Now that we're all in the heat of battle, we can maybe see some soft spots in the initial plan for making WAR the happiest place to die violently it can possibly be. Please stop by here and leave your suggestions for how the next go-round could be organized better to improve the nature of the competition.
Quick question: Do you see this as an annual, semi-annual, or other time frame sort of event?
Whew. Until the end of this one, I don't really want to hazard a guess.
That influences my suggestions.
Someone - forget who, sorry - mentioned that if this is a regular thing, perhaps the site could create us a nice War tab somewhere to keep it all together, so we don't bother anyone. I don't know how things like that work, but it seemed like a nice idea.
Quarterly, if there are enough survivors.
I can't imagine this being more than twice a year. Maybe just once.
So far, the only really glaring issue I've noticed is that there has been a pretty long debate over the issue of sticking to the prompt. Personally, I don't think it needs to be addressed in a set of rules, but it might quell a couple of concerns to just set a standard on "how" stories should be voted on, or at the very least, a suggestive list of things to consider when choosing a story. In fact, a set of points and criteria would probably be helpful to some. That way, when people sit down to read, they can gloss over the set of points to consider when choosing their story as opposed to just voting based on something as simple as grammer issues, not closely following the prompt, being too "out there" or whatever else. There are a lot of things to consider when voting for a story and its possible that a few people might have limited their view point in deciding, basing their choice on one or two simple reasons when a few other considerations might have swayed their vote.
Okay. This could work. We'll put together a set of guideline suggestions that we can begin applying as early as Round 2. Thanks, AT.
I also think we should consider limiting voting to participants of the competition. Right now any workshop member can vote, whether their participating or not. But this can lead to a couple of issues. One... there's the possibility of cheating. Say my story is only one vote from winning, so I PM someone not participating in the contest to vote for me, or email them off the site to avoid moderators spotting this. As much as we'd like to all think that NO ONE would ever do this, if the contest was somehow limited to those competing only, we'd at least know that it was, more or less, impossible to solicit votes outside of competitors.
Second, we'd know when the polls were finished. Right now it's still ANYONE's game for every story namely because workshop members can still vote. Lets admit it- we're all impatient to get to the next level of this and start discussing who wrote what, pat each other on the back, etc. But we can't start that discussion until the polls are done. And that's a time restriction, not a vote restriction.
As far as I know, there are 32 people participating? And one of those votes is reserved as a tie breaker? This is just a personal opinion, but I think it would be a good idea to just leave it at that so that we know how many votes are left, and we know when the voting is finished, that way if it ends early we can start talking about all the stories and prepare ourselves for the next around of prompts. You could argue that letting the entire workshop participate would lead to more exposure, but how much more exposure do we really need after having 32 people read your story? And a first draft at that?
So, in short- I think voting should be limited to participating writers to avoid cheating, facilitate a speedier transition to the next round of writers and general discussion.
yeah. Debate on how to vote is going on also here
crowd-sourced prompts, for variety. everyone on the list to participate sends in a prompt and they're randomly handed out - people could theoretically end up with their own prompt. my favorite prompt was "the lions are the least of our worries." imagine the variety of stuff like that you'd end up with if you let people submit ideas.
OR, on the reverse of that, have non-WAR participating memebers submit prompts.
I would be open to receiving a large pool of prompts to work with. I think the prompts were PERFECT, but it would certainly be easier if everyone contributed.
i completely disagree with the 'competitors only' voting. that's just a circle jerk. there are a lot of people that missed a chance to participate because of a limited number of slots, and there are, i assume, a lot of workshop members perfectly IN LOVE with writing and reading that are into following the competition but don't have the time/inclination to participate in months of strict writing. it just seems weird to say 'you didn't play, so you don't count.'
why don't you cap each poll at an odd number? that would eliminate the need for tie-breaking, too. say, 35 or 41 votes in each poll, then it's closed. it may or may not reach that - but i think in most cases it will. and it would also encourage MORE and timelier reading and participation if people knew they had to get on the ball if they wanted to be able to vote.
Maybe that's the case, but who voted that didn't participate so far? I mean, obviously its impossible to know without that person saying so, but I'd be interested in knowing who has been actively following this thread and voting, but didn't find the time to write in it (or just wasn't able to due to space).
