# Short Story Contest for Summer 2008



## ScottyDM (Jul 26, 2008)

I'd normally put this on my FA page, but since it may be a few more days before the main FA website is back I'll put it here.

*The summer 2008 short story contest is finally here!*

The theme is not a theme this time, but a group of techniques. You must use at least one. The title of the theme is More than Skin Deep.

Some folks are already well versed in these techniques, but they'll be new to others. If you'd like a little more info than what's on that theme page, I've created a little 10,000-word essay on the subject titled _Species Characterization in Anthrofiction: Ten Useful Techniques with Examples_. I welcome critiques of this essay. I won't make any major changes to it this quarter, but I plan to keep it available on the site. One thing I thought of is to use works from many authors as examples, but I was kinda pressed for time and just grabbed what I had at hand.

The entry period for summer 2008 will close September 7th. The judging period will be from September 8th through October 7th.

Anthrofiction Network is a labor of love. There is never any fee to enter the contest and I don't use your e-mail address for anything but communicating with you about the contest. This contest is for fun and feedback and you retain ownership and rights to your stories. I only need enough rights to post your story to a private, password controlled section of the website, and only for a limited time. I also need the rights to publicly publish a brief excerpt from your story (no more than the first 100 words) for promotion of the contest and your story--but you may opt out of that.


Future schedule: I've really messed up the schedule. I like to put the judging period for every fall's contest during November, which is NaNoWriMo's month. That's not going to happen in 2008. In fact the writing period for fall 2008 will stay open until December 6th.

I'll squeeze the schedule in 2009 to get back on track with 8 weeks rather than 2 months for each writing period (mostly) and 4 weeks for each judging period. The exception is to squeeze the summer 2009 writing period down to 7 weeks, but I'll make that theme something easy.

Scotty


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## M. LeRenard (Jul 29, 2008)

I'll enter this again, I'm sure, but I'm going to need to give myself until mid-August to start working on my entry.  Right now I'm in a kind of creativity fog, because I'm alternating my days between sitting around doing nothing, helping my father build a car-port for our new van, playing various video games (METAL GEAR! GORDON FREEMAN!), and reading Stephen King novels.
Just curious, though... any particular reason you decided to push one of the judging criteria into the theme this time?  Are you dissatisfied with how people have been dealing with that criteria lately, or are you simply more interested in promoting this particular brand of furry fiction, or what?


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## Clyde_Dale (Jul 29, 2008)

Very interesting... I've actually got something I've been working on that might fit the bill. In fact, it'll probably help the story, since I'm trying to make a very 'not a human in a furre suit' view on my anthros.


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## ScottyDM (Jul 29, 2008)

M. Le Renard said:


> I'll enter this again, I'm sure, but I'm going to need to give myself until mid-August to start working on my entry.


Awesome! There were many aspects of _Exit Sign_ I liked.



M. Le Renard said:


> Just curious, though... any particular reason you decided to push one of the judging criteria into the theme this time?  Are you dissatisfied with how people have been dealing with that criteria lately, or are you simply more interested in promoting this particular brand of furry fiction, or what?


Species characterization never really was a judging criteria... unless you count it as part of Enjoyability. And it's really not about a particular style of anthrofiction because all can use (to greater or lesser degree) these principles.


For some time I'd been thinking of making the quarterly themes, writing technique--as a way to let authors practice a particular technique. It would be a huge amount of work for me as I'd need to gather resources to teach that technique. E.g. it isn't fair to say, "Do good dialog," and then _not_ give the authors clues how to do this. Anyway, species characterization is one of those techniques. And, don't expect a year of writing techniques any time soon--this one 'bout killed me. 

Many of the individual techniques work with all genres of fiction for all characters, including human. In fact, _not_ using some of these is the mark of a beginner.

Technique 1 is body language. How many beginners will show their characters' emotions by writing "she smiled" or "he frowned", and if they get really bold they throw in the occasional "she grinned" and "he scowled". It isn't just bad anthrofiction, it's just plain bad. Authors need to grow beyond that. The footnote for technique 1 points to Becca and Angela Emotion Thesaurus, which is about human body language, but the principle is there--real characters don't move like mannequins, so don't write their parts as if they do.

Then consider technique 3, senses. If it weren't for dialog, you'd get the distinct impression that many beginner's characters have only a single sense--sight. They smell nothing, taste nothing, feel nothing, and the only thing they ever hear is the dialog spoken to them. In Donald Maass' book _Writing the Breakout Novel_ (highly recommended) he tells of what he calls the secret ingredient: detail in setting. He excerpts a paragraph from the book _Perfume_ by Patrick SÃ¼skind, which is about a perfumer who becomes a mass murderer.[QUOTE="Perfume" by SÃ¼skind]In the period of which we speak, there reigned in the cities a stench barely conceivable to us modern men and women. The streets stank of manure, the courtyards of urine, the stairwells stank of moldering wood and rat droppings, the kitchens of spoiled cabbage and mutton fat; the unaired parlors stank of stale dust, the bedrooms of greasy sheets, damp featherbeds, and the pungently sweet aroma of chamber pots. The stench of sulfur rose from the chimneys, the stench of caustic lyes from the tanneries, and from the slaughterhouses came the stench of congealed blood. People stank of sweat and unwashed clothes; from their mouths came the stench of rotting teeth, from their bellies that of onions, and from their bodies, if they were no longer very young, came the stench of rancid cheese and sour milk and tumorous disease. The rivers stank, the marketplaces stank, the churches stank, it stank beneath the bridges and in the palaces.... And of course the stench was foulest in Paris, for Paris was the largest city of France.[/QUOTE]When I read that, it was like a light bulb went off in my head. If that perfumer was obsessed with odor then how much more so for our characters whose dominant sense is scent? A dog will believe its nose when its eyes tell it something different. So why do we write our descriptions based exclusively on sight?

And so it goes with most of the other techniques--they aren't required only for anthrofiction, rather, they are the hallmark of an accomplished author when used for any genre and any characters. Not only are species different, but various peoples (humans) around the globe are different too. We don't all eat the same things, dress in the same clothes, use the same catch phases, worship the same way, etc.

The notable exception is technique 10, which dives into physiological differences between humanity and many other mammals. Obviously there will be stories, even in anthrofiction, which cannot use this technique.

*The theme is not about using all the techniques, but using those that fit the story and using them well.*

I hope this helps clarify.

Scotty


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## ScottyDM (Jul 29, 2008)

Clyde_Dale said:


> Very interesting... I've actually got something I've been working on that might fit the bill. In fact, it'll probably help the story, since I'm trying to make a very 'not a human in a furre suit' view on my anthros.


That's awesome!

Usually the nature of the theme is such it can't really be tacked on to an existing story. For example last fall the theme was pumpkins. Yea, you could stick pumpkins into just about any story, but most readers will figure out that pumpkins don't belong and you'll end up with some low theme scores. However, this time the theme is a technique that every story (anthro or not) could use to some degree.

