WotC Seeking Your Setting Proposals (was "Big Wizard announcement")

[Altmann]

Re: I'm from Mexico...

And it's not about the distance, but the general laziness of most Mexican public servants - my submission could take up to two full weeks to arrive... but I DID send it before the deadline, so I think it would be unfair to lose because a slacking postal service...

Well, one letter from Argentina took about 10 years to arrive to my parents

And yes, I'd rather see this thread focused on getting a response to these topics instead of discussing law verbatim, thank you very much.

Same here.

 

[Zappo]

I recall reading on a local newspaper about a letter sent during WW2 which arrived about a couple of years ago.

 

[Lady Dragon]

I spent a two whole day on it anyone that did it in 2-3 hours can't have a very good proposel It took me 2-3 hours just to type it the first time.

 

[Ghostwind]

I spent a two whole day on it anyone that did it in 2-3 hours can't have a very good proposel It took me 2-3 hours just to type it the first time.

This is not necesarily true. Your skill as a writer is not necessarily tied to the amount of time spent on the project. Some people take longer to puts their thoughts on paper in a professional manner than others. Much of that has to do with your grasp of the English language, grammar, and spelling. If you are good at writing then the time spent should be less than those who aren't. Therefore you shouldn't claim that anyone that takes less 3 hours couldn't possibly have a decent proposal because I am certain that nearly everyone who did it in that time or less will disagree. And I'll bet that some of those folks made up some pretty outstanding proposals.

 

[Storm Raven]

I spent a two whole day on it anyone that did it in 2-3 hours can't have a very good proposel It took me 2-3 hours just to type it the first time.

That depends upon a number of factors.

(1) Your skill as a writer.
(2) Your familiarity with your proposed setting.
(3) The nature of your proposed setting.
(4) Your speed as a typist.

A highly skilled writer with good typing skills submitting a world proposal for a reasonably straightforward setting he is intimately familiar with could easily have turned out a high quality submission in an hour or two. I took longer than that, because although I'm pretty good as a writer and fairly familiar with my setting materials, I'm not that fast of a typist, and my setting has some somewhat complicated elements. But I could easily see someone doing their submission quicker.

 

[Darraketh]

My submission weighed in at 206 words. In spite of it's brevity I spent a considerable amount of time editing, two complete rewrites and about five drafts.

With the exception of a few ideas that had been banging around in my head for years and an old handdrawn map from 1989, I made it up as I went along.


I have to say that I am so glad that everyone will be notified. The agony of not being selected and not knowing if my submmission even made it there is extremely uncomfortable.

BTW, if I am rejected I'll frame my rejection notice. I would represent my first attempt at getting published. I'd be hard pressed to think of a more prestigious rejection from this field.

 

[seasong]

Two hours a piece?? If that was the average time spent on proposals, maybe I do have a chance afterall. I think the average might be more like 12 hours. We spent maybe 30 hours on ours, but then we're quite anal. How much time did other people spend?

I spent somewhere around 20+, but I'm a slow editor.

Like with the word count thing, I don't think it's really how much time you spent, so much as it is how much time you needed to turn your first draft into a jewel. Some people's first draft is simply going to be easier to fix.

 

[Tallow]

That depends upon a number of factors.

(1) Your skill as a writer.
(2) Your familiarity with your proposed setting.
(3) The nature of your proposed setting.
(4) Your speed as a typist.

A highly skilled writer with good typing skills submitting a world proposal for a reasonably straightforward setting he is intimately familiar with could easily have turned out a high quality submission in an hour or two. I took longer than that, because although I'm pretty good as a writer and fairly familiar with my setting materials, I'm not that fast of a typist, and my setting has some somewhat complicated elements. But I could easily see someone doing their submission quicker.

I'm sorta agree with you, and sorta don't.

I probably spent 5 hours on this total. It probably took me less than 45 minutes to write my first draft. 1) I'm an exceptionally fast typist (77 wpm). 2) I learned by playing MUDs and hanging in chat rooms how to type as I think. In other words its almost near real time at the speed I talk. 3) I have had my setting in my head for over 3 years now, revising, recreating, etc.

The revision of my paper took MUCH longer. I'd say that the rewrite of the core ethos sentence took me at least an hour to get it exactly the way I wanted it.

So saying that those who only spent 3 hours wrote bad submissions is a false statement, because some people are just as good at typing down their thoughts as I am (or better) and they are more polished writers, needing less revision time.

But on the flip side, I'd wager that the percentage of those who wrote papers in 2 hours or less who handed in their first draft, is at about 95%.

Andy Christian

 

[Mercule]

Two hours a piece?? If that was the average time spent on proposals, maybe I do have a chance
afterall. I think the average might be more like 12 hours. We spent maybe 30 hours on ours, but
then we're quite anal. How much time did other people spend?

MB

I think mine was something more akin to 40 hours, not including the dedicated thought time I gave it while driving, showering, etc.

Of course, I had four people reviewing each of four drafts before my final submission, and I don't know how long each of them spent on each review.

I'm a very fast typist and my world is almost 20 years old. Unfortunately, I have a tendancy to get quite wordy (thus the editors). Also, there was such a hugh volume of material on my world that it was very hard for me to pick just the right items to include.

The worst part, though, was that since my world and my DMing style are so intertwined it was difficult for me to answer question #6 with content and not style. I'm very glad that one of my editors was a player in my game for the last 10 or so years.

 

[Glog]

It has been my experience that most good writers are adequate typists. That comes with experience. The more you write, the more familiar you are with the keyboard. What takes time is phrasing and editing. As Storm Raven already stated, familiarity with your proposed setting and the vision you have for your product can make a huge difference between the 2 hour and 30 hour submissions.

It's not the length of the stick, but how you use it that counts. Or at least that's what I keep hearing from people over and over again for some reason.