A Writing Challenge? [suggestion]

[ve1ocity]

Being a budding writer, I'd love to havemore writing related challenges on the forum. The stories board is a great place and I spend hours there simply amazed by the creativity of our people!

I'd really love if there were challenges like the building contests and the tournament, but more focussed on the story-writing itself.

For example, a challenge where you have to make a story out of a settings, situation etc. It could include screenshots as well.

A very much unboiled idea but something I'd love to see. It would be much shorter and less time consuming than the immortal dynasties and really give a chance to budding writers!

[MarianT]

This sounds like an interesting idea, and I'd be happy to participate. I suggest you get some input from Pam and Metro Man.

You would need a way of scoring -- either going by votes for each story or a panel of judges who award points (my own preference would be for voting, similar to what is done for the Building Challenges).

You would want limits (a maximum of 25 or 50 screenshots in one or two posts, something like that) and a deadline, asking people not to comment or vote until all the stories had been posted.

You could have a thread for suggested story ideas (PeregrineTook's Distance Divided by Time post gives a good model).

Anyway, thanks for suggesting this! I hope there's a lot of interest.

[PeregrineTook]

Aww, thanks for mentioning me, Marian!  I was thinking this sort of idea would be nice too.  If we could come up with maybe some sort of monthly writing challenge with the possibility of becoming bi-monthly if interest is high enough, that might be pretty cool.  This has serious potential.

[Carl]

Thank you for the suggestion. As the others said, it's a good one but we'd have to have someone coordinate it within the team. It's definitely an idea we can keep in mind for the future. I can imagine a lot of people enjoying a growing collection of short stories that it would produce, which have nothing to do with legacies or challenges and be focused on good content. Of course, we intend to be here for years and cover The Sims 4 so it's absolutely something you may see happen. 

[Eldridge]

I just want to add something here. Sorry, I hate to say this but first English is not my mother language.
I am still learning it. Thank you. Please don't mind me if you found something funny

This is an idea that I have in mind that you can consider in the future.
I just want to share mine. If you decide to create A Writing Challenge in the future.
Please, if you see this as an inappropriate post, just remove it.
 
Collaboration Story

In this challenge will be on team. So it will be consist of two people.
The requirement is just being a member of forum.
* They will create a story where each story is connected with each other.
* There will be a rules for minimum or maximum chapters.
* There will be a limit for screenshot for each chapter. This will be different from our usual 25 images/post. Maybe 10 (optional) 
* Sim must be created via CAS
* Traits of Sims must be randomized, Lifetime Wish can be selected
* There will be a time limit. A month can be fair enough (optional). Much preferable when this challenge is hold when holiday time come, so more time for everyone to able participate.
* There will be an entry limit for who can participate. (optional) Because too many participant will be tough for jury.
* No comment allowed until the challenge is end.
* The story will end, when the team end the story together. If A post chapter 10 as the finale. B too must be post chapter 10 like B.
* mods not allowed, but cheat for storytelling purpose allowed
* And the scoring will be based on overall from both stories. (optional)
Something like:
- Character value: This will be how people portray character personality just like the traits that Sims have), how the personality match their clothing (from everyday to outwear)
- Story:
-- How their story are connected
-- Depth of the story
-- The originality of content
-- Screen shot value (expression, scenery, etc that match with story purpose)
-- Theme of the story (free to choose)
-- Complexity of the story
- Building (optional). Why optional? Because the focus is the story content. Some people are not good in this thing and this is a Writing Challenge not Building

(you can add more if you like)

For scoring:
- I tend not to use voting, because people can be subjective. This can be a chance for newcomer to share their story (optional)
- There will be several jury, selected from someone who have experience with story-related and writing thing. I believe in this forum we have amazing and talented writers. They could be volunteered themselves or chosen by moderator. Be fair and be objective.

The focus is not for a competition, but a fun way to creating stories together. This can be strengthen each member bonds and help each other when making stories. You know that some people are good at one thing and other people have another one. This can improve their skill indirectly.

The difficulty is how the time that they spend together and make their story still connected and they must figure that themselves

For example you can see my Goode-Rotter's story, here. (this is a bad example, really) Where there are two Point of Views. The difference is the other Point of View is from another author!

Or for the simple way. Take a look at Romeo and Juliet story. In this case author A will making Romeo Point of View while other will make Juliet Point of View. At the same chapter that must be something that existed in both story!

Thank you for your attention

[ve1ocity]

Wow! I never thought my idea would be so popular and get feedback from the great and mighty admin himself !

I love El's ideas and would like to chime in with some perspectives. (On a side note El, I think your English is good and very rich. Its improving and I have no problem understanding you:))

I do think a percentage of voting would be nice because then it will have more community involvement and after all, we write for our readers. A judge panel would be great to select the five best entries which are then sent into community voting.

I agree that the emphasis should be on writing, not building etc.

Marian also had compiled some great ideas and I'm sure they'll help out a lot in bringing the contest to life !

On story ideas, well my head whirls with them and I'll come up with a complete ideas list and add to this topic. A monthly theme would be nice and also I'd prefer a format that asks for shorter, more frequent contests.

I agree that there should be more emphasis on creativity and not competition, but competition and the prompts would be a great initiative to foster a rich literature of sim stories.

[bubbles]

I think this is a really good idea. I would definitely throw a story into the bowl as I am always looking to improve my writing skills. Also, I would we quite keen myself on judging (I would personally prefer a judged competition to a voting competition) because I love reading the stories of others to gt ideas and also to help other improve their own writing. As Eldridge said, this should be more of a bit of fun than a competition and I do like her idea of a collaborative story, like the building competition held awhile back (Before I registered as a forum member) or the 'Let's Build a House' scheme run by Seabody.

As I said, I would be happy to help with the running of the competition.

[Ricalynn]

Hey guys.

Did you not read what Carl said?  Are you ignoring him on purpose?

Thank you for the suggestion. As the others said, it's a good one but we'd have to have someone coordinate it within the team. It's definitely an idea we can keep in mind for the future. I can imagine a lot of people enjoying a growing collection of short stories that it would produce, which have nothing to do with legacies or challenges and be focused on good content. Of course, we intend to be here for years and cover The Sims 4 so it's absolutely something you may see happen. 

This is something that will be handled by the team.  This means the moderation team.    All collaborations and such should be first approved by Pam before you all go crazy with this type of thing.   

I am locking this thread.