Newgrounds.com — Everything, By Everyone.

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This month we had the largest turn out for any writing competition held on newgrounds, with possible exception to the one run back when I was just starting. Driving the demand for the competition, I'm sure, was $30 newgrounds credit by Tom Fulp to each of the first three placed authors. Authors for the February contest had to create a story inspired by a picture. We received 45 entries that followed the regulations of the competition, a remarkable 125 pages of stories.

You can browse these stories in the entry thread: here
And you can look at the discussion as the competition progressed here: here

Standing on top, the person who exemplified in their role as author, who created the best story out of the 45 accepted for judging was Zerok. Zerok is taking home $30, 1st place prize, and an eventual audio recording from none other than Fyndir. Congratulations Zerok on writing an excellent piece about a young man, some cans of paint, and an interesting take on romanticism, also courtrooms. Well crafted, finely tuned, and intelligently intriguing.

The next winner barely eeked out into 2nd place through a tie breaker. Gamerpeepinpa showed a mastery in creating both a believable character with motive and supportive past. Clearly this writer has a solid foundation in writing skills. Gamerpeepinpa is taking home $30 in store credit, and should also be receiving a audio recording from TacticalShoe. Congratulations Gamerpeepinpa on 2nd place.

Shalashaska-1 also produced a very good piece that barely took feel below Gamerpeepinpa in a tie breaker. The good news is you still get the $30, the bad news is you don't get a recording. Anyhow, Shalashaska-1 produced a piece about a man's life in a Soviet state. Shalashaska-1 demonstrates an excellent control of his language, his world, and his characters and has earned is place in 3rd. Congratulations on a job well done!

Deathcon7 produced perhaps the most interesting piece, choosing to branch away from the mundane possibilities of the picture and instead moving it off earth to an entirely different planet. It's a masterful story full of intrigue and his piece takes 4th place. While there's no prize for 4th place, Deathcon7 certainly deserves high praise and an honorable mention.

mexifry895 earns 5th place with a joke. Hard to believe? Maybe, but it is well executed and brought a smile to the judge's place. It's a short read and I'd recommend it to anyone who appreciates a well placed... oh, never mind I won't ruin the punch line. ;) Again, there is no prize for 5th place, but hopefully this honorable mention will do. Congratulations.

All congratulations to the winners of this competition! If you placed for money, I'm fairly certain you will have to fill out this form to claim your prize: http://www.newgrounds.com/account/addres sform

I may contact you with more information in the coming week after I've given Tom my results.

Now, I'd like to recognize the following 4 users who wrote stories that were almost good enough to place. In fact, they almost all tied for 5th place, but were bumped out by a smidgeon of a percentage point. Honorable Mentions go to:

Evark
Thatcomposerguy
Sentio
scottmale24

Good job guys. You all demonstrated a solid understanding of writing and the art of story telling. Perhaps next time you'll nail your piece and find yourself in the top 5? Hey, it could happen.

Last time I also recognized the users who took time out of their days to review the other contestant's entries. I view this as a very important and noble thing to do. Judges are primarily worried about scoring a large volume of entries, and as such may not have time to give specific comments each individual story they read. For that reason I don't require judges to comment on each story. By commenting on other stories, these people have been invaluable contributors to this contest and deserve a hand for it:

Scarab
Zerok
TheReno
KemCab
TheGreatBunsenBurner

If I missed you in the 14 pages of the talk thread, I apologize.

Well, that wraps up this competition. If you didn't make any of the lists, try harder next time, spend some time revising, and make sure you read other writing that worked for this competition so that you have an idea of what works in the future. If you want comments on your story, feel free to pm a judge or another participant to see if they have time. No guarantees of course, but it can't hurt to ask.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the February writing contest. There will not be a March contest, but there will be a contest in April (which is only 2 weeks away) so keep your eyes open.

Any pre-approved Judges who wish to judge the April contest should contact me and let me know. I'm going to try to cycle in some fresh blood. You know who you are if you are pre-approved. Also, if you've judged in the past and want to judge again or would like a break to participate let me know that as well.

Congratulations to everyone again! KEEP WRITING!

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That's one hell of a topic title...

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Well, good job guys.

I give up lol, I R teh suck

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Bugger, I was not aware of this competition. I will enter the next one, certainly! Writing is my passion.

