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extrafictionary2015-07-10 10:34 pm
extrafic_mods) wrote in extrafictionary2015-07-10 10:34 pm
Extrafictionary: The voting guideline
The voting guideline for the submissions of Extrafictionary is as followed. It has been divided into three categories, each represented by two or three questions.
This guideline only acts as a guide for the voting poll at the end of the reading experience, on which the mods of Extrafictionary are able to enact the competitive aspect of the challenge. It is not entirely objective, as the third category asks for the personal preference of the reader. It is also neither complete nor indicative of the overall quality of the work itself - we value each and every Extrafictionary work, and these criteria only quantify some of the more visible merits of a work.
In short, this is very short and rough, and it is only a guide.
1. “Was the world building within the work satisfactory?”: This question is posed so that the reader can further read into the world building involved in the work.
Worldbuilding is the process of constructing an imaginary world, sometimes an entirely new fictional universe. For an alternative universe fanfiction, this is one of the base actions that a writer must take before writing. A few major aspects of worldbuilding are geography, history and culture.
Successful worldbuilding would likely involve: a backstory of the world/universe which not only makes sense but also influences the character to a certain extent, a culture setting that is a logical direct result of the mentioned backstory, and a clear map of the world and its terrains that enable the writer to visualize the story.
The worldbuilding for each genre is different, both in scale and in focus. Scifi or fantasy worldbuilding should be the largest in scales, as the writer often must build several different worlds, each with a unique set of history, geography and culture, while tying them all together coherently. Dystopia and Supernatural writers have it easier as they could use the human world as a base for their worldbuilding, changing only a few aspects - but they face the challenge of micromanagement, as the historical and cultural aspect must be built in details in order for their worlds to remain coherent.
2. “Did the work fit within its designated genre?”: This question is posed so that the reader could further examine the work's genre and determine whether the work fits within the genre it was designated.
3. “Did you find the interpretation of the prompts by the writers understandable?”: There are three kinds of prompts given to an Extrafictionary writer: a quote, an image, and a song. It could even be considered as four in some cases, as we've allowed writers to use the music video as a prompt if the song has one, and music videos can be very different to the lyrics. The prompts used by the writer will be stated at the beginning of each work. We ask the reader to read into the work and judge whether or not there is a logical link between the actual prompts and what the writer interpreted and wrote into their story.
4. “Were the prompts incorporated successfully into the story?”: A prompt can be incorporated in the form of direct insertion into the stories, symbolized in a few sentences, a few paragraphs, or act as the mood maker of the story itself. To answer this question, we would like the reader to keep the prompt in mind and when they recognize the way a prompt was incorporated into the story, to judge the incorporation itself. Whether loosely or literally, as long as the incorporation of the prompt was clear and did not disrupt the flow of the story nor seemed forced, it should be considered as a successful corporation of prompts on the author's part.
5. “Did you enjoy the work?”: This is a subjective question. Simply express whether or not you enjoy the story. We do not ask for justifications for this question.
6. "Would you recommend this work to someone else?": Over and above simple enjoyment, some stories are so great it deserves to be brought to the attention of other readers. This is a subjective question. Simply express whether or not you would recommend this to others, whether it be your Twitter list, fandom friends or even real life friends. We do not ask for justifications for this question.
7. "Please give an overall score to the work": Finally, this is a scoring question. Please give a score within the scale of 1 - 10 to the work itself. This is a subjective question. We do not ask for justifications for this question.
The first six questions require a yes or no answer - a yes answer gives two (2) points while a no answer gives zero (0) point. The final answer requires scoring between 1 - 10. The sum of these scores is the final score of a work.
The winning team will be the one with the highest avarage score once all the scores for a team are additioned (i.g. if there are seven rounds, scores from round 1 to 7 of team Dystopia will be additioned to get the average score of the team and so on for all teams). If a fic isn't submitted, we will proceed to calculate the prorated average based on the number of rounds posted.
The criteria is made transparent to the readers and writers of the challenge in an attempt to be as fair as possible in scoring the submissions of Extrafictionary.This guideline only acts as a guide for the voting poll at the end of the reading experience, on which the mods of Extrafictionary are able to enact the competitive aspect of the challenge. It is not entirely objective, as the third category asks for the personal preference of the reader. It is also neither complete nor indicative of the overall quality of the work itself - we value each and every Extrafictionary work, and these criteria only quantify some of the more visible merits of a work.
In short, this is very short and rough, and it is only a guide.
