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

[gregweller]

My wife and I finally got our submission together and in an envelope ready to be mailed out tomorrow morning. It finally weighed in at 626 words in 10pt TImes New Roman. I used to teach college freshman English classes, and I caught myself doing what I used to tell my students not to do -- stop obsessing over the writing. Once you've written something down and made a few changes, you can stop. After a certain point, the more you rewrite, the worse it gets. My wife finally rolled her eyes and said that we can stop now. If nothing else, it was an interesting exercize and forced us to get something down on paper--something that we had said we were going to do for years. Amazing how much focus a hundred grand brings to one's writing. And I'm glad I have 5 weeks of vacation time saved up, because if we make the cut, I know I'm not going to be able to focus on work for awhile--I've already warned my boss.

 

[Undead Pete]

Re: One half of a form

I have to read documentation for a living. So, after completing my entries, I noticed that the first three questions are pretty useless. In fact, most of what is special about your setting is question #6. It's the only place you can actually talk about what makes your setting different and therefore interesting. I don't think the other five are of much use. If I was reviewing them, I'd only read your answer to #6, and then I'd read the other five. If your answer to #6 is not much different from the standard setting, I'd say that your entry will be deselected without being read further. Just thought I'd help those who aren't finished.

Experiment: Cover over your sheet and only read question #6. Does it say everything you needed saying? This may be your only chance to sell your words. They are NOT going to be reading it all. How many answers to #1 do you think you'd have to read before you lost all interest in "A world where...."

I somewhat agree. The Core Ethos Statement in #1 needs to grab their attention, but beyond that #6 is by far the most important. Approximately 400 words, or half my entry, was concentrated in question #6.

I don't believe the other questions are entirely useles either. I used those questions to expand my main ideas.

 

[River]

Re: whew

We should all send Christina thank you cards. Or sympathy cards. One or the other, just to let her know we care.

'luck, all

-Reddist

I was planning on skipping all that and going directly to CA$H! I figure a $50 tucked away with my submission couldn't hurt anything now could it?

River

 

[Ghostwind]

Re: Re: whew

I figure a $50 tucked away with my submission couldn't hurt anything now could it?

Only $50? I put in a fresh and crisp $100 bill...

 

[Mercule]

Re: Re: Re: whew

Only $50? I put in a fresh and crisp $100 bill...

I guess the diamond pendant I sent was overkill, huh?

 

[HexGunna]

Re: Re: Re: Re: whew

I guess the diamond pendant I sent was overkill, huh?

hmmm...having 2nd thoughts about the Virgin Island Tickets I sent....

 

[Tom Cashel]

Approx. 366 words in 12-pt. Times. Mailed today. Why strain their eyes with all the details when you can make tantalizing suggestions about what the 10-pager will contain?

Good luck, everyone!

 

[reddist]

See, now you're just being silly. I was just gonna THANK her for putting up with our tsunami of paper. The most a bribe could do is keep your proposal out of the roundfile. You wanna bribe somebody, send those tickets to AV Or me, and I will respectfully withdraw the weaker of my two submissions, thus slightly improving your chances for getting picked

Seriously, I'm sure she's having a rough, if not long and tedious, two weeks.

-Reddist

 

[Aloïsius]

help a foreigner...

I'm looking for a disinterested person willing to check my proposal. I'm especially afraid that some of my sentence may sound awkard : it's hard to tell if a word sound ridiculous when you are not a native speaker.

 

[seasong]

Re: help a foreigner...

I'm looking for a disinterested person willing to check my proposal. I'm especially afraid that some of my sentence may sound awkard : it's hard to tell if a word sound ridiculous when you are not a native speaker.

Reading the above, you should definitely get someone who can to go over your text. I'm lucky in that I have an English teacher and literature major for a friend.

Unfortunately, I'm in the contest, so I can't really help you.

I can say that the only real mistakes in your text above are related to singular/plural agreement (see below). If that's the only mistake you make commonly, you can probably correct it fairly easily on your own:

"I'm especially afraid that some of my sentences may sound awkard : it's hard to tell if a word sounds ridiculous when you are not a native speaker."

"some of" indicates plural, so "sentence" should be "sentences".

"a word" is singular, so "a word sound" should be "a word sounds". When in doubt, you can *usually* apply the rule that plural nouns and singular 3rd person verbs have an s on the end.

I singular 1st person "I run."
we plural 1st person "We run."
you singular 2nd person "You run."
you all plural 2nd person "You all run."
he singular 3rd person "He runs."
she singular 3rd person "She runs."
it singular 3rd person "It runs."
they plural 3rd person "They run."