Is the Story Competition a good idea or not?

Android675 · Post by **Android675** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 6:01 pm

I started the monthly story competition in an attempt to spur the creative writing juices of some of the many ASFR writers out there. It seems like it's working a bit - wjbaines finished Darsi, Bruce and Natalie and there were a few other stories that were submitted this month, although there's no telling whether most of them would have been submitted even without the prize money. It was a short month, so perhaps September will see even more activity.

My poll question is simply this - do you think the story competition is a good idea or not? I've only included yes or no in the poll, but comments are welcome. Do you think it cheapens the work of the writers, or could create bad feelings among those who don't get picked? Or do you think it'll actually make people think more about putting pen to paper, and what the heck - a hundred bucks is a hundred bucks.

A

Stephaniebot · Post by **Stephaniebot** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 11:47 pm

There is only one way to know for sure, and that involves seeing what happens. If it seems to generate more stories then great, but if it doesnt...

I'd be tempted if I had the time, not for the money, but for someone that would make me write a tf story again. But time is a commodity I havent got at present, nor quite sure when I will.

AK · Post by AK » Tue Sep 02, 2008 4:42 am

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nybble · Post by **nybble** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 9:24 pm

I have to agree with AK here. I'm going to write when I get a chance. I'm not doing it because I'm trying to win a contest or some cash. I like to write, and this forum has a lot of the qualities that help me do that, mainly courteous feedback and interesting but not terribly constraining subject matter. It helps that I get to do some more erotic writing, too, as other places I write do not offer that opportunity.

If the contest gets someone else to write, then great for them. Writing is a great skill to have in one's personal toolbox. I think that's much more important than getting more good erotic material. I personally am trying to get my writing chops back so I can feel more comfortable writing, and this is a great community to write for. Hopefully my spare time (snicker) will be more copious soon and I'll be able to get some of these ideas out of my head. When I do, you all will be the first to know.

jak · Post by **jak** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 7:10 am

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wjbaines · Post by **wjbaines** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 9:24 am

I think the context is important to remember. Again, with some important and significant exceptions, the story board had been in the doldrums from a few months. ANDROID675 and his wonderful generousity was just trying to bust out the paddles:

"CLEAR!" Chuh-BOOOOV!!!
"CLEAR!" Chuh-BOOOOV!!!
"CLEAR!" Chuh-BOOOOV!!!

As far as that goes, what could be better?

Concern # 1. Of course, there's the sticky question of how, since he's the origin of the prizes, the stories eligible for the competitions have to conform to his tastes. But on the other hand, there's nothing stopping other people from coming forward and offering prizes for stories in other ASFR sub-genres.

Concern #2. I've been reluctant to accept money for anything I write and post here, and I think I feel similarly to some of the other posters in this thread in that regard. I view this compartment of my life as something that I do for fun and which is completely divorced from work. So it's natural I would be wary of allowing money relations to encroach on it. On the other hand, so long as I keep in mind that I'm writing for fun, any money potentially to be earned would just be a bonus, not the reason I'm writing. I think it'll be pretty easy for me to remember that distinction.

Concern #3. Potential for bad-blood between authors and/or between an author and ANDROID675. If there are winners, there will be losers too, right? But, so long as we remember the proposed solutions to Concerns #1 and 2, I think we can get around this Concern too. That is, remember it's ANDROID675's money in the first place, and remember that that money isn't why anybody here writes, it's just a potential added reward.

Thanks for listening. I feel ambivanent about the idea of monetary awards for stories (or perhaps other media in the future), but I think as long as we keep the above points in mind, we can avert any potential problems. So, in the end, I think ANDOIRD675's offer, for as long as it lasts, will be a net gain for this community.

Bart · Post by **Bart** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 8:23 pm

I think it's great that Android675 took the heart to start this competition. Actually I considered writing something new myself - although without any hope to win anything

. But I just could not find the time to finish it (yet). Some really descent stories were posted though, so it seemed to work.

Android675 was really generous putting up this contest I think. Of course, he wanted to have his porn written. He was very up-front about that. Don't tell me you guys and girls do not masturbate when you check out the latest stories on FBC.

My loose thoughts on a possible future of the contest:

We should install some kind of fund (paypal - donations to FBC, whatever), where whoever wants to would pay $ 5 or so into. After the money on this account reached for example $100 or a time limit (like a quarter of year), we would start a poll on who of the authors in the qualifying period should get the price. (Without bias on the type of the story - malfunction, transformation, one page short story or even 20 chapter novel). We could give the winner 50% of the collected money, 25% to the 2nd entry and so on.

Of course, this would mean a lot of organization work to do and I am not sure if we could make it. But making this whole contest into a community effort would be very exciting in my opinion, as I like to see new stories here as anybody of you.

Brianna 1365 Gamma · Post by **Brianna 1365 Gamma** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 7:28 am

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Chevy Monza · Post by **Chevy Monza** » Thu Sep 04, 2008 2:04 pm

I'm not sure why people seem to be focusing on the issue of $$ for story so much. I think it's a good idea, it might encourage somebody to put to paper their ideas. I don't see any bias is the offer, yeah it was mentioned that transformation was nice, but if I recall Darci/Bruce wasn't a transformation neither was the monthly winner. It doesn't appear that not meeting the broad requirements somehow disqualifies you and even if it did...it's not your money, so who cares.

Things have seemed a bit silent around here and if nothing else, posting new ideas/stories always seems to give others ideas. I recall the Class C story which spawned several stories from different authors, including BA's excellent Business Class/sister story arch. I don't see how this offer can harm.

As for the topic of Quality, yeah sure it's subjective. In my opinion the roots of this board go back to the newsgroup days, the old Alt.Sex.Fetish.Robots. Personally, I would expect stories posted here to contain robots having sex with some sort of Fetish element, Transformation/Malfunction/face off what have you. In my opinion we're seeing more stories where the robot is more a plot device, the character could really be a super hero/cyborg/space alien and the story still works, they don't focus on the fetish elements. I don't begrudge those authors or stories, maybe something will inspire someone else.

Anyways, thats my 2 cents

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[quote="Brianna 1365 Gamma"]While I don't personally object to someone coming onto the board and saying "I want a story about this, write a story that I like and I will give you $100," and I think it is beneficial because others might enjoy it too, I think Android675 should have been more upfront about what it was. It's not, technically, a story competition because that implies that he's judging based on the story's quality-- it's emotional depth and the character development and the plot and word flow. That's not what he's looking at, he's looking at content, so "story competition" is a bit of a misnomer.

Now, if he WAS looking at story quality but also happened to have further genre requirements, that would be fine. Like if he wanted a story about transformation, malfunctions, and human-robot (or robot-robot) relationships, and then chose the one that was the highest-quality, that would be a bit more reasonable. However, as it is it just seems like he's choosing the one that he, personally, finds the most... satisfying, so he should clarify that that is the criteria on which he is basing his choices.

Maybe it would help if another intro post was written that clearly outlined the requirements of the contest and mentioned that he was choosing based on which one he, personally, liked best?[/quote]

BA2 · Post by **BA2** » Sun Sep 07, 2008 11:53 am

Personally I think anything which spurs some activity on the story board is a good thing and I take my hat off to anyone prepared to go to some length to stimulate things. That said, if anyone else is like me then it's more a matter of time and inspiration which cash temptation can't really help.

I look forward to reading lots of "prize entry" scripts and perhaps they'll spark of some ideas of my own...

BA

Is the Story Competition a good idea or not?

Do you think the monthly story competition is a good idea?

Is the Story Competition a good idea or not?

My 2 cents