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NeoGAF Creative Writing Challenge #143 - "Gluttony"
- Thread starter Valerie Cherish
- Start date
- Status
Valerie Cherish
Member
Thank you for putting this together!
Yeah, thanks for putting this together, Ashes! In general, do we delegate someone to put these stories up? Is it the OP, or the last submitter, or whomever thinks of doing it first?
I think usually it is this.
Thank you for thanking me.
Thank you for thanking her for thanking you. Such politeness.
EDIT: Dammit, can't view the DropBox ones at work...oops. Guess i'll read these when I get home tonight.
Votes:
1- Mike M
2- Ourobolus
3- Tangent
Comments:
Ourobolus - You got me. I went in expecting cannibalism, but got rope-a-doped into thinking it was something else, and get hit with the stinger at the end. I'd say it's the writing itself that lulled me. The dialogue and bits of description are all very well done.
Valerie Cherish - Nice idea, the characters build well, but the writing is unfocused. Sometimes I had to reread bits a few times to get what you meant, and others I had to guess.
Cyan - It doesn't establish itself, and I think it really needs to. The elements of this demon summoning, the looming war, the fleeing peasants... they're all kind of floaty without being established. Without knowing why the demon is there, I feel like I can't ever know the main character.
Bootaaay - It's a bit of a trope, humans being better at evil than demons. I'd like to see demons that make this sort of evil seem like petty schoolyard stuff. Because otherwise demons are just pathetic.
Mike M - Shame about the word limit. I can feel the added meat that could be added to these bones, but you hit the limit pretty hard. It's a good bit of business that doesn't care that the premise is obvious because it makes it interesting, and I can't imagine the story playing out any better than it did.
ZeroRay - A chunk of the story didn't make it to the page. You don't really establish the characters and their situation, and you don't really explain things when you subvert it. There's some nice twistedness going on here, but the pacing needed a slow build to be more effective.
Carlisle - Probably going for glutton for punishment, but it still doesn't really fit the theme. It's a cool idea, and the details build up nicely, but there's a little too much of his excuse in the middle when the reader knows it's bullshit. Probably better to quickly summarize, and move on.
Nezumi - I wish the other owner had gotten his own goat, or maybe a team of goats for push back against this goat bully. Because going for the advance of technology instead doesn't leave a lot of interaction, and makes the story sort of flat without it.
Tangent - This is certainly an adventure with many twists and turns. It's both pleasant and unpredictable. Somehow, I could never quite visualize it. It seemed strange that the clay work could interact with humans and other things so freely. I needed something from the world to understand how these interactions were possible.
Ashes - You have an intimate discussion between two people, and the dialogue is all very good, but I really wish you would express some of this through action. There are points where it turns awkward because you bend dialogue into what it's not really meant to do. What are you saying, you are a sex addict? is such a direct question that it feels crude to express it that way. It diminishes the dialogue that just came before it.
1- Mike M
2- Ourobolus
3- Tangent
Comments:
Ourobolus - You got me. I went in expecting cannibalism, but got rope-a-doped into thinking it was something else, and get hit with the stinger at the end. I'd say it's the writing itself that lulled me. The dialogue and bits of description are all very well done.
Valerie Cherish - Nice idea, the characters build well, but the writing is unfocused. Sometimes I had to reread bits a few times to get what you meant, and others I had to guess.
Cyan - It doesn't establish itself, and I think it really needs to. The elements of this demon summoning, the looming war, the fleeing peasants... they're all kind of floaty without being established. Without knowing why the demon is there, I feel like I can't ever know the main character.
Bootaaay - It's a bit of a trope, humans being better at evil than demons. I'd like to see demons that make this sort of evil seem like petty schoolyard stuff. Because otherwise demons are just pathetic.
Mike M - Shame about the word limit. I can feel the added meat that could be added to these bones, but you hit the limit pretty hard. It's a good bit of business that doesn't care that the premise is obvious because it makes it interesting, and I can't imagine the story playing out any better than it did.
ZeroRay - A chunk of the story didn't make it to the page. You don't really establish the characters and their situation, and you don't really explain things when you subvert it. There's some nice twistedness going on here, but the pacing needed a slow build to be more effective.
