Query Kombat 2015 Round 1 BEGINS!

Get that thick skin in place because here we go! Round 1

ABOUT A HALF OF YOU ALL WILL BE GONE AFTER THIS ROUND D,: 

So please please please, have fun, but be prepared for bloodshed!

Hop on over to Mike's and Michelle's blogs to see the rest of the match-ups and entries! They are spread all over the place. Some here, some there. We've got a little bit of everything: Adult, NA, YA, MG, and PB! This round lasts until June 4th at 8 pm.

On Thursday the hosts will call out for extra judges to come and break ties, or in case of extra close votes to try and get a more decisive margin. 

The entry with the most votes for Victory moves forward to the agent round on June 8th! Kombatants will have a chance to revise at that time. Entries must be revised and returned to the QueryKombat at gmail dot com email by Saturday, June 6th at 5:00 pm Eastern. Follow the exact same format.

Now before we begin:
Read this post again to remind yourselves of the rules and guidelines of commenting and judging. Below I've reposted the main ideas:
Reminders for the Entrants:
No commenting on your own entries!!!!!! Not until the last day of the round, so Thursday. 

If there is a problem with your entry, shout out to us on twitter as soon as you can. (@SC_Author) If you don't have a Twitter, you may comment on your entry telling me the mistake.

Also, we tried our hardest to make the match-ups as fair as possible and against as similar stories as possible. But, obviously, this is impossible to do perfectly and some match-ups may seen very random. We apologize for this but it's an evil of the system.

Kombatants should comment on 6 other match-ups to help share the love around! Make sure to critique the entries nicely and constructively.

Reminders for the Judges:
Wait until after one of us hosts comments on each entry first and reply to that comment to cast your votes. Try making your votes objective instead of subjective (but if you really love an entry subjectively, don't even feel bad about saying it was a subjective vote - subjectivity rules!).

Make sure to post under your nicknames!

And judges: seriously, thank you so, SO much for doing this. It's a very tough job and isn't for the faint-hearted.


Reminders for Everyone:

Try not to comment until after one of us hosts have made the first comment!

NOW THE FUN BEGINS!!! GO GO GO!!! We'll be Tweeting under #QueryKombat! Good luck! And remember - all else equal (you all have amazing entries, after all) you have a 50% chance of being knocked out. So please remember, 'winning' can also mean getting so much free advice/critiques from some of the smartest people in the writing community: our judges!