Post by Kaez on Dec 23, 2014 15:13:05 GMT -5
World Cup 2015
Worldbuilding and Writing Competition
Worldbuilding and Writing Competition
The time has come for AWR's worldbuilding competition! I hope you guys are as excited about this as I am.
The Cup has been, in my opinion, AWR's best competition. The 2010 Cup was a really successful 16-writer bracket championed by Taed and Meleta and really was one of the earliest showcases of how good AWR's writers could be. And in 2011 the Cup gave us the largest single tournament we've ever had: 26 writers, 3 judges, and the second straight 1-point margin of victory (this time James and Manny Nhaims). 2013's Cup was the "Death or Cake" two division Cup that Reffy and myself judged, where James won for the second year in a row, beating out Allya. And then there was last year's Cup. Zovo and James judged eight writers who each wrote against each other at least once and the finale was an awesome multi-part write-off between Inkdrinker, Taed, Jor, and myself. It was the best tournament we've had in a long time. Amazing stories, an amazing finale, and some serious community support.
With the World Cup 2015, we're kind of doing a side-branch to the main sequence of Cups (I imagine we'll have a proper 2015 Cup later in the year) to try something new: a competition where you're judged not only on the quality of your writing, but the vividness and consistency of the setting your stories take place in. We're going to replicate the format of the 2014 Cup (where everyone writes against everyone), and the quality of your writing is still vital to the judging -- nothing intimidating there. Specific things to know about this competition:
Times are done in EST -- so your topic will be posted at midnight EST on the date shown, the very first minute of the day -- in other words, you have the entirety of each date to write. If a round begins on the 3rd, for example, the topic will be posted at the very end of the day EST on the 2nd/very beginning of the day EST on the 3rd.
Midnight on the 2nd/12:00AM EST on the 3rd is also, for reference, 5AM on the 3rd for Reffy, 2PM on the 3rd for Dragon, and 6PM on the 2nd for Zovo. So Reffy, prompts should be up for you by the time you wake up on the day it starts. Dragon, they'll be up mid-day. Zovo, they'll be up the evening before the date shown.
We're likely not to be super strict about getting your story in exactly on time. You're going to have a roughly 12 to 24 hour buffer zone so that nobody has to stress out too much over time zones or anything like that. Again, you can expect to be paired up to each other author in the competition once and judged by each of the two judges for 3 or 4 of the matches. Tentative schedule:
Round 1, 1/03 - 1/07
Round 2, 1/08 - 1/12
Round 3, 1/14 - 1/18
Round 4, 1/19 - 1/23
Round 5, 1/24 - 1/28
Round 6, 1/29 - 2/2
Round 7, 2/3 - 2/7
I'll be one of the two judges. I've been doing worldbuilding since, quite literally, as long as I can remember. I've written over 100,000 words on various settings of my own and others and I think I've got a good feel for how to execute it. I've got some big plans for this competition and some cool prompt ideas. If things go well, we'll get one other judge and eight writers. Writing is more crucial than judging, so if you're on the fence about writing or judging, please consider going the writing route! If we can get eight dedicated writers, there's no reason why this competition won't go amazingly.
The Cup has been, in my opinion, AWR's best competition. The 2010 Cup was a really successful 16-writer bracket championed by Taed and Meleta and really was one of the earliest showcases of how good AWR's writers could be. And in 2011 the Cup gave us the largest single tournament we've ever had: 26 writers, 3 judges, and the second straight 1-point margin of victory (this time James and Manny Nhaims). 2013's Cup was the "Death or Cake" two division Cup that Reffy and myself judged, where James won for the second year in a row, beating out Allya. And then there was last year's Cup. Zovo and James judged eight writers who each wrote against each other at least once and the finale was an awesome multi-part write-off between Inkdrinker, Taed, Jor, and myself. It was the best tournament we've had in a long time. Amazing stories, an amazing finale, and some serious community support.
With the World Cup 2015, we're kind of doing a side-branch to the main sequence of Cups (I imagine we'll have a proper 2015 Cup later in the year) to try something new: a competition where you're judged not only on the quality of your writing, but the vividness and consistency of the setting your stories take place in. We're going to replicate the format of the 2014 Cup (where everyone writes against everyone), and the quality of your writing is still vital to the judging -- nothing intimidating there. Specific things to know about this competition:
- All of your stories will take place in a single setting of your own creation. In the first round, you'll be judged on how well you've introduced your world. Does it feel alive? Does it feel big, complex, multi-dimensional? Is it believable? Is it immersive? From the second round on, you'll also be judged on your consistency. Does it feel like the same setting? Can we tell that it's a single world? Is it interesting? Does each story build on the last in a way that adds depth rather than contradicts?
- The prompts will encourage you to write about varied and distinct parts of your setting. Like with the 2014 Cup, every individual one-on-one match will have a unique prompt. These might require you to elaborate on the history of your world, on its cultures and peoples, on its setting and environment, or they might require you to write from the perspective of a character in the world itself. It might even be an image of an artifact and require you to explain its role and place in your world. The judges reserve the right to develop prompts specifically designed to push you out of your comfort zone -- write about the same culture for three straight rounds and you can be expected to get a prompt that requires you to do something different.
- Again, like the 2014 Cup, judging is not going to be restricted to a numerical format. Each author will have half of their stories judged by each of the two judges and the judging is going to emphasize helping the authors and thoroughly reviewing their writing rather than assigning scores and points. The judges choosing a winner is secondary to their goal of helping the writers in creating full, realized worlds that they can continue working on and writing in long after this tournament is over.
Times are done in EST -- so your topic will be posted at midnight EST on the date shown, the very first minute of the day -- in other words, you have the entirety of each date to write. If a round begins on the 3rd, for example, the topic will be posted at the very end of the day EST on the 2nd/very beginning of the day EST on the 3rd.
Midnight on the 2nd/12:00AM EST on the 3rd is also, for reference, 5AM on the 3rd for Reffy, 2PM on the 3rd for Dragon, and 6PM on the 2nd for Zovo. So Reffy, prompts should be up for you by the time you wake up on the day it starts. Dragon, they'll be up mid-day. Zovo, they'll be up the evening before the date shown.
We're likely not to be super strict about getting your story in exactly on time. You're going to have a roughly 12 to 24 hour buffer zone so that nobody has to stress out too much over time zones or anything like that. Again, you can expect to be paired up to each other author in the competition once and judged by each of the two judges for 3 or 4 of the matches. Tentative schedule:
Round 1, 1/03 - 1/07
Round 2, 1/08 - 1/12
Round 3, 1/14 - 1/18
Round 4, 1/19 - 1/23
Round 5, 1/24 - 1/28
Round 6, 1/29 - 2/2
Round 7, 2/3 - 2/7
I'll be one of the two judges. I've been doing worldbuilding since, quite literally, as long as I can remember. I've written over 100,000 words on various settings of my own and others and I think I've got a good feel for how to execute it. I've got some big plans for this competition and some cool prompt ideas. If things go well, we'll get one other judge and eight writers. Writing is more crucial than judging, so if you're on the fence about writing or judging, please consider going the writing route! If we can get eight dedicated writers, there's no reason why this competition won't go amazingly.
Judges
Kaez
Jordoom
Writers
James
Injin
Inkdrinker
Zovo
Taed
Dragon
Kwan
Silver
Bloodeye
Reffy
Bloodeye
Reffy
