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The contests for awhile there were definitely the kick in the ass the community needed to refocus on writing. They've produced some great and even feature-worthy content over the last couple years and gotten people who never would've pushed themselves so far on their own to create games, but we've had a lot of them back to back and in the Discord at least it seems to be the consensus that we are all pretty burned out on contests now and they are sapping our will to live, distracting us from personal projects etc.

I'm going to be swearing off them awhile myself. I've got a ton of half-finished WIPs I want to try to focus on actually completing over the next year and this means no more starting new projects. I also have been feeling a little bad for awhile for the fact I've been neglecting writing reviews and responding to messages, but those are both things that I just don't do on mobile and so when I'm on the computer they have to take a backseat to my writing time.

What's everyone else's feelings on this*, is it time for a break?

I don't think anyone wants them to stop completely, but more breathing room may be appreciated and make a contest more of an Event rather than a thing that is always going on. One idea was to limit it to four official contests a year; one each from each active admin, with @Bucky taking mine. (because lol at being forced to read a bunch of entries). End may still pop up and do spontaneous things of course because he is not bound by mortal laws but the focus will be on the big four. Possibly even with real prizes beyond e-cred and points.

Idk, thoughts? Endmaster has what will likely be a popular theme planned for I think, December, but after that for 2019 no harm in testing out doing things differently for a year.



*note that as always, your feelings may be completely disregarded depending on admin whim

I've sworn off contests indefinitely, but four contests per year (one per quarter) sounds like the best idea. I probably won't be joining any for quite a while since the EPIC contest took quite a toll on me considering how busy I was during those three months. I plan to work on my own things at my own pace and now that I know I have it in me to finish something, I might actually finish something else one of these days.

Of course, I have to click through read the fucking things.

I agree that the contests have really produced some excellent content. And I also feel they may have been a bit too thick this last year.

I'm good with taking a break after this one and would suggest not doing more than two or three a year, just to keep things fresh.

I don't no. While I agree the contests are leading to a high rate of burn-outs and are a bit of a bitch because they lead to hack jobs as people run out of time, I don't know how I feel we need SOMETHING in place of them, otherwise the lazy ones are going to stop writing entirely. We need a prod to force people to be of value around here. I'm not sure what it would be yet, I need time to think, but something to keep people writing and working away without being as restrictive as contests.

Seems like Steve beat me to the suggestion XD

Four doesn't seem too bad. It could be a perfect number if there are some unofficial contests or challenges here and there. I've had a lot of fun in the couple of contests I've been in, and I'm honestly not too worried about burnout. I understand where many others are coming from though. I think having maybe some open short story prompts or small writing challenges between official contests would help give people something to do and keep them engaged in writing outside of their own WIPs. Even something like "write 1000 words on one of these prompts to earn 10 points" might get some new members more involved.

I'd love to see the return of active prompt threads and more people doing feedback on the short stories, but every time I've thought I'd like to post one of my own or pay attention to someone else's in the last several months it's always been like 'nope, unacceptable waste of my writing-for-the-contest hours today'.

That's part of the reason I'd do them between contests.

Prompts are nice, and I'd like to get them going, but I was thinking something more involved with CYOA's themselves. Personal bets and challenges, maybe, based on writing certain amounts, but without the need to publish something at the end, because your story might not be done.

I know from when Axiom showed me Nanowrimo that there's dares over there, where you can dare people to include weird shit in their stories, like for a fantasy story have a Goblin chef who wants to eat dragon, or something. Something like that where you encourage writing or something in the context of CYOAs without restricting them much. I don't know, just spit balling, I'm too exhausted to give you anything good.

I like prompts. I'm not sure anyone else does, as in general they seem to promote very little interaction and writing. But I like the direction Steve's talking about with something else. Of course, without publishing stories, I'm not sure how far that can go...

