MLK Writing Contest #35!

[DGFone]

Yeah, yeah, this is late again... This contest is most definitely not dead, but I do tend to be a little more careless with the WC than I am with the TLKFotM, since this doesn't need to stick to a strict schedule. Never the less, Gemini did post something that made me feel rather... guilty, and even though I wouldn't normally post a topic with the little time I have left today, she did in the end give me the motivation to at least start this darned thing.

Since the previous contest ended in a tie, there will be one more topic to write on compared to usual: three normal topics, and two writer chosen ones. So for the next two weeks, (realistically three if not four if the previous contests are to judge by), these are the topics that you can write on:

Zazu
If Scar wasn't bad
I Just Can't Wait to be King
The Lion Guard
TLK crossed over with... anything

I will accept submissions until Wednesday, December 16th! Although realistically, you know that I will accept the, until whenever I will actually post the voting round. The 25th is the day that I am hoping I will do that, though, so don't rely on me being late.

Standard rules: The stories cannot exceed more than 4000 words, but need to be more than 1000. The other rules are the same: keep the stories PG-13, no plagiarizing off others, and don't submit something you already wrote previously for something else.

Have fun and enjoy your writing!

[Ninaroja]

I'm gonna try *fingers crossed* I just don't have the time to write anyone the way I used to

[Braveheart]

I wonder if Grammar & sentence structure (And other nitpicky small stuff) is a big criteria when people judge stuff, or maybe the general outline of the story is more than enough?

[DGFone]

I don't know about how others vote for the stories they vote for, but when I do vote, I don't take grammar and structure into account - to a point.

The occasional misspelled word, I might even notice and automatically correct it in my head before I even realize that it was spelled wrong. An improperly formatted sentence is not as easy to hide, but I am rather forgiving as well.

I do in the end vote for the story that gave me the best experience to read. So while grammar and such don't go into consideration, a story full of misspelling or bad structure (such as the dreaded Great Wall of Text), will in the end force me to slog through the story and cause me to not enjoy it as much, potentially costing it my vote. So in short, while grammar doesn't count, it doesn't mean you can ignore it completely. It exists for a reason.

And to repeat myself: that's only how I vote. I don't know about others, but I do suspect that it won't be all that different.

[Shawry111]

How would one right? Who do we send it to etc? I might just have a go at it... How many people usually enter by the way?

[Carl]

[quote="Braveheart"]I wonder if Grammar & sentence structure (And other nitpicky small stuff) is a big criteria when people judge stuff, or maybe the general outline of the story is more than enough?[/quote]
Any story that has atrocious grammar and bad spelling will not get my vote no matter what the plot and characterization is like. If the story is unreadable, it's not going to get my vote, and I doubt the other serious writers will say anything different.

I myself take writing very seriously, and while this contest is for fun, I have seen entries that were nothing but misspelled words, run on sentences, and lack of capitalization or punctuation; in other words, literary nightmares. Anything that's full of consistent and rather blatant errors and atrocities, quite honestly, I won't even finish reading it. You can't have a good piece of literature if you don't even try to use the amount of grammar a third grader knows. You don't have to be an expert at the language; I know some people aren't native speakers after all, but if you submit a huge mess that isn't formatted like a story at all and you clearly didn't try, I'm not going to take the entry seriously.

As long as you try, and it follows basic grammar, some mistakes here and there are acceptable and expected, even. I notice mistakes in my own work that make me cringe, so of course I won't condemn anyone who actually tried to make their story readable. It's just that if you don't try to utilize grammar and spell correctly, it won't be readable, and so I won't read it.

If it looks anything like this, it won't get my vote:
[quote]
Simba jumped up and ran over to pumba. hello pumbas can we go to investigate that noise i herd it was loud. no sed pumba, thats dangerous. so instead, Simba went to get nala. They journeyed into the woods together cos their best friends and they found the noise was caused by a two legged animal withotu hair on it and simba looked at nala and said what is that thing and why is it in are jungle and nala sed i don't no simba, but its got to be friendly and so they walked over and introdooced themself as the king and queen of the pride lands and the creeture told them it was a human and its name waz dave and they all went to dave's tent and he read them the stories he was righting and they loved the stories and they told him so and everyone was sooper happy[/quote]

I'm not exaggerating when I say I've seen "stories" written like that, and such things are simply abominations. If your story looks remotely story like, then the plot, if strong enough, can outweigh any grammatical or spelling errors... as long as it looks like you took it seriously, unlike the mess above.

[quote="Shawry111"]How would one right? Who do we send it to etc? I might just have a go at it... How many people usually enter by the way?

[/quote]

You write in either Microsoft Word, Notepad, etc., or you write directly into the "compose PM" box. You send the story in a PM to DGF when it's completed.

Most of the time, myself and DG are the only ones who enter these days...

[Shawry111]

Nawww, that's kinda sad. I've never done it before but writing has actually always been a passion. I find myself thinking about it all the time while lying in bed... I enjoy using correct grammar too, but I usually make a few boo boos...

EDIT:

I'm not sure about the topic ideas they are very vague, I get the if Scar wasn't bad but what about The Lion Guard and Zazu? What about them? I don't understand and because this would be my first time writing I wouldn't want to screw anything up.

[Carl]

The point of the topics is to be vague so that people have more freedom in what they write. For example, the topic "Zazu" could be a story from Zazu's perspective, or a story about how he became Mufasa's majordomo, or a story about someone telling a story about Zazu, or Zazu's successor trying to live up to the example set by Zazu or a multitude of other things.

The topic "The Lion Guard" could be about Kion and his team, or it could be about Scar's Guard, or it could be about the establishment of the very first Lion Guard, or it could be about a single creature who guards a lion, a lion who is a guard for some other creature, or just about anything else TLK-related that you can come up with that has something to do with "The Lion Guard."

[Shawry111]

That post made me giggle a little bit. Okay, I will go wild. Sorry if it doesn't actually come through however, I have a lot to do these holidays...

[DGFone]

I prosperously decided to use vague prompts because I feel that more specific prompts are too limiting. While for new authors, a vague prompt might feel them leaving overwhelmed, I find that it is not that big of an issue, and the freedom that a vague prompt allows has already surprised me with the creativity I've seen here many times.

At the end of the day, if you have any questions about the writing contest, just reply in this topic, or simply send me a PM.