What I know now that I wish I had known then

I don't even want to think about how obsessive I got over it. Suffice to say that it was a blessed relief when my 14 days were up. ;)

First, good idea to set up this dialogue. Just reading the 85 comments attached to the "Submissions are done" article, it appears as if many of us want to talk about howt this contest went.

As a writer, it was great, yet torturous. I go back and forth if I should read other chapters and vote even though I also submitted. I want to comment on others, but understand the courage it takes to submit and do not want to be harsh...but also understand without some direct constructive criticism none of us can hope to improve.

I also need to appreciate that if and when published, many more people will have the opportunity to tear me apart -- I mine-as-well get used to it now!

So, how many of these 2500 submissions are in just to win? How many are in for the feedback? I have a writing group, I have received feedback. I have to say I'm in this competition because I want to be published and have just started the agent search.

And while agents can (and often do) toss you out at a query letter, I've appreciate the opportunity to have an entire chapter read.

So, yes -- I'm glad I entered despite the torture. And, yes, I think this type of competition should be repeated yearly. A nice way for us writers to push into the mix.

Good Morning:

Anyone know how many votes we get? Can we vote on as many entries as we can read, or do we just get one vote per email address? I'm still confused.

Michael -
You can vote on as many entries as you'd like, but you can only vote once for each entry.
Does that make sense?

Hello everyone...

My submission was posted in the very beginning, and it garnered a very respectable score. Sadly, I think I only had about 30 votes - most of them from people I didn't know - so I don't think I'll see a round two.

I have since taken to reading and rating all the other submissions I can get the time to get to.

I'm not popular.

I calls it as I sees it, though. I put YEARS of research, and hard work, into my novel and it just galls me to see how sloppily some of these admissions are thrown together.

The voting, for many of these chapters, is shall I say "suspect"? Unlike others, though, I don't care. I'm not even surprised. Call me cynical.

On the other hand, I have learned SO much about writing from the comments of others. It's been an eye-opener, and something I hope to remember when I get to work on unpublished-novel-number-two.

I've been trying to read and rate as many entries as I could - I felt if I wanted others to read mine, I was duty bound to do the same for them. And I've enjoyed the experience. (Not sure my family have - I keep hogging the computer!) I've learned from other people's writing, both the good and the bad; I've become more aware of the types of mistakes I make; and by trying to be constructive about others' writing, I've learned to be more constructive about criticizing my own.

What has disappointed me is the number of entries that fell off the screen with so few votes and comments - one I saw had only 4 votes on its last day. If more people had seen it, perhaps they would have loved it, but they never got the chance. I wish there had been an easy way to get from the first page of entries to the page of lowest rated, least commented, or least time left in the competition. I did make a point of going through the very slow process of getting to those pages on a regular basis (though it's almost impossible now with so many pages online - I have to cook dinner before the nth page refreshes!). Perhaps that would be something to be considered another time.

Meanwhile, the ease with which readers could get to the top-rated chapters seemed to have an effect of driving down the ratings. Maybe one man's meat really is another man's poison - anything with large exposure seemed inevitably to be exposed to people who didn't like it. From what I saw, the top ratings were mostly six point something, and there'll be as much luck as anything else in determining the top 15. Perhaps a published "official rules of rating" would have helped, so that readers knew how to balance quality of writing against content.

As for my own entry: 29 votes, 19 comments, and a rating of 4.8. I'd have liked more exposure, but I'm glad I entered anyway. Now its time to look up those publishers and agents - the competition did at least give me the confidence to believe I've written something worthwhile.

I'm grateful to gather for running the competition, and to all those readers and writers who made it possible.

Thank you, Jenna W:
It does indeed make sense. One vote per story, cool.

Thanks for setting this up, Dale. After seeing that my entry was getting little attention because there were so many submissions, I took the time to figure out how gather works and used its social networks to draw people to my entry, The Leviathan, and let them make up their minds. I learned that you have to promote promote promote. Hey, published authors have to do the same. I'm sure the talented devil who wins this competition will be on a media tour for weeks, if not months.

I also learned that there's a lot of politics involved. As in political sabotage.

This morning, my last day of voting, I started with a respectable 6.6 rating with 135 votes. Over the next 10 votes, I plummeted to 6.2 and no overly negative comments were posted. I assume someone kept posting "1" ratings to lower my score after they saw I was gaining support. I emailed the First Chapters Administrator about this. Hopefully they'll review these votes and throw them out. If this happens to you, I urge you to report it. The rules of the contest said they will monitor entries to look for improper voting.

It's a shame that some people are taking this too seriously and going on the attack. I've seen many great stories that had negative comments come from out of the blue and without explanation. I'm guessing that's the competition trying to throw water on the hottest stories. That's deplorable! If you want to win this, write better. Stop trying to hurt other people.

Honestly, I love the feedback I've gotten on my story. To me, it looked good, to my friends that read it, it looked good, to the people who critiqued, it was good, but needed a LOT of work. This time here (I still have a week) has been invaluable to me. I've mentioned a couple time that even though my score isn't high enough to carry me to round 2, I wouldn't have missed this opportunity for the world.

I've learned a lot, I've accepted all critism whether good or bad. I've seen my mistakes and I've already begun to rewrite my story. It will basically remain the same, I'm just getting rid of the gunk that is bogging ti down. I've watched myself while rewriting this time. After each chapter, I've run the spell checker and grammar checker. I now know things to look for that I didn't before. I've learned about Tom Swifties and have eliminated tham and do you know what is so amazing about this? Now, that I'm paying attention to what I'm doing, and know that I'm doing things I should be doing, I don't have a single passive line in my story. I couldn't believe it when I ran the grammar checker and not one was in there. If I've gained nothing else from this experience, I've gained knowledge and you can't put a price tag on that. I'd love to say I'm one of the lucky ones, but with the condition my manuscript is in right now, I completely and wholeheartedly agree, it isn't ready. Once I finish this rewrite though, it will be a LOT closer.

One of the things that got to me about the contest, is other contestants would invite a person to read their story. I had a bunch of them say they had read my reviews and really liked them and would like me to review theirs. I did, but I've had a few that got angry because I did fall in love with their story. That got frustrating, and I've actually slowed down on reading them and reviewing, because I don't want people mad at me. I fear if they get mad at me, they definitely have a way to pay back, by marking the lowest possible rate. That bothers me. Even though I have my own story in here, I didn't hesitate to give a score higher than what I gave myself, if the story was good. I didn't give myself a 10. I knew there were problems so I was honest about and after learning some of the problems, I think I gave myself a score way too high.

This is a chance for everybody to learn, but the ones who come in expecting instant fame were very disappointed. I originally started my very first dragon book closing in on two years, but I don't count the part where I had just thrown together the idea of what I wanted. After that, I left it for a couple of months while I worked on something different and then, I went back about a year ago and rewrote, cleaned it up, and really worked on building a solid foundation for my books. But even that solid foundation has crumbled, but it is salvagable, which is good since I LOVE my dragon stories.

Would I change something? Hmmm...Again, this brings me back to the people who can hurt you were it counts if they don't like what you've said about their story. Otherwise, this has been a wonderful experience. Even though I've lacked sleep during this time :D. Speaking of which, I think it's time I get some sleep before I keel over.

Thanks Dale for setting this up. This was a great idea :D

Shirley

I'll probably post again later on my experiences, but I had an idea I would like to bounce off of people: What if gather.com did genre specific versions of this contest? They could do one for say mystery/crime, science fiction/fantasy/horror, and maybe romance. They could look at the results of this contest to see if there are likely to be enough entrants in a genre. By the way, I know that the combinations I suggested involve very different genres. I'm just tossing out an idea here.

They could even have the contest the same way they did this one, but at the end break out 3 or 5 'best of genre' finalists in some of the more popular genres, with a smaller prize and maybe in conjunction with possible publication through a genre publisher.

They could probably do something like that with the current contest results if they were fast enough on their feet and the existing publisher didn't object. "Gee publisher of science fiction and fantasy stories, we had a whole horde of science fiction and fantasy entries in our contest. Would you like to..."

It would keep more of the people they brought in with this contest interested and coming back. Just an idea.

Thanks
Dale C.

Dale - excellent suggestion on the genre contest.

I'll probably post again later on my experiences, but I had an idea I would like to bounce off of people: What if gather.com did genre specific versions of this contest?

I think that is a great idea Dale. That's something I saw posted on my reviews a lot. "This is not my genre, maybe someone in your genre will appreciate it more"

I think that kind of thing can blackball you. Even though I only like scifi/fantasy/paranormal romance, I didn't vote for the genre of their stories, but on the quality. But many people did vote poorly because "it wasn't their genre". It hurts other contestants scores when a person gives them a poor rate just because they don't like the genre. That isn't what should have been rated. It is the quality that should have been rated.

Anyway, I think it's a great idea.

Brian, I know this is cold comfort, but you're not alone. Every morning I take a look at the entries that are expiring that day and what the high scores are. And every afternoon those entries have scores that are lower by .2-.4 or so, often with no additional comments.

