Contest January-February Short Story Contest Voting and Reading Thread

It's funny, in the one short story contest where I try to play it completely fair (not calling in @Mrs. NIGHTBRINGER for an extra vote and reading all entries) and someone else tries to cause chaos in my stead. I guess it's exactly as I always say...

There is no escape from Chaos. It marks us all.


Never again. From hence forth I shall be the king of Chaos. The Everchosen.

 

Well done @Y'ttar Scaletail ! A very hard fought victory. I really enjoyed your writing style.


My top three stories were:

1. Story Three, "Within the Forge"
   
2. Story Two, "The Main Event"
   
3. Story Five, "Prophecies"

 

How much of that is due to your inclusion as a heel commentator and foil to Scalenex? XD

 

It was a fun and creative story. Not your traditional tale but an interesting one. It definitely stood out from the crowd and I enjoyed reading it.

The @NIGHTBRINGER versus @Scalenex angle was a nice touch. That's probably the best pairing that could have been chosen to fill that role. Two opposite personality types that are diametrically opposed to one another. A thrilling rollercoaster ride!

 

The humble haiku would disagree.

I know why you must review your own piece, but how do you find the process? Is it strange commenting on your own work as if it were someone else's?

I seldom read short story contest stories. It's even more seldom that I read reviews of short story contest stories. However, this was good.

 

I'll try not to disappoint!

The winner already had a girl. They weren't competing for that girl for very obvious reasons.

1. Not all were truly devoted Chaos Dwarf stories. So even by your logic, it doesn't necessarily hold that you fall to 6th.
2. If I had enlisted the vote of @Mrs. NIGHTBRINGER (which I will always do from now on, no more playing fair!) then "Within the Forge" wins outright without needing a tie-breaker round and "The Main Event" bumps up to 4 votes, so you're tied with the rest of the field with the exception of "The Dragon Isles archives - Condensed Chaos arrived"
3. Your story did contain the tiniest of Chaos Dwarf mentions. That negates any potential claim of defeating a Chaos Dwarf story with a non-Chaos Dwarf story.
4. As is almost always the case, the winning Chaos Dwarf story cannibalizes the votes that might otherwise go to other Chaos Dwarf stories. We've seen this many times in the past. Even in this case, consider what would have happened if "Within the Forge" was not part of the field. Those votes it accrued would likely have funnelled to the other Chaos Dwarf stories. "Story Five: Prophecies" for instance gets my vote.
5. And MOST IMPORTANTLY, while you're concerned with silver, the Chaos Dwarf story is enjoying it's much deserved gold medal win!

Your World Cup analogy supports my point. Argentina are champions. Argentina are celebrated. Argentina walk away with the trophy and accolades. Messi is a champion. None of that would have changed if they had beat France 3-0. If anything, the game is even more iconic because it was such a back-and-forth. It will always be remembered as one of the greatest finals games, and Argentina will forever be known as the victor of the game.

I think you're taking the quote too literally. Crushing an opponent utterly does carry it's own unique satisfaction, but in the end the truly important thing is to get the win; period! As an aside, from a psychological standpoint, the most satisfying game/contest is one were your opponent is able to push you to your limits but you're able to just edge out the victory; when you're literally 1% better than they are. In that instance, they feel like a credible opponent, and your personal satisfaction in beating them carries greater internal value. I can go out and crush a 5 year old kid in a basketball game, but just how much satisfaction can be derived from that (okay... maybe a little )? That said, I understand your point. Being far superior is great, but the most important thing is simply being superior in the first place, even if it is by a thin margin.

To summarize, I'd say that winning by a large margin is a nice extra, but simply getting the victory is the truly important thing. If you won, you won.

Additionally, you've got to keep in mind that the Short Story contests have very few voters. Obtaining a large margin of victory (in terms of votes) is pretty difficult. We had 11 voters in the tie breaker and only 10 (unique) voters in the opening round.

Do you remember when Usain Bolt set the current 100m dash world record of 9.58 seconds at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics in Berlin? What you probably don't know (without looking it up) is that Tyson Gay of the USA came in second with a time of 9.71 seconds.

