I think the name is pretty self explanatory. If you've got a new idea or a way that you think we could improve on this forum, here's the place to talk!

All right. C2 looks like a yes, so what about that contest? Personally, I'm worried that we could come off as a little harsh if we're all competing with one another instead of helping each other out, but it seems like we're all pretty nice.

Here's some stuff we have to iron out though:

-who is judging

-prizes (if any...)

-what's being judged (best story is too ambiguous)

-criteria for a submission (anything, only the bimonthly stories, certain genres, etc.)

For the judging part, I think anyone on the forum is welcome to do that. Polls are one way to work that out (although people would be on their honor not to vote for their own :]).

Like I said before, I think the contest sounds like a good idea, but you brought up some good points against it. It really depends how complicated we want to make it. We could just go the easy way and go with the poll, or we could all send you and silv3rdr34ms PMs voting for our favorite or something. I deffinately agree that if we do pursue this idea, there should be more specific criteria to meet as far as how it's judged. If you really want to get this technical, we could write up a rubric with some sort of point system. Maybe break it down into categories such as character development, plot, wording, etc., and have each section worth a certain amount of points (I'm completely stealing this format from our band competition. I'm such a geek XD).

As far as what's being submitted, I think all genres should be open. This has been operating on all ratings, so I think that would also work. The only requirement I'd really take into consideration is only entering the bi-monthly stories. It just seems unfair for someone to enter a story they've been working on for years and have it go up against one that someone's been working on for two months.

I deffinately think there should be some sort of prize, but I'm not quite sure what. If we only enter the bi-monthly stories, they're already reviewed... Perhaps just more reviews, because what else do we really have to give on this site? If we want to do 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place, maybe 3 reviews on any story/stories of the first place winner, 2 for 2nd place, 1 for 3rd place.

Anyway, these are just some ideas I'm throwing out there. Does anyone else have any comments or suggestions?

Since we have quite a few people checking us out lately (hooray for being one of the only active general fic forums :D), I thought that it would be kind of nice to try to officially include them in the reviewing.

Here's the idea: If they review everyone else's story, then they earn the right to have us check out one of the stories they've already written. (I sort of told Copper she could do this, but she was too busy). What do you guys think of that? Are there too many stories now to have one person reviewing all of them to get anything back?

Also, we have to decide how the reviewing is going to work... Small groups to critique in is one idea; each person reviewing a certain number of stories is another (though of course, all the stories would have to receive at least a bare minimum of x reviews before others could receive more); everyone could try to review as many as they can; we could post them on the C2 and review them as we have time... people could send out specific requests to have their story reviewed because they feel they need it, and we could focus especially on those... I don't know. Any ideas? (I won't be here much this week, though, because I have to take a fairly big test for college... if I do well on it I can take advanced writing courses in my first year :D). This month, we might manage to have everyone review everyone else's, but it looks as though we're getting bigger, so I thought it would be easier to figure this out now.

I like what Drea said about the contest, by the way. I don't have much time to make a rubric, though, so unless someone else wants to go ahead with that, it can't go anywhere for now :P

hmmm, welllll, a contest does sound good, as long as it's a nice, no-trash talking competition. we could come off a little harsh, because losing isn't the best feeling in the world, but i think as long as we don't step out of that whole critique box and go into talking about people's mothers, then it should be alright.

well, as far as judging goes, i could help out with that, because i think i'm pretty fair ... !? as for prizes, i'm kinda clueless when it comes to making banners or graphics, so that would be a problem. i'm a whiz when it comes to installing things, but when it comes to websites and graphics, then i'm lost. D:

wait ... what is someone created a account for the stories and contests? and then we could put the poll up?

what's being judged ... er, stories? (my lame attempt at a joke) anyways, i don't think that there should really be a best story, because what's that saying about the other stories? and i don't want anyone getting hurt, thinking that they're story is junk and they give up writing forever.

best categories, or what the judges felt the stories best represented ... like a romance/ comedy would represent "best comedy"?

i could ask my friend, who's a whiz at these things, if she could make a website and we could have a section just for rubrics. freewebs anyone?

for reviews, i have no idea what we should do about that. maybe we should have a story list and for that week, each person review that story and we move on to another one. but that would be only four stories a month if anything ... sorry, i have no idea where i'm going with this. DX

hooray for more people checking out bwbwns! wow ... maybe we should come up with a nickname for the forum.

