How does the Writers Battle work?

[Steve 5,977]

What is a writers battle, how does it work and how do people join?

Edit:

Sign Ups so far:

Writers: @Layla Azmi Goushey @NCKoussis @A_FROG_IN_TIME @Thomas

Judges: @Layla Azmi Goushey (if possible to do both) @arettger22 @Steve (if needed)

[arettger22 82]

29 minutes ago, Steve said:

What is a writers battle, how does it work and how do people join?

I posted this in the members chat, but I'll post it here to give some ideas.

How it is run in the Grimdark Facebook group that I am apart of is that there are contestants and a panel of judges. The "battle" goes year long and every month authors submit their stories based on an image or a prompt. The judges then read the story and a score out of 5 for each of the following categories. Originality, Grimdarkness, how well the prompt was used, and overall writing. The person with the most points at the end of the year wins! I like it because there are no eliminations, so if you struggle with one prompt you can make up for it with another one

[Drew 528]

12 minutes ago, arettger22 said:

I posted this in the members chat, but I'll post it here to give some ideas.

How it is run in the Grimdark Facebook group that I am apart of is that there are contestants and a panel of judges. The "battle" goes year long and every month authors submit their stories based on an image or a prompt. The judges then read the story and a score out of 5 for each of the following categories. Originality, Grimdarkness, how well the prompt was used, and overall writing. The person with the most points at the end of the year wins! I like it because there are no eliminations, so if you struggle with one prompt you can make up for it with another one

That sounds like a lot of fun! Can anyone read the monthly stories or only the judges?

[arettger22 82]

They are posted on the group so everyone can read but only the judges can score them

[Steve 5,977]

6 hours ago, arettger22 said:

I posted this in the members chat, but I'll post it here to give some ideas.

How it is run in the Grimdark Facebook group that I am apart of is that there are contestants and a panel of judges. The "battle" goes year long and every month authors submit their stories based on an image or a prompt. The judges then read the story and a score out of 5 for each of the following categories. Originality, Grimdarkness, how well the prompt was used, and overall writing. The person with the most points at the end of the year wins! I like it because there are no eliminations, so if you struggle with one prompt you can make up for it with another one

That's pretty neat!

So it looks like we need volunteers to submit stories and judges to get it started.

Typically how many judges are there?

[Layla Azmi Goushey 92]

Can you be a writer and a judge?  I’d like to write for sure.  It sounds like fun.

[arettger22 82]

57 minutes ago, Steve said:

That's pretty neat!

So it looks like we need volunteers to submit stories and judges to get it started.

Typically how many judges are there?

I think there are 3 judges and 10 contestants in the group. I’m not a judge so I can’t speak as to how that is organized, (probably just take the average from each judge’s scorecard for the overall score for each story). And I’d like to commit to being a judge! Idk if I could commit to writing a short story on top of all my other works but reading should be fine!

[MarkM 170]

This will be fun, unfortunately I’m not qualified to be a writer or a judge 😂

[JosephRcarrel 108]

How long do the stories have to be? 

[NCKoussis 51]

I'd love to volunteer to be a writer.

[A_FROG_IN_TIME 255]

how long do the stories need to be? I may struggle to find the time to write too much. 

[A_FROG_IN_TIME 255]

sod it, count me in, I will find a way to make it work. I volunteer to get my ass kicked as a writer 🙂

 

[Steve 5,977]

Updated the original post with who wants to join 

[Paromita Mukherjee 878]

I'm not well-read enough across SFF subgenres to volunteer as a judge but this sounds like a lot of fun! I'll be cheering on from the sidelines. 

[Thomas 183]

Count me in for writing!

[arettger22 82]

So to answer a few questions I see (at least as to how it works in the facebook group I am in), The stories are generally pretty short maybe hovering around that 1000 - 3000 words. I'm not sure if we can have writers be judges as well as it would be hard to maintain unbiased judging that way.

[JosephRcarrel 108]

If the stories don't have to be super long I might be able to jump in

[Steve 5,977]

Here are some rules from the group @arettger22 was in:

 

 

Quote

 

Writer’s Battle Rules

This is a friendly writing competition that will pit authors against each other. At the start of every month, you will be supplied a prompt (either an image, text, or video) and you will have to come up with an entirely original story based on the prompt. Each judge will rate your story out of five based on four categories. Then, once all judges have submitted their scores, the average of each category will be taken and that will be your “total” score for the month. At the start of a new month, a new prompt will be released and you will have a chance to add to your “total” points. The writer with the most points at the end of the year (or contest period) is declared the winner!

 

 Rules are as follows:

1. Please aim to have the stories fall within the 1000-3000 word count

2. The four categories are:

   1. Originality

   2. Genre?

   3. How well the prompt is used

   4. Overall writing and structure

3. Submissions must be in by the last day of the month by 11:59:59PM CST

Please submit your stories in .DOC or .DOCX format… Also, not sure what your thoughts are on submitting the stories. The FB group just has the writer’s e-mail the judges but it’d be cool if we can figure out a way so that people can read the stories on the forum who aren’t competing in the contest.

 

 

I'm thinking instead of submitting stories via email we could have a private section for submissions instead or another process to submit.

[Thomas 183]

Perhaps just a Google Docs link? Not sure if that's the best way, but maybe.

[Steve 5,977]

I added a Writers Battle Club, please join if you're interested. There we can submit files and images, that might be a good way to keep everything organized. Google Docs is always a good option, too.