WOTM: Theme Choice (Experimental)

[WOTM]

What is this?

Here at WOTM, we've noticed a few things. Firstly, one contest's success depends mainly on how well the theme is received- and it seems some months we have a theme everyone loves and other times a theme everyone hates. Secondly, we hear people telling us that the Theme Suggestion thread isn't enough, and people still feel like they don't have enough of a voice in WOTM. They want their voice to be more powerful.

This new and currently experimental part of WOTM is here to fix both problems.

This thread will display three fully prepared themes from our list of themes to use, and you, the WOTM participants, are free to vote on which theme you prefer. Just read over the options and components, cast your vote, and the theme with the most votes will be used for next month's contest. Also, the poll is multi-choice, so if you like more than one theme, there's no need to feel torn. Just don't vote for all three, please.

Theme Options:

Theme: Sacrifice.
Explained: A story in which sacrifice: Allegorical, metaphorical, and/or literal, is the main theme of the story in some form or fashion.
Components:

• The story is told in the form of a memory or flashback.
• The story does not involve romance.
• The story is told during a war or otherwise significant conflict.
• The story does not end with the death or injury of any character.
• The story is set in a science fiction universe.

Theme: Fantasy (genre).
Explained: A story or poem that contains elements of fantasy and fits under the fantasy genre.
Components:

• The story includes fantasy elements in modern-day times.
• Magic is seen in a negative light.
• The protagonist is non-human.
• The story subverts traditional fantasy roles, in one manner or another. (IE: Princess rescues dragon from evil knight.)
• The story includes a unique race of the author's creation.

Theme: The Seven Deadly Sins.
Explained: A story in which the main theme is an allegorical, metaphorical, and/or literal representation and/or embodiment of, one of the seven deadly sins.
Components:

• The protagonist is corrupted by, and/or is a victim of, one of the sins.
• One or more of the seven deadly sins are made manifest--They exist in physical form.
• The story is told from the perspective of the antagonist.
• The story ends on a happy note.
• Genre Change: Portray the story in a fantasy universe.
• Role Reversal: Demons, Demoness, Devils, Imps and otherwise hellish creatures are "good guys", angels, archangels, God(s) and otherwise heavenly creatures are "evil."

This thread will be left open for users to comment with any thoughts on the themes or the nature of this new feature itself. Vote away, and, if all goes well, you can expect to see this as a regular WOTM feature! Happy voting!

[Neobullseye]

Merk... I know that we're not really allowed to vote for all three options (by virtue of the vote essentially becoming meaningless then), but I really like ALL of the themes >_<.

As for some comments on the themes themselves and/or the components:

1: The theme itself sounds pretty nice, but the components feel a bit too restricting to my taste. I foresee a lot of entries using Components 2 and 3 to draw a war scene during which one of the soldiers sacrifices himself in order to let the others escape. On a sidenote: Does Component 4 leave room for starting the story with someone's death/injury?

2: A very open theme with lots of different ways to expand upon. There's not a whole lot of things to comment on, actually.

3: Now here's an interesting theme. There are so many different kinds of stories one can make with this: forbidden love, revenge against someone for whatever reason, a robbery of some sorts (greed)... Also, I take it that component 1 doesn't limit you to using one and only one of the seven deadly sins?

[Kagamine]

1: The theme itself sounds pretty nice, but the components feel a bit too restricting to my taste. I foresee a lot of entries using Components 2 and 3 to draw a war scene during which one of the soldiers sacrifices himself in order to let the others escape.

It's possible to foresee something like this in just about every theme. It's hard to avoid. Though, it's not always as predictable as it seems. During the Fire theme, after I had put it up and had time to think about it, I expected to see everyone use the "fire is sentient" component and write about that. Rather, everyone decided to use the "character is burned" component and write about someone being burned alive. There are also other months when we think we've fixed these sorts of predictable generalizations and yet everyone finds one anyway. It's hard to avoid, but thank you for pointing it out. We always try to prevent it the best we can.

On the bright side, being able to think outside the box and use component(s) you don't expect anyone else to use is a sign of creativity- and sure to get you props with the voters.

On a sidenote: Does Component 4 leave room for starting the story with someone's death/injury?

Haha, that's sneaky. I'd let it in, though.

Also, I take it that component 1 doesn't limit you to using one and only one of the seven deadly sins?

Nah, you could use as many as you want.

