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NovaWrimo 2017 Contest: Rules to participate


NQ-Nomad

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Hi guys, 

 

It's time once again for NovaWrimo! If you don't remember what it is or you're new around here, let’s catch you up.

 

What is NovaWrimo?

NovaWrimo is a contest inspired by "Nanowrimo" (National Novel Writing Month) that happens during the month of November (from November, 1st to November, 30th). The goal of NanoWrimo is to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. If you're curious, here's the official Nanowrimo website: http://nanowrimo.org/.

 

NovaWrimo is slightly different: 

 

  • It's not strictly tied to the month of November (meaning we might hold similar contests several times a year).
  • To be accessible to a broader range of participants, the minimum word count is only 5,000 words instead of 50,000. Ideally, entries would have a word count between 5,000 and 7,500 words. Depending on the number of entries, it can take a lot of time to review everything. Of course, if you're really inspired and the result very good, there's no hard limit. Who are we to tell Shakespeare when to stop?

 

The rules:

  • The 2017 NovaWrimo contest starts today, Thursday, November 30th, 2017 at 9:30 PM PST. 
  • It will end on Sunday, January 7th at 11:30 PM PST.
  • The story should be compatible with what is known of the Dual Universe backstory so far. 

 

For reference:

 

If you spot an inconsistency between the different sources, the Official Lore Bible should be considered authoritative.

 

  • The story must happen between 2049 and 2450. (Between the creation of the United Earth Federation (UEF), the transnational institution in charge of coordinating humanity’s efforts and response to the Star Kiss of Death (SKiD) and the time when the Arkship technology is finally mastered).
  • No alien creatures should be involved.
  • Physical violence should be limited (No gore or similar things). 
  • Verbal violence and cursing is tolerated but should be limited and not gratuitous.
  • Explicit sexual content isn't allowed.
  • Hate speech toward specific people, ethnic groups, or religions isn't allowed.
  • You must submit your text in the form of a PDF file and you must attach it to a dedicated topic (with the tag [NovaWrimo2017] in the title) you created in the "Novaquark Archives" forum section. The PDF file must not exceed 500 kb in size.
  • You also must send your file in Word or .txt format to both Nyzaltar and Nomad to be eligible. You can do so by private message on the forum.
  • By submitting a fan fiction with the tag [NovaWrimo2017] in the topic title, the poster will explicitly cede author rights to Novaquark. While these texts won't be sold in any form, they might be used (fully or partially) as promotional materials or in marketing campaigns for the game Dual Universe. For more information, please read our "Terms of Use" and our EULA. You also must accept and you must respect the legal conditions bound to your Dual Universe account (the aforementioned game's EULA, but also the Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and NDA if relevant).
  • Your submission must be written in English.
  • Your submission must not contain elements or information under NDA you may have found while playing the Pre-Alpha.
  • A non-native English writer can seek help from a native English speaker to polish the text in English.
  • The native English speaker must be aware that it can help only on a volunteer basis: he won't be eligible for any reward.
  • If a non-native English writer seeks help from a native English speaker, he/she must submit the complete text before proofreading. Once his/her text is proofread, he/she will have to keep both pre-proofread and post-proofread versions of the text available on the forum.
  • If several people collaborate on a story, please be aware that only the individual submitting the entry on the forum will be eligible to win any prizes or awards. We will not have group prizes available. 
  • Because the juries are completely different, a participant may win a Novaquark prize and the Community prize.
  • You may submit multiple entries, however, you may only win one Novaquark prize.
  •  If an entry does not meet all of the requirements for eligibility (not reaching the minimum word count, missing the deadline by a few days, etc.), the author won't be considered as eligible for the Novaquark and the Community prizes. However, it may still be considered as a participant to the contest. It will be up to the Novaquark team to decide on a case by case basis. 
  • Late entries will not be eligible for either the Novaquark or Community prizes, but will still be considered as participants. 
  • A gentle reminder more than a rule: please consider the reading comfort of your future readers by formatting your text in a way that makes it easily readable (make sure to put some space between your paragraphs, etc.). 


The rewards:

1st Prize: 

1 Digital Gold Founder Pack


2nd Prize:

1 Digital Silver Pack


3rd Prize:

1 Bronze Pack 
1 Closed Beta Key


Last year winners were: 

• 1st Prize: Aetherios, for his short story "That Bright Dawn"
• 2nd Prize: Temerian, for his short story "Rebirth"
• 3rd Prize: Devious_T, for his short story "Left Behind".


Community Prize:

Unique in-game title: "Famous Writer". Won by Kurock last year.

 

Only one vote is allowed per person, regardless of the number of accounts he or she owns.


How the winners will be selected:

  • For the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Prizes, the winners will be selected by the Novaquark team.
  • For the Community Prize, the community members will vote for their favorite fan fiction.

 

Last year saw very cool entries. If you want to discover them, you can download them all here.

Good luck everyone! 

 

Cheers,

The Novaquark Team.
 

