Luka's 2015 Novella and Novelette Challenge and Contest

[Facing]

Ok, so maybe we should just proceed with Luka's idea.

I just had a random thought I'd like to share. What if instead of one of us randomly picking a topic for each contest we use various web searches to select upcoming submission calls and use one of them for a topic. That way we could all write our stories, help each other clean them up and then submit.

 

[Luka Datas]

I had some ideas for ways to set up the comp before I read
your idea FACING. I think yours could be the winner... but in the name of spitballing

thread-starter could suggest;

• A GENRE (or sub-genre) - TO INTERPRET IN YOUR OWN WAY.( ie - romance, thriller, western, detective, horror, self-help, historical, comedy etc.)

• A COUNTRY TO base THE STORY IN (Although the countrymen could be moved to space, through time, called something else altogether or even turned into animals, aliens or supernatural creatures -- as long as those in the know would vaguely recognize their genesis.)

• A PARTICULAR SOCIAL ILL INTEGRAL TO THE STORY (poverty, sadness, crime, greed, lust, selfishness, cruelty, bullying, disease, cruelty to animals, laziness, etc.)

• SUGGEST A FAMOUS POET (OR PHILOSOPHER) TO READ FOR FURTHER INSPIRATION (including a quote or two, maybe)

• and of course a theme

and... that's all I've got.

Maybe if we can set it up well enough, one of the comps, if it looks particularly promising, could go site wide.

 

[JonLaidlow]

I love the idea. novelette is a strange concept. Why can't we just call it a short novella? I know, I know, it's a classification by sfwa et al. But still! Horrid word.

 

[Luka Datas]

True...it's a bit like Smurfette, (you know that sexy little blue Womble like creature.) so anyway... novellas seem to be the most popular option... we should probably just make it a novella competition.

Also FACING, do you have any examples of previous submission calls. I've never seen one and it'd be interesting to see the ways these things are called for.

 

[Wilson Geiger]

I would be interested in this, but I would be adverse to a 'topic' or 'theme'. These are longer works, with much more of an investment, and in my opinion, themes are better left to short stories. Unless we did something like a shared world, or some shared setting, which might work. But then genre might be a concern for some of our writers.

In short, I have no answers, but this might be a good thing to experiment with. I have several novellette/novella-sized works, and prefer to write in that length or longer, these days.

 

[NickeeCoco]

Good Point and the word count restriction per post is even tighter than before now.

It's set at 10 000 words per post.

 

[Luka Datas]

I would be interested in this, but I would be adverse to a 'topic' or 'theme'. These are longer works, with much more of an investment, and in my opinion, themes are better left to short stories. Unless we did something like a shared world, or some shared setting, which might work. But then genre might be a concern for some of our writers.

In short, I have no answers, but this might be a good thing to experiment with. I have several novellette/novella-sized works, and prefer to write in that length or longer, these days.

I meant genre only in an impressionistic sort of way. When I think of westerns, I might think of John Wayne or Gary Cooper bravely facing danger and a single through-line, for instance, while others might think of many noble Indians cooly defending their territory against the encroachment of the white man. Neither impression is completely accurate but neither is wrong either.

I suppose, being new to this, I just wanted as many crutches as possible to help me with envisioning my story.

I bags not, starting the first comp thread , but before we begin it would be nice to see some sort of consensus in terms of what model you would all like to see the comp to run on. I'm happy however it goes up..

The SS COMP ENDS TODAY, which, I think means... if we begin it on the 15th
of next month we'll be in a pretty sweet spot. Comps wise.

It's set at 10 000 words per post.

Do you mean 10 000 characters? I had to split a recent 4 700 word short- story comp entry into 3 parts.

 

[NickeeCoco]

It may be characters. I'll talk to Dag. He said he was open to making the post limit higher.

 

[Luka Datas]

doubled up ....... again

 

[NickeeCoco]

Ok. So, @Luka Datas

Dag just changed the limit to 50 000 characters. He is in the process of finding out if the software can handle unlimited.

 

[Luka Datas]

That's great. @NickeeCoco, DREAMING had the idea of separating the novella comp into a sub forum all of it's own... Would it be possible or easier to localize larger changes to a single subforum and leave the rest of the site at 50k characters.

This might be a stupid idea -- but I don't speak computernese

 

[NickeeCoco]

I think it would just be the entire forum.

 

[RedMage]

I would be interested in this, but I would be adverse to a 'topic' or 'theme'. These are longer works, with much more of an investment, and in my opinion, themes are better left to short stories. Unless we did something like a shared world, or some shared setting, which might work. But then genre might be a concern for some of our writers.

