Last Mortal Standing

Last Mortal Standing

Official club for the contest

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  • Created Fri Mar 14, 2014 5:28 pm

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Rules, Guidelines, and FAQs (Round VI)

20 posts in this topic.

  1. Before Week One

    1. First you must decide to enter as a Warrior, Bard, or a Rogue

    2. You must declare your project. It must be a new project that you have not written yet.

    3. You may plan, plot, and outline as much as you want before the start date.

    4. LMS Round VI starts September 5.

    During the Competition

    1. On Monday of each week, you write from where you left off in your project.

    2. You can post what you've written in the Publishing Center or in your project thread in the club or in the Writers Corner, or a combination of the three. You can post as many times as you want each week. By Sunday each week, you must meet the minimum word or line count.

    3. As soon as you're ready to enter for that week, you will do so in the submission thread. The first person to finish for the week starts the submission thread by posting a new thread in the club with the title format of [Week XX Submissions].

    4. In order to submit and continue in the competition, you'll enter a link to what you wrote for that week. Once you've entered the link to your work you can still enter again if you update your work.

    5. Anybody who fails to enter their work by Midnight Sunday in their timezone is eliminated.

    6. You may write as much as you wish in a week, but if you go over the wordcount/line count, it will not count for next week.

    Play Modes

    Warrior: Warriors officially compete for the title of Last Man Standing. In order to compete, you must write a minimum of 1000 words per week.

    Bard: Bards officially compete for the title of Last Man Standing. In order to compete, you must write a minimum of fourteen lines per week for poetry, or sixty lines per week for a script. When declaring as a bard, please specify if you plan to write poetry or script.

    Rogue: Rogues do not compete for the title of Last Man Standing, and thus they have no official minimum wordcount/line count to reach per week. You declare a target of your own and stick with it. If you compete every week during the event as a Rogue, you will get a Rogue participation trophy.

    Sage: Sages do not compete for the title of Last Man Standing, but support those who do. By entering as a Sage, you dedicate yourself to encouraging the Warriors, Bards, and Rogues in their writing, replying to progress threads, and reviewing LMS literary works. Reviewing and logging a certain number of LMS literary works earns you a special Sage trophy. You can enter as a Sage in addition to the other roles.

    Guidelines/FAQs

      Where do I post my stuff?
        There are a few options to choose when deciding where to post:
      1. Via the Publishing Center, if you wish for it to be reviewed (your first LMS lit work is free!)
      2. Create your own thread in the LMS Club and post there.
      3. Create a thread in the Writers Corner and post your work there.
        Remember to post the link in the submissions thread.

      I'm late! Can I still join?
        To compete as a Warrior or Bard, you have to join before or during the first week (which ends September 11th). After the first week is over, there are no late entries into the competition. If you wish to participate after week one, or if you are knocked out of the competition as a Warrior/Bard, you can join in at any time as a Rogue or a Sage.

      When can I write / submit my chapter?
        You may start writing at 12am on Monday in your timezone for that week. To move forward in the competition, you must write the wordcount/line count for that week by the end of that week (Sunday by midnight in your timezone). You may write as many parts and submit as many times as you wish in that week.

      Can I plan?
        Yes! Planning, plotting, outlining, drawing, all are acceptable and encouraged before Week One. As long as you are not writing, it is allowed.

      Do Rogues have to submit their writing?
        In order to get the Rogue trophy, they must report in each week with their progress.

      Who is running LMS Round VI?
        LMS Round VI is being run by Omni and looseleaf! You can reach out to them for any questions you may have.

      What about Tenyo?
        Tenyo, the originator of the idea and concept of LMS and the one who ran Rounds I - V, has taken a break from YWS, although they have given their blessing for the competition and community to continue without them. We are continuing the competition in their spirit.

      My first literary work is free?
        Yes! If you join LMS as a Bard or Warrior, you will receive points enough for a free literary work to encourage posting in the Publishing Center. Although we're encouraging publishing your LMS projects, it is not required.

      What's all the other stuff in this forum?
        This club is full of threads from previous rounds. To avoid confusion, please refrain from posting in the old threads. You'll see that all threads pertinent to this round will have (Round VI) in the title.

