[CONTEST OVER] JNC Original Light Novel Contest
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I have an important question folks. I have my own LN that I'm about to send on their submission page. But I have a problem, which is their plot outline requirement.
I know how to make one, it's just I am conflicted on what format should I use. Should do it in essay-style or bullet form? Which is the best or most probable format? Thanks in advance :)
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@Mugen Dunno, I'd go with whatever allows you to convey your plot best to the judges. Something more essay-like would take more time to write but I feel would ultimately be a lot more artful and engaging than a massive bulleted list.
They're not prescribing a format so it's up to you to figure out one for yourself, whether it's the tenor of a wikipedia plot overview or you have all your characters chatting on set after the last scene to talk about what their crazy author has planned in the upcoming script.
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@Hylebos thanks for the tip! really appreciated it. I wrote it in essay form first so yeah I saved time instead of redoing it from the start.
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Regarding the character profile and plot outline requirement. Since it is all in one file, is there any reason why we cannot/shouldn’t have the submission in the following order?:
- Character descriptions/world building
- Sixty thousand words of text.
- Plot outline with emphasis on remaining storyline.
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@jazzyjeoff said in [CONTEST OVER] JNC Original Light Novel Contest:
Regarding the character profile and plot outline requirement. Since it is all in one file, is there any reason why we cannot/shouldn’t have the submission in the following order?:
- Character descriptions/world building
- Sixty thousand words of text.
- Plot outline with emphasis on remaining storyline.
I mean I think you could certainly do that if you feel that it better represents your submission, but I would assume that the judges are expecting to organically read the 60k words of your submission like a reader would and then expect to hit the plot outline and character profiles to figure out how things go for the rest of the series.
Are you okay with spoiling all the characters that will appear in your series before they even get a chance to meet them in the text? Will that cause any problems, such as finding out that an evil twin is actually evil in advance? Will there be characters that are only introduced in the plot outline rather than the 60k submission that you will need to include at the very beginning, causing some confusion as the judge now has an expectation for there to be a Demon King of Calamity who doesn't actually appear until the v3 of your series? Will the judge be even able to retain all the information they read about your characters and your world building after drinking from the firehose?
I just don't see the benefit of frontloading characters. The character profiles that you'll write as part of this contest probably won't be much like the dramatis personae lists you see at the start of some published novels that are one line introduction to characters, so you shouldn't treat it like such and feel inclined to include it at the start of the submission.
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@Hylebos I suppose it depends on how in depth the entires get read. I sort of wonder if they have a lot of submissions to read in a short amount of time, these might not be read organically and there may be a bit of speed reading and skipping around and maybe having an introduction of the characters early might be helpful.
That said, the order that you described was my first instinct, which is why I posed the question.
(Currently I have a note in the character description for any character that is not introduced or not developed until the later chapters.)
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Hello, I’m new here, it’s nice to meet you all.
I am very thankful for the contest and the amazing opportunity it gives us authors to finally have pros from the industry looking at our works. When I heard about the contest, I just had to hurry and write a new light novel. I just finished it and I’m currently proofreading it.
I am very excited about it. I read the rules twice and I know that I can only use black text and no images, but I’m still terrified of being disqualified for some other minor detail, so I need to ask your help. I’m submitting a complete work (PDF file). Should I only submit the story or can I submit additional pages, such as:
- Cover and half-cover pages with only a title and my name
- ISBN page: without actual ISBN, but with title, author, date and version
- Copyright page (with my name) and disclaimer
- Index
- About the Author: But without personal details that could identify me.
- Notes about honorifics
- Synopsis
- Character Introductions
- Then the whole story which is very within the word limit (even if I count or exclude the extra pages)
- Special Thanks
- Afterword
- Another copyright page (showing my name again)
- Back-cover (empty now, but I might move/copy the synopsis here instead)
Are these extra pages a problem? And when submitting, for the word count, is it for the whole document or story only?
Thank you very much!
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@shiratori-keira I mean I'm no judge but at the end of the day the judges are human so I'm sure they could flip past a few pages, though personally I'd keep things as simple as possible? There will be time for all those other things later if you do well, at best I don't think the judges would consider them as part of the judging (I mean I wouldn't) so it feels like a fair amount of extra work to keep them in.
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@Hylebos I agree. But it's because the rules say "All works will be anonymized for the judging process" and I'm afraid that they can't remove my name if I submit a PDF. Or things like those initial pages or the footer with page numbers breaking up the flow of the ebook if my work passes to the streaming phase. But at the same time, not including at least the title and my name on the first page can also create confusion. I worry about these things too much...