Carlisle - Probably going for glutton for punishment, but it still doesn't really fit the theme. It's a cool idea, and the details build up nicely, but there's a little too much of his excuse in the middle when the reader knows it's bullshit. Probably better to quickly summarize, and move on.
Nezumi - I wish the other owner had gotten his own goat, or maybe a team of goats for push back against this goat bully. Because going for the advance of technology instead doesn't leave a lot of interaction, and makes the story sort of flat without it.
Tangent - This is certainly an adventure with many twists and turns. It's both pleasant and unpredictable. Somehow, I could never quite visualize it. It seemed strange that the clay work could interact with humans and other things so freely. I needed something from the world to understand how these interactions were possible.
Ashes - You have an intimate discussion between two people, and the dialogue is all very good, but I really wish you would express some of this through action. There are points where it turns awkward because you bend dialogue into what it's not really meant to do. What are you saying, you are a sex addict? is such a direct question that it feels crude to express it that way. It diminishes the dialogue that just came before it.
Aaron: Kind of hard to shake the vibe of Seven from this one, despite the setting in Bejing. Some of the dialogue seems a bit odd, (Particularly about seek[ing]
the pure evidence of the security footage.), but at the same time it hews close to the awkward phrasings and statements you see in subbed anime. I have no idea if the Chinese have the same sort of speaking patterns, but I guess its close enough for jazz? The story kind of lost its way to me when he went in to speak to the police chief. The revelation that horrible crimes happen on these grey days (without specifying any examples, even) just knocked the focus completely out of whack for me, as it stopped being about this crime and started just being a rumination about the state of the world and society with no resolution or sense of urgency anymore. Might work as the introduction to something longer, but on its own it didnt rock my world despite a promising opening.
Ourobolus: I see Hannibal as the first word and immediately think, Oh, are we going to have a run of cannibalism stories this week? But at least its not Hannibal fanfic. But in naming the character Hannibal, you instantly put into mind that this was going to be a story about cannibalism, which it was. So in my reading, you kind of did this thing where the cannibalism thing was going to be some shocking reveal, but you already tipped your hand about it right from the very start. But for me, this was kind of a feint, as I didnt see where it was going with the actual twist until nearly the end because I was too busy thinking the story didnt think I was smart enough to figure out that it was about cannibalism. Im not sure if what you did was kind of brilliant or accidental.
Valerie Cherish: Thought this one was in rough shape, honestly, which is kind of a surprise because I thought your last entry was fairly well polished to my recollection. There appear to be some wrong (or at the very least confusing) verb tenses from time to time, and at one point it appears that you drop a parenthetical internal thought in the middle of a piece of dialogue that the character is actually saying at that time without closing and reopening the spoken part with quotation marks. I also found the motivations of both Jeremy and Peter indecipherable. Jeremy was the one who broke up with his fiancée and is committing suicide over it? Actions that drastic dont naturally arise unless a character has a demonstrable history of mental illness or something, but we didnt get to see any of that here. Peters reaction to the matter is equally befuddling, just going along with it instead of taking his friend to a hospital or something. And then for all the emphasis on how they needed to get Jeremy back to the apartment in a hurry before he died, in the end he wants to make a run to Dairy Queen? At least nobody got eaten.
Cyan: Youre not Nezumi! Cute little story, though I thought pretty early on that he was going to go out and eat the soldiers. And then he did.
Bootaaay: Not entirely sure why demons would be so disparaging of the widespread adoption of sin like that, seems to me like that ought to be what theyre shooting for? From the perspective of a demon that wants to damn as many souls as possible, isnt performing it on an industrial scale as they are a good thing? At least the demons didnt eat anyone.
Mike M: My ambition to be clever about this outstripped my ability. I may have been able to do more with it if I had a higher word count to work with, but Im generally kind of terrible at characterization once my character count tops two or three, and here I had ten named characters. So if I had a higher word count, it probably would have just been bloated and terrible. The Magnificent Seven + the seven deadly sins might have been just a little too high concept for me to ever have made work right, but I still kind of like the notion. I may do something else entirely with the characters one day, but not today. At least Gutierrez didnt eat anyone : P
ZeroRay: Maaaaan, just when I thought this was another cannibalism story, you go and do something? Im not entirely sure what was going on here. I got that they were actors, and to the best of my knowledge the crux of it is that Daggermoony was just really good at maintaining character, but what I dont understand is why they were trying to get him to break character in the first place? It was a joke, right? So why was everyone else coming in for rehearsal dependant on whether or not he cracked? I feel like Im most of the way there to understanding everything, but the fact that everything is written from the point of the character that Daggermoony is playing who wouldnt understand any of it makes things a bit difficult for me.
