Winter Writing Contest 2015

Ladies and gentlemen. The time has come again for the FAKKU! Writing and Fanfiction section's annual Winter Writing contest. If you are willing to give it your all, then you are welcome to try out and submit any kind of original written work from poetry to prose. The winners will receive some nice FAKKU! prizes, in addition to fame and respect. You can discuss the contest and find the rules and guidelines in this thread.

The contest will accept entries until its deadline which is 00:00 of New Year's Day, the 1st of January, 2016 (EST, GMT-5). Submissions posted after this date cannot be included, so please hurry to submit your entry and join in on the fun!

It is my honor to have the privilege of hosting this competition alongside one of last year's winners, leonard267, in addition to a wonderful veteran community member here in the Writing and Fanfiction section, high_time. So, please participate, prepare your submissions, and remember to have fun in this most exciting and activity-filled time of the year!

Rules

1. 2000 word limit.

2. The theme this year will be: Comedy and/or Elderly. Provide the judges and your readers with a story containing either humor, or a plot involving older people or family members such as parents, grand-parents, uncles, or aunts, or perhaps all of the above!

3. It can be any kind of creative writing - stories and poetry are welcome.

4. It must be your own work. We will be looking very closely at your words for anything that has been plagiarized.

5. Please avoid having someone else edit/improve/fix errors in your entry. It goes against the spirit of the contest in questioning whether your submission is truly your original work.

6. Keep posts in this topic relevant. Comments are allowed, and submissions should be posted here as links to separate Writing and Fanfiction forum threads. Details can be found in the post below.

7. Please try to include the following tag [Winter Contest Entry 2015] at the front of your entry's thread title. An example would be "[Winter Contest Entry 2015] Fakku's Wonderful Christmas".

8. Each contestant is allowed to submit a maximum of one (1) entry.

Deadline

The deadline for entries is 00:00 of New Year's Day, the 1st of January, 2016 (EST, GMT-5). Entries after this time will have to be disregarded.

Judging

A panel of three judges - leonard267, high_time, and myself - will analyze the submissions very carefully, select the ones we find the most exemplary, explain the reasoning behind them, and declare the winner of the Judge's Choice award. There will be a runner-up selected for this award who will be commended for their close placement.

There will also be a public poll on the selection of top picks come January so that everyone gets their say. The winner of the public opinion on Fakku will receive the Reader's Choice award. The user receiving second in the polls will be a runner-up for this award who will also be commended for their close placement.

Prizes

Due to popular demand and the fun of it all, I will be returning with my personally written 3 stanza poem dedicated to the winners, and a limerick to the runners-up.

But seriously, and additionally, the winner of the Judge's Choice and Reader's Choice awards will each win up to $25 in purchase value towards items on the FAKKU Store, J-List, or other online retailers within reason. This can include two months of subscription to FAKKU! or a physical FAKKU! publication delivered to you.

Those in the runners-up positions will win their choice of any one (1) current or future digital FAKKU publication, a $10 value. For a list of current and planned releases, check this link to the FAKKU! Store Manga & Doujinshi page. This could also be a full month subscription to FAKKU!

Of course, the winners will also gain the praise of the Writing and Fanfiction section.

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Ask any questions you may have in this thread. You may PM one of the judges instead if you would like.

Also, please try to leave some comments on the entries of the participants, whether constructive or supportive. It doesn't matter whether you're a fellow writer, a participant yourself, or someone who barely writes and just reads; writers enjoy comments and feedback from almost anyone.

So please give it a shot and get your ideas out there; we wish you the best of luck. And of course, happy holidays!

Credits go to waterflame for the this year's banner. Thank you!

F.A.Q.s
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--How do I submit my Entry?

Make a new thread for your entry in the Writing and Fanfiction Section. Then, copy the link of your entry and post it in this thread.

You MUST post the link of your entry in this thread or else, we will NOT count it.

--Can I submit multiple entries?

For every users' entries, there will be a limit of one (1). It is not yet known how many will be participating. However, each judge has to read every entry. In order to avoid potential eye strain, please limit your entries to one piece please.

--Does it absolutely have to be under 2000 words?

Yes. If people could make do with 1000 words in the first contest, then 2000 words should be more than enough.

--Can I change or edit my entry?

Sure, but please announce and let us judges know. You can change or edit your entry up until the deadline - 00:00 of the 1st of January, 2016 (EST, GMT-5).

--Can I take ideas, or have a parody from an already-existing work?

Sure you can. However, you need to explain it to us that you did and have permission from the owner of that work if it's a work located on these forums. We may suspect plagiarism otherwise. Just leave a footnote regarding it in your thread.

--Do I have to include adult/sexual contents in my entry?

This is purely your choice. We don't mind if sexual content is present. We don't encourage or discourage it.

--What is this poll and how is it going to work?