A cap might be a good idea. I guess my thinking was that by limiting it to participants, that creates a cap on its own. I don't really think its a circle jerk to limit it to members. A circle jerk suggests its just one long self congratulatory pat on the back, when there are def. people whose stories are winning by a large margin and those that aren't faring well.
Plus I think participants have a better idea of how truly hard it was to write a story in a week like this, and are more likely to judge stories with that in mind whereas someone who's just watching from the outside might vote arbitrarily. Consider some of the stories submitted this week that were very ambitious, complex. To me, these stories were impressive due to the amount of time they were written in. I would never vote solely on that merit, but if both were written well, were interesting, followed the prompt, and one story ambitious whereas the other kinda played it safe, I might be more willing to give the ambitious story the nod simply because I would tend to think that one was harder to write in a week.
That last point was kinda scatter brained, ha. But just food for thought.
I didn't participate in WAR. But I read every story thoroughly and voted for those I thought were best. I voted on every poll, including Best Overall.
^ and THAT is what i'm talkin' about. matt committed to taking the time to do it, to read them all, and he doesn't stand to get anything out of it.
and writing a short story a week is also just what some people do. time is relative in creativity/productivity.
-quietly crawls into a hole-
Jk. Well, fair enough. Its good to see outsiders following through.
I agree with Manda. Plus, I'd rather have cheaters than too many limits, including on voters.
Hey @Matt, fancy contributing your voice to the sound bank? We don't have any New Zealander accents yet!
-holds breath until everyone just agrees with him-
I kind of wonder how voter turn out will be as this comes to a close. I bet the entire workshop will start taking notice when it comes down the final four.
(Please forgive my typos. I'm checking this on my phone and writing long posts is a severe pain in the ass.)
I see your point, Bill. I'd agree with you if it weren't for people like Matt, who is wholly comitted to WAR without being a participant. As far as I'm concerned, this is a community of dedicated fans of literature, and I should think they be allowed to take part in WAR whether they participate a writers or readers.
That said, combined with Avery's suggestion of having a separate WAR section on the site, it would be nice to have members more involved in the voting. Maybe with each matchup page, leave a mention to WAR readers about the things they should be looking at in each story (use of prompt, etc.)
I do understand that cheating can occur, but considering this is the first WAR, I guess we'll just have to trust each other. I haven't caught any signs of cheating going on anyway.
is it weird that i know absolutely nothing about typo, but i think i know which story is his?? i voted it as my overall favorite. like, i almost typed "look, i mean no disresepect, and i think your story is fantastic" but the thing is, there's NO WAY for me to guess, i have no background information on him -you, sorry, you, except that you are bill. i'm really excited to see if i'm psychic.
that has nothing to do with anything. except how psychic i may or may not be.
(please don't hold your breath, i'll totally give)
I think if anyone here has read my other stories, they might be able to spot mine, but we'll see. I sort of went out of my element a little due to word count.
I had a thought about the seeding issue. I wondered if maybe in the future we could try and pair people up in the first round by genre? Each contestant would give their genre of choice and then we would pair you that way. Naturally, by the end it would be a mixed bag.
Any thoughts about that?
hahaha, @Typo, if 9 out of 10 people agrees on something I'll surely be that 1 who just doesn't. Not because I want to be original or something. Majorities irritate me, cause most of the time it just isn't true that all 9 agree. One will do cause her boyfriend does, another one doesn't like to discuss, a third will just be too distracted for taking a real decision so he delegates...
Oh wait, you mean unanimity, then it's different.. Then I wouldn't agree with you, we'd just agree together, yay.
@typo - i don't think i've read anything by you. it's just pure psychicness.
@avery - i think prompts are gong to influence genre. like, if i get a prompt i think it could work sci-fi, or trailer parks, or zombies, or detectives, or magic, that's what i'll write. i don't know if there's a way to guess genre pre-prompt, and i think genre-jumping would be a good thing to try and use this whole thing for. something you never would have tried if it hadn't been for the prompt. there's been a lot of really creative usage of prompt, and if i make it to the next round i really want to try and be more creative.
@Avery, it could be a nice idea, or at least a cool variation.