One does not need a fresh story for the contest. However, stories should not be recycled from other uses, unless you put that story through substantial changes. Examples:
*New stories:* Yes, please.
*Unfinished stories:* I've more than a few of these sitting on my hard drive. Feel free to finish and enter yours.
*Finished but needs edits:* I've two of these, one even went through a critique process. So feel free to "desuckify" your old sucky story and enter it.
*Finished but never shown to anyone:* By anyone I mean people you don't know, e.g. "the public", your best friend and your mother doesn't count, but the student body at some school does. So if appropriate dig it out, dust it off, and enter it.
*Finished and published somewhere (including posted on the 'Net):* Ummm, not cool unless you put the story through some _substantial_ changes. This is excellent for that older story that's been posted on FA forever, but you now recognize could be so much better than it is. When you enter the story send me a copy of, or link to, the older story so I can see if the new version is fresh enough (don't do this one day before the deadline unless you feel real lucky). Also, if possible remove the old version during the one-month judging period. Substantial changes would include: a plot change, changing the POV around, reworking a character or two, etc.
*A rewrite of a story you've entered before:* No. However, feel free to create a _new_ story with your old characters.
*Essential anthrofiction:* I define this is a story where the characters must be what they are. If you were to rewrite the story with different species for your characters (for example, humans) the story would fail.

While this quarter's theme and essential anthrofiction go hand-in-hand, they are not the same thing. One could write essential anthro and still fail at the theme, and one could pick their characters' species at random and be wildly successful with the theme.

Scotty


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## Chanticleer (Jul 29, 2008)

Neat... Huh, honestly most of my stories utterly defy the theme.


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## xiath (Jul 29, 2008)

hmmm... I have never written an Anthro based story before but I think that I may enter.  It sounds like fun


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## Claudia_Vial (Jul 30, 2008)

Alright. I think my writers block will be up then. Please sign me up for all this...


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## Clyde_Dale (Jul 30, 2008)

ScottyDM said:


> That's awesome!
> 
> Usually the nature of the theme is such it can't really be tacked on to an existing story. For example last fall the theme was pumpkins. Yea, you could stick pumpkins into just about any story, but most readers will figure out that pumpkins don't belong and you'll end up with some low theme scores. However, this time the theme is a technique that every story (anthro or not) could use to some degree.
> 
> ...



Yea, this is definately in the 'unfinished' section. I've got the basic plotline hammered out, shown it to my fiancee, but certainly have never posted it on FA or anything yet. And it really suits the story well, as it is more of a 'first chapter in a series of short stories about a character', and this chapter is, well, it's sole purpose is to introduce the main character and show exactly how little he shares in common with humans.


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## yuri-bloodfang (Aug 2, 2008)

Sweet.  I've been wondering about writer contests because all you ever see on journals are art contests.  Once FA comes back up I'll have to check out your 'little' essay.  if you're interested in a couple pieces of mine, check out my account over at furryartpile.com.  http://www.furryartpile.com/user/yuribloodfang/

Feel free to give a quick critique.  I haven't done much writing since college and am slowly improving my game.  And I'll admit that those posted aren't my best work.


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## ScottyDM (Aug 5, 2008)

Chanticleer said:


> Neat... Huh, honestly most of my stories utterly defy the theme.


Are you bragging or complaining? 



xiath said:


> hmmm... I have never written an Anthro based story before but I think that I may enter.  It sounds like fun


Hey, give it a shot! Now I'm curious, have you written fiction before?



Claudia_Vial said:


> Alright. I think my writers block will be up then. Please sign me up for all this...


You need to sign yourself up on the website, but that can wait until you're ready to upload your story. Enough of the website is visible to nonmembers that anyone should get a pretty good idea if they want to participate without having to sign up first.



Clyde_Dale said:


> Yea, this is definately in the 'unfinished' section. I've got the basic plotline hammered out, shown it to my fiancee, but certainly have never posted it on FA or anything yet. And it really suits the story well, as it is more of a 'first chapter in a series of short stories about a character', and this chapter is, well, it's sole purpose is to introduce the main character and show exactly how little he shares in common with humans.


Sounds perfect, almost.

Not you, but to all writers in general: *First*, entering a chapter in the contest. I might accept it, but earning a good score means presenting a complete story. Usually chapters, especially first chapters, are incomplete. They are all about introducing the characters and the problems, but there is no resolution to any of the problems. *Second*, the first scene/chapter/or book (in a series). Write it then toss it out and start with the second. If you think about professionally produced books/videos/movies you'll see they _start with something interesting_--and backstory is _never_ interesting to anyone but the writer. Imagine the day you meet someone for the first time. Do you really want to listen to their life history? Wait a bit until you get to know them. Then that story about the chocolate milk incident back in the 3rd grade will be interesting _because you've grown to care about the person_.

What works very nicely is to pick something out of a larger WIP (work in progress) and spin that into a short story. But do make sure it's a complete story.

Still speaking to all writers: This contest attracts people outside the furry fandom. So don't assume that everyone will know that when you say "snow leopard" what you really mean is a humanoid, bipedal, clothes-wearing snow leopard with hands where front paws normally go, and not the wild animal.



yuri-bloodfang said:


> Sweet.  I've been wondering about writer contests because all you ever see on journals are art contests.  Once FA comes back up I'll have to check out your 'little' essay.  if you're interested in a couple pieces of mine, check out my account over at furryartpile.com.  http://www.furryartpile.com/user/yuribloodfang/
> 
> Feel free to give a quick critique.  I haven't done much writing since college and am slowly improving my game.  And I'll admit that those posted aren't my best work.


The contest and essay are on a separate website and server. The site is Anthrofiction Network and here's a direct link to the essay (PDF).

This week I am _swamped_ with getting the website whipped into shape. I did download a story from The Writer's Bloc (this forum) to do a critique on it, and I work on it now and then, but I haven't had time to finish the critique. I like to say what worked for me and what didn't as well as say why something is done a certain way--rather than just markup the text with suggested changes.

Again, speaking to all writers interested in the contest: If a story comes in a few weeks before the deadline I will sometimes comment on story elements or point out technical errors. I don't want to give the impression that mine is the only opinion that counts, or that I'm the last word on some subject. I also don't want to become the only critique resource a writer depends on.

Every site member who cares: reads, scores, and comments on the stories during the judging period--mine is only one ballot out of many. So if I happen to not like a particular type of story (e.g. sci-fi doomsday where everyone dies) then don't worry about it and write what you want. That's what the enjoyability score is for. I might give the story a "1", but then someone else will give the same story a "5".

I do want people to submit the very best story they are capable of writing. Do _not_ use a ghost writer, but you may use beta readers or a critique group. The deadline is not until September 7th, so if you're a student you could even take your story to your writing teacher and explain it's for a contest and that it's okay to seek out critiques and get help. I strongly prefer your beta readers/critiquers don't rewrite chunks of your story. Pointing out misspellings, typos, verb tense problems, misplaced commas, etc. is fantastic. Suggesting a paragraph be split after a certain sentence, or two paragraphs joined is also fantastic. It's even fantastic to point out that Air Force pilots don't talk that way over the radio and that you (the author) should probably do a bit of research so the dialog will be more realistic--but it's not okay to have your beta reader rewrite the dialog.

*The purpose of Anthrofiction Network is twofold: To help writers of anthrofiction become the best they want to be, and to promote anthrofiction.* From the writer's viewpoint you should be in it to get feedback on your story, have fun, and learn. Winning is fun and it's a rush, but don't hang your self-worth on a win.


Well, I came here to post a progress report on website coding upgrades and when I expect the story submission pages to be functional. Next post, this one's full. 

And thanks for all the interest in the contest.

Scotty


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## ScottyDM (Aug 5, 2008)

*Status of the Website*

*The Past Contests section of the site has been completely redesigned and coded.* What I'd done before to calculate scores and present the results was just bad, bad, bad. The results were true and correct (I'm pretty sure), but how I arrived at and presented them was 100% hand generated. For example each story had a companion hand-generated file that contained the stuff above the story (the results and graph) in one lump, and the stuff below the story (the comments) in another lump. In fact the results graphs are just a picture of the results graphs. :x Gawd, but it's crufty (1)!

