The Fate of SWG Challenges

[dawn_felagund]

In September 2005, the SWG ran its very first writing challenge, "Strong Women." Challenges have, therefore, always been a part of our group and were part of the original vision when the SWG was founded. We intended to not only offer regular challenges but to keep them open forever, to encourage writers to delve deeper into topics, feel able to conduct more in-depth research, or to write longer works. We currently have more than seventy challenges and present a new challenge every three months.

However, our challenges are not a popular part of what we do. When we ran the numbers, we found that each challenge received an average of two responses, and quite a few challenges had no responses at all. The hard reality of running a group of this size is that we have only a limited amount of volunteer resources, and it serves all SWG members best if we direct that energy toward programs and activities that our members find useful. Given this, the SWG moderators have been discussing what to do with the challenges on our group. Should we continue running them? Should we change the format or how they are presented in order to make them more popular? Or should we recognize that we've reached an end of an era and cease developing new challenges but leave the old challenges available for anyone looking for a plotrabbit or two to get their muses going?

We are very interested in hearing from our members about where they'd like to see our challenges go in the future. Would you be interested in writing stories for challenges on the SWG? Or this not a group that you find conducive to that kind of activity? If you think we should keep the challenges, what do you think we can do to make them more widely used? Would it help to have a way for people to report completing a challenge and spotlight the stories they create in the newsletter? Would it be more motivating to sign up for challenges? Would people like to see customizable challenge elements offered to each writer who wants to participate? Would banners or other rewards be motivating? Something else entirely?

We are very open to any and all ideas. We are not making any decisions at this point but just want to get an idea of what our members are thinking. Please comment here or email us at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org to share your thoughts.

Comments

[zdenka]

I usually wind up not even knowing that they're happening, because I don't think to check the site. If the challenges were announced on the LJ, I still might not do them, but at least I'd know they exist. :) That said, I've never done an SWG challenge outside of B2MeM, so my opinion shouldn't carry a lot of weight.

[dawn_felagund]

Merely by expressing interest in the challenges, your opinion carries as much weight as anyone else's in my mind. ;)

Something that was brought up in our mod discussion was posting to LJ/other satellites when we have a new challenge so that people could comment to officially "sign up"; we could then follow up to collect links to their stories before announcing the next challenge. That's relatively low-key but might increase awareness of/motivation to do the challenges.

And I forgot to say thank you for the feedback! :)

[huinare.livejournal.com]

If the challenges were, as L'Ignota said, announced on the LJ (and the tumblr, yahoo group, etc.), that may bring a little more traffic to them? Officially highlighting pieces done for the challenges, whether via a link roundup or posting the piece itself on the SWG satellites, might also help generate more readership/discussion/overall response. At times I've seen the challenges announced on the SWG proper, and I have a vague notion that it might be fun to do one, but it always slips my mind. If more publicity and interaction were brought into the picture, it might give folks in my position a bit more impetus to participate.

That said, it would be more work, and the prospect of success uncertain. One possibility might be to switch the challenges to twice yearly, i.e. make a "bigger deal" of them by less frequency but more publicity when they do happen.

[dawn_felagund]

I think we mods are all cool with putting more effort into them if it turns out to be something that people use! :) Thank you for your feedback; it is very much in line with what we were discussing as possibilities for getting more attention for the challenges. I think they do slip under the radar sometimes, and having a goal to work toward (even if we don't close the challenges as in not letting people write for them after a certain point) seems to be motivating to most people, in my experience--including me! :)

[hhimring]

I wrote a couple of these early on. Since then, they never quite seem to fit what I happen to be interested in writing at the time (except for Gift of a Story and Akallabeth in August, which are a different category). But I do still take notice of them. If you stop doing new ones, I would be in favour of your continuing to revive old ones periodically, as you've been doing. (That is, I'm assuming that would be the easier part. It might not be?)
I do think round-ups of some sort might help, but of course they would also be more work!

[dawn_felagund]

We're fine with putting more effort into the challenges if it means that they're used more. We're kind of in a pesky middle ground right now where we're making some effort but not seeing a lot of use, so I think the issue for us is whether people would like to see the challenges continue and if it is worth it for us to put more into them, or if other groups have this territory well enough covered that we'd be better to put our efforts elsewhere.

