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Alpha and Omega: A Hoenn One-Shot Contest

Umbramatic

The Ghost Lord
Er, a question about my entry again that's the opposite of the above...

Would being only a small fraction of the maximum wordcount necessarily affect the judging?

Since I'm close to being done and feel like I'm covering all the scenes I need to... Except it's a measly 1518 words as of this post and I feel insecure about it.
 

Shurtugal

The aura is with me.
If the word limit exceeds 10,000 by a few words (say, 10,200+) would that be acceptable?

Also, I am working on this project together with my friend SubZero Dragon, which I was assured was okay! :) Thanks in advance for the answer to my question, and best of luck to everyone.
 

bobandbill

Winning Smile
Staff member
Super Mod
I know this question is gonna sound silly, but how strict is the word limit? I got an ideal version of my story at about 12,000 words. (Different word counters say different exact numbers. Weird.) I trimmed it way down, but now it's about 10,100~9,800. Gah, what a pain...you wouldn't think a simple freakin' word count would be so difficult.
Er, a question about my entry again that's the opposite of the above...

Would being only a small fraction of the maximum wordcount necessarily affect the judging?

Since I'm close to being done and feel like I'm covering all the scenes I need to... Except it's a measly 1518 words as of this post and I feel insecure about it.
If the word limit exceeds 10,000 by a few words (say, 10,200+) would that be acceptable?

Also, I am working on this project together with my friend SubZero Dragon, which I was assured was okay! :) Thanks in advance for the answer to my question, and best of luck to everyone.
Hi, multiple questions on similar topics!

Personally, I won't mind if your story is just over 10,000 words. If it starts getting to being thousands of words over that limit then that's too much though - we'll still read and judge it, but it may get a score penalty.

The word limit is there in part so we don't have even more work in reading and judging. Basically, if you're submitting an epic, then the judging process will naturally take longer because there's more to read. Plus it's part of a challenge in a sense to adhere to that limit!

On the flip side, being well below the limit is fine, as long as the story is told sufficiently in that space. So while I can't say if your story is going to score well, InsaneTyranitar, just because it's short doesn't mean it can't! As long as it's long enough for your story to actually be told, and told well.
 

Negrek

Lost but Seeking
Unfortunately, I'm going to have to disagree with bobandbill here (sorry, man). To me, the word count is an important element of the challenge, as much as the theme itself. I don't want to encourage word creep ("Well, if 10,250 is fine as long as the extra length is enough to make it better, then I can probably get away with submitting 11,000..."), I think it's fairest to give a hard cutoff rather than a vague "Well, I don't really mind if it's a *little* over, but if it starts to get too much you'll lose points," and I definitely don't want to run into the potential situation where someone who submitted a lengthier 'fic ended up placing above people who actually adhered to the rules of the contest. If you submit a story that's more than 10,000 words, I will truncate it to 10,000 before sending it to the other judges or reading it myself. So you can submit a story of any length, really--but you will only be judged on the first up-to-10,000 words of it. If your ending is important to your story, you probably don't want this to happen!

Because different word counters do give different scores, I'll give a little leeway to account for the possibility of technical error--so you don't need to worry that your story will show up as 10,005 words or 10,015 words or something and I'll knock off the last sentence. If your story goes more than a couple tens of words over the hard limit by my counter, however, I will truncate it.

Shorter stories are, of course, personally fine. If you believe you've told what you want to tell in a very small number of words, that's just fine! Don't sweat it.
 

Subzero Dragon

Resident Muse
And there's my biggest problem. Some word counters have a discrepancy of well over 400 words. As I mentioned before, that kind of cheeses me off. My story is as low as 9,820 or as high as 10785. I don't want to be docked because of this. Sorry if I seem fussy, but I don't want to lose due to a technicality.
 

JX Valentine

Ever-Discordant
And there's my biggest problem. Some word counters have a discrepancy of well over 400 words. As I mentioned before, that kind of cheeses me off. My story is as low as 9,820 or as high as 10785. I don't want to be docked because of this. Sorry if I seem fussy, but I don't want to lose due to a technicality.

Test your word count in a variety of programs including Google Drive and online word counters and trim as necessary if many of them say you're extremely over? Not to be bitey, but this isn't exactly a problem that's difficult to resolve on your own.

Even then, it's very rare that you end up working with a word processor that deviates from most other counters by something as extreme as 400. OpenOffice, Drive, Scrivener, and Word are normally within tens of words from each other for smaller word counts. Assuming you're writing 10k words, you shouldn't see an extreme difference unless you're abusing certain marks of punctuation. Of course, you'll probably have to account for OpenOffice's tendency to count opening curly quotation marks as separate words, but again, cross-checking should resolve that issue. Or not using OpenOffice would.

