How often should we post new sentence starters?

[Doctor Setebos]

Since there's a discussion on this topic -- some saying the current speed is just fine, and others that it's too fast -- I thought we might as well leave it up to the group to decide.

So, how many sentence starters do you feel should appear every week?

[shunoshi]

I think every weekday is great. It gives me something special to write daily and if we make every 5th sentence starter a FFA that gives and entire weekend for writing it. If that's too much for some people, like the Good Doc has said before, don't do them. They aren't "mandatory".

Just my two pennies.

[astranoir]

I said every day, but I am selfish because I like reading them and want to read new things every day...

[Wasson_]

once a week, so that people maybe will have a better insentive to read and elaborate on each others "creations"

[Shadowstorm]

Three or four a week.

[National Kato]

I voted for once a week. I really enjoy the exercises and reading everyone else's. But I feel doing them as often as we have will lead to many not participating. If they're writing something for one and it takes a few days, there's already another two or three sentence starters up on the forum. I can see it being discouraging.

Ultimately, I want to see more participation and I think once a week is the best way to foster that. It might also allow more time within each thread for discussion.

[Deunnero]

Weekly would be fun.

[VerseD]

I voted for two or three a week, and Monday, Wednesday, and Friday is always a good way of doing things.

The people without much time won't get overwhelmed, and the people with a lot will be able to write something pretty regularly.

[Doctor Setebos]

I voted for once a week. I really enjoy the exercises and reading everyone else's. But I feel doing them as often as we have will lead to many not participating. If they're writing something for one and it takes a few days, there's already another two or three sentence starters up on the forum. I can see it being discouraging.

Ultimately, I want to see more participation and I think once a week is the best way to foster that. It might also allow more time within each thread for discussion.I'm really glad I decided to post a poll, because I was thinking of just ignoring the naysayers and posting starters 5-6 times a week. But this comment from National Kato swayed me. I can understand the feeling of wanting to participate in the starters and using it as a writing tool, and feeling discouraged as they begin to outpace your ability to keep up.

I think I may go ahead and post 2 starters every week. One that is the regular starter challenge with a word count and a theme (genre, setting, time period, etc.). The other one will be posted maybe on the weekends and will just be a free-for-all: no count or theme.

For those that prefer the challenge that a daily writing task gives them, how about I offer a compromise: I'll send them to you via PM. Every day, a new challenge in your inbox with its own word count and theme. Write it up and post it to your CoG blog, or PM it back to me, or save it for yourself. Maybe we can collect them once a month and highlight some of the best entries.

How does everyone feel about that? I'm fairly flexible. If anyone has other ideas or suggestions, I'm completely open to entertaining any thoughts.

[Young Al Capone]

I like 4 or 5 every week, as I usually spend no time even near my PC on the weekend unless there are games to be played. I do, however, like the compromise idea as well.

[Doctor Setebos]

On a somewhat interesting note, this poll is currently on the CoG front page. :D

[Young Al Capone]

On a somewhat interesting note, this poll is currently on the CoG front page. :D

That is actually where I first found it, and it seemed sort of funny to me that so many non-guild members, who are presumably not posting in these threads, would have a say in when we did the sentence starters. Didn't bother me, just seemed odd.

[Khrymsyn]

One thing I think people should keep in mind is... I don't remember seeing any rule anywhere saying you couldn't use the same sentence starter more than once. =) Using your brain to come up with multiple "themes" off the same general idea is a great way of learning different point of views and styles, as it forces you to try to come up with different stories from the same "jump off" point. I think 1-2 a week works partially because of that.


Plus.. honestly... does everyone have time to read a possible 50-60 short stories a week?!?

[Doctor Setebos]

One thing I think people should keep in mind is... I don't remember seeing any rule anywhere saying you couldn't use the same sentence starter more than once. =) Using your brain to come up with multiple "themes" off the same general idea is a great way of learning different point of views and styles, as it forces you to try to come up with different stories from the same "jump off" point. I think 1-2 a week works partially because of that.That's also a really good point, Khrymsyn. Thanks for bringing that up!

I'm going to mention that in the sentence starters from now on. We wholeheartedly encourage coming up with multiple concepts based on the same starter. Absolutely!

[Doctor Setebos]

Also, and this just came to me, another reason why only a couple of starters a week would be a good idea. It would allow us to more easily toss other writing projects into the mix. Such as the multi-author story idea we've been mulling over.

[Kielaran]

2-3 is my vote

[shunoshi]

I'm fine with whatever the consensus is. I do agree that it may be best for only 1-2 per week if we want to get other exercises going. I think a Protagonize (http://www.protagonize.com) multi-author project would be fun.

[National Kato]

I think a Protagonize (http://www.protagonize.com) multi-author project would be fun.

I agree. Back when I lived in Atlanta, my film buddies and I would occasionally multi-author screenplays and then shoot the film, sometimes taking turns as directors for different segments of the film.

As a matter of fact, if you've seen The Signal (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0780607/) [trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xJgvhxixeg)] then you're familiar with some of the work that came out of those exercises. :D

Apologies for the plug.