      But I really like my current project.
        You are more than welcome to join and play as a Rogue if you wish to write on an existing project! The goal of LMS is to encourage creating new projects and writing on them. Writing sequels, prequels, or spin-offs of your current project as a Warrior is allowed.

      What if I finish my project?
        The aim of the competition is to keep working on the same project. Unfortunately this is harder if you're working on something shorter like a novella, however prequels, sequels and spin-offs all count as the same project if you finish early.

      My parents are taking me on holiday!
        Real Life obligations happen to the best of us. If you know you're going to be without internet access then give at least two weeks notice, and depending on the circumstances you may be able to submit your chapter early.

      Does my writing have to be in order?
        You have to keep moving forward with your project. Time skips, filler chapters and flashbacks are fine, but you can't go back to rewrite an earlier submission and have it count to that week.

      Can I recycle ideas?
        Please PM Omni or looseleaf to discuss this. Generally, rebuilding a story within the same universe or concept is allowed as it is similar to plotting and planning a new story, but if you plan on using old stories/plotting, you are giving yourself an unfair advantage. When in doubt, start a new project.

      What about?
        Any other questions, feel free to ask in this thread. We shall reply with the keywords in bold for quick reference when scrolling. Alternatively you can ask on the main wall and one of our super friendly veterans might have an answer, or shoot the event runners a PM.
  2. Hello Omni!

    I hope you are well.

    I was just wondering how long this event is excepted to run. I may struggle with exams in October/November so my decision of whether to join as a bard, warrior or rogue could be affected.

    May I also make sure: we can't be both bard and warrior, not in one thread of course but I'm just thinking, as a bard I stand a very good chance of extreme longevity. I've been writing at least a poem a week for a while. But alternatively, I have a new project I'm about to start and would like encouragement for.
  3. @Moonglade good questions!

    Event Length

    This all depends on how long the writers last until there is only one, but I will say the average length of the rounds were 30 weeks, and the longest one lasted over 60 weeks. This is an endurance test. If you anticipate struggling with exams during a particularly difficult week, please contact myself or looseleaf and you may be able to write ahead of time.

    Can I join as both a Bard and Warrior?

    The short answer is no.

    While I appreciate your enthusiasm and the choice may be difficult, entering the competition twice would both strain yourself and put yourself at an unfair advantage (you could drop out of the competition with one play mode and keep going in another play mode). You can always join as a Rogue with one of your projects for encouragement, but only one official entry in the competition.
  4. Thank you!!! We can swap from warrior to bard and it would still count for winning LMS?
  5. @Moonglade

    Can you switch between Warrior and Bard?

    Before the event starts, yep! If you change your mind during the planning process and before September 5th (the beginning of week 1) you can change your entry.

    After the event starts, no -- after September 5th you are locked into either Warrior or Bard, whichever you have chosen. You can join as a Rogue/Sage at any point in the competition.
  6. Hey Omni! Where can we go to throw our proverbial hats in the ring? Is there a separate thread for it?
  7. @Ventomology hey there! Yep, just click the shiny site banner and sign up there :D but here is the link:

    Last Man Standing: Round VI
  8. Hiya! Quick question. Since I'm joining as a Bard writing poetry, I was wondering how cohesive the project needs to be? Like should it be centered on a specific theme/narrative/form before starting or could it stay more open-ended until I get into it?
  9. @Que

    That is entirely up to you! I suggest that, at the bare minimum, it have a somewhat similar theme ^^ If you're talking about planning before Week One, as a Bard writing poetry, you probably will not need to plan as much as a Warrior. What you plan is up to you :D
  10. Sounds great, thanks! :)
  11. Hi Omni, is there anything in specific that we have to write about?
  12. @AriesBookworm Nope! your story is completely up to you, so long it is a new writing project.
  13. Hey, quick question--just want to check, does midnight on Sunday mean like, 11:59 pm on Sunday night?
  14. Connected to the question above: how will you know what a given participant's time zone is?

    Unrelated: blizzard — I'd like any and all information about it, just for safety's sake.
  15. Regarding blizzard, I've enquired about it to friends who experienced it and also trawled the old pages of this club, so I have my answers now. However, I still think an official answer would be beneficial to anyone else who might wonder about it.


I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters.
— Solomon Short