Winter Writing Contest 2019

A hale and hearty hello to one and all. The time for the highly anticipated FAKKU! Writing and Fanfiction section's annual Winter Writing Contest has come again. Members of the community new and old are welcome to try out and submit any kind of original written work from poetry to prose. Similar to last year, there will be no judges. There will still be a poll, but it will be for fun. In the past, the winners were able to receive some nice FAKKU! Prizes. This year, depending on the number of participants, there might be participation gifts instead to encourage everyone to contribute something. However, please take your submission seriously and avoid tossing something in with little effort just to get a prize. 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, 2020 (EST, GMT-5). Submissions posted after this date cannot be included, so please participate, prepare your submissions, and remember to have fun in this seasonal and festive time of the year!

Rules

1. No word limit.

2. The themes this year will be: Aging, Serenity, and/or Winter/Holidays. The first two themes were suggested by d(^_^)(^_^)d, Cinia Pacifica, and xninebreaker respectively and I felt it appropriate to include the ability to also base your entries on winter/holidays if you desire to. You’re also welcome to write outside these themes if you wish, or something you’ve been planning for a while. Feel free to use these as a starting point.

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

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

5. Please avoid having someone else privately 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. However, feel free to post and ask the community for advice during or after the contest.

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 2019] at the front of your entry's thread title. An example would be "[Winter Contest Entry 2019] Fakku's Wonderful Christmas".

8. Each contestant can submit any amount of entries, but they will not receive multiple prizes for doing so. One (1) prize per author.

Deadline

The deadline for entries is 00:00 of New Year's Day, the 1st of January, 2020 (EST, GMT-5). Entries after this time will have to be disregarded.

Judging

There will be no judges this year and thus no Judge's Choice or runner-up award, there will however 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 title. The user receiving second in the polls will be a runner-up for this award who will also be commended for their close placement. There will be no additional prize for placing in the polls, however.

Prizes

Those who place 1st, 2nd, or 3rd on the community vote will earn a subscription to FAKKU for 1 year, 3 months, or a month respectively, and each one will also receive a digital FAKKU published book of their choice. For a list of current and planned releases, check this link to the FAKKU! Store Manga & Doujinshi page.
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Ask any questions you may have in this thread. You may PM me 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; I wish you the best of luck. And of course, happy holidays!

Credits go to waterflame for working on 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 it will NOT be counted.

--Can I submit multiple entries?

Yes, there is no limit to the number of entries one may submit this year. However, you will not get multiple prizes for doing so.

--Does it have to be under a certain number of words?

No, there is no restriction on word count this year. However, it may amuse you to know that people could make do with 1000 words in the first contest.

--Can I change or edit my entry?

Sure, but please announce it and let us in the community know. You can change or edit your entry up until the deadline - 00:00 of the 1st of January, 2020 (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 the community 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 poll here.

Winners

Reader's Choice: Congratulations goes to xninebreaker for his winning submission Rain.

Reader's Choice Runner-ups: Congratulations also goes to crazr, FYakuza, and I for tying with the entries Once More for the Last Time, The Sexy Cat Wizard, and The Emerald Sentry.

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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.

- 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.

I feel like I'm less and less prepared to write solo the more time elapses in life, but it's nice to see the tradition going strong even if the site's community has more or less moved on.

Good luck to those entering.

I was wondering if this was happening this year. I seem to always get back into a bit of a writing mood during contests. I hope I can produce something this year.

A bit late but good luck to anyone entering! I'm gonna see if I can get the gears going as well!

Since we can write something that's outside of the themes listed in the opening post, I'll enter my story just for the heck of it.

The story I'm calling "Naughty Business" is something I've been working on for a while now and has nothing to do with the holidays...Well, unless "Naughty or Nice" can be included under Winter/Holidays LOL.

https://www.fakku.net/forums/writing-and-fanfiction/winter-contest-entry-2019-naughty-business#4766553

Here you go.

Once More for the Last Time

Thank you, gammenon and crazr for your entries so far. This is a two week notice for the participants to get your entries in.

I also have been in contact with John, FAKKU Staff, active in the FAKKU Discord server, who has spoken with Jacob in regards to working out prizes for the contest. It was suggested that there be a generous gift to the top 3 contestants this year, voted on by the community.

1st place gets a one year Sub and a book of their choice
2nd gets a 3 month sub with a book of their choice
3rd gets a month sub and a book of their choice

I hope this will serve as effective motivation for those still working on their entries! Please extend all thanks to FAKKU for their continued support of this community event of ours!

I'm here to post my entry for this year's event: The Emerald Sentry.