Clearly, the last day drivebys are happening to quite a lot of entries, and the higher your score, the bigger the target you present. I freaked when this happened to my chapter. I was big fat target, and let me tell you, I wish I'd had only ten drivebys. I had easily double that. It's easy for me to be sanguine now that my 14 days are over, but here's how I look at it:

- Gather routinely goes through now and then and makes an adjustment removing 1 votes. They keep assuring us that these adjustments happen to all entries, not just the ones that are "live" and I take them at their word.
- If this is happening to all entries across the board, the effect should more or less even out.
- If it's not happening to all entries, it should make it easier for Gather to spot the entries which are benefiting from this behavior.

I hope this helps. I've been there, and I know it stinks.
Good luck.

I like the idea of a genre-based competition. Perhaps they could have several publishing houses, with each specializing in a genre. Or they could use a different imprint of S&S. They published just about every kind of book.

If the winner of this contest sells well, I wouldn't be surprise if they do this. If the winner bombs, you can forget it. But I suspect the winner will be a great success.

A genre-based contest would be a real help to scifi/fantasy and other genres with fewer fans. You could easily tell apart the scifi fans commenting on my story from the non-scifi fans. The scifi audience is used to having a complex world explained gradually and has no problem being imaginative. Same for fantasy fans, plus they accept the supernatural more readily than the average reader.

But just to play devil's advocate, if a genre story can gain acceptance from a mass audience on gather, you can feel confident that it can appeal to a wider audience. Translation: more sales when it's ready for print. Jurassic Park is a scifi novel turned mass market, as are many Dean Kootz books. So don't be afraid to woo a mass audience.

Brian, I estimated I had at least 40 drive-bys. The better I did, the more I got (I was in the top 3-5 for a while, and that's when I got bombarded).

I'm still up--have been since 3/15/07. I've received several solicitations from other competitors to vote and comment. I obliged many a competitor, but I have yet to have the favor returned, which is really selfish, in my view. I know each of us wants to win, but I think we should all be gracious competitors and give credit where credit is due.

Even though I am a competitor, I don't feel it's right to knock someone's story down by giving 1s or 2s. The lowest rating I gave was a 5 (I only gave one and didn't hurt the entry's score much at all) and the highest was an 8 (which I gave several times). If I see a story I don't think is very good and already has a low score, I don't think it's right to knock it down even lower. It's just plain mean. I mean, all of us spent years on our work. Our stories are like our babies.

I'm at a 5.3 with only 3 votes. I was at a 7 until someone gave me a drive-by 2. If anyone's interested, here's my link to the first chapter of my novel Nathaniel:

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976932894

Best of luck to all of you. Sincerely.

Alexandra

Let me begin with a disclaimer. I talked this over with Dale before coming here to comment. He thought I might have something to contribute here.

I am not a contestant. Never was. I'm not a writer. I'm not in publishing. I am apparently something rather rare around here; a completely unbiased reader, with no agenda, no reason for jealousy, and, fortunatley for me, no butterflies or heartburn over how my work is being received. I started coming here in January, after a request to review was passed to me through a friend of a friend thing (I disliked the work, said so, and offered advice). I have no dog in this hunt.

I know I've rated chapters for some of you; some of you invited me to do so. I never ceased being surprised and flattered that someone wanted me to look at their work, no matter what their ulterior motive. Some of your emails were shameless self-promotions, blatently asking for 10's. Some of you were humble, and I could tell it was hard for you to ask. I was, for the most part, charmed by both kinds of solicitations. I will tell you this. If you took the time to at least make it look like an email personally addressed to me, I probably looked at your work. If it was clearly a mass mailing, I probably did not.

I made an effort to review at least one or two pieces almost every single day, and often more. I own something like a thousand books, and have read many more, and am open to any genre (although I did get a surfeit of sci/fi requests). At no time did I ever judge a book based on its genre.

I also never once rated a chapter without leaving a comment. More than once, I followed what I learned in kindergarten, that if you can't say something nice, say nothing at all. Sometimes, the problems were so egregious, I felt I had to say something. I distinctly remember calling one piece 'dreck', and it was. At all times I tried to be as fair and honest as possible. And yes, I do have a favorite, one of only two 10's that I ever gave. I'm really hoping it makes it to round two, or the author is going to find me stalking after him/her for the rest of the book.

I do also admit to giving a piece a 1, either when it truly deserved it, or to help make a cheerleading-friends-and-family artifically high score more realistic, and in line with other chapters I read. I also left a comment every time I did that.

Dale also said I should mention how I chose what to read. As mentioned, sometimes I was solicited. More often, I looked at newly posted entries, looking for interesting titles, or compelling opening lines, based wholly on what I could see on the front page. Those of you with prologues or date lines may have been bypassed, since this is all I ever saw. Just as I do when confronted with books lined up on the bookshelf, I reached for the ones with the interesting titles. Sometimes I sorted by highest rated, to catch those of you who had only one vote, invariably a 10, given to you by yourself. Again, in the interest of fairness and balance, I often jumped in to get it more into the realm of reality. I told you when I did so.

I judged a chapter not on it's content or genre, but rather, whether or not it had been well written. Had the writer taken time to learn his or her craft? Did they have enough pride in their work to ensure that the spelling, punctuation and grammar were correct? I was astonished by the frequency of really atrocious punctutation errors. The other killer for me was the overabundance of 'and' to link words that should have been multiple sentences. Sometimes I was certain that 'and' must have been on sale at Wal-Mart at two for a penny. I have only a high school education, and no formal training in anything like writing, but the errors sometimes leapt off the page at me.

Some of you would be surprised how often I read your stories out loud, especially if there was a lot of dialogue. Words are meant to be said. One never says of a story "It doesn't look right", one says "It doesn't sound right". Read your stuff out loud more often. Better yet, have someone read it to you, horrible puncutation and all. You'll immmediately hear all the places you've tripped, and all the places that sing.

I've learned a lot of things from other reviewers, should I ever aspire to write. I now know about things such as terrible troubles, Tom Swifties, and the sins of adverbs and passive voice. As a reader, I don't care about those things, but they are apparently the subtleties that contribute to a well written book. You've sometimes blown off, or blown up at, reviewers who really love books, have your best interests at heart, and are freely offering you really good advice. Some of them were driven away by the personal attacks. Those are opportunities lost for a writer. I even respect the infamous Mike C., with whom I sometimes disagreed. But he is passionate, and often right about what he says. I believe that many of us commented not out of jealousy, but because we truly love the written word.

Most of all, I've learned that writers are, for the most part, brave, masochistic, hardy souls. I've slammed people and had them thank me for it. I've seen authors post enthusistic thanks for criticism that would have made me crawl in a hole and pull the dirt over my head. I've seen you defend your babies, and at the same time, you put them out there in the cold, exposed and naked, and let just anyone, including me, take shots at it.

I've tried to offer honest, if uneducated, opinion. For those of you with whom I've been in correspondence, I've always tried to encourage you not to lean too much on other's opinions, but to take what you can use, throw away the rest, and be true to your own voice. I am humbled by your courage, and your drive to be authors.

My best wishes to each of you.

Pat S -
Quite simply...you rock!

Thanks for opening this discussion, Dale. I'm still in the first week of review -- I just got my entry posted on the 15th along with several hundred others. It has been harder than I expected to get people to read it and comment. There isn't an existing pool of readers as I hoped there would be.

I like the idea of a separate genres contest, or at least of attaching tags to the entries so you could search by genre. Search by reviewer would be good too.

If any of you reviewers are not burned out yet, please take a look at my social science fiction entry, New America, at
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976932746.

It's rated pretty well right now (6.7), but the comments have mostly been about the political implications of the story and not about the quality of the writing.

HURRRRRRRRRRRAAAYYYYYY for Gather! Well, at least for now. I was SOOOOOOOOOO angry and frustrated yesterday with the BS that the scoring system and the 1ies atttempts to drive my score down. This morning I woke up and Gather HAS made adjustments to the scores! They tossed out 15 of the 1ie votes! I see that many of the highly ranked/voted on stories have gotten a boost as well and it makes me hopeful that gather IS monitoring and will remedy the situation. I guess all the 1ies will now morph into 2ies and 3ies but the best will still advance!

Everyone is quite concerned about the point system--perhaps rightly so. I notice that in the rules is says that fifteen entries will be chosen, based on the score and number of votes. It does not say only on that bases. Due to the number of people having identical scores, I submit it would be impossible to go by score alone. I feel that, after the drive bys are eliminated, the scores will be used as a first reader. That above a certain score, fifteen submissions will be chosen by a combination of score and marketability. The other five just by marketability. Where that cut off will be, I have no idea, but I would not get too up set if you have a 5.7 instead of a 6.7.
One thing I would have done differently is submitted later in the contest. As time went on there were more members to give critiques. Also, the idea of asking for critiques did not occur to me and I did not receive any requests until after my submission was off..
I enjoyed being asked, even in mass mailings, and I tried to comply. I didn't respond to one request because of the length of the chapter--I think it was closer to ten thousand than two thousand words. I skipped another because I felt that it was worth only a one, or two. Giving out a score like that could be the result of my mood that day, and it could be very discouraging. I gave out a couple of fives but everyone else got between 7 and 10.
I belong to a writing class, but I think we concentrate too much on line by line. The contest gave me some good feed back on characterization. I hope we have another.

