Testing anonymous posting mod

[Anonymous]

  doing something wrong am pressing Reply anonymously.  Maybe I'm only one seeing my name?

Reread Arry's post now all makes sense

[Anonymous]

Everyone's playing

[ScarletBea]

Oh oh! Have people realised that when we post anonymously, we can still see our own name and avatar, etc, but there's a little ghost next to the name?
CUTE!!!!

Edit: oh oops, Arry had already mentioned it that will teach me to read quickly...

[Anonymous]

Guess who learnt a lesson with the last few month and will be making an amoral, long toothed flesh eating monster for this month?

[Anonymous]

Don't take it hard, there were so many good entries to spread votes around, very difficult month to make choices and small personal likes in a story make the final differences 

[m3mnoch]

also, we can now talk about "i plan on doing this thing" and nobody will know who we are.  fancy!

tho, if i do that, i'll have to find the shift key i've got laying around here somewhere.

[Anonymous]

Don't take it hard, there were so many good entries to spread votes around, very difficult month to make choices and small personal likes in a story make the final differences 

It has nothing with taking it hard. I love my story, and loved the ones before it that tried to aim for kinder feelings, but I do notice the gritty, no-hope vibes bring in more votes, aka are more popular, and I enjoy writing them just as much, even better still, since I don't feel like there is much I could "miss out", while emotion or positive feelings are often trickier to handle for me. So why not go back to my darker roots? In between stories with bad endings and good endings, if one pleases me and doesn't chance getting published, and the other might because it pleases more, it's logical to work on it. I'm hoping that I'll one day get published after all.

[Lanko]

Don't take it hard, there were so many good entries to spread votes around, very difficult month to make choices and small personal likes in a story make the final differences 

It has nothing with taking it hard. I love my story, and loved the ones before it that tried to aim for kinder feelings, but I do notice the gritty, no-hope vibes bring in more votes, aka are more popular, and I enjoy writing them just as much, even better still, since I don't feel like there is much I could "miss out", while emotion or positive feelings are often trickier to handle for me. So why not go back to my darker roots? In between stories with bad endings and good endings, if one pleases me and doesn't chance getting published, and the other might because it pleases more, it's logical to work on it. I'm hoping that I'll one day get published after all.

That's interesting. I remember last year that a lot of people thought only comedic stories ever won. Then "more serious" stories started winning, and now the last few ones are more lighthearted with a touch of humor without being full comedy. 

[Nora]

Don't take it hard, there were so many good entries to spread votes around, very difficult month to make choices and small personal likes in a story make the final differences 

It has nothing with taking it hard. I love my story, and loved the ones before it that tried to aim for kinder feelings, but I do notice the gritty, no-hope vibes bring in more votes, aka are more popular, and I enjoy writing them just as much, even better still, since I don't feel like there is much I could "miss out", while emotion or positive feelings are often trickier to handle for me. So why not go back to my darker roots? In between stories with bad endings and good endings, if one pleases me and doesn't chance getting published, and the other might because it pleases more, it's logical to work on it. I'm hoping that I'll one day get published after all.

That's interesting. I remember last year that a lot of people thought only comedic stories ever won. Then "more serious" stories started winning, and now the last few ones are more lighthearted with a touch of humor without being full comedy.

Yeah the idea is that winning doesn't matter, but popular vote is a good sign of whether your story "worked" or not, across a rather large spectrum of readers. Some like Scarlet generally dislike horror, others aren't into present tense, etc, so it's generally tough for me to do a wide "crowd pleaser" outside of good comedy.
But the thinking is, here more people are into light story telling, positive endings, good emotional content, etc.
So if I try my hand at that and can't nearly get as many votes (across several stories) as when I do more gloomy stuff, it's a clear sign of what I must do best, regardless of my own appreciation of each stories.
It's a good indicator over all, because I know my audience and the audience knows me.
Seeing a story like Blink perform way better than Esper's tears is very interesting, in a detached pov. I would generally not expect it. I'd think Blink too gloomy, too hopeless, and the magical eyes quite hard to explain in a short time, yet it must have been better done than my choppy telling of an esper urchin's meltdown.

Being on the contest for 2 years has to have served a purpose, and I think the main point here is to help discover what I do best, what I like best. Things like how cool and powerful present tense is to me, and learning that dark stories fit me best is part of that process.
I'm not angry or disappointed about it. Tbh I thought Rukaio would win this month, because his story was so flawless, and that Tebakutis or Jmack would be second. But I thought making efforts toward good endings would glean more votes, the fact that it gleans less is almost a happy revelation. 

[m3mnoch]

heh.  this is probably the wrong place to have this conversation, but when has that ever stopped anyone?!?

