URPG Stories Chat and Feedback

So my two cents; /late to the party.

Woops! I haven't read many others stories yet, but mine was def one of those that used a bit of harsh profanity. While I may not be the biggest fan of this new rule, I completely understand it and have edited my story appropriately. It makes sense, and who knows, maybe Smiles doesn't quite like it, but she's making, imo, the right decision.

On the contrary, yes, profanity shouldn't make the story, or be the only thing to show a character's anger, however, in my story, I viewed my character using profanity as more of his personality. I know some people irl who are very vulgar and some who are very not. I've had characters before not be very vulgar, but this character was. So while I didn't need profanity to show how angry he was, I thought it was needed to continue showing what type of person he was. But while him being a person who uses foul language isn't something of extreme importance to the story, I'm okay editing it out for the competition.

Also from a language standpoint, vulgar words do not have the same meaning as "really" or "very". Point in being, they are heavier and have more of a taboo behind them, thus making them vulgar words. It might be inappropriate to use them, but not useless (unless they are repeated many many times, then they become useless). (And I don't mean inappropriate as in a little kid might see it, I mean it as the profanity doesn't work, it doesn't fit, the scenario in which one used one does not call for a vulgar word, etc). All words have different meanings; if two words had the same exact meaning in all context, they would be the same word.

So now I have a question. What about WaR? It isn't a competition where people have to vote, but where a grader needs to grade it, like a normal story. Can we have profanity and dark themes there? 'Cause the story I was going to write for it (albeit probably won't have profanity in it, just because it would be a bit inappropriate) is going to be kind of dark.

 

As far as I've heard, anything that doesn't require a lot of people to read it (e.g., voting competitions) will be exempt from this rule. You still have to put tags/warnings at the beginning of the story though, warning of profanity/dark themes/graphic stuff. I'm not head of stories or anything though, this is just what I've heard from Smiles.

 

I'm not going to go into the merits of whether I agree or not, my suggestions, my feelings whatever because it's quite irrelevant to the situation at hand. I will however ask if soft censorship will be an alternative for the swear words, for situations where not using the swear word - or at the very least not implying it - would cause loss of impact or not be organic , e.g.: "Holy ****" instead of "Holy shit"

Also, on the reminder thread it's said to use the forum rules as guidelines for future posting - that's a bit of a misdirection since the writing forums usually have different rules. According to the Fiction Fairground, as long as the story is properly warned as mature, isn't pornographic in nature and doesn't reach extreme levels of inappropriateness, s'alright.
Link for reference

As the current moderator of the writing forums on PWN, my stance is pretty much the same, and although I can't be bothered to look PXR's rules up I'd guess it's something like that. That being said, it's still up to Smiles though.

 

I feel like those rules (from both BMG and URPG) haven't been updated in forever. BMG because I know someone posted pornographic stuff a few years ago and it hasn't gone down (it's actually the most-viewed story we have, smh), and I feel like the URPG rules haven't been changed much since we were back on PE2K. Forum, singular. This is an update.

Also, this is only for competition stories that everyone has to read to participate in voting. That's it. Still. In the other places you've mentioned (as well as literally any other story written for here), readers have the option not to read your story. They can still participate happily in the community if they see your tags, don't like what you're warning them about, and move on. There is nothing forcing them to read those stories. Writing competitions aren't the same.

 

People like their smut.

 

WOO answered Fellykins' questions over AIM! As for @Springtrap;, I'm going to say we should leave soft censorship out as much as possible. It tries to circumvent the swearing rule and does so while looking a little tacky in the story (asterisks on asterisks, y'know). Also I see what you're saying about the Fiction Fairground. But we're not the Fiction Fairground. When I wrote that rule, I intentioned it to be read as "don't have content in your story that you would never talk about on a normal discussion thread because you know it would offend a lot of people very quickly". A guideline more than anything - and you think, "Smiles what does that even mean?" If something about a story's content just revolts you because it's a whole new level of ... inappropriate, then that's when that rule applies. Ex: a story that goes into extreme detail about somebody's resentment for another URPG member, or a story that's loaded with sexual content. There's no complete list about these subjects, but when you see it / read it you know it's not supposed to be here. Just as we'd close this kind of thread on PWN or delete the post, we also wouldn't allow it in the Story section. I apologize if I was confusing with that rule.