Also my previous stories database file was structured for judging the contests, not for presenting the results afterwards. So attacking the problem from what to do after the judging has been productive.

*I've finally done what I've always knew I should do--that is use one set of contest pages during the contest and a different set for after.* I still need to create a new results database and a new comments database to get rid of those bloody awful hand generated "lumps" files. I've started this but haven't finished it. Anyway, my new story page in the Past Contests section contains the hooks to get into these new database files... once I create them. Meanwhile the page is smart enough to figure out it needs to use the "lumps" files for now. Thus, I'll be able to upgrade one contest quarter at a time to the new system.

To accomplish all this I had to re-architect the stories, contests, and rules database files; create past contests and global variables database files; and merge the old author records into the new users database file. Along the way I renamed the contest IDs (the necessity for doing this involves alien abduction and a leprechaun, but not at the same time), and I foolishly renumbered the story IDs then had to re-renumbered them back again. :roll: 

since it'll be a couple of weeks before I get back to working on the Past Contests section, I'll hack up a solution inside those stupid "lumps" files to add the private comments to the author (visible only to the author)--but only for spring 2008. The other quarters will have to wait till I get a real solution.


*What's Next?*

*The Short Story Contest section, of course!*

The *theme* and *rules* pages are at 100% The *main* and *story* pages still need work, but look okay on the surface. The *entry* pages need to be ripped and rewritten in their entirety. Finally I probably need to tweak the *ballot* page.

*The goal for having these things done* (except maybe the ballot page) *is August 9th,* which is the half-way mark in the entry period. Of course I'll need to have the ballot page at 100% before I can open judging in September.

*I'd also like to get the member profile page done as well as a page that lets you modify your profile.* I won't start on this until after the 9th though. Stuff in the Membership section doesn't really affect the contest.

There's more, of course, but this is good for the next two weeks.


Scotty


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## xiath (Aug 7, 2008)

I don't know if i am going to enter after all because i have been to busy lately and the deadline is fast approaching and i don't have a clue what i would write, but i won't say that i am not going to enter this time, just that it is unlikely.  Though i may enter in the future for fun.  


ScottyDM said:


> Hey, give it a shot! Now I'm curious, have you written fiction before?


mainly only for a writing class that i took, and those stories where extremely short (we went by double spaced pages, the minimum was 2 pages).  But i had fun writing them, even though they weren't that great.


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## TakeWalker (Aug 7, 2008)

I still don't think I can completely wrap my head around "furries aren't just humans in fur coats", but I've gotten an idea. I think I'll be trying this out.


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## Orion928 (Aug 8, 2008)

ok, ima hafta enter this this time...lst time i got major writers block


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## M. LeRenard (Aug 9, 2008)

Scratch that mid-August thing I said earlier.  I just today got the awesomest idea for this, and am already a good half of the way finished.  I might have an entry ready even _before_ the deadline. :-0
That, and the species I went with isn't very well researched (that I know of or can find), so I get a lot of free reign writing about it.  That makes it a lot easier.


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## Orion928 (Aug 9, 2008)

ooooh, ive got a REALLY good idea now, but it probably wont be done untill a few days before the deadline XD


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## Shouden (Aug 13, 2008)

What the heck, I will enter. I have done a lot with this theme. Should be fun. One question: Does it have to be an animal, or can it be an alien or a dragon or something else?


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## Shouden (Aug 13, 2008)

umm...how do I submit a story?


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## Frasque (Aug 13, 2008)

When does the form to become a member start working again?


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## ScottyDM (Aug 16, 2008)

xiath said:


> mainly only for a writing class that i took, and those stories where extremely short (we went by double spaced pages, the minimum was 2 pages).  But i had fun writing them, even though they weren't that great.


There are different size categories for short stories. "Flash" is usually under 1000 words, and then everything else, which sort of grades into novellas around 10 to 15,000 words or so. For the contest, stories must be between 1000 and 3500 words. 1000 words is about four of your pages.

If I start getting too many stories per quarter I may branch out into other sizes. I'm fond of the names: "short shorts" (a.k.a. flash) for 100 to 999 words; "shorts" for 1000 to 3499 words; and "Bermuda shorts" (what else to call it?) for 3500 up to ___. It isn't really fair to compare across size boundaries. 



M. Le Renard said:


> That, and the species I went with isn't very well researched (that I know of or can find), so I get a lot of free reign writing about it.  That makes it a lot easier.


The best bet may be to invent a species. Data is out there, however it may be very difficult or expensive to get at. Libraries do the "inter-loan" thing so if you could find the titles to some books, even if your library doesn't have it, they can get it for you. Last week a desk person at our library suggested I start research on Amazon, then bring in a list of book titles with author names.

I've been doing red foxes: _Vulpes vulpes_. For all the common knowledge about foxes that seems to be floating around the collective consciousness, almost nothing is actually known about them. Everyone, including the field researchers, makes assumptions that are not always true. And for those of us who haven't dedicated every waking moment of the last few decades of our lives to field reasearch, almost everything we know is wrong. Well, not quite wrong, wrong, but certainly not right. Which may be a strong point for foxes. They are so flexible and socially adaptable that there's probably a group of foxes somewhere who do whatever it is you want them to do, and a another group somewhere else who would never do that. Few big caches/many small caches, mate for life/switch partners annually, high-strung/calm, form large groups/stay in strict pairs, multiple matings per group/dominant pair only, nocturnal/diurnal/or mornings and evenings, and let's not even get started on dispersal and territories. Even with all this flexibility, there are _definite_ trends and probabilities. Some major differences seem to be tied to location: e.g. London foxes have quite different ways of managing territories than those in the north of England, and neither work anything like the foxes on Round Island in Alaska.

Then of course you get to figure out how to blend all that with human characteristics as part of the anthropomorphization process.

Good luck! 



Orion928 said:


> ooooh, ive got a REALLY good idea now, but it probably wont be done untill a few days before the deadline XD


Works for me. There's no extra brownie points for early entry.



Shouden said:


> One question: Does it have to be an animal, or can it be an alien or a dragon or something else?


The only thing it has to be is nonhuman.

Aliens are typically found in sci-fi, and dragons typically in fantasy, but how you define literary genres can be looked at two different ways: academically or market-wise. Academically is useful for discussing a story with fellow authors, editors, and fans, while market-wise is where you'd find the thing in a bookstore.

Academically, I divide all of fiction into three super-genres: realistic, speculative, and inspirational/instructional. Speculative, or spec-fic, can be divided into genres such as: sci-fi, fantasy, horror, alt-history, supernatural, anthro/furry, etc. Where you put a story depends on the nature of the speculative element. Science and technology -> sci-fi. Magic or magical creatures -> fantasy. And if the speculative element is the characters -> anthrofiction. Obviously the edges are a bit fuzzy and there are many combinations possible.

So if your story is all about your aliens as _characters_, and you've taken away their spaceships and other technology, then it could be called anthrofiction. That is, focus on the aliens as characters and not simply a way to populate your science and technology story.

A way to refine genre within spec-fic is that the genre-defining element is often central to the main problem the protagonist faces, or it is central to the solution to that problem, or both. Think of all the fantasy stories that revolve around magic. Could _Harry Potter_ even exist if it did not contain magic? So if the central problem to your story, or the central solution, is that your dragon _is_ a dragon, then it would be anthro and not fantasy.