Carlisile: I liked the dots of the story you were telling, but I think maybe it needed a different way to go about linking them all together. It seems like the things that the situation escalated to is exactly the sort of reason that strip clubs have these rules and security. Unless this girl was explicitly called out to have very poor judgment, she seemed to do the exact opposite of what every sensible person should have/would have done. You notice a guy creeping you for days who then works his way up to buying a lap dance from you? Alarm bells ought to be going off in your head to not engage him any further. For the story to work, Will needs to win Violet over, not have Violet make the first move. But that would have been a difficult feat given the word limit. Also, what was this room upstairs that strippers can bring people back into and have no security around?
Nezumi: Daaaaw, I love goats. Did automatic lawnmowers ever become a big thing? I seem to recall that they were released at a consumer level to kind of a lukewarm response because they were kind of temperamental and didnt cut grass in smooth lines or something. Also, how often is this guy mowing his lawn that the goat wakes up every day and goes to compete against it? Poor goat, had kind of an Old Man and the Sea ending where youre pretty sure shes going to die, but it doesnt happen on the page. What kind of jerk goat owner doesnt notice that his goat is getting too fat to live without calling the vet? : ( At least no one ate the goat.
Tangent: It wasnt immediately clear that Ipo was made of clay until he got grabbed by a preschooler. I was left wondering what exactly he was supposed to be, and had assumed he was some sort of animate painting, or perhaps some sort of paper cutout. Also, he was made by a kid in an art class, but he was displayed in galleries? Or was it meant to imply that he was just on display in an art room at the school and he thought it was a gallery? Im also not at all sure what the heck was going on at the end with the people working clay with him jumping back in line over and over again. Is this some art thing from the perspective of clay, or was this just a thing that only exists in a world of animate clay where people mold them back into shape? Is it possible to work clay too much? My only experience is with Play-Doh, which seems indestructible so long as you return it to its tub when youre done. You probably could have done away with the bit about the caterpillar entirely, as when you step back from the story, he didnt do much outside teach Ipo how to crawl as a lump of clay.
Ashes: While the relationship between the characters was well developed, the dialogue didnt sound very natural to me at all. The wife goes into this monologue that sounds more like shes reading someones prose off a page, or perhaps delivering some sort of soliloquy in a stage production where all the other lights dim save for the one on her. None of it felt particularly right for the presentation that was given here.
Votes
1. Ourobolus
2. Aaron
3. Cyan
Ourobolus: I see Hannibal as the first word and immediately think, Oh, are we going to have a run of cannibalism stories this week? But at least its not Hannibal fanfic. But in naming the character Hannibal, you instantly put into mind that this was going to be a story about cannibalism, which it was. So in my reading, you kind of did this thing where the cannibalism thing was going to be some shocking reveal, but you already tipped your hand about it right from the very start. But for me, this was kind of a feint, as I didnt see where it was going with the actual twist until nearly the end because I was too busy thinking the story didnt think I was smart enough to figure out that it was about cannibalism. Im not sure if what you did was kind of brilliant or accidental.
Valerie Cherish: Thought this one was in rough shape, honestly, which is kind of a surprise because I thought your last entry was fairly well polished to my recollection. There appear to be some wrong (or at the very least confusing) verb tenses from time to time, and at one point it appears that you drop a parenthetical internal thought in the middle of a piece of dialogue that the character is actually saying at that time without closing and reopening the spoken part with quotation marks. I also found the motivations of both Jeremy and Peter indecipherable. Jeremy was the one who broke up with his fiancée and is committing suicide over it? Actions that drastic dont naturally arise unless a character has a demonstrable history of mental illness or something, but we didnt get to see any of that here. Peters reaction to the matter is equally befuddling, just going along with it instead of taking his friend to a hospital or something. And then for all the emphasis on how they needed to get Jeremy back to the apartment in a hurry before he died, in the end he wants to make a run to Dairy Queen? At least nobody got eaten.