Flipper: I realize the point of this forum is to force...er...*cough* motivate people to write new stories. But if participants continue to write new stories every other month and not continue (due to lack of time?) their previously submitted stories, wouldn't that be a waste (ish)? So, should we allow/encourage participants to continue writing a previously submitted story for the bi-monthly challenges in future months or are they required to submit new stories bi-monthly?

I think this has been brought up before, but I'm not sure. Your thoughts on this? I say as long as they are updating the story that they previously wrote for a challenge, they are allowed to continue it for the following challenge. Which brings me to another question: If we do allow this, is there a limit to the number of times they can continue the story for the challenges?

The reason why I'm bringing up these questions/problems is because I entered the May challenge with a previously written story that requires a re-write.

Ok, I'll let all this sink in while I drive to another city this weekend...to see my other sister. XD I will be in the backseat madly editing my story while my sister drives. hehe.

That's a really good point. *Sighs* this is what I get for not really thinking when I adapted the idea.

Um... people should most definitely not be forced to write a new story every two months. Plus, the reviewing is going to be intense if we have a lot of stories, so they might not get a chance to write even on the off months. Maybe we should tone the reviewing down too... :\

My biggest question here would be if they're even required to write a story specifically for this forum. If they work on a story they've already been writing, would it be a good idea for that to count as well? Maybe as long as they post five thousand words all on one story.

Um... I also noticed a problem with the timing of this thing. Almost every single month we do this, people will be insanely busy for the whole month.

May: Finals/end of school year; September: School starts; November: end of quarter, midterms, yom kippur (I think), Ramadan (I think); January: New semester/midterms/finals; March: end of quarter, midterms. That means that more than half of these are running a high risk of failing miserably. The only month I think most people will be able to manage is July, and even then, people might be on vacations.

If we did this on the other months, though...

February: Valentine's day?; April: Spring break (possible vacations); June: Beginning of summer (maybe people will want to go out with their friends?); August: Get ready for school, some schools start (but you don't really do anything at the beginning of school); October: Halloween; December: Christmachanakkwanzaa, midterms/finals, vacations. Basically, we'd be clean for writing every month but December, but the reviewing months might get a little hectic.

So, should we switch the months that we do this? We'd get in two times during the summer that way; and I think that it might be easiest to switch now, since it looks like Ashe, Lime and... maybe me? are the only ones who are going to need to get reviewed for this month. Plus, everyone can just keep working on the stories they already have.

I think people are going to encounter problems which ever month we do, but if you think we should switch months, now would definitely be a good time to do it. I don't think we should let this month get us down, though. May is the absolute worst month in school. Teachers don't want to do anything in June so they cram it all into May :/ July should have a good turnout, though!

I agree with you there; we are going to have problems with every month. People are certainly welcome to keep writing after the deadline and post their stories any time before the next month (we'll just review them when we're done the others).

Lime? What do you think?

Even though we set a deadline, it would be ideal to meet it. (as that is why deadlines exist - to either meet them or not. =P) Anyway, since everyone understands that not everyone (shame on us, but what can we do when RL demands our full attention/time?) can meet the deadline, I agree with Flipper.

Flipper, do you mean people can post their stories before the next challenge? If not, give me an example...I'm a little confused, but that's because it's about 1AM and I'm pretty tired. Can you tell that my brain has semi-ceased function? o_O

XD Yeah, I'm tired too. Okay, what I was trying to say was that since the goal is to make everyone write, it seems sort of cruel to tell everyone to stop since none of us managed to finish. I thought, since we all worked so hard, people can submit their stuff, and we'll look them over AFTER we're done with Ashe's? Yeah, before the next challenge, but if people wait too long and we don't have time to look them over much, too bad. Also, we won't cut short reviewing Ashe's in order to review the late comers. Does that seem fair? (Especially since Ashe worked so hard O_o;;)

Of course, I'm also very happy to just stick to the hard rules and review only Ashe's and let people write on their own for this month. I don't want the forum to take over other writing activities, after all; if your writer's block is broken, you can go back to the other stories you have and see where you get with them.

