Excited about the crime contest? Have questions that other contestants can answer? Want to network? This is the place to talk about the contest. It's unofficial, like everything in the lounge--just contestants helping contestants.
I've been through a couple of these contests, and it's been my experience that people obsess on them to the point that by the end of the three weeks your family will be tired of hearing about it. Your friends will be tired of hearing about it. Your pets (if you have any) will be tired of hearing about it. Here is a place to share your obsession, get to know your fellow contestants, and get to know the ropes here at Gather. Enjoy!
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Comments: 151
I just went to your homepage and found a link to the May-Day Murders. I assume that's your entry. Linked to it just fine. Perhaps its absence was a momentary Gather-patented glitch.
May-Day Murders
Dale, thanks for hosting this!!
John W., I think the nicest way to thank anyone who comments is to send them a message via Gather email -- it's more personal once the contest period starts.
JJ L, my word count is 69,700.
By the way, something it took me a while to figure out was how to put in the links in threads like this so that it's a direct link like this (why, yes, I'm linking to my entry so you can all go over there and read/comment/vote. LOL!)
Two Birds, One Stone – first chapter
Let's hope that works now that I'm being a smarty pants.
The formatting for linking in Gather threads is like below except substitute "<" and ">" for the "[" and "]" respectively:
[a href="http://www.yourlinkhere.com"]Name your link here![/a]
I'll go on and link the article Neal gave us above to the contest entry list to make it easier to get to:
Official Court TV Search for the Next Great Crime Writer Contest Entries:
Hope that helps!
I just checked on my first chapter and to my surprise, I have a score of 8.3. I'm so thrilled! I know it's not going to get me a publishing contract, but I was positive that my ratings would be in the 3's somewhere. After all, this is the first and only thing I have ever written. I think I may have a future in writing after all.
Ok, time to read some great first chapters! Good luck and happy voting to all.
June B., I'm guessing that once a novel is accepted by a publisher, they may ask for revisions. In my case, I would have to add content to get out of the novella stage :)
But if your material is truly adult in nature and you do get it un-flagged, you may find that someone else will flag it later, which then will have to be resolved by Gather. It's been an issue in the past so nothing's perfect.
Can you give a link to your chapter or paste in the http? I'd love to read it, especially if you need readers because of the flagging issue.
Two Birds, One Stone
Char
Okay, as far as making the font bigger -- there probably is a way but I would advise against it as you are not allowed to edit your entry once the contest started on 11/15. If you go in and edit, you'll be disqualified. The text is certainly not too small to be any kind of problem for readers, in my very humble opinion.
How can you know if it has happened? A sudden large drop in your average rating without an accompanying comment usually means a DB1. In my case, if I recall correctly I had 11 ratings and an average rating of 10. Rating number 12 dropped that to 9.2. My total points after 11 ratings would have been 110 (11*10). My total points after the 12th rating actually worked out to 110.4. Your average score is actually rounded off to one digit after the decimal point, so my score was probably something like 9.25. That times 12 is 111. That means that yes, someone did give me an anonymous score of 1.
I wouldn't worry about it too much. Pretty much everybody got them in the last contest, and pretty much everybody will get them this contest, but they're totally meaningless. If a contestant is going around giving them out, they should be aware that while the ratings are anonymous to us, they aren't to Gather. If Gather wants to know who is doing it they certainly have access to that data.
More Deaths Than One
And, too I'm hoping people will read my story and comment because there are always ways to improve and should I ever again want to try to enter something in a contest like this one, I will have a better understanding of what happens, what I need to do to be better prepared and how not to watch the scores. ; )
I'm off again to read some more stories. Wow, this is really exciting!
Bonnie W
And many thanks to you, Demetriace! That was a sweet thing to say.
__________
Two Birds, One Stone
I try to figure out if a person would benefit from that kind of a review and would take it in the spirit it is intended. If I think the answer is no on either of those counts I don't do the review. Once in a great while I misjudge that and someone gets annoyed. Oh well. If this contest is going to help us become better writers the comments can't all be variations of "It was good". That may be good for the ego, but honest, thorough, (not mean) comments are good for our skills as writers.
I would love to see more of them for Char. I would love to give more of them, but I do want to make sure the people involved will take them as constructive.
Why do they have the option to delete comments if they don't want us to do it? I didn't see that in the rules at all. Thankfully, I didn't delete other peoples comments & I was going to advise another contestant to do that as they had received a pretty nasty comment from someone. Also glad I didn't tell him to do it. Check out my story: Aunt Two Lips Takes a Powder, or
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977174523
Thanks & good luck to everyone!
Another issue that concerns me is the number of entries. I've noticed that some readers have started at the beginning of the list (like I did, though I have skipped around some) and some have started at the end, but my entry is, alphabetically speaking, right in the middle of the page. I'm not well-connected on Gather, having only joined recently, and would really like some good suggestions on getting some traffic by my chapter.