Depending on the number of entries, we may have multiple polls. The top users in each poll will move on to the Final poll. The winner of the Final poll will receive the Reader's Choice award. The second highest will receive the Runner-up award.

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Polls

Closed: You can view the first poll here.

Closed: You can view the second poll here.

Closed: You can view the third poll here.

Closed: You can view the final poll here.

Each poll will be open for 2 days, except for the Finals which will be open for 3 days.

If you do not see your name or the name of someone you wish to vote for on a particular poll in the near future when a poll is ongoing, it is because they are either going to be on a future poll or have already been on a previous one.

Winners

You can view the Winners declared in this thread here.

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List of entrants and their submissions:


If your name is not on this list, it means:

- You did not post a link to your submission as instructed by the rules above.

- Your entry did not follow the rules, being that it went over 2000 words or was not somehow related to the theme.

- Your entry was not posted before the deadline.

- The list is yet to be updated.

If you've made an error from any of the infractions described above, then your entry may not be included, but you will be notified of such and given the opportunity to fix as appropriate, unless the deadline has passed.

May or may not enter this year. Good luck everyone... and holy shit the most ridiculous judge panel ever! Lmao.

High, Leonard, and Xenon eh? That's quite the panel we've got. I'm actually glad to see that High is still around.

And comedy/elderly... kind of strange themes for winter; I feel like Leonard had his hand in this decision! Either way, I'm game and I'll most likely be in. Let's hope we get a ton of entries this year. Good luck to anyone entering!

I thought the same thing when I was asked to make a banner.. I was like Winter and comedy/elderly.. what an interesting theme... X3

Well those are some certainly unexpected themes. I've never really tried writing anything comedic before, but it's worth the challenge I guess. Leonard being in the panel of judges for a comedy submission scares me though haha

I think it will be fair if I explain how I would be judging the entries.

You needn't strictly adhere to the contest themes though I would certainly prefer a piece of work that suits my tastes (which coincidentally are the contest themes).

I have long harboured this dark desire to make everyone write the way I write. If Xenon's memory doesn't fail him, he would be able to remember me sharing this with him. If that isn't possible, at least I would like the entry to suit my tastes in reading.

Now this begs the question of what I (who intend to sadistically manipulate your desire to lay your hands on free pornographic material by making you write things you wouldn't normally write) prefer.

Here is a link:

https://www.fakku.net/forums/writing-and-fanfiction/valentine-2014-leonard267-hosts-the-valentines-day-event

Here is a spoiler:



Here is another link encouraging you to cyberstalk me by going through my previous posts where I complain about other people's work and how they ought to write.

https://www.fakku.net/users/leonard267/posts

If you find it hard to go through all of that, I would simply say that:

1. I would like something straightforward and simple to understand. I love background information and hate the A Game of Thrones prologue.

2. I don't really like descriptions of sex in my reading material unless it is meant to make me laugh. I don't really like expletives especially those that try to make me laugh.

3. Tonal shifts, silly plot twists and anti-climaxes are my idea of humour.

4. I like to hear people complain.

5. Please go through one or two of the threads I started. Chances are that it will even be harder to go through what I have posted so far!

6. (I think high_time would like it if you didn't show off your vocabulary. While I can deal with one or two words that are rarely put into writing we both like things to be simple and silly.)

7. Could you give high_time credit for coming up with the "Elderly" theme? "Comedy" is my idea though.

As for myself, I feel honored to be a part of the judging panel. I hope you guys have fun with this event, just write something that suits you best according to the theme.

I'm looking forward to seeing the entries that would make a powerful impact. My literacy levels ain't that decent to understand the more profoundly written prose or poetry, but I'll try my best. That to be said, let's do our best together for this event, but if you feel like being a lazy bum and procrastinate all day, I guess it's also fine.

Hahaha...

Glad to hear it! May I know why?



Now that terrifies me!

Leonard and High, nice to see you guys are still around. I thought you were both dead. Not sure how I feel about Leonard being a judge though. Nothing against you personally. It's just that in the past we've fundamentally disagreed on almost everything writing-related.

Hm... Another contest? I guess I could always give it a go. What a colorful panel of judges, though... Hahaha!

Don't think too much. You can win this judge over by trying to make him laugh.



Love to see you attempt to try and write the way I do. You will get bonus marks from me I assure you.

Well I'm not really a comedic person so if ever I try my hand at the Comedy theme, it'll probably come out through means of dark humor which a lot might not appreciate and laugh at. Hence, I would probably follow the Elderly theme and try to apply some dark humor. (I think you guys know where this is going lol)

There are 15 days left, everyone! Just your friendly reminder.

Report in with my entry.

Link to my entry

A White Christmas

Come on, people! Six days left!

I'm honestly a little sad that Dawn, El Chacal, Nejik, or Sound of Destiny didn't pop up to post an entry this time.

Gotta believe in the Dec. 31st mass influx!