I’m feeling like a nice little writing contest. I propose a short writing elimination game!
We will play with the first ten to sign up (not including myself); participants should however meet these very important requirements.
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You should participate in a timely and consistent manner. This game is designed to follow a specific structure through each round. Each player’s input throughout is necessary to make this thing tick.
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You shouldn’t put your feelings on the line. The game requires for players to judge each other’s submissions, but it’s all in good fun and it is certainly not a rigorous academic exercise. Our judgments are entirely subjective, and nobody wants to hurt anyone’s feelings.
The rules are as follows:
The game will be played in 9 rounds. In each round, I will prompt the players with a short writing assignment. The assignments will vary greatly in style and substance, but the submission should never exceed three paragraphs. The assignments will come with a description of the judging standards.
Here are some examples of the sorts of assignments there will be:
Who is the most influential historical figure and why?
- Judging standard: Uniqueness. Give a unique or surprising answer and support it.
Describe your most embarrassing experience.
- Judging standard: Entertainment. Give the most amusing or humorous anecdote.
Write a poem about a duck.
- Judging standard: Write the best poem about a duck.
So as you see, variation and creativity are the keys here. Your answer is just as important as how you write it.
The set up:
There are two pools of participants, players and judges. The judges will select the weakest entry in each round for removal from the game, that evicted player will then become a judge. Once a player is eliminated from the game he or she enters the judging pool, so everyone will participate until a winner is decided.
At the start of the game I will be the sole judge. The judge pool will increase by one with each succeeding round. The winner will be decided in round 9 when the 9 judges select the winner out of the final two players. So the rounds work like this.
Round 1- 10 players, 1 judge (me)
Round 2- 9 players, 2 judges (myself and the first eliminated player)
Round 3- 8 players, 3 judges
………………
Round 9- 2 players, 9 judges
There will be a two day limit for submissions in each round, but players are encouraged to submit as soon as possible so that the game can move briskly.
After all the submissions are received, the judges will post their selection for weakest entry. In the event of a tie, a second round of judge voting will be held between the tied players. If a tie still exists after the second round of voting, the deciding vote will go to the most recent judge (the last removed player) out of the tied players.
Round 9 will be different from the preceding 8. The final round will include three separate and varying assignments, one at a time. The judges will vote like normal for each assignment, and the winner is the player who wins the vote on two of the final three assignments. (Best two out of three)
So who’s game? If you are interested, volunteer here. It will be first come first serve. This is also a good time to ask any questions or for clarification on the rules. If I can gather ten players then I’ll start a thread for the game.
Any takers?