Anyway, I really appreciate all of the support and understanding in this rule. I know it's not the popular decision, but I think it's the right decision to make and I will stand by it. I also think it's good for us to talk about the merits of swear words and graphic content in story not because of this rule, but because that encourages us all to think about our individual writing stylistic preferences. How can we improve them in a new, different light, and also why do we like having so much graphic content in our stories in the first place? Has a WWC/SWC ever won when it was a happy story completely devoid of graphic content?

And to answer @Ace Trainer Liam;'s question, yes, WaR does not abide by the Story Competition rules. As others have mentioned before, the swearing rule only really applies to SWC/WWC stories. ^^

Also, I really want to thank all of the authors who've been contacted to edit their stories for the competition. It was unfair for me to ask them to edit their stories after they've posted it, but they all handled it very maturely and quickly. Also eternally grateful for everyone who understands this rule and has agreed to follow it. You guys are the best! Seriously, I really, really appreciate it. Nobody wants to be remembered as the bitchy Head Grader who made the annoying new rule. But you guys... are awesome.

Glad we're still friends!! I LOVE YOU ALL! and we cool, right?

​

 

Just a suggestion based on Liam's qualm about using swears as characterization, I see often in literature when the author simply says "XXX swore under his breath" or "she balled up her fists and cursed loudly" etc. My point is, you can allude to swears without actually using them and by doing that, you can still characterize vulgar or manner-less people.

BTW, Smiles, u go gurl do yo thang and dont let nobody get u down, I got yo back!!!

 

Hi!

IT appears that there were no graded stories in the month of August, so there will be no August grader wages. Let me know if you did grade something and just didn't update your log / if I missed it, and I'll get you your monies straight away!

WaR has been extended by another two weeks! Entries are now due by 11:59 P.M. CST on Monday, September 14th.

Graders, check out the Ungraded Story List. We got work to do.

Elysia is now also the Co-Head Grader, in case you haven't seen the announcement! YAY ELY! <3

Go Stories!

 

hi im the poopiest head grader ever who didn't update her logs
i graded the only story in august
hi
this is really awkward im so silly lol

 

n00b

 

Remember, friends, there's only seventy-two okay, this picture is posted a little late and it's more like seventy and a half hours left to enter in this year's WWC! It's bound to get crazy, but don't be afraid to enter, my lovelies <3

 

No rush ofc but whenever a Grader has time, pickin' this up would be much appreciated.

Saving My Soul from the Depths of Elysium [WWC '15]

 

Retired No Longer

I was going to link this story last week, but I forgot about. So here it is, ready for grade.

 

Here's a very interesting grammar lecture that is actually easy to understand!

Spoiler

Also asking for a Grader for this story XD

 

heyo

In the midst of all of the WaR/SWC procrastinating that Seppe and I were doing, we stumbled upon this, which appears to be an attempt at archiving the Stories section. Given that that sheet has more than 450 entries and was last updated in 2011 (meaning there's five years worth of stories to add :') ), I don't think that trying to revive it is even possible, but it would be super cool to have some sort of Stories archive in place! Google sheets is nice because you can sort/search pretty easily without having to download anything. Because it would be super hard for any single person to do alone, we could have anyone able to post submissions (but maybe restrict editing privileges because, after all, the internet is forever and I can only take so many rickroll links) in this format:

Sample:

opinions? :3

 

this is an ok idea

 

hi graders its been 3 weeks and my story hasnt even been claimed pls pick up your game Quest for the Queen [WaR]

 

"too much for one person to do"
You're so cute.

 

MY sobbing when all of these links are broken now because of the forum change! Just a question:

Would we standardize categories of submission? (ex: categories, CC count)

I imagine also that we'd need to make a Head Grader gmail n~n But I'm down for this idea! We can store this in a special place and have ~fun things~ to go along with this once it's in place.

Thanks for volunteering, SM!! Knew we could count on you!

 

it's coming