The box says check back often. Been here for six months never saw a writing event and wonder "What were they when they were?" and "Were they fun?" and "Why are they no more?" Too much work, too little participation. WHAT's the story?
Hey, Smith Reynolds - to answer you question, yes! The writing events we used to have on here were awesome!! What they were depended on which event it was. Let me explain:
First there was Thunderdome which you can still see evidence of on here, only it used to be more of an "event" in that there were more battles happening and a lot more people reading and voting on stories.
The basic idea of Thunderdome helped spawn the epic writing event "War" created by Utah and Avery of the Dead our old community managers (then called "defender of the people"). War was a massive event that lasted a good few months and originally comprised of 32 contestants. Although by its second year it had pulled in 64 contestants. This worked by using elimination brackets reducing numbers by half each round. Like Thunderdome it was prompt based and completely anonymous. And like the original Thunderdome you had to be workshop members to participate so that threads could be locked and stories protected.
Later we had "Battle" which was a 10-20 person writing event (again anonymous) but with everyone writing from the same prompt. This was quicker lasting two weeks and also run by Avery.
Also we had , "Flash Me" run by Chester Payne and Wicked Voodoo, which was a monthly prompt based flash fiction challenge voted for by community members. Johnathan Riley also started a monthlyprompt based poetry thread challenge.
All of these events above were community run events that took a lot of time and effort by the members for the pure enjoyment of it. They stopped because these members gradually left the forum. Avery of the Dead in particular was like the saint of writing events because she ran all 3 wars and numerous battles and that's no easy feat. And yes I miss her presence her very much :)
LitReactor ran three official genre based competitions: a sci-fi, a horror and a crime. All very successful and long events. I think they stopped because it also involves a lot of time and work and organisation.
Hope this helps!
I wouldn't say that the energy isn't there. Events just take a lot of time and resources to create and maintain, especially for a site with a relatively low number of staff members per community member. Avery did some amazing things during her reign, and I found that I wasn't quite able to match the time committment that she could when I was contemplating having to run similar events that she did.
I said it before, and while I won't speak for the current community manager, I would imagine this advice holds true: don't just wait for an event to happen. If you have an idea, pitch it. It's a lot easier to get motivated to work on an idea that the community has already shown an interest in. Just as well, the less work it is for the staff to get it off the ground, the more open they tend to be in providing resources to make it work.
You people are supposed to be the creative ones. Create!
Hey Nathan, I hope you don't think I was making comparisons, I wasn't! I wouldn't have the time to do what Avery did either! :)
Lots of good stuff here.
I'll say that there's an offical LR writing event in the works, similar to the previous ones, but like it's been said, they take quite a bit of undertaking. Haha, undertaking!? October? Halloween?
There were also frequent Flash Fiction Smackdowns. But that doesn't preclude the existence of community-created events either.
Interestingly enough, I came upon a prize that I think would be well-suited to a contest...will post today.
You're welcome! I appreciate that you're always pushing for more good stuff. Sometimes it's the demand for things that puts them higher on the priorities list.
What?! I forget to log in for...a couple years...and come back and find there are no more writing events?
And all my rowdy friends are gone?
What the hell, LR?
Hey Utah! I'm still here, I just don't talk much.
*hugs!*