With that, this will also serve as a reminder post to everyone that you have two, really two and a half, days remaining to finalize your entries and get them submitted. I wish the rest of you much success in putting in your finishing touches.

https://www.fakku.net/forums/writing-and-fanfiction/winter-contest-entry-2019-the-sexy-cat-wizard heres mine. Sorry if its bad

Thank you all for your entries.

As of now, the deadline for the contest is passed and submissions will no longer be accepted. Stay tuned for the Reader's poll that will be posted in a couple days.

Thank you for your participation and Happy New Year! May you find the year of double criticals (2020) with good fortune!

https://www.fakku.net/forums/writing-and-fanfiction/winter-contest-entry-2019-rain

Sorry, I forgot to post my entry on the main thread! I hope that you'll still accept it.

Yeah, of course. I saw it shortly after you posted it and edited it into the list. You're fine, xnine. Thanks for coming back to post.

I know the contest is over. But i have a question if you were to do another writing contest. Can i submit a light novel or Doujin to it? What i mean is i write a story and pay an artist to turn it into a manga.

I might be suffering a kind of deja vu, but this might have happened in the past where someone submitted a comic they used a program to form panels and characters to go along with the dialogue of their story.

I would be fine with something like that happening and being submitted, but since this is the Writing and Fanfiction section and it is writing contests that we have here, the focus will be on the literary measure of your submission. That means that I would essentially ignore the visual elements of your submission and rate it based entirely on the dialogue and narration. That's how we used to judge submissions, back when there was a judging part of the process, but we're foregoing that now to better encourage participation. So, you could do so and the public can vote however they wish.

The only concern I would have personally is that someone, whoever the artist is that you would be paying to illustrate your light novel, that would be the equivalent of having someone else enhance your story, which is against the rules of the contest, because it's not a skill coming from you directly. I would have to assume that all the writing would be your original work, but there would be no way to tell if the artist didn't have any say. Really there would be no way to prove either way anyway, so I'd say just go for it if you aim to do that for next year. If it helps you get creative enough to write, then that's really the spirit of what this contest is trying for.

Just so you're aware, I help to run the winter contest. In the past, we've had other users sponsor or run contests for other seasons (Valentines, summer, Halloween) but they are not annual. So, your next opportunity might only come December 1st of 2020, but who knows what the future may bring?

Thank you for your question.

The poll for this year is up and you can find it here. Please cast your vote after giving each one a nice read and remember to leave a comment on the submission threads if you'd like.

Happy voting, all.

Thank you for answering my question. The reason why i ask is because for me writing in a light novel format is easier to write for me then writing a novel.
Because a light novel is all about the dialog over description. Not saying that light novel don't have description or don't do it. Rather their focus on the description is usually minimal do to having artwork of the character, background or locations. And for me that great because in all honesty,I'm not great at describing things.
For example here one of my characters(https://www.deviantart.com/ludedwolf/art/Ventera-The-Ironclad-776749377). How would you describe her if you was writing a story about her? I don't even know where to begin.
Or how would you described this sword right here(https://www.deviantart.com/ludedwolf/art/Skull-Buster-661715139)? Again, I don't even know how. But thinks to the light novel format i don't have to. I just need to focus on the rest of the story. As for how can you tell if the artist i hire doesn't influence my story? Good point, you don't but there might be away there two options. First instead of writing a story or light novel. I write a script first. That way before the light novel is done. That way when i do make the light novel(or manga). You or the judges and everyone else can take a look at the script and compare it to the light novel(or manga). To see if it matches or devient from it. The second option is instead of me hiring an artist. I use Daz3d instead.
Daz3d is a 3D rendering engine that comes with custom characters, and environments that can be manipulated into poses, animations, etc... Into a scene that i can rendered. Here a video that explain what Daz3d is. (https://youtu.be/5BQ6B7ZwFM0)
Plus there Facegen(https://youtu.be/TDHTHrYXLoI). I can make a Daz3d model look like anyone. And i have the skills to do that. In fact let me ask you something Xenon. Is there a famous star or public person that you like?

I feel like you can just submit the script and it would be a valid entry. I could make a game with an incredible story, dialogue, and narrative, but have it be intertwined with the game mechanics. When that sort of thing happens, the gameplay IS part of the story, and thus the script does not do it justice. If this is the same for your art, then I think this kind of contest is just not suited to truly highlight your work; the contest will not fit the scope of your story.

Struggling to describe places, people, and objects is all part of writing. If you want to get better at it, then you just have to keep at it. If you are using the art as a crutch, then your writing will suffer in the long term.