...And The WINNER Is?!??

How do you pick someone when all the writing is so brilliant?

Aug 15, 2023

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There’s nothing like it.

So when WorldAnvil opened up sponsorships for the Summer Camp prompts a couple years ago, I jumped in line.

For Summer Camp 2023, I decided to gift my BOUNDLESS Journals. They’re a custom, printable version of my Advanced Worldbuilding Journals — the 400 page printed beasts I’ve been using for years. Perfect for keeping anything and everything you create in perfect order, no matter what your process is to create.

Books

💎 Jaime Buckley

June 29, 2023

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The BOUNDLESS Journals have sections and aspects to allow you to create any kind of custom Journal you want or need. From Science Fiction to Fantasy, To Mystery, To Romance — it’s keeps everything straight, organized, and perfect.

Print them out, put them in a spiral binder of your choosing, and there’s no limit to what you can record for your writing or RPG/GM game play.

The Prompt I Sponsored

You don’t get to pick what you sponsor. I mean, Janet tries to get you what you choose, but there are so many prompts and so many sponsors. You list what you’re willing to cover — but for many of us — we just want to help. Gratefully I got one of my favorite subjects for the prompt: Species.

My prompt was:

An animal associated with, or symbolizing, power

There was a whopping 415 entries for this prompt. Not the most by a long shot, but that was quite a bit to read through. The rules state that you have to have at least 300 words for your entry to qualify…but there’s no length limit.

…and there were some LONG articles.

Keep in mind that most of the participants aren’t mentally twisted like myself. They don’t shoot for the diamond. Many pick the prompts that truly inspire them (as they should) and then make them the very best possible. That includes the writing, artwork, and what makes each and every entry look better: formatting.

TIP: If you have ANY skills with CSS, you stand out like a pony in a pile of shiiii…..manure.

How I Chose The Winner (My Process)

It’s kind of embarrassing to say, but I don’t have some fancy way of picking a winner. Thing is, I’d give prizes to most of the entries…and I don’t mean some ‘participation award’, either.

Many entries don’t have the formatting skills, but are exceptional writers and creators. Many don’t draw, or have access to artwork like I do. That means many good creations go unnoticed and that bothers me.

But I can’t give everyone a prize. So how do I go about it?

#1 Catch My Eye.

This part is simple. I look for two things: the name of the article, and if there is any community interest in it. The name is always the ace for me. Name something cool, or something that rolls of the tongue, and I’ll click. Make me laugh, almost guaranteed click.

If the name sounds good, but you also have a LOT of eyes on it, or eyes AND likes, I’m going to click to read it. That’s just how I work. This is play time for me, and my time is limited. I’m picky.

#2 Keep My Eye.

This is a bit harder to explain, but it starts with cleanliness. If I click onto a page and there just isn’t any care about formatting — and I mean basics, which everyone can do — where it’s easy to read, a decent flow for my eyes, I’ll stay.

If you have skills and format the page, and there’s a good flow of sections, the font is modified but still easy to read (I have bad eyes), I’ll stay. If you included artwork — and for this, it can be ANYthing — I’ll stay on the page. I’ve been trapped on a page, reading around literal doodles that look like a 2-3 year old drew them, and for the topic, it was fanTAStic.

Seriously.

Now if you have all the things — the clean lines, good formatting AND artwork… like some of my friends (Tillerz, Stormbril, Kummer Wolf, Qurilion and DaniAdventures are good examples), ya got me. Simple as that.

#3 Feed My Imagination.

This…is…key. IF this is good enough, nothing up to this point will matter. The hard part is, the other things help me get to your writing! It’s so not fair. I know it.

But I can’t help it…unless I see a huge wave of community activity.

This does happen, BTW…someone reads something brilliant, and they talk about it in Discord, and someone takes their word on it…and before you know it, there’s a buzz about the content. It gets both views and likes.

Then I show up, click on the page, and it’s both boring and UGLY…and I know at that moment, this has to be amazing writing!

…and I’ll read.

This year was the worst time for picking a single person.

Narrowed it down to 12. Way too many, and after creating another layer — it had to make me want to read it TWICE — narrowed it down to seven. Those seven then were eliminated by another layer — how ‘unique’ was it to me — had I heard anything like it before?

That gave me four.

Just couldn’t knock anyone off that list. It actually felt wrong to do it.

…so I just added prizes instead.

And The Winner Is

I….can’t TELL you!

Yeah, all this build up, I know, but the awards ceremony is still over a week away— so I can’t reveal this ahead of time, THAT WOULD BE CHEATING.

What I CAN reveal are the four entries competing for the #1 spot,…but you’ll have to watch the Awards Ceremony LIVE on Twitch to find out who I picked on August 26th: https://www.twitch.tv/worldanvil

The GRAND PRIZE I’ve offered is the complete BOUNDLESS Journal + Advanced WorldBuilding Guide ($59.99 value). That’s all 12 categories of the journal. If you’d like a copy of this yourself (or any variation/combination of the modules) for a 20% discount, use the coupon code: LIFEOFFICTION which is good on all worldbuilding materials until September 30th, 2023.

So who did I pick for a shot at the GRAND PRIZE?

"Shimmer Worms" of the world Cathedris, by Stormbril.

"The whole idea creeped me out. Maybe it’s because I have serious issues with my eyes and have days where I can and do go ‘blind’ from working too much in front of the screen, or hunched over my drawing tablet. I’m not sure. But I expected creepy — and then being convinced that it was all normal — from Stormbril. It’s what he does, and he does it oh, so well. The next part for me, though, was after the descriptions, reading the conversation with Gerald. Excellent work."

"Human" of the world Lethea, by Dhelian.

"I was delighted to see us ‘humans’ as an entry. The formatting, mixed with beautiful artwork and spacing was literally perfect. Dhelian’s storytelling skills have always excelled, but I was actually shocked at how fun it was to read about ‘humans’ as a species! Read it, you guys, you’ll enjoy it oh so much."

"Sar’ach" of the world Eivrall, by 1337spectra (Gabrielle Decker)

"I’d like to say that Gabrielle has become one of my favorite writers on WA. I’m not a horror fan. I’m far too impressionable for things like that, and my inner 4-year-old just cries. That said, I couldn’t help but read the Sar’ach after seeing the artwork cover. I had to understand what the hell that was…and then I regretted it. Not reading it, but having read it — because it actually gave me a nightmare. I praise Gabrielle for her ability to weave something believable…and to get me to question what I know. Or that I think I know. Then she forced me to walk away, unsure of what I was sure about.

How do you not admire a writer like that? Now I just want to meet her, take her to lunch and ask her to tell me some stories!"

"Lingerlights" of the world Istralar, by Hanhula.

"This article wasn’t just delightful, it was the reason I had to give more prizes for exceptional creations. Honestly, Lingerlights rescued my brain after reading some darker articles. I think this is the first time I smiled after reading the line ‘Whilst lingerlight spirits are entirely supernatural entities with occasional necromantic abilities of their own…’. Necros and smiles don’t usually go together for me. I’d encourage everyone to read this creature, and I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s brilliant.