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Young Writers Society


Should storybooks posting be controlled



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Fri Feb 01, 2013 9:21 pm
BLUEMUPPET says...



Now I know that there is often a knee jerk reaction when any sort of regulation is suggested and I also know that I haven't been a member very long. Still if you would do me the kindness of reading what I have to say and reply, 1 word or 100, it would be appreciated.

I personally find Storybooks very interesting and I think that they have the potential to produce some well written content. However at the moment I believe that it would be fair to say that a lot of storybooks, good premise or bad, turn into little more than shallow escapist stories. There's nothing wrong with escapist entertainment but its probably fair to say that relegating storybooks to this realm is doing them a disservice.

What to do about this? In the past with I might of said that it was not my job nor my responsibility to try and change it. I might also have thought that the mere act of trying to change what was obviously fun for some would be very pretentious of me. That being said its not fun for me and I'm perfectly within my mandate to try and do something about that.

So back to what to do about it (Sorry I took so long to get here). I think it would be a good idea if Storybooks could only be posted at the end of each month. Heres what it would achieve undeniably, unarguably.(The only opinion to have on these are whether or not you think they are good or bad.)
-Storybooks would all have a lifetime of at least a month
-Writers who came up with a storybook half way through the month would have to wait until the end of the next month to post.
These are the two most obvious to me and the two that I've chosen to base my argument around. At first glance the first one looks good, while, the second one looks less than stellar. Still I believe a case can be made for both of them. These are the things that I hope will be achieved because of the first two.
-A longer time will make people more willing to put some effort into the storybook and will give the storybook time to grow and develop.
-Knowing that if your storybooks all die that you will have nothing to work on will also hopefully motivate people to take more care with their posts.
-Having to wait half a month before you can post your storybook will mean that people will have to put some effort into thinking about their storybook ideas, also idea that are just a fad will be forgotten.
-Knowing that your storybook will have a whole month to catch people attention might allow for the crafting of a more complex and thus, hopefully, more intriguing.

These are just a few of the potential benefits that I predict could happen. Discuss?





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Wed Feb 06, 2013 5:54 pm
Caesar says...



Hey there BLUEMUPPET!

These suggestions have been formulated multiple times before, and I agree with you, some Storybooks could be better thought out, perhaps the plot could be more detailed, or the storybookers could pay attention to setting more. However, people still like those kind of Storybooks -- if they wanted complex, detailed ones, they'd join those, wouldn't they?

Furthermore, it seems to me you'd be trying to impose this rule on all the Storybooks, which seems to me a little... restrictive. And excessive. A month? Not all people can stay pumped about an SB for that long. A post a month would ensure the SB dies after one post simply because people loose interested. A week would seem rather more fair! It would make the Storybook slow, yes, but it would ensure posts are longer and more thought-out. But a week would be the most I'd suggest, because of the reasons cited above.

I hope this clears some things up for you! :)
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Wed Feb 06, 2013 6:35 pm
DiskElemental says...



No.

The story books that are "trashy" rarely get enough people to start, and the few that do rarely last long.
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Wed Feb 06, 2013 6:43 pm
Caesar says...



I've actually seen some which have prospered for quite a while...
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Wed Feb 06, 2013 10:07 pm
crossroads says...



I think it may be contra-productive to put such restriction.. People would sooner forget about the old SBs.. Actually, perhaps the moment new ones would appear.

Also, there would suddenly appear a bunch of new Storybooks every month, causing people to see them all as 'new and interesting' and join too many of them - and again, that would lead to their painful death. (Of SBs, not people. Probably.)
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Thu Feb 07, 2013 1:47 am
DiskElemental says...



LouisCypher wrote:I've actually seen some which have prospered for quite a while...

Then are they really trashy? Who would decided what is and isn't acceptable material?
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Thu Feb 07, 2013 1:56 pm
Caesar says...



Mhm. That is true. No SB is really 'trashy,' as it's a subjective thing.
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Thu Feb 07, 2013 2:15 pm
LadySpark says...



Storybooks, like all literary works, are for everyone to enjoy. Are we going to stop people from posting literary works because they're not as good as others? No, so why are we going to stop people from posting their story books? Storybooks, like everything, have a learning curve. We can't stop people from learning. I think, really, that's why we don't keep storybooks from being posted.
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Thu Feb 07, 2013 2:17 pm
Caesar says...



Precisely, Sparky!
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Thu Feb 07, 2013 5:50 pm
BLUEMUPPET says...



LouisCypher wrote: A post a month would ensure the SB dies after one post simply because people loose interested.



I don't know whether this is me misinterpreting you or you misinterpreting me but either way I'll clear it up. I don't mean actual storybook posts in a storybook I mean new storybooks.

SparkOfDoubt wrote:Storybooks, like all literary works, are for everyone to enjoy. Are we going to stop people from posting literary works because they're not as good as others? No, so why are we going to stop people from posting their story books?


I don't know where I mentioned stopping people from posting storybooks all together because they are poorly thought out. All I am saying is that storybooks would benefit if they got a 1 month life. The fact that people would only be able to add new storybooks at certain times limits everyone and is just a natural and fair way to distill storybooks. I don't know about you but I've had some ideas for storybooks that have have seemed like great ideas at first but as I started to think about them I realised that it would not work as a storybook. I would argue that the month "gestation" period would cause induced self-regulation.





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Thu Feb 07, 2013 8:09 pm
Caesar says...



I don't get your first point, alas. You mean, people should only be able to post storybooks at a certain time? One cannot put a leash on inspiration.

You know, that period would slow the forum down infinitely. Not everyone is that patient.
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Thu Feb 07, 2013 8:30 pm
veeren says...



I think storybooks are fine as they are. You join the ones you like, and ignore the ones you don't. Whether the storybooks prospers or not is up to the writers, it's not like if we make people wait to post an SB they'll make it any better.

I'm gonna go by that old saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
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