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@shiratori-keira said in [CONTEST OVER] JNC Original Light Novel Contest:
@Hylebos I agree. But it's because the rules say "All works will be anonymized for the judging process" and I'm afraid that they can't remove my name if I submit a PDF. Or things like those initial pages or the footer with page numbers breaking up the flow of the ebook if my work passes to the streaming phase. But at the same time, not including at least the title and my name on the first page can also create confusion. I worry about these things too much...
The title itself should be fine, I included mine in my submission last year as a simple header at the top of my PDF and I made it past the first round just fine. I didn't include my name though because I wanted to save them the effort of having to anonymize my PDF. It's part of the submission form and it's inconceivable that they would read your entry, like it, but then be unable to associate it with the person that submitted it in the first place. In the worst case scenario, the judges were assigned buckets of entries to read and they could figure out which one it was by process of elimination? I really wouldn't worry about that at all, just slap the title on there and call it good.
Or things like those initial pages or the footer with page numbers breaking up the flow of the ebook if my work passes to the streaming phase.
With regards to this specific part, if it helps, these were the instructions to people who made it to the streaming phase for the previous contest:
If your manuscript was in pdf format, can you provide us with a docx or google docs formatted version? (Please email manuscript to <snipped email address>)
We will be converting your submissions into our internal format for the preview, which is most easily done with DOCX or Google docs. If the only format you have is PDF, be aware that the conversion could result in text errors or lost formatting. Please make sure it is the same version you originally submitted. If you no longer have that version we can discuss the situation. For fairness we are not allowing significant edits from your original submission to the preview version.
So as long as you can eventually send them your submission as a DOCX or Google docs a lot of those PDF concerns will go away, and I can't imagine they'll be changing up their process too much for the upcoming contest.
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@Hylebos Wow, this was really helpful! Thank you. I think I'll send the .docx instead from the start, only with the title and nothing else, to save them from all the trouble.
And good luck to everyone ദ്ദി( • ᴗ - ) ✧
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If we are submitting in word, should we be able to include internal bookmarks, so the reviewer can easily skip to different sections of a file? It would seem the that this would be ideal since everything will be submitted as one large file and skipping from place to place would seem painful.
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@jazzyjeoff Yes, I think so. I'm using them for chapter titles.
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@jazzyjeoff I am also planning to do that format. But I am hesitant on the order as well.
May I ask what's your final format? Is it the same or you changed your order?
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@Mugen said in [CONTEST OVER] JNC Original Light Novel Contest:
@jazzyjeoff I am also planning to do that format. But I am hesitant on the order as well.
May I ask what's your final format? Is it the same or you changed your order?
I more or less have decided to present the text first.
“More or less” because I spend 110 words at the beginning to describe the file contents first, with everything bookmarked. I felt less restrained about revealing spoilers this way—and since everything is bookmarked, the judge can easily jump to the character profiles if they really want to read them first. But I think that the best advertisement for how wonderful my story is —is my story! So it goes first and thanks to @Hylebos for pushing me a little in that direction, I am happy with how it turned out. -
@jazzyjeoff basically, the order of your submission would be:
- 60,000 words chapter
- Character Profiles
- Plot Outline
am I right?
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@Mugen said in [CONTEST OVER] JNC Original Light Novel Contest:
@jazzyjeoff basically, the order of your submission would be:
- 60,000 words chapter
- Character Profiles
- Plot Outline
am I right?
You can and should have multiple chapters, and the story can be anywhere between 35.000 and 100.000 words. And the profiles and plot outline are only required if your story is not completed. At least, assuming I understood the rules correctly.
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The instructions were pretty broad, and it seems like we were given a long leash to present our work in the most coherent way possible, so this is what I have done (let me know if you see errors, please) Parts III through VI take up about 15% of the supplemental information—and they could have been included in the either the character descriptions or story outline, but I chose to break them out on their own—they work better as a reference that way—but I have no guarantee that it is acceptable—so imitate at your own risk!
File Contents:
Complete text for first 34 chapters (less than 59,000 words)
I. Story textSupplemental materials (less than 10,00 words)
II. Character Profiles
III. System of Magic
IV. Class System
V. Historical Context
VI. Status of the main characters following the end Chapter 34, The Picnic (last chapter in which text is included in this file)
VII. Story Outline
Note: The Story Outline consists of:
An overview of the core arcs for the protagonists and the Priest’s backstory, focusing on their emotional development.
A detailed breakdown of five major plot threads, each presented in a linear format but woven together in the main text. -
So this has been bugging me for a while, but while the admins said it was up to us whether or not we include content from the 60k words in the outline, I'm wondering if it's the right move. A part of me feels it's unnecessary, but another part feels it's necessary since starting the outline right where the 60k words ends, in my case about the end of my 1st volume, feels like I'm skipping over said content. Curious to know other's takes on this.
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@AuthorMN You can see with mine that I sort of split the difference—just before the outline I have a short blurb about the status of the characters after the first 60K words and then my plot outline starts from there.