Um... I'm confusing things... ok, since Lime is okay with it, let's say we extend the deadline for this month to whenever people can get them in? And as soon as you can, start reading Ashe's (which was really good, at least when I started reading it... a couple weeks ago), and giving feedback. You can also talk about her story on the forum too... should we make a new topic or just keep posting on May?

Okay, I have to get back to work, so I probably won't talk till tomorrow or Tuesday D: Sorry!

I'd be happy to review any fellow late comers (after I finish my RM reviews, of course). As a late comer myself, I don't feel like I'm really in the position to say whether we should be reviewed or not... but even if it's not official here, late comers can feel free to PM me and I'll review them ^_^

Poetry Collection Suggestion

I'd like to see if anyone would be interested in submitting a collection of poems for the writing challenge. I am thinking about a collection of at least 20 poems of at least 55 words. Although, I'm also debating on the topic of the poems...So far, my ideas are a collection of poems:

1) based on a theme (i.e. every poem in the collection will be based off of one(1) theme.)

2) based on themes (i.e. each poem in the collection will feature different themes.)

3) based on a single word (i.e. this is something like the single theme collection, but you pick out one word and try to use it in every single poem in the collection at least once.)

4) based on 20 or more words with each poem featuring one instance of a word (i.e. I pick out a handful of, say, 30 words and write a collection of 30 poems...eh, you get the picture.)

----

Hrm, actually, 3 is very similar (if not the same) to 1 and the same thing can be said for 4 in terms of 1. @_@ So uh...answer me in the poll that I've created in the "September Challenge!" thread. =P

Of course, you're also free to elaborate by replying to this post. XD

I definitely support the idea. Personally, I would prefer 2/4. I'm not much of a poet, but I for one could never come up with 20 poems for one theme, unless the theme was something broad like "nature" :p I think having a theme for each poem would be interesting because there would be so much variation in interpretation.

So as far as reviewing, I assume you'll type up a new set of rules for the content. But also, are the participants required to review all 20 poems for each participant?

Oh, and the 20 poems with a min. of 55 words sounds good :D

I'm not much of a poet, but I for one could never come up with 20 poems for one theme, unless the theme was something broad like "nature" :p I think having a theme for each poem would be interesting because there would be so much variation in interpretation.

lol. the theme can be anything you wish...so long as you can write about it. lol. if you want the theme to be nature, by all means, go for it. =P I think we can do what we do for stories and just have people throw out suggestions for what the 20 (or more) poems will be about and the participant can pick whatever they want or create their own.

So as far as reviewing, I assume you'll type up a new set of rules for the content.

Of course I'll be making up a new set of rules! haha. I'm hoping that I can get something out of the poetry workshop that I'm currently taking at my uni and implementing it here. So basically, the collection of poems will be workshopped by the fellow participants. I'm not sure if I'll be able to do this, but we'll see.

But also, are the participants required to review all 20 poems for each participant?

eh...yes. I'm thinking that for every 400+ word poem (according to FP, excluding A/Ns), it would count as 2 reviews. Any poem below that 400 word count must be reviewed and counted as 1 review. Regardless, a total count of at least 15-20 reviews must be given. uh...did that make sense? o_O

Sounds good. I'm not so sure about that last part, though. It sounds good in theory, but it might be hard to moniter and enforce. If you mods are up to it, though, it sounds like a great plan.

Ok I don;'t know so much about the review requirements since I've never been in this forum before, but sure I'd be interested. A few other thoughts...

-Similar to your one word, but make it continuous. Like take one word from the previous poem & use it in the next one. Then take a different word from poem 2 & use it in poem 3, etc.

-You could tell a story in poems, or like the same situation/general idea through different perspectives. Ex. first day of school for random girl, random guy, parents, a teacher, etc. Or a story of two lovers alternating points of view with each poem.

-Each poem could be based off of a song title, it doesn't have to have the same words or anything, but the inspiration has to be there.

If I come up with more I will edit them in..

