Contest Deadline
A quick reminder that the deadline for the UNSCDF fan fiction contest is today at 4 PM EST. Check out their submissions guidelines.
posted by Eric Nylund at 7:59 AM
Read about the latest from New York Times Bestselling writer Eric Nylund, author of Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, Dry Water, Signal to Noise, and many others--including the upcoming Mortal Coils.
posted by Eric Nylund at 7:59 AM
18 Comments:
Also a reminder to NOT send any submissions to my email. I'll only be looking at the finalists after they have been screened by UNSCDF. Besides, my email is set up to automatically delete emails with attached files. Good Luck!
well, its officially too late. Congrats to all who entered. You're the few, the proud.
Have fun reading it. Hope to see some good highlights.
Guys, I want you to pray for me. I actually entered this contest and the suspense is driving me up the walls.
Hehe. Patientence is a virtue. =)
Because I came on staff with UNSCDF after I began my story for the contest, they're letting me keep my story in the running (of course I won't be judging my own story), so I'm just as excited as the next guy. =)
Now that the contest is over, we need to sift through all the entries and find the ten jems that will be passed on to Mr. Nylund. Depending on how quickly judging takes, winners should be announced on or around Oct. 31st/Nov. 1st.
I'm guessing you guys don't know how long the judging will take. Any estimates? Am I asking in the wrong place? How many entries are there?
And Eric, are you in that must-drink-coffee-must-keep-working state, or do you actually have time to go through all the submissions that have been entered to you?
Actually, we hope to have all fan-fictions judged by the four judges (staff) by the Friday after this upcoming Friday. We're actually scoring entries on a 1-10 basis, and we will then compare our individual scores and come up with our picks.
As for entries... heh, actually even though we announced that older fan-fics could be submitted, absolutely no one actually did. No one even submitted multiple stories. That being said, final counts are ranging somewhere in the upper 20s. Still lower than I had hoped :(.
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Sir_brilliant, IIRC the rules page on UNSCDF said it would take around a week. I don't know if I can wait that long, I think my head will explode.
Are you really going to be judging our work on a 1-10 basis? That seems like too ridgid of critque system for literature. Whatever's most efficient I suppose.
I tried to submit a second story that I'd previously written, but the editing took too long and I felt like I was butchering my old work in the process. I suppose I could submit it to the fanfiction section of your site anyways.
Man,
I literally just squeaked by. I submitted it somewhere around 11pm the day before. Whew!
I'm fairly excited here too. Can't wait to see how I did. I thought 12K was a bit light for me, but oh well. I managed to tell the story I guess. Not much flair to it.
In the end though, thanks to the staff of UNSCDF and Eric for collaborating with one another to let this cool event happen. I've never seen anything like this before, though I am a newb to this sort of thing.
GL to everyone!
-EMF
SB-- yeah I'm pretty busy, but the UNSCDF people are going to screen the entries and send me only their top picks to judge...so that should help.
We were allowed to submit old entries? Now i feel left out. When did this happen? I have a few in my pocket (literally, i have 3 at the very least).
Still, i'd have been too lazy to actually edit them properly, unless i knew about it...
Ahh, life. The vicious circle you make!
Well, you also have to take into account that some older stories might not have met the other submission criteria like minimum or maximum length, so there could have been people that wanted to submit an older story, but it wouldn't have been qualified.
As for the 1-10 scoring system, I think it should work. I mean, it might seem a little simple, but with 20+ stories it makes for quick scoring and comparison.
I have a scoring tecnique that I use which I will probably use for this contest as well:
A) character developement (that is, how much a character changes during the story and if the changes were natural and not forced)
B) story developement (see above)
C) proper use of grammar and punctuation (dear God, please!)
D) story "grip" (which is what I like to call the "grab factor", the point at which I can't put it down)
E) creativity/ingenuity/style
F) "tightness" (that is to say, story pacing)
Those are the things that I'm going to be looking at and taking into account while I'm reading. The score of 1-10 will be determined by much more than a "Oh, I liked this one better, so I'm going to give it a higher score than... say... this one".
Hope that alays some fears. =)
Hey, Eric Nylund. i'm Creating a fictional Story. i am new at this and i'm still in high school. however, i do wish to know how i can publish it and... get it edited and etc. i rather new at this but, i do have a interest in writing stories. i... have rather a wild imagination. :3 i need help from a professional! >_< and.. i guess you dont have time but, i hope you can respond and help me :). my Email is minkemo@gmail.com. THANKS!
Ultra,
The questions you’re asking—how to write, edit, and publish, take most professional writers years to figure out (if ever)...so my apologies if my reply is not as comprehensive as it could be.
First, I suggest you read a few books on how to write. Check out my older blog post on that subject.
http://www.ericnylund.net/2006/07/how-to-write-books.html
Then read my blog posts on Critiques (parts 1 and 2) to give you an idea how to edit your own and other’s writing.
http://www.ericnylund.net/2006/09/critique.html
http://www.ericnylund.net/2006/09/critique-part-2.html
Last, I suggest you take a class in writing. A teacher will be able to help you much more on a day-to-day basis than I can over email with my very limited free time.
Best of luck in all your writing efforts! --Eric
I wish I had known about this beforehand. I would've atleast written something to enter. Been reading your First Strike novel recently after having it on my shelf for a year. Wanted to catch up as best I could since Ghosts of Onyx comes out soon.
I didn't think anything could match Fall of Reach in suspense and interest - I was wrong. I thought it was just a plot-filler with a basic story between Halo 1 & 2. I seriously shouldn't underestimate you!
Thanks.but for the books, do they tell you how to write? or they just tell you want to right? because i have pretty much a storyline and i find it pretty good. i'ma try and making a trilogy and i've pretty made out the guide lines for it. its gonna be hard but i like my imagination to be written. :)
No offense, but could you "clean up" how you speak? I know this is "teh Interweb" after all, but I seriously have a hard time understanding what it is you're trying to say most of the time.
I've read all of the "halo" books and on the last page of "ghosts of Onyx" I saw that a book "Mortal Coils" is coming soon. Is it another sequel to the halo series?
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