End of Term Report

[James]

Well, here we are. First of all, congratulations to Taed who won a competition that truly defined the word epic. There were only eight writers, the lowest for a major AWR Competition, but we saw a massive, sprawling contest take place. Over 50 stories were written in the matter of two months! In fact, for the group stage, I think we only saw 3 drop outs, leading to 53 stories being written. That’s incredible, made even more so when you consider that’s a completion rate of around 95%. I don’t think AWR has ever had so few drop-outs, and that’s even considering Pete’s traditional failure. With the two finalist stories, that took us to 55 completed stories. Well done, everyone, because that’s fucking awesome.

Some highlights of the competition for me:

Taed – the beginning of your Orpheus story was stunning and the highlight of the competition. The only thing that rivals it was 60% of your Alberto story. Either way, you delivered some great writing and fully deserved your victory, even if your final story was a bit messy. It’s time you find a way to motivate yourself to write beyond these competitions and it’s time to start picking up some publication credits. You’re ready.

Jordoom – Finally. I’ve been saying for years now that you needed to write and that you had the signs of a good writer and finally you proved me right. Your Orpheus story was a high point for me, even if it ended up losing to Taed’s (just!). But, your flash fiction work, dark and strong, also deserves a mention. I really hope you keep writing, man. You need to keep yourself match fit and practice makes perfect.

Kaez – It was only going to end one way. We all knew it. But meh, so what, because I’d loved having you in the competition and writing even if you did eventually drop out. Your early stories were particularly great. Even now, I can remember that little bit about the giraffe in your second story. Your poem was the stand-out, though. It was just excellent. I've given up hope on you getting the motivation to try and publish stuff (you're too zen) and for you, Taed and me to become life-long published author buddies a la Tolkien and Lewis (or Hitchens, Amis and co). But I’m super glad you’ve kicked Blacklisted back off, so that you’re writing, and I’m writing, and hopefully everyone is laughing.

Inkdrinker – You mentioned over in the Banter thread that you found hearing about AWR history interesting, even though it happened before you. Well, you’ve entered the company of Manny Nhaims and Dylek. Don’t know who they are? Manny you can read in the 2011 AWR Cup. He had written a few times before, but mostly he was the type of person who only appeared once a year. In 2011, he signed up to the AWR Cup, beat Pete, beat me, and got all the way to the final. Dylek (pre-Folly and therefore lost to all of time), similarly, came from nowhere and ended up smoking an AWR competition with some excellent stories. You did the same. You beat Taed and you beat Pete. Your second round story was a highlight of mine, showing off some great near-future sci-fi (as well as the start to your first story). Same thing I said to Jor, I say to you. Keep writing, practice makes perfect.

Dragon – A trend is going to get going now as I say to you too: keep writing, practice makes perfect. It’s been fantastic to see you writing in AWR’s three last competition. And you’ve churned out some good work throughout. But start looking at grammar to provide your story a clean appearance. My highlight for you was your Helen MacDonald story, which had a really great use of opium for a magical plot device (which I kind of want to steal) and had a great urban fantasy tone. Well done.

Injin – It’s a rollercoaster with you sometimes, but stick on the ride. You know what I’m going to say to you? The same thing I said to others: keep writing, practice makes perfect. You were obviously stung by my criticism of your second round story, but don’t be. You’re better than that story. Instead, you gave us a quiet, delightful little piece of flash fiction later on which still sticks in my mind. Concentrate and celebrate on the good, reflect, learn and improve on the bad.

Silver – Keep writing, practice makes perfect. You’re technically sound and your stories are cleaner and crisper than a lot of other people. You just need to start making your stories pop. Push your boundaries; get outside your comfort zone because when you did, you gave me an Alberto story in Round 5 which was excellent. When the next competition comes around, get yourself out of the midfield and into the fight at the top.

Reffy – You’ve disappeared! Hopefully, you’ll be back to read this soon. I hope you don’t mind me saying I think you found his competition a little bit tough and so, I say to you what I say to all: keep writing, practice makes perfect. But also, don’t be discourage when a story doesn’t hit where you want it to because 2014 has been the year where we’ve seen Reffy deliver some epic stories. The story that won the Arena at times read like a classic fantasy novel. And your round 2, picture prompt story, hot damn did people applaud you for that. Keep writing, keep trucking, always be Reffy for real life, allow yourself to explore and expand in your writing.