I have been way too obsessive about this contest! My chapter is still up and I don't think I want to admit how often I check on it. I have greatly appreciated the opportunity to both have my work read and to read other chapters. I sincerely entered the contest hoping for constructive criticism and hope to see some more comments before my chapter goes off, in just a few days. I wasn't sure if I was going to enter or not, but when I saw how thorough people were being, I went for it.

I've been a little lost on how to promote, I agree that promotion is key in the publishing world, but on this site, I haven't been able to get the hang of it. Wish I had, before I run out of time. That would be something I would do differently - research the site and figure out how things work before submitting so that I could get the most possible benefit from the contest.

Author of Rahma's Honor,
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976927402

p.s. I have a few days left and really would love to hear your opinions.

Just a comment on ratings. I know one person who refused to give anyone lower than a C grade, and felt C was 7 out of 10. I know another who thought any entry deserved at least a 5. And I know several who felt that on a scale of 1 to 10, 5 was average, 9 excellent, and 2 bad. From watching ratings, my own and others, I think most people fell into the last category. So, if we assume nobody can please everyone with what they write, a final score of 5 might mean everyone thought it was average, therefore not saleable, or half the people loved it and half hated it, therefore extremely saleable to half the voters. There were certainly drive-bys and best-friends out there, but I'm quite sure the 2 and 1 ratings I got were "hate-it"s, and that's fine by me. They probably didn't leave comments because they thought that was kinder to me.

Yeah, I wish they had defined the rating scale because even the honest raters were all over the park. I never rated anyone less than a five. I started reading a few that I would have had to rate as 4 or less if I had continued, but in those cases I just walked away. I also walked away from anything that was currently rated two or more points above where I would have rated it. I'm a contestant and the possibility of subconscious bias was too high.

If something was good but currently over-rated I would sometimes go back and take another look in a couple of days. Often the piece was now rated below what I originally wanted to rate it, and my rating would give it a boost.

I gave absolutely nobody in the contest a ten, not even myself. I took 10 as meaning perfect, and even my entry isn't that. I did give a few nines, a few more eights, and a lot of five through seven. To me, eight or above meant that the piece was publishable with only a few minor tweaks. Seven meant very good, but with important or repeating flaws. Six meant that that I saw major potential in either the writing or the plot, but that one or the other had major problems. Five meant that I saw something worthwhile in the story or the writing, but that something about one or the other made the story a chore to even read to the end.

In almost half of the stories I wished for a decimal point. I saw dozens of stories that I felt didn't quite deserve a 7, but that were better than the ones I had been giving a 6 to.

I didn't want to be influenced by the current rating, but I probably was subconsciously. If something was at 6.0 and I liked it I found myself reflexively thinking in terms of a 7. If the story had been at 6.9 I would have probably thought more about an 8. I tried to keep that sort of thinking out of my rating system, but I doubt that I succeeded completely.

For a while I tried to avoid commenting until near the end of the piece's 14 days, thinking that I should avoid anything that might spin a piece's future ratings down. Unfortunately, getting to the last few screens is cumbersome, and I had to give that up after a few days. Also, I suspect that commenting in those last couple of days is somewhat dangerous because a lot of contestants are tired and frustrated, and late comments that involve constructive criticism are liable to get you flamed.

Another problem with the late comments idea is that I think I ran into one or two cases where someone was trying to stealth through the contest unnoticed and with only 4 or 5 ratings and then have five or ten friends jump in and give them tens the last night. Instant high ratings and I suppose they figure they're into the next round. Yeah right. No one is stupid enough to design a contest that can be gimmicked that easily. Any sane result is going to look at both the overall rating and the number of individual rating that went into it.

This is getting long and real life calls. More later.

Since I started talking about ratings and comments: I generally walked away from any story where the author or anyone else got hostile toward an earlier commenter. Why get involved in that sort of thing when there are hundreds of other authors out there taking comments courteously and professionally.

I tried to be positive as positive as I could in my comments without giving a false impression of how I felt toward the story. In a couple of cases I went through a page or two writing my reactions as I read the story. The results were totally unfiltered, and about as close as the authors are going to get to experiencing what their readers experience. I only did that if I thought the story had major potential because commenting that way is so time-consuming, with me often writing more in comments than the lines of story I was commenting on. How did people like that? One person found it extremely helpful. Another one didn't say anything, but I noticed a slew of astroturf comments (brief 'it was great' type comments from people who logged in once and commented once) when I stopped by a little later.

Speaking of astroturfing, in case you haven't heard the term it basically means generating phony grass-roots support for a person or cause. It was pretty easy to see who was doing a lot of astroturfing. Just click on a few names at random under the 'feel good' comments. Did the person join and log on only once and only leave one comment? Probably part of an astroturf campaign. There is nothing wrong with bringing people in to vote, as long they really exist, but some of the most rated or most commented entries take that to an art form, with nearly half of the comments I checked from astroturfers.

I was only able to bring in about six friends that I can think of. A lot of my friends are literary but not computer literate. Oh well, at least my score won't go down as much if gather.com values those votes at cents on the dollar at the end of the contest, which I'm guessing they may.

More later.

Hi all, I did submit at the last minute; not as a matter of strategy, but as a matter of . . . holy crap, is it the 15th already???

Anyway, I will not permit myself to get discouraged, though the thought of 2500 other entries makes my queasy. I am glad to hear that the drive bys are being prosecuted.

I have, indeed, marketed myself, but I have asked only for honest feedback. This is my first novel, and I really want to get better as a writer. (My post, by the way is at http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976933717 - I welcome your comments).

I wish everyone luck. What a way to get someone (It's so hard sometimes, ain't it?) to read your work.

Thanks all.

Well, the viewing period for my novel Char is finally over. I'm so glad those 14 days are behind me. Did I win a spot in the next round? Realistically, probably not. I ended up with a rating of 6.3 with 63 ratings. The last 6 votes were all drive-bys. They took Char from a 6.8 this morning to the 6.3 it ended up with.

Of course the 6.8 score was immediately after the big anti-fraud sweep this past night, which caught 7 of my 9 drive-bys, so I guess I just got back all but one of the drive-bys that I lost earlier. Those last minute drive-bys don't bother me as much after the big sweep that got rid of so many last night. A 1 or even a 2 or 3 given in the last few hours of a competitor's viewing period without a meaningful comment is unlikely to have any impact on the results after they are cleaned up. I'm surprised that so many people waste their time doing that sort of thing.

A nastier tactic that some of the drive-bys use is to try to bury a promising competitor in the sheer mass of entries. They try to push them down into 5.9 to 6.0 territory early in the game and hope that nobody notices them. That happened to Char. I had to do the gather.com equivalent of jumping up and down, waving my hands and saying 'Hey over here! Good story over this way!" I convinced enough people to take a look that I managed to get the best collection of comments that I've seen for any competitor.

If Char was going to be the best at something that wasn't a bad thing to be best at. I am really just so grateful to all of the people behind those comments. You took time to stop by when Char wasn't very highly rated, and didn't have many comments. There was nothing to make it stand out from the crowd, but you stopped by and really made the competition worthwhile for me.

So what do I know now that I wish I had known then? I came into this competition incredibly naive. I just let them put Char out there and assumed that somehow hordes of reader would find it and push it to the top of the ratings. Instead, as I mentioned earlier, it got buried and would have stayed buried if I had waited around for people to find me.

If I had this to do over again, what would I do differently? I would get Char into the competition earlier. I would aim for week three or four of the contest, after the big initial rush, but before the procrastinators rush. Non-author readers wouldn't have been so tired and frazzled then. Before I entered I would get to know all I could about how gather.com works. I would join a few groups that I'm interested in. I would post a few comments and maybe an article or two to get to know people and to let them know I exist. I would observe the contest for those weeks and have a list of people I would like to have rate my chapter already ready to go.

Once I entered the contest, I would politely ask the people I wanted to comment on Char to do so, a few each day. The people I would pick would be the same type of people I picked this time: people with in-depth, honest comments.

I wouldn't want to stand out too much in terms of ratings at any point in the contest except toward the end, because too high of a rating too early attracts the claws out crowd, both the drive-bys and their more sophisticated cousins. For most of the contest I would be happy with a score around 6.2 or 6.3. I wouldn't fight the drive-bys efforts to keep me in that range too vigorously. Would I do better? Probably. Would I win? I don't know. Is Char good enough to have won? I think so, but I'm biased.

