Coming Soon - The OC Slamjam · 3:18am May 7th, 2015
Hey guys. Just coming up to say that your voice has been heard and I will be putting the gears of the OC Slamjam into motion. If anyone's forgotten, it's a contest where all contestants will invent an OC, then be paired up with each other in a tournament bracket. Contestants will write a short (roughly 2k words max) story involving both their own OC, and the OC of their opponent -- which can be any genre and be about whatever you want (so long as it stays PG-13ish. No crackfics, please). Popular vote will decide who moves on to the next round, until someone finally wins the whole thing.
Anywhatsits, I have to deal with some college work and work out some logistics for handling the contest, so expect the official rollout sometime this weekend. In the meantime, there's a few things related to the pre-jam foundation-laying that you may be interested in.
1. Compilation story and contest account. A lot of people raised a lot of good points about anonymity and organization when I first raised the idea of the OC Slamjam. It does occur to me that there's going to have to be a lot to keep track of, given the amount of interest expressed, the need for anonymity to prevent vote-skewing, and in general making sure that there aren't some eighty-billion tiny OC stories that the contest has to keep track of.
To this end, my gameplan for running this contest is going to go as follows: I'll be using an official contest alt account, which I've already made, OC Slamjam to handle and organize certain parts of the contest. Specifically, I'm going to be using it to host each round as a compilation story (I'm really highballing an estimate on how many entries I'll get - it may not be necessary to post each round as a separate compilation). Each pairing of contestants will have their entries posted (anonymously) together, and voting between entries will happen in the chapter comments.
It's a little convoluted, but it's the easiest way I can think of to make sure a feasible 80+ contest entries can all be compiled, paired, and organized while maintaining everyone's anonymity. Feel free to get a headstart on following the contest account now. I'll be crossposting important contest-related announcements and stuff to it.
2. OC sheets. As mentioned in the announcements, you will need to create a character sheet for the OC you plan to enter in the contest (remember -- no joke OCs, parodies, deliberate Mary Sues, etc.). I'm going to be giving a straight three day entry period after the official contest announcement so that everyone has plenty of time to lay down their plans, but I figure I may as well give you a head-start on some of the conditions of what you'll need to submit, so you can get some extra time to think and prepare.
Here's the long and short of what your character sheet will need to look like:
OC's Name: Obviously.
Pony Species: Pegasi, Unicorns, and Earth Ponies ONLY. I had to think really long and hard about this one, but I think it's ultimately necessary to keep this contest to OCs of the three major pony species. This contest should be more about character-building than world-building for species, and I'd really rather prefer people explore what can be done with OC ponies, rather than expanding on griffon or changeling culture through original characters. No alicorns as a fairness metric to all competitors -- it's going to be really hard to write good scenes involving your opponent's OC without needing to focus on the fact that they're a freakin' alicorn.
Appearance: Yadda yadda yadda. Coat color, cutie mark, scar on their left buttcheek, etc.
History: A short bit about your OC's background, past and present. Were they orphaned at a young age? Do they work as a bodyguard for Canterlot celebrities? Whatever!
Personality: The rough outlay of what your OC thinks and acts like. I personally like the recommendation that you try to address H.A.T.: what makes them Happy, what makes them Angry, and what gets them into Trouble.
Try not to make your character sheet into a novel of its own, but do try to give people enough to work with. Remember that this is going to be the reference both readers and your opponents will be looking at, so you should try to make it as accessible as possible.
3. Prizes. I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but I have few resources and no idea as to what I'm going to be able to offer as prizes for this contest. I feel like a good contest should always have prizes, but the most I can really offer anyone for actually winning is moderately-priced Steam games. If anyone's feeling extraordinarily generous and would like to contribute to the prize pool, could you contact me so we can work something out?
Thanks for getting this far, guys. Looking forward to rolling out this contest soon!
is it time to slam now?
MY BODY WASN'T READY FOR THE SLAM, BUT IT'S ALWAYS READY FOR THE JAM.
3051271
IF YOU CAN'T SLAM WITH THE BEST THEN JAM WITH THE REST.
It ain't ever gonna end.
3051275
3051271
3051260
alright, it has to be done now.
3051301 dammit, Bob
This is incredibly interesting.
Have a loser's bracket so everyone gets at least two shots?
3051275
COME ON AND SLAM. LISTEN TO THE JAM
Surprised no bat ponies // thestrals or crystal ponies.
Well this sounds interesting... do the OCs have to be 100% new?