But for the contest, all I really care about is that at least one of your main characters is not human. I'm kinda dense, so make it obvious.



Shouden said:


> umm...how do I submit a story?


THAT FEATURE IS FINALLY WORKING. Huzzah!

Go here, log in, then click on "enter the contest".



Frasque said:


> When does the form to become a member start working again?


It's broken? No!

{checks site from machine on outside of router}

Oh snap! A thousand apologies. I had the page blocked and I wasn't even working on it.

It's alive again.


Official announcement in next post (this one's full).

Scotty


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## ScottyDM (Aug 16, 2008)

*Site Status: 2008-Aug-16*

The story entry system seems to be 100% functional. Actually, I'm sick of looking at it, so if there are any not-so-great bits, I don't see them.  :? 


*Features of the Story Entry System*

Enter a story. If it's too small or large you can still save it on the system. You can save a story as an entry or with "try it" status (not an entry).

Then you can come back later and edit your saved story or change its status.

Or you can come back later and delete your story.

When you pop into the Step 1 page and you have any saved stories, you see them in a drop-down list.


*Limitations*

You can only enter a story during the contest entry period. Limit, 2 stories.

Your story is tied to a particular contest quarter. Someday I'd like to decouple this, but that's not going to happen any time soon.


*Little White Lie*

The Step 1 page says you must click the "Submit Story" button on the Step 3 page before the close of the entry period. This is true, but only because I'm too lazy to change the outer logic layers of the page. Your actual recorded entry time is when you click the "Forward to Step 3" button on the Step 2 page. I suppose it might be nice to move the cutoff to Step 2, but that would require I redesign the outer logic and I'm sick of looking at this page.

The bottom line is, leave yourself some time and don't try to enter a story with only a few minutes left until deadline. Also, it might be wise to try out the system a few days before deadline so you understand how it works. You can always delete your "try it" story.  :wink: 


*Pain and Woe*

This is the third generation of my "webification" code--that is code that turns text + BB code into standards compliant HTML. Going to generation 2 (this spring) introduced a few minor errors. My work this month has removed those errors and made the code far more modular and robust. I'm a learnin'.

Webification is now a two-way process. I store stuff (stories, ballot comments, and autobiographical comments from the join form) as HTML. To edit I simply pluck it out of storage and convert it back to text + BB code. The process is fully symmetric. This will allow me to add new features in the future, such as the ability to edit your profile page... oh, and profile pages are on my to-do list.


*Onward, to the Future!*

Profile pages, the ability to edit nearly every aspect of your account, pull the ballots from generation 2 code up to generation 3 (that's a priority), create some sort of system to automagically process ballot data and generate results in a format the rest of the website can use (that's massive). These things would be nice to have done by the start of the judging period, but I've come to realize that each feature takes about a week to implement. So we'll see.

I also wanted to cobble up a kludge to put private comments into last quarter's results, which should only take a day, or less, but I've had my head too far into the entry system to get around to it.

Scotty


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## M. LeRenard (Aug 19, 2008)

> Data is out there, however it may be very difficult or expensive to get at.


I'd really have to mine for it on this one, though, and while your contest is fun, I don't really want to turn it into a research project.  Not to mention, it might be fruitless anyway; entomologists haven't even been able to satisfactorily classify the thing yet.

I've got a question, too....  I've written my story and done quite a bit of editing (though I'll go over it a couple more times before submission, I'm sure), but I'm still about 150 words over the 3500 limit.  Is that a huge problem?  I've already cut off about 1000 words from the original, and I'm starting to run out of things to get rid of.  How strict is that limit?


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## ScottyDM (Aug 19, 2008)

M. Le Renard said:


> I'd really have to mine for it on this one, though, and while your contest is fun, I don't really want to turn it into a research project.  Not to mention, it might be fruitless anyway; entomologists haven't even been able to satisfactorily classify the thing yet.


Interesting. So no one can really call you for technical accuracy.

A few years back my daughter got me Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's _The Lost World_ for Christmas. Of course she read it before she wrapped it. She thought it was stupid and the dinosaurs were totally unrealistic. She's been plugged into the professional paleontology community for some time (she's an illustrator), so she keeps on top of the latest. I pointed to the copyright date (1912). "Sweetie, this was the best they knew back then. Scientists really believed this stuff."

Rest assured that 90-something years from now, people will think your little story is stupid because you mangled the facts, but meanwhile.... 



M. Le Renard said:


> I've got a question, too....  I've written my story and done quite a bit of editing (though I'll go over it a couple more times before submission, I'm sure), but I'm still about 150 words over the 3500 limit.  Is that a huge problem?  I've already cut off about 1000 words from the original, and I'm starting to run out of things to get rid of.  How strict is that limit?


Unfortunately the system decides and it uses cold hard computer logic to count words. However the system might not count words exactly the same as your word processor does, but that probably won't change your count by 150.

With the new story entry system you can upload a save your story, but the system will pre-check the "try it" box and won't let you enter the story in the contest. The old system flat out wouldn't let you do anything if the story was the wrong size.

When "try it" is checked I don't get an e-mail about your entry. When the entry period closes (again, enforced by the system) I manually go through the stories and decide which to approve (is it anthrofiction? was there at least a minimal attempt to use the theme? does the author exhibit at least minimal skill at the craft?) and I delete the "try it" stories.

Judging by _Exit Sign_ you don't seem to lard your prose with a lot of extra words. And that you've already cut 1000 words implies that you've done some restructuring. I don't know what to tell you. I write long too and when I have a limit about the only thing that works is to beat my story with a hatchet. Painful but necessary.

Scotty


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## Frasque (Aug 19, 2008)

So you CAN enter a story that's longer than 3500 words? Because I'm going over by quite a bit (just came here to post the same question).


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## M. LeRenard (Aug 20, 2008)

> Unfortunately the system decides and it uses cold hard computer logic to count words.


I was afraid of that.  Well, I'll see what I can do.  Still got a few weeks.


> Judging by Exit Sign you don't seem to lard your prose with a lot of extra words.


Incidentally... the nature of the one I'm writing now is to be rambly.  So I could cut out probably another couple thousand unnecessary words, but it would wreck the style.  That's the problem, and that's why the original was about 4500 words by the time I finished.  I'll just have to see if there's some other tangent I could do without.  It should work.


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## ScottyDM (Aug 21, 2008)

Frasque said:


> So you CAN enter a story that's longer than 3500 words? Because I'm going over by quite a bit (just came here to post the same question).


You can upload it and the system will accept it as a temporary story with the status of "try it", but it won't be entered in the contest.

"Try it" status is for authors who want to experiment with the entry system before they have a story at 100%. When you upload a story as an entry it triggers the system to send me an e-mail, whereas "try it" does not. Later you may change the status. Either upload type allows you to come back and update your story as long as all changes take place before the entry deadline. After entry deadline I do a little pre-judging and conversion work on entered stories (for one, I create PDFs of all entered stories), and I delete all the "try it" stories. Once this is done I open the judging phase.


The last few days I haven't even looked at site code. I've wanted to work on a few of my stories--one in particular. However, yesterday I wasn't very inspired.  Tonight I went mad. Absolutely mad! And got quite a bit done. I'm within striking distance of completing the final act (the first still needs work).

