Discovery Short Story Competition - Discussion Thread

[jammi]

The Discovery Short Story Competition, 04 2013.
Theme: Unforeseen Consequences
1st Prize: 200m credits, 3 units of mission cargo, first story post on front page.
2nd Prize: 100m credits, 2 units of mission cargo.
3rd Prize: 50m credits, 1 unit of mission cargo.

The server staff are looking for ways to reward good RP in all its forms - what better way than with a public competition? This short story competition will be a test of creativity on a deadline - you’ve got 1 month and 5,000 words to spin a yarn about our chosen theme. The winners will then be selected by the panel of judges and prizes distributed to the top candidates.

We figure peer review is a great way to apprise how good a story is, so we’ll be taking applications for story judges as well. So long as you’ve got a good grasp of the English language, enjoy reading and don’t mind rating instead of writing, this may be an option for you. Otherwise, we’ll welcome all submissions for registration that comply with the competition rules. So, rules - here we go.

1. All stories must be written for the competition. The thread must be fresh and dated after the competition begins. Reposting won’t be accepted.
   
2. Stories can’t be more than 5,000 words long. We’ll be dropping them into a word counter to check!
   
3. All the material must be original and your own - plagiarism will result in immediate disqualification. (And post count reset to 0)
   
4. All stories must be relevant to the selected theme (if you’re not sure, you can PM myself or one of the other judges with a summary of your idea).
   
5. All the stories must have a clear and identifiable conclusion - in a nutshell, would you be happy with a ‘The End’ and the thread being locked? If not, the story isn’t finished.
   
6. No lobbying judges for a more favourable result!

As previously mentioned, you may also register as a judge. If you want to do this, you can send me a PM with your Skype details and a quick summary of why you want to be a competition judge. To be eligible you must have a strong grasp of the English language, a critical literary mind and the ability to provide constructive feedback. “It was good, I liked it” isn’t constructive!

To register a story, just provide the title and a link to the thread here. We’ll update a running list of stories and authors in the post below. On the 20th of May (one month from now), the competition will close and we won’t be taking any more applications. From there, the judging team will launch into action. I can’t say how long that’ll take until we see how many people participate.

Good luck, and happy writing!

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[lIceColon]

lIce steers the lIceColonExpress into a radioactive field. What could possibly go wrong?
The lIceColonExpress comes out of the radioactive field. Nothing went wrong.
The lice in lIce's colon suddenly explode from cancer. Yay, lIce no longer has lIce in his colon!
Good story no?

edit:

To register a story, just provide the title and a link to the thread here.

oops.
*buries head in sand in embarrassment*

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No atmosphere? GTFO.
The propeller is the greatest invention of all time.

[Starsunder]

mission cargo

Uhm...what's that...?

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[jammi]

They're the items that are generated as objectives for players during missions. So. Escape pods, hunter killer robots, bioweapon plans - whatever. It's all the stuff the mission commission asks you to destroy or retrieve.

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[kikatsu]

This should be fun, I am looking forward to writing something for this... alas, finals are first though.

[Gypsie]

I hope I have the time to finish this before the deadline.

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Malaclypse Freeport

[Reid]

Is there a limit on how many stories a person can enter?

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[Geodin]

I don't have a thread for the story (as it is not yet written, obviously) or even a title yet, but I am definitely participating.

[Commissar]

Awesome idea, glad to see this moving.

Count me in!

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May you live in interesting times.
| Sarah McFarlen | Jane Hartman |

[jammi]

...That didn't actually occur to me. We'll provisionally put it at one per entrant.

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