WoW writing contest-World of Warcraft players!

Don't do yourself such a disservice. If you think your writing is too poor to even enter, at least check out last year's winning entry: http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/community/contests/writing/

I'm entering.

ETA: your Genesis icon is so made of win. I love that character.

I entered last year. I went through the roof when I read this sentence in last years winner

A moment later a swirling, bluish gate appeared, hovering impressively above the hall's pale ceramic tile.

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My day-job coworkers tell me I ranted about losing to a story that contained that sentence for at least a month. I think it was closer to two months.

I ain't wasting my time again.

Hmm. I might enter this year. Although I;d rather have a years free play then a trip to HQ. It's not really that exciting.

Everyone take Whistlelock's quote from the story and modify it to how you would write

A moment later a swirling, bluish gate appeared, hovering impressively above the hall's pale ceramic tile.

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A disc of swirling blue energy appeared above the ceramic tile.

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Removed time reference, superfluous.
The portals are blue, not bluish, and calling it a gate makes it sound like a structure.
It's hard finding a good antonym for fade...
How would one go about 'hovering impressively'?
Better or worse I wonder?

We could use this thread to fish for betas, for anyone who wants one. I recommend this place only because an actual WoW player may be able to catch things another beta might not.

For any normal human, any amount of hovering is impressive. ;-)

For a gate of energy, I think it's standard fare.

Hmm, rewriting the sentence:

Ozone and magic burned my nostrils as bluish energy tendrils twisted into a swirling gate.

If it were me, I'd also have it thunderclap into existence, possibly cracking the tile. Depends on the scene.

@FallenAngel: Actually any editor judges whether or not they like something. Professional editors will recognize good writing, but if they don't like it, they won't buy it. The boggling here is that the winning entry was SO obviously poor in comparison to some of the runners-up and honorable mentions.

The problem with the gate (and the whole scene) is that it doesn't set any context. Is it common place or is it rare? Everyone that's in the room already really doesn't react to the gate- thus making it common place- but the narrator says it's impressively (which I assume is some form of impressive being used not as an adverb but as as noun). It seems like it's just a common teleport portal and it's not a big deal, since the character already in the room is focused on the doofus that falls out of it rather than the actual portal itself. So, despite the context clues given to us by the narrator the portal is important it's actually meaningless. Which means the sentence should go something like:

A blue portal opened in the middle of the room, and Aethas tripped over his own robes as he stepped through it.

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That way the context clues from the narrator tell you the portal ain't no thing and what comes through it is just as unimportant. It's just a portal, and that guy fell out of it.


But if you want the gate to be important, and heralding that whatever is coming through is even more important I'd write something like:

The gate shoved its way into being, pushing aside the tables and cracking the pale tiles of the hall beneath its blue light. Aethas stepped through the licking tendrils of azure fire, his boots crushed the remaining porcelain fragments to dust as he strode to the throne.

"You're in my seat, old man," he said to the King.

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It's all about the context.

Let me give it a shot:

Space distorted as the distinctive swirling blue energy of a portal shimmered into being. Aethas descended from the portal, robes hitched slightly above his feet as he gingerly stepped through, attempting to balance himself while carrying his staff.

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I think I got the portal nabbed as being an uncommon, but known with the use of 'distinctive'.
Not sure about the second part though, I was trying to give the impression that Aethas was used to the experience, and thus knew to hitch up his robes and step gingerly so he doesn't fall on his face. I mentioned his staff so as to bring about an idea of importance to his person (the staff being reminiscent of the scepter). I wanted to somehow describe that staff to help reinforce that idea of importance, it is a rather unique staff, but hard for me to put into words. His old staff would've been easier, this new one has an unusual shape.

The fact that the contest announcement itself is dripping with melodrama says something. And how about that run-on?

You're called to action once again, to use your wits and strength, to compete for the ultimate prize. Your weapons? They seem to be but a musty tome and quill, but know that their power is far stronger than the armies of the Scourge, far craftier than the zerg Swarm, and far mightier than any demon from the Burning Hells. Ready your tools, scribe, and prepare for combat with the inky beast called fiction!

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They like to hype their contests, is that a bad thing?

Nothing wrong with melodramatic hype I'm doing it more for fun than anything. If I win, super. If I don't, no loss. It's not like I'm losing an original storyline and characters or anything, plus I'm usually shite at short fics so that'll be a nice challenge for me.

tbh, those prizes are kinda lame. How about some cash or a free year of WoW?

Also, I have no clue about Warcraft lore, although I think it would be funny to do a cross over between Starcraft and Warcraft. "The zerg are invading plaguelands!!"

How is this lame?

Starcraft and Warcraft should never intersect except in April Fool jokes.