Thanks to those that have reviewed - I think the feedback will really help in the next edit! For those that haven't had a chance, here's my plug for my entry, Identity Crisis. Please take a look and let me know your honest opinion. After reading the other entries, I seriously doubt I'll make round two (though other miracles have happened in my life of late!) but I really do appreciate any thoughts from other more-seasoned authors!
Best of luck to everyone! If I haven't made it to your entry, I apologize! I'm reading absolutely as fast as I can in between life!
If you can generate enough family and friends to come vote, that's good. They're almost sure to give you those 10s. They won't leave you very helpful feedback, something to keep in mind if you're looking for that.
I'm personally trying to get around to other chapters to read -- one, because I'm genuinely interested in reading good work, and two, because I figure if I ask family and friends to come read/comment/vote, the least I should do is do that for other people in the contest.
Best of all are the Gather people not directly associated with the contest. But getting them is difficult because this FC is following directly on the heels of another FC (that one was for Romance). A lot of Gather people are frankly burned out because reading the chapters is time consuming -- and giving comments / feedback takes time as well as skill. But these are the comments that, in my opinion, are the gold of this contest -- they'll really tell you how you're doing and what you can do better
How to generate the Gather people to come to FCC? You have to get involved with groups that have an interest in what you're interested in, I think. A lot of Gather people are resentful to be invited to read an entry if they don't previously know you -- so genuinely try to get to know them first.
About the flags -- I think you should at least ask the FCC administrator. I've noticed that the ones with flags by and large are not getting as many visits, even though so many are really good entries. I just can't imagine that the flag isn't holding down the audience.
To me, an offensive comment here is more than just a blunt appraisal of the writing. I would imagine it would need to be inflammatory or a personal attack on the writer to warrant involvement from the FCC Administrator.
I will contact the FCC admin about the flag - maybe it will help.
Thanks, again, for the guidance!
If I'm reading Rand's statistics correctly, there are only 17 non-authors with comments on more than 10 entries, and 33 authors with comments on more than 10 entries. Add those numbers together and you end up with 50 people who are actually reading a significant number of entries. If they all get to your entry and all like it enough to rate and comment on it, you're looking at no more than 50 ratings.
In reality, with over 260 entries to go through most people probably won't get more than 20 to 25 ratings and comments unless more people get involved. Most entries will probably get less than that. Going through these entries is time-consuming and a lot of people burn out after 10 to 15 entries.
So how did the people with more than 50 entries get there? Some of them had a lot of friends on Gather before the contest started. Some of them brought their own cheering section--they talked their friends and family members into joining Gather long enough to vote for them. That's where most of the 1062 people who commented on only one entry probably came from. One of the top five got there mostly by leaving good useful comments on other people's entries and politely asking them to look at his entry. Enough did to put him over 100 ratings.
One thing we can change is the tiny percentage of authors who are actually reading other people's entries. As of last night, out of 268 entries, 205 authors had commented on fewer than 5 entries. Let's face it. We're asking people to take time to read our stuff. We should be out there reading and commenting ourselves.
In terms of priorities I'm going to try to get to entries in this order:
1) People who have already commented on my entry. Hey, they took time to look at my stuff. I should feel obligated to return the favor. I do not feel obligated to give people tens if they comment on my stuff or even if they give me a ten. Probably two-thirds or more of the entries I read will get something other than a ten. Otherwise the contest becomes meaningless.
2) People who are making a lot of good comments on entries other than mine. They're helping make the contest work, and they should have priority over people who are just sitting on their butts.
Does that make any sense?
I had horrible luck with a few of my colleagues that didn't realize you only have one opportunity to click the highest vote they intend. Took me a lot of 10 votes to recover ground, and then tonight 3 DB's hit me with single stars and STACCATO is down to a 9.1 ranking. Now my entry does not even appear to be reader-worthy. I realize the 10 votes are the only ones that count, but I fear a 9.1 rating will drive readers away.
I look forward to reading CHAR and leaving comments I hope you will find useful. Thank you so much for taking a look at STACCATO.
Bonnie W AKA Sunwanderer - The Case of the Curious Cousin
I have been reading and trying to comment on as many first chapters as I can and would like to invite everyone to check out my entry Envy:http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977139249
When viewing please forgive some of my formatting issues. I would like to say thank you for those that have viewed and rated and responded to my story.
I am so excited and nervous. This is my first time entering into a contest like this and I have been wondering if contestants other than the winners have been published. I am hoping that I will at least be viewed by someone and get noticed. There are so many great writers in this competition. I myself view myself as more of a story teller.
Good Luck to everyone
I agree with you about not being able to read clunky prose and choosing to say nothing if all you can think of is negative stuff, as that doesn't help the author. But most authors would love to hear what you thought, even by private mail. Perhaps the comments could open a dialogue that would lead to a tighter or more interesting manuscript. I always try to point out at least one thing that the author does well or a line that I like before I make a negative criticism, and I try to phrase it constructively, and I think that has more potential to help an author. So don't be afraid to comment.
