Write Fight!

October 14, 2008 1:33 PM

I'm looking to create a competitive writing site, does such a thing exist?

We're not talking a fanfic site either. Something more along the lines of Song Fight only for short stories. I've been asking around the water cooler and people seem to believe that writing is a solitary activity and not something people would want to do in a forum type enviroment.

Take it as a given that good tools would be provided to members to colaberate/critique/publish/workshop, that leagalese would be provided to protect the authors, and that there would be enough flavors of competition to keep people challenged. Think it could fly?

posted by The Power Nap to writing & language (7 comments total)

everything2.net has a voting system, and writings voted too negatively are taken off of the site. It has a bunch of short-form things, from poetry to encyclopedia type articles to short stories. In addition to the regular undirected postings that happen normally, it runs "quests" periodically, where a bunch of people write things related to a prompt. It's different from what you're proposing, but maybe looking at the site and its dynamics would give you some insight into what you're trying to do.
posted by rivenwanderer at 1:50 PM on October 14, 2008

Say hello to textfight. It's a circle-of-friends thing that 's currently growing; I expect it'll be on pretty much hiatus though November (NaNoWriMo) and back with a vengeance in December.
posted by Shepherd at 1:59 PM on October 14, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Would Ficlets fit the bill? It's a series of contributed "snippets" that form a short story.
posted by chaosscontrol at 2:32 PM on October 14, 2008

thisisby.us?

more essays, but you vote the best to the top.
posted by cda at 3:37 PM on October 14, 2008

I've run writing competitions for non-serious writing about an online game that I play. There've been tons of other writing competitions surrounding that game as well, with mechanics that range from 'everyone write a story and we'll judge them' to 'head-to-head double elimination poetry tournament'. There's a lot of interest in those events, so I could imagine a larger competitive writing project flying. A lot of what gets people into the game competition though, is the prizes, so that may prove to be a factor -- what do the writers get out of it?
posted by jacquilynne at 5:34 PM on October 14, 2008

E2 is more competitive than rivenwanderer makes it sound, in that it has a leveling system and everything. It's got a distinct RPG undertone. The site is definitely past its peak, though (Wikipedia stole a lot of its niche, among other things).
posted by abcde at 9:31 PM on October 14, 2008

Well, it looks as if interest is there. I think jacquilynne is right on the prize aspect. The closest was thisisby.us but it's missing quite a few things I would like. Thanks, look for something in projects sometime in the future by me.
posted by The Power Nap at 11:11 PM on October 14, 2008