In short, I have no answers, but this might be a good thing to experiment with. I have several novellette/novella-sized works, and prefer to write in that length or longer, these days.

I feel the same, Wilson. I was asking earlier because I would rather not have a theme at all for the reasons you gave.

However, if we are doing this as a competition, then how would we judge these mid-length stories against each other if they did not have a theme of some kind which the writers are writing to?

 

[Jussslic]

I would be interested in this, but I would be adverse to a 'topic' or 'theme'. These are longer works, with much more of an investment, and in my opinion, themes are better left to short stories.

Even though I doubt I'll participate, I will echo agreement here. Especially for a less prolific writer, a novelette/novella is a pretty serious undertaking; I think at that length it's best to let people choose where they want to go with the piece, and make sure everyone has the freedom to create something that really fits their voice and oevure.

Why not have one or two "suggested topics," but not make it a requirement?

However, if we are doing this as a competition, then how would we judge these mid-length stories against each other if they did not have a theme of some kind which the writers are writing to?

This doesn't seem like it would be a problem. Good writing is good writing, right? All the major awards compare works without any sort of theme. I think it's possible to judge the excellence of a piece without needing direct comparisons.

 

[RedMage]

This doesn't seem like it would be a problem. Good writing is good writing, right? All the major awards compare works without any sort of theme. I think it's possible to judge the excellence of a piece without needing direct comparisons.

Good point! I hadn't even thought of this. Thanks, Jussslic!

 

[Luka Datas]

I think one good reason for clear guidelines is so that participants can be clearly seen to have taken the time to write their story for the comp and in the time given. Rather than having unscrupulous writers dropping in random stories they've written possibly years earlier and just want some feedback for....
obviously creative license could still leave some stories so far left of field that their roots might be almost if not completely unrecognisable... but like you say... best writing & storytelling still trumps closest story to brief.

 

[Facing]

Also FACING, do you have any examples of previous submission calls. I've never seen one and it'd be interesting to see the ways these things are called for.

Sorry I'm late responding. Here are some submission call links I've responded to before.
Frozen Fairytales and Playground of Lost Toys

Also, here are some upcoming ones. Unbound, The Creators and Dieselpunk Fairy Tales. The submission dates for these are too close to use for this type of contest but there are new ones coming up all the time as well as unthemed contests like Writers of the Future and unthemed general submission guidelines - Lightspeed. This last one isn't a call out but it's guidelines could still be written to.

Lastly here is a link with a specific target for writers. Important:Limited Demographic: Submissions are restricted to those with connections to Aotearoa/New Zealand, Australia, or the South Pacific. At the Edge You've only got a month for this one @Luka Datas but the I think the limited submission rules increase your chances. The Playground of Lost Toys above held most of their space for Canadians and that probably helped me get as close to an acceptance as I did.

 

[Facing]

I really like the idea of having a theme and a deadline because I believe this kind of practice will help me to turn out stories in time for submission calls. I'll also echo, @Luka Datas with a concern about other writers going through their old stories for the contests rather than writing a new one as I believe is intended. I understand that people who have many trunked stories like to dust them off once in awhile but I have in the past felt...disappointed and a little cheated, after having spent a month or more trying to create something new and having someone else chime in that they spent a whole five minutes digging up something old. Perhaps that makes me sound petty but I believe there are plenty of opportunities for experienced writers to submit their works.

Why not have one or two "suggested topics," but not make it a requirement?

I think this might provide a happy halfway point. For those of us still new to the idea of writing and submitting we can post a link or three of possible targets but not make writing to any of them compulsory.

 

[Luka Datas]

Sorry I'm late responding. Here are some submission call links I've responded to before.
Frozen Fairytales and Playground of Lost Toys

Also, here are some upcoming ones. Unbound, The Creators and Dieselpunk Fairy Tales. The submission dates for these are too close to use for this type of contest but there are new ones coming up all the time as well as unthemed contests like Writers of the Future and unthemed general submission guidelines - Lightspeed. This last one isn't a call out but it's guidelines could still be written to.

Lastly here is a link with a specific target for writers. Important:Limited Demographic: Submissions are restricted to those with connections to Aotearoa/New Zealand, Australia, or the South Pacific. At the Edge You've only got a month for this one @Luka Datas but the I think the limited submission rules increase your chances. The Playground of Lost Toys above held most of their space for Canadians and that probably helped me get as close to an acceptance as I did.

Do you think we'd need two links so the sci-fi and fantasy writers can compete on an equal footing?

EDIT - wrote this before I read your last comment

 

[JonLaidlow]

A very general theme - revenge, love, squirrels - would work fine across all genres and members. Also agree it should be a new piece, so that the comp can be considered part of any workshopping phase before submission.