Cyan: Youre not Nezumi! Cute little story, though I thought pretty early on that he was going to go out and eat the soldiers. And then he did.
Bootaaay: Not entirely sure why demons would be so disparaging of the widespread adoption of sin like that, seems to me like that ought to be what theyre shooting for? From the perspective of a demon that wants to damn as many souls as possible, isnt performing it on an industrial scale as they are a good thing? At least the demons didnt eat anyone.
Mike M: My ambition to be clever about this outstripped my ability. I may have been able to do more with it if I had a higher word count to work with, but Im generally kind of terrible at characterization once my character count tops two or three, and here I had ten named characters. So if I had a higher word count, it probably would have just been bloated and terrible. The Magnificent Seven + the seven deadly sins might have been just a little too high concept for me to ever have made work right, but I still kind of like the notion. I may do something else entirely with the characters one day, but not today. At least Gutierrez didnt eat anyone : P
ZeroRay: Maaaaan, just when I thought this was another cannibalism story, you go and do something? Im not entirely sure what was going on here. I got that they were actors, and to the best of my knowledge the crux of it is that Daggermoony was just really good at maintaining character, but what I dont understand is why they were trying to get him to break character in the first place? It was a joke, right? So why was everyone else coming in for rehearsal dependant on whether or not he cracked? I feel like Im most of the way there to understanding everything, but the fact that everything is written from the point of the character that Daggermoony is playing who wouldnt understand any of it makes things a bit difficult for me.
Carlisile: I liked the dots of the story you were telling, but I think maybe it needed a different way to go about linking them all together. It seems like the things that the situation escalated to is exactly the sort of reason that strip clubs have these rules and security. Unless this girl was explicitly called out to have very poor judgment, she seemed to do the exact opposite of what every sensible person should have/would have done. You notice a guy creeping you for days who then works his way up to buying a lap dance from you? Alarm bells ought to be going off in your head to not engage him any further. For the story to work, Will needs to win Violet over, not have Violet make the first move. But that would have been a difficult feat given the word limit. Also, what was this room upstairs that strippers can bring people back into and have no security around?
Nezumi: Daaaaw, I love goats. Did automatic lawnmowers ever become a big thing? I seem to recall that they were released at a consumer level to kind of a lukewarm response because they were kind of temperamental and didnt cut grass in smooth lines or something. Also, how often is this guy mowing his lawn that the goat wakes up every day and goes to compete against it? Poor goat, had kind of an Old Man and the Sea ending where youre pretty sure shes going to die, but it doesnt happen on the page. What kind of jerk goat owner doesnt notice that his goat is getting too fat to live without calling the vet? : ( At least no one ate the goat.
Tangent: It wasnt immediately clear that Ipo was made of clay until he got grabbed by a preschooler. I was left wondering what exactly he was supposed to be, and had assumed he was some sort of animate painting, or perhaps some sort of paper cutout. Also, he was made by a kid in an art class, but he was displayed in galleries? Or was it meant to imply that he was just on display in an art room at the school and he thought it was a gallery? Im also not at all sure what the heck was going on at the end with the people working clay with him jumping back in line over and over again. Is this some art thing from the perspective of clay, or was this just a thing that only exists in a world of animate clay where people mold them back into shape? Is it possible to work clay too much? My only experience is with Play-Doh, which seems indestructible so long as you return it to its tub when youre done. You probably could have done away with the bit about the caterpillar entirely, as when you step back from the story, he didnt do much outside teach Ipo how to crawl as a lump of clay.
Ashes: While the relationship between the characters was well developed, the dialogue didnt sound very natural to me at all. The wife goes into this monologue that sounds more like shes reading someones prose off a page, or perhaps delivering some sort of soliloquy in a stage production where all the other lights dim save for the one on her. None of it felt particularly right for the presentation that was given here.
Votes
1. Ourobolus
2. Aaron
3. Cyan
Hmm, good point, thanks for the feedback.
Oh interesting. Good to know that it was confusing to visualize him. Yeah I pictured a cubed character with arms, legs, and a face, but I didn't explicitly say that. And yes, he was made by an elementary school student in an after-school program at a museum, but walked into the gallery himself, and simply enjoyed looking at the art -- but also felt connected to it.