Seeing a story like Blink perform way better than Esper's tears is very interesting, in a detached pov. I would generally not expect it. I'd think Blink too gloomy, too hopeless, and the magical eyes quite hard to explain in a short time, yet it must have been better done than my choppy telling of an esper urchin's meltdown.

i dunno if it was the quality of the storytelling more than the story concept itself.  i can't speak for everyone, but i can say for me, esper's tears felt like a very well-trodden blade runner concept with some story depth behind it.  blink was less about the story, and more about the "what if" factor.  i know i had one of those "oh shit!  that's cool!" moments when i read it.

Being on the contest for 2 years has to have served a purpose, and I think the main point here is to help discover what I do best, what I like best. Things like how cool and powerful present tense is to me, and learning that dark stories fit me best is part of that process.
I'm not angry or disappointed about it. Tbh I thought Rukaio would win this month, because his story was so flawless, and that Tebakutis or Jmack would be second. But I thought making efforts toward good endings would glean more votes, the fact that it gleans less is almost a happy revelation. 

yeah.  i agree with all of this.  (well, except for thinking rukaio would win, tho, his story was my favorite not written by me.)  after my 20-stories-entered-in-a-row, i've decided we're a really eclectic group of readers.  like, REALLY, REALLY eclectic.

there's no such thing as writing a story to please all of us.

right?  think about it.  we each had four votes and 24 people voted.  yet, out of 96 total votes, jmack only got 9.

or, sliced another way, with four votes, each person can choose nearly a full quarter of the stories as worth a vote.  even with that huge window of voting opportunity, only 37% of our voters chose his story as being in the top quarter of the bunch.

what i'm saying is, as an author, we've got just about as many varied tastes to satisfy as there are voters.

as best i can tell, your story needs at least one of these key ingredients to succeed:
1) be super-interesting in concept
2) be super-entertaining to read

ha!

i know, huge revelations, right?

[JMack]

Interesting discussion.
So funny: Rukaio's struck me a soooooo good, and in a PM I found another reader was "meh". Like @m3mnoch  says: eclectic bunch.

I voted for Esper Tears. I almost didn't because it felt SF rather than Urban Fantasy. Perhaps others felt the same way.
Out of curiosity @Nora, have you read Stephen King's "Firestarter"? I don't always love King, but this was a solid book about an esper who can do mega-pyrotechnics.

In the end, I agree with Chris. Given the length of the stories, there has to be a strong "oh cool!" Thing going on. Meanwhile, for my taste, a key measure is whether there's an actually story and not just a situation.
 

[Nora]

The last story is only another example, it's a real trend that darker stories have better votes. It might only mean that I write them better, or that people prefer a 'good' gritty story over a simply 'good' nicer story, where competition is much fiercer?
Dark is more memorable too, no?

And no, I hate King and generally go at great length to avoid his work. If I had more backbone in me I would dream to put him off the pedestal of the horror genre.

[Anonymous]

No one can guess who this is.

Just bringing the thread back to randomness.

[Lanko]

No one can guess who this is.

Just bringing the thread back to randomness.

It's ultamentkiller.

[Lady Ty]

 

I almost didn't because it felt SF rather than Urban Fantasy. Perhaps others felt the same way. 

This is a problem in that Urban Fantasy has become stereotyped to typical Dresden style for many people. All it needs is an urban setting and fantasy elements of any kind. Even contemporary time isn't necessary although usual in order not to clash with historical fantasy.
 
This is why I found this month's contest so particularly enjoyable because there were varied unusual approaches, as well as the more typical ones. I loved that Urban was stretched in different ways even though  some could have fitted several other themes. For example both The Boy who Spoke Dakota and Gaia's Child were gently wonderful but atypical while still urban.

Esper's Tears had the nod to typical in reference to the CIA at the end, but was way out of the ordinary and I didn't think the slightly hopeful ending mattered at all, the rest was suitably Nora-dark and beautifully phrased in places.

I could go on and on here and name great points in every single one of these stories and I genuinely thank you all again because Urban is my favourite genre. I think every writer did well this month, even if it was not a genre they choose to write in at all,  and it was by far the hardest I have ever had to vote for.

I agree that we are an eclectic group and maybe feed off each other's ideas and opinions at times, but we are all strong minded individuals with our own preferences as well.  I would hesitate to say happy, grim, comic, serious or any particular styles sway me continually, can often depend on illogical reasons as well. Mood, need for laugh, pleasure in words used, twisty concept or just overall enjoyment without any analysis.

The Writing Contest is a fundamental part of the forum and the one which draws us together most of all, as well as promoting good discussion. Love it and long may it continue. 

Even though I am about to be distracted again by Who-Wrote-Which in Anonymous March.