I mean this is a difficult situation. I feel like it was a good way to encourage people to put effort into their work. I voted for the stories that I liked. I got the pleasure of hearing several of my favorites twice. Once in workshop either online or in person and then to see the performance online. The money would be nice but I feel like the real reward is the story itself with the money being the icing on the cake. I really think the various writing communities in these different regions should rally around their favorites.
It doesn't have to be clever. You can just pay someone running a bot farm to get you like 10,000 likes. Likely for a couple $100. That is considered marketing in this age of social media. It doesn't have to be real engagement. Many people accuse Tiktok of being filled with that sort of behavior.
Repost a semifinal round. Limit the posts/votes to the paid members of this workshop. Problem solved, and its not decided by who has the most friends with substack, or bots.
Oh, they don't deserve the word 'clever'. Any halfway decent ~hacker~ would know it is stupid to spike likes on a post quickly. It has to look organic! Its just plain hubris to try to 'win' by a landslide.
I really do love your solution for this snafu though. For a variety of reasons.
(Also hi!!! I'm Kirsten. Ask Kerri about me - I help with the Midwest Story Night. I'm mostly a lurker here but I'm very happy to see some fairness enforcement so I had to comment.)
I asked several friends to hit the like button. Dont think any of them are robots. Was considering soliciting all of the dating app connections made over the past few years that I still have numbers for, but decided against it. May still do that.
Prevents outside vote solicitors, like myself, from winning for being industrious. However, writers do need to learn to sell themselves. Also prevents bots. (Assuming that the bots people arent going to pay for dozens or hundreds of subscriptions.)
Assuming that you want the best story to win, heres the plan: I would just repost the stories from each city that are in the top 3, but limit the posts to paid subscribers. Tell everyone that they can only vote once. Plus you vote last, but your vote is worth 5 or 10 student votes, since youre the only person here that knows exactly what makes a good story.
Also, you may not want a winner from each city. Short version: Repost 10-12 that we all like, and keep outsiders from voting. Keep everyone here from casting more than one vote.
Maybe we could have a contest for the most industrious at a later date? Those are still skills that writers need. Except for that bots dont buy books.
I would rather the best stories win than the most industrious writers. However, thats how its going to be in the published world anyway. People could learn from it.
I'm actually tempted to hire the bots AFTER the contest is over, get 10,000 likes and forward to every friend and family member who couldn't be bothered to listen to the story.
Fortunately, our leader (that's you Chuck), the folks on this substack and the awesome crew in NYC provide more than enough encouragement to keep the motivation dial at 11.
Here's the thing. I completely respect that point of view. However, two issues, at least for me.
I want to write that which speaks to me AND what others want to read. I want my material to be popular and enjoyed by others. I do not want to toil in meaningful obscurity - I want meaningful popularity. To paraphrase Chuck, I want to influence the culture. I don't expect that to happen but that's the goal. I've recently met a fair number of people, including in the low budget movie space. The luck component of success improves with effort but it has to be something people want - even if they don't know it yet. We've been taught to look for the next cultural wave. I see a couple and am working to front run it.
Second, and this maybe is more personal - I expect the people in my life that I have spent significant time with - to find the time to spend 15 minutes listening to a video that I spent significant time and energy on and had the guts to read in front of a culturally significant author. If I've spent scores of hours over the last twenty years listening to someone's personal life, I expect them to watch 15 minutes less tv or doom scrolling and watch my video that a famous author took the time to watch and write a few comments on.
I realize that I am touching on two separate topics. The goal of writing and the emotional roller coaster of those you have close relationships with - some of whom are wonderful and some of which reveal themselves to not care
I can't imagine having a friend send me something like a Story Night video and just...not bothering to watch it. That's inexcusable.
On the clinical/logical side, I would say that those people aren't your audience. Fuck 'em. But on the personal/emotional side, that's incredibly hurtful. You deserve better--as a writer and as a really cool person. And also fuck 'em.
Totally get that, Eric. I want the same things. What I write to be popular and enjoyed by others. I guess what I was getting at is--I used to do the same thing as you. Ask people I love to read something. And weeks would go by and nothing. Pages untouched. My own husband even! And it used to bum me out. But then I thought to myself. You know what? If I can't even get my own husband to read this, I'm gonna go really wild. And it was like the permission I never knew I needed to just write "dangerously" in a way. Freeing for me. And ironically, that was when I started to pick up more of a readership. Anywho, just wanted to share how you can possibly turn that into something powerful for yourself. Write on, my friend! You'll get there.
I was holding back before when I knew I was going to ask friends/family to read. Now that I know I’m not going to share with them, I don’t hold back. Maybe you don’t have this problem, and if not, you are sitting in a great place!!
I did indeed tell my church and I do have a second account forged in the fires of humiliation and shame. It's not fake. Captain Howdy runs that account...
It's really sad. To pump up a post using bots, to get a win when you actually didn't win at all. What does that give you? 10k? 5k? Sure ( it's nothing). What does that take away? it takes away: Truth. And gives a fake sense of accomplishment that one has made it. If those red flags are true, and cheating is indeed happening, whoever it is, this win will only derail his/hers developement.
Dummy me, I really thought ALL writers are smart enough to try to be honest in everything. That's what counts right? More than money.
