Falling Numbers -- Fewer Members Entering the Challenge

[Jo Zebedee]

A thought re falling entries with specific reference to the 75, and with no reflection to anyone (and especially not CC, who has worried about this this month) - we seem to be feeling we constantly need to come up with new and clever genres. And, frankly, there are only so many within the genre.

Are we limiting entries with this? When I first came here it was the themes that stretched, by and large, and wider genres were offered. Lately, it seems to have narrowed so much, it's not a challenge but a contortion to enter (and I'm guilty of it recently.)

I hope no one takes offence - it's just musing out loud.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

That has also been a concern in the Staff Room, that people are trying too hard to be original in their themes and genres, to top each other. I hope nobody feels that they are expected to compete in that way. Theme and genre are supposed to inspire ideas, not make the challenge harder or more esoteric. The challenge is getting the story into 75 words.

(The most stories, by far, that we ever had in a month was 75. That was Culhwch's month to choose. If anyone feels competitive about choosing theme and/or genre, perhaps they should be shooting to meet or top his record.)

 

[Cat's Cradle]

An interesting topic for discussion, Jo. I'm off to bed, it's very late here...I'll just say for myself, with this month's choices, that I thought/hoped that the genre-theme combo I picked would be one that had the potential to inspire unique and unusual stories. I'll admit it was kind of a selfish thought...I kind of knew it was potentially an unpopular set of choices, but I wanted to read the stories that our very talented writers would create from these, on the surface, quite challenging challenge parameters. I honestly was not trying to top anyone else's choices, but I was hoping this pairing would lead to a memorably unique set of stories. Well, I'm really tired, and it's possible I'm not explaining this correctly. I'll be very interested to see what others have to say on the topic! Night all, CC

 

[Parson]

I've entered nearly all of the 75 word challenges from the very first. If memory serves I missed one, and one I had a story which I posted later in the comments when my internet/computer went on the Fritz. I will say that both kinds the ones I have to look up and the ones which everyone knows have always been challenging. I do think that the quality of the stories is a smidge higher when we have something more common like Fantasy, Science Fiction, or Science Fantasy. On the other hand when we have an unusual genre I think the originality of the stories goes a bit higher. I would not want to make any hard rules about anything, but I certainly wouldn't want people to feel that they (I doubt it will ever be me.) have to have a genre or a theme that is unique.

 

[Cat's Cradle]

A couple of things...first, I forgot to thank TJ for her amazing work in keeping these statistics, and in presenting the findings to us in such a clear and interesting way. This is truly fascinating stuff for those of us who love the challenges. Thank you TJ. And wow! I was third in the 75 Worder last year?!? That amazes me...I joined the site, in part, for the challenges, and to place so high amongst such a talented group of co-participants thrills (and stuns!) me!

Also, I had one final thought about the topic Jo brought up just above here. Just speaking objectively, I think I may have made a mistake this month in my thinking, when I was coming up with my theme and genre. I thought about this last night a bit, in bed (as I do not sleep well), and I realized that I may have been in error in consciously trying to pick topics that would almost force a unique challenge on the other participants. I was lucky enough to win one other of these early last year, and I picked what seemed to me later to be a rather bland genre/theme pairing: Classic SF/alien invasion. I remembering worrying at the time that these choices might have been limiting to the challenge participants; that they weren't exciting enough to really inspire the imaginations of everyone who'd normally enter a challenge. So, I have a thought about why, possibly, we're getting such challenging challenge pairings such as *ahem* Meta Fiction/Conflict...I wonder if people are trying to create pairings that they think might be more inspirational to folks than ones that might seem more mundane on the surface? (And I ask knowing that, at least in my thoughts, it's the imagination that determines how successful a genre/theme pairing is.) But I wonder if maybe I took the fun out of the challenge this month...I hate that thought, but I know there was a fair bit of trepidation for the first week or so of the challenge, over the genre/theme choices. Well, yes...I do worry a bit too much, and also--enough about me! CC

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Again, my comment wasn't directed at this month, @Cat's Cradle - I rather enjoyed the theme and the clever stories - but on a more general level (I think I limited with my magical realism one, for instance). Perhaps a balance would be good, some straightforward, some tricksy. I think Teresa said it well - that, perhaps, we've got used to seeing harder and harder ones and think that's what we should do when selecting?

I was also purely thinking in terms of whether it attracts a range of people in (especially newbies) rather than the fun element of writing the stories, which may well be enhanced by an additional challenge?

