An Act of Revenge Story Challenge 2017

I think SpankedJenny speaks for a lot of us (all of us?). Is this not what the Challenge set out to achieve? Alef's post, immediately above, summarises my views precisely, although much more eloquently than I could imagine. So F&F, please rethink your decision.

Well said Alef and I totally agree with every point you are making.

I've participated in a couple of challenges although not the last one. For me the challenges represented a way of writing on new subjects and/or using scenarios that I may not have otherwise come up with.

I'll be very sorry to see them go and would like to thank flopsy and Februs for all the work they've put in to make the challenges so successful in the past.

What Alef said!

What Alef said x2

I regret having raised an issue with the scoring procedures because the result has been that Challenges are not being continued. I liked the Challenges because they encouraged me to write. I also liked being part of the group offering my stories.

I wish we could still have Challenges!

Totally agree.

I hadn't contributed to this thread, as I felt the scoring procedure was perfectly fine. And I always enjoyed the Challenges, reading the entries no less than contributing my own. So I'm really sorry that they're being discontinued. Maybe one day they'll be reinstated? Hope so!

I always loved those challenges even if I didn't have time to enter. Writing in a directed way helped me improve as a writer.

I missed last fall's Challenge for various reasons (the good one was being on a Caribbean cruise during part of it), but I believe that the lowest rating I've ever given a Challenge entry is a "4."

Most of my ratings tend to be in the "6-to-8" range, as I recall...

--C.K.

I wanted to weigh in on the challenge. The thing I liked most about them was the feeling that through the diversity of story offerings, we, together were a team. Each one was part of something that as a whole was a challenge that readers were free to enjoy and comment on if the wanted too. Just my two cents. Thanks to Flopsy, Februs and staff who worked diligently to make challenges a reality.

Another reason for regretting the demise of the Challenges is that they encouraged comments. Any month that included a Challenge always scored higher on its comments total.

And - as I'm sure my fellow-authors will have noticed - the comments tally has been declining disastrously of late. For the past four months it's fallen well below 1,000 - something not seen since May 2010, when the membership stood at barely 25% of what it is now. A far cry from the glory days of 2012/13, when we once exceeded 5,000 comments in a single month....