Contest Ideas?

[Whispersecret]

Yeah, I know. I'm like running amok with the NEW THREAD button.

I was thinking that we've seen all the holidays now as themes for contests. I don't know about you, but I'd like to see something different.

Perhaps it could be like that Taboo game, where you try to make your teammates say the word "school," but you can't use "teacher," "books," "learning," "grades," "principal," etc. in your description. Perhaps the stories would have to adhere to the "winter holiday" theme, but you wouldn't be able to have, say, Santa Claus, shopping, or mistletoe in your story. Something along those lines.

Whaddaya think?

Also, I'd like some lead time from the management. Like a month. Something like, "We're having a Fill in the Blank Contest. We will accept submissions for it starting December 1st."

 

[Route66Girl]

Contests

I haven't entered a contest yet, but maybe someday when I'm feelin' ambitious...

As for the idea of a winter-themed contest, I don't see why not. Has a lot of potential.

lol- actually, the way you worded the idea made me think of people trying to put on a school Christmas play without Jesus involved, so it would be non-offensive to non-Christian members of the community. Remember that South Park episode, anyone?

I also second having an announcement of forthcoming contests before they actually begin. Preparation time is a powerful ally to pen-happy procrastinators.

 

[Weird Harold]

I was thinking that we've seen all the holidays now as themes for contests. I don't know about you, but I'd like to see something different.

Perhaps something like Eroticstories.coms story challenge contests could be done. Start with a challenge by Laurel or Manu stipulating five to ten story elements that have to be included and possibly as word count limitation.

Set a date for submission and a way of determining the winner. (votes alone wouldn't work because not including all of the required elements should lower the score)

The winner of the first challenge sets the requirements for the next challenge.

 

[Whispersecret]

I think that sounds interesting, WH. Who would judge? Perhaps Laurel would consider appointing an author panel of judges?

An odd thought--whoever was in charge of the contest should have the author earmark the places where the required items appeared so the reader wouldn't have to search. Perhaps having the items in all caps, which could be switched to normal upper and lower case upon posting.

 

[deliciously_naughty]

Whisper...I think you should email laurel...I'd like to see more than the monthly contest and survivor contest happen. Your idea sounds fun.

 

[Weird Harold]

I think that sounds interesting, WH. Who would judge? Perhaps Laurel would consider appointing an author panel of judges?

An odd thought--whoever was in charge of the contest should have the author earmark the places where the required items appeared so the reader wouldn't have to search. Perhaps having the items in all caps, which could be switched to normal upper and lower case upon posting.

I've served as a judge for one of ES's contests. The contest moderator e-mailed me and asked. I was provided with a checklist -- rather like a ballot -- that laid out the criteria for judging.

As for the Judging these are the categories.
A Plot
B Dialog
C Realism
D Characters
E Sex scenes
F Originality
G Technical aspects
H Included base information
I Overall impression (counts as double points)


Here are the Criteria:
It must take place for the most part at a Fair, Circus, or Carnival.
It must have a character named Crazy Joe or Crazy Jo.
It must have twins, Pat and Chris identical or fraternal your call.
It must have a dog called Killer. Any breed will do.
One more thing, someone must get or have a tattoo with a Crow and a Heart.

Each section was graded on a 1-10 scale to give a total possible score of 100.

It might be possible to devise a script that would survey the general readership to avoid the hassle of selecting judge and apportioning the workload.

In the contest I judged, every judge sw all ten entries. In a later contest, each judge only judged five stories and then rejudged the top three scoring stories out of about thirty entries.

I don't think we would want to copy exactly ES's contest and procedures, but the basic concept of "story challenge" is worth pursuing.

 

[Whispersecret]

I'd sure like to see what kind of quality we could encourage if we had a panel of judges scoring, instead of the general readership. What does everyone else think? Are there people who would be willing to judge entries?

Laurel, how many entries could we expect to get? I imagine it would be less than the usual non-monthly contests, if only because there are more specific requirements."

 

[deliciously_naughty]

Has anyone pmed Laurel about this? Does she hang out here enough to see this thread?

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Whisper, Harold - count me in!

 

[jon.hayworth]

For my two pence worth (approximately 5 cents US ) I think it sounds a great idea.

The trouble with contests at the moment is that the voting is often highly idiosyncratic. I doubt whether anyone reads all the entries and one might suspect that some votes are cast for "my friend" (or worse still against a story to do my friend a favour) rather than on the story's merit.

However I do wonder how easy it will be to get a panel of judges who will be willing to wade through what may turn out to be thousands of entries.