Aye yai yai! I better finish reading everyone's stories!
Edit: oh man I just remembered we have to finish reading everything in 2 hours!!!! IDK if I'm gonna make it! *facepalm*
Valerie Cherish
Member
Votes:
1. Mike M
2. Nezumi
3. Tangent
Side question: Tangent, do you live in Seattle?
1. Mike M
2. Nezumi
3. Tangent
Side question: Tangent, do you live in Seattle?
San Francisco, I think?
Pretty sure I'm the only regular Seattle area rep I know of.
Valerie Cherish
Member
Ahh, I'm also up here! Tangent referenced three Seattle places, so it stuck out to me.
1. Ourobolus
2. Nezumi
3. Aaron
Aaron - I really liked the philosophical connections you made. It made the story bigger than I expected, like it was one part of a series, while thickening up the atmosphere. I found the plot itself pretty straightforward other than the bizarre nature of the murder itself, but having the philosophical tone gave it that added dimension.
Ourobolus - I really liked the atmosphere here. You could sense something wasn't right from the start and the story builds up at a great pace through the twist at the end. Even if I anticipated the ending, it was executed well enough that it was still satisfying.
Valerie Cherish - The dialogue and characters were great. And I enjoyed the dark humor towards the end. I just wish it didn't come at the expense of the mc who seemed like a very real, relatable guy who wouldn't just let his friend die. I guess it made the humor feel a bit out of place to me.
Cyan - The way you hint at the world without needing to drone on with details is really well done, and the characters are great. The ending was wonderfully twisted. I'd have liked to know just a little more to help complete the picture though. How'd the demon get there? Do all cats talk or just his? What was the point of the cat dragging the book out to him?
Bootaaay - I liked the setup and I appreciated the point you made. But it came off a bit heavy-handed. A more subtle or allegorical approach might have worked better for the message.
Mike M - This one cracked me up at the end, well done. I just felt that it took way too long to get into the story. There are two full pages of exposition before anything actually happens (though once things do happen it's great stuff). I see what you were going for with the character outlines, but other than a couple exceptions I don't think they added enough to the story to justify the time they took.
ZeroRay - The twist idea was good, but I could have used a little more filling in with the end. I could see what you were going for but I couldn't make sense of the context. I also had some trouble picturing the setting in a few instances: the beets were on top of the jugs of meat?
Nezumi - The goat was adorable, poor thing. How come the owner stopped coming out to check on her? Surely he'd have noticed his lawn getting mowed by the goat? No wonder she was so starved for attention. Very cute story, even if the end is sad.
Tangent - This started out so charming and fun, but the ending was so sad. The opening set me up to expect a cute kids story, but then the mc turns into a selfish jerk and runs into other clay balls that use swear words. It felt like the story couldn't decide whether it was for kids or adults. I loved the inventiveness and the adventure of it all. I just couldn't figure out what kind of story it was.
Ashes - I didn't expect that ending at all. The dynamic between the two characters is interesting to see play out and it kept me engaged the whole way through. There were a couple of awkwardly-worded instances where I couldn't tell who was talking or understand what was happening, such as the opening few lines, though.
2. Nezumi
3. Aaron
Aaron - I really liked the philosophical connections you made. It made the story bigger than I expected, like it was one part of a series, while thickening up the atmosphere. I found the plot itself pretty straightforward other than the bizarre nature of the murder itself, but having the philosophical tone gave it that added dimension.
Ourobolus - I really liked the atmosphere here. You could sense something wasn't right from the start and the story builds up at a great pace through the twist at the end. Even if I anticipated the ending, it was executed well enough that it was still satisfying.
Valerie Cherish - The dialogue and characters were great. And I enjoyed the dark humor towards the end. I just wish it didn't come at the expense of the mc who seemed like a very real, relatable guy who wouldn't just let his friend die. I guess it made the humor feel a bit out of place to me.
Cyan - The way you hint at the world without needing to drone on with details is really well done, and the characters are great. The ending was wonderfully twisted. I'd have liked to know just a little more to help complete the picture though. How'd the demon get there? Do all cats talk or just his? What was the point of the cat dragging the book out to him?