Edit. Ps you are worrying too much about it. really,

 

[HareBrain]

Personally, I think either theme or genre should be challenging, otherwise there isn't much point. It's always the challenging ones I find more interesting to enter, because the restriction tends to stimulate my brain out of its habitual torpor. We've very rarely had a month where both the theme and genre were difficult -- "metafiction" might have been tricky, but "conflict" as a theme was wide open, since most stories contain that anyway. If we did get a request for, say, "Indonesian folk-tale" with "Cartesian dualism", we'd no doubt ask for a rethink.

As to what puts off (or attracts) newbies from entering, I think we'd need to find some way of asking them, rather than let speculation change the way we do things at the moment.

I do, wonder, though, if winners are trying to avoid repeating themes (and sometimes genres) that have been used before? There's certainly no reason to do that. A lot of the early themes were great (time, sin, etc), and could easily stand to be reused.

 

[Cat's Cradle]

Again, my comment wasn't directed at this month, @Cat's Cradle

I never thought it might have been, Jo, no worries! I think it just seemed timely to me as I'd worried about this myself, this month.

I do, wonder, though, if winners are trying to avoid repeating themes (and sometimes genres)

I agree that this very well could be part of the problem, HB. Maybe a nostalgia tour of older themes?

(Finally, I wonder if this should be moved to Improving Our 75 Worders? I fear we've co-opted TJ's wonderful stats thread.)

 

[Ashleyne]

I do, wonder, though, if winners are trying to avoid repeating themes (and sometimes genres) that have been used before? There's certainly no reason to do that. A lot of the early themes were great (time, sin, etc), and could easily stand to be reused.

Plus, a lot of newish entrants (myself included) didn't take part in the earlier themes.

I don't necessarily have a problem with creative genres or themes, though.

 

[The Judge]

New thread started, in the hope we get plenty of Challenge entrants seeing it.

It is possible that difficult-sounding genres are responsible for some fall-off in numbers, since newbies in particular might well be deterred from entering -- interestingly the difference between the number of entrants in 2013-14 (129) and 2014-15 (114) is exactly the difference between the number of members entering the 75 Word Challenges for the first time in those years (55 and 40 respectively). But when we had the 75 entries in one month (which incidentally included a massive 15 newcomers) Cul had chosen Promises as a theme, and Post-Apocalyptic as the genre, which although not terribly constraining, clearly isn't as wide as just SF or fantasy which were often used before with far fewer entrants.

But even if difficult/obscure theme/genre is a factor, it isn't the complete story, since theme isn't relevant and genre is always constant in the 300 Worders, which have shown much the same drop.

It might help if I recap figures here.

The 75 Worders:

2010-11 produced 570 entries, from 148 entrants (43 in the first Challenge, 105 thereafter)
2011-12 612 entries, 151 entrants, 85 newbies
2012-13 670 entries, 154 entrants, 70 newbies
2013-14 578 entries, 129 entrants, 55 newbies
2014-15 568 entries, 114 entrants, 40 newbies
​

The 300 Worders:

2011-12 produced 150 entries from 75 entrants (42 members in the first Challenge and 33 thereafter)
2012-13, 190 entries, 88 entrants, 50 newbies
2013-14, 146 entries, 63 entrants, 23 newbies
2014-15, 147 entries, 67 entrants, 23 newbies​

Although entrant and newbie numbers have dropped from the high point of 2012-13, the massive 670 entries for the 75 worders that year came with only 6 more entrants than in the opening year, and fewer newbies than the year before. And although not as dramatic in the 300s, again we got 40 more stories though only 13 more entrants in 2012-13 than in the previous year.

Taking both together, I wonder whether the drop from that 2012-13 high spot is due in part to Challenge fatigue. People have dropped out because they can't consistently summon up the energy/enthusiasm/time to produce stories month in, month out, a problem perhaps exacerbated last year with the rise of the other Workshop threads calling for stories there.

On the other hand, although I've spoken of dropping numbers when I've reported the figures, it might just be that 2012-13 was a complete aberration for both sets of Challenges, and that around 570-580 for the 75s and 145-150 for the 300s is all we can reasonably expect to achieve each year.

 

[Glitch]

Are the same people winning the challenges? That can put new entrants off.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Are the same people winning the challenges? That can put new entrants off.

I think that's a really good point, actually. People need to believe there is a chance of winning something...? I don't know anyway round it, though.

