Picture Story Challenge, August 2011

Don't I get women in pink rabbit outfits??????

Maybe something is wrong with me, because none of this controversy even occurred to me. I write, I enter, I vote, and enjoy the results, whether its me, (which I doubt) or someone else. I read every story whether it's my preference or not, because that's not what its about, at least not in my book.
Lastly, I will be very dissappointed if this is the last contest. I like the stimulation of not only the competitiveness, but the fact that the picture always leeds me in a direction I wouldn't have though of in the first place.

Well for me I hope the challenges continue because I like the, er, challenge. The voting scheme isn't perfect but it's good enough, and the reporting protocol of "top six" attempts to strike a balance between reward and discouragement. Tastes vary so widely here that I suspect that there is a very wide vote distribution, with the winner getting what, less than 5% of the total vote? (Have to check this). I mean I have a few quibbles with details (No! it should be top ten!) but generally I say--- carry on.

Now I have to make a confession here. I'm competitive by nature. Can't help it, I'm wired that way. So when I see "contest", if I enter, it's to compete as best I can. But that only means that I take care with the stories and edit and re-edit to hopefully get them right. If voters don't like them anyway, there's nothing I can do about that, so whatever, at least I know I put out a quality product as I envision it.

So I suppose it's half true contest and half product showcase. At the end when all is revealed and stories are associated with authors, the readers can see whose author page they want to investigate further.

If something is wrong with you, the same thing is wrong with me. I think you hit it spot on!

Yes, what Corncrake said...

There is no contradiction between it being a contest and it being fun! If it's both, it can be competitive but with good humour and not taken too seriously. I agree that I take extra care with competition stories because it's a competition and that makes them better. I appreciate the comments received and if I get in the top six, that's great, but I don't really want to know where I finished otherwise. The difference between 30 out of 60 and 36 wouldn't interest me and I agree - to finish last or nearly last would hurt quite a lot of people and I wouldn't like it.

I do think people who don't manage to read all the stories (at least far enough to decide this isn't their kind of story) should cancel all their votes, or otherwise it's blatantly unfair. If there's a groundswell that there's too much to read, we can limit the length (say to 4,000 words) and/or limit the number of entries from any one person (say to two).

I enjoy the contests because the prompt (picture or whatever) is a challenge and it's healthy for me to think a bit more about the audience - and also because there are so many good stories to read!

I have read them all,
commented on them all,
ENJOYED them all (Every Genre)
Been very impressed by the high standard of them ALL
and really do not give a Cat's Ass who is declared a "Winner" by votes or other method of selection

THE REAL WINNERS HERE WERE THE MEMBERS FORTUNATE ENOUGH TO GET THE HIGH LEVEL OF ENTERTAINMENT AND FUN FROM ANY OR ALL THEY HAVE READ AND ENJOYED!

Author's Please Note!!! in the readers eyes you are ALL winners!

Thank you all for the hard work you put in, and long may you all carry on!!!

There now - the final word.

The final word is ....wait for it....keep waiting...ok here it is...

"Read lots, write lots and comment more but most important is to have fun!"

For some reason I recognize this speech but have no idea why. God save our challenges!

The intent of my original comment was not to stir up a hornets nest of controversy. I simply would prefer to see the entire results of the contests in order to make comparisons since I am an analytical person by nature.

It would be interesting to see, not only how my story(s) did, but also to see how others did as well. For example did M/F stories do better or worse in the voting than M/f stories? How well do M/M stories do? How do new authors do compared to those who have been writing longer? What genre is most popular?
Does everybody writing on a similar theme (challenge) have an effect on the story types? And so forth.

Obviously to do that would require that the entire results of the voting be available and I personally didn't see any compelling reason why they shouldn't be. I'm sorry if I made anybody angry but I almost always think that freedom of information is better than restriction.