Story Contest question

[Montanos]

Once more I start with my normal disclaimer, if this is the wrong place to post this thread, please inform me.

I'm curious.

If I were interested in sponsoring a story contest, how would I go about doing so?



Montanos

 

[stlgoddessfreya]

As far as I know, there are only two kinds of contests: the official Literotica contests with prizes, which members can't really sponsor and the contests like FAWC that have no prize other than making stories in a set and getting feedback from other writers. Contests like FAWC aren't official, they're done by the agreement of the writers to the rules and the hard work of the organizer who receives, formats, and submits the entries. That's specific to keeping the FAWC entries anonymous, though. It all depends on what you want the entries in your contest to look like and what you want the authors to get out of it.

 

[NaokoSmith]

You probably could talk to the site owners: Laurel and Manu about sponsoring a competition. Send a PM, they never answer email.

The other way would be to start a Story Chain. That is a set of stories on a theme, you can see a thread a bit further down in which one is being started about a fictional hospital. You figure out how Story Chains work by looking up the instructions. You come on here and say: I have an idea for a Story Chain, does anyone want to join in?

FAWC goes into Chain Stories too.

 

[Bramblethorn]

As far as I know, there are only two kinds of contests: the official Literotica contests with prizes, which members can't really sponsor and the contests like FAWC that have no prize other than making stories in a set and getting feedback from other writers.

Also the fake "contests" where "prizes" always go to the person who runs them

 

[slyc_willie]

As has already been posted, you can start a Chain Story or organize your own story contest however you wish. Doing either constitutes a lot of work. As in, A LOT. Trust me on that. So make sure you have the time and organizational skills to do it.

 

[soflabbwlvr]

And don't forget the generous cash prizes

 

[Montanos]

Hmm.

I was hoping there was a way to do a contest with the specifications I established in the "looking for a Type of Story" thread I initially posted.

But I didn't want to run it all myself. I don't have the time. I was hoping to provide the money disbursement once a full solid plan for the contest was completed, discussed and approved between me and literotica staff.


Cash prices?

Sure, I was thinking something along the lines of $1000 in cash prices.

$500 for first
$250 for second
$150 for third

I haven't decided on $2000 dollars in cash prices which would double the price amounts. Its something I'll think about if the idea ever gets off the ground.

$100-200 for literotica itself for helping with the contest. (I mean seriously, wouldn't be right to not donate something to the site if they're giving a hand)

Thank you for the details, ladies and gents.

Montanos

 

[stlgoddessfreya]

You know, for that kind of money you could get several well-written custom stories to your exact specifications instead of some well-written stories and a lot of poorly-edited contest entries.

 

[Montanos]

You know, for that kind of money you could get several well-written custom stories to your exact specifications instead of some well-written stories and a lot of poorly-edited contest entries.

Probably, but ... where would be the general fun? So I get a few specific stories made just for me. Where is the communality of friendly competition? Where is the zest of victory and the possible discovery of someone's zest for writing? If I PAY -someone- to write something for me. I would be -a- someone, probably someone already known, for the creation of said story. I would pay for a particular talent.

There would be no chance for anyone else to impress and show their stuff. There wouldn't be the connection that people share when being part of a contest.

Montanos

 

[sr71plt]

Did you PM the editor here, Laurel, with your idea?--if you want the Web site to coordinate it. She's not likely to read your proposal on this thread. Of course someone else willing to coordinate it for a bit of money might.

I wouldn't enter such a contest. The prize money is too much. The competition would get cutthroat and the cheating and vote manipulation would be fierce. It's already that with the Web site's contests with lesser prize money.

 

[Montanos]

I wouldn't enter such a contest. The prize money is too much. The competition would get cutthroat and the cheating and vote manipulation would be fierce. It's already that with the Web site's contests with lesser prize money.

Please explain. That sort of sentence automatically kills any desire for ... almost anyone ... to help sponsor a contest.


Montanos

 

[Swilly]

Please explain. That sort of sentence automatically kills any desire for ... almost anyone ... to help sponsor a contest.


Montanos

Many people believe that there is already voting manipulation that takes place in contests, even the ones without prizes such as the FAWC and the recent tag team competition. If there was a contest with a large cash prize, it is likely that things would get even worse.

I agree with him. If you're around here and participate in even a free contest, you'll understand.

Actually, I don't do this for money anyway. I write here because I have fun with it. I've already thought about it, and if I should win a sponsored contest, I'll ask them to donate whatever I win to a charity. If I wanted to earn money, there are a multitude of things I could do that would earn me much more over the time I invest in a story.

 

[Montanos]

Thank you kindly for your candor.

I will have to think about this carefully.


Montanos

 

[stlgoddessfreya]

Of course, if the victory criterion was something other than votes, like you picking the stories you liked best instead, stacked voting wouldn't make much difference. I've never seen an official Lit contestlike that, though, has anyone else?

