February / March 100 Word Anonymous Challenge Discussion

[paranoid marvin]

It's a quite common phenomenon amongst winners of the 75-word challenges that the minds of those who choose the theme and genre go spectacularly blank.


EDIT: By the way, I've never entered one of these Anonymous challenges, so The Big Picture is not my work. (I hope, by saying so, I haven't broken the challenge rules.)

Yes I totally agree with this. More time spent thinking of something that hasn't been used for a while and which would prove both popular, challenging and fun. Then there's the pressure of feeling that you must come up with something decent, because after all it is your Challenge. Thankfully I only win about once every six years or so!


Btw I wonder what the stats are on anyone winning the 75-worder two months in a row? Can't have happened too often I reckon.

 

[mosaix]

Could we perhaps have a thread for 'Improving Our 100 Word Challenge' entries do you think?

Good idea.

 

[mosaix]

It's a quite common phenomenon amongst winners of the 75-word challenges that the minds of those who choose the theme and genre go spectacularly blank.


EDIT: By the way, I've never entered one of these Anonymous challenges, so The Big Picture is not my work. (I hope, by saying so, I haven't broken the challenge rules.)

My method of overcoming ‘blank mind’ syndrome is just to start writing. I’ve found that the physical process of writing, somehow, kicks off the imagination.

 

[chrispenycate]

Could we perhaps have a thread for 'Improving Our 100 Word Challenge' entries do you think?

We certainly don't need one on 'making your story's origin unguessable'

 

[paranoid marvin]

We certainly don't need one on 'making your story's origin unguessable'

Unless it's Loco-Commotion.

 

[paranoid marvin]

I agree with @BT Jones’ first two guesses, but don’t know about the rest - apart from the two which were attributed to me, of course.

Here are my first reactions:

• It's Snow Secret - @Luiglin
• Loco Commotion - @paranoid marvin
• Ancient catronauts - @elvet
• Three worlds - @Victoria Silverwolf
• The Unutterable - @BT Jones
• Hidden gift - @The Scribbling Man
• Debts - @mosaix
• Mother’s secret - @Astro Pen
• If only it was the 120 word anonymous challenge - @Luiglin
• It’s in there somewhere - @chrispenycate
• Nouvelle cuisine again? Sigh! - @Danny McG
• Woodland walk - @Guttersnipe

- even though two or three of my picks haven’t voted...

Now to draw up a table and make random guesses in a statistical way!

Although you got the wrong person (Luiglin) , you did (somehow) spot that 'It's Snow Secret' and 'If only...' were written by the same person (me).

 

[elvet]

With respect to the Guessing Game, I'm never sure when participants are finished. In the past, I go by the length of time between posts, and how many are participating. Also, I feel bad when I can't respond right away to validate guesses. So then I just post the list.
As this is a community run challenge, next time would you like something different? Maybe after the winner is announced, we can keep the guessing going until a set number agree to call the Guessing Game over?

I still have Farntfar's suggestion for another type of game:
It would be possible, with a little work, for the guessing to continue even after the beginning of the next writing period for a 100. It would require this months winner to give the theme and genre for next month to this month's runner. This month's runner would pass this to next month's runner, who could then set up and start next month, without him or herself being aware oh this month's winner and therefore being able to continue to guess on this month.
Confused? You won't be after this explanation.
This month is run by person A
Who publishes entries 1 to 13 by persons A thru M.
The votes are cast and story 3 wins. At this point everyone knows that story 3 has won but only A and G (the author of 3) know who wrote it and the guessing begins.
Author G gives next months theme and genre to A who passes this information, but not G's identity to author H who has volunteered to run the next month.
H sets up and starts the the next month for entries and at the same time the guessing continues for this month, still with only A and G aware who wrote story 3, until everyone is fed up with guessing and the list of authors with their entries (including the winner) are revealed.

 

[Provincial]

With respect to the Guessing Game, I'm never sure when participants are finished. In the past, I go by the length of time between posts, and how many are participating. Also, I feel bad when I can't respond right away to validate guesses. So then I just post the list.
As this is a community run challenge, next time would you like something different? Maybe after the winner is announced, we can keep the guessing going until a set number agree to call the Guessing Game over?