I'd like to upload my Act III (the final act) as an example for the contest. If I'm going to do it, I should do it soon. What good is an example if no one can study the thing until after deadline? Anyway, I was contemplating my whole story and thought maybe something like it could be entered in parts. I'd never even considered anything like this, and there is nothing in the rules to forbid it.

*Each author may enter up to two stories per quarter. They do need to have a beginning, middle, and end--so the typical novel chapter would not work unless the author rewrote it as a complete story (for example the beginning, middle, and end of some sub-plot from the novel).*


To enter a story in two parts will be a challenge. First you'll need to find a natural breaking point. Second and even more challenging will be to make the two parts be pretty decent stories on their own. That is, if someone read only one story would it make any sense? Of course the payoff of reading both parts would be that they present a satisfying whole.

The danger is that I might reject one or both for not being a complete story. But the bigger danger is the readers might think you're trying to cheat, and blast you on the score.

It would probably be easier, and certainly safer, to restructure your story so it fits in 3500 words. Leave out a section, or tell the thing from a different point of view, or be a little less ambitious, or spend less focus on secondary characters. Plus setup and backstory are usually boring unless well-integrated into the story. Typically you can just delete those bits.


I think I'll mention your question and my answer on the other forums I use to publicize the contest. At least fellow authors won't be surprised if someone enters a two-part story, and more important they won't feel cheated because you got to do it and they didn't.

Scotty


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## Frasque (Aug 21, 2008)

Oh well. Nevermind, the story probably sucks anyhow.


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## ScottyDM (Sep 5, 2008)

*FINALLY!*

I finished a sample story... and with only 48 hours left for folks to study it as an example of what I expect.  

Fortunately I have that essay, which is probably better because it touches on more aspects of "more than skin deep".

When I posted my story there were three entries, but by the time I finished testing the story, creating the PDF file, etc., a fourth story appeared. Yaay!  The first story was acceptable, but thus far I've only snagged copies of the 2nd and 3rd stories. I will look at all four tonight and e-mail the authors.

Entry remains open until Sunday afternoon.

Scotty


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## Shouden (Sep 5, 2008)

wonder if mine was the fourth. I posted it under the name of the protagonist in the story. If not, that is intriguing and I will have to try again next time I guess. I think the story was called  "Burn" with a subtitle attached to it.


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## M. LeRenard (Sep 6, 2008)

Was there a sudden burst of submissions, then?  For some reason, when I submitted my own, it showed "Author #13" in the header for the confirmation screen.  Or was that something else?


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## Frasque (Sep 9, 2008)

Am I the only getting an error message saying I'm not authorized to view anthrofiction.net? I've tried it from two different computers so far and same prob with both.


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## Shouden (Sep 9, 2008)

I am getting the same message.


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## yuri-bloodfang (Sep 9, 2008)

Glad I'm not the only one.  Kinda sucks, was wanting to read some of the entries...


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## ScottyDM (Sep 10, 2008)

Sorry about the long delay. There was a bit of a problem with the ballot page and I thought I could patch it and go. I'll have to dive into it to fix it. Meanwhile, the announcement!



Well... the ballot page is messed up now, but *I've opened the judging period* anyway so y'all can start reading the stories. *Seven stories*, plus my sample.  I'll get the ballot page working ASAP.



> *Burn: The Legend of the Last Howl*
> 
> â€œWhy!? Why did it have to be this way?â€ Corta asked herself as she fled the scene behind her. Her pack â€“ mate and pups â€“ were no longer living. The hunters had come. Or were they hunters? Their eyes did not seem to have a soul flitting across them. â€œWhat went wrong?â€
> 
> As the wolf ran, she soon felt her will to live slowly fade as her tears flowed. Her heart was broken, and, possibly, beyond repair. â€¦





> *Star-Crossed Lovers*
> 
> Across the heavens plummets a large ball of fire, scratching an orange and red trail through the starlit sky. Down into a forest it races, crashing and scattering debris over a vast distance. The hunting party witnesses the star fall and makes its way to the site. The hunting party witnesses the star fall and makes its way to the site. By the time they arrive, the heat and fire have dissipated. â€¦





> *Enemies or Lovers?*
> 
> The two warriors stare at each other from across the battlefield. The wind blows curtains of smoke over the carnage left by long days of fierce fighting. Hazy light glints off the blood covered metal of their katanas. The tigress stands at the edge of a forest, her tail twitching as she readies for her assault. The vulpine stands with his back to a city, the stout defender of his people. â€¦





> *Food*
> 
> Ambershanks Runetotem wrinkled his black-button nose, blood-soaked whiskers shaking merrily before his slitted blue eyes. The stench of kodo blood and flesh was a welcome assault on all his senses, as though the very touch fueled the burning in his legs, the smell pumping the rapid beating of his heart, the taste shooting pulses of electricity down his spine. â€¦





> *Small Town Strong*
> 
> This town was once a quiet and safe little place that many were proud to call home. I know it donâ€™t look that way anymore, but then youâ€™re new, not long ago this town was very different. Your young could ride their bikes down the road to the general store and you knew no harm would befall them. You could leave your home unguarded and know everything would be as it should when you returned. â€¦





> *Vincent Newberry*
> 
> Not a whole lot goes on here in our sleepy little mountain town. Not even much tourism, to be sure; itâ€™s as desolate as desolate can be. But thatâ€™s Nevada for you; only exciting stuff that happens here stays in Vegas, so I hear. And if you want to know about change, wellâ€¦ change here is about as common as a purple antelope. And so usually when it comes, itâ€™s something big. Wouldnâ€™t have it any other way.
> 
> â€¦





> *New Tricks*
> 
> Locke perched tensely in the back seat of the cruiser, his furiously working nose pressed to cracked window. He longed to be out there among the officers inspecting the ditched getaway vehicle. The perp left three people dead at a convenience store shootout. Even now, the metallic tang of fresh blood stayed with him, urging him to action. A familiar figure approached the cruiser and he whined with thrilled anticipation.
> 
> â€¦


Didn't bother to link to my sample since it's not in the contest to be judged, but I wouldn't mind a bit of feedback.  

Have fun!

Scotty


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## Shouden (Sep 10, 2008)

Alright, sweetness. I will read these after I get some sleep.


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## ScottyDM (Sep 20, 2008)

The balloting system seems to be working. I did test it. See here.


Scotty


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## Frasque (Sep 24, 2008)

Yep, it's working. Yay!!!!


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## Shouden (Sep 24, 2008)

Done! my ballots and votes have been cast. There were some very excellent stories and some stories that left a lot to be desired. But, all in all, they were pretty good.


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## ScottyDM (Oct 5, 2008)

*There's only 2 days and not quite 1.5 hours left to read and score the stories.*

If you haven't signed up for a free account at Anthrofiction Network, some tips: #1. Make sure your e-mail address is correct. The system needs to send you a confirmation e-mail to activate your account. #2. If that e-mail is lost or rejected by your spam filter (it's from "anthrofiction.net") you can always go back to the site and try to log in. You'll have the option to resend the e-mail to yourself, but no option to correct your e-mail address if you mis-entered it in the first place. #3. If you forget your password try to log in. You'll be given the option to reset your password, which uses the e-mail thingie again. Your password does not reset until you click the link in the e-mail you'll receive, and the password is random. #3.5 (tip). Since I don't yet have a way to let you change your password you'll be stuck with the random one. So, if you must do #3 then feel free to send yourself a bunch of those password reset e-mails; paw through your in-box and pick the one password that's least objectionable; click the link for that password; and delete all the other e-mails. #3.9 (promise). Someday I'll fix this.