Well, I think that’s everyone (God, I hope that’s everyone) and so if there’s one message to take away from this, it’s... keep writing, practice makes perfect. Already, I’m concerned that the people who didn’t make the final haven’t been flooding the Story Board with new stories. You don’t need competitions to write. Find the time as much as you can and just keep writing, keep reading, and most of all, enjoy yourself.

I think this competition has been a great success. We’ve had some awesome topics; we’ve got to try some new things. People have been pushed outside of their comfort zones. It’s been long, but it’s been fun. A big thank you to Zovo for co-judging. We’ve had a lot of stories to read and I know he's been pretty damn busy (and I wouldn't have coped on my own). I’m not sure we’ll get another competition in before the traditional Arena competition in January/February. Maybe a small one if people are up for it.

Again, I will make a point of two other avenues for writing.

Taed and I have written draft scripts for the AWR Podcast. Go over to the Pilot thread (it’s an announcement, it’s up the top) and give it read, get involved, offer feedback and start helping out. It would be great if we could get it off the ground.

Secondly, again, again, I’ll mention the King of the Recluse. That is the one competition which has the potential to run all year, but the whole forum needs to engage with it. I’ve told you all to keep writing. Well, someone try and beat my story on the prompt, ‘Dilapidated’.

Anyway, it’s been a pleasure to read and comment on all your stories, everyone. I mean that. And I hope everyone keeps writing.

Ciao.

[Deleted]

Congrats, Taed. You earned it.

Thanks for reading my stuff, judges, and anyone else.

I agree with pretty much everything you both said in the final reviews, James and Zovo.

Just to make one point on the other hand, though, I kind of do want my work to be "preachy." I want my art to challenge people, and even make them uncomfortable. And, ultimately, I want, as all writers do, to write what I am passionate about, and for me, that is redemption, faith, flecks of goodness amidst seas of evil, love spitting in the face of death, etc. In short, my faith. It is a tight line I walk, though, and I get that. I don't want to be as subtle as Tolkien was, but I also don't want to read like "Left Behind," neither. So thanks for taking me to task on this. Don't expect the preaching to go away, but hopefully it will be more subtle.

Again, it's a thin line, but I'll keep trying to walk it. Thanks for putting up with it, because I felt a lot of my stories, not just the final one, were attempting to walk that line (and, like the final one, probably failing more than succeeding )

I didn't want to glum up the thread or seem like I was moping, so I didn't say it before, but now that the results are in, I feel its okay: I got stuck, hard, on my plot, and it showed, and so I'm not surprised to see that you both noticed it. I really want to revisit that story, someday, though. At least the two protagonists and the setting. I completely agree that part one was the strongest, rereading it, I was proud of myself. I thought it was pretty tight.

Part two, though? Pete, if you wrote, you would have been in the final, not me. Really weak, and then, the length of Part three shows, I think, that it didn't even really constitute my "middle."

James, I also agree that my Orpheus story was a high point. Rereading that, I'm like, "Damn. I wrote that?"

Anyway, yeah. Lot of fun. I will have less free time between the end of October and next Summer. Like, zilch. But next summer, we should do this again. Totally. I wanna win

[James]

Sept 30, 2014 3:29:04 GMT -5 @jordoom said:

Just to make one point on the other hand, though, I kind of do want my work to be "preachy." I want my art to challenge people, and even make them uncomfortable. And, ultimately, I want, as all writers do, to write what I am passionate about, and for me, that is redemption, faith, flecks of goodness amidst seas of evil, love spitting in the face of death, etc. In short, my faith. It is a tight line I walk, though, and I get that. I don't want to be as subtle as Tolkien was, but I also don't want to read like "Left Behind," neither. So thanks for taking me to task on this. Don't expect the preaching to go away, but hopefully it will be more subtle.