But point is, the word count limit looks like it exists for a reason. And even if it wasn't there just for practical purposes, it's still part of the challenge. Those who choose to participate in challenges are also agreeing to following all of the challenge's rules because, y'know, it's meant to be a challenge. So it's really on you to ensure you meet the challenge's (God, I'm using that word far too frequently here) requirements, not on the judges to decide whether or not they should give you some leeway.
 
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Shurtugal

The aura is with me.
Unfortunately, I'm going to have to disagree with bobandbill here (sorry, man). To me, the word count is an important element of the challenge, as much as the theme itself. I don't want to encourage word creep ("Well, if 10,250 is fine as long as the extra length is enough to make it better, then I can probably get away with submitting 11,000..."), I think it's fairest to give a hard cutoff rather than a vague "Well, I don't really mind if it's a *little* over, but if it starts to get too much you'll lose points," and I definitely don't want to run into the potential situation where someone who submitted a lengthier 'fic ended up placing above people who actually adhered to the rules of the contest. If you submit a story that's more than 10,000 words, I will truncate it to 10,000 before sending it to the other judges or reading it myself. So you can submit a story of any length, really--but you will only be judged on the first up-to-10,000 words of it. If your ending is important to your story, you probably don't want this to happen!

Because different word counters do give different scores, I'll give a little leeway to account for the possibility of technical error--so you don't need to worry that your story will show up as 10,005 words or 10,015 words or something and I'll knock off the last sentence. If your story goes more than a couple tens of words over the hard limit by my counter, however, I will truncate it.

Shorter stories are, of course, personally fine. If you believe you've told what you want to tell in a very small number of words, that's just fine! Don't sweat it.

What word counter do you use? Fanfiction and Microsoft Word have been counting my work much like the problem Subzero has been having (and we're working on the same piece, so, yeah, it's been aggravating thing with the word counter).

I am hoping you'll reconsider a few words leeway, but regardless I understand where you are coming from completely. All I ask is you provide us the word counter you use and we will make it fit the 10,000 word limit (or die trying). Thanks for your time. :)

EDIT: I wrote this before the user above posted their post. Would Google Drive be an acceptable counter to go by?

EDIT 2: This word count problem seems to be happening in Fanfiction. Multiple other places are suggesting we have 400+ less words then Fanficiton is claiming we have, so I believe it is their word counter that is putting us off. Thanks for all of your assistance guys! :)
 
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JX Valentine

Ever-Discordant
What word counter do you use? Fanfiction and Microsoft Word have been counting my work much like the problem Subzero has been having (and we're working on the same piece, so, yeah, it's been aggravating thing with the word counter).

I am hoping you'll reconsider a few words leeway, but regardless I understand where you are coming from completely. All I ask is you provide us the word counter you use and we will make it fit the 10,000 word limit (or die trying). Thanks for your time. :)

Here's a tip from someone who does NaNoWriMo: always assume that the counter opposite the word count limitation is the correct one and trim or add accordingly. For example, in NaNo, you want a higher word count, so you'll need to test on a variety of word counters (Google Drive is a valid counter in that it's just the same as using Word's, by the by) and see which one has the smallest count. While cross-testing will tell you that you should be in range of your goal, the smallest count will tell you to add more to give you a cushion. For this challenge, what you need to do is the opposite. Cross-test and find the count with the highest. The cross-test will tell you that you're dangerously close to 10k; the highest count will tell you how much to trim your work down by in order to get that cushion of safety.

You probably missed this edit as well, so I'll say it again. When you participate in writing challenges or contests, it's generally not up to the judges to give you leeway when it comes to the challenge's requirements because that would defeat the purpose of a challenge. It's up to you to ensure that your story meets the requirements they set. Ten thousand is a pretty high number for a short story, so if you hit that according to any counter, that should be a challenge to you to write a little more concisely. There are a variety of things you could possibly do to avoid hitting 10k, and you'll probably find that all of them might actually benefit your writing style. (For example, try removing adverbs. Reword sentences with the passive voice so that they're written with the active voice. Remove superfluous ellipses, which tend to be counted as separated words. Or just straight-up go back through your work and see if you can say things a bit simpler.)

Sorry again for being a bit bitey, but y'all are worrying yourselves over part of the contest's point. You're supposed to bend over backwards in order to meet every single requirement. That's what a challenge is, and although this is a contest that's meant to judge your writing style, it's also partly a challenge to you to see how well you write given certain limitations.

I mean, sure, knowing which counter Negrek is using to verify the entries would help, but what happens if Negrek's using Microsoft Word, which isn't available to everyone? Might as well know how to cross-check and edit as necessary.