Problem is, sorry, I don't have a genre of choice. But we could rotate!
you could get a panel of judges that are nonentrants with a set of guidelines on what they should look for. maybe even include some nonwriters. that'd be interesting, huh? i'd sit out a competition to do this.
@nikki - I would be okay with that. I would sort of miss the democracy of it. I like voting.
yeah, i see your point avery. but it'd be better for you as a writer. and the judges would have no interest in it other than to help make everyone a better writer by encouraging certain things. that said, i think it's fine the way it was done and seeded this time. so another competition ran the same way would be good.
I think the seeding worked out great. It gave the less experienced writers a chance to test theirselves against the most experienced, and there were a few really interesting anticipated matchups in between.
I'd definitely like to see some Avery or Kitts style prompts, or picture prompts or 3 AM Epiphany style prompts. User submitted prompts would be neat. I tend to dislike prompts that are very concrete as far as the plot goes, I agree with Amanda that the more vague prompts yielded more interesting interpretations.
I don't get the deal with the prompts, in the vein that people did or did not or how closely they adhered. I try to stay relatively well informed as far as what people are saying, and maybe I missed something but I thought there was really only one person bitching about the prompts. I don't think War could have been any better in that regard. Were writers, we participated in a competition, we were voted on.
Keep It Simple, Stupid applies here, and the model, still speaking on Prompts, was as good as it could be IMHO. Otherwise, just tell me what to write, outline my story, name my characters, etc, etc. In fact, just put your name on it. Writing by it's very nature is subjective. No two people will write the same thing and take the same things from a story. It is implicitly our job and in the case of War, our task to take out prompt and generate a story out of it.
YES, let's explore alternatives to the input of prompts from others. Great idea.
As far as voting. Seriously? IT"S VOTING! If you got spanked like me, it's because you didn't write well enough, or stick to the prompt well enough, or the other person WROTE A BETTER STORY (gasp!) or whatever. Again, Keep It Simple, Stupid applies. The proctor, in this case Utah, ensured that each story met the requirements for submission. He says their good, they go up, we vote. That meants that it WAS ALREADY DECIDED that the story met requirements and was otherwise fit for submission. If you feel otherwise, fucking vote accordingly!
The Workshop is where we go to improve and get constructive feedback. At least that's the idea I understood behind my $9 monthly contribution. War is to have fun and go up against other writers. It's the nature of THE WORLD that people are going to lose, no getting around that. Put your big boy/girl pants on and harden the fuck up.
Seeding, I have no informed opinion on, so it would be pointless to offer anything. The only alternative I can think of is randomly generated opponents. Pick them out of a hat or find some program. I don't care either way, I made an informed decision to participate in War, meaning that I understood as best I thought I could what would occur and my role in the whole process. Thus, I had a great time and would do it again in a heartbeat.
I'm not sorry that wasn't everyone's experience. There is no excuse. It's your fault if you didn't have fun. Don't come next time.
All that just to say I don't think War can be improved by anything anyone's griping about. We can try alternatives, but the more complicated it gets, the more tuned it has to be to run smoothly, the more prone to breakdown it gets.
Rant off.
Soapbox surrendered.
GOOD JOB UTAH! Let's do it again.
"fucking vote accordingly"
I liked that part a lot.
I think I just got a bit misty-eyed.
I LOVE YOU TOO, DAVE!
@Dave,
There was only ONE person that complained about adhering to the prompts, but I sort of made a blanket statement regarding that cause I didn't want to single anyone out.
Agree with all your other points. I think WAR is turning into something pretty interesting.
That was a very apt post Mr Dave, sir.
I also have no complain. Utah really doing a great job (the dude, not the state).
We could try variations though. Like kinky sex for couples. Without hurting ourselves or stuff.
I like where your goin with this Kila!
here we go. Another mangina thread LOL
Well, when i talked about adhering to the prompts, it was a case of 2 stories that were too close to call and what swayed it was one story stuck closer to the prompt. I suppose there's a philosophical debate here about being more creative with the prompt but that wasn't the case with this....case.
Conley, you werent the guy I was referring to if youre referring to what I referred to. You seem to "get" it.