‘Accuracy to designated genre’
1. “Was the world building within the work satisfactory?”: This question is posed so that the reader can further read into the world building involved in the work.
Worldbuilding is the process of constructing an imaginary world, sometimes an entirely new fictional universe. For an alternative universe fanfiction, this is one of the base actions that a writer must take before writing. A few major aspects of worldbuilding are geography, history and culture.
Successful worldbuilding would likely involve: a backstory of the world/universe which not only makes sense but also influences the character to a certain extent, a culture setting that is a logical direct result of the mentioned backstory, and a clear map of the world and its terrains that enable the writer to visualize the story.
The worldbuilding for each genre is different, both in scale and in focus. Scifi or fantasy worldbuilding should be the largest in scales, as the writer often must build several different worlds, each with a unique set of history, geography and culture, while tying them all together coherently. Dystopia and Supernatural writers have it easier as they could use the human world as a base for their worldbuilding, changing only a few aspects - but they face the challenge of micromanagement, as the historical and cultural aspect must be built in details in order for their worlds to remain coherent.
2. “Did the work fit within its designated genre?”: This question is posed so that the reader could further examine the work's genre and determine whether the work fits within the genre it was designated.
SCI-FI - Scifi is short for “science fiction”, a sub-genre of fantasy dealing with seemingly impossible technological advances, often futuristic - such as space travel, time travel, extraterrestrial life etc. These technological advances affect the universe in a large scale, and scifi often explores the consequences.
DYSTOPIA - Though there are overlaps between scifi and dystopia, dystopia has a few distinctive attributes to help its identification. Dystopia, by definition, is the opposite of an utopia. It’s characterized by an undesirable or frightening world where exists a totalitarian government, dehumanization and caste system, or similarly oppressing forms of social construct. Dystopian works often dramatize and highlight issues which already exists in our societies. While the writing in Scifi focuses on technologies, Dystopia focuses on more humanitarian issues.
SUPERNATURAL - For the purpose of this competition, “supernatural” stories will have their focus on creatures that could potentially be explained in real life. Common examples are vampires, werewolves, mermaids, angels and demons etc. In more compassing terms, any story focusing on a society containing creatures with a different genetic make-up and biological functions to humans will be accepted. The characters could be the creatures themselves, or humans cohabiting with them and the setting is quite realistic. Humans are predominant. A/B/O stories are accepted in this category.
FANTASY - Any other fantasy works which do not fit within the three specific sub genres above will be accepted in this category. Common examples are high fantasy (Game of Thrones, The Lord of the Rings), contemporary fantasy (Percy Jackson, The Mortal Instruments, Harry Potter), magical realism, mythological fantasy, historical fantasy, etc. The setting can be from any universe constructed by an author, but the work must contain at least one magical, fantastic, supernatural or mythical element and humans shouldn't be predominant in this universe.
‘Interpretation of prompts’
3. “Did you find the interpretation of the prompts by the writers understandable?”: There are three kinds of prompts given to an Extrafictionary writer: a quote, an image, and a song. It could even be considered as four in some cases, as we've allowed writers to use the music video as a prompt if the song has one, and music videos can be very different to the lyrics. The prompts used by the writer will be stated at the beginning of each work. We ask the reader to read into the work and judge whether or not there is a logical link between the actual prompts and what the writer interpreted and wrote into their story.
4. “Were the prompts incorporated successfully into the story?”: A prompt can be incorporated in the form of direct insertion into the stories, symbolized in a few sentences, a few paragraphs, or act as the mood maker of the story itself. To answer this question, we would like the reader to keep the prompt in mind and when they recognize the way a prompt was incorporated into the story, to judge the incorporation itself. Whether loosely or literally, as long as the incorporation of the prompt was clear and did not disrupt the flow of the story nor seemed forced, it should be considered as a successful corporation of prompts on the author's part.
‘Enjoyment’
5. “Did you enjoy the work?”: This is a subjective question. Simply express whether or not you enjoy the story. We do not ask for justifications for this question.
6. "Would you recommend this work to someone else?": Over and above simple enjoyment, some stories are so great it deserves to be brought to the attention of other readers. This is a subjective question. Simply express whether or not you would recommend this to others, whether it be your Twitter list, fandom friends or even real life friends. We do not ask for justifications for this question.
7. "Please give an overall score to the work": Finally, this is a scoring question. Please give a score within the scale of 1 - 10 to the work itself. This is a subjective question. We do not ask for justifications for this question.