Mega-reminder: only one account per person!

Also: #1. Authors may score their own stories. It's okay, really. #2. Try to read and score as many stories as possible, but please try to be fair and honest. #3. It's not only cool, but a Good Thing for authors to invite their friends to come and read and score the stories. The promotion of anthrofiction is one of the stated goals of the site, so invite your classmates/workmates, friends, and even your mother. That is the purpose of the "temporary reader" account--so your mother (or anyone) can signup for this one quarter, then her account will self-destruct 2 weeks after the close of judging. This way she's not stuck being a member of yet another website she's just going to forget about in a few months.

There's an etiquette to asking family and friends to "vote for" your story. First, I realize you want to win, but I hope you want to win on merit. So ask for their honest opinion. Also, when reading one story in isolation many people tend to think highly of that story, but when compared to other stories their scores are a little more realistic. So if your buddy reads only two stories (yours and someone else's) the overall scores will be more accurate, but of course the more stories they read the more accurate the scores. Now if in your buddy's opinion your story _is_ better than that other story, then you well deserve the higher score. Yes, I do analyze the ballots to look for unfair influence, and with the new site code this analysis is easier.

*The point is* to *have fun*, *promote anthrofiction* as a genre of fiction, and maybe *become a better writer*.

Scotty


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## Poetigress (Oct 5, 2008)

> There's an etiquette to asking family and friends to "vote for" your story. First, I realize you want to win, but I hope you want to win on merit. So ask for their honest opinion.



Personally, I still think there should be stronger language against telling the voters which story is yours.  I think it's fine to say "I have a story in the running, so go read and vote," but not to say "Go read my story 'XYZ' and vote on it."  

I realize that, given that some writers have recognizable styles, complete anonymity is probably unrealistic, but I think there should be at least as much of an attempt as possible to keep the focus on the stories and not on the authors.

Just my two cents, and I know I've said this before.


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## ScottyDM (Oct 6, 2008)

There are a lot of growing pains with this contest, but I think it's worth pushing forward.



Poetigress said:


> Personally, I still think there should be stronger language against telling the voters which story is yours.  I think it's fine to say "I have a story in the running, so go read and vote," but not to say "Go read my story 'XYZ' and vote on it."


This was amply illustrated a few quarters ago. Two authors did an excellent job of promotion. One promoted their story, the other promoted the contest. The second one said to me later that he sent out a round of e-mails that did exactly as you mentioned. Then later his wife sent out a second round and told which story was his. Which he quickly followed up with a third e-mail asking people to be fair.

The ballot data forms patterns and I use the server connection to my fullest ability to snag identifying data to help identify those patterns. That fellow who promoted the contest got a bunch of "extra" ballots and they formed an identifying pattern, but when I experimentally removed them from the results, his score barely moved (it went down by 0.03). He got the message though to his friends: be fair!

The other person who promoted their story formed an even stronger pattern. Fully half of her "extra" ballots had perfect scores. I see a phenomenon where friends will blindly give an author a perfect score based on reading only the one story. So I can't say that author was attempting to use her friends to stuff the ballot box--only that she has lazy or sycophantic friends. When I experimentally removed the extra ballots her score changed by quite a bit (went down by 0.3-something), but as there was quite a spread in that section of the scores it didn't really change the ranking. In the end, and after analyzing the sources of the IP addresses, I decided to let all those extra ballots stand. At worst, her score was higher than it should have been, but the ranking was the same.

I don't like score manipulation. Either by someone else or by me.


Another approach is to use a panel to score the stories, but that goes directly against one of the purposes of the website: to promote anthrofiction. The lure of affecting the scores and helping your buddy the author, can draw readers who might not otherwise consider reading anthrofiction. Lure is good. That's why I suggest authors tell their mom and people outside the fandom to come and read. There should not be anything on the site that will embarrass anyone.

Back when Nadan managed the contest he came up with a plan to use both a panel and the public to score the stories. An excellent plan and one that I followed for the first two quarters after I took over. But heck, it's a challenge to find panel members and manage them. This is a system I may go back to. I've left all the "hooks" in the website code to manage panel members.


One other thing I mention because I know you'll want to know. I now have the ability to present a custom ordered list of stories to each member: an order unique to that member that doesn't change for them. I didn't implement the change this quarter because of time constraints. Perhaps for fall.

For the rest of you who wonder why this is important. I've noticed a trend for the first story on the list to get more ballots than the last. It seems to be based purely on the fact that some people give up part-way through the task of reading and scoring the stories.

Scotty


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## Frasque (Oct 6, 2008)

Poetigress said:


> Personally, I still think there should be stronger language against telling the voters which story is yours. I think it's fine to say "I have a story in the running, so go read and vote," but not to say "Go read my story 'XYZ' and vote on it."


 
And then there's Shouden . . . kinda hard to keep authorship anonymous when you're starring yourself as Furry Jesus.


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## Poetigress (Oct 6, 2008)

*blinks, then goes back to look at the story again*  You know, I didn't even notice that on the first read.  That does bring up another question, though -- should there be guidelines about (or restrictions on) self-insertion stories?  That does kind of defeat the anonymity as well.

Mind you, I'm not saying that I think everyone will cheat if things aren't 100% anonymous, but I know some people are able to judge stories purely on their merits, and others are going to vote for their friends or vote against those they don't like.  The first thing I liked about the contest when I found out about it was the anonymous judging, because I've seen other "contests," even ones just meant for fun, turn into popularity contests instead of writing ones.

Scotty, another question, in regards to the panel idea -- so far (if I'm remembering correctly) there have been fewer than ten entries each time.  Assuming the contest grows and begins getting more entries, is there a limit to how many stories readers can be expected to go through and score?  I could see having to use a panel to do a first round of judging, and then present the finalists to readers for the voting.


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## Shouden (Oct 6, 2008)

I should just say that I wrote the story before I chose the name I used on the anthroficiton site. No way to change it now *shrug* if it helps any, I tried to give myself a fair and objective score. And mine is not the highest score I gave a story. (I would place mine third or fourth in amongst the others) and besides, mine's not nearly as anthro as the others.


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## Shouden (Oct 6, 2008)

Frasque said:


> And then there's Shouden . . . kinda hard to keep authorship anonymous when you're starring yourself as Furry Jesus.



And it wasn't as furry Jesus.


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## foozzzball (Oct 6, 2008)

Have to admit, more or less everything in there suffered from 'I like spellcheck' syndrome. Sure, 'globe' is a real word that's spelled right. It just makes things into a whole other situation when 'John put his hands into globes and rubbed them together for warmth.'

Proof read, guys!


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## Shouden (Oct 6, 2008)

Yes, Mr. Perfect. didn't you and I already have this argument?

Besides, just because there are a few minor spelling errors in the stories doesn't mean that they are bad. Don't go looking for problems, 'cause you might get more than you asked for.


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## Poetigress (Oct 6, 2008)

First, I really don't think he intended the comment as a personal attack on you.  It sounds like he's talking about the entries in general.  Second, while a few spelling errors are a relatively minor issue, part of the scoring is the "technical" category, which includes "small-scale errors", as outlined in this quote from the rules page:



> There are two aspects to technical. First: spelling, word choice, punctuation, sentence structure, paragraph construction, and other fine-scale aspects of writing need to be correct for the page and the author to vanish from the readerâ€™s mind, leaving only the characters to play out the story. Did the author do this, or were you distracted by small-scale writing errors? Second: even though these stories are fiction, an author will often use existing facts from the real world to give their story a feeling of reality. Did the author make factual errors with no logical reason given or implied? Did it seem as if the author didnâ€™t do enough, or any, research?
> 
> Technical counts for 25% of the total score.