@Sparkles: Yea, everything seems to sound perfect in theory. haha. I'll have to sit on that one. (but then again, we DO have one whole month to double check reviews and stuff.)

@Min-Tin: Thanks for your input. I'm not too sure about the review requirements for poems either, but I was thinking about trying to implement what I'm learning in my poetry workshop as review reqs..not sure if that'll work or not. =P Great ideas, though...I never thought about that. haha. they sound like lots of fun and frustration!

So just rereading and I'm confused.... why would I do a 400+ word poem, I thought they were 55 words? OR did you mean a 400+ word collection? Also, no it didn't make sense. Do we have to review all 20 of the poems the people post? Or between 15 and 20? How does one review count as 2 and one? ::is confused:: Also, do we review it as a collection or individual pieces?

I do like the workshopping idea, if it becomes feasible. As for checking reviews you could count on the person who is reviewed to do it. Like if they think the review is good they won't say anything, but if they don't think it fits the qualifications or aren't so sure they can PM the mods and tell them to check it out.

Also, (this may be addressed in stories), but are we using fp words? 'Cause they only count words that are more than 3 letters whereas microsoft word only does more than 2 letters.

Can it be more than 55 words or is it exactly 55 words?

whoa...mini just opened a whole 'nother can of worms right there. lol. I'm just gonna ditch the whole thing about the 400+ word poem. haha. It's too much to handle.

Actually, let me try another shot at this explanation business...(I'm horrible at explaining stuff, so bear with me here...)

Because ideally, the minimum number of reviews fellow participants must give is 15, I was thinking that if a poem is more than x number of words in length, then the review for that particularly long(er) poem will lessen their total required review count by 1. For example, if I had a collection of 20 poems and 7 of those is more than x number of words long, and the reviewer decides to review all 7 of those longer poems, then they will only have to review one more shorter poem to give themselves a total review count of 15. Does this make sense? (or does this not sound feasible at all? @_@)

As for the 55 word thing, the poem has to be a minimum of 55 words...so, it can be more than that. There's no limit to the number of words used in a poem. We'll go by FP word count because I know some people don't use word(?).

---

For the number of reviews, I want to have reviewers give a minimum of 15 reviews that encompasses:

1) What do you think is the message of the poem?

2) give at least 5-8 sentences on what you think could bring this poem to the next level (to improve it substantially) in terms of imagery, word choice, usage of poetic devices, whatever that comes to mind in the technical sense of poetry. The point of this portion is to give the author enough constructive feedback so that they may possibly better their craft.

3) your general comments (i.e. i liked it because *insert reason if applicable*, etcetera etcetera.)

---

How did the prototype review reqs sound? o_O too much?

I think those review requirements are good. They don't copy from the RG, and they leave the reviewer with some leniency. My original thought was that for people who aren't so familiar with poetry, they might need some more concrete things to comment on, but then I remembered that this is a poetry writing event, so I doubt that problem will arise.

Sorry, I babble too much. It's good, let's go with that ^^;

My original thought was that for people who aren't so familiar with poetry, they might need some more concrete things to comment on, but then I remembered that this is a poetry writing event, so I doubt that problem will arise.

Hm...I can see where a problem may arise. People who sign up for the story writing challenge may or may not be familiar with poetry, so it will be difficult for them to fulfill #2 in the review reqs. (I mean, after all, they probably signed up to do the story because they can't write poetry or feel that they don't know enough about poetry to write a collection? o_O)

That's pretty much the only problem that I see right about now. Or should I make another poll asking whether people want to alternate the story and poetry challenges every round? For example, September is a story challenge and November will be the poetry challenge? @_@

(Should I have even brought this whole poetry collection thing up?!?! It's so confuddling to me right now. hahaha.)

Sorry, I babble too much. It's good, let's go with that ^^;

lol. you're babbling in that post? take a look at what i just wrote! babbling is perfectly okay though...the mods of this forum do it all the time!

@Poetry Collection Suggestion

Heya guys, I am here to check out this sug since Lime wants help with it :D *waves*

I am thinking about a collection of at least 20 poems of at least 55 words.

Although it was not my reason to come here to do this, maybe you would want to reconsider this? Instead have a total of words for all poems? (ie 1100 words for all 20 poems minimum).