By the way, the writer of 'Tracks' apparently did an even more extensive job of setting the groundwork than I would even think of doing. He joined gather.com back in January and spent nearly two months getting to know people in various groups that he is interested in. He finally posted his chapter a couple days after I did. By that time he had a lot of friends on gather.com. A lot of them came out and voted for him and for no one else in the contest. The man is a formidable competitor and may very well make it to the next round, partly because of the strategy and partly because he writes well.

That's the bottom line. All of the strategy is useless if you don't write well.

This is getting long, so I'll stop now.

"...when you cede your life to fate, you must be willing to accept the consequences." This is a line from Brian H.'s first chapter. I thought it fitting to bring it over here. A couple of you pined for reviews. Careful what you wish for. A couple of you got them. Hope you find them useful, or least not useless.

Pat S., your comments were thoughtful, interesting and generally helpful. Your identification of typographical errors also was helpful. Each time I read the manuscript, I infuriatingly identify typos. Ugh. In any event, I sincerely appreciate your careful reading and insight. I am also pleased that you selected a quote from me to post here. Thanks for the bump!

I didnt post a chapter on here but I did read many of them. Dale I like Char. So many of you look familiar. Especially Chandra. I either got to a chapter a little before or after Chandra did.

I never left a rating without a comment but I know I left a comment without a rating.

I think this was sort of a test run for gather. I hope if they continue and have this contest next year they work out the kinks.

My 2 cents.

Janet, I hope you are wrong about the fate of the winning entry, because I would love to see this kind of contest repeated. I was also disappointed in the number of readers as opposed to contestants. On the other hand, the number of readers attracted may be somewhat higher than you think. Remember, the readers are spread out among 2500 entries, so chances are that even the most avid ones aren't going to get to more than a tiny fraction of the entries. Can you imagine reading and rating even 10 percent of the entries? That would be 250 First Chapters. I don't think more than a handful of people could read that many entries without having their heads explode.

Also, a lot of would-be authors like to read. I am certainly going to follow the next round and the one after that, whether or not Char is in it. Unless the winning entry is really bad, or it is from someone I think engaged in unprofessional behavior during the contest, I will buy it. By the end of the contest I will have read 3 chapters and I'll probably be hooked. Even if I'm not, I may shell out the $15-20 anyway just to add slightly to the chance that the contest will be considered a success and will be repeated. To me that's a small price to pay to increase the chance at another shot at this.

Thanks
Dale C.

Janet I respect your views but I also hope you are wrong. I dont know if I have explained to this group or not but my sister is a librarian and before I "retired" to be a stay at home mom...I was in that field..I have a degree in sociology and reading endorsement.

Every time a new book by a new author comes into the library my sister calls me and we preview it. There has been a demand for several new authors. So I dont agree with your point. I think the market is prime for new people. The only thing I see is maybe a drop in book sales because everyone is so busy these days. But I dont ever think people will stop reading. I know I wont. And we have several book clubs in my part of Iowa. Plus look at Oprah Winfrey.

On a personal note I have learned and grown as a reader just by commenting on others work. I have a new appreciation for Scifi and Fantasy genres I had never read before. I now appreciate how hard you work and I actually enjoyed some of the stories.

I have seen several chapters on here that I would buy the book. There was some real quality chapters in this contest.

Actually the winner of this contest will probably have a better shot at a best seller than most new authors. He'll probably have twenty five hundred people who have read the first three chapters wondering what comes next.
I know that works because Baen Books has been doing that for years on their web site and its cost me a small fortune.
Also he will have a placement in Borders that most new authors can not get their publishers to pay for. I would also imagine that there will be enough interest to gain a review in both Publisher's Weekly and the Times.
However, 2499 of us will not have to worry about it

Walter you do present a valid point there has been some articles by the New York Times reguarding this contest. Google "one chapter one vote" I think and it will bring up the link. I was emailed this by someone else and I did so there is some national exposure.

this is the 21st. the contest was suposed to end on the 15th. why are they still posting new first chapters?

Margaret they had until the 15th to submit new chapters and I am assuming they were overwhelmed with people sending last minute ones.

I agree Duane. Earlier I had said that because there were more people critiquing, I wished I had waited until the end to submit. I've changed my mind. I just checked. There are 85 pages of submissions. I went back to page 25 before I quit. The posting dates on that page are March 16th.
Out of all those I might comment on four or five.
I'm glad I didn't wait

I don't know if this really belongs under this topic, but since we are talking about our experiences I'll toss it in. Most of us read a lot of chapters. As you were reading, did you find that the rating told you anything useful about the quality of the chapter? Was a 7.1 consistently or even usually better than a 6.2? Was a 6.2 consistently or usually better than a 5.5? What kind of patterns did you find in the ratings versus the quality of the chapters? Were ratings better or worse indicators of quality if the piece had been up for a while?

Thanks
Dale

Dale I guess I didnt notice. And I agree with Walter I havent seen as many people critiquing. Mike C hasnt been heard of since middle of March...I know some people found him harsh but he did give valid points. I think he got too much crap and stopped. I am trying to go through and look at 1. the ones that dont have any comments. I would hate to be the person that goes to all the effort to write a novel send it in then it is just ignored 2. The people that email me asking me to look at theirs...I figure if they have enough balls to email a stranger than they are serious about their work.

Hi all.
Thank you Dale for providing this "forum." I feel like I already know many of you from your icons, names and writing.

I guess I must start out by saying that I STRONGLY disagree with Janet. She sounds jaded. To say that the WINNER of this competition will fail is ridiculous without yet knowing which entry will win. At best it will be a piece whose opening 3 chapters will be polished by more reviews than ANY other unpublished author has EVER received.

It will NOT be one of these author-induced high rating/no content submissions. We all know that if that first chapter is that bad, the rest of the novel will have it immediately tossed by the "review board" on the off chance that it makes it into the top 5...which is unlikely.

Most agents claim that they reject 98% or more of their submissions. The 20 quarter finalists will represent LESS than 1% of the entries. The top 5 finalists will represent such a tiny fraction of work that it's safe to reason that MORE than just the winner will be "publishable" work and my prediction is that this will be much like American Idol in that commercial success may or may not accompany this contest's winner.

An excellent point was made that the book will get far more of a chance than the average first published work of an author. In addition to the Border's distribution, there is the natural publicity as well as the opportunity to for the author to promote themselves as a contest winner - thus creating more of a stir when contacting potential media outlets.

That's my take on that. Thanks again to Dale for providing the opportunity to discuss these issues with people of similar experience!

It was rather like having my writing on the stock market, or so I imagine (I don't own stocks). Yes, I became obsessive about checking in throughout the day to see if I had new comments or new votes; I was similarly obsessed with getting on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" when it debuted in 1999. "Writing" and "competition" are two things I will always obsess on, so when I saw the article in the Times in January, it went into a mad trance rewriting my only manuscript that fit the word-count criteria, "Come Together Over Me." Entered two weeks ago; today is probably my last day on line at http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976927754 .

When I first entered, I intended not to notify friends, wanting to see the work rise or fall on its own merit. It quickly became obvious that, buried in the bottom of stack on the day it was posted, I wasn't going to get read at all unless I pointed some people toward it. So I contacted people from all parts of my life—theatre, health care, gay, human services, and a few fellow writers—and managed to get a fairly respectable score until all the anonymous 1's started hitting. By far the best outcome of this is that many people who have never read my fiction did so, and contacted me, mostly by email, with words of encouragement and appreciation of the work.

So, all in all, I loved it for the creative rush, for the game of it, but most importantly for the opportunity to let others in my life see another part of me. I really appreciate this conversation, by the way. Good luck to you all!

Dale,

I concur with your earlier statement regarding what you're likely to do next time around:

"Before I entered I would get to know all I could about how gather.com works. I would join a few groups that I'm interested in. I would post a few comments and maybe an article or two to get to know people and to let them know I exist. I would observe the contest for those weeks and have a list of people I would like to have rate my chapter already ready to go."

I think it makes sense to build a name and reputation for yourself in advance of a competition such as this; and to broaden your network, not only here, but within other areas of your personal and professional relationships. My husband engaged in a little bit of "viral networking" on my behalf, emailing his co-workers about the competition (including links to join the First Chapters group and to my story, Glimpse of Emerald), and asked them to read, review, rate... and pass the word to others in their email circles.

I would have contacted the folks in my extended circles in advance of my entering, to give them a heads-up and invite them to check out other people's entries (so they get a chance to see how the contest works and so they're not dismissed simply as one-story raters).

I'd have gone over my story with a fine-toothed comb and done some careful line editing, making sure I'd said what I meant and meant what the characters said.

Thanks, Dale, for starting this thread. It's been helpful to read others' reactions to the competition and the goings-on throughout.

Thanks, also, to those I may not already have acknowledged privately who took the time to read/review/rate my work and invited me to do the same for theirs.