So from a scoring standpoint, simple typos can make a difference in the results.


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## M. LeRenard (Oct 6, 2008)

I don't think I gave any piece a 5 on technical, to be honest, and it was all because every single one had a number of small errors in it that I happened to notice (with the exception of the ones that had a number of large errors that overshadowed the small ones).  I don't know how bad my piece was, but I know I could have edited it a bit more.  So I have to agree that the majority of the pieces did suffer from a lack of proofreading.  And considering that that is part of the score, I did knock folks down a bit for that.
I have the excuse that I don't take the contest particularly seriously, because there's no *cough* award of any kind for winning, but I don't know what the other folks' problems were.  It could be that.


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## Poetigress (Oct 6, 2008)

Technically, there is supposed to be a small plaque for the winner, but I've yet to see either of mine.


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## foozzzball (Oct 8, 2008)

This is kooky. The website is giving me a 403.6 error:
*HTTP 403.6 - Forbidden: IP address rejected
    Internet Information Services*

Technical Information (for support personnel)

Background:
This error is caused when the server has a list of IP addresses that are not allowed to access the site, and the IP address you are using is in this list.

Anyone else getting this on anthrofiction.net? I'm curious to see what's going to win.


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## Poetigress (Oct 8, 2008)

That's normal.  This usually happens between the close of the judging period and the announcement of the winners -- there's usually a few days to a week of downtime while he calculates all the scores.

I expect he'll also post here with the announcement of the results.


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## foozzzball (Oct 8, 2008)

Ah, okay. Thanks for the heads up!


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## ScottyDM (Oct 9, 2008)

*THE RESULTS ARE READY!*

*New Tricks* by Faceless_Fiend won with a score of *4.38*

*Vincent Newberry* by Le Renard earned a score of *4.11*

*Small Town Strong* by Amber Barnes earned a score of *3.09*

*Food* by Samhuinn Blackhorn earned a score of *3.08*

*Burn: The Legend of the Last Howl* by Azola earned a score of *3.04*

*Enemies or Lovers?* by Kirk earned a score of *3.03*

*Star-Crossed Lovers* by Kirk earned a score of *3.00*

Thanks to everyone for their participation--both authors and readers. And congratulations to Faceless Fiend for the win!

One exciting development is that private comments are now visible to the authors (only) when they view their results page. I'll get this feature rolled back into previous contest results.

Scotty

PS: Poetigress is right. I block all IP addresses but mine while I'm in between stable states. I try to minimize the time the site is blocked.

This quarter I started fiddling with a method to preprocess the ballots right on the website via management pages. Ran into some limitations with my approach and a really dumb@$$ set of functions in PHP. I'll probably have to write my own bubble sort routine in PHP (interpreted bubble sort... oh yaay :? ). However some of what I did helped, a bit. Scores were calculated in a spreadsheet and I have a high confidence in their accuracy. Then they were hand-translated into those little bar graphs one number at a time. :-| So if the graphs seem off it's because they are, but the overall score is solid.


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## M. LeRenard (Oct 9, 2008)

Wooo... second place again.  This makes me feel appreciated.
So something tells me the general readership of your site doesn't like cussing.  Maybe I'll keep that in mind in the future.  Honestly, though, it comes naturally to me, so I didn't even think about it.  I tend to enjoy a story more if there's a little spice added here and there, myself.


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## Shouden (Oct 9, 2008)

I did about what I expected, but I didn't expect to beat the stories that I did nor have the stories that beat me, beat me. Weird. anyways. I appreciated the pointers and things. Thanks. I am looking forward to the next one.

Oh, I am glad "New Tricks" won. that really was the hands down best! Great Job Faceless_Fiend. and Great job to everyone!


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## Frasque (Oct 9, 2008)

M. Le Renard said:


> Wooo... second place again. This makes me feel appreciated.
> So something tells me the general readership of your site doesn't like cussing. Maybe I'll keep that in mind in the future. Honestly, though, it comes naturally to me, so I didn't even think about it. I tend to enjoy a story more if there's a little spice added here and there, myself.


 
Y'know, I don't even recall any cussing in your story. It was quite cute, like a happier version of the Metamorphosis (despite the fact crickets freak me out).


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## TakeWalker (Oct 9, 2008)

Faceless Fiend? Sounds like our own Le Demon sans Visage! Congrats to him and the rest of you!


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## ScottyDM (Oct 10, 2008)

M. Le Renard said:


> Wooo... second place again.  This makes me feel appreciated.


You were brave and when I first read your story I thought some wouldn't understand it and you finish lower in the standings. It's cool most people did get it. Congrats!



M. Le Renard said:


> So something tells me the general readership of your site doesn't like cussing.  Maybe I'll keep that in mind in the future.  Honestly, though, it comes naturally to me, so I didn't even think about it.  I tend to enjoy a story more if there's a little spice added here and there, myself.


I claim the site is "family friendly" so try to keep it down to a dull roar. Another approach is to get creative.


Now to answer an earlier suggestion to ban self-insertion stories because they can be used to identify the author. While I'm not a fan of self-insertion and will knock the enjoyability score down a bit when I run into it, I'm not going to ban the practice. After all the scores were counted up and I saw which names were connected to what stories, I realized there were two self-insertion stories this quarter. Harrrrrumph! :-x I didn't realize it at the time I filled in my ballots. A lost opportunity. :twisted: I just need to know you guys a bit better so I recognize authors by style.

Next time. Death before dishonor!

Scotty


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## Poetigress (Oct 10, 2008)

M. Le Renard said:


> So something tells me the general readership of your site doesn't like cussing.  Maybe I'll keep that in mind in the future.  Honestly, though, it comes naturally to me, so I didn't even think about it.  I tend to enjoy a story more if there's a little spice added here and there, myself.



I only saw one comment that complained about the language, unless you heard more about it privately.  Personally, I don't even remember the cursing in your story, which means it must have come naturally to the narrator -- I do tend to notice it when it's overdone or used gratuitously.


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## M. LeRenard (Oct 10, 2008)

Oh, well I guess there was only one comment besides Scotty's that talked about cussing.  Come to think of it, though (without going back and looking), I think I used the word 'shit' twice.  I can't remember anything else.  That first comment made me feel like I must have riddled the piece with expletives, though: "Far too much cussing..." then a lecture about using more appropriate words.  Hmph: if you're an old man from small-town Nevada, shit is shit.  I think I'm justified here.  But I'll know to avoid anything like that in the future, by gum.

Also, I wanted to get something straight, so I know where you're coming from for next time, Scotty (in the case something else like this comes up): potato bug is definitely another name for the Jerusalem cricket, at the very least colloquially (you can do a Google search to figure this out... or hell, even in Wikipedia: "They are also often called potato bugs.").  I'm wondering why you thought I said he was two different things: I was actually elaborating on the name 'potato bug' with the other two names to make sure there wasn't any confusion.  It seemed perfectly legit to me.  So what did I do to confuse you?


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## Poetigress (Oct 10, 2008)

M. Le Renard said:


> Come to think of it, though (without going back and looking), I think I used the word 'shit' twice.



