I Want You To Keep Us!
okay, so I have this idea...
Hiya, Vocal.
I’ve been thinking. And though it hasn’t been a long think-session, I believe I’ve stumbled upon a suggestion that might serve a certain kind of Creator who may have given up on the platform as their launch pad.
You know how you added “exclusive stories,” pieces reserved only for paid subscribers and hidden from the rest? Imagine that basic premise but for challenges instead.
Let me paint you a picture of the near future.
A Creator—let’s call her Sally—wants to publish an entry for the “Leave the Lights on” challenge. However, she worries that because she’s spent more than ten hours perfecting it, if it doesn’t win, she can’t submit it anywhere else because it’s already online.
Now if you know anything about the greater publishing world, you know how hard it is to find one that accepts previously published pieces. Some specifically say “third party websites and personal blogs” as places your story or poem cannot have been posted.
But back to Sally.
She decides not to pay for Vocal Plus, forgoes the challenge, and instead finds a contest on Rattle instead. Now, there's no guarantee she’ll win the latter, but at least if she fails, she can still submit it somewhere else.
In an alternate reality, Sally decides to submit first-draft level stories and poems to the challenges so that she isn’t as devastated by losing, but she quickly loses joy in this process and quits Vocal entirely. Plus, she never did get any higher than a runner-up and feels like it was a handout. (If this is relatable to anyone reading, Sally waves "hello." She sees you.)
BOTH THINGS SUCK.
Here’s my solution.
Establish a wall of some kind that blocks everyone from reading the story except those who judge the challenges. Hell, make it optional. No one would be forced to hide their work unless they exclusively want to be considered for the challenge and treat it like any other publishing submission or contest.
Of course, I have no idea what the ideal way to do this is. Perhaps it’s as simple as mimicking the exclusive story model but opening it up to challenges (sans subscription fee). Or maybe you’d need to create a separate submission page for challenge-only stories, and make “community stories” a different category altogether. (Maybe you could start a Submittable page.) Or perhaps during the submission process, a Creator can select the challenge they're submitting to but deselect “community story” so that it doesn’t go public but can still be judged. (Are all of these basically the same? Probably not to a coder, but hey, that’s not my area of expertise, lol).
But what would happen if one of these stories should win or place in the challenges? Well, that’s when the story would become a “community story,” open for comments, and visible to anyone online. I personally would opt for the simplest way of, in essence, hiding the challenge entries until they place, and then making them public when they do. This can be entirely up to the author, but I feel it’s a right we all, as aspiring published writers, deserve to have.
Considering how accommodating Vocal has been to give unpaid Creators the ability to edit, retitle, and delete stories, and in opening up the winners circle to honorable mentions in addition to runner-ups, I feel that this request is not unreasonable. In fact, I believe it could have resulted in retaining a lot of writers who have since left the platform because of this flaw in Vocal's system. And doesn’t that just suck in the business world?
I’m just sad that it took me this long to think of this suggestion, lol.
Sincerely,
Your ghostly Creator who would have said this in the VCC (r.i.p.) and would totally stay on Vocal Plus if the above request was granted,
Mackenzie Davis
About the Creator
Mackenzie Davis
“When you are describing a shape, or sound, or tint, don’t state the matter plainly, but put it in a hint. And learn to look at all things with a sort of mental squint.” Lewis Carroll
Boycott AI!
Copyright Mackenzie Davis.
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More stories from Mackenzie Davis and writers in Writers and other communities.
Let's Don't Do This
"I just can't do this anymore..." "Do what?" What can't you do? Put gas in your own car? I swear to God you make me take care of everything, don't you? You know I'm on my way to work right now but that never stops you from bothering me, does it?"
By Shirley Belk6 days ago in Fiction
Comments (17)
Wooohooooo congratulations on your Leaderboard placement! 🎉💖🎊🎉💖🎊
Yay Mackenzie!!! Congrats on placing fifth on this week's leaderboard!!
You seem to have earned a well deserved Top Story with this one Mackenzie! I know exactly how you feel, sometimes things being on Vocal can limit our abilities to put them elsewhere or even submit them for magazines etc. I think the recommendations you've made are good ones and likely to influence positive change if the admins listen :) I just really hope they double and triple down on stamping out AI on this platform
🫶🏾🩷🫶🏾🩷
Back to say congratulations on your Top Story! 🎉💖🎊🎉💖🎊
Yes, please. It is the one thing that's holding me back from trying to publish my work elsewhere, especially in other contests or journals, because of their restrictions to previously published work. I think hiding contest entries until judging is finished would be very fair, and there would be less bias toward popular authors who get lots of likes and comments. This way those that win can still show off their story, and those that lose can enter their stories elsewhere. I really wish more places accepted previously published work...I have a huge library of pieces on here. :(
This is an excellent idea. I wasn't particualarly sure where you were going eeith it, but once I worked it out. It made sense. Even though I have had a first place and second place. I have loads of runner ups and honorable mentions I think should be higher, so in a sense I feel you, see you, Sally Davis! Wholeheartedly support this suggestion. Vocal, if you're listening, Paul Stewart supports it (dunno if that will do anything. lol. But, can't hurt to try?) Maybe my name is mud now? lol. Anyway, well done on this getting Top Story too. Take your fiverr, my friend!
Um, I love this!!! I've honestly never thought about the implications of publishing on vocal and then not being able to "actually publish" (lack of better words) our work but this would be a great loophole!! So smart Sally- I mean Mackenzie!! 😉 Ps, congrats on Top Story!!
Yess! I like this idea too, and I think it's fair play when it comes to challenges. I was a runner up in a challenge, and I managed honourable mention, but I do feel that these challenges can be a bit unfair when it comes to writers.
Wow, well somebody’s paying attention. Happy to see this get Top Story to help drive the dialog with the larger Vocal community
YES!!! This is a much needed change that should have been done ages ago. I hope someone (cough, cough, Justin) sees this and makes it a priority. Great write up. And I can completely identify with Sally :)
Could they just make it possible to enter a challenge from the Exclusive feature? It's still not "public", right?
Yeah, this would be a big one. It solves the problem of "unpublished"- the stories that don't make it past here become wasted. If Vocal is truly interested in helping writers become better and eventually published, rather than just generating as much content as possible, this would be a huge step. Well put!
This is a great idea, and for all the right reasons. I’d love it if Vocal did something like this. We could even choose to allow other competitors to read them
Oh, man, the irony that I almost never even *joined* Vocal because I saw that I would have to publish my story to enter the challenge that the Facebook ad promoted and lose those precious first publish rights to sell elsewhere. But $20,000 was a heck of a lot of publish credits, so I swallowed that ick and signed up for Vocal+ so I could then enter and put "King of the World" out for all to see. So, yes, fully support this idea. I've had a lot of heartburn over the years because I see a submission opportunity that perfectly fits something I wrote for a challenge but then read the dreaded "no reprints" clause and sigh. Also, such a proud parent moment to see how much you've learned about the publishing industry on your own 🥲 Literally nodded along to the whole thing. She's all grown up now.
Okay, so what you're saying is that if the submission was not really published and only judged, if it loses, then it's still considered unpublished? But if it places, then it's considered published? That would be awesome for pieces you feel can go on to work their magic elsewhere. Intriguing...
Gina C suggested this a few years back. But I forgot if Vocal responded 😅😅 But this definitely is an excellent idea!