Rita :o)

One unexpected benefit of the competition: According to the scale I lost 14 to 16 pounds during the 14 days of my chapter's viewing period. Part of that was undoubtedly water weight, but I'm guessing I actually lost 7 or 8 pounds of fat or muscle. I was so hyper that my appetite was much lower than normal. I didn't sleep much, and undoubtedly my body was in maximum effort mode the entire 14 days.

It isn't healthy to lose weight that fast for very long, but I feel better and my clothes are looser, so I'm happy. Now I just have to keep from gaining it all back.

Dale. I'm responding to your question (even though I don't belong here), "As you were reading, did you find that the rating told you anything useful about the quality of the chapter? Was a 7.1 consistently or even usually better than a 6.2? Was a 6.2 consistently or usually better than a 5.5?"

I found the rating to be less than useless when reading a chapter. Generally, all the rating told me was about the author's network and/or connections. That said, I would scan the comments, looking for a few of the more respectable/prolific reviewers. If they were there, and their comments supported the rating, I figured it was legit. If the comments were just a bunch of one-line throwaways "Good story!!!", then I figured it for a friends-and-family-drive-by rating.

The only rating I could be sure about was the one I gave a chapter. I set up my own criteria, and followed it. I never rated a story higher or lower because I didn't like the content. I think that happened here a lot, since the ratings were sometimes provided by uneducated readers. I saw a lot of "I don't like this genre, so I think your chapter sucks" kind of comments. The rating in no way reflected the actual value of the chapter.

On the other hand, I did see some commenters actually spell out their ratings, i.e. so many points for grammar, so many for puncutation, so many for "craft", so many for plot, so many for characterization, etc. I wasn't that detailed, but tried to use a similar mental scale.

It seems to me that the whole rating/number of votes thing is an odd way to judge this contest. I hope the administrators use that only as a guideline. Then again, as in real life, we don't always get what we deserve. Sometimes I'm grateful for that.

Dale, I think I've experienced the opposite effect. Adding the obessive hours of sitting and clicking "refresh" over the past 9 days has given me even more butt-spread.
LOL

I came back because I realized after posting that my last comment was a bit off of track considering the thread is "What I'd do differently." - I'll likely say more once my posting is down, but certainly I'd wait to vote on my own article and I'd hold back on my closest friend's votes (if possible) until the last minute to offset what will likely be a mass effort to drive down my score.

I did join Gather prior to submitting my First Chapter but only a few weeks prior. With a "Do Over," I would have joined and watched the contest fromt he begining, kept a list of reviewers that I respected, and made a LOT more "friends" on Gather.

I certainly would NOT have given honest and constructive feedback to any of the poorly written chapters. My intention was pure, to give them ways to improve their work. However, it may have made me a target to one or two of them and their "friends."

When I did submit and saw the sabotage occurring to the higher scores, I held back the "astroturf" vote (I'd prefer "friendly fire"). I did get many of the regular reviewers to take a look at DREAM WAR, and many gave it a good review. I'm honored with a current 6.9 rank despite not (yet) having hundreds of friends vote for it. Hopefully my final weekend, I'll get enough friends and family to vote to get me to round two (since others have done it - here's my link although most of you have already graced me with your thoughts/comments/ranking).

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976929636

Lastly, in regards to that question about did the ranking fit the story.....Sometimes - if the story was below a 4.5, it was typically not ready for this contest (how's that for euphemism?) - usually the higher ranked stories deserved to be (unless they had huge amounts of early "friendly fire") but typically the ranking was more indicative of when it was posted, how many friends had already voted.

I'm going to second what Pat. S. said about the ratings. The average ratings now are much higher than they were during the period my chapter ran. Part of this is because they never stripped out the drive-bys during that submission period (and there were a ton of them). Chapters are also getting more votes now. I'm going to go with Janet's theory, that this reflects a great Gather readership, now that word of the gift cards has spread. I don't see that the higher scores have much to do with quality differences. God knows one of the highest ranked entries when my chapter ran was one of the worst pieces o' crap I've ever had the displeasure to read.

Also, it really is necessary to do a lot of self-promotion to get enough votes to get your chapter noticed. I hate promoting more than I can tell you, but I did it for this. That got my chapter up high enough for other readers to find it. This was a really good lesson for me.

Finally, I second - third? - what everyone has said about understanding the slush pile now. I never thought I'd start sympathizing with agents, but there it is. I read so many of these entries that my brain hurt after a couple of days.

Stephen P: Good luck on that last weekend. The unfortunate math of drivebys is that if your deserve a 7 it takes two 10s to offset one driveby (10+10+1=21. Divide that by 3 and you're at 7). If you deserve an 8 or 9 it takes even more 10s to get back where you belong. It would have taken 18 'friendly fire' votes to cancel out the 6 drivebys that came in during the last couple of hours Char was up. Char wasn't even that big of a target. Yeah it was 6.8 going into the last day, but drive-bys kept coming even when it dropped to 6.4.

If you are averaging 8 on the honest scores, it takes only 1 driveby for every 3 honest scores to put a chapter at around 6.2 to 6.3. Pretty depressing, huh? On the other hand, gather.com demonstrated that they can spot and eliminate at least some of the drivebys. I just wish they had waited until mid-afternoon of Char's last day. Oh well. I only got nine or ten drivebys before the big sweep, and six afterwards. Some people claim to have gotten as many as forty.

Actually, it would have only taken 12 friendly fire to offset those 6 drive-bys, as I realized 5 minutes after I posted that. Still, it takes a lot of friends to offset even a modest amount of drive-bys.

Dale, you lost the weight, I sat and made up an excel spreadsheet.
LOL
I'm thinking that the 1ies are morphing into 2ies because Gather has shown it can spot the "drive by" vote. Still getting a 9, a 10, and a 2 vote only incrimentally creeps my 6.9 vote up. A "9, 10, 10, 2" ratio is a bit better. With 40 total votes my 6.9 goes to a 7.1. I think the key is GETTING those late surge votes....after 2 weeks of soliciting most people are tapped out. The more good votes that come in, the less of an effect the 1ies will have - orrrrrrr, if it's truly a coordinated effort, the more OBVIOUS their effort becomes. Either way, I'd bet Gather is watching the "Final Days" very carefully...at least I hope they are!

My bet is that your final score will be closer to 6.8 than 6.4, it's just you may never know it.

What boggles my mind is that there are still 2 chapters that were posted on 3/02 and one on 2/23 collecting votes and comments! What's up with that???

I wholeheartedly agree with the suggestions for genre-specificity and the inclusion of some kind of summary or blurb to put the chapters in context. I imagine Gather staff sitting around at this point looking dazed and wondering what to do with the mess they've got on their hands. With the given timeline, there's just no way to ensure that the 20 manuscripts in the next round will truly be the best of the best. It's like opening a business -- your worst nightmare isn't that sales are below expectations, but that sales will exceed expectations by a bigger margin than you can possibly handle.

That said, however, I have a feeling that if Gather does this again, things will naturally run a bit better. Both sides of the competition will be better prepared. When I first began polishing up my then-unfinished manuscript for entry, I had no idea the competition would grow so large. Had I known there would be thousands of entries, I might have reconsidered spending the time to rush through and complete my novel, as there were a lot of other things on my plate at the time, all pushed aside because I truly hoped to have my chapter read and noticed. As it stands, most of the entries are retired with little attention, and there's not a lot to be done about it this time around. Readers are overwhelmed, and those of us who don't have an online cheering section to call upon are S.O.L. Anyway, I wonder if a repetition of the contest would naturally result in fewer entries, as authors might be less apt to throw their hat in the ring after hearing how chaotic things got this time around. Those who submitted this time around and were told their work was "rank drivel" might not want to resubmit, and those whose work had potential but didn't make it through might spend more time on their craft the second time around. Lessons learned, and all that. Maybe I'm an optimist.

Then again, American Idol seems to attract more and more horrible singers each year, despite the prospect of being humiliated on national television.

Back to "what I'd do differently":

My entry has only been up for a couple of days now, but already I'm wondering if there might be a better format for the competition. I wonder how many good novels will be ignored because nothing truly shocking or earthshattering happens until chapter two or three? How many of these really great first chapters are simply a great beginning to a poorly developed story? How many writers have spent a lot of time on the first three chapters, knowing that's how they would be judged, and let the rest of the novel degenerate into drivel? I'm not sure how one might structure a competition to address those questions. Somebody, I think on the "Submission Period Has Ended" article, suggested something akin to the American Idol process, whereby the entries are screened first. It's a good idea, though a truly daunting task. I'd advocate simply running each manuscript through a spelling and grammar check, and tossing out those too badly in need of a proofreader. That would probably cut the submission pool in half. I know I'm not the world's most eloquent writer, but I know that my submission to this contest contains proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation, and isn't one long string of sentences written in passive voice. That means I also feel confident that comments about my entry will be useful and valuable, as there won't be reason for critics to pick at small errors before getting right into the critiques that count.

I also agree with the requirement of a comment to go with each rating. I DEFINITELY agree with that one.

