Announcement

**End Master** · 10-06-2011, 06:41 PM

Sev mentioned this before in this thread: http://forums.infinite-story.com/showthread.php?t=455

Here's the list again, with the updated IWT6,7 and 8

IWT 1: 2005 Halloween

Movie monster theme

Cat 2000: Search
donteatpoop: Reunion (WINNER)
EndMaster: Alpha Wolf

IWT 2: 2006 Valentine's Day (Or around that time)

Amusement Park/Carnival theme

donteatpoop: Ducky Park
EndMaster: Geek (WINNER)
jeffisthebest: Shemaru

IWT 3: 2006 Halloween

Children's story theme

apotheosis: The Mold
donteatpoop: Ultimate Battle (He's taken the story down though)
EndMaster: Imagination
KatieWroteIt: Lost in a Good Book- A Child's Tale
KatieWroteIt: The Pattern (WINNER)
jeffisthebest: Paul's Kingdom

IWT 4: 2007 Halloween

"From Hell" story theme

apotheosis: Infernal Gate
donteatpoop: Youngstown Demon
EndMaster: Death Song
KatieWroteIt: Odalisque Paradise
Usoki: Hellstone
Vesnicie: The Country from Hell (WINNER)

IWT 5: 2008 New Year's Eve (Ok so a day or two before it)

Porn story theme or allegorical story theme...or a combo of the two: PORNAGORY!

EndMaster: Exploitation Theater
Usoki: The Sneeze
Vesnicie: Todestrieb (WINNER)
xnull: Serial Rapist

IWT 6: Anything!

Cat2000: Perfect Romance
Cat2000: Time Crisis
End Master: Primal (WINNER)
Ryan: The Rift
Usoki: Sigma Epsilon Chi

IWT 7: Urban Fantasy

Crunchyfrog: Door Handle
DEP: Mystic Elevator
End Master: Innkeeper (WINNER)
Katie: Uncertain Fortunes
Ryan: Delmechia
Usoki: Daybreak

Currently in SHAME for failing to submit a story for IWT7 after committing themselves to it.

Cat2000
Locke
Mizal
Smeester
Spartan
The Writer AKA King Malice

IWT 8: Science Fiction

**severenz** · 10-06-2011, 09:49 PM

Thanks guys. How does this look?

http://www.infinite-story.com/iwt/

I'd love to add an "IWT" tab to the main navigation and even advertise a banner for a current competition, but we need rules.

**End Master** · 10-06-2011, 10:11 PM

Looks cool to me.

The rules are sort of subject to change depending on who happens to be in charge of it. This year we ended up adding a new story category to rate. Plus I doubt if anyone's going to do the whole SHAMING penalty that I've started to implement when I'm in charge of these things.

Maybe some of the others can chime in on if we should just go ahead and stick with this year's rules as the "official" ones for right now.

**severenz** · 10-06-2011, 10:34 PM

If the rules change, that's fine. But if I'm going to advertise IWT 8 - writers need to know how to submit, judging criteria, etc.

I would be happy to cook up a voting script on the site as well. Each user could have 1 vote (per category). Again, I'm probably simplifying how that would work since I don't know how the winner is determined.

**End Master** · 10-06-2011, 10:42 PM

Well here are the current rules for IWT8 from the first page of the thread.

Here are 20 scifi related themes. You pick the 3 you want to use in your story, though if you want you can certainly use more.

Alien Invasion
Ancient Evil Space Horror (or horrors if you wish!)
Cloning
Colonization (Alien Planet, Space Station or Underwater)
Cybernetic Revolt
Dystopia
Exploration (Space or Alien Planet)
Galactic Hero (Or Anti-Hero if you prefer)
Generation/Sleeper Ship (Interstellar Ark)
Giant Battle Mechs
Human Enhancement (Cybernetic or genetic)
Non-Human protagonist (Alien, mutant, robot, hell child sex robot if you want)
Parallel Worlds
Post Apocalyptic (Nuclear war, asteroid, plague, ice age, etc)
Psionic Powers
Space Warfare (Interstellar, Intergalactic, Interplanetary)
Stranded (Ship or Planet)
Time Travel
Utopia
Virtual Reality

Deadline will be January 2nd. That gives you plenty of time and doesn't interfere with your possible decadent New Years plans.

Same scoring as before, 1 to 10 scale in these 4 categories

Writing Style
Plot/Creativity
Enjoyment
Theme

Weight one category that you think is the most important so it will count for double for all stories.

Stories must be at least 20 rooms long to qualify. It can be 19 rooms and be the best thing ever written, but if it isn't 20 it doesn't count. So shove that extra crappy room on there if you must.

Now pay attention because this part is REALLY important.

1. If you�re interested in participating in the contest then make your announcement clear and post something like �I�m entering this contest.� in this thread. This commits you to submit a story.

2. If you commit yourself to writing a story and then fail to submit it by the time of the overly generous due date you will suffer SHAME.

3. If you submit a story and fail to use three of the twenty above themes you will suffer SHAME. (And be disqualified for not following the rules!)

4. If you�re already suffering SHAME due to your indecision and flip flopping last contest, this is the time to redeem yourself! Just submit a qualifying story, you don�t even need to win and all your SHAME goes away! Of course if you fail to submit something again, then you just suffer even more SHAME and you'll have to try again next contest.

5. If you're interested but you're confined to only lurking because you're stuck in limbo and can't post, send a PM to me letting me know that you're interesting in joining. (Same SHAME rules apply to you as well)

I think that's about it. I�ll update this first post on who is participating as people make their announcements of joining.