*nods*  Oh, yeah, I do remember that part.  But it seemed perfectly natural for the narrator's voice.  Honestly, I don't know what other word you could have used to describe it without sounding out of character or calling even more attention to it.  *shrugs*  Some people think it's more important for a story to be "clean" than to be real or truthful, and to them context usually means nothing.


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## ScottyDM (Oct 10, 2008)

M. Le Renard said:


> Oh, well I guess there was only one comment besides Scotty's that talked about cussing.  Come to think of it, though (without going back and looking), I think I used the word 'shit' twice.  I can't remember anything else.  That first comment made me feel like I must have riddled the piece with expletives, though: "Far too much cussing..." then a lecture about using more appropriate words.  Hmph: if you're an old man from small-town Nevada, shit is shit.  I think I'm justified here.  But I'll know to avoid anything like that in the future, by gum.


The other comment was by a young woman (20s) who likes to invite her nieces and nephews to read stuff on the site. While it doesn't need to be squeaky clean, try not to get too crazy. If something is implied it'll fly right over the heads of the little ones and that's okay. However, you can't really imply language.

For me it was the imagery that was somewhat disturbing, but I understood that was part of the story. Perhaps I read more into it than you'd written. Maybe I should go back and look, but my lingering impression is that the narrator was a crotchety old man who was none too careful with his word choices.

First, I'd allowed the story after having read through it once (quickly). Second, I sometimes comment on things, but don't mark a story down because for them. For example if I don't think it's worth a full half-point off.



M. Le Renard said:


> Also, I wanted to get something straight, so I know where you're coming from for next time, Scotty (in the case something else like this comes up): potato bug is definitely another name for the Jerusalem cricket, at the very least colloquially (you can do a Google search to figure this out... or hell, even in Wikipedia: "They are also often called potato bugs.").  I'm wondering why you thought I said he was two different things: I was actually elaborating on the name 'potato bug' with the other two names to make sure there wasn't any confusion.  It seemed perfectly legit to me.  So what did I do to confuse you?


When I read "potato bug" I instantly pictured a small beetle. Then when I read "Jerusalem cricket" I instantly pictured that giant brownish alien monster and spawn of Satan that pretends to be an earth insect. I had _never_ heard "potato bug" applied to the Jerusalem cricket.

Wiki has a disambiguation page for "potato bug" and that should tell you something. My _Encyclopedia of Natural Insect and Disease Control_ has entries for: potato beetle (what I'd pictured) a.k.a. the Colorado potato beetle, potato leafhopper, potato psyllid, and potato tuberworm. All are "bugs" to the unscientific mind. Plus Wiki suggests that the woodlouse, a.k.a. pill bug or roly-poly is known as "potato bug" to some. Yes, I saw potatobug.com, but long after I'd read your story.

It was my personal reaction to your "beetle-cricket hybrid" that created a WTF moment for me. I felt like you should make up your mind about what sort of bug Vincent thought he was.

Probably the best approach is to use a critique group and get a reaction from a handful of widely scattered readers. In the past I've had one reader ask me what a vixen was, and another ask what a muzzle was. So after getting your feedback you have to decide what to accept and what represents the view of a tiny minority. Also, how hard would it be to fix to avoid confusing the minority. There is such a thing as overwriting, but if one or two words can fix it then go for it.

The bottom line? I gave you a 4.0 in enjoyability and a 3.5 in technical. At best I might have bumped one of those up by half a point had you excluded the phrase "potato bug" from your story.

Scotty


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## M. LeRenard (Oct 10, 2008)

There's potatobug.com (which I scanned briefly), and there's a whole host of other sites (and even a few articles in scientific journals I found) that make the same claim that often the Jerusalem cricket is called a 'potato bug', because it eats roots and is often found in potato fields.
http://www.sdnhm.org/fieldguide/inverts/sten-fus.html


> Commonly referred to as "potato bugs," even though they do not prefer potatoes and are technically not bugs, they are also called niÃ±a de la tierra (child-of-the-earth), stone cricket or chaco.


http://www.unce.unr.edu/publications/files/ho/other/fs9935.pdf


> It is also called â€œPotato Bugâ€ because it has been found in potato fields feeding on the roots and tubers of the crop.


http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Jerusalem_cricket


> It is also often called the potato bug, or alternatively the old bald-headed man.



Etc., the list goes on.  Not to mention, I actually used to live in Nevada, and heard them called this a number of times (though most often people called them 'children of the earth').  Seems to actually be a pretty common name for them, but since I also knew it applied to a number of other things, I made sure to add Jerusalem cricket and nino de la tierra as well.
So I guess, for future reference, maybe don't be so quick to take off points for what you perceive to be a lack of research.  Don't want anybody's scores being docked unnecessarily.


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## ScottyDM (Oct 11, 2008)

So you're going to tell your readers how they should _feel_ about your stories? You're going to tell them they should do research before they start reading?

If you had written only "potato bug" I would have assumed you were talking about a beetle and been fine with your story, if a bit confused why a bug that eats potato plants was also eating dirt. Or if you'd written only "Jerusalem cricket" I would have assumed you were talking about that big weird looking brown cricket that eats dirt. It's your piling on of names that created the problem for me, not some perceived lack of research on your part.

As far as scoring. Other people get to mark whatever they please for their scores. If you look at your bar graphs you'll note that you have a cluster of very good scores for theme--with the exception of one person who gave you a 1. Obviously this person didn't read the theme page or didn't understand it. Perhaps they thought your story wasn't "furry" enough or something.

Sometimes it frustrates me when I see scores by readers who don't seem to get it. But the scores are the scores. As long as I don't detect cheating I let them stand.

One quarter I had a fifth criteria that was optional: a specific plot. The theme was transformation and the plot was the same one as in _The Little Mermaid_, but not the plot for _Beauty and the Beast_ (the sex of the transformee wasn't the issue). Plot counted only 10% of the total and in the rules I said I was to be the sole judge if a story met that criteria, and it was to be a go-no go decision. Unfortunately the site code back then wasn't very good and when the ballot page-building code pulled stuff from the contest and rules databases to build the page, it built selectors for all five criteria for everyone, and it did 1 through 5 for plot not just 1 _or_ 5. So I had many people score plot. One story followed my plot outline exactly, but it didn't insert any twists or surprises (allowable under my outline, but not required). One reader gave that story a 1 for plot. Clearly they neither read the rules nor had any clue how plot was to be judged. The criteria wasn't "Did you think the plot was interesting?" but "Does this story follow the outline for plot?" I wonder what they thought later when they saw I gave that story a perfect 5 for plot.

Anyway, if others get to be brain dead about how they score a story, I get to knock half a point off your score on my personal ballot because your story confused me. It is only one ballot out of many (nine in this case).

Scotty


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## M. LeRenard (Oct 11, 2008)

No... but generally when there's a word in something I'm reading that I don't understand, I go look it up, rather than assume the author was using it incorrectly.  It's kind of the same thing here.  I mean, was the rest of the story so incoherent that you would just immediately assume I'd made a gaff?  If it was, then so be it, and the discussion's over.
Anyway, I guess I just assumed your scores would be more of a correction for the other ones (like the 1 on theme you mentioned), in that you seem to be extraordinarily well-educated and thoughtful.  I figured I ought to point that one out so that, in the future, you might be a little more careful.  You're always going to be a judge, so it'd be nice if we all knew our one permanent judge wasn't going to be consistently docking points for something silly.
Get my drift?  But anyway, that's all I have to say about that.


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