Retainer Ad-Venture Contest (EU) - Discussion Thread

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mjollnir

Wow 500 words is SHORT. I'm really struggling editing mine down from around 1,000.

This is a great competition, and I understand that you can't very well read a ton of long short stories, but if (hopefully when!) you run a competition of this kind again, could you please consider upping your word allowance to 1,000? :)

---

Would YOU like to read a hundred entries of a 1000 words?

If you're having a hard time getting the word count down, throw your story away and plan it again from scratch. Plan the important parts and revolve around that, do we NEED to read about your retainers interaction with your character? Does your retainer NEED to talk about your character?
Questions that I've brought up from the very long entries(the ones that also disqualified themselves :p), the story is about the retainers' adventure. Do we need to read about the parts we see in game? What is the most interesting part of the story? Is the most interesting part what you have written down?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chiramu

Gah, I can't believe I forgot to add my details at the bottom of my story! >< Was too busy trying to make sure my story was good for the forum post.

I hope adding the details in the post underneath is okay :(. Can we get a forum mod to tell us this? T-T

---

Guilty as charged. Though, to be honest, I don't see myself using the Scarf (last item I don't have yet) at all...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chiramu

If you're having a hard time getting the word count down, throw your story away and plan it again from scratch. Plan the important parts and revolve around that, do we NEED to read about your retainers interaction with your character? Does your retainer NEED to talk about your character?

---

Had already cut mine down to 500, but it took a lot of the storytelling and emotion out of it which was a shame. I wanted to write about my retainer's interaction with my character, so aside from the required mention of what was brought back and how it was gotten hold of, I though it would be interesting to reflect on the current state of the game from my perspective. We have plenty of roof-stealers and minion-hunters in the thread so far, but in-game my eight retainers are past that phase and only head out to get the specific materials I require for the crafts that day.

On reflection, I stand by the 1,000 word request for future shirt story competitions. 500 words only takes about a minute and a half to read. Would I like to read a hundred entries of 1,000 words? Sure! Not all at once, but there's no reason to do so. Spending an hour to read twenty a day for a week seems fine, especially if it was part of my job to do so!

Added my story ^_^

Maybe not the best had to get back into writing again.
I also hope it's not really a problem that I mainly play on an American server, at the moment. But I am a Dutch/German (yes both) young woman living in the Netherlands so I do fall under the Europe cathegory for contests right?
(Maybe I'll transfer to a mainly European server in the future - but now I'm at home in Malboro).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mjollnir

Wow 500 words is SHORT. I'm really struggling editing mine down from around 1,000.

This is a great competition, and I understand that you can't very well read a ton of long short stories, but if (hopefully when!) you run a competition of this kind again, could you please consider upping your word allowance to 1,000? :)

---

Hehe, I know what you mean. Within half an hour of writing mine, I was already three times over the limit. I had to spend the next hour and a half painstakingly trying to decide which parts to remove. No matter, my entry's in now. ^-^

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Elita-Draconia

Hehe, I know what you mean. Within half an hour of writing mine, I was already three times over the limit. I had to spend the next hour and a half painstakingly trying to decide which parts to remove. No matter, my entry's in now. ^-^

---

You should plan before you write.

You should, but that doesn't mean it always happens. I'm a literature major and I never plan before I write, ehehehe......

I threw mine together and ended up at 492 words. Would've liked to have written more but gotta keep it short and sweet!

(And yeah, I play on an American server but that's just to play with my friends - I'm in Australia).

So, Community Team, my entry is actually 500 words on the dot (post #162 in the entry thread), but I just pasted the whole thing into a word processor and it counted 502. It's added 2 words because I split paragraphs with "---" in two places. Obviously those aren't actual words, so the entry is still 500 words.

Is that going to be an issue? :S

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bizant

So, Community Team, my entry is actually 500 words on the dot (post #162 in the entry thread), but I just pasted the whole thing into a word processor and it counted 502. It's added 2 words because I split paragraphs with "---" in two places. Obviously those aren't actual words, so the entry is still 500 words.

Is that going to be an issue? :S

---

I don't think that should be an issue. You don't read the paragraph breaker :p.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chiramu

I don't think that should be an issue. You don't read the paragraph breaker :p.

---

Well, you could try ;)

But yeah, exactly. The paragraph breakers obviously aren't words. I'm just concerned they'll paste it into a word counting tool, see the number 502, and instantly disqualify it without realising those 2 extra "words" are just formatting to make it easier to read.