I followed, read and voted. Personally I think it would be foolish to only limit yourselves to voting on your own work. We sign up for the workshop to read and learn from other writers. I felt I got a lot out of readin your stories especially because they were first drafts. To see what you can accomplish in such a short time and on a prompt not of your choosing is inspiring to me. It seems to me most of you know each others writing styles. I think that would make the voting slanted. I didn't know who wrote anything and I wasn't biased by friendships or any preconceived ideas of what a particular writer is capable of producing.
My two cents for what it's worth.
I also want to add that I may not be the best writer but I am an educated and avid reader. I think that applies to most of us on this site.
i think so far that everything is fine.
i know that the seeding is always an issue. the way it works in basketball is that they pick the top 62 out of HUNDREDS of teams across the nation. so just to get IN is an honor, and often tense, with many teams on the bubble. imagine if we had a tournament of 32 people, but we had 60 sign up, and only the best 32 got in? whatever your seed, you'd be happy to make it to the big dance.
as we've seen, there isn't that much difference here (talent wise) between a #1 and a #8. even more so than in basketball, i think anybody here can beat anybody. with NCAA basketball, the way teams get in is by (1.) winning their division (we don't have divisions here) so they get an "automatic bid" but (2.) the remaining teams are picked "at large" by a committee. that committee looks at strength of schedule (how hard were the teams they played) the RPI (a rating based on wins/teams) the team's record, and then picks. the best we could do HERE is go by your workshop story ratings, but then people wouldn't want to workshop stories, they'd just want to post up already polished work.
i think Utah did a great job of seeding.
i don't think we should set it up based on genre next year. it's whatever you've got, bring it. write SF, fantasy, horror, noir, literary, whatever. just write a great story.
so far, i wouldn't change much of anything. unless Utah gets exhausted by the prompts, which have been great so far.
all good, imo.
I think that's one great advantage of having people like you, Stacy, read the stories! Complete objectivity is almost impossible in a group where people tend to know each other's styles. I do hope more people who aren't in WAR get to vote by the end of the week. That way, close calls may become more interesting.
I've said my piece as the "one person bitching about the prompts" - you give a prompt you stick to the prompt. I don't think the winner should be who floated around the topic the best.
I think there should be a set of guidelines about voting too that should be adhered too. Some people voted on the best writing, some voted on best use of the prompt, and some voted on the best story. So nobody voted the same. People have different taste blah blah blah - those same taste will still come out if people all voted based on the same criteria and having a criteria would also lead to the prompt being acknowledged.
Otherwise let anarchy rule and just have people write whatever.
^curious, jason. what story/ies do you think avoided the prompt? i think the ONLY way a story could possibly be "disqualified" for not following the prompt would be if, for example, the prompt was "an elephant sits on a car" and there is no elephant and no car. make sense?
guidelines? you vote for the best story. period. for you, that may mean the best overall experience. for me, it may be the most immersive. for LK is may be the most pornographic. for Avery it may be the most touching. for Utah it may be best use of the prompt. there are no guidelines on how to vote. just vote with your head, your heart, your private parts, whatever works for you.
If you're voting for the best story period then there's no reason to adhere or even have prompts then because ultimately they matter nothing.
It's like saying, "Oh, what's your favorite sci-fi novel?"
"Easy - 'Gone With The Wind.'"
I came here for Dave's comment and it didn't disappoint.
When it comes to improvement I don't think there is anything to improve on.
For the most part how everything was run and handled was impressive.
Yeah, bitch about the prompts. I wasn't too fond of mine, but you work with what you got. You make the prompt your own, have fun doing it, and throw it out there. Seeing all the prompts, I can say they were good and workable. Over time I found that I did like my prompt and the story I wrote.
I joined this competition for fun, and to improve myself. This was even before the prizes were setup.
Don't tweak anything Utah, unless you already felt it was necessary.
"I came here for Dave's comment and it didn't disappoint."
LOL!!!
The thing is...I'm going to say this wrong...
I would have written the same story no matter the prompt. I wrote the way I always write. It's why everyone said, "I see Avery's!!" And, for example, Nikki wrote Nikki. We all have our own style, so in that way the prompt should not have held anyone back. It just gave you a new set of pawns to place in the stories you would have written anyway.
Please don't yell at me. I know I said that wrong.
YELL!
No, you didn't. You're right.
Just have flan.