I still have Farntfar's suggestion for another type of game:
It would be possible, with a little work, for the guessing to continue even after the beginning of the next writing period for a 100. It would require this months winner to give the theme and genre for next month to this month's runner. This month's runner would pass this to next month's runner, who could then set up and start next month, without him or herself being aware oh this month's winner and therefore being able to continue to guess on this month.
Confused? You won't be after this explanation.
This month is run by person A
Who publishes entries 1 to 13 by persons A thru M.
The votes are cast and story 3 wins. At this point everyone knows that story 3 has won but only A and G (the author of 3) know who wrote it and the guessing begins.
Author G gives next months theme and genre to A who passes this information, but not G's identity to author H who has volunteered to run the next month.
H sets up and starts the the next month for entries and at the same time the guessing continues for this month, still with only A and G aware who wrote story 3, until everyone is fed up with guessing and the list of authors with their entries (including the winner) are revealed.

I would like to try this. It could add a bit of spice to trying to work out who the winner is. If nothing else, it would establish just how much of an appetite there is for the guessing game. But the winner might be a bit peeved about having to wait for an unknown amount of time before being able to glory in their victory and accepting the grovelling congratulations of their vanquished rivals, etc. etc.

 

[farntfar]

I wonder, if we are doing this, whether we shouldn't go back to the challenge itself being contained within a calendar month again.
I think the move to "mid feb to mid march" (for example) was trying to avoid conflict with the 300, when the guessing game could extend into the next month.
But what we've acheived is that there can only be one challenge per quarter. There wil be no challenge now until May (May-June), because of the 300 in April, and under the current rules the following one will be Aug-Sept.
If we go back to calendar months, we will have one in May, and one in June (with the guessing game going on perhaps til early July, but probably ending before the 1st 300 posts on July the 10th), giving us 2 challenges per quarter. I really don't believe that the guessing game is really distrating people from writing their 300 entries.

 

[Wayne Mack]

Perhaps it would simplify the guessing game if each post was only allowed to guess the writer of a single story. This could allow a quick yes or no response.

I would like to see the practice of announcing the winning writer at the end of voting, as I like to extend congratulations to the winner as soon as possible.

 

[elvet]

I wonder, if we are doing this, whether we shouldn't go back to the challenge itself being contained within a calendar month again.
I think the move to "mid feb to mid march" (for example) was trying to avoid conflict with the 300, when the guessing game could extend into the next month.
But what we've acheived is that there can only be one challenge per quarter. There wil be no challenge now until May (May-June), because of the 300 in April, and under the current rules the following one will be Aug-Sept.
If we go back to calendar months, we will have one in May, and one in June (with the guessing game going on perhaps til early July, but probably ending before the 1st 300 posts on July the 10th), giving us 2 challenges per quarter. I really don't believe that the guessing game is really distrating people from writing their 300 entries.

I may be corrected here, but sometimes the previous winner doesn't get back to the host with their decision in a timely manner, or they are unreachable. I think this may add some delay to the start of the challenge. It wasn't always exactly the first of the month. @mosaix may be able to comment more.

 

[farntfar]

So strip them of their title, if they don't give the new theme and genre by the 31st.

 

[mosaix]

I may be corrected here, but sometimes the previous winner doesn't get back to the host with their decision in a timely manner, or they are unreachable. I think this may add some delay to the start of the challenge. It wasn't always exactly the first of the month. @mosaix may be able to comment more.

You’re right, @elvet. It certainly happened once, maybe twice.

 

[Wayne Mack]

I think the two key things we should keep in mind are: keep it fun and minimize the work we put on @elvet.

Perhaps we could minimize the centralized work required in the guessing game by having tagged authors confirm or deny whether a story was theirs. I note Ursa did this in the current guessing game without ill effect. This also allows more involvement in the guessing game than by just the guessers.

 

[paranoid marvin]

As a newcomer to this Challenge, I'm happy to go along with the majority (and what elvet is happy to accommodate in their workload).

As a suggestion, would having a spoiler reveal to show the names of the entrants be a good idea? Or a separate thread which has the names of the entrants/winner, so that those who don't want to play the guessing game can congratulate the winner and move on, and those who do can do so later?

I do think that it is a good idea that the list of entrants is given straight after the voting ends.

