Weekly Story Topic! Please give feedback

[Filicireg]

I like to frequent various forums, and on my art forum there is a weekly activity thread where an idea is posted and people have a week or so to get back with their results. It's very interesting to see what people come up with. For example, they have a "Creature of the Week" thread where a weird animal concept is posted and then the artists create amazing paintings of what they think of...anyways, I thought this might be a good idea to bring onto this forum. Propose a general idea that people can twist to their own perspective and write a short story on it. Then a competition of sorts is held to determine the best story. The main goal is not to win, but to read some interesting stories and to gain some critique on style.

This is just my idea, if people like it then perhaps we can get an admin/moderator to "host" it in a sticky. Every week the sticky could be replaced with a new topic and the fun could begin anew. The rules for size would have to be figured out, and some other minor issues...but it would be a nice way to practice writing and get ideas.

I'll add a poll to see what people think...

 

[The Ace]

It could be fun. Of course, the stories would have to be fairly short (c1000 words), because reading a number of long stories would be totally counter-productive.

The moderators would have to have the casting vote on this idea, though.

 

[Filicireg]

This is why I dont think it would be too hard to limit the stories that are submitted: This section of the forums doesnt move fast. I'd like some more feedback, so toss out any ideas you may have.

 

[Culhwch]

Generally in the past, we've been loath to introduce any form of 'competition' in this part of the forum, as such relies on subjectivity and can sometimes - even when nothing is at stake - lead to ill-will. But the idea has merit, even if only as an exercise of sorts. An idea or theme is posted, and anyone willing has maybe two weeks to produce a story of a thousand words or less... I'll take it to the other mods, and see what comes of it.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Certainly we've had a couple of similar suggestions in the past, but I don't think we're going to implement anything in the immediate future.

We've just come out of a big server move, and have a load of changes and additions to make to the site, so I don't think this is something we could reasonably accommodate in the near term.

However, be assured, it's very close to my mind that we need to do *something* with the fiction writing potential here, so hopefully will look to plan that once things have settled down a little better.

 

[Filicireg]

Alright, sounds good. Thanks for the replies =)