Contest 1 - Cliches Open. Apply/Rules Here

[perhapsormaybe]

Our first contest is officially opened. The theme is "Cliches". Your story must have a cliche as a major plotpoint or theme. Entries can be either "humor" (anything done as a comedy piece) or "Drama" (anything that's serious). "Humor" and "Drama" will be separate voting categories unless there are too few entries to separate them. You cannot enter the same story into both categories.

Rules:
1. All entries are due no later than midnight on May 1st, Eastern time.
2. Entries must be posted on this proboard, in this section of the board.
3. You do not have to be a member to join the contest. You can post your story as a guest.
4. You will, however, have to register to vote. Polls are exclusive to registered members.
5. No using old stories that you wrote. The story must be written with this contest in mind.


concerning voting:
1. No voting for yourself. It's just tacky.
2. You must post a review to every story in order to vote, to prove that you have read every story - it's not fair to vote if you missed even one story. That one you didn't read might be the best one.
3. Please do not vote based off of your favorite pairing. Vote off of skill of the writer, and how well they stuck to the prompt.
4. After you vote, you must post in the thread that you have voted. You do not have to disclose who you voted for, it's just so we can keep track.
5. We are trusting you not to vote based off of who you're friends with. Please don't break that trust.
6. No bribery - please do not do things like withholding chapters of your fanfics until you get a vote.


Examples of Cliches:

Kevin Cliches:
Specific cliches with Kevin:
1. He's changed back into a monster somehow
2. Can't seem to make up his mind about going back to being bad or being good.
3. Future Kevin - intergalactic crime lord. Ben or Gwen heartbroken.
4. Can't decide between Gwen and Ben.

Gwen Cliches
1. Gwen pregnant, Kevin got her pregnant and left before finding out because he's an intergalactic crime lord.
2. Gwen pregnant, Kevin got her pregnant before leaving, he's not a bad guy, just didn't want to stay around Bellwood.
3. Gwen pregnant, Kevin knows. He stays and helps.
4. Gwen can't decide between Kevin and Ben.
5. Gwen is kidnapped.


Ben Cliches
1. Can't decide whether to give up Julie and date Gwen.
2. Can't decide whether to give up Julie and date Kevin.
3. Someone he loves is kidnapped, he has to rescue them
4. Ben pregnant with Kevin's child.
5. Ben meets people from some other cartoon/live action show (crossover fics, in other words)

Julie Cliches
1. Julie conveniently moves. Kevin, Gwen, or OC takes her place with Ben.
2. Julie is killed. Kevin, Gwen, or OC takes her place with Ben.

Concerning specific pairings (Note: You do not have to make your story a romance. These are just extra examples of cliches):

Gwen/Kevin
1. Gwen pregnant
2. Gwen kidnapped
3. Kevin's turned evil again
4. New girl shows up, makes Gwen jealous.
5. New guy shows up, makes Kevin jealous.
6. Explanation on how Devlin actually exists with Gwen being his mother.
7. Explanation on how Devlin still exists, Kevin was with another woman for a while, but wants Gwen back.

Ben/Kevin
1. Kevin is completely sex-crazed.
2. Explanations on how Devlin and Ken can exist, explaining how Kevin or Ben got pregnant
3. Kevin's gone back to being bad but maintains an obsession with Ben.

Gwen/Ben
1. Coming to terms with admitting they love their own cousin.


Note: You do not have to use the cliches on this list. If you think of another cliche that's common in Ben 10 fanfiction, you're more than welcome to write using that cliche instead.

Explain your cliche - after the story's over, list the cliches you used. Voting should be based on how authors handled the requirements - cliches should be a major role in the story.

Voting to begin May 2nd for whichever category (Humor or Drama) that got the most entries. Voting will stay open for two weeks, ending on May 16th, at midnight. While you may enter both parts of the contest, you can not win for both. If you win the first category, and you entered both contests, your name will be removed from the voting list for the second category. Voting on the 2nd category will open May 17th, and close on May 31st, again, at midnight.

Prizes:
Prizes will be either a special banner stating what category you won that you can add to your signature here or on any other boards you use, or you may request fanart (I'll be drawing it), which can be whatever you like (mature requests allowed).

If you have any questions, comments, or suspect someone of cheating, please let me know right away. You can either pm me here or e-mail me at mel underscore darkone at yahoo dot com (spelled out to prevent spam mail. no spaces in the name)

Please add your name to this board if you'll be entering. If something comes up and you can't finish your story in time, let me know.

