Competition Inquiries

We wanted to do something a little bit different. Competitions have always been a fun way to bring buzz around here. Since you are the brilliant minds behind the site, we wanted to allow you to give your opinions on future competitions. I’ve attached a poll to get an idea of what categories you would like to see more of or ones you’d like us to avoid. Please feel free to discuss ideas below. There’s no guarantee we will pick any of them, but it’s always nice to see fresh ideas.

I voted for Flash Stories. Ideally, a short story between 1,000 to 5,000+ words I would prefer. The genre I am most drawn to is Drama. I do not think I could write humor, whether it be Micro or a Longer Story. I could see Crime being a fun challenge for a competition. I think if a Micro were ever to be done, it would be best with additional categories, i.e. Cheers To 10 Years competition. I hope this helped. Thank you for asking for the writers' opinions.

Quote by Cora
Ideally, a short story between 1,000 to 5,000+ words I would prefer.

Flash is actually 100-1000. I kind of like that length for some themes and ideas. Forces me to rein things in and focus more tightly, but can still tell a full story, vs. a micro where you're really just giving the bare bones.

Genre-wise, I am generally open to anything. Some of the best comps I have been in are ones where there is a broad theme that can cut across genres rather than a specific genre. So there was a "punk" comp I was in one time that was basically open to anything themed around "punk" genres like cyberpunk, steampunk, dieselpunk, and so on. And, of course, just punk culture and music. I think for a comp that works better as a focus than genre. Even a "space" themed comp could work that way. Even if it leaned heavily to SF, you could also have stories about modern space exploration (e.g. something involving astronauts on the ISS or its Chinese counterpart), astronomy, and such.

I'm good with Flash stories – you have to be skillful AND creative – but the question was: What would I like to see more of?

I'd like to see more humour stories. They're not easy to write, especially for someone like me who has no sense of humour.

Fantasy is always fun as it opens the door to just about anything you want to do – although most people seem to devolve to werewolves, vampires, and other such. Hunh. About as believable as a talking Bear, right?

Long stories are hard to write, and even harder to write well because the plots have to be so intricate that there are a lot of moving parts. They're also harder to read – unless they're truly gripping.

I love science fiction. After Dr. Seuss, it's what hooked me on reading. But I'm desperately intimidated by the great SF writers of my youth, notably Heinlein and Clarke, and, more recently, Spider Robinson. That makes it hard for me to write.

Horror is really not my thing, although I have written a couple of horror stories. I don't like being scared, nor being scary. I'm the cute, cuddly type, y'know?

Crime is an interesting genre. I'm not very good at it, but it does seem to bring out the creativity in people. Hmmm…What does that say about us?

Historical fiction is a little rare around here, but very popular in published works. It requires some research to make it work, and that's often the least enjoyable part of writing. By comparison, with Fantasy, you just make it up and let 'er rip.

Not sure if any of that rambling helps, Molly, but that's my stream of consciousness, and I'm sticking to it!

Quote by JamesPBear
I'd like to see more humour stories. They're not easy to write, especially for someone like me who has no sense of humour.

Funnily enough, I have a sense of humour, albeit one that leans to the goofy, weird, and absurd at times, and find humour very hard to write. I think the only really funny stories I have written have been micros just because 100 words is basically enough for a long joke or short sketch.

Thank you all for your input. So far it seems like Flash and Humor are the top runners here. Humor is tough, I find myself hilarious (yes, humor is subjective), and even I haven't tried writing in that category. Hmm, I'll give this more time, but let's see what I can come up with.

There's an interesting discussion about time travel happening on another site I am on and that's a genre of SFF that could be fun to play with in a comp and isn't confined to SF, even if that's usually the genre for it. Fantasy time travel is an option (magical time travel), even horror (a gateway to the past where some horrible thing or event awaits). Could even be a dream in a non-fantastical setting. One could even put the actual methodology as background and focus on the drama or romance or whatever that happens when people from different time periods meet up (think Outlander). So time travel in a broad sense of what happens when someone from one era visits or meets someone from another. Just a thought.

I’d vote for crime, You don’t see it much in writing, though it’s all over television and movies as a genre. And I think 3000 words is a good sweet spot. Frankly, all these are pretty interesting. Humor is, I agree, pretty subjective, and hard to write.