Not a whine (well maybe) - re official comps

[FrancesScott]

If they met in the summer it's good enough. No one rigidly polices that.

It would feel really weird to submit a general story that just happens to have one scene in summer. Not in the spirit surely?

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

I think the “the comps pull in readers” is because they are comps,

As I said not too long ago, I'm not sure the readers even know about the contests.

They scan categories, 'new' lists, author favorites, etc.

 

[iwatchus]

It would feel really weird to submit a general story that just happens to have one scene in summer. Not in the spirit surely?

If a theme of the story was remembering that summer or feeling good about summers in general because of that, absolutely. And I think some of the nude day entries were just relevant because someone got naked at some point. In other words, 99.7% of all stories on this site would fit. I did appreciate the effort to make it a little more relevant that that.

 

[Voyeurkenneth]

Let's start a petition for an annual WIWAW Contest.

Half-jokingly, I think a contest for data-driven pieces would be so interesting to read. The entries would read like a scholarly article, covering stats, methodology, research, hypotheses, data caveats--about anything related to erotic stories.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Those are genres. Personally I’d be fine with comps along those lines. You have much more flexibility writing a cop story, or a sport story, than one that focuses on April Fool’s or Nude Day.

You can argue the toss on Summer Lovin’ or Winter Holidays. Halloween at least has multiple options. But April Fool’s and Nude Day seem very narrow.

Someone mentioned the On The Job event. It probably sums up my view to say:

“All of the story must take place in a work environment” - way too restrictive

Vs

“The story must center on a workplace, but can have scenes outside of that context if they help tell the story” - that works for me

But the contest rules aren't as narrow as you are saying.
You seem to think the contests are narrow pigeon holes, they aren't.

 

[SimonDoom]

I generally agree with you but you consistently assume Laurel and Manu understand what users (readers) want. I find that strikingly naive. Most site owners continue to do whatever they think made the site successfully initially with little understanding of what would actually make the product better in any sense of the word

This is my attitude about that. I don't know for sure that they know what they're doing. But it seems somewhat more likely than not to me that they do, after 25 years of doing this and still maintaining the number 1 erotica website in the world. So in the absence of good evidence to the contrary, which we almost never have, I'm going to assume that there's some sort of decent reasoning behind why things are the way they are, including the themed contests.

More cynical minds may think I'm being naive. I'm OK with that.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

It’s the robustness of this assertion that I’m not clear about. Do people not read on Lit except when Nude Day stories are published?

I think the “the comps pull in readers” is because they are comps, not because they are April Fool’s stories. An open comp would draw people just the same IMO. Absent any data (and I agree that Laurel and Manu don’t employ a team of data scientists, operating much as anyone else on this thread) my hypothesis has as much standing as any other one.

People read lit all the time, but stories entered into contests get significantly more views than non-contest stories.
Something is driving that.

They've had monthly unthemed contests.
The people who have access to the data give them short shift.
Those same people robustly support the themed contests.
I'd say that evidence supports my position.

 

[Erozetta]

I couldn’t disagree more. This upholds the fiction that the comps are fair. I read here long before I wrote. The comps are just like anything else where you get “the public” to vote, they are popularity contests. Some excellent stores occasionally win, but this is far from typical.

I’m not whining about this, there is no good alternative. But appealing to objective fairness in the context of comps isn’t a strong argument.

I guess writers fall into two groups. Those who are happy to comply with comp restrictions in order to get the exposure, and those who aren’t. I suspect this is the same divide as between those happy to write to an audience, and those who hate that idea.

I suppose that just rules out comps for me. Thing is, I’m not unique. Other authors will feel the same. What you get is a perpetuation of the status quo by those who are comfortable with it. That feels lazy and boring.

Someone else (not you) argued ‘what’s different between a non-themed comp and every day on Lit?’ Rather obviously, the dedicated list of stories that persists over time, unlike virtually everything else here.

I never said the comps were fair. I said it gave readers and authors a fair focus on how to grade. Winter holiday theme but your story is set on the 4th of July? Readers will rightfully down vote. Valentine's contest but your story features an abusive relationship masquerading as love? Will probably be down voted, fairly if it's in romance, perhaps unfairly if it's in erotic horror.

