So many of you might remember the Tournament of Champions that we did back in 2009. In it, we invited a number of sites to Althanas to compete in a writing contest. The prize was supposed to be an Althanas Anthology, a published book full of stories from Althanas writers. Unfortunately, we didn't really prepare the reward well and it took a back seat to the tournament itself. This was a failure on my part, to be sure, and it's one that some people still give me grief about, but it wasn't an idea I was particularly behind at the time.
Fast forward to 2017, and things have changed. Self publishing is widely available. Though our target audience might be small, a successful anthology could pay for a new theme or a few months of server costs. Needless to say, it's an idea I'm starting to favor at the moment. However, before I drop anything on you, I want to gauge interest. It would work like this.
In lieu of a April Vignette, we would do an Anthology Contest. The idea is simple, there would be two divisions:
1) Writing Division
2) Art Division
The art would litter the pages, so it wouldn't be a major text block. I don't think it would be realistic to submit anything less than 200 pages. The average quest on Althanas varies greatly. When translated to pages, some are 5 and some are 20. Accordingly, I think we should aim high and allow 20 writing and 20 art entries into the Anthology.
From there, the writing division would be broken down even further to:
12 Solo Entries
8 Collaborative Entries
Art would be broken down into:
6 Character Entries
6 Setting Entries
8 Scenes
Anyone can submit any Althanas based writing or art for any category, whether it is original or something you developed in the past.
The divisions will be further broken down into player choices and staff choices.
This means that 6 Solo Entries, 4 Collaborative Entries, 3 Character Entries, 3 Setting Entries and 4 Scenes would be voted on by your peers. The same numbers would be voted on by staff members.
You could submit your work to both a player and a staff selection, but the staff selection would "win out" over a player selection and the next best player selection would be taken.
To avoid making this a popularity contest, all voters would need to provide a specific 1-10 score in 3 categories. For writing, these are:
1) Setting (How well Althanas locations and lore come alive in the thread)
2) Story (A measure of the quality of the storytelling & pacing of the thread)
3) Persona (How well the characters come alive)
For Art:
1) Relation to Althanas (How well the art relates to Althanas)
2) Aesthetics (The quality of the drawing itself, regardless of the type of art)
3) Purpose or Meaning (How profound the purpose or point of the art)
Mechanics and technique would be largely irrelevant, as all writing would be edited by the staff. By participating, you're giving express permission for the staff to edit, and publish your work. You're also giving away any right to royalties from the work. It will all be pooled into the site. I might draw up a written waiver if necessary. We might also bring in some volunteer editors as well.
The staff would write a forward.
Depending on popularity, we might make this a quarterly thing.
So, are you interested? Does anyone have any questions, concerns, ideas or anything else? Let me know here.
