We really are dead here, aren't we? Who's up for a challenge?

[Cat2000]

Having just started the one I'm working on, I'm very reluctant to pick up any more plot bunnies. If I can make any major headway with this, I might join in with the contest... or I may make an entry for the next one.

And, yeah, Usoki - something like that would be really great to do. An alternative would be to try co-writing. Usernames are put together randomly, and the two have to work together to come up with a story.

Or something like that. I'm not good at explaining

[Usoki]

Sev has to authorize all accounts to prevent spamming. They can send PMs, but they can't actually post in the forum proper. Most of them are spam accounts, but there are a few people, like urnam0, who are legitimately unable to post. But that's just the forums. I'm pretty sure site messaging still works.

Cat, if you're curious about the contest, any thread with IWT6 in the title will have info of some sort- but Yazz has got it right. There is no theme or genre requirement- you can write about whatever you want, as long as every room loops to some other room. You don't have to loop back to the beginning, but you do have to make sure every room leads somewhere else.

I am intrigued by Cat's concept- I am indeed a feedback whore, and that would be the easiest way to get me writing CYOA again. Worth 1000 was okay, but the good topics are just too rare for me to bother caring about the site. Maybe something where a group of us form a pact, and by doing so agree to critique the work of the others each time they add 10 rooms, 10,000 words, or finish a work? And they can't get a critique on theirs until they've critiqued the other's first?

[Ryan_DuBois]

Isn't there something preventing new members from getting on the forums or something like that? I see new members making accounts like two or three times a week, they just don't seem to want to join the community.

As for the contest, you can dig up the original thread if you're curious about the details, but in a nutshell the goal is to create an "infinite story"; in other words, your story can have no dead ends in order to be eligible. A lot people aren't over-enthused about the theme, but I guess it'll force us to use the looping utility more. The current deadline is before January 1st.

So far as I know, nobody is certain that they're entering yet.



[EDIT]

By the way, thanks, Cat. You have breathed life back into this site.

[Cat2000]

Oh, I wasn't thinking of a contest. More like, 'let's finally get some new stories finished - or at least a long way into the storyline'. And something to get more people into the site. *Shrug*. Something to think about, maybe? I still remember how excited I first was when I found the original website.

So what are the details of the latest contest?

[Ryan_DuBois]

(Sort of like what you mentioned, the people who write well just were more active)

Hey, that'd be good enough for me. Perfect, in fact. I've read more than my share of stories from the "you wake up" genre, as of late.

I'm still up in the air on the contest, too. I might enter one of two short horror/survival stories I'm working on right now, just since the whole looping thing would make more sense in them.

You should enter the contest, Cat. The more, the merrier.

[End Master]

Ryan: Money wouldn't necessarily work anyway, they had contests at CYS where you could win cash money and basically they didn't have any more participants than usual, and the people that won would usually be the same ones. (Sort of like what you mentioned, the people who write well just were more active)

Paying out money to win the "jackpot", isn't very appealing either. They have a system like that at Worth1000, and true you do get a few "free credits", but once you run out, you basically either have to (A) Pay real money to the site to get more so you can participate in more contests or (B) Beg someone else to sponsor you where upon if you actually manage to win the contest you're in, you have to give half of those winnings to the person who sponsored you.


Cat2000:Well there is technically an IWT 6 contest still going on. Deadline is New Year's Eve, so there's that.

Assuming I manage to finish it, I'll post it. I doubt if it would be my "best work" though.

The problem is there are ideas I do have, but no long stretches time to really work on them anymore and when I do get the chance to work on them, I find ways to improve stuff and I have to reread other passages that I've already written to make sure it makes sense still as well as refreshing my memory. That all sets me back a lot.

At this point I'm going to say any story I'm working on or thinking about: "when its done", however, assuming this place isn't going to go offline anytime soon I still have these ideas in mind...

Primal
Innkeeper
Rogue

2012 or bust!

[Ryan_DuBois]

Haha, I know right? That's three trips to McDonald's or fifteen trips to the dollar store. But it gets better: you're only counting the people who finished... if the entry fee was $5, the winner would be scooping up a grand $20 at the very least.

That's a lot of penny candies.

A lot.

I'm not actually suggesting we do this -- maybe if we had a bunch of entrants and some way to guarantee the winner his or her cash, it would work, but we don't. I'm just saying that I don't think getting constructive criticism and a pat on the back is enough for most people.

[donteatpoop]

Looking at past tournaments, if we all payed $5 the winner could take home $15!!! How awesome is that?!

[Ryan_DuBois]

Nope.

But being able to get money is. Look at casinos.

[Dragavan]

Maybe people need bigger incentives? Perhaps we should start having a $5 buy-in for our tournaments with winner-take-all...

Right, because having to pay money is always such a good incentive to get people to be active.

[Ryan_DuBois]

We were never a good site, Cat. The only difference between the then and the now is that the people who DO write worthwhile stuff used to be more productive.

Maybe people need bigger incentives? Perhaps we should start having a $5 buy-in for our tournaments with winner-take-all...

[Cat2000]

I was looking at some of the infinite stories, and it is depressing how many badly-written, poorly constructed ones there are. We used to be a good site! What happened to us?!

With this in mind, I want to submit a challenge. I think everyone should write something they consider to be a really good work; something that we can use to draw more people into the site and make it great again. We have a lot of great writers here, and I think I would really like to see more work done on the stories here.

You can work on (and finish) a story you've already started - but it might be better to produce something no one else has seen before (a private one, perhaps?) And I think that, at various stages, people should beta-read the stories being worked on and make helpful suggestions. Not necessarily in ratings, but PMs to the authors themselves.

I am working on something now, which would be better if I could embed the pictures; but if all else fails, I can provide links to the images. So I'm not letting that stop me.

So? Who's up for a challenge?