Contest Idea: The Flash Fiction Tournament

[Claire]

I had this idea for a contest format, but to make it work, I think we would need at least 8 participants. And I would like to know who would participate in a contest like this.

Here is the format: Instead of a classical contest with a theme and a bunch of entries that people can vote for, we are making this contest a tournament with two authors facing off against each other and the winner advancing to the next round. Whoever gains the most reputation over the course of, let's say, 3 days for their story wins. The two stories competing against each other have to be written for the same theme and to make all of this manageable for all parties involved we will limit ourselves to writing flash fiction (250 to 1000 words).

So if we had 8 participants, round 1 would be the quarter-final, round 2 the semi-final and round 3 the final. The question is how much time we should allot for writing and then voting. If we go with 3 days for voting and 4 days for writing, each round would be finished within a week which would sound reasonable to me. We could even publish the themes for the future rounds in advance. So somebody could write their semi-final entry before they even know whether they won their quarter-final match.

I also already know how we could handle entries. I would create a board for the contest where authors post their entry. While their story is in that board, the authors would be able to see and edit their own story but nobody else's. And once the match starts, I would move the stories out of that board into the Public Stories board where it could be read by anybody and the voting begins. So nobody would have to be here at a specific hour to post their story at the exact right moment.

Who would be interested in that? And if there are details you would like to change, like the time frames for voting and writing, we can of course make adjustments to that. Please view my suggestions here as a prototype.

Summon: @Vela Nanashi, @Kendall, @Shocker, @Brootal, @praetor3d, @KittyUmbrass, @HistBuff, @Vile8r, @Blue, @LaLia

edit: If I haven't mentioned you, that does of course not mean that you can't participate. On the contrary, I would love for you to join the contest. The people mentioned are the ones who have posted stories here already or I know that they posted stories on RavishU, so I know them to be authors. That's all.

[KittyUmbrass]

I'd certainly be intrigued to give it a go. head-to-head contests are always fun.

[Kendall]

Can we enter a story we've already written?

[LaLia]

Interesting idea...I'm generally not a fan of flash stories because I don't know if I can achieve what I consider my style in 1,000 words. But I'd definitely give it a try and be in. I think a random selection process would be good, and not just one topic for each round, but more than one topic per round.

[Claire]

@Kendall Generally speaking, I see no reason why not. But practically, each match will have a different theme. So unless you already have a story that matches that theme, you will probably have to write something new?

@LaLia It's the same for me. The shortest story I've ever written is 2000 words long I think. I'd be open to try the same tournament style with longer stories, but you would probably have to do this over the course of several months. You can't expect people to write multiple medium length (5,000 to 15,000 words) stories for a contest like this over the course of just a few days or weeks. But if this format really takes of and the forum still exists in 6 months from now, I would love to revisit the idea for longer stories. And regarding the themes: I would like to have a different theme for each match. So with 8 participants, that would be 4 themes for the first round, 2 for the second round and 1 for the final, so 7 in total.

[Shocker]

I’m in

[Kendall]

I won't be able to participate as I will be indisposed for the next two weekends Friday to Sunday.

[Blue]

I'd probably be there too.
A maximum of 1,000 words is obviously a challenge, no matter the topic. There won't be much room to include character descriptions and thought experiments in the story. It'll probably just be about implementing the topic.
Interesting challenge

[Vela Nanashi]

I do not think I can write that short, it has always hurt to be limited in words, flash fiction can at best be a fragment for me

[Claire]

So let's take stock. As potential contestants we have: @Shocker, @KittyUmbrass, @LaLia , @Blue and I would throw my own hat into the ring if we don't get our 8 contestants together without me. So that makes 5 participants, we need at least 3 more.

@Kendall Currently, my plan is to start the contest next week on Wednesday. You would have from Wednesday to Sunday to write your story. Would that be enough time for you outside of the weekend? For the semi-final and final you could write your story even earlier because I would publish the themes for all the matches in advance.

@pinkwarkitten14, @valblair321, @darklord, @LtBroccoli, @leftwanting, @chloevee what about you guys? Anybody interested?


Another thing I thought about: I think it would be more fun if the authors remained anonymous until the contest is over. I'm currently testing an extension to the forum that let's you post anonymously, so I would want to use that. So your posts would just say "posted by anonymous", no avatar, no nothing. The forum does of course know that it is your post and we would remove the anonymity setting after the contest is over. All reputation you gain with your stories will still be attributed to your account.

With that anonymity setting, I would like to introduce another fun element to this contest: Pen names. I would like for each contestant to suggest a pen name when they enter the contest, but not for themselves. The pen name you suggest will be assigned at random to another contestant. And the contestants will be listed under those pen names in the tournament bracket. So I hope that you will come up with some really silly pen names for your fellow contestants. If you don't want to submit a pen name for the other contestants, I will do that for you, and I promise you that mine will be very silly and cringe-worthy and hopefully make you groan.


@LaLia You have some experience creating AI art, right? Do you think you could help with creating avatars for the contestants' pen names that we could then put into a nice VS-banner for match announcements? If, for example, the Traumatized Teddy faces off against the Paranoid Parrot, I would love to have some image for that.