Edit: And you might not want to use FFNet as a word processor. It's ... not a very good word processor, as you have just found out. FFNet's kinda notorious for developing tools that are hilarious like that, and its word counters have always been weirdly off, even in the story listings. I can't begin to tell you why that is (whereas with other word counters, it's not that difficult to tell what they're counting). It's just been a thing that FFNet does that. If you really want to use it, though, then look at its results when you cross-check. If it says you're significantly higher than the limit, trim down to create a cushion until it says you're under. Yes, you may lose a few hundred words as a result, but again, it's on you to meet the contest requirements to the best of your ability. That and if you're writing that much for a short story, you may want to trim down anyway. Wasn't it Poe who said that a short story needs to be concise enough to read in one sitting?
 
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Subzero Dragon

Resident Muse
I didn't mean to seem like I was begging for leeway. Sorry about this. I will follow the rules to the best of my ability. I was just a bit annoyed with the vast word count difference. Maybe I am worrying about this too much...XP
 

Shurtugal

The aura is with me.
No yeah it's not a problem we'll be able to fit the word limit. Thanks so much for your response! I've found that I like our piece trimmed as it reads much better, so we'll probably edit a lot anyway and be able to meet the count, it was just Fanfiction's tool making the word counting hard to do -- but there are about a million online word counters that are actually fairly consistent so we will hit the requirement.

I like the challenge and don't want to come off as begging either, because I am 100% confident we can meet all the requirements and do well! Again, thanks so much for your quick responses! :)

EDIT: Also, I am willing to critique other people's contest submissions -- feel free to PM me. I rather enjoy critiquing, and I'm using this contest to Hone Claws (heh) my writing skills, and I'd like to help others do the same. Best of luck to everyone!
 
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Negrek

Lost but Seeking
I should have specified exactly how I would be determining word count earlier; sorry about that. I'll be using MS Word, as that's what I'll be using to open submissions or prepare them for distribution if they arrive in a different format. I recognize that Word isn't available to everyone, but I believe it's pretty closely in line with most other word counters, so if you're at or below 10,000 in your editing program of choice, you should be fine. You're also welcome to ask for a word count when you send your submission to me; I'll also let you know if you went over the limit, whether or not you asked. If it turns out your story is too long, you're always welcome to edit it and resubmit, provided you've left yourself enough time before the deadline to do so. One way or another, I don't intend for anyone to be unpleasantly surprised by the fact that they went over the word limit.
 

TotalPotato

Vegetable of Doom!
I don't write very often at all, but I do have an idea for this contest, and it should be better than my last entry considering that I have more than one day to write it this time...
 

daveshan

My little friend
Woot!

Two questions:

1. "Feature Hoenn Pokemon"

Only Hoenn Pokemon?

2. "Not allowed to post your one-shot anywhere public."

Anywhere at all or just this site?
 

Negrek

Lost but Seeking
1. Only Hoenn pokemon, as per the guidelines given in the rules and in this post.

2. Anywhere at all.
 

bobandbill

Winning Smile
Staff member
Super Mod
Unfortunately, I'm going to have to disagree with bobandbill here (sorry, man). To me, the word count is an important element of the challenge, as much as the theme itself.
Fair enough, you are the head/organising judge after all, and I'll go with that then (might as well have us all be consistent in such matters).
Edit: And you might not want to use FFNet as a word processor. It's ... not a very good word processor, as you have just found out.
Amen. FFnet sucks with that. :V
 

Umbramatic

The Ghost Lord
OK, I just finished my first draft and am about to recruit beta readers, but I have another question.

By "Hoenn Pokemon" do we mean all the Pokemon in the Hoenn 'dex or just ones introduced in said 'dex?

I went with the latter just to be safe but an answer would be appreciated.
 

TotalPotato

Vegetable of Doom!
OK, I just finished my first draft and am about to recruit beta readers, but I have another question.

By "Hoenn Pokemon" do we mean all the Pokemon in the Hoenn 'dex or just ones introduced in said 'dex?

I went with the latter just to be safe but an answer would be appreciated.
Negrek said "pokémon from the Hoenn regional pokédex". The link provided lists all the pokémon in the Hoenn 'dex.
 

Spiteful Murkrow

Early Game Encounter
A question regarding word counts, but it will apply to all the contents of the entries we submit? Or just the stories proper? i.e. Would title and author or a pre-story preamble count towards word count? Or be ignored when calculating it?
 
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Negrek

Lost but Seeking
The only words that will be counted will be the ones you're getting judged on--so boilerplate like author's notes and so forth won't be included. Your title will, yes, but unless it's a paragraph long or something I'd be very surprised if it managed to tip you over the word limit.
 
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