Without that sort of focus, a dark story would never place above a super fluffy romance while the Halloween contest allows for all sorts of horror and darkness to shine above the romance themes at times.

There is no objective fairness in any competition, it's purely by the whim of the readers and any shenanigans that might be pulled on their behalf.

I enter competitions and events when the theme catches my interest, not to win or get recognition, but because I happened to have an idea that fit the theme. The last thing I entered was April Fool's because a story I wrote ended with the MMC pulling a trick on himself without realizing it, it fit the theme by accident, not intent.

I only have two other events I'm interested in submitting to this year, and I don't know if I'll manage both of them because I'm about to move, which is really gonna cut into my writing time. Neither are contests.

The contests are fun to toss something into if you've got something that suits it. But writing specifically for the contest absolutely blows.

I cannot look at any category or theme and go, "Yeah, I'm gonna write to that idea now." I write the story then figure out where it goes, and sometimes it fits an event or a contest, so I toss it into the pile and move on to the next story that may or may not fit upcoming themes or contests.

And I did mention that a theme less contest is no different than any other day here. To have a contest with no theme would mean running it for only a single day for the entry period, or ending up with a "dedicated contest list" of about 6,000+/- stories if it runs for roughly the same time contests run for, making it no different than any other story list on the site. The themes cut the list down to about 200 +/- stories in most cases, which makes the list more beneficial than just doing a tag search of "Christmas" across all stories on Lit and ending up with thousands of results.

There is a certain logic behind the themed contests which are intentionally exclusionary in order to create a sense of "special" around the contest entries. Without the exclusionary theme, the lists serve no more purpose than the tag search.

The other aspect is that if you want the viewer boost from the contests, the story you enter doesn't have to win. With a on-themed contest, the only stories that will see those boosts from contests are the winners.

 

[NotWise]

I can cope with Halloween. I can kind of cope with Valentine’s. But April Fool’s? Nude Day? Summer Lovin’? Winter Holidays?

I feel we have some arguments here which are along the lines of: it’s always been that way. It’s kind of staid and stale in my own personal opinion. I say that as a reader as well as a writer.

To each their own. Summer Lovin' is my favorite. Winter Holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Hanukkah, etc) is very popular. April Fools is a problem, but it was a challenge, and I wrote one of my best stories (IMHO) for that contest.

If you don't want to write something for an existing contest, then fine. The contests are meant to be fun for readers and most participants. I think the themes are also meant to limit the size of contests, and to give a common basis to compare the entries.

Without the theme, the contest size could be huge, overwhelming the readers with sheer size, and confusing them with unpredictable content. I doubt any reader wants to pick stories off a list of a thousand stories with miscellaneous content. They get that every day from the New list.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

It would feel really weird to submit a general story that just happens to have one scene in summer. Not in the spirit surely?

If they meet in the summer and that is the start if the relationship it's a summer time story.
Do substantive events happen in the summer?

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Winter holidays can be almost anything from Turkey Day to New Years and beyond, including some winter sports.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Do substantive events happen in the summer?

Summer weddings are HUGE!!!

Also good for family reunions.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

We all approach our art differently. I want to write, not to write to order. But I realize some may take a more relaxed approach, or even like such restrictions, seeing them as a virtue. But does every comp have to be so narrow? Why not make two of them open to any theme. I’d drop April Fool’s and Nude Day and replace them with open comps.

If you just want to write, why worry about contests at all?

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Summer weddings are HUGE!!!

Also good for family reunions.

I was referring back to his question, do substantive events in the relationship happen in the summer? If so it's a summer time story.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

To each their own. Summer Lovin' is my favorite. Winter Holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Hanukkah, etc) is very popular. April Fools is a problem, but it was a challenge, and I wrote one of my best stories (IMHO) for that contest.

If you don't want to write something for an existing contest, then fine. The contests are meant to be fun for readers and most participants. I think the themes are also meant to limit the size of contests, and to give a common basis to compare the entries.

Without the theme, the contest size could be huge, overwhelming the readers with sheer size, and confusing them with unpredictable content. I doubt any reader wants to pick stories off a list of a thousand stories with miscellaneous content. They get that every day from the New list.

