Theft Story Challenge 2014

Ryan:

It was a kind of wry joke. What actually happened was that I read stories at random, whichever ones were at the top of the list that time, and when I'd read about half of them, there were brilliant stories in my estimation and moderate ones, but none I wanted to rate really low. At that point I commented on the high standard. It turned out, though, that by chance the ones I'd not yet read included a few I really thought were pretty weak. So in my comment here I jokingly suggested I'd deliberately left them till last. It was chance.

On the points others have just made, I feel very strongly that readers should read them all, even if only skimming. Consider: you read a story and don't think a lot of it, but give it a 3 or a 4. That's three or four marks more than a story gets that you don't get round to reading till the challenge voting is over, yet find you really like. When I've submitted two or more stories, I've found some had been read by as many as thirty more readers than others. It may be the title, or the length. The next best, if you really can't read them all, is to stick to reading the ones at the top of the list, which is random and changes regularly, instead of selecting by title or anything else.

Different readers will allocate votes differently, but I give marks for the story being well-written; for it being factually correct and credible (except that a wild fantasy is fine, but must be internally consistent - and if, for example, a story set in England includes American terms not used in England, or an historical story includes things that couldn't have happened in that period, it gets marked down for carelessness); for it amusing or exciting me (so a purely F/M story or one about a punishment of a child won't rate as high as one that hits my particular buttons, but might still get a 7 or 8); and for originality - a novel take on the subject or a clever twist A well-written but unimaginative story with no surprise ending won't score above 6. A story that doesn't really seem to meet the requirements of the challenge - for example, in the Will challenge, one in which the will was an unimportant detail - will get very low marks however good it is otherwise. Finally, I use the whole range of marks. If you give the story you like least a 4 because you'd feel mean giving it less, all you're doing is reducing the credit the best stories get, so your best-liked story gets 6 more marks than the least-liked instead of 9 or 10.

I hope we can avoid getting into another squabble about this. I agree with both njrick and Guy. I think the MOST fair way is to read and vote on all stories, but realistically not everyone can do that and it should work reasonably well as Guy described, provided those who can't get through them all will take the ones they do read in random order rather than 'as loaded'.
Personally I prefer to keep my votes in a spreadsheet until I've read them all, then adjust to grade on a curve and spread out the scores from 1 to 10 before posting them (My average was 5.86). But to each his own. I trust everyone (or at least enough to give us an impartial result) will use whatever method they think is fair and honest. And if we can't get it perfect, I won't worry about it. The only way I could really 'lose', is if I came out of it with hard feelings instead of enjoying the great stories and friendly competition.

HI Bendover,

Thank you for clearing that up and my own apologizes as well. I read the thread just as I had gotten up.

Guy also made a valid point. I have read a few adult/adult stories which surprised me because I did like them. *shrug* well I have some time left to read the rest of the challenge entries.

I agree that it's not always possible to read all stories, When I can't read all, I'll give at least an "average to low" score to the others I haven't read so those stories don't lose too much ground to everything else simply because of my inability to read them. While this is a little unfair, it's less unfair than giving them no points whatsoever. Although, at least in theory, randomization would equal things out, a "random" reading of stories simply won't occur. Rather than reading randomly (although that is facilitated by a randomizing feature), many/most readers will read them "in order," or the shortest stories, or ones with "key words" in titles, etc, resulting in something other than randomized reading/voting. Since many/most reader/voters tend to give a minimum score of 4-5 when they do vote, the exclusion of the other stories from the voting gives a big "penalty" for the typically non-random choice on which stories don't get read. Just a suggestion here, but one that I think makes a lot of sense.

Ooh, another spreadsheet person! I thought I was the only one. I go ahead and assign scores at the time I read each story, but have been known to go back and tweak them. Not often though.

That opens up the whole scoring debate which takes place with every challenge and I thought there was general consensus not to open again.

It would be fairer then to allocate every story the same number of points just for entering, (say 100) and then when one is actually read, it would have points either added to the score it is is a positive experience for the reader or have points subtracted if the reader thinks less of it.....as opposed to the current scoring where a story that is not read gets penalised vs a story which is read but doesn't "float the reader's boat" (I think that was your phrase?)

Bottom line, as an author, I actually care less about the results as it is all so subjective, and actually more about the exercise in writing the story for the challenge and the comments which it generates for the times when the story makes a mark.

That's it in a nutshell, Gail, and is what these challenges are all about.

I'm not opening a debate. I merely made a suggestion - one that any individual member/reader/voter can choose to follow or not. I don't want a change in rules, or a change in how the scores are tallied, or anything of the sort. People who want a more 'fair' result, and believe my suggestion contributes to this, can choose to follow it.

A fair result? So this challenge is about comparing a bunch of stories and seeing which is best? Like comparing my piece of erotica with someone else's school-time comedy and saying one of us had a better grasp of the requirement and wrote a better submission than the other? Kind of like an exam or a competition where there is a level playingfield?

Hmmmm...maybe that works for the alpha characters on this board. As I said, i enjoyed the challenge of coming up with something to meet the challenge of The Challenge and see how others approached it; and hopefully gave some readers something to take away as well. Nothing more....

There is voting; 'winners' are declared. If you want to advocate a change to this format, you're welcome to make the case.

I'm not advocating any change (nor defending the status quo for that matter); I was merely making a suggestion to readers of how to operate within the existing format. I know that there are flaws in the system, particularly if the voting is viewed as determining which stories truly are 'best.' I have my own opinions, which I';ll keep to myself, on whether it comes anywhere close to accomplishing this.

It IS difficult to compare different genres - romance, comedy, 'crime and punishment,' erotica, fantasy, etc (although it is done for the Oscars, among other awards), not to mention the different kinds of "pairings," as has already been mentioned.

I also don't expect that I'll ever 'win' one of the challenges myself, and not because I don't think my work is good. I enter the Challenges - and read the entries - for pretty much the same reasons you do, as stated in your post. I think a lot of people (not all) do the same.