The below is an edited post from a while back that I've reworded a bit to make sure RPers and more importantly, judges, are executing properly every week...

As we move forward and I'm once again in charge of a large portion of judging, it's going to be more important (if you want to win) to start opening your RP-week with an RP that doesn't just jump right into an already ongoing story without any explanation of what's going on.

If you have an ongoing story in your RPs, please keep in mind that with each new RP week (aka, each new match you RP for) there might be an entirely different audience viewing your work. You might be against an opponent who has NO idea what your story was about up until now, and you may have judges reading your work who didn't happen to be assigned to your work the previous week(s), so it's always a really good idea to make sure you cover this base whenever you pick up that story for the first time in a new week.

Did a side character recently get a sex change and did your main character recently get arrested for public nudity? Well, if that happened LAST week or any number of weeks ago, please make sure you bring the reader up to speed on that stuff right before you cut back into continuing that story for a new week. Is your character literally in the middle of torturing someone, or being tortured, or literally any scene that just picks up already in progress? We expect a lead in then.

Remember you want to also build fans and followers of your work. As new members come in, it'll be way easier for them to get on board with your storylines and become fans of your work if you're supplying this extra tiny bit of info to help them out.

Also please DO NOT EVER do this...
"RP continues where this one left off last week:" Click Here to read it

The judge isn't going to back track to a previous week just to catch up on your story. If it's the first RP of your week, DO NOT use the above "link" method. Only use the link method if you're continuing a story that already was going on in an RP that SAME week for that SAME match and you're reminding the reader where it picks up from. Sound good? Any confusion on this let me know.

PS: If you are not somebody who carries your story over from week to week, you are not affected by this and have nothing to worry about obviously.

Judges, this isn't optional anymore. If you're judging somebody who fails to clarify their new work for the week, it's not as simple as just "noticing it" but shrugging it off and still scoring that RP higher. This should be seen as a serious issue, and a considerably powerful negative for that person's entire week.