IWT8: Science Fiction

[Cat2000]

Okay, good news? My story is over 20 rooms and meets at least three of the points to make it applicable for the contest.

Bad news? I lost interest quite a while ago, so therefore, it's unfinished and will, more than likely, remain that way. I didn't get nearly as much done as I should have.

[donteatpoop]

Sometimes I just read the last two posts and fail to scroll up past them.

[End Master]

Given that it was DEP, it's probably both.

[Vesnic]

Mizal has been missing for a while. I hope she comes back.

Was that a poorly conceived joke or is the senility just setting in early?

[donteatpoop]

Mizal has been missing for a while. I hope she comes back.

[End Master]

Kaze has been added.

So far we've got 11 participants and confirmations on 4 named stories either ready or supposed to be ready soon.

I'm pretty sure that Usoki will show up with something at the last minute as usual and if all else fails Mizal will probably just use the story she already was working on before the new one.

Not sure about Dream or Cat though. I know Dream lurks a lot so maybe he's just keeping things top secret. Cat disappeared again though, same for Crunchy.

I think Tim is going to be a no show and Chubby was a long shot anyway, but perhaps he'll surprise everyone and make his monster come back with CRACK ATTACK 2: ELECTRIC SPACE WHORES SNIFFING GLUE

[KazeYami]

Hi! Uh, I'm going to enter this contest with my very silly Cthulhu story. Um, go me! Wish me luck, I hope to finish this story today. :3

[mizal]

I was doing really well on my story but then I took an arrow to the knee.

Also we had a bad scare with my grandmother in November and now she's just generally not doing very well and that sucks, plus holidays etc. and for some reason literally one hundred trillion million billion people where I work decided to retire over the last couple of months and we had to throw parties for them all in addition to the usual PITA Thanksgiving and Christmas stuff.

Pointless whining aside, I have way over 20 pages already so no big deal, however I've gotten pretty attached to this project and have this crazy fantasy about actually finishing it before I release it instead of just leaving major plot threads hanging all over the place that I intend to get back to but never will. So I'm going to use the extension to scribble out 20 pages of a new story instead.

So anyway I hope you all enjoy this random crap I'm haphazardly throwing together instead of cleaning the house today and feel special with the knowledge that I'm doing it just for you.

[Usoki]

Oh, good. And, y'know, I've got 45% more done by this point than I normally would at this time in the contest, so I'm actually quite pleased.

And, really, it's not like this could be my fault in any way. I mean, everyone knows the first ten months are just a formality. And after that, I finally ran out of excuses not to do NaNoWriMo. And, y'know, you can't not work on your novel when you're doing NaNoWriMo, so that was one month down. And after that, I had to play the new Zelda game. The new Zelda game, which, incidentally, had actually been released ten days prior (which I preordered for the Wiimote and then picked up that day because I frankly trust GameStop about as much as I can throw them, which isn't very far at all seeing as how they're either a giant building or an intangible corporation, and neither of those things can even be picked up, let alone thrown) and then put behind my TV so that I could finish NaNoWriMo without seeing it and having it taunt me. And although I don't think it was that padded with pointless filler (filler, perhaps, but interesting and fun filler) it still took me around 50 hours, so that took quite a few days, and everyone knows you can't beat a Zelda game and then go into an intense RPG without first cleansing the action-platformer pallet, so now I'm replaying M&L:SS because it's short and jovial and just barely an RPG compared to the FF game I'm getting for Christmas this year and...

...what day is it?

[End Master]

Like there was any other choice?

January 16th is the new deadline.

[dreamshell]

Who am I, new blood that I am, to get in the way of tradition? The fact that I would also benefit from its perpetuation is surely moot.

[donteatpoop]

So... Thoughts on our tradition of extending the deadline?

[BatCountry]

EndMaster, I do wish to submit my Darkblade story into the contest. If i get judged more harshly by some people, by all means do what you feel is fair. I think zac and I have found ourselves in similar situations in that we came to this website and both began writing a science fiction story.

We LATER joined the forums and much to our suprise there was a story contest for science fiction stories! Now if my story had been set in the old west I would of never even thought about asking EndMaster if my story should be considered, but it just happened that it was sci fi and the contest is also sci fi. As EndMaster said, 80% of my story was written after the announcement of the contest.

Vesnic suggested we delete pre-contest pages, but I know anyone who reads my story without the basic set up is going to be lost very quickly. I apologize for being Newbie McNooberton and having to have some rules bent a little, but I feel that overall it would be better to allow my Darkblade story and Zacs star wars story into the contest, unedited.

I'm cool with being judged harsher; I just want people to give me critical input on my stories, so whatever is decided will work for me. My second story is completley different in tone than my Darkblade story so I figured variety is the spice of life and the more the merrier. I can keep throwing out cliched phrases like this all day mind you (I have figured out how to give them physical form and weaponize them in my secret laboratory).

ANYHOOT, I look forward to reading all the sci fi goodness in less than a month. Keep it creamy fellas.

[Locke]

I'm not denying that there are biases of all kinds that can potentially affect how stories are judged. However, if a rule is going to be bent in order to allow for a submission to be made in its entirety, then this allowance should cease to be a factor in how people judge the story.

I doubt many people - if anyone - will purposefully judge the entries more harshly. I certainly don't intend to. The stories may carry some distinction in one or two members' minds for being exceptions to the general guidelines - which isn't necessarily a bad thing, if the writing is good - and I was adding a word of caution along those those lines, not trying to set precedent. Probably could've worded it better.

[End Master]

That confuses the judging a bit, though.

Doesn't confuse anything as far as I'm concerned. Judge how you want, it's that simple. You already said how you're going to judge the stories purely on their own merits and that's how you should do it because that's what you believe in.

Really though, I doubt if anyone's actually going to give Zac or Bat all 1s due to having a few pre-contest pages in their story, but at the same time if someone here REALLY has a grievance with how the rules have been bent/broken, I wouldn't fault the person for marking those stories down because they'd have a point as well.