Originally I sent this directly to Gary, but after a while, it occurred to
me that it contained points that help clarify the reasons behind the
contest. So now I'm sending it to the list as a whole. My apologies to
Gary for having to read this twice.
In message <388F37EC.664DFB02@mediaone.net>, "Gary Kleppe" writes:
Trying to encourage better writing is always a good thing, and this is
certainly a novel approach, but....
Leaving aside the question of how valuable free web space is as a prize
when it's generally available elsewhere... the assumption here seems to
Generally true, though as a personal sideline for me, thekeep doesn't have
advertising banners, popups, quotas, etc. And similarly the email address
requires no lengthy signature banners, has no quotas, doesn't requite
odd-web-mail access, etc. Mostly though, it's something I can offer
without getting into further legality issues (paying for fanfic, even in a
contest, is getting beyond the gray and in to the outright black, with
respect to the law).
be that people aren't doing their best work simply because they aren't
motivated, that they'll see this contest and think "I know I write junk
most of the time, but because this contest is offering free web space, I
guess I could shape up just this once." If fanfic writers weren't
motiviated, why would they bother to write fanfic in the first place?
That wasn't my intended message. The idea was more to promote people
spending some extra time polishing a work before posting it. While there
are some writers who produce excellent quality work every single time, most
of us have posted fics without bothering that final spell check, fixing the
last continuty nit, or shining up the prose to it's best level. That's
what I'm trying to break people out of. It may also be motivation to do
the work to finish a particular fic *now*, as opposed to sitting on it for
a couple more months.
Further, it's a chance to offer a contest beyond the simple popularity
polls of things like the TASS awards (and also recognize non-Ranma fics for
a change). I think a lot of very well written fics sometimes go unnoticed
because they don't necessarily have the bread-and-circus mass appeal that
other fics do. The original message said annual, but if this is a success
I may do it more often, or switch to a monthly pick of honor and then award
the yearly prize to one of the monthly winners, or some such. I haven't
thought too much about those options, since I want to see if this contest
alone sparks any results.
I think that most of us would like to be writing better stuff than they
are now. If I may make a modest suggestion here, what would encourage
quality entries to your contest more than offering free web space to one
winner would be to offer detailed reviews of all entries. Tell
applicants why their fics did or didn't meet the criteria you were
looking for, and what they might do to improve on them.
Unfortunately, I lack the time to offer in-depth reviews of any fic someone
puts a [TKOContest] tag on. I suspect I'll have my hands full merely
reading all the entries with the required level of consideration. Since
I'm unwilling to make this a committee operation (and thus open to all the
politicking involved in such), there's only me to do it. If contest
entries are few, or I have spare time, I may do exactly that, particularly
if I happen across ones that I think would honestly improve as a result.
-DaR