Also, I think you may think Lit is a minimal-profit hobby site. Given the ads and numbers of daily page views, I don't see how that could be that case.

 

[RejectReality]

Yeah, if you're going to do any sort of cash prize, I'd eliminate the voting element completely from the criteria to win.

Either gather a panel of judges or be the judge yourself. Then, the shenanigans that go in with voting here are irrelevant.

You wouldn't necessarily have to be any more involved than picking someone who's willing to administer the contest, even if you were going to be the final judge. Let the administrator take care of the thread outlining the contest, keeping track of the contestants, etc. Then all you have to do in the end is read the submissions and pick a winner.

An administrator could choose a panel as well, if you don't want to be the judge.

 

[NaokoSmith]

I have another idea for you, Montanos.

How about approaching one of the small publishing houses which do erotica? They might make a collection of erotica short stories along the lines you suggest, paying a suitable fee to authors who made it into the collection. You could talk to Literotica and the publishing house about the possibility of stories entering a free competition on here, and later being published in a collection (digital or paper) by the publisher, as well as remaining live up here.

PM Laurel, in any case. She might be able to advise you how best to invest your money so as to get a nice collection of dominant women stories together.

 

[Montanos]

I think I've been rather naive. For as many years as I've been reading Literotica stories, I never did read the bulletin boards.

I think that I -will- contact the admin directly and converse.

Momentarily I am thinking of the following.

Submission detail thoughts
1. Clarify, exactly, what I want the contest to be about.
2. Set a word count -minimum- and -maximum-.
3. As many stories as the contestant wants to submit which match the criteria. Why? Because I have no way of telling which people will submit multiple stories using multiple identities.
4. Summary of story with the proper tags at the beginning of the story. So, as an example: if its a cheating wife story, in a horror world, with group sex: group sex, loving wives, horror, supernatural. Will have to discuss this with someone more knowledgeable.
5. Beginning date of submissions, and ending date of submissions.
6. Disqualification rules: detectable plagiarism (as if its not detectable ... how the heck would we know), not doing -exactly- what is asked (incomplete tags, no summary, word counts, etc). There are other things to consider here.
7. Where/how to receive the story.

Judging Considerations
1. Who judges.
2. How many judges.
3. Personal veto on a story? (its my money after all)

Situational
1. If I get 1000 stories, no possible way to read them all. How do we handle that?
2. Filters or no Filters? What does Filters entail?
3. How do our situational protocols affect our reliability?

Probably a few other things to consider, these are off the top of my head.

Montanos

 

[stlgoddessfreya]

Before nuts and bolts, I'd say you want to come up with your personal objective for the contest. Is it to have a dozen really well-written stories to your specifications within a month? Within a year? To inspire people of different ability levels to try your sub-genre and hopefully have other people read those stories and write more like them? Long term or short term?

Also, this might be useful for perspective:
http://www.literotica.com/stories/contest.php/earth-day-2014

Earth Day is a long-running contest with cash prizes and a very open theme; it had fewer than 50 entries.

 

[NaokoSmith]

You don't have to set a word count, or read all the stories.

Say that the stories have to abide by the usual Literotica rules - which includes a minimum and maximum word count.

Winner can be decided by who has the highest votes rather than judging, then you don't even have to read them all. Although as Pilot pointed out, it does leave it open to cheating.

Talk to Laurel - use a PM, not email.

 

[NaokoSmith]

Oh another thought.

I used to read for a short story competition. This was in the days before the internet. (Yes, my dears, such a time did exist. What did we do to amuse ourselves? Uh ... we played ... cards, by candlelight ).

Even back then, writing short stories was phenomenally popular. Nobody read them but everyone was writing them. People were desperate to be read. And even more desperate for feedback. People paid to enter the competition, even though the prize money wasn't that much, because they found getting feedback on their writing so exciting.

Writers publish on this site sometimes because they would like to have some attention: "Ah, what a lovely story, you are a genius! Let me stroke your cock/pussy .. I mean ego." Serious writers also post because they hope for feedback in the comments. This is why the FAWC is popular, although there are no cash prizes and not a very high readership; you are pretty much guaranteed that the other writers in the FAWC will read your story and give good head ... I mean feedback, on it.

So you don't have to provide a lot of cash to get interest in your story competition, if you can find a way like Slyc has done, to get good critical feedback for writers. Slyc's writing ideas are inspiring too. I personally didn't go for the current FAWC, well ... I had one idea but it was so that after I picked myself up from rolling all over the floor, I went and did some editing instead. However I absolutely adored the FAWC when they handed out a 'basket of goodies' and I got given four words I had to include in a story. I got up early in the morning and wrote frantically while on holiday in a caravan with my family, I bought dodgy Wifi at the caravan, I was so inspired and couldn't resist putting my story in.