One Vocal Story, One Vocal Challenge
The Effect Of Specifying Communities In Challenges
Introduction
I just submitted a story to the Vocal Absurdist Awakening Challenge, and though the challenge specifies a minimum of five hundred words, because it has to be submitted to the Humor community, it was rejected because the limit for that community is six hundred words, and Vocal has not relaxed it. Maybe they will at some point.
Then I thought I could also enter it into the 500 Word Shockwave challenge, but then I realised that something had changed in Vocal Challenges.
The Vocal Challenge Designated Community
If you look at the earliest Vocal Challenges, no community is specified, you can check some of the early ones here:
This meant that you could enter a single story into multiple challenges. Every new challenge now specifies a community, and the benefit of this is that you won't see the same story twice when you read the pieces that are entered into the various challenges.
It is true that some challenges may cover similar areas, but now, for each challenge, creators require a different story. We can still reuse and adapt old stories unless Vocal specifies that the story must be new, but it is now one Vocal Story for one Vocal Challenge.
Thank you so much for reading and would love to hear your opinion.
The music is "Break The Rules" by Charlie XCX because that is something that we can't do on Vocal.
About the Creator
Mike Singleton 💜 Mikeydred
A Weaver of Tales and Poetry
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Call Me Les ♥ Gina ♥ Heather ♥ Caroline ♥
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Comments (14)
"We can still reuse and adapt old stories unless Vocal specifies that the story must be new" I think they do now. Every challenge currently live includes the stipulation "Your work must be original and unpublished." Which is hilarious because they only recently introduced the ability to change Community without going through Support, which becomes far less valuable a feature if we can't reuse old stories by switching Community to meet the current challenge. And Matt Fromm and I both placed in the Moment That Changed Everything with stories that predated the challenge, so guess that will be one of the last times we see that.
Good luck on your piece for the challenge. It does seem that the challenge rules are harsh at times but isn't that good for some of them Good job.
I agree that the word count minimum can be frustrating. I have not been adding my pieces to the challenges but I have been writing in answer to them and have enjoyed them. So I am happy with the challenges. Making them for specific communities does add to the number of reads available in each of them - that is also quite nice
Presumably they’ll fix it so you can submit your entry to the challenge? Good luck! This was a really interesting piece.
Sometimes, that word count can be so frustrating.
Great info! I have noticed the changes too, but I still see folks entering challenges and choosing the wrong community. It should disqualify them, but the stories are still posted under the challenge submissions. It’s a warning for writers to pay attention when submitting a story!
I notice that the word counts are up everywhere. Trouble is, people do not like to read long stories. So i notice less reads on longer stories. People are packing irrelevant crap into the challenges, even when it asks for original and unpublished pieces. It is a crapshoot where no one listens. there has to be some rules, otherwise there is chaos. It's getting chaotic on here.
I feel your pain. I have had to go back and try to figure out how to make the word count reach 600 because that seems to be the magic minimum number, if it's not poetry.
Oh heck trouble at the mill so they say. I am not a real writer I like to try to keep to poetry. So thanks for the information and sorry about your entry ✍️✍️🏆🏆
I enjoyed reading your thoughts on this. I am so sorry that your story was rejected even though the limit was 500-1000 words, and yours was 500. But maybe there’s an expectation for us to write closer to the other end of the asking number of words? When I wrote mine, it was in the 800s, so I dodged it. But I know you must’ve worked really hard on this.Thank you for keeping us updated, and hopefully something could be done, or you could add more words? Even though that might be a bit of a push, since the story has already been decided… Well written and informative as always. 👌🏽♥️
I hope they fix the word count issue soon though
Nice one
I've noticed in the past for challenges where word count is beneath the designated community's minimum, it warns you that it might be rejected for not having enough words, but it allows you to submit it anyway & the moderators provide the exception for it.
I hesitate to tell you something here in comments. I'll message you, kind sir.