I just thought of a question:
What's the minimum word count for each entry? 1k words, à la Fimfiction's usual word count minimum, or can we go somewhat under that?
I only ask since, if I'm understanding this correctly, they will be posted as chapters in a compilation story...
3051379
I'd say--tentatively--a 500 word minimum.
3051356
No preexisting OCs, yes.
3051384 *table flips ARGHHHH!
Wait, pre-existing as in already published correct?
3051398
Yes.
Trying to think of ways to game this system...
A pony who grew up with Zebras and only speaks in rhymed couplets (or worse). Lots of people have trouble with meter so it could be tough to write for that.
Characters (not necessarily explicitly) based on crossover universes would be harder to write for if you didn't know the crossover.
Characters with deep technical knowledge of any subject (which their creator coincidentally happens to share with them) would be harder to build an interesting story around for anyone lacking that technical knowledge.
I have a question regarding the history portion for the OC sheet: Exactly how much backstory needs to be created and revealed?
For instance, do I have to create an entire family of OC names on top of my character to fit the bill? And how much impact could they possibly have? I get that the main focus is utilising the OC I create and building on a scene with my opponent's, but since these scenes are just breaching the 2K mark, is it really worth creating an entire backstory – involving a family or not – when these scenes are rather short and not focusing on them?
And a further question, would any of these other family members I create be allowed to be used in these scenes, even if their role is very minor? Say if the scene took place around my OC's house, and the mother happened to be there. Is she allowed to play a part as well, or do I need to cut her out of it?
Sounds interesting, but between work, writing Circumstellar and taking care of my little witch I have zero time for this. Really sorry, Obselescence.
I like that recommendation too.
<3
Do the OCs have to be adult ponies or can you design a filly or colt?
Does everyone have to be anonymous? I wouldn't think everyone objected to being known. I wouldn't.
I think the prize could involve a site-wide highlight (since you can do that... or can you?) for a story (either the winning author's or one they really like and thinks deserves attention), or maybe get a good author or artist to do a request for them.
Or make the next contest entirely about the winning OC.
I hope to enter sometime.
eeeeeeeeeeeeeh
3051652
Backstory/history is mostly intended to be used as context for the OC's attitudes/life situations. I.e. you don't have to go and explore the consequences of an OC's father being brutally murdered in front of them, but knowing about that can help guide how the OC responds to, say, meeting their uncle. You're allowed to utilize supporting characters if you feel they'd really be important to your character -- just, y'know, keep within reason.
3051672
:<
3051779
Sure, I'll accept fillies/colts.
3051830
It's less about the individual authors' objection to being known and more about avoiding some of the issues involved with a public voting system. Pen Stroke may not mind not being anonymous, but if you put his name on the entries, it's pretty likely that his fans would overwhelmingly support him on name value alone relative to less popular authors.
3051876
:D
3051987
Wait is that a good eeeeh or a bad eeeeh?
Totally gonna enter this tbh.
3052030
eeeeeeeh ;_;
3052030 Two questions about the OCs:
1. Can their personality/lifestyle be inspired by that of a pre-existing character from another franchise, so long as they're not directly related?
2. Can they be blood-related to a canon character?
3052233
1. No crossovers. Sorry if I haven't made that clear. I kind of assumed it'd be implicit by this point.
2. Sure.
3052235 I don't mean they're the actual character ponified. I just mean to ask if we can use another franchise's character as inspiration and nothing more. Is that still not allowed?
3052243
Uuuuh... Tentatively. It'd sort of depend on what you have in mind. The main metric here is how reasonable it is. An OC based on Goku or Superman or something is obviously straight out, but an OC that draws some motifs from, say, Ebenezer Scrooge, would be fine.
3052268 What I have in mind is a bit less obvious than Goku or Superman. Nevertheless, I'll PM you my idea so you can approve/reject it.
If we're willing to write twice as much, can we submit two OCs? And yeah, I like the idea of a losers bracket. I assume there will be no round robin round to weedle the number of entries down to a multiple of 2? How do you plan on dealing with a number of entries that isn't a multiple of 2?
Sorry for so many questions.
Oh god dammit, I just noticed this. I was thinking pretty hard about doing a zebra. ;-;
It begins... the greatest slam-jam of our time.
Lookin' forward to it!
I do have an idea for one prize, but it was the same idea for a prize of the contest I cancelled. I'm not sure if you'll like it. I'm not even sure if it follows the site rules.
3051715
And if you want to cheat slightly, pick Drugs, since it works for all three!
Hmm time to start thinking of an OC then.