Post by James on Dec 4, 2011 17:43:57 GMT -5
The December Challenge
Okay, so the last Monthly Assignment was a disaster. December is usually a slow month anyway, and January and February are generally reserved for the AWR Cup (if we have enough people interested to do it). So if all things go to plan the Monthly Assignment shall probably return in February or March.
However I know some people will want a type of competition to jumpstart some writing. What we need is a competition that can do three things:
A: Give people the kick to start writing.
B: Designed in such a way that there can be both quality and quantity of writing.
C: A competition that is dropout-proof.
And I think I might have found a format for those three aims, which I’m going to call the December Challenge because I’m uncreative. Basically though, the Challenge is a combination of the Word Cup, the Monthly Assignment and AWR Cup. Confused? Let me explain.
At midnight tonight (5th December), I’m going to post a topic/genre/prompt. You’ll have till 11:59pm of the 8th December to write something, so basically three whole days. We’ll be using the same rules of the Monthly Assignment except the word limit is now only 1,500 (and I expect most will be more near 1,000). I’ll be a sole judge and score according to a slightly tweaked judging template (/25) and your scores will go onto the leader board.
At midnight of the 8th/9th December a new topic will go up. You have till 11:59pm of the 12th December. These will be judged and your scores shall be added onto the leader board. This will continue as so:
12:00am 5th Dec – 11:59pm 8th Dec
12:00am 9th Dec – 11:59pm 12th Dec
12:00am 13th Dec – 11:59pm 16th Dec
12:00am 17th Dec – 11:59pm 20th Dec
12:00am 21st Dec – 11:59pm 24th Dec
So that’s five rounds. The reason this format works quite nicely is two-fold. Firstly, if no one writes anything or only one person does. It’s no problem. We just keep the competition going as planned. It also gives a reward for writing quantity as well as quality because if you compete in every round then you start to gain an advantage over other people.
They’ll be two winners. The person who leads the leader board and the person who wins the most individual rounds (therefore sheer quality can win out if you don’t have enough time to compete in all the rounds). These two winners will go against each other at the start of the New Year in some sort of larger format, possibly an Arena type match.
Thoughts?
... or questions because I probably haven't explained it well enough.
Okay, so the last Monthly Assignment was a disaster. December is usually a slow month anyway, and January and February are generally reserved for the AWR Cup (if we have enough people interested to do it). So if all things go to plan the Monthly Assignment shall probably return in February or March.
However I know some people will want a type of competition to jumpstart some writing. What we need is a competition that can do three things:
A: Give people the kick to start writing.
B: Designed in such a way that there can be both quality and quantity of writing.
C: A competition that is dropout-proof.
And I think I might have found a format for those three aims, which I’m going to call the December Challenge because I’m uncreative. Basically though, the Challenge is a combination of the Word Cup, the Monthly Assignment and AWR Cup. Confused? Let me explain.
At midnight tonight (5th December), I’m going to post a topic/genre/prompt. You’ll have till 11:59pm of the 8th December to write something, so basically three whole days. We’ll be using the same rules of the Monthly Assignment except the word limit is now only 1,500 (and I expect most will be more near 1,000). I’ll be a sole judge and score according to a slightly tweaked judging template (/25) and your scores will go onto the leader board.
At midnight of the 8th/9th December a new topic will go up. You have till 11:59pm of the 12th December. These will be judged and your scores shall be added onto the leader board. This will continue as so:
12:00am 5th Dec – 11:59pm 8th Dec
12:00am 9th Dec – 11:59pm 12th Dec
12:00am 13th Dec – 11:59pm 16th Dec
12:00am 17th Dec – 11:59pm 20th Dec
12:00am 21st Dec – 11:59pm 24th Dec
So that’s five rounds. The reason this format works quite nicely is two-fold. Firstly, if no one writes anything or only one person does. It’s no problem. We just keep the competition going as planned. It also gives a reward for writing quantity as well as quality because if you compete in every round then you start to gain an advantage over other people.
They’ll be two winners. The person who leads the leader board and the person who wins the most individual rounds (therefore sheer quality can win out if you don’t have enough time to compete in all the rounds). These two winners will go against each other at the start of the New Year in some sort of larger format, possibly an Arena type match.
Thoughts?
... or questions because I probably haven't explained it well enough.
