You are viewing a single comment's thread from:
RE: Farmpunk Flash Fiction Contest Winner
Yay, thank you :D great job everyone, this was a lot of fun! I'd definitely participate again if you do decide to keep this going!
Yay, thank you :D great job everyone, this was a lot of fun! I'd definitely participate again if you do decide to keep this going!
Awesome. How often do you think? I'm leaning toward monthly, but I wonder if that might be too long between contests.
Hmmm well on the one hand it seems like contests that happen frequently (like once a week or so) tend to build a fairly loyal following and writer base faster. But on the other hand the relatively open ended nature of this particular contest might make it harder to consistently write for in that amount of time. I know for me the more constraints prompt wise, the easier it is to narrow in on what I want to write. With only genre as a guideline there’s a lot more internal hoops to jump through to land at a story. But that might just be me. Also once a week might be harder to keep up with on your end. Which is all just an overly long winded way of saying that I think once a month is probably a good idea.
Very good analysis. My thought was, with just a few people interested at this point, I might get more participation if it was less frequent. Twice a month?
Then, as it grows in popularity (which I hope it will), then more frequent contests might be good.
It's difficult to put many restraints on something that is so new. I think you have to get people used to the idea first, and I thought being more open-ended would allow that. Plus, I want to maximize the creative juices, let people's imaginations run wild. I could give scenarios and let people write off of that, or offer farmpunk prompts.
Yeah prompts are fun because they still let you go wild but now there’s also a question to answer which I personally find fun. Like solving a creative puzzle lol. But yeah I think two weeks is a good format, pretty sure that’s how @calluna does hers if I’m remembering right
Thanks for the feedback!
I started with one week, didn't get very many, went to 10 days, and found I had a few late comers, so went to two weeks. That seems to be working well for me, although I do have a much higher word limit (and a round open if you fancy it). If you did want to do monthly, you could go for the 1st, people would be more likely to remember, but every two weeks is much more fun ;)
I would say go with a prompt, just because it is easier to tell if you get entries that were something someone had already written and just re-purposed. It is also great fun to see all the different directions people go from the same idea.
Looking forward to your next round :)
Thanks for weighing in @calluna. As I think about it, a month may be too long a stretch as people will likely forget to keep an eye. Although making it on the first would make it more memorable. That's true. I do like the idea of every two weeks as it still keeps it fresh in people's minds. Issue the contest the first week, announce the winner the next, then a week later you have another contest. That makes sense.
Now the question is, what is the best day of the week? Is it Saturday, or Wednesday, or something else? So many questions.
Launching on a weekend can get you more notice, but any day mid week means people have a full weekend to work on it. #twentyfourhourshortstory runs monday to tuesday, #finishthestory starts on Wednesdays, I am fairly certain cut off is the monday but people tend to enter early. With that in mind, maybe a thursday or a friday? I never thought much about the best day, but I am often looking for a contest to write for over the weekend ;)
I am fairly rubbish at the consistency myself, but reminder posts seem to help a lot as well :)