Greenster Wrote: So, how would you market it?  On forum here, through social media?  Through our own pre and post chapter comments?

First chapter of each story will be hosted in a magazine of sorts. We get a few bigger authors to link to it and there you have a piece of marketing. 

Someone mentioned ranking by the upvotes on reviews to encourage them. I like that it also forces reviewers to take their time if they really want to get their chosen story to win. 

May Wrote: Someone mentioned ranking by the upvotes on reviews to encourage them. I like that it also forces reviewers to take their time if they really want to get their chosen story to win.

The concept of having just one winner is bad one. In trash race anyone would be winner once they got into rising stars or somewhere. But a lot of people just joined cause it was a fun way to encourage themselves to write something different and didn't care about winning.

Sake Wrote:

May Wrote: Someone mentioned ranking by the upvotes on reviews to encourage them. I like that it also forces reviewers to take their time if they really want to get their chosen story to win.

The concept of having just one winner is bad one. In trash race anyone would be winner once they got into rising stars or somewhere. But a lot of people just joined cause it was a fun way to encourage themselves to write something different and didn't care about winning.

There will be more than one. Just an FYI on that. And contestants will likely be able to win from several different criteria. 

I'd like to see something with a lot of freedom, there are a lot of different writing styles, and focuses such as genre, so I think something open ended to let everyone explore their strengths would be best. 

DrBuller Wrote:

Hello. Duck here. Together with a few others, there have been talks about opening up a writing contest in the next month or two.
For this, we have a few questions for you all.

• Would you be interested in participating in a user-run contest?

• Would you prefer for there to be a theme for the contest? (Think of it like what Trash Race did)

• What rewards would like to see for the winners?

• In what way would you like to be ranked? (This could be by votes, word-counts, secret panel of judges, overall popularity, etc)

Would love to hear feedback on this.

Updated information can be found on this discord server within a few days: https://discord.gg/SfxD5s2u

Sounds fun to me! Though if it's like writathon(I mean the word count)I most likely can't enter...

Also an interesting idea you could do is assign every person a random genre they must write their story based on, or give them a specific genre they've never made before. 

I believe the plan is for it to be a smaller wordcount than writeathon.

Asviloka Wrote: I believe the plan is for it to be a smaller wordcount than writeathon.

I hope so! 55,555 words is a lot for me since I'm always busy!

HappyCapybara Wrote:

Asviloka Wrote: I believe the plan is for it to be a smaller wordcount than writeathon.

I hope so! 55,555 words is a lot for me since I'm always busy!

Nah, will be about 20-30K likely. It is geared more towards the smaller and slower writers.

I was trying to find the old Dribble rules I used to work with back in The Writers Lair, but couldn't find anything on it, so I'll try and write based on memory.

1. I would be interested, but because of time concerns (being in the army,) I wouldn't be able to join at all.

2. Yes. Yes I very much would. Having a specific prompt to work on would make it very interesting to see people's interpretation of the subject and to see how they work out their stories.

3. Rewards, I'm not even going to talk about.

4. I'd say a mix of popularity and votes, rather than a panel. Having an audience critique the stories and then voting accordingly would be the best way to see which story is the best.

I think a short story short of theme would be cool 50k words or less with the winner being voted for by users and their main story being hosted on the front page for a free ad for a reward. I don't know if i'd participate because I don't think i could write something 50k words or less and be satisfied but the idea would be cool.

Another idea is random collabs. People sign up and are randomly assigned another participant to collab with. I feel this idea would bring authors closer together and could even help by putting less experienced with more. Or maybe they're both noobs and learn from each other. Word count limit as well but if the event lasts a month they should receive 2k word count per day that can be saved and used in different chapters etc... there are several problems with this idea such as time zones and schedule so this is more for authors with a lot more free time on their hands. so you could do two events. one with random collabs and single short story authors. By the months end a volume of work should be finished by the collab.

Zearth Wrote: I was trying to find the old Dribble rules I used to work with back in The Writers Lair, but couldn't find anything on it, so I'll try and write based on memory.

1. I would be interested, but because of time concerns (being in the army,) I wouldn't be able to join at all.

2. Yes. Yes I very much would. Having a specific prompt to work on would make it very interesting to see people's interpretation of the subject and to see how they work out their stories.

3. Rewards, I'm not even going to talk about.

4. I'd say a mix of popularity and votes, rather than a panel. Having an audience critique the stories and then voting accordingly would be the best way to see which story is the best.

Thank you for the post!

I would LOVE a contest that encourages more interaction between writers, like short collabs or minor ghost writing competitions, where we exchange prompts and then get to work. I specifically am itching to do that thing where we create characters and then write a story of them having deathmatches with each other. Two authors are usually paired. The best story is considered "cannon". I saw this down somewhere else, but I can't recall where. 

As for your specific questions:

• Heck yeah I would!

• Yes, I would. It would make things less confusing for me.

• Pft! The opportunity to compete in something other than a word count is good enough for me. 

• I think word count should not be a focus. I would like to be ranked on quality vs quantity. 

Marskidris Wrote: I think a short story short of theme would be cool 50k words or less with the winner being voted for by users and their main story being hosted on the front page for a free ad for a reward. I don't know if i'd participate because I don't think i could write something 50k words or less and be satisfied but the idea would be cool.

Another idea is random collabs. People sign up and are randomly assigned another participant to collab with. I feel this idea would bring authors closer together and could even help by putting less experienced with more. Or maybe they're both noobs and learn from each other. Word count limit as well but if the event lasts a month they should receive 2k word count per day that can be saved and used in different chapters etc... there are several problems with this idea such as time zones and schedule so this is more for authors with a lot more free time on their hands. so you could do two events. one with random collabs and single short story authors. By the months end a volume of work should be finished by the collab.