 

[Cat's Cradle]

Interesting question, Glitch. Just my experience...I somehow tied TDZ for a win in my second 75 worder. Then there were a bunch of very lean months. And I realized after this lean period that a mention is a glorious thing; and then eventually I received a vote again, and it was even more exciting! And I came to desire, and aim for, mentions and the occasional vote each month.

My personal thoughts are that there are so many wonderful writers who enter these challenges...and there are always several really hot stories each month...and it's tremendously difficult to win one of these events. I'm not sure if it's true of other people, but I'd guess most of us aren't expecting to win (and so pass on our genre/theme DNA to the next month's challenge) when we post out stories each month; I have a suspicion that many of us are happy with mentions, and ecstatic at the odd vote. Just my thoughts. CC

ps--I'm a much better writer today than I was a year ago. I use the desire to improve as an incentive as well, in the challenges.

 

[The Judge]

Um... would new entrants know who was winning? I do each and every Challenge, and I do all the stats, and without checking I still couldn't tell you who won what in the 75 worders last year, let alone in previous years.

And for the record (I've checked ) in the 75 worders the only person to win twice in the past year was, indeed, CC: in April 2014 (jointly with TDZ) and in March 2015, which -- with all respect to CC -- hardly smacks of domination! Jo, alchemist and Teresa all had a second win over the year; TDZ had her 4th win (13 months after her 3rd) and Hex her 5th (9 months after her 4th), but even if a potential new entrant had taken the trouble to find all that out, even if only by looking at the stats I've prepared, there were still 7 first time winners in the year, so why should it raise any misgivings about having no chance? And while I've been lucky in the 300 worders this past year, I'm far from convinced that would be known to anyone coming new to the Challenges, nor that it would actually put anyone off if they had investigated.

I think a greater problem is that members who have taken part only once or twice might be disappointed at getting no votes/few mentions, since we all know from bitter experience that is discouraging, and then they drop out because they feel undervalued (or even aggrieved). But there's absolutely nothing we can do about that, except encourage them to keep trying, because the chances of winning increase the more one enters -- as Victoria said in the stats thread itself: "(Hint: Enter every contest.)"

For myself, I've sometimes wondered whether the in-jokes and chumminess in the Discussion threads might appear a bit off-putting to a newcomer, especially a newbie to the site as a whole, but I've no idea if anyone would actually look at those threads before entering the Challenges.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

I'll add my tuppence as something of a semi-outsider (American, fairly new.)

When I came here a couple of years ago, I was just searching for something like "science fiction forum." This place was by far the best. It was active, and the discussions were not limited to just visual media. I have noticed that, over the last several years, all of the fora of which I was a member were becoming much less active. Places where I could expect dozens of new comments a day were producing one, if I were lucky. Folks seemed to be deserting fora for Facebook and other things. I was delighted to discover a place which was not falling victim to this trend.

The writing contests appealed to me, so I jumped in. I expect to keep participating unless something in the outside world prevents me.

I don't think you have a problem, really. The number of entries, even at its lowest, seems perfectly adequate to me.

 

[Glitch]

Assuming new members might lurk in the challenges before entering they would see who's winning. I honestly didn't check the stats before posting my question on regular winners.

How do the challenge stats compare to the general forum membership churn? Are the people who've joined recently even aware the challenges exist?

The 300 word challenge has a prize which isn't advertised at the start of the thread. You have to go into the rules to find it - and I knew it was there somewhere to find!

 

[The Judge]

Even if new members were lurking, they'd have to lurk a good while in order to pick up who's winning on a regular basis, or do a lot of back-tracking, and I really can't imagine they'd do that or bother reading through and interpreting the stats thread before entering. Short of cornering a lot of members who have never participated and asking them if that's why they've not entered, we're never likely to find out though.

No idea if Brian keeps figures for churn, though certainly the vast majority of the only-entered-one-challenge members are rarely if ever around now.

I was going to raise the issue of pointing new members to the Challenges, which certainly used to happen. I've not kept up with the Intro threads recently, but for those who go into them regularly, perhaps it's something to remember to push.

We've not had the prize mentioned in the opening post of the 300 Challenges for a good while now, so that's not in itself a reason for any decline in numbers, but it might help if we reinstate it. *makes mental note*


Meanwhile, regarding Jo's opening question, I've added number of entrants and newbies to a table I'd drawn up listing theme and genre for the 75s. I can't draw any conclusions from it, but someone more used to extrapolating stuff might have more success, so for what it's worth, here it is.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Thank you for doing that. I would never claim to be an expert in extrapolation, but just looking at the numbers it seems to me that the choice of themes has almost nothing to do with the number of entries or the number of new entrants. Something as limited and off-the-wall as "Nourishment" and "in the style of Rudyard Kipling" has numbers that don't look very different from something as wide and familiar as "discovery" and "science fiction or fantasy."

