TAKAMO FICTION CONTEST!

August 12, 2014
By R. Ritnour

Today’s blog is devoted to announcing a unique partnership between the TU staff and several player-authors of Takamo fiction. It’s a writers contest with RU’s as the prize. Here is their spiel:

The Competition:
The team at Takamo Universe and the SOELIEN-TWA Mining Corporation have teamed up to come up with a new competition open to Takamo players. Create a short story of 500 words or more based on a Takamo action. The Takamo Universe development staff will judge a 1st, 2nd and 3rd place story, and payments will be awarded by the SOELIEN-TWA Mining Corp.
The Prizes:

1st Prize – 32,000 RUs
2nd Prize – 16,000 RUs
3rd Prize – 8,000 RUs

In addition, all players that submit an entry will receive 4,000RUs from the Takamo Universe team. So the winner will receive 32,000 + 4,000 RUs. Only one 4,000RU payment per player will be issued no matter how many stories are submitted. With a collaboration the 4,000RU payment will only go to the 1st player submitting the story, other players would have to be the initial submitter for another story for the 4,000RU payment.

The Deadline:
All entries must be posted on the Takamo Fiction thread of the website by midnight Central time Sept 12th, 2014. Decisions on the prizes will be made during the development meeting on the 13th and the prizes will be awarded the following turn.

The Fine Print:
1) All stories must be original, in good taste, and written in English
2) Stories should be based upon a Takamo action and use elements/wording from the Takamo universe and the action should be in the title or subtitle
3) Players must attach their empire name to the story [so we know who to pay]
4) You may submit an unlimited number of stories but remember that quality counts more that quantity.
5) Each story must be at least 500 words in length [yes I will be counting]
6) If there is a collaborative effort on a story the prize will be awarded to the first player to post the story on the Takamo Fiction thread
7) Only one prize will be awarded per player
8) Authors agree to allow the stories to be reproduced in whole or in part by the Takamo Universe team
9) The decision of the judges is final.

Tips for Writing a Story:
1) Have a proof-reader/editor. Two heads are better than one. Ideally someone with good English skills and a knowledge of your topic
2) Get your ideas down on paper. Don’t worry about connecting the dots right away as far as a plot or writing from start to finish. Anyone that has seen me write sees a paragraph here and a sentence there with “This section has yet to be written” in between.
3) You don’t have to have a lot of dialogue (or even any at all) to be a good story. If you don’t think you can write dialogue pick a topic where you are just describing something such as a build action. Describe that new warship coming out of the Shipyard with its rows of dual laser cannons and six warp engines etc…
4) Save a version before each edit. Sometimes you can over edit and lose track of your focus. Upon a night’s sleep you might want to go back to the wording you had initially. Saving different versions helps immensely
5) Have fun! Don’t take criticism personally. Evaluate if the person has a point. Sometimes they do… sometimes they don’t. A lot of times I’ve found that what I wanted to say is not what they are reading. By changing the placement of a few words it makes the same point without the mis-interpretation.

That’s it! Writers who submit stories agree that the story becomes the sole property of Kgruppe LLC, and that Kgruppe LC can and most likely will use some or all of the stories submitted as content for the game Takamo Universe which is currently under development. Now go forth and write!

-End Transmission-