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Post by Mikauzoran on Mar 25, 2017 23:34:53 GMT
Super Short Contest #20: Carnival Writing: March 26 - Sunday, April 2 Voting: Sunday, April 2 - Saturday, April 8Theme selector: creativitygames.net/random-word-generator/randomwords/1 Theme: "Carnival" Themed Writing Competition Guidelines Event Details:Each participant needs to write a short story to be posted by midnight according to the Cafe clock in the Contest Entries section of the Fanfic Library: poirotcafe.com/board/31/poirot-cafe-contest-entries . That's midnight Sunday going into Monday; you have the entirety of Sunday to work. At the end of the writing period, any member can vote for their favorite story. Make sure that when you post your stories on FF.net that you mention that the story was written for Poirot Cafe's competition to our readers! Let's have fun and advertise at the same time! Prize:A Custom Badge. Guidelines:1. 500-1,000 words only (with 100 word margin to "wrap it up"), and please include word count at the top. 2. K-T ratings only. 3. No crossovers or spoilers. 4. Must be new material written within the contest's writing period. No re-posted stories. 5. Please be fair and courteous when voting and reviewing! I realize that we're post traditional carnival season, but this one came up in the random word generator, and I think it'll be enjoyable. Do have fun with it!
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Cesela
Senior Member
Posts: 480
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Post by Cesela on Mar 29, 2017 11:54:00 GMT
Hmmhhh. I have two plunnies for this challenge: wish I could write them both, haha
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Post by Mikauzoran on Mar 29, 2017 11:56:38 GMT
You can always write both and submitt the one you like best.
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Cesela
Senior Member
Posts: 480
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Post by Cesela on Mar 29, 2017 12:21:52 GMT
I just decided to go for one of them, I only have time to write something today I can always just do the second one another time if there's a challenge that fit.
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Post by doctorpeggy on Mar 30, 2017 2:09:00 GMT
It might be a bit late to be asking, but am I allowed to have OCs in contest fics?
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Post by Mikauzoran on Mar 30, 2017 3:58:15 GMT
You mean like as in a crime occurs and you make up the suspects and the victim? Those kind of supporting OCs, or do you mean using an OC as a main character? Either way, there's no rule against it, but if you mean the latter, it might not be the best idea for a contest since OCs are generally discriminated against as being badly-written self-inserts, so you risk alienating people who might read and vote for your story right off the bat due to an existing prejudice that has nothing to do with the quality or merit of your writing personally. So, from a strategic standpoint, it could potentially be suicidal to feature an OC as a main character, but if you don't care about the contest aspect, it doesn't matter. In my opinion, if you challenged yourself, grew as a writer, and had fun, winning doesn't really matter.
I hope that made sense. ^.^; I've been running around all day and just got home an hour ago, so I fear I'm not the most coherent.
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Post by doctorpeggy on Mar 30, 2017 4:10:39 GMT
Thanks, that was really helpful! I don't have anything even close to an SI-OC, but the character is important to the story, and I've already finished the first draft, so I guess I'll just post it anyway. Again, thanks a lot!
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Post by Mikauzoran on Mar 30, 2017 4:26:02 GMT
No, the whole point of what I was saying is that I know a lot of people automatically assume "crappy Mary-Sue self-insert" when they see OC without even bothering to read your work. I was cautioning you that people with that bias will probably judge your work without giving it a chance because they assume all OCs are the same, so if you care about the contest aspect, OCs are generally a bad idea.
I was trying to warn you that there are people out there who are going to assume and not judge your fic on its own merit because they're militantly biased. It doesn't matter if your OC is a well-thought out, well-developed character or not. There are people out there that won't give you a fair chance simply because they already have an idea in their heads about OCs in general that has nothing to do with your OC specifically.
I was just trying to give you a heads up that you could be handicapping yourself out of the gate since this is a contest setting.
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Post by boogum on Mar 30, 2017 7:52:40 GMT
I have to admit that I'm pretty biased against OCs. As in, I don't read stories where an OC is the main protagonist. Supporting character? All good. Main? Nope. Especially if that OC is paired with a canonically main protagonist. It just puts me off.
That said, if you've already written the first draft and like what you have, then go for it. At the end of the day, I think the main thing is to like what you have written yourself. ^__^
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Post by doctorpeggy on Mar 30, 2017 11:03:55 GMT
I did get what you mean, and I really appreciate that you replied again to clarify. I know that people may not like the fact that I have an OC, but I don't mind. I'm just trying to put my writing out there, and it's more because I want to submit an entry than because I want to win the contest, if you know what I mean. What I meant by 'not even close to a self-insert' was that the character didn't have that sort of a role in the story, rather than that the character did not resemble me as a person, if that was what confused you. It's really nice of you to make sure I understood, though!
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Post by Mikauzoran on Mar 30, 2017 13:09:08 GMT
Okay. Good. That's fine then. Yeah, when you started to defend your own OC, I wanted to make sure that you knew that didn't matter because some people will see the word OC in the summary and then not even read your story. Which really sucks and is kind of unfair, but so is life.
Personally, I don't usually like OCs because I don't see the point of them unless you are writing one of those ridiculous romance with the main character plots. I could maybe see an OC serving a purpose if you were writing for a fandom with a smaller cast, but with DCMK, there are just so many characters in a wide array of ages, sexes, and from different walks of life that I would prefer an author try to pull from the existing cast, even if they had to use a minor character "from that one chapter, remember?" and have him or her try to fulfill the author's purpose for the story, even if it were interacting with a character that they've never met in canon. But that's just my opinion on the topic.
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Post by Mikauzoran on Mar 30, 2017 13:18:37 GMT
So I got this random plunnie last night where Shinichi is a 1001 Nights-style prince who has to find a bride because his parents are pressuring him. The Kudos host a masked ball, and Shinichi sends his body double and loyal servant Kaito to mingle and woo for him and then bring back the "finalists" for Shinichi to select from. Only Kaito meets Ran and falls for her himself.
And then I told myself, "Mikau, you are incapable of doing this in one thousand words. Knowing your irritating track record, you'll make a 30k epic out of it. -.-;" ...Maybe I could make it work for Eye? That the 6-8k theme this time, isn't it? Hmmm. If I ever get time to write again.
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Post by boogum on Mar 30, 2017 16:31:24 GMT
That sounds like a really interesting idea, Mikau!
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Post by Mikauzoran on Mar 31, 2017 0:26:18 GMT
*Dances* I finally got an idea to work for this theme! I just have to edit and post.
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Post by Ran-dezvous on Apr 2, 2017 20:04:33 GMT
Ack, I'm rather miffed that I only remembered just a while ago that James's a fan of the P&A circus. (Because writing fics using underutilized characters is challengingly fun!) I'm absolutely no good at writing fics at the last minute, though, so I'll just have to sit this one out. Oh, well.
Unrelated to the above, I don't know if I've just missed it, but I've don't recall having a poll for the previous Super Short. There was one other entry besides mine (unless I unwittingly did something to get disqualified?).
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