As a writer, I think if we get a chance to try this competition again, I'll try with an entirely different novel, giving thought to the fact that I have to get the big exciting cliffhanger twist right into the first chapter. I won't make it to round two this time, that's for sure, as I think the plot I chose for this novel doesn't lend itself to be judged on the first chapter alone. Like I said, I thought the chances of my second chapter getting read would be more than infinitessimal. C'est la vie.

I'm certainly not looking forward to the backlash that I expect to follow the announcement of the second round entries. So many disgruntled authors...

I did actually tell my friends that 1 was low and 10 was high. I didn't think anyone would get confused, but I didn't want to take any chances.

Jaye, I share your fear about the backlash which may follow the announcement of the next round. I'd like to think people wouldn't get ugly, but then, I'd like to think people wouldn't tell their friends to give other entries 1s. I fear the worst.

My entry was in the contest with the "Lisa F." bunch and I will agree whole-heartedly with her - that our group was much more harshly rated than those chapters posted now. The reason why, IMHO, was that the first group had just been taken down. They knew what their scores were at the end of their run and they knew what "they had to do" to get our scores down low enough that we were not a threat to theirs. Now that there are so many entries, their 20 "1" votes don't mean as much and I think they've caught on that it isn't working anyway. So, this was damaging to Lisa and to me as well. They never adjusted our scores, so we don't have any idea what our final score was. At that time, there were only 4 or 5 chapters out of 200 that were above a 6 and those were 6.2 and 6.1 - a 7 WAS UNHEARD OF - 7.5? what the heck is that!! So this contest is not "equal" to all contestants simply due to whatever the current vibe going through the community is at any given time. A 6.2 then is like a 7.5 now. The score means absolutely nothing, in other words. So those of you who are cursing your procrastination, may actually be better off than those of us who were "on the ball".

What I would have done differently - I would have posted later, after I had gotten to know more people in the gather community and would have felt more comfortable asking for readers. I rushed it. Should have done that one last edit. I did self promote, and had quite a few votes (65ish) for my posting window. But that isn't many votes in this posting window. I don't know how they'll ever figure out who moves on to the next round. And I don't think anyone can predict that in all honesty. We'll just have to wait. And apparently we will have to wait an extra week for the announcement of winners so you procrastinators that are being posted AFTER the final day will have your two weeks. (curses!)

Here's something that happened to me that didn't happen to many. They took my chapter down after 12 days. I was in the top 7 or 8 for my window at that time. Well, I complained via email to the FC administator and a few days later, they put my chapter back up for several days to "give my story equal exposure". 95% of my votes in that second repost were 1s or 2s. Knocked me all the way down to a 5.9 before it was over. Why? Because the drivebys weren't sure when they were going to take my chapter down and they wanted to knock my score down while they could in its last moments. Lovely....

Anyway, this has been a great experience, despite the drivebys and the obsessive checking of scores. I received many comments that will help me improve my chapter and novel. Even the infamous Mike C. gave me ideas for improvement. So, yeah, I'd definately enter again, but I would chose to post a different genre - one that has a higher readership. Should have posted my medical thriller - dang! It's hard to get good feedback on sci fi. AND if this contest runs again, and I haven't been published by then, I shall definately enter again - different novel obviously.

And Dale, when are you going to get around to reading my chapters posted on the fantasy writer's guild? I know they weren't in the contest, but if I get those chapters polished enough to secure the agent of my dreams and a publishing contact (without the benefit of this contest), I will be one less competitor next year. Just a thought. :) :D

Anyone interested in reading fantasy chapters not in the contest? Go to fantastytersguild.gather.com. We're doing lots of work over there to improve ourselves and each other without the cut throat environment of the contest. You don't have to rate anything. And you can comment without worrying about a conflict of interest. And you can post there too. Plus, some of us are in the early stages of our work where comments mean the most. SEE, I did learn some promotional skills in this contest.

And those of you still in the contest. Stop stressing out. I know that is easier said than done, but it isn't worth your health. Go eat some food, have a nice glass/cup of your favorite beverage, get some sleep and stop staring at your computer screen. Your score isn't going to change simply because you keep hitting the refresh button.

Best wishes to all - optimists, realists and pessimists alike.

I agree with many that this contest should have been subdivided according to genre. I am not the best judge of sci-fi, and I only evaluated those stories when asked. I did my best, but I can't say I gave the genre chapters 9s or 10s. I think that many chapters have more or less regressed to a mean--somewhere between 5 and 7. Currently, I am at a 6.3. I received high scores from those who seemed to like literary fiction and mediocre to decent scores from those who prefer genre.

Anyway, if anyone's interested in reading about a malcontented seventeen-year old boy, here it is:

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976932894

Hey, if I don't tell people it exists, it'll get lost in the those pages that take forever to load.

Best to all,
Alexandra

You know, I was just sitting here painting t-shirts and thinking, and it occurred to me that a randomized readership thing could be a cool idea. I don't know if it would work on Gather, given the infrastructure they have. In fact, I doubt it would be easy to implement. But the fairest thing would be for each interested reader to go to a page which would randomly serve up an entry -- giving everyone's an equal chance to be read -- and require a rating and comment before one could proceed to the next random entry. Completely do away with any searchable listing of entries. I wouldn't have a problem with giving each author the unique URL and allow promotion of entries that way. It would still work to cut down on drive-by 1s and prevent stories from getting lost in the mess.

Dale,

Thanks!

I've been trying to locate the bulletin board or classified section on gather to ensure gather members have an opportunity to know my entry is available.

No such luck with that, I have been informed these do not exist.

I did come accross two groups that have group emails that I'm assuming reach all the group members.

Anyone know how many groups are set up that way?

I would like to invite you to read my entry, earn your points and enjoy the story.

I have entered the first chapter contest:

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976930541

(If the Link doesn't work, it can be copied and pasted into your browser)

Comments on my entry, whether they are good, bad, or indifferent are welcomed.


Thanks

I wanted to see who had taken up promoting their chapters. I used the tag "reviewer" and found a couple of folks who had posted articles with the title 'First Chapter Reviewer wanted'.

The other thing that worked was that someone (Christus P.?) took the time to compile a list of reviewers that popped up frequently on chapters, then sent a mass email to them. Somehow, I got on that list. Mass email, not so good, but some folks took the time to follow up with a personal request. I responded to as many as I could. If you see some reviewers who think can help you, email them (personally), and request a review. Be brave. Don't just send toemails the reviewers who write 'soft' reviews, but also the ones you think can help you grow as a writer. Mike C. got left off that email, which was too bad. He was tough, but he was also often right. I think he's given up now, which is a boon to you late entrants. I know for sure David Rochester left due to harsh pushback. Noble Collins isn't active too much anymore either.

And Carl? You're on my radar. Give me a day or two. As a couple of folks on here can attest, beware praying to the cybergods for a review. Sometimes, you get an answer.

I guess ranting is a different version of group therapy, but......

Guys, and ladies......

I'm getting really exhausted of all the double standard stuff.......say one thing, do another.....and I am ending up having to be one of the few to really tell the truth; about anything. And, frankly I'm sick of it ....it puts me in a very akward position by virtue of just seeing too much, and wanting to vomit when people keep displaying duplicitous behaviors....(whew, this group stuf does werk ;-)

I came here because veronica posted a note to one of the Many submissions that I track in my 'journey' through all the entries.

Everyone has a vested interest in someone's work.....either theirs, a friends, or someone's they liked.....otherwise they wouldn't waste thier time even looking, eh?

Veronica's friend, D. Vandyke of "My Buddy Lee" i think, had the following stats....which I think he can collaborate:

on 3/21/07 at 6:30 pm a 6.9 with 110votes and 40comments

on 3/21/07 at 7:08 pm a 6.9 with 114votes and 42 comments

on 3/22/07 at 10:30ish a 7 with 126 votes and 47comments

on 3/22/07 at 11:00ish a 7 with 131 votes and 53 comments

I read and reviewed his book.....giving him a 10star like I give everyone; but also noting,like i feel compelled to do, that while his story is heartfelt and well written it is also too long winded for my tastes......and really needs to be trimmed back if he wants people to read instead of snoozing. After I posted my comments, I read the ones already posted (On big posters I usually wait to read them so as not to be biased). Many of the constructive comments (ie. ones other than the nice supportive ones of his friends and customers) said similar things to what I had concluded. End story, right?

Then, this morning I read "The Spiral Staircase"

It was a bit randy with the words, but very well written; on a similar vein as "My Buddy Lee".....a guy's search for self/meaning and a walk down memory lane..albeit a rougher road. This book, while a bit offensive to some, really engaged the reader (hint: me) and even though I don't like violence, I got into this story and the main character; Vs the snoozer in "My Buddy Lee." To help the author of "My Buddy Lee," I referred him to "The Spiral Staircase" so he could see an example of how to fix/revise his......so to, guess what?,not "lose" the contest but to improve his work so it could be published and read someday. His winning the contest is no more likey to me that "The Spiral Staircase" winning.....him due to 'not ready for prime time' quality, and the "Staircase" for no votes.

