A question has occurred to me in the time I've been on this forum. Each month, there's 3 contests with open voting for members. Each month, there's somewhere between 10-15 votes cast, by my reckoning. I imagine, though could obviously be entirely wrong, that it's within the same cohort who vote every month. I tend to vote in each. I enjoy reading what other's post and notice little things that seem to click with readers, which I can try to at least consider in my writing. Here's the thing, though. Looking at traffic on site, there's many multiples of the dozen who vote visiting the forum regularly. My question, which people can obviously choose to ignore, is why people don't engage with the voting option. I find it somewhat confusing and come up with a few scenarios that might not at all be accurate. Do people view voting as contrary to principles of the creative process? Do they not see anything they want to choose? Are people simply not bothered to read entries? I'm not looking to call people out with this. Genuinely interested to hear what people think.
Interestingly, I probably wouldn't have even looked at this thread except for the double-post that grabbed my eye. Personally I just don't really think about contests much at all. I come here mainly to talk about writing and to critique and read crits. And to talk a lot of nonsense in the lounge. In fact there's something about the idea of contests that makes my brain shy away a little, and it's hard to pin down exactly why. I think it's because they feel a little artificial to me. I never liked the idea of writing to a prompt somebody else provided, nor of writing in a big hurry. For my own stories I take my time and develop them gradually, and the idea of trying to rush through feels completely alien to me.
New guy on the block, here, so take what I say with a grain of new-guy salt. In political elections I vote every time there's an election. Sometimes I vote against the worst candidate or issue because there isn't a good choice for me. But, I vote because the outcome has an effect, large or small, on my life and how I live it. The outcome of contests/voting in online venues such as WF have little, if any, effect on anything in my life, so I vote only if there is something I favor whether it be a well written and entertaining story here, a painting or sculpture on a visual arts site, a unique design for a cutting board on a wood working oriented site or just about any other type of membership website that interests me. When I don't vote it's simply because there is nothing there I consider worth voting for.
i suspect a lot of people don't realise the contest is their... unfortunately making them more visible takes daniel* and he's gone walkabout... so you're friendly neighborhood mods team arent really able to influence it much (* to be clear on that ive got limited admin access to run things day to day like komp and wrey had, but i don't have the full suite of admin powers that the owner has)
Curiously, my responses to both these points are identical. I haven't a clue what I'm doing. In college, I was the one pulling all-nighters to get assignments done. Still, at work, I work best with imminent deadlines. I've been entering contests here to get stuff written and trying to play loose with themes. Having monthly shorts and flash gives me a lot more writing done than maybe tomorrow. If I end up with a couple half decent, still a good return. Getting votes is heartening but not the be all. I might get started on that longer project I've been thinking about but the contests still give that chance to try different things. Makes perfect sense. I must resume putting my entries into workshop, which I haven't done for a while. Not sure about that. If a donkey like me can find it, it's not well hidden. Put a modest cash prize on offer and see if people don't find them. (Rhetorical purposes only)
Lol the funny thing is, when I was into stopmotion me and a few other guys created and ran a site* where we ran a monthly stopmotion contest and provided prompts, for exactly the reasons you just gave. Only once did I myself enter the contest, and I managed to crank out a halfway decent little film in a ridiculously short time. I took like 3 weeks to think up the idea, a week to make the puppet and the set, and I rushed home from work and did all the animation in one night just before the deadline. That remains the only complete film I ever made. And I totally understand the idea that once you've got even the roughest draft you can then tinker with it as long as you want after the contest. * That was before YouTube. There was nothing like free video hosting anywhere on the net, we had to buy a domain we could use for video hosting and do all the work ourselves.
In my past experience, stories that I’ve entered that have done well in the contests tend to get good critiques when I’ve shared them out on other writing websites. The contests are a good indication of whether your stories are ‘marketable’ or not based on whether they get votes or not. Also, the worst that could happen is you get no votes at all - that’s a far better alternative than having your baby ripped to shreds by an inconsiderate critic who, frankly, thought there was a whole lot of things wrong with your story. Negative critiquing is banned in the contests, this creates a more encouraging platform to those who submit, if not a little less frank. From, a reader’s perspective, people perhaps don’t have the time to read and vote for all of the short-stories posted. The contest is at its peak when there is a promptless contest and that’s the time when there are the most submissions. Sometimes, people who haven’t had time to read all the stories and want to know the score end up voting for the “catchiest title”. Tip: catchy titles are important as sometimes that’s all the vote is based on. I say this as an observer and voter of the contest as I’ve noticed that many times it’s the catchiest titles that trump the polls. I know that in the past when I have had to choose between two or three of my favourite stories, rather than toss a coin between them, I decided to opt for the one with the catchiest title instead. So what have we learned? That catchy titles stand out. Jokes aside, people who haven’t got the time to read through all the entries, can vote for the flash or poem contests instead as those submissions tend to be much shorter. I don’t understand why the level of traffic that these threads get don’t transmit to the polls, but it’s an indication that there is still a high level of intrigue.
Well, I never voted in a contest, and I read it. Actually I may have voted in one a long time ago, I don't remember. But like I said, the main reason I did look at the thread was because of the double-post and because it was created by somebody I think of as an online friend.
Made me smile! I know not everyone here submits to publishers but I imagine most do. I find the contests allow me examine what it is that impacts enough to choose one entry over another. To a limited degree, it puts me in the mind of those reading my submissions and, maybe, an inkling of what might work and what might not. Implementing it, obviously, is not straight-forward but I do think it has a value. It would be very interesting to see what result if a broader section took the option to vote, say dozens of votes cast rather than a handful. I know it's not exactly life-changing, but bringing zip and energy to writing is a potential offshoot.
