Fireside Storytelling Contest

November 7, 2019 7:56 am

I just love this time of year; the tang of autumn on the breeze, the beginning chill of winter creeping in, and best of all it provides an excellent excuse to curl up beside a cozy fire and enjoy a good book! Ah, could there be anything more perfect? I think not. Which is why I am hoping to provide you all with a bit of new fireside reading material. I can’t do it alone however; Would you be willing to help gather tales from around Subeta?

I’m in search of myths and legends harking back to the beginnings of Subeta, those half-forgotten stories a grandparent might have whispered in your ear while gently lulling you into sleep. And tales of bravery and adventure too of course - variety is the spice of life after all! Although the spices of Fireside are also quite lovely; I’m quite partial to cinnamon myself. But I digress.

So please, if you have a spare moment or two to gather up an old tale and write it down for me, I’ll be ready to accept submissions in about a week and get started on turning them into a proper collection. Let’s work together so all Subetans can enjoy sharing some new tales from around the globe this Fireside!

How to Enter Write a short story about a NEW Subeta myth or legend for one of the following categories:

Celestial beings (Sun/Moon/Stars)
Water (Ocean/Rivers/Ponds/Rain)
Natural Disasters (Volcanoes/Hurricanes/Storms)
Nature (Plants/Animals/Geography)
Magic (Spells/Charms/Curses)
Supernatural (Spooky, Unnatural, Unliving)

Story should be 600 characters or less
Please keep story content to a PG level to help keep entries as reader friendly as possible.
Enter once Alexander opens up submissions! (This will be in around a week’s time, and submissions will be open for another week after that.)
One entry per person.
Users will get to read and vote for their favorites!

Prizes 12 lucky winners will have their entries used in Alexander’s upcoming storybook collection and will receive a complimentary copy of the entire set of books. All participants will receive a storybook themed to their entry category and a special forum title.

All prizes will be attainable after the contest ends, and the winning stories will potentially be used as inspiration for further content in the future - so please don’t submit something you wouldn’t want to be used!

November 7, 2019, 1:57 pm by

Wait, does this mean the 2018 Morostide items and those two minions will be given out as prizes for Carnival games? In that case, I guess I should keep saving my tokens...Unless it's something else.

Also, my earlier question about making up your own characters didn't get answered.

November 7, 2019, 1:54 pm by

yes, a word count I can do lol :'D

November 7, 2019, 1:54 pm by

Ooo interesting. I'm not much of a writer. But do we get to read entries?

November 7, 2019, 1:51 pm by

Title will be separate. We know it's a tight character count for this - we wouldn't try to force in a title there too! xD

November 7, 2019, 1:41 pm by

This is so hard. I did it, kept it under 600 characters and 100 words, but good lords... That was hard to do! I started to really get going, only to have to cut it short XD. If we title the story, do those characters count, or could that just be the name of the book and they don't count? Asking for a friend...

November 7, 2019, 1:26 pm by

;)

November 7, 2019, 1:19 pm by

This sounds awesome! And finally something I can try that does not need to be drawn! My challenge is definitely going to be how short it will have to be... 600 characters is very tiny for sure. I don't know which theme to write for though... they ALL sound interesting and I have ideas for all of them! I may just write up one for each theme then see which one comes out sounding best lol!

Good Luck to everyone entering!!

November 7, 2019, 1:18 pm by

I'm excited for this. Hardest part will be keeping in the 600 limit.

November 7, 2019, 1:04 pm by

Huh sounds interesting... I might try.

Best of luck everyone!

November 7, 2019, 1:02 pm by

Thanks for the clarification!

November 7, 2019, 12:54 pm by

the trick is to summarize but leave enough vague that you just get the gist in an interesting way, look up micro fiction if you need ideas!

November 7, 2019, 12:52 pm by

Sign Me Up, This is good for me since I write a lot of fanfics

November 7, 2019, 12:52 pm by

This is so so so cool, I'm really excited!

November 7, 2019, 12:46 pm by

How can you tell a story in under 600 characters? That's basically just a summary.

November 7, 2019, 12:42 pm by

Alexander is a blessed soul. I can't wait to to read ALL OF THEM. can barely type a news comment

November 7, 2019, 12:31 pm by

Me, before finally giving up:

November 7, 2019, 12:27 pm by

Hmm, is that perhaps related to the 2018 Morostide stuff and the minions that have been mentioned? Interesting, now I have more stuff to be curious about lol.

November 7, 2019, 12:19 pm by

600 characters challenge accepted!!!

November 7, 2019, 12:19 pm by

600 characters challenge accepted!!!

November 7, 2019, 12:19 pm by

600 characters challenge accepted!!!

November 7, 2019, 12:01 pm by

There's a reason for that! That you'll find out around Black Friday :X :X :X

November 7, 2019, 12:01 pm by

No, you won't need to upload a .docx or any file. There will be a submission form where you can paste your story in plaintext. :)

You may use sCode to bold, italicize, and underline text; however, this will still count towards the character limit. No sCode other than bold, italics, and underline will be allowed. We will make sure to mention this on the submission form as well once submissions open.

