Recently TrevorW began hosting poetry battles where two poets could go head to head with writing a poem about the same subject. I would like to start the same thing for short story writers.

So, in the same way a poetry battle, one short story writer may "call out" another to challenge him to a battle. When challenging another writer, you may choose a topic or theme to be used. After a writer issues his/her challenge, I will send a private message to the both parties containing their topic and deadline.

If there are writers on the list of those willing to be challenged, but no challenges are issued, I will go ahead and randomly pick two writers to go head to head. If this happens, the challenger will not have the privilege of choosing a topic or theme.

Dissimilar to TrevorW's concept, short story writers will have a total of SEVEN days to present their work. At the end of the seven day period, a voting period will be held for TWO days. If one of the contestants does not present a short story by the time the seven day period ends, they will automatically forfeit the match. If both parties do not submit work, they will both forfeit the match.

Links:
Poetry Battles (Original Concept)
Writers List

If you would like to be added to the list of writers willing to be challenged, please send me a private message. If you would be interested in assisting with the moderation of this competition or if you would like to make a suggestion, you can also send me a private message.

Looks swell.
Guys please come into this thread if you want a short story battle!
My thread dislikes all you none poets (kidding).

l'll challenge anyone if they're up for it! But make no mistake, I will win! :)

Is there a word limit for this?

If there were a word limit, I would have said so within the initial post. No, there is not a word limit.

At 2/14/10 06:34 PM, Spindrift23 wrote: If there were a word limit, I would have said so within the initial post. No, there is not a word limit.

Coolio. Just wondering, since, without a dedicated readership, there might not be too many people who'd read through two 5,000+ entries.

I understand your concern. Would you be interested in participating in this competition?

Might do. But I'm writing for the Mwc for now, and since I've never managed to deliver for it yet, I'll be damned if I'm missing this deadline.

This should be interesting. Ill be sure to check every once in a while. Unless of course ive been challenged and writing my epic story.

Ill be hard since i have school, but ill take you anytime!

At 2/14/10 06:57 PM, HeroDan wrote: This should be interesting. Ill be sure to check every once in a while. Unless of course ive been challenged and writing my epic story.

Ill be hard since i have school, but ill take you anytime!

HeroDan, I declare a challenge! You're on!

At 2/14/10 07:10 PM, stimcrab wrote:

At 2/14/10 06:57 PM, HeroDan wrote: This should be interesting. Ill be sure to check every once in a while. Unless of course ive been challenged and writing my epic story.

Ill be hard since i have school, but ill take you anytime!

HeroDan, I declare a challenge! You're on!

I wan tto be challenged. :(

I'm game, put me on the list. But anyone who wants to challenge me should start drinking heavily now :P

At 2/14/10 10:05 PM, Version2 wrote: I'm game, put me on the list. But anyone who wants to challenge me should start drinking heavily now :P

I'll challenge you, although your chances at victory are very slim. But if you want to do this......

Dubbi, are you challenging Version2? If so, please state a topic/theme so the battle can begin!

At 2/14/10 10:11 PM, Spindrift23 wrote: Dubbi, are you challenging Version2? If so, please state a topic/theme so the battle can begin!

Well, I just wrote a story, today, about Valentine's Day which I posted. If I choose Valentine's Day as the topic, may I use that story?

I do not think that would be quite fair to Version2. Your story is already written and he would have to create one. My answer to that would have to be no. I'm sorry, but that is just what seems fair to me.

At 2/14/10 10:15 PM, Spindrift23 wrote: I do not think that would be quite fair to Version2. Your story is already written and he would have to create one. My answer to that would have to be no. I'm sorry, but that is just what seems fair to me.

Understood, then the topic is betrayel. But don't start the thread till tomorrow, it's getting late...

Alright, that sounds like a plan to me. You should receive a private message from me containing the details and the link to your thread.

Alright, betrayal it is :)

Although I would have done the Valentine thing too, I have an unfair advantage :P

All right it's on! Although can we not start till about two? I have an eye docter appointment and then some other stuff to do.... But after about two I should be able to write a kick-ass story! :)

I'll drop my name into the battle pool. I could use some exercise like this to keep my fingers fresh, most certainly since I'm about to head back to uni into a dedicated short story writing class. It'll be good to get some practice in. Although maybe not this week. RL has decided to clog my schedule full of 25 hour days for the rest of the week. If anyone wants to call me out, I can battle next week.

I call Writersblock out for next week. The topic will be decided then, as I am already in a battle with HeroDan.

I'd like to be added, but I would prefer to not get in a battle until this coming Saturday, if that's alright.

Thanks to everyone who has shown interest and decided to sign up. Hopefully with every familiar face that joins SSB, more people will start to participate!

Ongoing SSB:
stimcrab versus HeroDan (cultural rebellion in East Germany under communism)
Dubbi versus Version2 (betrayal)

Be sure to keep an eye on the action! Each story submitted is something that you will not want to miss out on reading.

Might as well stretch the brain a bit and submit my name into the pool. More work will ironically make it easier to keep the schedule for my own writing thread, methinks. Bring it!

Is it possible to write in a foreign language? I mean because my topic with HeroDan pertains to Germany. Since I speak German, I thought it'd be good for realism if I did my dialogue entirely in German. It's all easily translatable, and I think it is really relevant to the story. Everything else is in English, but I want to voices to be in the language they'd normally be in... Just curious if there are like rules to this.

At 2/15/10 10:28 PM, stimcrab wrote: Is it possible to write in a foreign language? I mean because my topic with HeroDan pertains to Germany. Since I speak German, I thought it'd be good for realism if I did my dialogue entirely in German. It's all easily translatable, and I think it is really relevant to the story. Everything else is in English, but I want to voices to be in the language they'd normally be in... Just curious if there are like rules to this.

Well as im sure your aware, poetry is my forté, however, i say this and thought I'd have my say.
Personally, as long as its relevent to the story, i see no problem with this. As an author, your writing is your art, and by forcing you to stick to one language is like limiting creativity.

I think you should be allowed to writre in whatever language you like, just, dont over do it, otherwise people will get tired with translating and lose interest.

A simple one liner to a simple solution: post the translation at the bottom. Save your reader some work.

I'm game for this. Put me on the list.

I know this has been brought up, but are you sure about no word limits? I'm already at about 2000 words for my battle story, and if it keeps going at this rate, it will probably end up 5000-6000 words long. I just want to make sure this is fine. I might be able to cut some things out when I start getting closer to a final draft, but it's looking to be a pretty big short story for me.