Prompts are cool, and we should do them, but I'd definitely like to take it a step further and do something CYOA that isn't as inflexible as a contest. Plus, we'd definitely still publish, but in our own time, and avoiding the issue of everyone getting knocked off the new storygame list because we publish at the same time, and then having no one read them because there's way too many to read and we forget about them.

Continuing the spitballing...

Maybe a prompt where people need to write about X, maybe with a requirement of at least 3 paths and Y pages in length... then maybe it's not a full story, but anyone who's able to complete that and show it (perhaps with sneak peeks for story portions) get the award for completing?

What? I have no idea what you mean. For once, I am the one who is confused, Ogre.

Haha! Nice.

I mean the "contest" might be for anyone who wants to enter to write about the goblin that wants to eat a dragon as part of their story. Maybe it's a side path or something. As part of the requirements, you have to include three different paths or options related to this section. It also has to be at least 3,000 words or something. Then there's a time limit of something, say 1 month.

At the end of the month, people post their results of that requirement. Those results might be inside another story they're working on, so it's not a complete story. But you can go into their sneak peek and on the first page see a link to their entry. Everyone who completes it gets the reward of 100 points or whatever.

Aah, OK, I got it. Having to dedicate entire branches or side paths seems like it might be too restrictive, but I like it. Maybe something vague enough, like "A path/branch/side quest where a character is secretly replaced/possessed by something", where if I'm writing sci-fi, fantasy or whatever it can be dealt with. Or perhaps something more specific, but adaptable.

Hell, it might even be cool to do something tailored to an individual story. I'd love to see people tell End their plot and see what that fucker can decide to ask to be thrown in there. I really don't know how well any of it would work, and probably poorly, but I can dream.

We used to have crazy active prompt threads with like half a dozen participants or more and people actually reading and commenting on the stories. The weekly writing sprint threads Axiom was doing were also popular. I can't speak for anyone else, but the thing that's changed for me is that it's been a long time since I've been able to justify using my computer time for anything but my contest stories.

It always seems to me too that a story entered in a contest is going to get less reviews than one released on its own; just a side effect of all being released the same day with the competition and in some cases getting shoved off the main page immediately. As long as we're spitballing I'd like to figure out some kind of way to guarantee that participating authors get some actual decent feedback. Maybe we could encourage people to pledge reviews while putting up a few points as a smaller scale bet and bonus alongside the contest itself?

It'd be cool to add a caveat onto a contest that says you have to review three, or five, or all other stories entered into the contest, which would be beneficial for everyone because you get more reviews as well. 

That makes sense. Are we allowed to bet on things like that? Like, could I bet 100 points that I can write fully fleshed-out reviews of all the contest entries except for my own by the end of the week or something along those lines?

I like the contests. That's said from a position of not actually entering them as soon as they show up -- I only enter the ones I'm interested in, and that's not many of them. I think I'm in the minority on that one. I think many authors enter every contest that shows up just because, and I think that may be leading to some of the "issues" with contests. But hey, it's all in fun, anyway. It does seem to be a bit slower when there are no contests, so there's that.

I'm with you. I only enter contests if I have an idea I think I can reasonably pull off.

I think part of the problem is more along the lines that we haven't done any of the shorter - Non-CYOA contests in between these last few. I doubt anyone would have a nervous breakdown if someone wanted to run another flash fiction - 300 word cap - contest, or a one sentence story contest.

I'll do a December 2019 Contest. That's the only time next year I can be reasonably sure of having the time anyway.

I mean, I ran a contest that inspired IAP to write a story that he didn't destroy. Not sure there's any higher fruit.

I agree that I think the Contests have been extremely successful but do tend to dominate the site and monopolize the time and energy of the more active Admins and writers, limiting them to four a year is probably a good idea. Personally other activities have kept me too busy to contribute, judge or even read the entries a lot and I'd prefer to see more site updates than contests to keep things fresh. The vast amount of terrific hard work and material that has come out of them has vastly improved the site however :D