Past & Future Story Challenge 2014

I certainly hope you keep the challenge. This time the stories have lived up to expectation.
The more I read, vote and comment on some, the quality and the creativity of the writing is quite evident. It is the only time we can read several dozen stories all with one theme.

I fully agree CP. The imagination that went into some of these stories is fantastic.

We're a community, a family, a one big (usually fairly) happy family. People have opinions, which they express, because it's a place people feel comfortable saying what they feel. I know that I do (just in case no one noticed). People here do like the challenges, and want to participate fully, despite the intrusion of "life." We don't always agree on exactly how to we'd like to see things run.

BUT, despite any disagreements among members, I'm pretty sure that just about everyone wants to see the challenges continue, AND will accept any decision by the admins on how to run things, because, after all, they (flopsy & Februs) ARE the ones who devote the time and energy to make things happen.

Am I right, folks?

Absofreakinlutely.

Can I get a witness? Amen!

I've really enjoyed the two challenges I've entered, and I'm kicking myself for not entering them before then. If we did limit the amount of entries per person to one and imposed a maximum word count, then I don't think that would be a bad thing at all. There's no limit on how many stories a person can write and submit for inclusion on the Library overall and there's also no word limit on those (I think I've got one that is pushing 20,000 words, and I think that's novella length in the world of publishing), so if someone writes more than one story for the challenge and/or writes one that exceeds the maximum word limit they can still have it loaded on the Library, just not as part of the challenge. Part of a challenge is not just trying to write on a specific theme, but also thinking about how many words you need to tell that story. I regularly enter another contest which limits the stories to one person and no more than 1500 words for each story.

Seegee makes some good points there. Also, I imagine a lot of the stuff composed for challenges will go on to be part of ebooks in LSF Publications. Challenges can only be good for the site and imo are well worth keeping going.

I hope the suggestion that the Challenges be discontinued is not a serious one. As an author I enjoy receiving comments from readers who do not normally read my stories, and as a reader I enjoy discovering an author whose work I was not previously familiar with. It could be argued that this should occur anyway in the normal course of events, but the challenge of reading the Challenge entries accelerates the process.

I would not be averse to a maximum word limit, but if some authors/readers prefer longer stories, why not have two categories: one for short stories (e.g. less than 4,000 words), and the other for longer stories? Readers could then decide whether to try to read all the stories in both categories, or just the one category (which does not preclude the option of reading some stories in the other category).

I finished reading all the stories a few hours ago. The quality and inventiveness of some of the stories is quite amazing!

I have a number of horror stories published in anthologies. Most of the publishers give a maximum word count of 2500 to 3500. However, that doesn't work for everyone and everywhere. Perhaps there's to much 'The Sky Was Blue; The Grass Was Green.' (descriptive data)

If you all look at the Author List, you'll notice that there are 29 pages. Most of the listed so-called authors have 0 stories submitted, 1, 2, 3, 5... etc... some with poems totaling 0,1,2,3... etc.... Other 0,1, 2,3... etc.... The main authors (I call them) are the ones with the most stories submitted that eventually appear under the Latest Loaded. I know damn well that the 0 submitted are not the ones writing for the challenge. Therefore, the main authors were the ones keeping the story count above 20. Probably submitting more than one, too. It's called rise to the occasion. And they did. Yes, I mentioned 1 story per entry and a word count, but now I see the other side of the coin.

I would guess most of the so-called authors with 0 stories, 1 or 2 poems, 1 or 2 'other' are not even with the LSF any longer, or they just decided to just plain read. That helps tremendously, too. It seems after each challenge there comes a part of the forum with debates on how it should be run. I feel bad for Flopsy and Februs at times. It's free and it's the best on the web. Thanks to the 'main authors', Flopsy and Februs, this place stays alive and well.

The debates occur even during the challenges, and they are the same old debates almost every time.