Current and future writing projects

[Usoki]

Calm the fuck down, J. I never said that the city couldn't be a character. A city is usually a setting. Not always, but usually. All settings are not characters. So if the city were a setting, it would not be a character. But at no point did I ever say the city had to be a setting. In the event of an intelligent city? It would be an intelligent being, and thus a character. It would also be a specific entity, and not just some random city which happens to be intelligent.

What is confusing about your sentence, aside from the original glaring typo, is your choice of articles. You use the phrase "a city"- a, implying that it is one of many cities out there- it is one of a group, which all share similar traits. Detroit is a city, not unlike New York City or Chicago or wherever else. None of these cities are intelligent. Therefore, the initial impulse is to assume the city that you are talking about is equally trivial.

Had you said 'the city', it would have been different. 'The' city, as in 'one of a kind'. This city has special and unique properties- if it didn't, it would just be 'a' city.

You also weren't taking flak for it until you flipped a shit.

Everyone look at JJJ! Hah! I am giving him flak so that he might take it! Hah!

[Ryan_DuBois]

You guys are both whack. All the small details aside, it was a bit confusing, J3. Mostly because it was an unusual sentence. It would be like me typing:

"Alright, I've gotta go relieve myself in the sink and head for work, so I'll talk to you later! Make sure to send that letter out by Friday!"

Even though you can't really deduce any other meaning from the first sentence, it would keep you wondering if I had made some horrible typo or had worded things poorly, just because of how odd it was.

Oh, and End. I've always thought that "enjoyment" is the category that would suffer if a story didn't follow the theme or got too linear. I don't really mind if you'd like to add in another category, though. This way, people would be forced to dock points on stories that don't follow the rules, so it sounds alright.

[Ryan_DuBois]

Crunchyfrog has some words for us:

I have 9 rooms created for the competition already - one is an introduction so I guess that doesn't count, two are what I would consider as 'finished', and three that are in first draft. I have a further three that are really just sketches and could change. Overall I have about 3,000 words.

I've never entered a competition with such a long deadline but is there any minimum limit to the number of words you are expected to write, here?

[End Master]

Ryan: Nah, I wasn't going to add another category, I was just asking if we should in the future, but the explanations you and Usoki mentioned sounded alright to me since that's sort of how I was docking points anyway.

I remember there were a couple of contest years where we had 4 grading categories. I think we added enjoyment but later on plot and originality got combined into one category, so it went back to 3.

Crunchy: No minimum or maximum word requirements.

[Usoki]

There are no word requirements, because it is assumed that a story with a poor word count will be scored poorly. This is also true for a story with a poor room count- but since 20 rooms is what determines when a story will appear visible to others on the main site, it makes for a better rubric.

[mizal]

Crunchyfrog's question got me thinking, do we really need a whole year to do this?

And if you happen to finish your story eight months early, do you just tuck it away somewhere and hold on to it until it's closer to the deadline or what?

[Ryan_DuBois]

Crunchyfrog's question got me thinking, do we really need a whole year to do this?

Most definitely. If you're anything like us, you'll see why. Even if you do turn out to be a lot more prolific than the average bear, we have guys like DEP who are working and have families (and plan on writing novels alongside entering IS tournaments).

I, myself, only really find time to write during my breaks. Next semester might be a little better, but as for now...

And if you happen to finish your story eight months early, do you just tuck it away somewhere and hold on to it until it's closer to the deadline or what?

I think you can technically release it early, but then you lose the element of surprise AND you risk your story getting "stale" with all the other judges. Not a big deal, but I think most people still wait until a couple days before the due date.

[Usoki]

If you happen to finish eight months early, I recommend hiding it away and then writing another one.

You are not limited to one entry. Nor are you banned from writing anything unrelated to the contest theme.

[JJJ-thebanisher]

Calm the fuck down, J. I never said that the city couldn't be a character. A city is usually a setting. Not always, but usually. All settings are not characters. So if the city were a setting, it would not be a character. But at no point did I ever say the city had to be a setting. In the event of an intelligent city? It would be an intelligent being, and thus a character. It would also be a specific entity, and not just some random city which happens to be intelligent.

What is confusing about your sentence, aside from the original glaring typo, is your choice of articles. You use the phrase "a city"- a, implying that it is one of many cities out there- it is one of a group, which all share similar traits. Detroit is a city, not unlike New York City or Chicago or wherever else. None of these cities are intelligent. Therefore, the initial impulse is to assume the city that you are talking about is equally trivial.

Had you said 'the city', it would have been different. 'The' city, as in 'one of a kind'. This city has special and unique properties- if it didn't, it would just be 'a' city.

You also weren't taking flak for it until you flipped a shit.

Everyone look at JJJ! Hah! I am giving him flak so that he might take it! Hah!

Oh come on, what I said was hardly "flipping a shit". In fact, I'd say it was more mellow than throwing around "incoherent gibberish" and bullshit like that. And I meant, "a city" and not "the city". "The city" would imply that a specific special city was in question, but it was a more general query, as in, could "a city" become the main character of my story and would it qualify as Urban Fantasy.

Now again, maybe I wasn't extremely clear, but incoherent gibberish? Really?

[Usoki]

That was hours ago. Whatever emotion fueled that rant is long gone. I seldom mean what I say to the fullest extent that one could interpret it. If in doubt, assume I'm exaggerating, and shrug it off. If I hate you, it'll be pretty obvious. Not because my language becomes any more clear, but because everyone else is already hating you. Or, I suppose, if I'm consistantly an asshole. But drums and Mega are too stupid to pick up on this.

[JJJ-thebanisher]

That was hours ago. Whatever emotion fueled that rant is long gone. I seldom mean what I say to the fullest extent that one could interpret it. If in doubt, assume I'm exaggerating, and shrug it off. If I hate you, it'll be pretty obvious. Not because my language becomes any more clear, but because everyone else is already hating you. Or, I suppose, if I'm consistantly an asshole. But drums and Mega are too stupid to pick up on this.

Touche.

[End Master]

Definitely feeling a lot more on a roll with this contest story. I've got about 24 rooms finished at this point. I think I'm going to have to divide this story into multiple chapters because it's going to get really big with the way it's going so far.

[Ryan_DuBois]

Ya, I think you guys need to slow down. I mean, I'm glad (and surprised) that the site has become more productive than ever before, but 24 rooms?

That's just too many.

I guess it's a good thing I'm doing a collab.

[End Master]

I can't slow down, I can't hold back, there ain't no rest for the wicked (or something like that).

But I wouldn't worry about it, Alpha Wolf was about 140-150 rooms long and DEP's Reunion 20 something room story still won in the first contest. "Epic stories" don't necessarily win. If anything some judges might be put off by having to read a long ass story for contest purposes.

[JJJ-thebanisher]

I can't slow down, I can't hold back, there ain't no rest for the wicked (or something like that).

But I wouldn't worry about it, Alpha Wolf was about 140-150 rooms long and DEP's Reunion 20 something room story still won in the first contest. "Epic stories" don't necessarily win. If anything some judges might be put off by having to read a long ass story for contest purposes.

Reunion beat Alpha Wolf? Interesting, come to think of it, they are both really good stories.