Iluvatar of ImmU and PhoenixMUD wants to partake in a creative writing contest with Keolah of Rogue Winds and a few other MUD builders. However, we need more competitors and judges. Obviously a person can be both, but they can not judge in their own category.

If you are interested, please either post here or goto and submit to Ntanel your desire to participate.

If we get a substancial number of responses, then we can plan accordingly and provide details. As far as prizes go... Short of a trophy image, no/low-cost ideas would be nifty.

Rules for the contest may be losely based on what is at

Thanks and ciao!

sounds like an awesome contest, and if love to join, but i just dont think i have a chance right now... are there plans for this to happen again if all goes well?

We do things like this every few years. I am sure even after I go someone somewhere would do it once in a while.

To tell the truth I wasn't too happy with the way this competition was managed in the past.

If I put several hours of work into writing a story, I don't do that out of  sheer creative joy, or to get some graphic award to post on my website,  I do it because I want to share the story with others.

To put it plain and simple: I want the story to be read. Meaning that if my story wins any of the prizes, I expect it to be published somewhere on a website, if possible permanently, but at least for a substantial time.

The two last times this contest has been run, this didn't happen. Not even the three top stories were ever published. There was a discussion about it on these boards, and the comment I got from the admin running the contest was, that it was too much work for him to convert the stories into HTML.

To me that isn't satisfactory. I think it shows little respect for the amount of work the winners - and all the competitors for that matter - put into their stories. So we are expected to give up the right to the stories we send in, but we don't even get them published somewhere? I think that's a bum deal.

Unless there has been a change of policy this year, I think I'll pass on the contest, and put my efforts elsewhere.

Though I've never submitted to this contest and don't know its history or anything about it, from what Molly has described, I'll have to agree with her. The only reason a writer submits to contests like what's described is the hope that other people may read their story. If what Molly said is accurate, I'm rather perplexed why this hasn't happened in the past. I mean, if nothing else, a simple text file can't be all that hard to post on a website.

Well, MudWorld has only held one creative writing contest and that was in 2001, we linked to the original text files of the winners.  Immortal University would be responsible for the next contest and they will also post winners.  I have to assume Molly speaks of one of the other two networks which have held other such competitions.

The 2001 entries are still available online at this link!


MudWorld does not need to hold a contest to post submitted stories, we do have a section dedicated to submitted articles.

My apologies, I just assumed that the same group or affiliates were holding all these contests, since they were so similar in the approach. I admit I often have problems separating these webpages from one another, since the names and content of them are similar.

I apologise for the mistaken identity, obviously those other two contests were run by someone else, (who I cannot even recall now, but I assume Ntanel knows).  Anyhow, the wasted efforts in those two made me lose the taste for this type of venture more or less permanently, so I still think I'll pass.

Just curious, were the prizes ever actually awarded, ie the banners adds put up?

After looking at the link to the 2001 contest (was there a 2002 or 2003?) and browsing the winners, this does look like a neat contest. I also note one of the judges is named Molly (*peers at Molly*).

Yes, I was one of the judges in the 2001 contest, run by Ntanel of Mudworld. Nice to see that the stories from that one are still available. The winning story was totally awesome, I suggest you all go and read it.

It was when the 'show' was taken over by Orion of MudPlanet in 2002 and 2003 that things went wrong. And judging from Orion's response, he still has no plans of publishing the winning stories from these years in foreseeable time.

So, to turn this into something constructive, I suggest that Orion could e-mail those stories to Ntanel - or any other person who declares themselves willing to publish them on a website. It cannot be THAT hard to html-ize them, and I still think they deserve to be read by more people than the 3 judges.

As for Fifi's question; yes, I believe the banners were run for a month, and there were some graphic rewards that the winners could place on their own websites too. I never bothered to put them up myself. Like I said before, graphics are not the reason why people partake in contests like that.

You are? And did you do so in writing? Signed? Because if not, you've not given up the right, and there's nothing stopping you from putting your story up on your own website.

Sheesh. I never got my graphic reward!

Hey Molly, or whoever else knows the answer to this question.
Where do I go to access the stories from the 2001 contest? I would love to read these.
I might even participate in this contest if I find the time.
But please, info on the 2001 contest?

Raeven wrote
The link to the 2001 entries was posted by Ntanel higher up in this thread:

Ok, seriously...

It has been 1-2+ years since these people put in a lot of work to participate in the contest YOU asked them to participate in.

You cannot even UPLOAD some text files and then make some links? That takes like 5 minutes at MOST.

Sure, it isn't pretty, but it is better than not posting them at all.

Converting them to html to fit with your site would take less than an hour, even if you had TONS of stories.

If you have time to post on Top Mud Sites then you have time to show those people a little courtesy and spend a few minutes to post them.

This isn't a matter of "RL takes precedence over a hobby." This is a matter of common decency when dealing with other people to whom you make a commitment.

Orion,

I can convert those for you, send em my way and a template to apply them to. It will take me only a few hours. Class does not start until June 7, so I have some time.

I have all the stories from the contests I judged in which is most of them. I also helped design the contest parameters and in the first one, Molly recused herself from judging her own story. We kept Ntanel as the wild card to judge in a tie-breaker and I'm pretty sure I remember Orion acting in the same capacity.

Ntanel's contest is posted, Orion had some issues with posting but I've got to say he did a great job just holding it considering all the work it took to get judges and make sure we all got the files in a timely fashion. If anyone is willing to convert and post .doc files or .txt files, I would be more than happy to send copies. My only request would be that the judges get some credit as well as the excellent writers that took the time to submit.

There were and still are no copyright implications to any of these stories. They were freely submitted in an open contest without restrictions or conditions and as such, I've no qualms about sharing the content, critiques or final results with anyone who asks within reason.

I'm actually looking forward to this next contest and plan on submitting a story myself. That's a challenge, Molly!