November 7, 2019, 11:59 am by

So something between mini-fic and incredibly short ficlet depending on the words one uses. Hmmmmm. Mayhap....mayhap.

I'm intrigued.

[sub]90% sure my use of fic terms here are outdated....its been a ridiculously long time.[/sub]

November 7, 2019, 11:58 am by

What a cool contest! I'm definitely gonna submit something for this. :D

November 7, 2019, 11:57 am by

- yes, anonymity all round!

November 7, 2019, 11:55 am by

You're welcome to make use of elements from more than one category! However, you will only be able to select one category for submission.

November 7, 2019, 11:49 am by

Man why can I not be a creative person?

So as long as we participate(even if it totally sucks) we will still get a book? Asking for a friend Haha.

November 7, 2019, 11:34 am by

What a cool contest! Hopefully I can contribute something meaningful to it. /crosses fingers

November 7, 2019, 11:26 am by

Will voting be anonymous? Both the story’s author and the person voting?

November 7, 2019, 11:17 am by

Oh man that says 600 characters, not 600 words. Okay. rolls up sleeves I can do it. Good luck everyone!

November 7, 2019, 11:01 am by

"...600 characters or less..."

Well I'm boned.

November 7, 2019, 11:00 am by

I’m up for the task. I think I have about 100 words in me. 600 characters worth. Good luck everyone!!!

November 7, 2019, 10:53 am by

YES YESSSS YESSSSSSS I'm so excite

November 7, 2019, 10:48 am by

It says submissions will be open for about a week as well, so I would guess we'll have until around the 21st to submit the stories.

But there will likely be another news post with more information once submissions open up. :)

November 7, 2019, 10:40 am by

Oh too bad my english is not good enough to write something like this >: Translators can catch misspelling but not really bad grammar or things like that..

November 7, 2019, 10:35 am by

Any idea if we can cross over the catagories? Like plants having been created by a celestial body or a spirit sort of thing. (Feel free to use this idea as it's not what I'm going to go with I think xD )

November 7, 2019, 10:10 am by

YES, finally a contest I can participate in that's not art based!

November 7, 2019, 10:00 am by

Maybe new lore can be about why the Carnival is still in it's spooky haunted Morostide phase.

November 7, 2019, 10:00 am by

I'm so excited! The short length will be a challenge for me as well, but I'm hoping to tackle it nonetheless.

So, to clarify--submissions will be open on November 14? When will the last day be to submit stories?

November 7, 2019, 9:38 am by

So yeah, I would guess probably item descriptions or some sort of have the book in your inventory and you can go to read the story on another page. I think they've done that before in the past for like books that were used as plot items or something.

November 7, 2019, 9:37 am by

It seems like since there are going to be 12 winners, there are going to be 12 books to go along with the winning stories. Each of those 12 people will then receive the complete set of 12 books as a prize.

Everyone who participated will receive 1 of the books hat goes along with which category they wrote their story for.

And then for people who don't participate, or who want multiple copies of the books, they'll be available to buy or earn from somewhere after the contest.

At least that's how I interpreted it. ;~;

November 7, 2019, 9:36 am by

omg i didnt realize it said 600 CHARACTERS until i read the comments... that makes things easier for me lmfao

November 7, 2019, 9:35 am by

Oooh actually a contest I do want to join in (: Good luck everybody!

November 7, 2019, 9:22 am by

thats how I wrote mines, I'm thinking thats how its intended- the instructions aren't clear. :S

November 7, 2019, 9:20 am by

kind of confused about

Quote

12 lucky winners will have their entries used in Alexander’s upcoming storybook collection and will receive a complimentary copy of the entire set of books

so, are the winning entries going to end up being item descriptions, for books? Should they be similar to items like these?

November 7, 2019, 9:08 am by

invent your own. and make sure you're ok with staff possibly using it in the future ;)

600 characters.... better have said 100 words, but it's alright. Guess we can't go too deep into details. Challenge accepted >.< /determined! (if i actually have time to spare from work, lol)

November 7, 2019, 9:07 am by

Ooh, love it!

November 7, 2019, 8:56 am by

I know 100 words or so is pretty short, but I think it's partly to encourage participation on the voting side of things as well. I would love to see some longer writing competitions in the future, but I probably wouldn't want people to vote by just reading the first few lines without really reading the whole story.

If they're able to gradually increase the length limit for future contests while still keeping voter participation up, then hopefully it works out to do that. :)

I'm looking forward to seeing the stories for this anyway! It would be cool to get some new ideas for mythology and folklore for the site.

November 7, 2019, 8:54 am by

Oh wow, this is so cool! 600 characters is pretty small though, but I can understand the limit when staff have to read hundreds of entries. Hopefully I can get something together in time. <3

November 7, 2019, 8:47 am by

Yay writing!

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Fireside Storytelling Contest

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