Bootaaay - I liked the setup and I appreciated the point you made. But it came off a bit heavy-handed. A more subtle or allegorical approach might have worked better for the message.
Mike M - This one cracked me up at the end, well done. I just felt that it took way too long to get into the story. There are two full pages of exposition before anything actually happens (though once things do happen it's great stuff). I see what you were going for with the character outlines, but other than a couple exceptions I don't think they added enough to the story to justify the time they took.
ZeroRay - The twist idea was good, but I could have used a little more filling in with the end. I could see what you were going for but I couldn't make sense of the context. I also had some trouble picturing the setting in a few instances: the beets were on top of the jugs of meat?
Nezumi - The goat was adorable, poor thing. How come the owner stopped coming out to check on her? Surely he'd have noticed his lawn getting mowed by the goat? No wonder she was so starved for attention. Very cute story, even if the end is sad.
Tangent - This started out so charming and fun, but the ending was so sad. The opening set me up to expect a cute kids story, but then the mc turns into a selfish jerk and runs into other clay balls that use swear words. It felt like the story couldn't decide whether it was for kids or adults. I loved the inventiveness and the adventure of it all. I just couldn't figure out what kind of story it was.
Ashes - I didn't expect that ending at all. The dynamic between the two characters is interesting to see play out and it kept me engaged the whole way through. There were a couple of awkwardly-worded instances where I couldn't tell who was talking or understand what was happening, such as the opening few lines, though.
Hopefully in a few years I'll be rectifying that.
Thanks for the input! That's what I was most insecure about with how the story turned out--that I didn't take the time to make her trusting him more believable. No idea about stripper rooms. Actually I've never been to a strip club, or done drugs, or lost anyone that close. It was a fun experiment for me, but I think I focused too much on trying to get the setting right and not enough on the relationship between the characters.
Ah, you caught me. The theme isn't as well represented here as it had been in my head. Glutton for punishment is about right. Self-punishment, perhaps. The idea was that he was a former drug/alcohol addict (a bit of gluttony there) who moved on to strippers who looked like his wife. So maybe a glutton for escape? Or a glutton for easing the pain of losing his wife? Yeah, kind of a stretch.
Thanks for the insight about the middle, it's so hard to tell how much the reader is going to figure out for themselves. Don't want to give too much or not enough.
That's...kinda what happened. I wasn't going to do the story after the initial concern in the thread. But after debating it a bit more, and then remembering that Lincoln's VP was named Hannibal, I knew I had to. The stars aligned.
Valerie Cherish
Member
Yeah, I was thinking of holding off for a bit. I don't know how long is too long though (Plus, I'll be heading off to work in an hour and won't be able to really post then)
There really isn't a set time. I think for at least the time I've been here it's usually roughly 12 hours or so after the deadline. I think some have gone later though. Eventually someone just decides to do it
There really isn't a set time. I think for at least the time I've been here it's usually roughly 12 hours or so after the deadline. I think some have gone later though. Eventually someone just decides to do it
Yeah, deadlines are more like a vague guideline around here.
BUT GOD HELP YOU IF YOU GO OVER THE WORD COUNT!
Didn't anyone ever tell you that size matters?
The Results:
1.) Ourobolus - Free Range
2.) Mike M - The Malfeasant Seven
3.) Nezumi - Green Grass
Vote count:
Ourobolus - 10 (2)
Mike M - 9 (3)
Nezumi - 7 (1)
Tangent - 6 (1)
Carlisle - 4 (1)
Aaron - 4
Cyan - 4
Ashes - 2
Boootay - 2
Congratulation Ourobolus! It's your first win, right?
1.) Ourobolus - Free Range
2.) Mike M - The Malfeasant Seven
3.) Nezumi - Green Grass
Vote count:
Ourobolus - 10 (2)
Mike M - 9 (3)
Nezumi - 7 (1)
Tangent - 6 (1)
Carlisle - 4 (1)
Aaron - 4
Cyan - 4
Ashes - 2
Boootay - 2
Congratulation Ourobolus! It's your first win, right?
Yeah, it's my first one. Cool!
I'm not sure whether or not I should be proud that my first win came around due to a story about a cannibalistic Abraham Lincoln, though.
Now to think of a theme...