 

[farntfar]

Perhaps we could minimize the centralized work required in the guessing game by having tagged authors confirm or deny whether a story was theirs. I note Ursa did this in the current guessing game without ill effect. This also allows more involvement in the guessing game than by just the guessers.

The problem with this is that once an author has "outed" him/herself he/she is outed.
When the showrunner says you have got 2 right out of your 12 guesses, you still don't know which 2 of the 12 are correct.

 

[elvet]

As a newcomer to this Challenge, I'm happy to go along with the majority (and what elvet is happy to accommodate in their workload).

As a suggestion, would having a spoiler reveal to show the names of the entrants be a good idea? Or a separate thread which has the names of the entrants/winner, so that those who don't want to play the guessing game can congratulate the winner and move on, and those who do can do so later?

I do think that it is a good idea that the list of entrants is given straight after the voting ends.

I think the two key things we should keep in mind are: keep it fun and minimize the work we put on @elvet.

Perhaps we could minimize the centralized work required in the guessing game by having tagged authors confirm or deny whether a story was theirs. I note Ursa did this in the current guessing game without ill effect. This also allows more involvement in the guessing game than by just the guessers.

I like that idea of tagging guessed authors so they can confirm. And it would work well if I post the list of contributors along with the Challenge winner. Then at least guessers would have a pool of members to choose from. The fact that there is still a variable number of stories from the participants makes the Game still difficult.
I don't mind watching the discussion, and I really like doing logic puzzles, so I have fun with the clues. It's more about our 4 hour time difference, and that I'm still working full time much of the week, so I have limited time to check the thread some days. The Guessing Game progresses faster when you can find out if you guessed correctly ASAP. So between the author confirming and myself, I think this would speed things up a bit.
Having a spoiler/separate thread for the revealed list is a thought. I wonder how many who participate in this challenge would like this option?
It does seem that there is a set group that enjoys the guessing, so the question would go out to the others.
It may also be advantageous to get the winner to submit their theme/topic within a set period after the challenge closes, rather than waiting for the next one to start.

 

[paranoid marvin]

I like that idea of tagging guessed authors so they can confirm. And it would work well if I post the list of contributors along with the Challenge winner. Then at least guessers would have a pool of members to choose from. The fact that there is still a variable number of stories from the participants makes the Game still difficult.
I don't mind watching the discussion, and I really like doing logic puzzles, so I have fun with the clues. It's more about our 4 hour time difference, and that I'm still working full time much of the week, so I have limited time to check the thread some days. The Guessing Game progresses faster when you can find out if you guessed correctly ASAP. So between the author confirming and myself, I think this would speed things up a bit.
Having a spoiler/separate thread for the revealed list is a thought. I wonder how many who participate in this challenge would like this option?
It does seem that there is a set group that enjoys the guessing, so the question would go out to the others.
It may also be advantageous to get the winner to submit their theme/topic within a set period after the challenge closes, rather than waiting for the next one to start.

Yes, I think getting the genre/theme from the winner as soon as they are declared is the best thing. That way they should have plenty of time to get their nomination to you before the next one starts. If they don't, then you can only assume that they are leaving it for you to decide.

 

[elvet]

The problem with this is that once an author has "outed" him/herself he/she is outed.
When the showrunner says you have got 2 right out of your 12 guesses, you still don't know which 2 of the 12 are correct.

Yes, that is true. The game could be over a lot faster that way. Has anyone ever guessed all the stories? How much time did we used to have for guessing?
The best I ever did was about 5/13. That was Aug/Sept 2019. The Poll started Sept.17 and the guessing ended Sept 24.

 

[farntfar]

In the beginning (4004 BC? no. A bit later than that) The game was to always make a guess for every story; which was why we had the extra author, because, that way, you had to make a guess about your own story. It also made the creation of tables, like ChrisP was talking about, worth doing.
But after a while people started only making guesses for a few stories at a time. We also had far fewer stories entered then of course. But we used to have the entries ending on about the 25th (to avoid coinciding with the 75er on the 23rd) and voting and guessing going on simultaneously (if I remember correctly) for 4 or 5 days. The new theme would be put up on the 3rd or 4th, again to avoid the 75. It was all rather undefined, and pretty much up to the showrunner for the month.