If each entry is say ten stories on given themes - if only 100 contestants complete the assignment, that will still be a 1000 stories for the judges to read.

One problem is that even the wheat cannot be sorted from the chaff mechanically - initially I thought to myself how about using the spell checker to pick out totally unedited stories. But take a look at how many versions of English there are and it is not feasible.

However count me in.

jon

 

[deliciously_naughty]

Again, I just want to ask if Laurel has seen this thread. Until she sanctions it, we don't actually have a contest.

 

[JAYCE73]

Verry very hardcore erotica

Idea, See who of us can write a truly cum in your pants, woody rising HARDCORE erotic story, three hundred words or less. the catch, you MUST NOT USE ANY PROFANITY!
No fucks, shits, ass's, pussy's, cock's, no slangs. Just a strait back in the day, SEXY BEAST!
Let's see who got skills!

 

[Quasimodem]

Originally posted by Weird Harold
Quoting one of ES's contests

Here are the Criteria:

It must take place for the most part at a Fair, Circus, or Carnival.
It must have a character named Crazy Joe or Crazy Jo.
It must have twins, Pat and Chris identical or fraternal your call.
It must have a dog called Killer. Any breed will do.
One more thing, someone must get or have a tattoo with a Crow and a Heart.

Count me out. It sounds too much like my old job:

Customer Problem.
Product Name.
Product Promise.
Customer Solution.
Product Proof.
Repeat Product Promise.
Repeat Product Name.
Push for Product Purchase.
[Some Products] Identify Product Location.


I came to Lit because I wanted to be creative

 

[Whispersecret]

Jon - I doubt there would be thousands of entries. I doubt there'd even be forty. How many Halloween entries were there? Also there would only be one set of criteria. I would also put a maximum number of words.


DN, not sure if she's seen it. Maybe I should forward it to "the moderator," who is her, I think. Gads, what grammar.

Jayce. Slow down. As naughty pointed out, there's no contest yet. We're JUST TALKING about it. LOL.

Oh, Quasi. I can understand your take. However, sometimes I find that I'm at my most creative when someone gives me boundaries. I often rise to the challenge of pushing those boundaries and doing something DIFFERENT but still within the rules.

Besides, I don't want to compete. I was thinking about judging. That's a helluva lot easier than critiqueing.

 

[Quasimodem]

I just did a little research and have come to one definite conclusion.

We should all be VERY careful about the demands we place on Laurel, for the time being.
I counted back on the new list to Oct. 31 when my latest story ( Adv.) was published.

324 stories in 5 days have been published!

Even if Laurel doesn't read them all that thoroughly, she MUST at least skim them, to be certain no Extreme, or Pedo, etc. get published in the rush.

If it were I, they would have taken closer to 324 days!

I have a life. Not much of one, it is true, but still a life.

Otherwise, I get: [see gif]

 

[jon.hayworth]

Quasi! - counting stories - that is sad. However I did notice that on Nov 2nd New stories for that day filled page 1 of the New Story Index and on Nov 3rd they filled over three quarters of the page. My excuse - I was looking for my latest offering ABDUCTED.

Jayce73, I believe that your idea has some merit. - Last time the idea was floated no one was interested - but who knows.

Do you realize that this was the challenge John Cleland set himself and the result was that Erotic Classic "The Memoires of Fanny Hill". - If we adopted your idea I would propose that it was called "The John Cleland Challenge". pssst don't tell Laurel - Cleland only made £20 (approximately $30) on the whole book.

Seriously though a "John Cleland Challenge" would be a name that give such a competition an aura of prestige and the competing authors a claim to their writing being worthy of recognition as a legitimate literary genre.

jon

 

[Weird Harold]

We should all be VERY careful about the demands we place on Laurel, for the time being.
I counted back on the new list to Oct. 31 when my latest story ( Adv.) was published.

324 stories in 5 days have been published

A very good point, which is why I referred in passing to a "challenge story moderator" taking care of recruiting judges and managing the contest details.

I would suggest that Laurel's involvement be limitd to setting the challenge criteria for the first challenge and posting all entries on the same day. ES dosn't post challenge stories until after the contest is judged, but I think the readers should have some sort of voice in the contest results -- perhaps by using the average vote as a multiplier against the judging results.

For example, ten judges give a story an average score of 98 and the voters give it a rating of 4.2 for a final score of 411.6 out of a total possible of 500.

 

[deliciously_naughty]

Harold you have a great idea. Can I nominate you to be the moderator? Let's figure out what we want, have a story mod in place and judges signed up that way if Laurel wants to roll with it she'll only have minimal work to do. What do you guys think?

