Creating a Main Thread The Main Thread is your home base for all things updated during your tournament. You should always keep it up to date! It is the place where people will go to find the most accurate information at any given time, so make sure it is accurate. Here are some things you need to know about it.
- Your first post is something you
can edit.
- Include rules for your tournament.
- Include your starting date and potential ending date.
- Include your expected round length
- Include a list of participants.
When you intend to host a tournament, you can ask staff to make you an officer in the The Writer Tournaments for the purpose of editing your first post as need be. When your tournament gets underway, you will probably be removed from the officer list. This time as an officer gives you the ability to edit your first post as many times as you need to.
Tip: To edit your first post, go to the bottom of the thread and look for a white box that says "Delete Topic" and click the drop down menu ▼.
Select Edit Topic, and hit Go. This will redirect you to a page with a title line, and a text box. In the text box you should see all of the information you put in when creating the thread.
You can now modify that text in any way you see fit. You will have the same options you did when creating the thread.
This can only be edited by the person who created the thread, that means staff cannot edit your first post, and you cannot edit other people's first posts. You can only edit your own first post.
Rules Tournaments can be as individual as each of us because we can provide rules that differ from one another. This gives versatility to your tournament. If you want to do a Super Secret Tournament where you write a haiku but will only qualify for a round by posting an icon of an apple in the bottom right corner of the post, you can do that.
There are a few things, however, you may want to address directly with your rules. These include submitting late, alternates, rules about voting to participate, duel thread names, and including the prompt with the submission. Here are a variety of ways you can handle these situations.
Late Submissions
- Not accepted, Sometimes accepted, Always accepted during voting period.
- Extensions granted, Extensions not granted.
Alternates
- Will be accepted before the tournament starts, Will be accepted during tournament, Will be picked from participating losers of previous rounds,
- Will have full time to complete submissions, Will have an abbreviated time to complete submissions, Will only have submissions accepted if submission posted before end of voting, Must submit submission to host during round to be posted as needed,
- Must respond to initiating PM to qualify as participating alternate, Can submit work once submission window is closed,
- Will be used for all rounds, Will only be used for first and second round, Will only be used for first round, Will not be used.
Voting
- Must vote in duels to be placed in the next round if you win
- Must vote in duels to be a candidate to win in this round
- Must vote to qualify to join the tournament
- No voting rules
Duel Names
- Use [Insert Acronym for Tournament] in the duel thread title [Must Include]
- Add round number to duel thread title
- Add your usernames to the duel thread title
- Add duel number to the duel thread title
- Order of the above information
- Whether to write it out, or to use abbreviations
Having all of the above information could look like this:
[Tournament Acronym] [Round Number]: [Duel Number], [Username 1] vs [Username 2]
TWT R1: D2, Aley vs. Pretzelstick
TWT Round 1: Duel 2, Aley vs. Pretzelstick
Prompt Inclusion
- Include the prompt in your submission post
- Only one participant per thread must include the prompt
- Do not include the prompt in the first post
Other
- Include the title of your work
- Use spoilers around long works
- Include a word count
- Include a link to the work on YWS
- Create your own dueling threads
Dates and Deadlines Tournaments need time to happen, so when you begin to plan your tournament out, take that into consideration.
Include the length you want the writing rounds to be in your first post.
The average tournament length is 5-8 weeks with 3 rounds of duels and writing.
To pick how long you want to have people writing, consider how long it takes you to write the longest thing submit-able to the tournament. If you are accepting short stories, novel chapters, poems, and flash fiction, then consider how long it takes you to write and edit one novel chapter, add a day to that, and make that your round length. If that time seems unreasonable, add more or take away time depending on what you feel it needs.
A typical length for a writing round is 3-5 days, and voting is also 3-4 days or longer. Usually voting runs over because of a lack of voters.
You can plan out your entire tournament's deadlines before you start the tournament itself. Get a calendar, and somewhere to write while looking at the calendar, then consider the following.
On average, half of the participants you will have will be better at writing on the weekend than the weekdays, while the other half will be better at writing on the weekdays than the weekend. Give your participants time both during the week and on the weekend for each round. This means 3 rounds will take potentially 4 weeks.
- To have a 3 day writing round, and include a weekend, you must start your writing rounds between Thursday and Sunday*.
- To have a 4 day writing round, and include a weekend, you must start your writing rounds between Wednesday and Sunday*.
- To have a 5 day writing round, and include a weekend, you must start your writing rounds between Tuesday and Sunday*.
*Starting on any of those days will include a weekend. Fill the rest of the time with voting. If you wish to make voting longer, then do not start the writing rounds on the same day each week, but change it to add time for voting. Usually voting can take anywhere between 2-10 days. It depends on what people are voting on. If it is short stories or longer pieces, it takes longer to get voters. If it is short pieces, it takes less time to find voters. People don't come to The Writing Tournaments to vote, they come to participate. Advertising voting will get you more voters than waiting.
Decide how long you want to give people to write, and approximate how long you want to give voters. Use your calendar to map out the tournaments time frame to determine the start of the rounds, and the end.
Only post the approximate end date. Because of voting, your time table needs to be changeable. Giving people approximate dates should be done only after you know how to best motivate people to vote and can be assured that each thread will get at least one vote. This is so they keep track of the tournament as it progresses and don't miss out on accident.
Tip: If you have hard dates you need to set for the tournament because of obligations in your offline life, make everyone aware of those dates, talk to staff about managing the tournament, if needed, during those dates, and plan to put those dates after the tournament or, during a round and manipulate the start and end of other rounds to ensure it happens.
