Winter Writing Contest 2016

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, 2017 (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 last year's winners, Cinia Pacifica and Yanker. So, please participate, prepare your submissions, and remember to have fun in this most exciting and activity-filled time of the year!

Rules

1. 5000 word limit! A big increase from years past.

2. The themes this year will be: Science fiction and/or Fantasy. Although these two are the focus, as well as the combination of the two known as "science fantasy," another term to look at would be "speculative fiction" in which these narrower terms reside. Feel free to also base your entries on winter/holidays if you wish, although it is not a required element.

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 2016] at the front of your entry's thread title. An example would be "[Winter Contest Entry 2016] 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, 2017 (EST, GMT-5). Entries after this time will have to be disregarded.

Judging

A panel of three judges - Cinia Pacifica, Yanker, 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

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.

Lastly, 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.

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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 5000 words?

My goodness, yes. If people could make do with 1000 words in the first contest, and 1500/2000 words in past contests, 5000 should definitely 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, 2017 (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 and only poll here.

Winners

You can view the Winners declared in a 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 5000 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.

Good luck everyone! Even though technique should play a bigger role than luck. Looking forward to reading these for the first time as a judge.

Good luck to all the participants. I said yes to the 5000 word limit but it's already making me feel lazy. Hoho.

Let us hope the contest is a success.

Ah, yes, here we go again.

And hello again everyone. Every time I've said I'd try to be here more often, alas, only to show up during this time of the year. Oh well. I have been stalking all day for this post.

I read through the Summer Contest post so I know why this year's word limits is up to 5000. There will be one of two scenarios for me: either I don't have to painstakingly edit my entry, or I will doubly do so.

I welcome both.

I need to think of something silly again. A silly idea will come naturally enough.

I've never really been that good of a writer, nor do I think I'll ever win one of these, but it always expands my horizons a bit, so why the hell not?

Count me in again ^_^

Funny because I have been having an idea for a story before the contest announcement that just fit right in the theme.

Man, that's a really cool banner actually. Nicely ties with the themes of the contest.

That word increase is wild. 5000 words, holy moly, DOUBLE the usual length. I'm sure the increase will help a lot of people, myself likely included. The themes are pretty interesting. Very board, but still interesting in that it'll give rise to extremely different stories. Anyways, good luck to everyone! I'll be gunning for first, and maybe this time I won't submit on the last day.

I am not worthy... My confidence is at an all time low right now. I don't even know what I'd write about! Oh God! Panic attack!

Another year almost over, another writing contest, another chance to win free p--I mean, another chance to test our skills against others and improve. On a side note, fuck school.

Hello! I'm new around here. I hope you enjoy my story.

The Drowned Eschaton

Will it be coming out soon? Someone has already produced an entry!

But that aside, what a coincidence! I now have an idea for a story. I have posted half written drafts somewhere in this forum.

bruh



You can't rush artists! That being said, I now have half of a first draft, so hopefully soon-ish.

Two more weeks left, folks. Just a minor heads up!

I hope the process is coming along for everyone.

It's coming along great . . .

Submitting an entry yourself?

Of course! It just may or may not get done at Dec 31st at 11:00 this year.

As requested by the fans of the Writing and Fanfiction section, this thread has been stickied!

Good luck to all the participants!