"The Spiral Staircase" info at 10:40ish: a 3.8 rating with 5 votes and 2 comments!!

By my vote, and a few other supportive people, these stats reached:

6.1 rating with 8 votes and 3 comments.........

THEN, Veronica came in and panned his work and scored him a ????

At the same time, someone I know gave him a 10......the 'new' ratings?

6.1 with 10 votes and 5 comments.....

Soooo, the point? Mr. Vandyke didn't listen to any of the reviews that didn't fit his view of reality......which like many, seems to be: "win, win, win...."

I didn't come here to 'catch' Veronica in a 'mistake'.......I came here, and am wasting valuable time writing this so you guys will frickin wake up.

2,500 submissions......1 "winner"......let go.

The only 'winners' will be those who learn from the process and are open enough to ask for, and then get, real feedback to improve their manuscripts (hint: they aren't books yet, egos aside) The other 'winners' will be those who actually provide helpful/constructive feedback and help the authors; and learn themselves through the process of reading so many perspectives.

I've seen stuff I am embarassed to even recount.......and could name names that would show folks up for really bad behaviors...... I don't want to....I would just like to request that everyone take a really deep breath.....like Duncan's Character in "Hacksville" did before he went into face a Hollywood scumbag(primal screams optional)......and encourage others to behave like you ordinarily would; and let go of this whole "I have to win at all costs thing."

I gave you specific stats for 2 reasons. First to prove my point; and second, to show you that many people are watching. I keep notes on Every submission.....just so I can recall things when need be (i.e. "Remember what you said about my book, Patrick?" ;-)

The Gather folks, and other Gather 'actives' are watching too.....and they have the computers on their side. Bottom line? If a submission isn't ready for prime time, it isn't ready.....and if someone wants to twist the process to win (even with good intentions and lots of friends) and thier work isn't up to snuff, it will sink. One way or another. Believe me, I wouldn't have understood at the beginning; but after you see what people are willing to do to win, you'll believe anything. So even if you feel you can't trust the mystery of "gatherspace", it doesn't matter.....you can't really do anything. People yell, scream, cajole, threaten, and try to bribe.....all the things you are used to in the real world, but to a power of 3.

One thing I have learned from this process of reading so many submisssions, and dealing with so much 'stuff', is that I Never want to be a publisher.....god bless the bastards! Psycho doesn't even begin to explain the mentality of some people who would ordinarily be quite different. They can't even see how their behaviors are inconsistent with their words.

It's hard to not be passionate about something we have worked many years of our lives to 'produce.' We need to be, in a way.....first to have the strength to do it; and then, to try and get it "out."

But people, let go......

Ok, I feel "cleansed" now..... :-)

Back to it, guys.......there is a huge pile of submissions in the last 'wave', and they could use constructive reading/reviewing/feedback....

best regards,

patrickm

ps: Also see rant streams at:

What I know now that I wish I had known then, hint: not about girls

First Chapters DriveBy one Rant


pss: I rated both these rant sessions a "2"......no obligation here to give 10's ;-)

psss: On a final note, I believe that the Gather folks have to keep the real process 'a mystery' cuz ruthless people will try to work the system if they knew it.....including 'fishing' expeditions into 'how things work'. Also, 'regular' longtime gather members have developed ways to keep trouble makers from ruining the process.....but there is such a huge influx of submissions and new folks (some much more clever), that I think they need our help to keep things on track. This 'community' is only as good as we make it. We all lose, if we trash this venue for aspiring writers......undermining it by all fighting for something that really isn't obtainable anyway.

What is that mantra, again? Oh, "Let go patrick,
let go,
let go........"

See I have to do it too! ;-)

The biggest thing I have learned in this contest is. There are people that will post a comment that is twice as long as their penis. The same one over and over again. Who have their own agenda and are all for individuality as long as you think and act like them. And who think we GIVE A RATS ASS. You know who you are.

I appologize if I have offended anyone that I didnt want to offend. But I had to rant. I dont like censorship in any way shape or form and when someone tries to tell others that the only right way is HIS way well frankly that just burns my ass. I know it is one thing to be in love with yourself but to think that everyone else is in love with you too...come on.

Lori F.,

Only twice as long? I would venture a guess at three times... We have three; do I hear four?

Going... going... SOLD to the man with the unfortunate penis!

Okay, I'm just bein' a brat... but I agree with you, Lori. Everyone's entitled to his own opinion (to which my brother would have added, "no matter how wrong it may be").

Those last 3 comments bring up a point that has been bothering me as a reader. As a contestant I hate anonymous scores of any kind (other than ones that raise my score). I want to know the thinking behind the rating. As a reader I'm not so sure I always agree.

As a contestant I knew, or thought I knew, what pretty much every new rating was. In three cases someone gave me a nice comment and my rating dropped. In two of those cases I figured that the rating had to be a one. That colored my thinking about those two people. I didn't retaliate in any way, but I could see that happening. In one case I e-mailed the person that they probably needed to be aware that contestants could know approximately what rating a person gave them. The person responded that they hadn't rated me yet, and posted a brief second comment at the same time my number of ratings went up. She just happened to post the comment at about the same time as a driveby, and hadn't rated me yet.

I felt really bad about that e-mail. First, I was wrong about the person's rating. Not only that, but if someone gives me a 3 or a 4 or even a 1 they may be doing it because they honestly think my chapter is junk. They should be free to do that. Otherwise how do I get or give honest feedback?

I got flamed in e-mail for giving someone a midrange score (5 or 6). It dropped their score by .1 because they didn't have many ratings. That sort of thing makes me doubt the wisdom of forcing someone to comment if they are going to rate a chapter. You see the trade-off there. I almost stopped reading chapters after that, and am much more selective about the ones I do read. I'm not sure how gather.com could resolve that.

Just for general info, here is my comment on Carls entry. It pretty much sums up the feelings of most about mass emails.

I'm not a reviewer, but you have emailed me, several times, I think, to review it, so I came and read it. I don't think it reads right. It's often disjointed, and no matter how many words you come up with to replace "he said", it doesn't encorporate the line any better. I found myself wondering what replacement for those words you would use next, and it distracts from the story. It needs editing, and grammatical correction throughout. I'm going to do you a favor and NOT rate this, but stop emailing me. If I wanted to come read first chapters, don't you think I would already be here? Mass emails are rude, and an attempt to gain advantage over others less willing to bother others, and because of this, rating your story high would be encouraging bad behaviour. Many others feel this way as well, and may be why late in entries, as last emails are put out, people get po'd enough to finally come give out the ones mass emailers so richly deserve. I ask you this, what would be the result if everyone here mass emailed each time they posted? No one would get anything done but read and delete emails. You have some talent, keep writing, but leave writing mass emails to a very, very, occasional thing. Following one with another is definitely not appreciated.

Lori F -
You owe me a new monitor. You know, since I spewed coffee on mine while reading your "length of comment" post. Perfect! ;)

Jenna oops sorry about that. I just had to rant a little. Dale I completely agree with you. Me personally I have never left a score under 7. If I felt it waranted below I just left a comment.

But I reviewed on the other day and I gave it an 8. It was sitting at a 6.2 with 8 or 10 votes. I rated refreshed and nothing. My vote didnt make their rating go up any higher. I even emailed about it.

Now why does a couple drive by 1's drastically lower your score but an honest 8 does nothing?

Sorry I went back and checked and this entry was sitting at a 5.2. Now my 8 should have brought them up.

Rita you are right on as usual. I have read several of your comments.

I've never dropped a 1 and I've never left an anonymous rating. I HAVE however commented and not rated on many occasions. Since I had an entry in the contest, sometimes it's really hard for me to rate fairly, and on those occasions, I've commented and not rated. So Dale, I wouldn't necessarily associate a "nice" comment with a low rating. Those might very well be from two different people.

Spewing coffee Jenna, and penis envy Lori? :-)

Wow, really raising the bar on manners and maturity; eh? ;-)

Too funny, really.....but missing the point Ladies....umm, girls....(ladies don't talk that way....except those "real" ones in "Little Britain" ;-)

Its not just what we do that counts......but how its perceived by the 'recipients.' Now if I was a cranky/bitter person I'd take your slights personally.....as it is, my longest comment was roughly 32 inches, so yep.....your 1/2 gues is about right :-o
(I refrain from commenting on your cup sizes.....that would be tasteless, no? ;-)

Maybe you've never rated below 7 Lori, maybe not.....all I can say is that I've reviewed every submission and there are many occasions where it looks kinda bad: i.e. "The Established and The Arrived" had one vote, one comment, and a score of "1". Yours, Lori, was the only one there. Given the caustic nature of your 'review', which btw was inaccurate cuz the book was really good, its only natural that the author...or anyone, like me coming by the day b4 it went offline....would draw the conclusion that you zapped them.

