At this moment I don't have much to add except for my support. I think pg is a very good idea, though I do wonder how it would be handled in a Morostide-themed writing contest (which would be so fun). The more scary (NOT gore) side of things is hard to judge.

But personal "wait where is the limit for the spooky" aside, I am very much in support of this.

I'd for sure participate in a writing contest--especially if the lengths are shorter. Shorter stories can be challenging to write, though really satisfying when you get finished, so this would be a great opportunity to flex some creative muscles.

That said, instead of maybe voting for a handful of submissions, what about having users rate them individually? Judging a writing contest can be overwhelming for the people voting, and maybe individual ratings would be a little easier than choosing one story over another.

I'd also suggest randomly showing users one entry at a time, since walls o' text can be pretty overwhelming as well. Maybe the system could be programmed in such a way that each entry gets displayed an equal number of times, to prevent stories from getting overlooked? A view toggle might also work well--have users be able to choose between viewing all submissions to vote on, versus viewing one at a time, or even somewhere in between.

Because it does take more time to judge stories, I think the user-judged pool should be smaller than in previous contests.

It might also be interesting to have different categories that users could provide ratings for--e.g. "Biggest Twist," "Best Descriptions," "Funniest Moment," etc.

I don't really know what 300-500 words looks like. So I googled it for examples. That's actually a lot of words! Sadly I don't think people will read them. Unless there are a very limited number of stories presented. I'm a big reader and I probably wouldn't read more than a dozen.

Have you heard of two sentence stories (very hard to write), can be really effective.

My first thought was immediately this topic;

https://subeta.net/forums.php/read/901325/Weekly-Pet-Prompt-Win-CSC

entries around those lengths aren't horrendously long (If you ignore me being horribly verbose sometimes).

This all sounds good to me! I would for sure be interested in a writing contest.

I think this would be the most fun for item descriptions. They tend to be short, allows for sneak peeks of things in the works and would be easier for people to judge. Another idea is for NPCs have users generate a character skeleton for staff to later flesh out

I love this idea! I never really got a chance to practice creative writing in school, so I've been working on my pets to try and flex my writing muscles, but a writing contest would be really fun as well! I like the idea of a word limit, so as not to overwhelm judges and to put people on a more even playing field.

However, I do worry about imposing a PG limit. I can pretty easily tell when my writing goes from a PG13 level to an R level, and can adjust as needed to post here, but it would be much harder for me to judge what's PG vs. PG13, especially since I don't consume very much children's media (the only kid in my life is my niece and she's 12, so we watch PG13 stuff together). I feel like that would make me too worried of offending someone!

I would just say that not everyone's English is their mother tongue language and it would be nice if it would be not rejected because of that, if there are few mistakes that can be corrected, for example.

i loveeee 's idea of item description contests. i have a whole pet dedicated to my fav item descriptions and it would be so. funny. to vote on peoples' item descriptions for things. would help to keep things really short too. if users participate in voting for these contests, approximately 0% will read all 300 entries with 500 words each, but my attention span could def be kept for every users' sense of humor/storytelling in short 10-100 word descriptions.(i.e. comedy vs storytelling differences in vs )

That's easy enough to do, really, for most things. Scary is something that' more gray for me though, cause people can be much more sensitive. Gore, violence, nudity, sex, etc, those have clearer guides. But as I said, that's more of a me problem. And a good way to figure things out is to see what movies and shows do, so RESEARCH... When I am free to do so.

I love the idea of this!!! There's so much it could be used for. I feel like it could perhaps be used to revamp and/or add new content to the Subetapedia, since if the staff are too busy to write things themselves, they could take what users have written and use that if they feel like it's appropriate enough and matches enough with the lore/characters, and it would be a good opportunity for the staff to confirm headcanons about certain characters and places.

Also, I would like to see some fanfiction involving Subeta, I'm surprised there's hardly any in the writing forums. I mean, I just want more NPC content and wouldn't mind reading stories users have made up with it.

This sounds awesome!

Ideas I would love to see it be something that will actually get incorporated into the site, so I'd lean towards ideas like

• item descriptions
• shop greetings (this could be a good way for multiple winners, to have the shop randomly show text sort of like how Spells Galore does it); there are a few that are missing and some of them could use an update
• other places that could use some flavor text: Delphi Art Museum, Centropolis Clean Up, Farmer's Market, additional text for job descriptions, Aquarium, Bathhouse Pools (the actual pools), Underground Fishing, etc.

While I would I think Subetapedia entries could really use some love, I do think they might feel a bit too high stakes / make it feel less canon to people. Unless it's something like "one bullet point for the shopkeeper's description."

Word Count Pretty much all of the ideas I mentioned are definitely on the shorter side. While I personally would love to write a longer story, I'd much rather it'd rather be read, which is more likely to happen with shorter stories.

Judging Word count < 100 words: have users vote from the beginning Word count > 100 words: have staff narrow it down first and then vote

Ratings I think PG is definitely fine for this. This could be something you tweak after the first couple though. I also think it depends on what the text is for: shop text for instance should definitely be PG, but I could see some item descriptions being right in line with other funny ones on site that lean a little more PG-13.

I am SO excited about this! Here are my thoughts on what I'd love to see.

*One thing I remember from a prior writing contest was how poems tended to win out over paragraphs. Poems are shorter and grab the reader's attention more readily, especially if the next entry is a chunk of text. I'd love to see separate contests for short stories and poems.

*It would be fantastic if the NPCs could host at least some of the contests. Som at Five Seven Five could do a haiku contest or more general poetry contest and I could see Alexander inviting us to write descriptions for books he "discovered" in the Library basement. Emma and Esther could collect love stories and/or poems for their wedding anniversary. Even a villain like Maleria could "gather dirt" on their rivals i.e. have us tell stories from Shinwa's past. So many possibilities!

*Or maybe an NPC who invites other NPCs as guests to give us a theme? This Subetan could also be the "keeper" of the winning entries. They could be a "published" author, maybe take credit for writing some of Subeta's existing books? Possibly the shopkeeper from Book Nook? Someone who loves books that much would have to love writing.

*Writer-themed forum title(s) for a prize? Pretty please with a quill-shaped cherry on top?

I am 100% for getting NPC's involved. There's another site where I used to hang and every now and again they'd host a captioning contest where users could submit item descriptions and that was always great, so that may be a way to get people involved as well on a more regular basis ^^

I'd be happy with any title that lets me proclaim I'm a writer. Here are a few I've thought up. :)

_____ has novel ideas. _____ wrote the book. _____ is a wizard with words. The Writer _____. _____ can turn a phrase.

If there are item prizes, maybe some quills that are poised to write rather than pointed toward the ground like . Something like [item=Graceful Black Art Print V.1] holding a quill (or a pen or pencil.)

Variations of the or maybe some foreground desks would be great too.

This is super neat. My own participation in writing contests might be more limited so I don't have a ton to add, just that shorter word counts have worked really well for me in the past. I also really like your idea to keep the content PG in anticipation of those story writers who will naturally be pushing boundaries. And I'd love to see the NPCs involved too, especially ones with very different personalities and voices, coming together to host the contest.

I also like Marcus' suggestion of different categories to vote for. Even if the main contest has one or a few grand prize winners, maybe users can vote on other stories highschool yearbook style for "Most Unexpected Ending" or "Funniest" or "Would Make The Best Movie Script" and those stories could get smaller awards or unique items.

Hello prompters, forgive my off-topic ping. I see some of you already found this thread, but if not it might be up your alley! A good opportunity to think about what does and doesn't work for the pet prompt thread and give some feedback for official site writing contests.