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Good job, blah blah blah, keep on rolling. Can't wait until the next contest and can only thank the judges for doing so well. I didn't expect a place and, in a way, I'm glad I didn't get one. There are many others who actually tried and I must say, they did much better. Some did worse (Scarab, for instance, has a plot that was hard to follow and stick to) but in the end, it was a good contest.

Again, thanks for the judges for judging the entries out of their own time with no reward (as far as I'm aware at at least) at stake. Well done for judging the cesspool and I hope you keep it up for next/this month's contest.

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At 3/15/09 12:06 AM, TheReno wrote: Well, good job guys.

I give up lol, I R teh suck

Your average score was actually not that low, you just need to work on your fundamentals, which means continuing writing. Given that you are only 18 (by your profile), I'd say you have plenty of time to take some writing courses and improve.

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I just went numb reading that.

Holy shit, I could not fucking believe I got 2nd place, honest to fucking God.

Holy shit.

Ok, well, thanks to all the judges, I did my best and uh, yeah, that. As you can probably tell, I'm incredibly lost for words, because in my personal opinion, there are others far more deserving but....wow, thank you!

le shock

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Congrats to the winners.

I knew I wasn't going to win the competition, but I still wish I got an honorable mention or something.

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Hah, I'm glad mine was almost good enough to place. A sub-honorable mention, if you will.

Gratz to all the winners! I may just have to try again on the next one.

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Congrats to all the winners and I look forward to submitting to the April contest so that I might compete with you.

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At 3/15/09 12:19 AM, TacticalShoe wrote: Congrats to all the winners and I look forward to submitting to the April contest so that I might compete with you.

Are you doing audio recordings by the way? I put it up there, but I meant to check with you before promising it. Do you want to do it every month? Etc? You can pm me if you'd rather talk about it that way.

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Congratz to anyone who chipped into the art contest.

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I'm surprised both by the results and how much of a sore loser I am.

/me stifles opinion.

Congratulations to the winners.

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At 3/15/09 12:59 AM, Evark wrote: I'm surprised both by the results and how much of a sore loser I am.

/me stifles opinion.

Congratulations to the winners.

Hahaha. Honestly I was thinking you would be a little bit, but I think you've always thought highly of your work. If this were a poetry contest you would have done much better in the final rankings, and it speaks volumes that your poetry type piece ranked as high as it did in a story competition. I think that the natural pauses poetry has though, didn't do justice to the story you were trying to tell and I think ultimately that was the weakness, which was in someways a strength under other conditions.

I enjoyed the piece thoroughly though.

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Congratulations to the winners, you should stand especially proud due to the size of the competing feild. On that note, those that lucked out, or fell just short of the prizes, you should not feel ashamed. The heat was on, and if you didn't win, it doesn't mean you're a bad writer, just that you were outshone by brilliant stories.
Keep on writing, people, you never cease to amaze me.

I'd also like to mention particularly, Deathcon7 and Shalashaska1. You topped the list in the submission group I was judging. Well done on writing fantastic stories.

A big thank you to the competitors who took the time to read and critique other stories, you're doing a huge part in ensuring the growth and ongoing support for the writing community here on Newgrounds. Speaking of which, I've promised RapeMuffin that I'd read and review his story. Soon, RapeMuffin, soon! I'm just snowed under with assignments and such at the moment...

As for next April's competition, I'd like to step down from judging to have the opportunity to compete. As in compete for prizes.

Must... get... penicorn plushie...

Great competition, gum. Thanks to all the other judges, the competitors, anyone who read and left feedback on any of the stories, and Tom, Fyndir and TacticalShoe, for the prizes.

See you all again in April!

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Congratulations to the winners. There are some very deserving entries right there, and it all holds some hope that the fabled Writers' Portal will be a great addition to the site. Additionally, thank you to the judges for putting up with so many entries and reaching their conclusions. Again, I'd also like to thank those who offered critique in the discussion thread, valuable hints and tips from those who have possibly been writing for much longer than you, and more. My contribution was pretty minimal really looking on it, and I didn't even do all of them like I promised, so I failed there.

I may have to force myself out of the next competition depending on the circumstances. From late June onwards, maybe I can think about getting down to proper writing.

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At 3/15/09 12:59 AM, Evark wrote: I'm surprised both by the results and how much of a sore loser I am.

