Goodness me I wasn't expecting this sort of reaction to just saying 'write however many words you like' and that'll be fine! I think COUNT ZERO has summed it up pretty well: the contest's 25 day duration, coupled with the amount of time and effort people are willing to put in will naturally self-regulate the size of the entries I think. For example an arbitrary limit of ten or twenty thousand words will still lead to most people entering stories of a thousand words or so because of the factors mentioned above, plus the fact that the story may naturally only take a thousand or so words to tell. Not everything can be spun out into to a ten thousand word story like the one I entered for BRY SINCLAIR'S challenge. If this contest does have four of five massive entries then I'll apologise, but I think some people are worrying about something that isn't going to happen to be honest. Just my opinion though.
Your entitled to your opinion of course, but your username being a different colour to mine doesn't automatically make that opinion right I'm afraid. Others are being just as over dramatic.
All right, Sandoval, let's look at the two posts which prompted your "drama queens" remark: That doesn't sound dramatic at all. Gul Re'jal made a suggestion and gave her reason for doing so in a calm, rational manner. Nerys Ghemor just chimed in with an anecdote affirming her suggestion. Your post in which you presumably accused these posters of being drama queens was followed by Gul Re'jal and Bry Sinclair saying that people posting long stories isn't that unlikely. They, too, stayed civil and undramatic. So did Admiral2 who gave a more detailed view of the matter, though I would have preferred if he hadn't taken up your "drama queens" comment at the end of his post. So, yes, the only one whose comments can be considered overdramatic is you, Sandoval. Maybe you didn't mean it that way, maybe your posts come across to people here than you intend them to, maybe you perceive other people's posts differently but the posts in this thread speak a very clear language. No one suggested the forum would fall apart or the challenge would fail because of the lack of a word limit. Some people just suggested a word limit would be better because of their own experiences and they were able to argue their point.
Again though, that is your opinion. Your opinion is that I'm the only person being overdramatic, and my opinion is that I am not. I'm merely responding to the rather unlikely predictions that no word limit will result in a deluge of massive entries that people will subsequently refuse to read based upon their size, when in reality this contest will doubtless end with three or four entries of a couple of thousand words each.
I once said "Pick your own topic." You should have seen the fun we had over that. If that's true it's a recent thing. In my experience entrants don't regulate themselves. The word limit is there to tell them when to stop writing. The only way you get a thousand word story is to set a thousand word limit...maybe. Fan fic writers like trying to fill the space you give them. That won't stop a lot of folks from trying. Some will succeed. We'll see.
So there's a precedent for people being so averse to free reign? In any case, I think that stories will naturally be limited due to aforementioned constraints regarding time and effort. "Pick your own topic" seems a little different from letting people chose how many words they wish to write. And the best of luck to them. We certainly will. gl
Great post SAITO S, difficult to disagree with anything you've said there. I'm like you, short scenes of a thousand words or so don't really do it for me and I prefer something I can get my teeth into a little, hence why I decided to give people free reign to write however many they wanted to for this challenge. I struggled with the 10,000 limit that BRY SINCLAIR set!
They had other problems, but the topic thing was a sticking point. Direct restraints are more effective. It's the same in that a set topic and a set word limit are constraints some find necessary.
Not everyone will participate in every challenge, anyway. I'm looking forward to this month's (hopefully numerous) entries.
I'm not going to carry on with this, it's becoming tiresome. Those who wish to participate can, those who don't wish to, whether that be due to having no "direct restraints" or whatever else, are equally welcome to pass. "Direct restraints are more effective" just sounds so autocratic and joyless in my opinion. There is no word limit for this month's challenge, so if some people find a word limit "necessary" in order to participate then clearly this one is not for them. This is all a complete storm in a teacup though that is taking the shine off winning the challenge.
I don't look at it that way, as some sort of hate for freedom. Rather, writing within the boundaries of the topic and word count is part of the challenge--you not only must just do a freewrite, but you must plan and edit your stories appropriately and manage your time sufficiently to pull it off within the right time frame. It's very similar to writing a short story for a print anthology, which I'm sure is something that some of the authors here either have done or would like to do at some time.
"Autocratic and joyless?" Remember you wrote that at poll time when one of your entrants asks if he can vote for his own story.
Few things are more pathetic than people voting for their own story in my opinion. Jespah did it once.
Show me where I did that. I have entered, far as I recall, three of these. And I have not voted for my own work. Show me where I did that.
Why not? You do have the burden of proof. Here, I'll even make it easy for you. I entered the January, February and March challenges. I voted for Milo Bloom for this one. In February, there were only two of us and so I did not vote. So - did I vote for myself in January? Gonna put your money where your mouth is? No? I didn't think so.