Oh, no. I agree. I know you want to write about faith, it's clear it influences your writing and I don't think it's a bad thing. But yeah, you need to walk that line where it goes from inspiring to, well, close to annoying. Like I said, for an example, Annamarie's dialogue about killing people was a clever way of highlighting an argument against abortion. Her getting all slappy about it just seemed over the top and preachy.

[Kaez]

Woo! Major congrats to both Taed and Jor, and honestly everybody for a really successful tournament. James and Zovo, many thanks and well done.

[Matteo ((Taed))]

Woof. Thanks guys. That was a bloody close one. I'm usually pretty full of myself, but I never once felt like I was on steady ground though the whole final 4. I really want to see James and Zovo's private conversations now, because I'm pretty sure that win was by the skin of my teeth.

If nothing else, this definitely proves that we collectively need more practice working on long-form stuff. It sounds like Jor was having as much trouble keeping his plot on the rails as I was. I knew what I wanted from the setting, but everything else was very impromptu. I'm usually in the "outline everything" camp, but I was way too excited to get started writing this, so I pretty much jumped in and made up everything as I went along. Did not work super well.

[ASGetty ((Zovo))]

Don't give me too much credit. Real life happened on my end right around the end Round Six and Agro ended up doing most of heavy-lifting from there-on out. He's the real star here as far as judging goes.

I had a really good time with this competition and was regularly surprised by the turn-out for each round. Though they drew the competition out for a really long time, I think the flexible due dates helped make sure everyone had a chance to write and helped in making sure we had fewer drop outs. I think it also may have removed the easy cop out of, "Oh, shucks guys, I was busy on the due date. Sorry, I have to drop out." That said, I think flexible due dates are a feature we should incorporate more often.

All in all, though, this was a blast. I read some really solid stories and had a great time coming up with challenges for you guys with Agro. I've got more ideas for more competitions moving forward, and even snagged a few ideas I might use for myself down the road (not from any of your stories of course). I hope my judging wasn't too harsh on anyone as I know I can come off abrasive, and I'd hate to find out there was anyone who didn't want to compete anymore because of something I'd said.

You guys all did great and I want to see more from all of you.

[Kaez]

As for another tournament in the near future... what we really need to figure out is a way for everybody to be able to write -basically- whatever they want, but still have comparable, competing entries. I think the only thing that slows down most writers from getting ideas out on time, and that they're happy with, is a lack of really good inspiration or ideas for the topic they've got.

If we can find a way to increase the freedom whilst still keeping both stories in-check, I think we'd have a very successful, low-dropout tournament.

[James]

Oct 1, 2014 7:25:59 GMT -5 Kaez said:

As for another tournament in the near future... what we really need to figure out is a way for everybody to be able to write -basically- whatever they want, but still have comparable, competing entries. I think the only thing that slows down most writers from getting ideas out on time, and that they're happy with, is a lack of really good inspiration or ideas for the topic they've got.

Is that the lesson of this competition?

When we gave you topics, the drop out rate was 5%.
When we said go nuts, the drop out rate was 25%.

I don't know, I feel like the lesson is to give a topic, but not be too restrictive (which was always my philosophy). Also, pair myths with genres because people loved that shit.

[Kaez]

Oct 2, 2014 2:14:01 GMT -5 James said:

Oct 1, 2014 7:25:59 GMT -5 Kaez said:

As for another tournament in the near future... what we really need to figure out is a way for everybody to be able to write -basically- whatever they want, but still have comparable, competing entries. I think the only thing that slows down most writers from getting ideas out on time, and that they're happy with, is a lack of really good inspiration or ideas for the topic they've got.

Is that the lesson of this competition?

When we gave you topics, the drop out rate was 5%.
When we said go nuts, the drop out rate was 25%.

I don't know, I feel like the lesson is to give a topic, but not be too restrictive (which was always my philosophy). Also, pair myths with genres because people loved that shit.

That statistical comparison is less than useless and you know it.

[Jenny (Reffy)]

Congratulations to those who stuck with it and Taed for winning

Life got too busy here (was LARP season and sister wedding and family stress, etc.) and ideas weren't free-flowing. So very sorry I dropped out. I felt so crappy for doing it especially since I was letting somebody else down.