Hey everyone. There is a new poll up this week which we'll be using the gauge your interest in writing events and contests. Take the time to cast your vote and share your thoughts on how best to impliment writing events/contests as well as ideas on themes.
Below are some ideas suggested by esteemed writer and member, Powersocke Prime
This should serve as a list of themes and topics to consider for a writing contest. All of these are thus intended to be able to craft a story around them.
Simple Themes:
This list contains simple themes that only give a general guidance as to the topic at hand.
- Knighthood
- Sainthood
- Priesthood
- Magic
- Everyday Life in a town or city
- Vampirism
- Lycanthropy
- War
- Provinces
- Continents
- Farming
- Race
- Nirn
- Oblivion
- Mundus
- Ruins
- Dungeons
- Daedra
- Aedra
- Creatures
- Alchemy/Enchanting
- Travel/Adventure
These themes are fairly easy to work with. Pick a theme and tell the contestants: "Write a story about magic". This gives them a general outline to base their work off of. The beauty lies in the simplicity, for all manner of stories can be crafted around these simple terms with few restrictions.
Complex Themes:
These themes require greater adherence to the specified topic and are a little more challenging to work with for their specificness.
- Skyrim Character Builds (either revolving around one that gets specified or tell the contestants to pick their favourite)
- A Daedric Prince
- One of the Nine Divines
- Events in past eras
- Politics
- Ventures to other continents
- Ventures to yet unseen provinces
- The invention of a plane of Oblivion
- Stories taking place in established game worlds/specific eras
These themes are more complex, for there is a lot of lore to be taken into account amongst other factors. Possible contestants would have to be offered a few pieces of information to familiarize themselves with to attempt to write these.
Genres:
These are sub themes that can be added for a nice twist, dictating the direction a story is going in.
- Drama
- Horror
- Romance/Love
- Adventure
- Mystery
- Thriller
- Crime
- Light-Hearted tales
- Action
The introduction of a genre puts an added layer if challenge forth to the contestants and may make for interesting reads indeed.
Other Requirements and Presentation:
The way in which a contest is presented is paramount. When crafting a challenge, the following factors can be considered:
Required…
- Length/Word Count
- Genre
- Theme/Topic
- Lore
- Number of Characters
But it is important not to get too specific of course, lest possible contestants be dissuaded.
Replies
This I rather like. I’m up for it. Politics would be rather interesting as well - at first I’ll admit I assumed real life politics but yeah. I’m regards to the theme/complexity you could do one of two things.
Ask the contestants which theme categories they’d like - or the host can decide that. Or you could do similar to above but a random number generator done by the host/holder of the contest for say Simple and Genre
A lot of these themes present excellent opportunities to delve deep into TES lore. As for what we pick and when for the contests, I think myself and whoever gets chosen to judge will just choose. I think I like the idea of using the simpler themes for events while reserving the more complex ones for contests
Aye that sounds more than reasonable - probably should have worded it that way in regards to choosing the themes.
We can always change the wording of the post.
Alrighty, let's gather ideas on how to build such an event. I'll start.
I think it's best we keep simpler themes for more creativity. We don't want to get too complicated for a start. So let's pick something everyone can work with - such as Magic. Magic is always a good topic in TES, as the possibilities are limitless with tons of creative freedom.
Moreover, I think we should put up a general upper limit in terms of word count. If stories get too long, other contestants might get dissuaded from reading them. I would thus propose an upper limit of something in between 5,000 and 8,000 words maximum. A lesser word count is obviously alright as well, we don't want to get too complex.
Furthermore, I think it's best of we add the requirement of making sure to state in a subtle way that the story is set within the TES universe. You can do this by referring to known places, races and other staples of the franchise that indubitably denote the tale as being ES fiction, making sure it's not mistaken for a random fantasy piece.
Other than that I think we can do whatever strikes our fancy. What do you guys say?
Can’t see anything here I disagree with.
Im with you on selecting a simple theme to start off. What do you guys think would be a sensible time frame for these events?
You mean how long each one is going to last? A month perhaps, depending on how well it is you think daily progress can be.
I'd say not longer than a month but no shorter than a week.
I would love to jump into a character build themed writing event or contest. I have ideas for days for all the builds I’ve played.
Coincidentally, I have already written two, with the third one being in the works.
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