If you want to submit your stories then please head on over here.
This thread is for the discussion of everything related to this weeks theme and submitted stories. Be it a critique, suggestion, or just general chat about your favorite submission.
Also feel free to post other stories you were thinking of submitting or other ideas you had around this weeks theme.
I had some fun with this one, but the word restraint killed me, as per usual 
. I really tried to make it a little less of the expected epic battle scene, but I’m not sure if I overdid that or not, I think mine could’ve used some more action. Opinions anyone? (not so subtly trying to trick people into reading mine 
).
You tend to be pretty good for some banter oh great and powerful @SteveAdamo, how well do you think this one flowed? Felt like it got a little congested near the end to me, but I’m never sure, haha.
ok, i realize this is just a gush fest, but that was another stellar entry… some choice quotes:
hard to focus when you can feel your life pouring on to the forest
floor.
and the lovely rephrasing of the popular plenty of time to sleep when you’re dead:
And if you’re tired, well I can assure you, you’ll be able to sleep
plenty once you’re dead
and quoting from my son’s recent favorite movie, Turbo, you’ve clearly got the skillz to pay the billz…
Haha, glad to hear you liked it 
. Hopefully you aren’t the only one! That first quote actually only ended up in because of a revision to cut down the word count, turned out pretty well I suppose
i find it kinda sad how both mine and @DrLank’s stories have killed Mer Burlyhands, it’s just sad that Mer can die… he was such a good person.
i wonder how many players will do everything in their power to keep Mer alive in their games… 
i know i will after i get used to the game as a good quest for me
As usual I am late to the party, but inspiration needed quite a while to kick in.
Edit: now I read all submissions before mine, can’t say that I like it when Mer dies.
Also @CableX17 you are out to build a saga arent you?
Heh - I don’t dare to aim that high. Its quite a challenge to reach your standards.
he is indeed very talented… but i thoroughly enjoyed your submission as well…
why is no one else reading and voting? 
Ow I just noticed that I wrote head instead of helmet in one place, sorry I just had to correct this one, hopefully thats ok.
absolutely! edits are perfectly fine…
Thank you very much!
Yeah the votecount is… pretty sparse.
Hm is there a way to highlight a thread?
If so then the model competition thread and ours surely deserve highlighting!
well, each of our competition threads are “pinned” in their respective categories… and the qubicle competition, as well as the first 2 rounds of the writers workshop have had good turnout…
its just this round of the workshop where no one has showed up… 
It has 117 views according to the little stat bar. It seems as though people just aren’t reading them, or aren’t voting if they are 
I hope that people read the stories… there was quite some work invested, as it seems to me. Regarding voting, that might be a bit different from person to person.
Let me share my thoughts, as I did read (some entries) but did not vote. Please take this as my very personal view and as constructive feedback.
To be honest, I am a bit lazy related to reading and if someone wants me to read a text, it needs to be either catchy from the beginning, short or in another way grab my attention. Related to the actual submissions…
3 of the submissions are lacking formatting. Personally, I do not like to read a “walls of text” (and did not in this case).
@CableX17 Your entry caught my attention with the link to your past stories. However, I have the feeling it is larger than the allowed 500 words, taking the 2 leading paragraphs into account. I do not complain, but also do not give out a like for that. In addition it is evolving around an attack by Goblins. By itself that’s fine. But reading through the other submissions… 3 of the do describe an attack by Goblins. When I arrive at your entry I did feel like: “Ok, again Goblins.”. Maybe another scenario might have been less expected.
@PDanford Your approach I like most. I understand that the story describes the minutes / hours prior an attack and how they are used for preparation. Here I would love to read more about the thoughts and feelings, etc… which with 500 words might just not be possible.
thanks for the constructive feedback @voxel_pirate… very helpful indeed… 
which brings me to my question: would you all like to see the “cap” raised on the word count, with the (obvious) understanding that it also means there is more to be read while judging? personally, im ok with it, but we initially felt that limiting the entries to 500 words would make reading/judging more manageable…
i would also agree with @voxel_pirate’s comments in regards to formatting… it goes a long way towards getting someone engaged to read your work… 
That’s the issue I dislike the most. I feel discouraged when I see a wall of text after another, and I do not feel like continue reading, because there are many entries. And as they are around 500 words, it’s difficult to choose one because you have to remember the overall feeling of all those entries.
You’re right, it comes to about 500 even without the leads, making for ~590 with the lead paragraphs. Which, I’ll admit, is pushing the grace limit. Although I must say I am a little disappointed that the reason you didn’t like it was you thought it might be over the limit, especially since it was previously decided it was more a guideline than rule. But I’m certainly not trying to persuade you otherwise, your choice to make of course.
And I’m afraid I didn’t read the other two entries before I submitted, seems maybe I should’ve before choosing such a similar theme, despite using an incredibly different approach.
@CableX17 … no, no, what came first into my mind was actually the repeating Goblin-topic. The word count was more or less a side-note. Maybe as the first story I would not have been already a bit biased to the setting and enjoyed reading more… don’t know.
Regarding the word count… that’s a really hard question. If there is no limit (or a significant higher limit), the number of people who want to participate (in writing and reading) might go down. We’ve discussed it in one of the last cycles. I think for the final a longer text is fine. For the initial competitions the 500 might be as good as 600 or 400.
Just something to brainstorm… I like the approach Cablex has chosen, i.e. staying with one major plot or environment where which is “transfered” into the new topic. What if for future contests this will become mandatory? I.e. people who want to participate have to share their plot, story or setting in which future contributions will be located. Once the topic is announced, the task will be to implement it inside the defined boundries (or setting). This could link all the stories just like that ones from Cablex and could make it more interesting for people to read (overall longer story, more identification with the cast, …). However, this might be also just seen as an “advise” to poential authors and future participations in this contest… just throwing in some weird thoughts.
not weird at all, and is in line with one of my initial ideas for the contest (with winners of each round using the previous rounds submission to expand on the original story)…
with weekly themes, this might make story consistency a bit more difficult, but i really do like the idea of having entries mesh from week to week…