Judging the 2023 Summer Camp Material Category

by Terry Cassis - visit my author page!

Its time for Judging! What did I like? What should you read?

No spoilers!

Introduction and the Prize

This prompt asks you to describe a resource (material) that provides fuel or power. Foundational world building at it's very best, and like all foundational worldbuilding, it's incredibly important.
Don't think so? Uninspired with this prompt? Think about it this way, how many wars have been fought, how many people have died in our world for control of oil, a material that powers our technologies - and even our necessities? Where would we be today if there was suddenly no oil? Billions of people would literally starve to death as farmers had no fuel to plant and harvest crops. There would be no way to get food to cities. No realistic way to cook even if you had food (wood fire for billions?). And that's just a tiny tiny part of what today's sources of power mean to us. What is there in your every day life that does not utilize power from oil or electricity? So a material that is a source of power is really a very foundational part of your world, and a huge opportunity to fuel (pun intended) conflict and story.
So on to what you came to read...
Summer Camp is supposed to be about your world building - it doesn't have to be competitive, it can just be fun. But, if you want to compete for the prize I am offering for impressing the socks off me in the Material category, you can. It is a cool prize (I think) - a years Basic subsciption to Midjourney - worth about $100.
Anyway, I hate it when I play a game and I don't know the rules or how to score. You're trying to impress me, and you almost certainly don't know much about me and have no idea what is likely to blow my socks off. So it only seems fair to me to tell you what I am going to look for when August rolls around and I get to reading all these articles.

The Groundrules (How to Play)

First, I totally don't care about popularity. There are lots of great articles written by people who have very few followers. Great work deserves to be read and enjoyed, so how many reads an article gets is not relevant when I judge.
Second, I read every article submitted. Every one of them. I do not pick on the basis of random choice, I care about how good an article is.
Third, only one person will win, but I will do an article in August that points you to the top contenders in this category (but it won't give away the winner). If you want to know what a great article looks like, and which were the best ones in this category, I'll give you a lowdown on what I liked best and WHY I liked it. I'll probably link that article into this article once my judging is complete.
Fourth, I'm sorry, but I can't evaluate articles that are not done in english. However, if you choose to do your article in english, and it is not your native language, please put a line at the top of your article saying so (something like "ESL Author" works) and I will not count minor problems with language skills against your article in judging.
Fifth, Summer Camp is about drafting world building content - so almost everything I expect to look at will be in draft state vs polished final. That's fine, but it is undeniable and inevitable that articles which are read and edited prior to submission will do better in the judging.

Criteria and Judging Process:

I will evaluate each article on the following factors in the following sequence:

The Filter Pass

Community Appreciation: I look at the percentage of people who liked an article as a function of the number of people who read it. If 20 people liked it, and 100 people read it, that was a 20% community appreciation metric. If 2 people liked it and only 10 read it, that was the exact same score - 20%.
First Impressions: I will pick up every article and read them, making notes and identifying the ones I want to go back and evaluate. If I decide I want to come back, the article will get a positive score on this criteria.
Style & Visual Impact: I score articles on their visual appeal, structure, and mechanics. Things that matter are:

• avoiding the dreaded "Wall of Text" (unlike THIS article),
• completeness (extra credit if the article does not use the template and still covers everything I want to know or if the template is tailored well!),
• including unique and relevant art for that article,
• world/background style, font style and legibility (I wear glasses, if you use 6 point font I guarentee you won't win),
• use of quotes and active links to other articles in the larger world,
• use of unique CSS to style the article (structure, scrollers, embedded pics etc),
• use of other WA features (maps, timelines, whiteboards etc), (btw, if you can help me figure out how to get text to stick in whiteboard I want to know - banging my head on this)
• grammar (incomplete or incorrect (missing words) sentences, verb tenses, spelling etc)

Just a note - none of these things are requirements, they just help your work stand out from the pack.

The Deciding Factors - Good or Great?

World Building: This criteria evaluates how well the article defines this power source and explains it's critical role in your world - put another way, can I see the significance of this power source? Does the way you describe your power source say something about your world as an interesting place to spend time - does it strengthen your world and give it definition and structure?
Consistency: I am an engineer by trade, so it is really important for me for a world to be logical, consistent, and feasible. I want to see that you have gone at least one level of thinking below the top level concept. What are the in-world implications or consequences of your material? Why is it important? How do in-world people respond to it? There's a rule in writing fantasy - ask only one major leap of faith (your world premise) from your readers, and once having made that leap, be consistent in the framework you have set. I'm looking for that consistency.
Story and Writing: I love a well written story. A good story grabs the reader and takes us into a world. This criteria evaluates how compelling an article is - does it make people in your world and the world itself come alive through well used language? Can I see the seeds of a story in your article, perhaps how the power source being described inspires or resolves conflict or emotion for the people in the world? What problems is it used to solve? What does it create? Even better, (and BTW not my expectation), does your article perhaps even tell a compelling or amusing story itself?
Uniqueness: I definitely like unique articles, but this criteria is the lowest value compared to the other criteria because for me, unique is just not enough to make a great article - execution counts. But when you have a well written article, that builds your world, is consistent, AND is unique, you really have knocked it out of the park.
That's the criteria. And yes, I am massively AR and I totally have a spreadsheet to track all this stuff. But you already guessed that right?

On Getting Feedback

One of the most difficult things about world building is the crickets. You work really hard on your world, and there's just no feedback at all most of the time. And understand, from a judges perspective, it's a lot harder to provide that feedback than it is to just judge, and there's a lot of articles to get through. If you desparately throw words into the template at 2am the night before Summer Camp ends in order to get your Diamond badge, I totally get that, and I'm cool with it. Please though realize, you aren't going to get feedback.
So, no promises on feedback. But if your article looks like you really spent time on it, and I think I have something that would help it be better, I might make a comment. It may just be encouraging, but it might also sound critical.
If I make a comment, and it hurts your feelings, that was not my intent. I am trying to be helpful. Paradoxically, the better your work is, the more likely the feedback may feel negative or (even be) nitpicky. But remember, world class gymnasts don't become olympic gold medal winners by hearing how well they are doing. They get to be the best by hearing what they can improve. So if you get any input from me and if feels negative, take it as a sign that I totally believe in your work, I'm trying to help, and I'm rooting for your success.
And always, you are under NO obligation of any kind to agree with my feedback or use it. It's totally your imaginary world.

And in Closing...

I hope this helps you undertand my judging process. Every judge is different, but these are the things I look for. I hope you have a great Summer Camp - I'm looking forward to reading all your creative articles in August!
Now get out there and GO WORLDBUILD!

Terry