[Aragorn]

You know what, I would actually do an entry for the Sacrifice one. I have a couple of in real experiences that I could easily put down onto paper (or in this case, Microsoft Word).

[Neobullseye]

I don't know if I should find it sad or amusing that two to almost three times as many people voted on this thread as the average number of voters in the actual WOTM contest. And yes, I counted the names of the people who voted, not just the actual number of votes :P

Speaking of which, what happens if this vote ends in a tie? Do we get a super-special WOTM contest with two themes and ten-ish possible components? XD

[Raez]

Personally, I think theme #2 is too vague, enabling the writer to choose any type of story he wishes. It doesn't lead the author to anything in particular, there's too much freedom, nothing to do stick to as a base.

I like the first theme, even though I, personally, don't have any ideas.

The reason that I'm going to vote for the third theme is that the Seven Deadly Sins are a good subject to write about in a lot of ways, and because having to pick one or more of the sins actually gives a quite enjoyable freedom to the writer, in my opinion. Portraying one of the sins in a story actually seems rather fun and it doesn't have to be stereotypical, there's various ways to do so. I love that.

And I think that having two themes in one is actually a bad idea, to be honest. Seems rather messy. x_x

[Kestrel]

Seven deadly sins is a stupid theme. Character motivations are, more often than they are not, based on those sins. This means I can write any story and enter it in casual, provided it has a happy ending. Also the 'antagonist' component is stupid because the antagonist cannot be the main PoV as per definition, that would make them the protagonist.

Fantasy is okay, I guess, but pretty broad... So I voted sacrifice.

[Raez]

Well, that's a direct answer! I agree the antagonist component doesn't really make a lot of sense but what you described as "writing any story and enter it to casual" is the same for the fantasy theme.

[Kestrel]

the same for the fantasy theme.

Not at all. Sure, I could write a modern story, say "Oh protagonist is a werewolf" then do nothing with that other than fulfilling a component, but that would beat the purpose of having fantasy as a theme. Unless of course the story is about why the character really, really hates silver.

[Kagamine]

I don't know if I should find it sad or amusing that two to almost three times as many people voted on this thread as the average number of voters in the actual WOTM contest. And yes, I counted the names of the people who voted, not just the actual number of votes :P

Speaking of which, what happens if this vote ends in a tie? Do we get a super-special WOTM contest with two themes and ten-ish possible components? XD

Haha, no. We'd just pick one. Whichever one we managers think would work out better, I guess.

Personally, I think theme #2 is too vague, enabling the writer to choose any type of story he wishes. It doesn't lead the author to anything in particular, there's too much freedom, nothing to do stick to as a base.

I like the first theme, even though I, personally, don't have any ideas.

The reason that I'm going to vote for the third theme is that the Seven Deadly Sins are a good subject to write about in a lot of ways, and because having to pick one or more of the sins actually gives a quite enjoyable freedom to the writer, in my opinion. Portraying one of the sins in a story actually seems rather fun and it doesn't have to be stereotypical, there's various ways to do so. I love that.

And I think that having two themes in one is actually a bad idea, to be honest. Seems rather messy. x_x

Seven deadly sins is a stupid theme. Character motivations are, more often than they are not, based on those sins. This means I can write any story and enter it in casual, provided it has a happy ending. Also the 'antagonist' component is stupid because the antagonist cannot be the main PoV as per definition.

Fantasy is okay, I guess, but pretty broad... So I voted sacrifice.

I must admit, this is interesting. Ordinarily, we only ever hear complaints about themes and components (or sometimes the entire contest structure) that seem too restricting, rather than people saying something is too broad, which is the exact opposite. It's an unusual opinion to note, one that I didn't realize a significant amount of people held, so I'll remember that in the future.

That aside, I'd like to clarify something about the "antagonist" component. That being mainly that it really is not an "antagonist" component, or at least it really shouldn't be labeled as such. No where in the component description does it say that the antagonist is the main PoV- I agree that that doesn't make a lot of sense. What it says, is that creatures ordinarily depicted as antagonists (like demons) are now the protagonist, and the types of characters that are usually "good" are now "evil". In that case, the demons aren't antagonists anymore. They're protagonists. And are there works of fiction that have successfully pulled off the idea of making a demon or otherwise evil being the protagonist before? Yes. I'll gladly point out examples if need be, but the point is, it's worked before and it'll work again.

Just wanted to clear that up since that component seemed to be misinterpreted by some people.