Thanks for the feedback! :)

[hhimring]

Further thoughts on this--from a completely personal angle, though, so possibly doesn't apply to anyone else at all! Musing on why I haven't written for any of these challenges lately, it strikes me that, for me, they've been almost too well thought out.
What I mean there were some challenges which sounded like something I might actually write, but I sort of went, on reading them: Well, this sounds a bit like story X. But I originally planned that story Y months ago, I'm probably going to finish it Z months from now. How could I then possibly claim I wrote it for this challenge?
Whereas if one or two of the challenges had simply been something like: "in your next story, include a silver spoon" (or whatever)--I might have had a spontaneous idea involving a silver spoon...
Not sure whether that makes sense?

[independence1776]

Butting in to say this is exactly what I meant when I said downstream, "Too complex or specific of a prompt just doesn't work for me."

[dawn_felagund]

It does! It seems to me that there is a continuum of challenges. There are the "include this and this element": simple and open-ended. And then there are ... our challenges. Not so simple! :D

This is definitely something I will keep in mind and bring up when we actually come to making a decision. Thank you. :)

[with-rainfall.livejournal.com]

Feel free to discount my opinion, as I hardly participate in the fandom these days, let alone the SWG. But I do think there are quite enough to be going on with. Maybe you could stop them, but also hold a Challenge Week (or Day) every few months, where people get to answer the challenges. That way the ones that still exist will get some attention and hopefully spark some bunnies.

Also, I think the fact is that a lot of Silficcers, namely the newer crowd, are now on A03 and FFN, where it's harder to advertise. I'm not sure about tumblr - maybe promo the Challenge Day/Week (or the challenges themselves) there and see if there's any new blood.

[dawn_felagund]

I discount no one's opinion, and I appreciate you taking time to give us feedback on this issue! :) I'm presently promoting the challenges on Tumblr but as part of the newsletter. I'm thinking that if we continue them, to maybe release them mid-month rather than with the newsletter so that they're not drowned out by the other newsletter content. (Thinking aloud here ...)

There's always been a large contingent of Silm writers who post on ff.net but not the SWG; I'm not surprised that the same is true of AO3. However, our activity appears to be up on the SWG too (I don't exactly track these things but we had a record number of new registrations in January!) so I think that even if we confine advertising to our own group, we'll get more takers if we make more of an effort, however we decide to present challenges going forward.

Thank you again. :)

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

I'd second the suggestion to promote them on LJ.Maybe they could be open to all corners of Tolkien fandom?

[dawn_felagund]

Yes, more promotion seems to be the theme. :) We're a Silmarillion group, so we're not going to open our site to non-Silmfic, but if our challenges inspire other Tolkienfic or even stories for other fandoms or o-fic, then people are welcome to use them. Which makes me realize that we really should make that clearer on our site, maybe with a Creative Commons license even ... I get emails from people sometimes wanting to use the challenges to write stories that aren't Silmfic.

Thanks for the feedback!

[anna-wing.livejournal.com]

Challenges don't impinge on me much because I write what comes to mind, and it rarely has anything to do with the challenges. I agree that it might get more publicity for them if they're mentioned on the LJ as well.

[dawn_felagund]

Thanks for the feedback! The theme seems to be to promote more on our satellites, which is good, as that isn't particularly onerous.

[binkaslibrary.livejournal.com]

Not sure if I'm going to be helpful here, but I would miss challenges if they were gone. I know I haven't been the most prolific writer/reader of late, but I looked at my stories and I noticed quite a few inspired by the challenges or direct responses to the challenges. I know there was a time I used to browse through the list of the challenges and to find something that would inspire me.

Perhaps promoting the challenges at lj would be good, or maybe in the newsletter you could list the responses to a certain challenge if there are any of them posted at the SWG just like you do with the compilation of stories updated/completed the previous month? Or in a separate, dedicated post at lj, if you wouldn't like to pile up more info to the newsletter.

My two eurocents :)

[dawn_felagund]

So far keeping the challenges is winning out. :) I'm in favor of that too, if only for historical/sentimental reasons: The SWG has evolved so much in the last eight years, but we've always had the challenges and always had the newsletter, and I have trouble letting go of these little bits of our past. :)

I agree that listing the stories written for the challenges would be a good addition to the newsletter.

Thanks for the feedback, Binka! :)

[engarian.livejournal.com]

I rarely check SWG site because I'm not always writing things that fit within that time frame. However, I also don't think to check even when I have excess time and a desire to write a quick something. I do think if they were publicized in a broader manner, on LJ and the various communities that we seem to coalesce around, you would get better response.

