November's challenge - "Gratitude"
November's challenge is "Gratitude". For those unaware (I'm sure it's blatantly obvious), I'm from the US, and my favorite US holiday is coming up at the end of the month. Neither the US (as a nation) nor the holiday existed in the 16th century, nor would it have been celebrated in France, but I'm going to honor it anyway and make this month's theme "Gratitude". Regardless of when or where one lives, or who or what one is, there is always something for which to feel grateful. Equally, there is often plenty in life to for which one is not grateful (a favor that isn't really a favor; a loan that costs more than it's worth; etc.) There are, also, times in most lives when one feels overlooked when it seems others should be grateful. Someone could be grateful for something big like survival or love or health; someone could be grateful for something small like their hat or their horse or a bottle of wine. Someone could feel like a friend or lover or superior owes he/she a measure of gratitude not shown. Someone could feign gratitude for something for which he/she feels quite the opposite. Feel free to take this in whatever direction you like-emotional or supernatural, humorous or serious, even romantic. Just have fun!
The competition opened on November 1 and close at midnight on November 30. The Judging will open on December 1st and close at midnight time December 15.
Here are the rules once again:
Basic Rules
1. Response to the prompt "Gratitude"
2. Between 500 and 10,000 words (This does not include the Authors note and is flexible up to 10% each way)
3. Not rated above 'Teen'
4. Post here or on A03 or FF.net (or all three places)
5. Written in English.
6. Original characters are permitted but the focus must be on characters which appear in the show although these can be as minor as you like.
7. All entries must be proofread, if there are so many mistakes that it becomes obstructive to the reading of the story as a whole, then that story will be disqualified from winning, although if there is time left before the closing date you can resubmit a proofread version of the story.
8. Stories cannot be or have been posted anywhere prior to the posting of the theme.
9. If you are feeling really inspired and want to post more than one entry, please feel free. I think we can all do with more stories about the wonderful musketeer boys in our life.
How to Enter
1. Write and edit a story you are proud of in response to the prompt.
2. Publish it on either Fanfiction.net or A03 or both with the words "Fête des Mousquetaires" entry in the summary. (When posting at AO3, please use the tag Fête des Mousquetaires.)
3. Post a link with the details of the story here or in the FF.net forum (https://www.fanfiction.net/forum/Fete-des-Mousquetaires/187872/). This can include a summary but must include the title, pen name and which site it is published on. It must also include the link for ease of accessing.
4. Post your story by midnight on the closing date of the competitions. Late entries are not accepted. For this prompt, this is November 30.
Judging
Because of the wide interest I have had in judging the competition, I have decided to put a voting style judging system in place, which I hope makes it more democratic, but there will be some rules in place.
There will be three prizes in this competition, Winner, Runner Up and Highly commended. Everyone who votes must suggest stories for the three prizes. If a story is nominated for first position it will be awarded 10 points, if it is nominated for runner up it will be awarded 5 points and if it is nominated for highly commended it will be awarded 2 points. At the end of the judging period I will add up all the points and announce the winners of each prize, the story with most points overall getting the winner etc.
Rules
1. To judge the competition, you must have read every single entrant. This is non negotiable. To support this, I will be posting a comprehensive list of links to all the stories here, and they may also be found in the Fête des Mousquetaires C2 (https://www.fanfiction.net/community/F%C3%AAte-des-Mousquetaires/122098/). The list will be posted within a day of the competition closing (barring any complications). The deadline for judging responses is December 15 and I will post the winning stories on here a day or so afterwards.
2. You cannot vote for your own story, this sort of goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway for the sake of fairness and clarity. If you want to both write an entry and judge, please do not vote for your own story, I will be checking, and, if you have, I sadly cannot count any of points for votes.
How to Vote
1. Read every entry! I cannot stress this enough, if you do not read every entry then it is not fair.
2. Choose your three top stories.
3. Send me a PM with your three top stories, and with each one a short explanation of why it has been nominated. Only positive feedback please, a couple of sentences about the story and what you enjoyed about it will be enough, but if you want to write more do feel free. My FF ID (for the contest) is: https://www.fanfiction.net/~karrineves and my AO3 ID is: archiveofourown dot org/users/Karri
Any questions or concerns or (or neglects on my part) may be addressed via PM, as well.
I look forward to your entries. Happy writing!