I think this is probably the best argument against unthemed contests.
Without a theme, you're basically just saying "every story submitted on Lit between date x and date y".
What's the point of that? What about that would engage a reader? It's just another day on Lit.
Why would Laurel and Manu want the hassle for that?

 

[Erozetta]

So how come so many literary prizes are for non-themed work (or focus on genres, like SciFi)? There are comps outside of Lit and most of them don’t seem focused on the Lit themes.

Genres are still a focus point for a contest, not a free-for-all.

In fact, a story theme over a genre is less limiting than a genre based contest. You can write an alien abduction Thanksgiving story and enter it in the winter holidays contest, but you can also enter a Hallmark romance, a Krampus horror, or a latex laden bondage story. The themes are pretty loose.

Winter Holidays - Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's all apply, but so does happenings leading up to those holidays.

Halloween - all things horror and monstrous go hand in hand with costume parties, ghosts, and apple bobbing romances.

Nude day - all things nude apply. It doesn't have to be about the specific day, just a character being bared to the reader.

April Fool's - Your guess is as fucking good as mine, because anything tricky and/or amusing seems to rub people the wrong way no matter what you write, lol.

Summer Lovin' - heat and sunlight seem to be preferred, but I'd love to see something based on a summer storm of a relationship. Is your story set on Earth? Who cares as long as it has some semblance of happening in the summer months wherever you are.

Valentine's day - Everything sweet and loving easily applies here, but it doesn't even have to be loving. "My Bloody Valentine" would fit this theme just as well as any love story.

 

[iwatchus]

I don't write T/I stories, but the family gatherings of Winter Holidays seems like a perfect setup for incest stories. Or wives cheating with their in-laws for LW or at an office party. Or someone dancing on the table naked at a NYE party for E&V. Or the holidays could be a perfect backdrop for any of the romantic categories -- see Hallmark movies.

I think there is a pretty broad range of stories that can fit in each theme. Sometimes it is fun to write to some constraint.

I probably won't enter another contest because of the trolls. But I haven't decided for sure. I enjoyed writing it.

 

[FrancesScott]

Do substantive events happen in the summer?

And if substantive events happen at Halloween and Christmas as well…?

 

[Kelliezgirl]

And if substantive events happen at Halloween and Christmas as well…?

Then make it a Halloween or a Christmas story.
You are WAAAAAAYYYYY over thinking this.

 

[FrancesScott]

Then make it a Halloween or a Christmas story.
You are WAAAAAAYYYYY over thinking this.

I’m not. The comp rules say that if you take a regular story and just happen to add a bit of summer “the readers wil punish you for not being in the spirit of the comp.” A forty thousand word story in which there is a two thousand word scene set in Summer would seem not to be in the same spirit.

 

[Erozetta]

I’m not. The comp rules say that if you take a regular story and just happen to add a bit of summer “the readers wil punish you for not being in the spirit of the comp.” A forty thousand word story in which there is a two thousand word scene set in Summer would seem not to be in the same spirit.

Good news, at 40k words very few people will actually finish the story to vote, and those that do will likely vote highly.

Bad news, if you enter the contests to win, you're gonna be sorely disappointed more often than you won't be.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

I’m not. The comp rules say that if you take a regular story and just happen to add a bit of summer “the readers wil punish you for not being in the spirit of the comp.” A forty thousand word story in which there is a two thousand word scene set in Summer would seem not to be in the same spirit.

Do you think the average reader bothers with the rules?

 

[StillStunned]

Am I the only one who thinks the themes are chosen for calendar events spaced about two months apart? And for that reason alone they're unlikely to change?

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Am I the only one who thinks the themes are chosen for calendar events spaced about two months apart? And for that reason alone they're unlikely to change?

I think they could change a little. I suspect very few people would mind April Fool’s turning into "On the Job".
But you are certainly correct that the timing isn't going to change.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

This is my attitude about that. I don't know for sure that they know what they're doing. But it seems somewhat more likely than not to me that they do, after 25 years of doing this and still maintaining the number 1 erotica website in the world. So in the absence of good evidence to the contrary, which we almost never have, I'm going to assume that there's some sort of decent reasoning behind why things are the way they are, including the themed contests.

More cynical minds may think I'm being naive. I'm OK with that.

Such faulty reasoning, Simon.