Ok now to the rest :p

Because ideally, the minimum number of reviews fellow participants must give is 15, I was thinking that if a poem is more than x number of words in length, then the review for that particularly long(er) poem will lessen their total required review count by 1. For example, if I had a collection of 20 poems and 7 of those is more than x number of words long, and the reviewer decides to review all 7 of those longer poems, then they will only have to review one more shorter poem to give themselves a total review count of 15. Does this make sense? (or does this not sound feasible at all? @_@)

Ditch this. Too complicated. 1 review should count as one review. It makes things easier for all parties ^^

If I get this right, you want it like this:

- Participants make 20 poems a la 55 words minimum

- Participants review 15 poems minimum a la review requirements

???

If so, then I think that's a good idea :)

Very good review requirements btw. Professional too.

That's pretty much the only problem that I see right about now. Or should I make another poll asking whether people want to alternate the story and poetry challenges every round? For example, September is a story challenge and November will be the poetry challenge? @_@

Can't you have both at the same time? (sorry, I am ignorant of how much time consuming this it O_o Thus I ask that question :p)

As for the restriction you have for hte poem collection, do those that write stories have the same restriction regarding theme, events or whatever? If they do, maybe you should choose something that is almost the same/the same?

I'm sorry, I am a bit unfamiliar ^^;

Can I ask what happened to October? Just wondering how we went from September to November. I know you do the stories every other month (or it seems that way). Maybe do the poetry in the in between months to make it easier for you guys & for ppl who would want to do both poetry and stories, but might not have the time.

I'm with Frac, one review is one review, people have the choice of reading a longer or shorter piece in the collection. Do you do something similar for the story competition, thought? Like if the story is x words it counts as more reviews? If you do it for stories than I guess maybe you should do it here to just to be consistent.

You're going to need the individuals to put how many words are in each piece according to fp because the words listed by the collection on their author page will be for the whole collection. Unless you decide to just make one review one review & trust that they obey the minimum or if you go with Frac's idea.. leading me to my next point...

I like Frac's idea. If I wrote a really beautiful short piece I would HATE to have to throw in crappy filler words just to meet the requirement. Plus fp idea of 55 words is more like 100 sometimes. Also, if i wanted to use this opportunity to experiment with haikus or tankas or whatever, I couldn't. I also think it makes keeping track of many words people write easier (see above).

I like the review requirements but in regards to Sparkles concern, maybe provide a link to a website that explains imagery, poetic devices, etc.

New Suggestion - Mini-Writing Challenges

I'm putting forth a suggestion in hopes that SOMEONE will read it in this (super) lonely forum. What do people think of a bi-monthly mini writing challenge, say 2000 words and restricting a prompt? This will go for easy fix reviews and the participants get to vote for minimum word count (between 1000-5000) and prompt before the challenge begins. Any takers? If interested, please make a post and I will post details at a later time when and if I get a response.

I have too many topics on alerts @_@

Anywho . . .

Sounds interesting. Definitely a more approachable, and hopefully achievable, goal. Would this be on the off-months of the regular challenges?

AWESOME! I'm not alone in this forum! w00t! Ok, back on topic...

Definitely a more approachable, and hopefully achievable, goal.

Again, awesome.

Would this be on the off-months of the regular challenges?

Yes, this would be on the off-months of regular challenges. Since December was supposed to be an off-month, it would actually occur in December. However, there were no registrations in Nov (due to NaNoWriMo, I think) so I bumped it to December.

Any other input? Is 2000 words too low, should it be higher? Should a prompt be generated at random and be adhered to or should we do what we do right now for regular challenges and have the author decide what they want to write about?

I think that's a pretty good idea. I don't think 2k words is too low - even 5k isn't extremely difficult if you have the time, after all.

I think, for the sake of variety, that we should have a promt that we keep to for the mini-challenge, if only because the big challenge doesn't have a prompt you have to write about.

Sorry I've been so inactive lately, life has a bad habit of getting in your way.

Also, I really like the fact that you can keep going on the same story, because a new story every other month ... very hectic, eventually. You'd end up with a bunch of not-finished stories, which would suck.

Ashe

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