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Hard to think a whole year has passed already since the last time.

 

 

By chance do you take a submission more than 7500 words... wrote something for the last one but never turned it in. Kind of turned into a small novel rather than a short story. 

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11 minutes ago, Wilks Checkov said:

Hard to think a whole year has passed already since the last time.

 

 

By chance do you take a submission more than 7500 words... wrote something for the last one but never turned it in. Kind of turned into a small novel rather than a short story. 

Time flies, indeed... Like said in the rules: "if you're really inspired and the result very good, there's no hard limit". So in theory, yes, you can submit your story. 

Just make sure it's compliant with this year's requirements, like for example the different timeline. Otherwise, even if we'll have a great pleasure to read it, we can't guarantee it would be eligible for the contest. 

 

Cheers, 

Nomad

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3 minutes ago, Aetherios said:

"
Would the previous winners take a downgrade if they finished lower, or an upgrade if they won a higher position than the last Novawrimo?

"

Don't worry. What was won last year won't be modified, it's yours ^^

Nothing will be downgraded, only upgraded if necessary. If the reward is "useless" for you (for example you win a Gold pack you already have or you win a Silver or Bronze while being Gold), we can consider gifting it to a friend of your choice. You'll have to tell us who and we'll take care of it. 

 

Cheers, 

Nomad

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23 hours ago, Rafiki said:

I hope you will make later a contest with some other languages too.

my english is not the yellow of the egg we would say in germany,

but i love produce stuff like that.

Here, have some grief bacon to go with your yellow of the egg. :-)

 

Let's say 250 words per page average (low end). Then for 6,000 word essay = 24 pages target. I think having a good editor will help a lot should one decide to have a go at this. Bon Chance!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Last time I was hard at work on writing other things so I didn't even try to come up with anything (I also find short stories difficult), but I just finished latest rewrite for my manuscript so maybe I can fit this in between while editing and searching for beta readers. At least I got first few hundred words started.

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  • 2 weeks later...
17 hours ago, Kurock said:

If not then I am sure I can help fine someone ;)

Fine? I may not be native English speaker, but I not so bad that you should fine somebody for it.

 

There is one person from US that has proofread my fanfiction since 2015 but never even talked about this one with her.

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29 minutes ago, Stig92 said:

Fine? I may not be native English speaker, but I not so bad that you should fine somebody for it.

 

In case you're not joking, I'm pretty sure he meant find not fine. Sounded like an offer to help proofread. 

Or this went right over my head. ?

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4 hours ago, Kurock said:

Find. It seems proofreading is required everywhere these days :P

I just went through my text and agree completely. I think I'll go for it with just my own work. If something is horribly wrong I can at least learn from people hopefully pointing it out. Publishing market here is so tight that even if I ever get published here I would like to aim for English language markets someday, not in short texts though. For some reason they are a horrible pain for me, this included. I wish I noticed the contest sooner. Would have had more time to push through that.

 

btw. The rules talk about ceceding rights to the story to Novaquark, could I still add it to my fanfiction.net page?

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On 14 January 2018 at 11:40 PM, Stig92 said:

Is there a schedule on when we get the results or should we open betting on that?

I am sure they are busy reading the entries (there was a tweet suggesting as much), though I would have thought the community vote would have been opened by now.

 

Thre are only two courses of action. One is patience and the other is to ping @NQ-Nomad

xD

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  • 2 months later...
  • 3 months later...

Hi guys,

 

It's been a while since you had news from our latest NovaWrimo contest. We apologize for the delay. We wanted to make sure that our deliberation process was completed the way we intended, while as you know, there are so many things to attend to in the meantime...

 

So, thanks for your kindness and patience. It's now time to announce who the winners are for the 2017 edition!

 

• 1st Prize: Dwarf3d for the short story "Day of Optimism"

• 2nd Prize: Stig92 for the short story "Right to Exist"

• 3rd Prize: Kurock for the short story "Bastille"

 

Congratulations! Thank you to all the contestants! We're always happy to read how our players grasp Dual Universe's… well,  universe :P

We're aware that writing such stories represent an investment and we appreciate it. As a token of appreciation, each contestant will receive one DAC!

 

More news related to NovaWrimo are coming soon, so stay tuned.

 

Cheers, 
Nomad

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  • 2 weeks later...

@NQ-Nomad   Two questions if you won't mind:

 

1. Should the prize show somewhere in profile or elsewhere or do I just get email or other contact about the matter when the rewards are actually relevant (at the time of alpha 2 as I've understood).

 

2. To confirm, the prize has the content they had in original kickstarter packs?  

https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/013/630/702/40b5f8aebb79d1946b24127cf5853155_original.jpg?w=680&fit=max&v=1473233986&auto=format&q=92&s=60de617c87413ffd127ad0f96639f7ec With these too? https://www.dualthegame.com/en/news/2018/03/07/supporter-rewards-for-founder-backers/

 

Very timely critique process by the way. I only wrote one full novel draft during that time. :D 

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  • 4 months later...

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