Author Games: Caper Crew

The Rules

There's only one rule to a con. That being said, there are ten rules to this writing competition.

1. There will be (at most) eighteen contestants participating in eight rounds of writing. Each round, the masterminds will assign a prompt. The contestants will have a week to write and submit an entry satisfying the requirements of the prompt to cruisecrimesinc@gmail.com.

2. Entries are due by 11:59 PM EST on the listed due date (if all things go according to plan, it will always be a Thursday). Exceptions without penalty can be given for emergencies; unexcused late entries will receive a penalty but will be accepted as long as they are turned in before the week's entries are posted and voting starts.

3. The first prompt will not have eliminations, although it will count toward your cumulative score and cumulative misses. Every round afterwards will be an elimination round.

4. Entries will be posted by EOD the Friday after the listed due date, and the lowest scorers will be posted by EOD two days after that on Sunday. The entries up for elimination will be determined by adding the scores given to each entry by the two masterminds. We will both be grading you on a rubric of five points each in the following five categories:

 - Task Completion. Did you fulfill the prompt you were given?

 - Characterization. Does your character feel like a well-rounded individual? Can I sympathize and empathize with their thoughts and actions; do I understand their motives and follow their development? Do they seem realistic or stilted?

 - Writing Style. Is your entry readable and clear? Are things descriptive; can I visualize and follow events from Point A to Point B in the story? Am I getting lost in unnecessary tangents and over-embellished prose or having trouble understanding what the author is trying to convey?

 - Engagement. Is the arc or plot of the entry satisfying and interesting to read? Was I engaged throughout? Did the author make me excited to know what happened next? Did I enjoy the experience?

 - SPAG. Spelling, punctuation, grammar, and your general grasp of the English language fall under this category.

The masterminds will separately judge and take the total average of these five categories for two scores out of five to the nearest hundredth. They'll then add those scores together for a final score out of ten for each entry.

5. Missed entries are an automatic zero; two missed entries gets you disqualified (and, depending on the mood of the masterminds, gleefully and disastrously offed within the universe).

6. Following each week of writing for every elimination round, there will be three days of voting; authors are expected but not required to vote for which entries they want to see proceed to the next round. Authors are allowed to vote for themselves. You can vote for up to the maximum allowed number of votes. In the event of a tie, the entry with the highest cumulative score will continue. Voting will not take place for the first or final round, as they are not elimination rounds.

7. Your votes will not be counted unless you have commented at least once on every entry for the round (excluding your own, if you are an author). This ensures that people who vote have actually made an effort to read the entries and judge them on merit. In addition, it encourages feedback and engagement among competitors and readers alike.

8. We obviously can't stop you, but we have eyes and the ability to click on hyperlinks. Please try to keep your votes as unbiased as possible. Calling on friends to brigade votes in your favor will get you disqualified at mastermind discretion.

9. Scoring and elimination are determined on a round-by-round basis with the exception of the final round, which we will judge holistically at our own discretion (this will allow us to look at things like cohesive story and development arc). We will not be releasing scores over the course of the competition, but we will save our records for documentation and you can ask for them when the competition is over. There are no sponsorships, but we will shout out one notable entry (not necessarily the highest scoring) from the previous round with every prompt release.

And last, but not least; the one rule to a con and the most important rule of this writing competition:

10. The masterminds call the shots.