 

[Whispersecret]

Ya know, Quasi got me thinking. I'm not sure I'm all that crazy about the mandatory item idea after all. It IS something some other site does already.

I was thinking the other day, what if Laurel just assigned other themes, not aligned with the holidays. The themes could have catchy names and all be found on their own web page.

For example:

"Vive Le Sex Contest" Write a story that revolves around something French. It can be set in France, be about a French maid, involve the world's greatest French kisser - whatever tickles your fancy. Having a character eat french fries wouldn't count, so use some good judgement.

"Game-Set-Match Contest" Write a story involving sports in some way.

"The Lion Sleeps Tonight Contest" Write a story that takes place in a jungle. Choose any time period you like. Any jungle anywhere.

This allows a lot of creative leeway, as Quasi mentioned, but gets away from the holiday thing.

Thoughts?

 

[jon.hayworth]

I think Deliciously-Naughty's idea of having a competition moderator in place sounds a very good one.

May I suggest that we use a introduce a blind between writers and judges. This is common practice in the UK although I do not know about other countries.

The blind works like this.

All stories sent to the Moderator, along with an on-line entry form which includes the standard Literotica agreement.

The Moderator assignes each story a number. The stories are sent to the judges only identified by that number and if Lit votes are counting published on Lit in the same way.

Any evidence of authors canvassing for votes or attempting to identify their stories in any way will result in disqualifacation.

When the judging has been completed the Moderator will then attach the author's names to the work.

It sounds a lot more complicated than it really is - but it does ensure that authors who have pissed off people in the Forum chat rooms are not going to get voted down on that basis - I do not want to rehearse the voting arguments here - most of us know them.

Well WH have you got the answer

jon

 

[Weird Harold]

Ya know, Quasi got me thinking. I'm not sure I'm all that crazy about the mandatory item idea after all. It IS something some other site does already.

I was thinking the other day, what if Laurel just assigned other themes, not aligned with the holidays. The themes could have catchy names and all be found on their own web page.

Whils ES does do periodic story challenges as I've desribed, it's NOT an idea that is unique to that site. It's a pretty standard assignement in many creative writing classes as well -- although without a panel of judges.

Jon, ES does use the blind judging format you describe, for the same reasons you give -- to avoid any favoritism or judging the author instead of the story.

A variation of on theme would be to assign a title and get stories written to fit the title. Stories written to fit a specific location or event could also fit the general theme of a story challenge.

The whole point of story challenges or contests is to stretch the authors' limits by encouraging stories that would otherwise not be written. There are limits set to qualify a story for any given contest, ranging from submission dates to specific details that must be included,and no author is required to participate in any given contest if the limits are unacceptable.

I mentioned the challenge stories at ES only as an example of one set of limits that can be used to qualify a story for a contest, NOT as a suggestion that we copy their format exactly. I'm sure we can come up with our own variation on the theme of challenging authors to stretch their imaginations for fun and/or profit. I do like the general principle of the winner of one chalenge defining the next -- it keeps the challenges from getting in a rut because only one person is coming up with the ideas.


I don't think I would want to take on the job of moderating challenge story contests, although I'd be willing to occassionally judge them.

 

[deliciously_naughty]

Ok, because I really want this to happen, I'm going to be pushy and keep asking...who wants to moderate this??? We really need a moderator first. Then let's get 5 or 6 ideas of what we'd like for a contest idea...then we can go to Laurel. Whisper, would you want to moderate this?

 

[Dolma Kalem]

Contest Ideas



We seem to split into at least two catgories here. I quite like the idea of slipping something into a story, for example a song title. But I wouldn't like to be following a set of criterion that spoiled the experience of writing, and made the only reward the winning of the competition.

Just an opinion. I might try the song title though. It was used by the English football team with the press. No matter what the topic of the interview, the slipped in a song title. It was quite funny.

They didn't win the world cup though..

 

[deliciously_naughty]

dk...any song title or a specific one?

 

[Dolma Kalem]

Dear Ms Naughty,

A song title? It would have to be embedded in the story, and so requiring skill on the readers part to find. I also like irony, so the reader gets a smile in reward for his or her skill. I'm a Clapton fan, so he's probably the favourite artist to use. I've already used 'Wonderful Tonight' in 'Contract End', so that won't be it. That one was too easy.

So that leaves quite a lot to go for.

Maybe you'd like to recommend one. I'm just putting the final touches to a follow on story, to 'My Best Friend's Girl', see below. I'd be happy to try and weave one into it.

Final Q. Should I use MBFG CH2, or think of a related title?

My Best Friends Girl

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=62404