[perhapsormaybe]

To Help with Cliches (for those who don't want to do research, this is a helpful little guide).

Given that Lasa and I are the only 2 Ben 10 fans that have gone through this process (at least on this board), thought I'd get some info out there. Lasa, anything you have to contribute would be helpful. (And if anyone would like to add a guide to another cliche that's on the list, go ahead. It can only help. ^_^)

Pregnancy

First off, a woman is typically at least 6 weeks pregnant before she knows. And surprisingly, a skipped period isn't always the first sign. You may skip it and just not put two-and-two together, some women actually don't skip at all. And some have slight bleeding when the egg implants that they mistake for a period. So, the first signs are often nausea, going to the bathroom often, slight weight gain, being excessively tired, excessive thirst and sometimes mood swings. Your breasts might suddenly swell, also. Not all women will get every sign. And not every woman throws up during her first trimester...nausea is estimated to affect about 1/2 of pregnant women. (Personally, I had nausea one night that I made Cris hold me through, then noticed while at work the next day that I had to lock the store down about 3 times before anyone else got there just to run to the bathroom. I took the pregnancy test that night...sure enough, pregnant.)

Gender issue: This one I see a lot of people having them know the gender right away. That depends on the age of your character, for one thing. If your character is 35 or older when you have them pregnant, then amniocentesis will be done to check for chromosomal disorders (such as Down's syndrome). It also tells the gender of the baby, and is 100% accurate for gender (there will be no error, so if you do it this way, then don't change your mind about gender later). If the woman is under 35, because chromosomal disorders are extremely rare under that age, she will not know until about the 20th week, at the earliest (typically. Some doctors make guesses as early as 15 weeks or so, but they're more likely to at 20 weeks or later). And there is a margin of error here....they can predict up to the high 90 percentile, but sometimes the doctor will be wrong.

Cravings: As this is a cliche contest, may as well talk about one of the oldest cliches in the book - pregnant women craving pickles and ice cream. Some do. And while cravings are reported by a heavy percentage of pregnant women, the most common craving is merely ice cream. You *can* make them weird, but it's usually just a normal food...that you want all the time or you want at random times during the day.

Moodswings: This depends on the person. The nice thing about these? You may actually be able to scare *Kevin* with another character who's pregnant (which would be hilarious). It can be a very scary thing....I've had moments where I've cried over stupid things (there were no dill pickles in the house. But 4 jars of sweet pickles. ....who *does that*, anyways? I needed DILL....*ahem*), and many pregnant women have moments where they yell and scream and are angry for no or a very unimportant reason. Guess who *usually* gets the brunt of that? Yep...daddy (after all, in those moments....this is totally his fault. ^_-).

Pregnancy testing: Mainly, they draw blood pretty often from you and they test urine. Both of these are done almost every visit. They also check weight and blood pressure EVERY visit. One test every pregnant women gets is Gestational Diabetes testing. First you fast from midnight until the appointment (this is not always true. Some doctors actually prefer that you eat before the first test.) You're made to drink a drink that taste like very sweet flat orange soda (not as pleasant as it sounds. I nearly gagged). You sit there for an hour and then they draw your blood to test your sugar levels. If it's too high, you come back a week later, you *always* have to fast after midnight the night before, you drink even more of that awful glucose solution, and they prick your finger once an hour to check you again. You're there for 3 hours, and it ends in 4 pricks (one before the drink, one every hour on the hour afterwards). Another is the GB test, for strep. This is not done until the final trimester and is to check for strep that lives down there and could affect the baby. If the test results are positive, mom is given antibiotics until after the baby's born.

Weight gain: The first trimester, it's suggested most women should gain up to 3 pounds. However, a woman that's throwing up almost everything she eats might not gain any weight her first 3 months. She may even *lose* weight. The 2nd trimester *usually* ends the morning sickness, and that's when the regular weight gain often starts. Today's guidelines say that a healthy woman should gain 25 to 35 pounds. An underweight woman needs to gain at least about 30 pounds. Overweight women should gain ...I think it said 10 to 20, but I can't guarantee that one. So, someone Gwen's size should gain at least 25 pounds (maybe more...she does look pretty skinny, huh?). She would probably start to show that she's gaining weight by month 4 or 5. It'll be apparent that it's baby weight at month 6.

2nd trimester: This is actually the 'easy stretch' of the pregnancy for most women. Morning sickness goes away, and you're not quite so tired anymore. You're gaining weight and you could be hungrier than ever (research shows that if you're pregnant with a boy, you're likely to eat more than if you're pregnant with a girl). Heartburn may start or continue, but in general, this is the fun easy part.