Whatever you're doing, keep it up. You're all doing a great job.

 

[farntfar]

Whilst I can’t say I’ve followed every introduction thread, I’m pretty sure that the challenges are pointed out to pretty well everyone who mentions the slightest interest in writing in their introduction.
I can’t remember how I heard about it, because I never said I had any interest in writing; but clearly I heard of them pretty soon after joining, because I’ve entered fairly consistently since I began.
Furthermore, the unlikelihood of winning never put me off. I never had any expectation of doing so, and so far I’ve got 100% on that one.
But I find mentions or even sometimes votes terrifically uplifting.

As for the easy or difficult themes question, I like to see some of each. I’m not well versed in all the genres and have had to look some up in Wiki or wherever before beginning, but have then enjoyed playing with what I understood them to mean. Sometimes I’ve been quite mistaken or at least have understood only a very shallow idea of it, but it doesn’t matter, because it’s given me something to attempt, which I think is pretty much the point.
But I have to say a more specific theme usually gives me more inspiration.

Whatever you're doing, keep it up. You're all doing a great job.

I second that motion.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

There was a time when numbers of entries was climbing for the 75 workers and for several months the numbers hovered around sixty entries. But I think that one month where we had 50 is the best we have done for a long time. We are getting back to where we started when the 75 Word Challenge was still new. If we ever drop below the number of entries we had in the first month I will be convinced that the challenge is dying. I never expected it to last this long, so I suppose that will come as no great surprise. But the question will remain: why?

I don't think challenging themes and genres put people off, but I do think those that are too narrow do, which is why we ask winners to run their ideas past the mods before they post them. If the theme and genre are too narrow, there is less chance that they will spark off ideas in as many people, and a good chance that among those who do enter there will be several stories that are extremely similar to each other (which has happened some months). Metafiction is a nice large genre, so I do not think that it influenced the number of entries in a bad way, and even if it had, one month is not going to kill the challenge. We are concerned about trends, several months in a row of increasingly daunting and limiting themes and genres as winners work hard to top each other by setting a more difficult challenge. If the idea is to produce more original stories by doing so, I don't think that should be a consideration, because I don't think that setting the challenge bestows that power. There are always surprises how different people choose to interpret a theme.

I don't know if we mods and others are doing as much as we were for a while to bring the challenges to the attention of new members. I only know that I have not been participating in any of the introduction threads for some time, although I suppose I should on general principle as a moderator.

As for challenge fatigue, I do think that may well be a factor, which is one reason why we refused to make the 100 worder official and did not want it running in any month where the 75 and 300 are both in progress. I will also say, and this is my personal opinion only, that I have never thought that having a third challenge running on a regular basis was a good idea. Quite the reverse, and that was because I thought from the first that challenge fatigue would be the result. However, other moderators obviously feel differently because they have supported the 100 worder by entering stories, and of course I may be wrong and they may be right that it does not affect the other challenges at all, or if it does, very little.

HareBrain's suggestion that we ask newbies why they don't join in puzzles me. Does that refer to newcomers who enter one or two challenges and then no more? That might be a viable suggestion if they are still posting here and there around the forums . But it has been my impression (possibly incorrect) that there have been a number of people attracted to the site by the challenge, that their entries in the challenge have been their first posts on this site, and that while some disappear after a challenge or two, some decide that this is a very nice forum and stick around for a long time. I have thought that the Challenges are rather a good advertisement for the Chronicles, catching the fancy of people who hear about them, or encouraging lurkers to unlurk. Obviously, there is no way to contact people who take a look at the challenge, are put off by the theme and genre, and never join the Chronicles or take part at all, though they might have done if the themes had appealed to them (if, indeed, such people even exist), so if that is happening there is no way of asking them anything. Or are we supposed to approach every newcomer to the site who expresses an interest in writing and doesn't take part in the challenges why they don't? That strikes me as impertinent and off-putting.

So I think that this is something that those who do participate on a regular or semi-regular basis need to figure out for ourselves. If there is anything to figure out. Maybe the novelty of the challenge is just wearing off.