I also think that it might be a bit intimidating to encounter the Wall O’ Words; I wouldn’t be averse to a lesser word count limit, but I don’t think that a sticky for each story would fly; we’d just have a ton on of stickys up there and I can’t speak for everyone, but I automatically skip stickies unless I know there’s something up there new that I’m interested in. Maybe it’s because I tend to view stickies as the forum equivalent of Read Me files or FAQs; I glance at them but I don’t expect them to be discussions so I just mentally block them out and go for the active threads.
It might be better to break up the stories into pools or brackets, maybe 5 per pool, and have them battle it out; while I’m tossing around ideas, if we really want a challenging exercise, maybe we try something like this:
First, require participants to “sign up” during a limited period. Randomly divide the writers up more or less equally and assign them not only the words but a genre which would be randomly assigned to each group. So you might have a few groups of three or more writers all assigned the words “pandemic, spy, and sanctuary,” but one group is assigned “romance” while other groups might have “comedy” or “horror” or even the dreaded “teen vampire pseudo-horror angsty romance.”
Like I said, it would be more of a challenge to be sure, but I think I would learn more about writing if I were forced a bit out of my comfort zone.
Another thought; I was really looking forward to discussing the stories, giving and receiving critiques, etc., but as eager as I was to do so, I was intimidated by the number of stories a bit, and I didn’t want to leave anyone out so I haven’t done any of that yet. Maybe when we have the anthology thread we ask/require that each writer critique or comment on the story listed next in the thread, with the last entrant being assigned to the first story posted. At least then everyone would be getting at least some feedback.
I would have liked to have seen a discussion as well, but I wasn’t sure if we could during the voting. I guess I was worried that it might have turned into an election campaign of sorts, rather than a useful critique of each other’s work. Still, perhaps a separate discussion thread would be something to consider for next time.
The Mafia-playing crew is quite fond of using ProBoards when we need somewhere else to post for whatever reason.
I agree that having each story as an OP would make the overall reading less intimidating and also make critiquing and discussion focused in the mini-thread for each story.
The downside is that ProBoards requires a registration step that might discourage people from participating.
We could use an external website for the actual stories and keep the voting and discussion over here. If we stayed with the current way of doing things, I could receive all the stories at the gmail address and then cut and paste them to hypotheticalwebsite dot com , link to the page(s) at that hypothetical website and still keep the poll here. That way, I’d be the only one who would have to register at a different site.
I could see it looking rather like this -
Repeat for x number of entries - poll refers to Title and Reply number.
I’ll continue to look at how other sites and magazines post online short stories, but a casual glance shows that most places use wider margins and break a story into pages every 400 - 600 words… Certainly, with this thread, I had the thought (too late, of course) that I should have done a little more ‘clean up’ editing, such as making sure that all paragraphs were marked with a double return. (If I go with that for a future one, I’ll try to mention it in the Logistics Thread so that if anyone insists on a particular layout, they tell me not to mess with it.)
I didn’t mean to discourage discussion of stories, by the way. I’m trying to remember if I wrote anything or just said it out loud - I prefer to keep all the stories (or poems, in the case of the Poetry Sweatshops) together, but once the contest is closed and the poll is established, I’m happy to talk about what we’ve all done. Critiques, commentary, six-figure advance offers, I’m open for it all… Dopers have shown a very good track record of being respectful of other Doper’s creative endeavours, which is one of the things I like very much about this online community.
Thanks for setting this up, Ministre. It was fun. I prefer having all of the stories together in the same thread for ease of comparison, although it would be nice to have identical formatting for all. I wouldn’t at all mind a lower word limit.
Well, the thinking on it goes like this - the average reader opens up this thread and sees twenty stories, all of which fill the screen with text and take about 3 pg dns to get through. “That’s a bit intimidating” thinks this reader; “I’ll come back when I’ve got more time.”
So I had a go at what you were suggesting - there doesn’t seem to be a limit on how much you can put in a spoiler box, and therefore, it might work to put the first 100 words or paragraph in the body of a post, and spoiler box the rest. (In addition to some other editing for neatness - I really do like the idea of ensuring there are double returns to mark paragraphs, for example…)
Or, another idea is to upload the stories to a different site. Makes it one step further to read them all before voting, but it has the advantage of not presenting the reader with a giant Wall O’Words right off the top.
And I’m open to other suggestions, too - I’ve just got the sense that this contest generated more interest among those who participated/expressed an interest in participating but didn’t get around to it than among the general population of the Board. Given the number of voracious readers we have around here, I’m interested in finding ways of attracting more attention to the writers’ submissions.
If we’re talking about ideas for a possible next time, I’d rather things be even more anonymous until after the voting is over. There’s no need for anyone to know who wrote what at all until the votes are all in, is there? I ask, because I wonder if there might be some readers who read stories, and enjoyed them until they looked in the spoiler box and decided that they didn’t want to vote for after all due to whatever.
‘Afraid’ is a strong word. But I think a big reason for wanting to be published is the affirmation that you created something that someone (other than your spouse) really liked enough to put out there…so the latter.
Well, you have a point - the author really shouldn’t come into the voting at all. However, I have faith in my fellow Dopers that it isn’t really a consideration for anyone.
My big hesitation is that the material is posted by me under my user name, and without any attribution, it might appear that I’m trying to claim credit for someone’s story. We debated this in the Poetry Sweatshops, and the general feeling was that the spoiler box was a good compromise. Certainly, I’m much more comfortable with the author’s name associated with the story (or poem) right from the start, even if it’s hidden in a spoiler box.
Like Le Min, I have more faith in the people who’d be reading these threads than that. And, IMO, if someone wants to throw their votes away based on the authors rather than the content… Well, who cares? These things are, by their very nature, terribly subjective. We’re all evaluating on different criteria, and who’s to say “I didn’t understand that big word you used” is any more valid than “I think you’re an asshole”?
I really like having the names available but spoilered. That way, I can read everything anonymously but still assuage my curiosity (and give mental credits where due) ASAP.
So…are we going to do this again this year? September or October would be best, what with many of the likely participants also doing nanowrimo in November and the holidays besides.