Hmm, from the feedback we have recieved, 25K would be a more acceptable word count. Personally, I have a story going where I do 1.5K daily, so I personally find a lesser word count more preferrable. Decision won't be just me though. Also front page space I fear is likely out of the question unless we get on a list, we plan to but that is frankly not concrete. I doubt we will recieve such from RR, it would then likely become an RR run contest rather then a user run at that stage. 


We do hope to get a few shoutouts in, but again nothing concrete yet. Collab is also in consideration but the fact that some may not have premium, some may have hteir own way of writing etc come in the way.  And yeah, I too fear the limit but, well nothing goes in trying right? Anyways, join the Discord if you want, you can just choose not to participate or remain a maybe. All suggestions are welcome!

Martin Wrote: I would LOVE a contest that encourages more interaction between writers, like short collabs or minor ghost writing competitions, where we exchange prompts and then get to work. I specifically am itching to do that thing where we create characters and then write a story of them having deathmatches with each other. Two authors are usually paired. The best story is considered "cannon". I saw this down somewhere else, but I can't recall where.

Way back in the day, deviantart did battle royales like this

@ZaqRCass Aw man. I would love for that to be introduced to a writing site such as this. It's fascinating to see how your character is depicted in the hands of another author. 

Verlin Wrote:

Marskidris Wrote: I think a short story short of theme would be cool 50k words or less with the winner being voted for by users and their main story being hosted on the front page for a free ad for a reward. I don't know if i'd participate because I don't think i could write something 50k words or less and be satisfied but the idea would be cool.

Another idea is random collabs. People sign up and are randomly assigned another participant to collab with. I feel this idea would bring authors closer together and could even help by putting less experienced with more. Or maybe they're both noobs and learn from each other. Word count limit as well but if the event lasts a month they should receive 2k word count per day that can be saved and used in different chapters etc... there are several problems with this idea such as time zones and schedule so this is more for authors with a lot more free time on their hands. so you could do two events. one with random collabs and single short story authors. By the months end a volume of work should be finished by the collab.

Hmm, from the feedback we have recieved, 25K would be a more acceptable word count. Personally, I have a story going where I do 1.5K daily, so I personally find a lesser word count more preferrable. Decision won't be just me though. Also front page space I fear is likely out of the question unless we get on a list, we plan too but that is frankly not concrete. I doubt we will recieve such from RR, it would then likely become an RR run contest then a user run at that stage. 


We do hope to get a few shoutouts in, but again nothing concrete yet. Collab is also in consideration but the fact that some may not have premium, some may have hteir own way of writing etc come in the way.  And yeah, I too fear the limit but, well nothing goes in trying right? Anyways, join the Discord if you want, you can just choose not to participate or remain a maybe. All suggestions are welcome!

is there a discord link above?

Marskidris Wrote:

Verlin Wrote:

Marskidris Wrote: I think a short story short of theme would be cool 50k words or less with the winner being voted for by users and their main story being hosted on the front page for a free ad for a reward. I don't know if i'd participate because I don't think i could write something 50k words or less and be satisfied but the idea would be cool.

Another idea is random collabs. People sign up and are randomly assigned another participant to collab with. I feel this idea would bring authors closer together and could even help by putting less experienced with more. Or maybe they're both noobs and learn from each other. Word count limit as well but if the event lasts a month they should receive 2k word count per day that can be saved and used in different chapters etc... there are several problems with this idea such as time zones and schedule so this is more for authors with a lot more free time on their hands. so you could do two events. one with random collabs and single short story authors. By the months end a volume of work should be finished by the collab.

Hmm, from the feedback we have recieved, 25K would be a more acceptable word count. Personally, I have a story going where I do 1.5K daily, so I personally find a lesser word count more preferrable. Decision won't be just me though. Also front page space I fear is likely out of the question unless we get on a list, we plan too but that is frankly not concrete. I doubt we will recieve such from RR, it would then likely become an RR run contest then a user run at that stage. 


We do hope to get a few shoutouts in, but again nothing concrete yet. Collab is also in consideration but the fact that some may not have premium, some may have hteir own way of writing etc come in the way.  And yeah, I too fear the limit but, well nothing goes in trying right? Anyways, join the Discord if you want, you can just choose not to participate or remain a maybe. All suggestions are welcome!

is there a discord link above?

Yes, in the first post.

Martin Wrote: I would LOVE a contest that encourages more interaction between writers, like short collabs or minor ghost writing competitions, where we exchange prompts and then get to work. I specifically am itching to do that thing where we create characters and then write a story of them having deathmatches with each other. Two authors are usually paired. The best story is considered "cannon". I saw this down somewhere else, but I can't recall where. 

As for your specific questions:

• Heck yeah I would!

• Yes, I would. It would make things less confusing for me.

• Pft! The opportunity to compete in something other than a word count is good enough for me. 

• I think word count should not be a focus. I would like to be ranked on quality vs quantity. 

Sorry for the late reply, your post got sandwiched between mine and I didn't see it

Thank you for the post! Collab are a great idea but doing them in larger groups could be hard. Something to consider. To the suggestion list it goes!

Verlin Wrote: Thank you for the post! Collab are a great idea but doing them in larger groups could be hard. Something to consider. To the suggestion list it goes!

collabs could be risky. If people are unhappy about the mixing they get, it can turn bad real quick. And doing it as a standard would also cost more in premium accounts