3rd trimester: This part is....well, you're going to be showing by this point. Stretch marks often make their appearance if they didn't already. The good news is, you're almost done. The bad news is, you're excessively tired again, and any pain you feel is likely to make you wonder if the baby's coming.

Baby movement: You feel the first movement at sometime around week 20. Maybe a few weeks sooner (if you're built small or it's not your first pregnancy) maybe a few weeks later. The first movements are often sporatic - they don't come all at once, and you may not recognize it as the baby at first. It often feels like 'gas bubbles' or 'butterflies in the stomach'. Sometime after week 20, you'll probably feel the baby kick. And most can kick pretty dang hard. Babies have ways of entertaining themselves in the womb....it's often a game of "Let's beat the heck out of mommy". The baby WILL get into at least one uncomfortable position and probably will repeat it so often you're wondering when he/she'll come out. Mine likes to climb into my ribcage and over my hips. It *hurts*.

Labor and delivery: I know you've seen some shows where the woman goes into labor and she knows because her water broke. Actually, the water breaks before labor in only 13% of women. Most will have their bag of waters ruptured after they get to the hospital. The first sign is often loss of the mucous plug or regular contractions that don't go away even when the woman changes position, and often radiates to her back. Most women get epidurals, all though a lot are trying 'natural births' these days - no drugs. An epidural removes pain but allowed a woman to push. A natural birth sometimes takes place in water, sometimes the woman will just be in a birthing bed. There's also the chance for C-sections...such as when baby or mom are in danger, when the baby's too big for mom to push out, and sometimes when the mom's been in labor too long and just can't push baby out.


That's the end of this guide, though I'm hoping Lasa will have more to say (Especially on delivery. I haven't gone through that part yet, so she's going to be a much better source). Like I said earlier, feel free to add guides for any other cliches you see up there.

[Lady Lasa]

Since you're currently going through it and it's been over five years since I've gone through the pregnancy and delivery thing, your memory is better than mind.

A few notes I'll add though...

Cravings: As mentioned, the pickle craving is a common cliche, I'm one of the ones that didn't get it. Common foods are usually craved (I HAD to have mozzarella sticks from Sonic every day). The only odd craving I had was vanilla ice cream sprinkled with nacho doritos. Other than that, just ordinary foods, although ice cream and yogurt were favorites.

Gender: I don't remember when they found out my daughter's gender. They did the sonogram and thought that it was a girl and then two weeks before I went into the hospital, they thought it was a boy. Turned out to be a girl after all. So, you can't go by a sonogram alone when trying to figure out the gender.

Delivery: I'll start this off with advice... If they offer the meds, TAKE THEM! Seriously, I wanted them, but during the last hour, things moved too quickly for them to administer the epidural. Most doctors won't give you it until you're dilated to 5. Once you get to 8, it's too late. And trust me, it hurts. The doc will most likely do an episiotomy (probably misspelled) to prevent any tearing when the baby is delivered. However, there might be some tearing anyway depending on the size of the baby.

Another thing worth mentioning is to reiterate what Melanie said about water breaking. The doc had already induced labor and when my water broke, I didn't even realize it until the nurse said something.



If I think of anything else, I'll add it here.

[perhapsormaybe]

I'm wondering...how would everyone feel if I allowed for an extension? Since there's only one (kind of) applicant right now anyways, it'd be ....incredibly one sided. Since that's Fierysue and she's not sure if she'll finish in time...I'm thinking of giving everyone an extra month or more (the crossover fanfiction contest would open during this time, too, but those fanfics wouldn't be due until at least a month after the Cliched fanfics are).

[Lady Lasa]

That's fine with me, but I might be skipping the cliche contest.

[fierysue]

Yay...

I don't mind extension. Although I might come up with other stories so that I'm not pressured into finishing An Alien World and having it turn out like awful.

How about keeping the contests as a challenge after they are closed? That way, everyone can try out for it, but they won't be part of the contest so they won't be rejudged...

And exactly how many entries can we have?

[perhapsormaybe]

You can have 2 entries per each contest - one serious, one comedy. Unless you have something that doesn't fit either bill, in which case if you discuss it with me, you might be able to have 3, but technically those are judged separately.

Okay, so let's say the Crossover contest will open on May 1st, but the Cliche contest won't close until....June 1st. Crossover contest will either close on July 1st or August 1st, pending.

And yes, we could definitely leave them open as challenges.

[datdude]

You guys ever do this? Cuz I'm at the end of a fic and need inspiration.