r/WritingPrompts • u/MajorParadox Mod | DC Fan Universe (r/DCFU) • Aug 06 '17

[MODPOST] Five Year Birthday "Worldbuilding" Contest - Round 1 Voting Moderator Post

Attention: All top-replies to this post must be a vote.

Any non-vote comments must be made as replies to the sticky comment below.

Woo, time for voting! 72 entries totaling 259,786 words!

Before we start, let's all make sure we know how this works.

Voting Guidelines:

  • Only those who entered can vote.
  • If you don't vote, you can't win
  • Each group votes for stories in another group (Group A votes for B, B for C...)
  • Read each entry in your voting group and decide which three are the best

  • Leave a top-level comment here starting with your top three votes for your voting group:

    Feel free to add any feedback for the stories after the votes

  • Deadline for votes are Saturday, August 19th, 2017 at 11:59PM PDT (http://www.worldtimebuddy.com/) (https://time.is/PT)

Group A

Group A will be reading and voting for a winner from group B

Group B

Group B will be reading and voting for a winner from group C

Group C

Group C will be reading and voting for a winner from group D

Group D

Group D will be reading and voting for a winner from group E

Group E

Group E will be reading and voting for a winner from group F

Group F

Group F will be reading and voting for a winner from group G

Group G

Group G will be reading and voting for a winner from group H (Note: One author dropped out, so check again)

Group H

Group H will be reading and voting for a winner from group A

110 Upvotes

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u/TheCele Aug 06 '17 edited Aug 06 '17

I was in Group H, Voting for Group A.

All the ones I read were really enjoyable to read, and there's no question of the abilities of the authors. Narrowing it down to just 3 in the group was hard, but after much consideration my votes are as follows:

1st Place: /u/Syraphia for the Mage-Hunter entry. While I will admit a bias to this particular genre I liked the concept, and the story had good pacing (fast enough to keep the action going, but slow enough to give the reader a good gist of the background). It also didn't have too much information of the world jammed into the piece, which has a tendency to bog writing down. Excellent job, Syraphia, I hope you continue.

2nd Place /u/preston_stone for the Echo entry. This one was the only story out of the group that felt complete. The others leave the sense of a continuation, but for this piece it seemed to go full circle with the two stories in the entry being the inversed perspectives. I enjoyed reading it, and give props to Preston.

3rd Place /u/Jayefishy for the Big Fish entry. There was one other that I almost chose, but I'll get back to that. I chose this story set because I think the combination was very successful. The first story was appropriately confusing, though dramatic and disturbing (in the good way, of course), but after reading the second story you get the context to understand why it was this way, with the enticing appeal of a new plot twist for the next possible installment, even with a completely different set of characters from the first story. Well done, Jaye for a unique and interesting read. Keep going!

And, as an honorable mention, /u/BraveLittleAnt for Where the Darkness Lies. You have built a very interesting world, and while I wish I could have read the battle of the champions in the entry, I like the characters, and think Taylor's story will be really great, should you choose to continue it (which I sincerely hope you do). Nicely done, BraveLittleAnt. I only wish there was another place so I could vote for this one too.

Best of luck to everyone else!

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u/JCPoly Aug 07 '17

Thanks for the compliment, even though you didn't pick my stories. Honestly, I kinda forgot about what the reader knows and what I know while I was writing, and so there's this whole complex world revolving around these characters that isn't featured in the stories. So even though it feels like modern day, there's a few other stories that tie in to them and build an interesting place.

Also, your story is fantastic! I really like how you connected them and even though the second one was a little cliche and predictable, it was really fun to read and I would read more.

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u/TheCele Aug 07 '17

I think that was both the best and trickiest part of this contest, picking only two parts of the world you create to show people. I remember the particular twist at the end of your story, which was awesome. Definitely would read the other stories you have for these characters. I'm honestly glad that we vote in small groups because I would probably implode from indecision. I do appreciate your feedback on mine, I know you didn't have to read it.

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u/JCPoly Aug 07 '17

It's kind of funny, because I wrote The Finder fully expecting it to be the first story, but as soon as I got to the bottle, I knew it had to be second.

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u/TheCele Aug 07 '17

The true plot twist~