Seems you are not alone in that, perhaps my ego had been massaged a little too much by my girlfriend, who loved the story. Still, a touch disappointed not to make the top 5, even though the winners were more than deserving- congrats to all of them on some great pieces, and especially Zerk. A secondary honourable mention was much appreciated.

And big thanks to the judges- I tried to read through the thread after I submitted my entry and gave up less than half way down page 1! Great job judging so many entries so quickly, I'm looking forward to the next competition.

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Congrats to all the winners! I figured Zerok would take it given the high regard throughout the talk topic. You deserve it.

It's so bitter sweet getting fourth place, but all the positive words from the judges means a lot more to me than I think they know. I can't wait to take what I've learned from this competition into April and hopefully I can bring something even better to the table.

Regarding the future of this competition; if you're interested Gum, I've got a bunch of web space I wouldn't mind sharing. I work for a hosting company so of course it'll be gratis. Let me know if this is something you'd like to get into.

Anyway, until next month!

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:O

Well shit, thanks for all the kind words folks.

I knew I had a competitive piece but after reading and reviewing a lot of your submissions, I had no definite expectations for a podium place. (Oh, there were some mild expectations, I won't puff up the modesty THAT badly =D).

But first! Hot damn.

I'd like to thank the judges for their efforts, the laudatory comments in the "Talk" page, my girlfriend for being such an ardent fan, and of course, procrastination. I would have never been able to devote 9 hours to writing the piece during the IMPENDING DEADLINES OF EXTREME IMPORTANCE time period without my good buddy procrastination!

See you all in the April contest!

Come the summer months, I hope to be able to judge a few of these, or even run one if gum needs a break / wants to contend. May and June will be the prime months for doing this, and if I don't get into my graduate program, then the rest of the summer as well, presumably.

Cheers, and thanks again!

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congrats to the winners!

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Oh btw, is there anyway we can request our final score and perhaps some critique on the writing itself? I understand that due to the large amounts of entries that this might not be possible, but thank you for this opportunity and I can fell confident in being beaten to these great stories! Can't wait till April!

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At 3/15/09 11:44 AM, ForNoReason wrote: Oh btw, is there anyway we can request our final score and perhaps some critique on the writing itself?

Send lovely PMs to the judges, I presume. I know BankingonTheEnemy was willing to share her blurbs and scores.

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At 3/15/09 11:49 AM, Zerok wrote: Send lovely PMs to the judges, I presume. I know BankingonTheEnemy was willing to share her blurbs and scores.

Now that you mention it, I think I may well do that when my head is straightened out. I'm always looking for ways to improve, and just some general comments. I know you have commented on my entry, as one or two others have I believe. The more, the better though!

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At 3/15/09 11:49 AM, Zerok wrote:

At 3/15/09 11:44 AM, ForNoReason wrote: Oh btw, is there anyway we can request our final score and perhaps some critique on the writing itself?

Send lovely PMs to the judges, I presume. I know BankingonTheEnemy was willing to share her blurbs and scores.

Thats sounds like a good idea! I just didn't know which judge might have actually read my story and all because if the way they judged and all. And congrats Zerok! You really kicked all of our asses.

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Yay!
Thank you for honorable mention! :D

Im really glad it turned out the way it did.
Can't wait till the next monthly. ;)

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congrats to everyone!

especially Zerok, I loved your story

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Congrats to all the winners, but I'm curious, how was this comp judged? I keep seeing you all mention groups in regards to how the pieces were judged.

The judges did read every single piece right, and judge accordingly, I hope?

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I was going to enter a great piece but after I had written loads of it my sister came and close it :( Next time, next time :D

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Congrats to all the winnters!

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At 3/15/09 03:26 PM, FGIJonC wrote: Congrats to all the winners, but I'm curious, how was this comp judged? I keep seeing you all mention groups in regards to how the pieces were judged.

The judges did read every single piece right, and judge accordingly, I hope?

In the talk thread, gumOnShoe said:

"The quantity of entries made it difficult for judges to read EVERY entry in a timely manor (we still have judges reading!), so we did some "splitting," but every entry has more than one judge reading it anyway."

So no, every judge didn't read every entry, but the process still had it's own conditions and all that. It's not the perfect system, but I think it fit the scale of the competition. As writing becomes more popular on Newgrounds (!), perhaps bigger competitions with more judges and a more solid system can pop up, who knows?

A judge will probably pop back in here at some point, and they'll be able to clarify things better than me :)