I always appreciate comments from readers who aren't writers even more than comments from fellow writers, and I'll tell you why: writers have been "trained" to look for certain things they have been told are "bad" or a no-no, and some writers will go crazy if they see one sentence they believe is in passive voice (it usually isn't, but that's another rant) or will get wild if they think you have sneaked in backstory or have too much narrative. Sometimes these criticisms are valid, but other times they don't even bother READERS at all. That's why I like to hear from a person who likes to read. Nowadays, the trend is towards turning novels into screenplays on paper, with no introspection and no slowing down to muse, and that's not what someone who likes to read (prefers it to watching movies, in fact) likes to read best, IMHO. The inveterate reader enjoys a little insight into characters' minds and what they're thinking, and even some knowledge of past events that shaped them into the beings they are now. Readers often will tell me whether they liked the characters and the story, and that's the most important thing--after all, that's who will be buying the book later on!
I believe that readers aren't always getting what they want when they go to the bookstores and see all the stuff that's on the best-seller lists but which is poorly written, with prose that clunks along like a Hummer on the streets of Baghdad and many "howlers" that copy editors should have caught. The excuse given is that "the story is all that counts," but if you apply a bit of logic to most of these top-selling stories, you might find that there are plot holes big enough to guide that Hummer through without even touching the sides. I find so many of those books' plots kind of outlandish and I can't suspend disbelief that far. That's one reason I try to write books with events that could actually happen to "regular people" (even my paranormals/fantasy novels have a sense of "hey, that could happen," IMHO.)
Anyhow, if you'd like to come by and see my chapter, it's over at http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977169428--NICE WORK (IF YOU CAN GET IT), a Jacquidon Carroll "snoop sisters" mystery.
Some people do keep a spreadsheet to track their scores in the contest, and at least early in the contest they know who gives them what scores. I did that in First Chapters Romance. I'm not doing that this time around because I'm trying to be a little more laid back about the contest.
A list please.
I'll start:
'Have you ever tried the First person? Second person? Third person? Holy Trinity?'
'You can raise your rating by marrying...a Mormon....a Catholic....into one of the judges families.'
'I find that I finish my books faster if I write double-spaced.'
Help me here.....
My novel is Intimate Murder and I welcome everyone to read, rate, and comment--except for the naughty people giving out one's. That's too sad. Now about the link?
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977174399
If you want one of those nice clickable links, you'll need to put some code around that. Let's say I want the word 'Char' to appear in the comment and be clickable. It's a little tricky illustrating this without actually making a link. In the following address, substitute greater than and less than symbols for the parenthesis to actually make your link.
(a href="http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977174399")Char(/a).
If you sub in the greater than and less than symbols, you get:
Char.
Does that make sense? Of course you'll also need to substitute your chapters address for mine and your message for "Char"--unless you want to send people to my chapter, which isn't all bad from my point of view.
(a href="http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977174399")Char(/a)
)Char(/a)
INTIMATE MURDER
Nothing will change in my world. I will still be a damn good, hard working professional writer with imagination and soul....and you will still be caught somewhere between a worm and a virus.
The wheel of life turns, kids. Just watch carefully.
Funny how that works..
THE APOLLYON
I don't have any entry in the contest, but I would like to recommend a few chapters that are rated far lower than I believe they should be. I've already gained a rep for being pretty tough, so you know that if you follow these links you'll be reading work that is polished and at a publishable level (or very nearly there), with few or no typos/howlers going on AND a good story with great prose. Please go over and give these writers some TENS so we can read the next chapter of each.
DISCLAIMER: I'm so new to Gather that I haven't met any of these people yet, so you can feel confident that I've chosen them out of admiration for the work. I think their work is worthy of your giving it a read. These links will open in new windows. BTW, I've commented on most of these (and am formulating comments for the others) already. . . .
Horror Flick by Bob Z. (Only for people who enjoy dry wit and outrageous humor)
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977140543
Nice Work If You Can Get It by Shalanna W. (A humorous and charming but realistic sisters-story with an S&M subplot--intriguing--and witty dialogue)
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977169428
Devil's Flat by Lou D. (Very minimalist, reminds me of John D. MacDonald in a way)
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977172297
The Hard Bounce by Todd R. (Warning--graphic language, "dirty words," but very realistic about the lifestyle it portrays)
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977155418
Secrets of a Suburban Stripper by Nicole H. (Not sure this is as suited to be a mystery as it is to be a mainstream memoir/literary novel, because it would make a killer memoir--and memoirs are HOT right now, especially with child abuse and PTSD in them)
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977167781
Bad Moon Rising by Louise C. (Cool cruise ship setting and TWINS--can't resist twins stories)
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977171585
There. Maybe that repairs my karma for giving such point-blank straightforward critiques in so many of my comments. . . .
Norm
Carpet Ride