Valerie Cherish
Member
Congrats Ouro!!
Thank you everyone for putting up with my theme.
(Thank you, Nezumi for posting the list!)
Thank you everyone for putting up with my theme.
(Thank you, Nezumi for posting the list!)
All right. How about if instead of imposing soft deadlines, we simply use hard ones? That way there's no questioning it? I know that we typically use soft ones, but I think that's what ends up causing a ton of confusion.
How about...
Submissions: Saturday @ 0800 PST
Voting: Tuesday @ 0800 PST (like today)
That way someone wakes up and posts the stories, and then someone wakes up and posts the votes. That way we aren't sitting here waffling over when things will be tallied.
How about...
Submissions: Saturday @ 0800 PST
Voting: Tuesday @ 0800 PST (like today)
That way someone wakes up and posts the stories, and then someone wakes up and posts the votes. That way we aren't sitting here waffling over when things will be tallied.
I don't mind a bit more discipline when it comes to the deadlines (it really has gotten out of hand lately). What time is 0800 though?
Yeah - it works for me as well. The problem isn't that there isn't enough time with these deadlines, it's that people wait until the last minute
Well, there's a 8 hour difference between the West coast (UTC-7) and Germany (UTC+1). So the ideal time is 0800-1300 for West coast and 1600-2100 for Germany. Going the other direction means someone is staying up late.
Mmm. We used to do hard deadlines. Actually, I used to always be the one posting story lists and vote counts. There was always somebody who just missed it when they posted their story or needed us to wait just half an hour for them to finish reading and vote. So the deadlines got softer over time, and we ended up where we are now. And I'm sure nobody's missed that I'm a frequent culprit myself.
I don't think it's a huge issue, honestly. The last few challenges have been worse because we keep switching the deadlines and confusing people, and so we've given more time (at least that was my read on it).
My preference is to have a nominal entry deadline and then give a few hours grace period. Deadline at noon, put up the story list at like 3 or 4, something like that. And for voting to just count up first thing the next morning. (Man, vote counts can be really awkward with a hard deadline. I used to do that, where I'd put up the official winner right at the midnight deadline, but then if I was winning the vote and some people hadn't voted yet it always felt uncomfortable. And we always pushed it back a bit if the current leader hadn't voted yet, because rules.)
I suppose if we go 8 AM for both, it sort of comes to the same thing as the deadlines we were using as of a few challenges ago.
Maybe make midnight the deadline with a grace period through 8 AM? It's not really different from an outcome standpoint but would encourage people to get things done earlier.
I don't think it's a huge issue, honestly. The last few challenges have been worse because we keep switching the deadlines and confusing people, and so we've given more time (at least that was my read on it).
My preference is to have a nominal entry deadline and then give a few hours grace period. Deadline at noon, put up the story list at like 3 or 4, something like that. And for voting to just count up first thing the next morning. (Man, vote counts can be really awkward with a hard deadline. I used to do that, where I'd put up the official winner right at the midnight deadline, but then if I was winning the vote and some people hadn't voted yet it always felt uncomfortable. And we always pushed it back a bit if the current leader hadn't voted yet, because rules.)
I suppose if we go 8 AM for both, it sort of comes to the same thing as the deadlines we were using as of a few challenges ago.
Maybe make midnight the deadline with a grace period through 8 AM? It's not really different from an outcome standpoint but would encourage people to get things done earlier.
Well, I'm fine with some sort of grace period, but that's still kinda the same thing as a hard deadline
Sure, I mean, that's kinda what I said! It's not really different in outcome, but will encourage people (ok, me) to finish sooner.
I've got an idea, but I'm in a meeting, give me a few.I say we try the 8 am hard cap thing and see how it works.
Now go and make the new thread already. I'm in the mood for some brainstorming
Ah shit, thought the voting deadline was today.
Thanks for the feedback, everyone. I tried to set this up in an old timey medieval fun land type place, but that didn't really come across well. Nor did the tone I wanted to convey. Would have definitely helped by setting and building things up more like suggested.
Thanks for the feedback, everyone. I tried to set this up in an old timey medieval fun land type place, but that didn't really come across well. Nor did the tone I wanted to convey. Would have definitely helped by setting and building things up more like suggested.
How dare you sir
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