******SUGGESTION TO THE FIRSTCHAPTERS ADMIN FOLKS AT GATHER: That All votes be automatically shown up in the second round, by username....along with comments, if any made. If the Gather Folks are "Listening" to this post, I suggest that the final 20 be voted this way.....all votes, all comments, everything transparent. That would end all conjecture, and stop double speak.....People should be willing to stand by their words....or, not say them.


The difference between my long comments Lori, and other's choice to say nothing; is that I'm trying to help....however unappreciated that is by you. By saying anything, I risk more silly abuse attempts. You have proven the 'non-engagement' folks correct. "Why even try, Patrick?" Well, cuz lightening rods do have their purpose, eh? :-)

This type of juvenille 'retribution' for trying to raise awareness of the cause/effect of careless comments to submissions only highlights the point. Thus, proving you are neither competent, nor of the right 'headspace', to be reviewing anyone's work.....even though some of your posts have been really good.....many have been brutal. Like you promised in your email to me, its probably better to not post any more..... Oh, but after you wrote that to me this morning, you posted a bunch more? I'm not calling you a liar, just inconsistent in words vs. actions....which, like I said above, can be misconstrued. So, don't go off on me again.....just look at it the way any objective person would.

Its too easy to degrade the efforts of the Gather community to provide fair,balanced, and informed feedback. One editor commented: "The inmates have taken over the mental institution." Hundreds of folks work hard to dispel that notion, and in a few posts you defeat those efforts. Like you state above, Lori, you don't really care.....and it shows.

Mores the pity.....

Sincerely,

patrickm

ps: Think of it this way: Is this how you want your children to grow up?

"Yes, dear; when someone tries to help you by telling you something you don't want to hear.....just attack his masculinity, or try to degrade his integrity/efforts. And, oh btw, make sure you do it in front of thousands of people.....just so people can see how insecure you are."

ps: you'll find that my posts are proportionately longer for those who require the most 'assist'/feedback. This is my choice, to spend my time this way.... You have your choices, I hope you calm down enough to start making healthier ones. Its not a choice of "Patrick's way, or the highway". Its a personal choice of what character we want to develop.....character is defined by our actions. I'm only pointing out choices, and to use your words Lori: "have no horse in the race" of your life....nor want to.....I'm just pointing out that careless and hurtful posts to people's life work is destructive, painful, and only results in generating more of the same....

While you attempt to slam me for illustrating this, comments about my penis size do nothing but make me laugh......then, to worry....for you.

Patrick you really are in love with yourself. You go through here and say "Oh look at me...I am such a nice guy I give everyone a 10"

Could you be more full of yourself and talk about juvenile....you go through and rate the commentators. You are here to rate the story not the comments. How dare you tell someone that their opinion doesnt matter when did you become the omnipotent one....NO i have never given anyone a 1...sorry to burst your bubble...I have nothing to gain or lose by whoever wins the competition I dont have an entry on here but you do Patrick so besides LOVING YOURSELF A BIT TOO MUCH what is your angle?

You are the worst thing that could happen to this competition and no I dont envy your penis. You have enough of a love affair going on with it I dont think there is anymore room.

The only consolation the people on this contest have is that we can overlook your words....and you are overly fond of seeing your words...but I am afraid in real life you would probably never shut up.....you are one of those people that LOVES TO HEAR THEIR OWN VOICE.

Another thing Patrick...gosh it seems YOU KNEW right away who I was talking about and this is a contest. No i wont stop reviewing because OF YOU. This is a contest (look that word up in a dictionary) and I will give my opinion I will not sugar coat it...I know these people have worked hard but it is really helping them to say OH that is so great when it isnt? I have never said anyones work sucks I have tried to give constructive critisizm and if you dont like it DONT READ IT. ITS NOT YOUR STORY SO WHY DO YOU CARE?


PATRICK MY BEST ADVISE TO YOU IS GO F*** YOURSELF I KNOW IF IT IS POSSIBLE TO DO IT YOU WOULD KNOW HOW....YOU ARE SO INTO YOURSELF AND AS FOR INSULTING YOUR MASCULINITY DONT YOU HAVE TO HAVE SOME FOR ME TO INSULT IT?

AND STOP STALKING ME PATRICK YOU FREAK.



Dale i appologize for using your forum for this but Patrick is such an egotistical blowhard that I couldnt take it anymore.

Last post on this. Patrick I now realize how you knew I was talking about you.

WHO BETTER THAN YOU KNOW THE SIZE OF YOUR PENIS COMPARED TO THE SIZE OF YOUR POSTS

BUT WAS IT RITA'S OR MINE THAT MADE YOU REALIZE?

MAC GRIFFITH - to get this forum badk on topic, Wikipedia has a good entry on Tom Swiftys. I didn't know what they were either. I have never attended any writing classes, etc. I learned an enormous amount about what to look for in a chapter by reading other reviewers comments. I added that to what I know about basic english rules, stuff I learned in school many long years ago, stuff I know from writing the occasional technical manual, and stuff I know from reading lots of books.

And for the person above, yes, there's also a contest of sorts going on for reviewers. To me, it's probably almost more of a gamble. You have to have commented on one of the top 20, AND you have to have the most insightful comment on it. If I missed commenting on any of them, I'm out of the contest, just like 2480 novel entrants.

So, Lori F.,

How 'bout those Mets?

LOL Rita did I get carried away?

Is it me or is this competition reminding anyone of the Willie Wonka Golden Ticket contest?

I hear ya Stephen.

One thing I still don't know after 16 days of gather.com is how smart the people running it are. The aftermath of this contest will be very different depending on how smart they are.

A smart gather.com will realize that If they can filter out most of the noise, they have a gold mine in the information from this contest. By the time the first round is over they'll have marketing dry runs on over 2000 manuscripts. Of the hundred or so I've looked at I can think of at least four that appear marketable based on the first chapter.

Regardless of the outcome of the contest, a smart gather.com will try to massage the data to find any of those chapters that don't make it into the top 20. The question is, how does gather.com find those chapters based on the data they have?

I don't know how much filtering they'll be able to do for the actual contest, but even after the contest is over they should go back and quietly mine the data for the good stuff. If they can:

1) Filter out the drive-bys and the flakes
2) Give some, but not much weight to how big a cheering section the person brought.

I was going to add some other filters, but I'm afraid I might accidentally point to some things they may already be doing to prevent fraud, so I'll just say this: I can think of ways to clean up a lot of the noise from the data, and I suspect that any competent computer person could think of them too.

If they can clean up the data so it is actually meaningful, the good stuff should stand out. At that point they can look at the 50 to 100 manuscripts that stand out, then look at responses to them, and equally important, how the author handled him or her self in the competition. A publisher would probably rather not invest in an author who is a cheater, a flake, or doesn't get along well with others, so that's good information to have up front. In some cases they'll know whether or not an author responds well to constructive criticism. That would be important if they try to edit a book into final form. They'll have some idea if an author holds up well under pressure. If gather.com wants to, they can have that info available to them.

Like I say, a smart gather.com could do a lot with this data beyond this contest and picking one winner. How smart are they? I don't know.

Thanks for putting this up. It is an important topic,, and many of the ideas are interesting. My input is to direct you to Ishmael T's excellent article, The Perfect Literary Crime in which he describes how he plans to win, and my own My "First Chapters Competition" Obsession in which I realize that Ishmael's plan is insufficient, describe what it really takes, and come to my own realization of what this kind of competition does to us as human beings - myself included. I still hope to advance, but have already changed my rules.

Quote from Gareth Y.'s article:
"First thing in the morning: only five more members responded to the hundreds of email requests I sent out."

Hundreds of email requests??? Wow. Unbelievable. This is much more of a marketing contest than I imagined. I should have taken some marketing classes in my undergraduate studies. :-)

I think the mass emailings can kind of backfire, personally. I'm at the point where I really don't want to respond to them. I've read and commented on so many of these pieces that I also get emails to me individually. I'm much likelier to respond to those, because I figure that the author has noticed my comments and actually respects my opinion.

But marketing is a must. I think I mentioned this, but I absolutely recruited people to sign up at Gather and read/rate my piece. I'd have to go look at all my comments (I saved them) but I'm guessing around 25 were people I recruited (could be more). The rest were strangers to me, with a few repeats (and a couple of "thank you" posts from me at the end of the run). I had 88 comments total. At the time (earlier in the contest) that was quite a lot but now it's nothing much.

Anyway it's important to get some votes/comments right off the bat so your piece is ranked highly. That way people who sort by rank are going to find it and vote. You also will attract the drive-bys, but what can you do? (as mentioned, I had around 40 anonymous low votes).

The level of marketing that's going on now is more than when my piece ran, and I guess from the vote totals you'd have to say it's effective overall, though it does risk alienating people (like me) who get turned off if they feel something is overexposed or pushed too hard.

As a final p.s. I posted my thoughts on the contest a couple of weeks back - quite a lengthy discussion ensued - you can find it on my articles list (which so far is only one page).