The Competition
Theme
- The Theme for this competition is "Christmas." Your story must somehow relate to Christmas- if this is done adequately, you will receive no penalty. If you do this well, you will receive 2 extra marks in Integration (however total Integration marks shall never exceed 30.) If this is done inadequately, you will receive a 2 mark penalty, and if the theme cannot be detected in your piece, you shall lose 4 marks.
The Theme should be what your story is built around- for example, if the theme was "Pirates" then you could draw a picture of a pirate, or write a poem about some people who steal software, or write a story about Pirates sailing the high seas. The theme is always completely open to interpretation, however if it is too obscure, you should mention it in your email to The Judges or suffer a penalty.
Stimulus
The stimulus should be prevalent in your piece, however if you wish you may merely make them insignificant. The more significant they are, the more points you receive in the "Integration" category of scoring.
You should have a minimum of 3 stimulus in your entry. Again, the more you insert, the more points you get.
- Personification of a bottle of vodka.
- A parrot.
- The title of a Weird Al song as a /natural/ line of dialogue. (Points taken off if it's not actually a Weird Al song title, i.e. "Cat in the Kettle" or "Elmo's Got a Gun")
- Bill Gates' nipple. [4 bonus points if Bill Gates himself doesn't appear, just his nipple.]
- Dingo poo. [2 bonus marks if this is partially or wholly digested at some point.]
- A blue sock.
- 29 Acasia Road.
- The phrase "Stop being so damned Altrusic!" [2 bonus mark if "Altrusic" means something completely different from "Altrustic", and it is clear what this new meaning is.]
- A nickname for someone consisting of an adjective then a name, both starting with the same letter. i.e. "Jolting Joe", "Happy Harry", "Gassy Gertrude". The stranger the better.
- The words "Zippa Pop" appearing somewhere.
- An umbrella of unusual shape or colour.
- A target. [1 bonus mark if this target is Spanish.]
- An unusual hat (viking, turban, etc.)
- A soft toy that won't stop staring.
- A candy cane. [1 bonus mark if the candy cane is poisonous.]
Rules unique to this competition
Rules global for all competitions can be found here
- The prizes are as follows-
- For first place, a trophy and the privilege of choosing 3 stimulus for the next competition.
- For second place, the privilege of choosing 2 stimulus for the next competition.
- For third place, the privilege of choosing 1 piece of stimulus for the next competition.
- Any stimulus chosen by winners are subject to approval by The Judges. If rejected, the competitor may choose again, however if this second choice is rejected, the competitor does not get any more choices.
- Entrants will be judged on certain criteria, and given a score out of 100. After this, a possible 11 bonus points will be awarded, for a final score out of 111. The criteria are as follows-
- (Out of 10)
Technicalities- How technically perfect your piece is. If your story/poem/fanfic has spelling mistakes, no punctuation, sentences that are a trifle confusing, you'll lose marks here. If your picture has lines where it shouldn't, or other technical imperfections, it'll lose points here.
- (Out of 10)
Humour- How funny I found your piece.
- (Out of 10)
Depth- How deep and meaningful I found your piece.
- (Out of 30)
Integration and Stimulus- If you have all 15 pieces of stimulus in your piece, you'll get a definite 15 points. However if they're all terribly integrated, you'll not get any points out of 15 in the "integration" part of this mark. Similarly, if you only have 3 pieces of stimulus, but integrate them flawlessly, you'll get 18 points here- 3 for the 3 that you inserted, and 15 for integration. This mark can also be influenced by the theme (see above.)
- (Out of 10)
Initial Reaction- The first time I read through your piece, I'll put a mark here.
- (Out of 10)
Format- The originality of the format your piece is. If you're the first person to ever enter something in this format, you get 10/10. Otherwise, your mark is 10/the amount of people who have entered in that format, unless you're the only person to enter in that (non new) format, in which case you get 9. So if 10 people enter poems, they each get 1 mark. If 1 person enters a picture, they get 9 points.
- (Out of 5)
Effort- How much effort it seems you've put into your piece
- (Out of 5)
Quality- The overall quality of your entry
- (Out of 5)
Creative Flare- Is your piece so very you that just by reading it, I'd be able to tell you'd written it.
- (Out of 5)
Cleverness/multilevelocity- Your piece works on more than one level.
- One bonus point shall be given to the first entry received by The Judges.
Due Date
- Your entry must be received by The Judges by midnight GMT on the 31st December, 2004.