boatload of work, so it's a ways off.

Scotty


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## Xipoid (Apr 9, 2009)

ScottyDM said:


> I never give 1s for things like theme or technical. There are entry standards for the contest and if I think a story so badly fails at theme (for example) that I'd give it a 1, then I don't allow it in the contest. If someone else doesn't see at least a glimmer of the use of the theme, then they may feel free to give the story a 1.
> 
> Back when Nadan was running the contest (2005) his fall theme was apples. Rather than enter stories in a system, we just stuck them somewhere on the Internet and submitted the links. One author submitted late and Nadan didn't accept it. This author's use of the theme? His character had lunch and ate an apple. One sentence. :roll: IMO that's a 1.



I would likely rate it the same. Though that is a little funny albeit flippant.




ScottyDM said:


> I suspect some people score on the curve, where they pass out as many 1s as they do 5s. So someone could do pretty good at something, even better than average, and still get a 1. Or a 5 if their pretty good happened to be the best that quarter.
> 
> 
> That's an interesting idea.
> ...



That would actually be pretty cool. It could turn into something more constructive community centered than just a little contest.


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## M. LeRenard (Apr 9, 2009)

ScottyDM said:
			
		

> I misinterpreted everything?


No no no.  You took that quote out of context.  'Your doing' was meant to go with 'I won'.  Since your score is more weighted than the rest (at least, I think that's how you do it).
I think you got the picture just fine.  I'm mostly talking about those who didn't see how the story went with the theme.  I actually did my best to make every scene and important event link somehow to the phrase 'new beginning'.  But since a few of them weren't totally obvious, a number of people didn't see the connection.  Which, really, I was expecting.


			
				Shouden said:
			
		

> I do have to say that it's easy to tell which comments are fooz's even if he doesn't leave his name on them.


Eh... don't assume.  I was pretty harsh with a few of my comments.  That's the beauty of anonymity, of course.


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## Shouden (Apr 9, 2009)

it's not the harshness, it's the tactfulness that gives fooz away a lot of times, or lack there of. But, I don't wanna get into another big argument about foozzball. he is what he is, and I doubt any of us can change him.

But, sometimes, harshness is needed. I was harsh on one of the contests (although, I don't think I ever turned in those ballots 'cause it was the first time I voted and I didn't click the right button)

This time, I was trying to give constructive criticism, since that usually helps more than the harshness.


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## ScottyDM (Apr 9, 2009)

M. Le Renard said:


> No no no.  You took that quote out of context.  'Your doing' was meant to go with 'I won'.


Of course it was taken out of context. But it was fun, eh? :-D 



M. Le Renard said:


> Since your score is more weighted than the rest (at least, I think that's how you do it).


In 2006 my score counted for 1/6 of the total, as did the scores of my two guest judges. Collectively everyone else counted for 1/2. Judging panels are more work all around and so in 2007 and later I gave them up. Now my score counts exactly the same as everyone else's and I make a point to not look at any scores or comments before I enter my ballots. Maybe someday I'll bring back the use of a judging panel for a large chunk of the score.



M. Le Renard said:


> I think you got the picture just fine.  I'm mostly talking about those who didn't see how the story went with the theme.  I actually did my best to make every scene and important event link somehow to the phrase 'new beginning'.  But since a few of them weren't totally obvious, a number of people didn't see the connection.  Which, really, I was expecting.


I too thought it was obvious, but perhaps some expected something different than a link to a phrase. One comment you received was about how the ending didn't seem to show the new beginning. I guess that person meant your story was more about the journey than it was about the destination and they felt the destination was the new beginning. Perhaps others thought you tried to hard. Sometimes the scores people give for theme are an enigma. If you worry about stuff like that you'll just go crazy.



M. Le Renard said:


> Eh... don't assume.  I was pretty harsh with a few of my comments.  That's the beauty of anonymity, of course.


You stinker!

IMO if you can't say something to someone's face then maybe you should reword how you say it. I always reveal my comments to the author. If they want to challenge something I've said then I'm wide open.

At CritiqueCircle it's not possible to hide your identity from the author when you turn in a critique. You may hide your identity from everyone else, but not the author.

Scotty


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## Shouden (Apr 9, 2009)

Scotty's comments are usually the most helpful too, although I did like Vaperfox's way of commenting as well.


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## M. LeRenard (Apr 9, 2009)

> perhaps some expected something different than a link to a phrase.


Well, a link to the concept behind the phrase as well, of course.  It was actually more a story about mankind, even though it starred an octopus.


> You stinker!


Yeah yeah yeah.  I'm never outright rude.  Just blunt and negative about things that bother me in some significant way.


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## wingmansrt10 (May 6, 2009)

Wow, didn't know this was on here.

Congrats to everyone who entered!


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## Shouden (Jul 6, 2009)

Just a warning to everyone: Tomorrow is the last day to turn in ballots. according to Anthrofiction.net, you have 19 hours to turn in your ballots.


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## TakeWalker (Jul 7, 2009)

FFFFFFF I guess that's not happening. D:


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## M. LeRenard (Jul 7, 2009)

Once again, I almost forgot about these.  But I got my last ballot cast just right now, so there we go.
Good luck to everyone.  I have a feeling I know which will win, but I could be wrong.  Actually, I think I'm usually wrong about that.  But we'll see.


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## Poetigress (Jul 7, 2009)

Completely forgot about this. >_< Oh, welll. I'll get back to reading and voting next quarter.


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