UPDATED:People who have committed to the contest

BatCountry
Cat2000
ChubbyTeletubby
Crunchyfrog
DEP
Dreamshell
Mizal
Tim2000
Usoki

**Usoki** · 10-07-2011, 02:14 AM

Personally, I'd like to see the IWT keep its close forum ties- it makes the contest a bit more personable, as opposed to the sites where random strangers submit stories, get results, and then leave. I'm all for advertising it on the main site, and keeping records on the main site... but if they want to join, they'll have to sign up in the forums. I'd especially like to keep the voting centered in the forum. People are going to be more pressued into reading all of the stories and leaving meaningful critiques if they know their name is going to be attached to their ballet.

**severenz** · 10-07-2011, 08:54 AM

Usoki, I disagree with most of what you said.

I was just noticing how distinct the forum and site are and intend to make changes to encourage more people to use the forums. For example, I think my new feature announcements and feature discussions go unnoticed by some antisocial writers. Is it really safe to assume that all the serious writers are already in the forums?

As for getting crap submissions:

1. People will see that this is a serious writing competition by looking at past winners.
2. Crap submissions are easy to weed out
3. If you write your guidelines clear enough, you probably won't even get crap submissions

Also, voting (like comments and ratings) would always be attached to your account. So it really doesn't matter where the voting engine lies. The benefit of having it on the website side is that we could customize the voting rules much easier.

Let's be clear, I'm not looking to change the rules - or even the "homey-ness" of your tradition. But if anyone assumes that all the quality writers in the world are already in this forum, well, that would be presumptuous.

My goals with this are:
1. Get more recognition to the quality content (submissions) on the site
2. Encourage / inspire more writing
3. Bring some quality members to the forum community
4. Bring some shades of professionalism, seriousness, and immediacy to the website e.g. "we're serious about writing, check out the latest winner of the IWT, get your stories ready for the next competition"

**severenz** · 10-07-2011, 09:02 AM

Guys, should the stories being submitted be listed as they come in? I see you listed the authors who have submitted to IWT8, but not the corresponding stories.

**Locke** · 10-07-2011, 09:26 AM

Many/most of the stories probably aren't up yet, at least not in public mode; traditionally, most go public during the last several weeks before the contest deadline, as that allows the writer to keep polishing, and keeps the work relevant so voters don't read it months earlier than the other entries and bias their ballot.

When the author has chosen to make the story available, as possible, I'd like to see it listed as you mentioned. Nice to see the IWT on the main site again.

**End Master** · 10-07-2011, 09:41 AM

I'm not exactly sure if we're a very professional bunch around here. Personally I just do it as a hobby when I have the time. The contests around here are incredibly informal. Traditionally nobody even works on their entry until the last minute and even then the deadline is usually extended. It's basically why these things are announced nearly a year in advance. Plus most of the time, there will be a bunch of people that say they're going to join or write something and then just drop out/disappear and we end up with less people actually submitting stuff.

The pre-registering thing was something I came up with last contest in an attempt to lock people in and come up with some sort of"penalty" so we'd wouldn't get all these people falling through on their promises. Mixed results with it, but we did end up getting a larger number stories submitted and even some new members submitting stuff that year which is pretty rare since usually its the usual forum members that participating.

As for possibly bringing in more people to participate, an advertising link would probably be enough, but the forums themselves have never really been a hot bed of activity.

The people who do post on the forums aren't necessarily the most prolific writers either. There are a few people on the forums that haven't written a story at all (Locke), while there are other members (Calen) who have written quite a few stories and have never set foot in the forums and has only spoken to people through PMs. Others like Cat2000 would fall under a serious writer category, but they visit infrequently most likely due to having more important matters to attend to in the real world. Hell, half the time we're not even talking about writing on here, if the movie thread is anything to go by. I think the forums are a personal preference that can't readily be gauged.

**donteatpoop** · 10-07-2011, 10:52 AM

I think the 'we're serious writers' that severenz was mentioning was more of the quality of our writing than the freak show forum. But still, most of our outright off the wall silliness is in the 'off topic' category, plenty of serious writing talk in the creative writing category (at least initially, though it quickly delves into general assshattery).

I still like the 'sign up in the forum thread' rule myself. That way you publically declare you are going to write. If you say no more ever again in the forums other than "I'm in" then so be it. Hopefully it will draw a little crowd to the contest, maybe more voters, maybe more stories... Hell, the chances that new people who say they're going to enter actually entering are probably about the same as the chances that longstanding members who say they're in.

The ratings/comments being placed on the story itself somehow would be really cool. It's not like we wouldn't link to shit and announce winners in the forums still, it just adds some features to outside the forums and allows for potentially more writing. (though we may have to have more than the standard couple weeks for rating).

**severenz** · 10-07-2011, 11:56 PM

Added a "IWT" tab on main navigation (once we finalize the structure I will put on the Forum template as well)

The IWT 8 page now becomes the index. With the past winners/submissions page is now "history."

I'd like to highlight the entry instructions which are to post on a specific thread their intention to enter. Can someone get me the right thread link? End Master, can I add a direct messaging link to you at the top of that page? "For more information or to submit a story, visit this thread or message End Master."

http://www.infinite-story.com/iwt/

**End Master** · 10-08-2011, 12:13 AM

Here's the thread link

http://forums.infinite-story.com/showthread.php?t=2697

**severenz** · 10-09-2011, 07:55 AM

How is this?
http://www.infinite-story.com/iwt/

I pulled the thread and End Master PM to the top.

It might be nice on the history page to link to the companion threads for each IWT. If you get them to me, I'll put them on the page.

Also, I'm contemplating adding "IWT4 Winner" and "IWT4 Entrant" on the profile pages.

That brings up the question - can stories be entered in multiple tournaments?

Announcement

The older IWT's

The older IWT's

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