I also recommend putting a start and stop date in place for each challenge, similar to LOTR Community challenges. If the topic is right, authors will compose to fit the challenge. I know I would participate more often in this case.

- Erulisse (one L)

[dawn_felagund]

Thanks for the feedback! More promotion seems to be winning out. I also like the idea of setting a timeframe and then posting a list of the stories written for the challenge at the end. The list of challenges would still remain available and people would be welcome to pick one and work on it after the primary run of the challenge closed; their story just wouldn't be added to the roundup list. The challenge list is often cited by authors as something they like to keep handy for when inspiration is running low, so that will stay, no matter how we choose to handle challenges going forward.

[independence1776]

I usually read them, but I'm not normally inspired by them. Too complex or specific of a prompt just doesn't work for me. (I'm working on a story for the current challenge, but that one can be summed up as: write a crossover with another book. It's not telling me to look at a particular situation and write something about it.) Despite that, they're actually one of my favorite things in the newsletter and I always get a little pang of disappointment if there's not a new one.

I think advertising the prompts on LJ, etc. would be a good way to have more traffic. I also like the idea of releasing them midmonth so they aren't drowned out in the newsletter. I'm less certain of having an official "end" and roundup simply because I know people might consider that a "not allowed to work on anymore" despite information saying otherwise.

[dawn_felagund]

I just replied to Himring re: the complexity of the challenges. This is something we can look into changing certainly. At present, Rhapsody makes the challenges with me as back up when she can't get to it or the inspiration doesn't strike. And the challenges are very much in keeping with the styles of Rhapsody and Dawn, for anyone who knows us! :D However, it would certainly be possible to mix it up more, if people felt that simpler challenges might be inspirational; we could aim for a greater variety.

One of the cool things about the year we did bingo for B2MeM was seeing what people came up with for challenges and what people picked (and what they actually did); it was quite often things I would have never thought of!

[independence1776]

I think they would be, just looking at the multi-year fandom challenges like hc_bingo: simple prompts that could be interpreted in a variety of ways and applied to a variety of situations and characters. While the complex ones certainly shouldn't be eliminated, a bit of a mix would be nice. (Look at this year's B2MeM: all the types of prompts were popular.)

Yeah, that was one of the fascinating things. I still look at the cards occasionally for inspiration!

[ladybrooke]

I'll echo everyone else, more promotion would make them harder to miss (and therefore I'd be more likely to do them).

In addition to the time sensitive part for getting in the newsletter, maybe there could be some kind of badges not tied to the time? Just something like "5 Challenge Fics Written", "10 Challenge Fics Written", that people could just copy, save, and display when they're reached that milestone. I have no idea how time consuming that would be though, so feel free to ignore it if it'd be a ton of work - I just know I'm easily convinced/reminded to do things by shiny objects/badges.

[dawn_felagund]

At present, we reveal a new challenge every three months. Even if we went back to monthly challenges (which honestly would be unlikely unless some of the strategies here result in them becoming popular enough to warrant that; we used to have two new challenges each month!), then a graphic or two would not be onerous. We have three mods with moderate (me) to awesome (Rhapsy and Tarion) skills with graphics (which is part of how B2MeM came to have such a strong graphics component every year ;). And shiny objects--especially collectible shiny objects!--are very motivating, I've found. We're a fandom of magpies. ;)

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this! :)

[ladybrooke]

You're welcome for them! :)

I'm glad to hear they wouldn't be onerous and might be possible - when I think back to the challenges that I successfully manage to do (on time and everything!) time after time, the only one that comes to mind is the one where I get shiny little graphics for managing to do so. There, I think I'm somewhere around 30 in a row. You can see the strong correlation between me doing things and shiny objects, at least. :P

(This comment originally posted far too early, sorry for the edit).

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

I don't use challenges ever to inspire a story (my head is exploding with untold stories). Sometimes, I write something and it fits one, so I click on it when I fill in the "new story" form, hoping that it might draw a reader who otherwise would ignore the story.

Most people use challenges as prompts. They should be the people speaking up on this thread. I wouldn't miss them if they were gone. Although I do use them from time to time, but not for the purpose they are intended to serve.

Promoting them more widely or loudly would not change my use or non-use of them at all.