You can view the race HERE

When you watch the race it isn't even close. It's a massacre. Yet, when you do the math, he only runs 1.36% faster than Tyson. In the tie-breaker, your entry had 4 votes compared to the 5 earned the eventual Chaos Dwarf winner. So the Chaos Dwarf story earned 25% more votes. Let that sink in, Usain Bolt's absolutely iconic slaughter of Tyson Gay is only by a factor of 1.36%, while the Chaos Dwarf winner enjoys a margin of 25%.

So the absolute voting margins are (almost) always close in the Short Story contests because there is very little voter engagement (but equally, the percent differential will always be huge for the same reason). The Chaos Dwarf story as a percentage fared considerably better, but you can't exactly win by 50 votes when you only have an 11 voter turn out. That's not a blemish on the Chaos Dwarf story but rather a damning indictment of Short Story contest engagement. Don't hate the player, hate the game!


But if you really want an impressive record of victory, look at the number of Short Story contests that Chaos Dwarfs / Nightbringer stories have lost (against non-CD/Nightbringer stories) in comparison to the number of wins they have accrued! I can only recall a single instance of a clean loss and we've got to be approaching near 10 wins by now (I didn't count though, just an estimate). There is your large margin of victory (and ironically you really helped pad out that margin, contributing something in the ballpark of 3+ wins).

 

I agree. A story that merely mentions the Chaos Dwarfs is inferior to a dedicated Chaos Dwarfs story. I recognize the difference (and voted accordingly); ergo I labelled your submission as having only the "tiniest of Chaos Dwarf mentions". And in cosmic karma, you went up against and subsequently lost to a true Chaos Dwarf story. A Chaos Dwarf story which cannibalized the votes of those of us with sophisticated (Chaos Dwarf) story palettes. Obviously there are some number of people that don't care about the CD (nor any concept of fair adherence to the short story contest rules/theme) and voted for your story because it was a genuinely well written piece. In any other contest with zero Chaos Dwarf stories your entry might very well have claimed the top prize.

Historically any mention of Chaos Dwarfs has been considered as a "Chaos Dwarf story". Even a singular mention (in the absence of a more dedicated CD entry) has proven enough to garner my vote. That's always been the way of things.

That said, if we re-define the idea of a "Chaos Dwarf story" to only include entries with significant Chaos Dwarfs content, I'd actually be on board with that. Up until now I've always had to mention that a Chaos Dwarf story (going up against a field of non-CD stories) is nearly undefeated, having only sustained a single loss. However, that loss was a story that only mentioned them extremely briefly. Under your new proposal, I would be able to claim that the a Chaos Dwarf story (now defined as having truly meaningful CD inclusion) has never lost to a field of non-CD stories. I like the sound of the Chaos Dwarfs being undefeated! I'd make that trade!!

I must apologize, as a devotee of Hashut, I'm unaccustomed to concepts of "silver" or "second place". Those are foreign ideas to us Dawi-Zharr. The Chaos Dwarfs rule the top of the podium and care little for the lesser species fighting for the lower podium placements!

But you're the one that decided to fill your backpack with bricks and wear it during the race. That's a self-inflicted wound. It can't be used as an excuse when the mistake was committed by you. You knew the rules and you knew the awesome sway that the Chaos Dwarfs have in the short story contest. Your choices and your consequences.

In the grand scheme of things you can shrug off that error and still enjoy your overall Short Story win lead. However, if you make too many of those mistakes and others accept the blessings of Hashut, you may just find yourself displaced one day. Your lead is commanding but not insurmountable.

Technically no, you did not. Depending on how you weigh the performances you either:

1. finished equal to him (you both finished in second place)
2. or you performed below him (Bolt ran 1.36% faster than him, while the CD story earned 25% more votes than you. Meaning Tyson Gay, as a percentage, was much closer to first place than you were). Math is a cruel mistress!

 

I could just as easily have used any example and it would have be hard to replicate a 25% differential. But the underlying point is that winning by a vote or two is par for the course in the SS contest. With such low voter turnouts, it is practically impossible to have a blowout in terms of votes. However, on the flip side the percent differential will always be huge.

Perhaps your sustained dominance at the top has begun to feel a little mundane and you're looking to spice things up a bit. Ultimately, I can't blame you for trying to beat the game on hard mode just to see if you could. The lesson however is that the power of Hashut is not to be trifled with. Maybe the power of the Chaos Dwarfs in the Short Story contest is simply too much of an unbalancing force.