I don't think there's any way Joyce would've gotten FINNEGANS' WAKE published had he not had a former reputation. It's way too weird. And it's not for everyone. When Joyce first started sharing it with people, because it was serialized (if I'm remembering right) Ezra Pound called him and said something to the effect of, "your other work is great but this is bullshit. You're going to ruin your reputation." Joyce cried because of how long he'd been working at it. It has a following now, obviously, but I think mostly people find it unreadable. I'm having that struggle with Mark Danielewski's ONLY REVOLUTION'S; his second book after HoL. He didn't want to do the same thing he did in HoL so he really went out there. I'm going to have to spend a lot of time on it because I'm a lot more open to being won over by what Author is trying to do. It might take years to appreciate a work after your first viewing. Sometimes it doesn't hit right away. My relationship with Kubrick has been multi-faceted. I find him mostly boring but boring in an interesting way.
That's a valid last point. Some works tend to grow on a viewer, or reader. That's how I find Paul Thomas Anderson's movies. The Master bored me to death when it came out. Now, it's my favorite movie.
Right now, same thing with Licorice Pizza. But, in 6 or 8 years from now I'm sure I'll love it.
Freddy realizes it that moment when Lancaster is dancing and they both look each other in the eyes and she has that pregnantish belly and he sees what he is. Everyone is somehow naked except for Freddy in that moment.
She has the sexual edge that him and Freddy don't. Remember when they're both looking in the mirror. There's a great interview with Simon Critchley & Hoffman talking about happiness and how Freddy and he want to become one person but they can't. It's not latent homosexuality. It's this insane love they have for each other. You have to watch interview. I'll link it: https://youtu.be/TiQkdprJso0
Right. The wrestling. When they get back home from jail. He talks about wrestling with Paul when in real life he meets a girl he loves and he just attacks Phil Hoffman.
I don't think either I have that ability to sell Author's Self. I'm way too timid and introverted. When I first won the Chuck Palahniuk website scholarship it was a total whim. That gave me the idea that I was actually on to something. But I don't know that I can be consistent about it. I'm very mentally ill and that lack of consistency, like Chuck said, helps people forget you. What was it, you have to publish something every three years in order to maintain a reputation in people's minds? I don't think I can stop writing but I also don't think I have the discipline to remain consistent nor sell my work ie. trust that it's good. Remember both Mark Danielewski & Stephen King had to have people go into the garbage to rescue the work. Mark his sister and Steve his wife. It's so hard to see your own work objectively. Impossibly, probably.
Right. I don't think I could keep that up. I don't know how Novelist does it. I move at a most glacial pace. Or the slowest of slow turtles. I have to be dangerously sure that what I'm writing is worth writing.
That's the old Joy Williams quote. You have to be clever enough to write the work, then dumb enough to follow the long, long process to publication. Then dumber yet to do it again.
I say you have to "love the work enough to do it again."
You know a lot of people have some dark stories about him behind the scenes? Like how he was with girlfriends? Mary Karr for instance. Also Elizabeth Wurtzel.
Right? Sadly, if he were around today he'd be canceled for sure. About book tour, he once said, "I had no idea there were so many places to put my dick..."
To Clarify: we're voting on the best Story Night Stories, the live readings, correct? Sorry, since February my life has been a little wild so I'm a tad out of touch.
Any social system built without skin in the game is doomed to being manipulated. Limiting voting to only paid subscribers goes a loooong way towards ensuring each like is actually a real like.
Awkward as fuck
Anything is possible, this is the internet.
Tell me about it....
Well, I hate to be in your shoes lol. Per usual.
"Mick Nichalak liked your post"
Kcim Kalahcin liked your post.
"and I come from... Someplace faaarrrr awaaayyyy... Yes, that'll do..."
Did anyone ever actually call that number the fake Chuck was posting?
I hope not.
Please identify all bicycles in this photo.
Who am I to expect less than chaos from the world?
I’m patiently waiting for the apocalypse so I can stop thinking I’ll get a book contract and just write for the sunset on a dead world.
I'm not the best oral storyteller so sitting around a post apocalypse irradiated campfire wouldn't be my preferred venue for storytelling.
Sorry... I’ve been reading a bit too much Cormac McCarthy. Suddenly have a hankering for canned beans heated by the shimmering embers of a dying fire.
Anything more than death, taxes, and farts being funny are unrealistic expectations.
I texted it
Only bc I was leaving for Hawaii the next day, was stoned and thought something was up with the trip.......
Anything?
No but the Halsey bot texted me....
I did. Now they're sending me pictures of black people dancing.
With a caption that says, "doesn't this look weird?"
They left me on read
😭
I don’t know anyone, so I’ll just go ahead and accept 4th place and the steak knives.
I mean this is a difficult situation. I feel like it was a good way to encourage people to put effort into their work. I voted for the stories that I liked. I got the pleasure of hearing several of my favorites twice. Once in workshop either online or in person and then to see the performance online. The money would be nice but I feel like the real reward is the story itself with the money being the icing on the cake. I really think the various writing communities in these different regions should rally around their favorites.
Agreed. Friends rallying is great. I just want some assurance some clever hacker type isn't calling the shots.
It doesn't have to be clever. You can just pay someone running a bot farm to get you like 10,000 likes. Likely for a couple $100. That is considered marketing in this age of social media. It doesn't have to be real engagement. Many people accuse Tiktok of being filled with that sort of behavior.
Repost a semifinal round. Limit the posts/votes to the paid members of this workshop. Problem solved, and its not decided by who has the most friends with substack, or bots.
And Chuck votes last
Oh, they don't deserve the word 'clever'. Any halfway decent ~hacker~ would know it is stupid to spike likes on a post quickly. It has to look organic! Its just plain hubris to try to 'win' by a landslide.
I really do love your solution for this snafu though. For a variety of reasons.
(Also hi!!! I'm Kirsten. Ask Kerri about me - I help with the Midwest Story Night. I'm mostly a lurker here but I'm very happy to see some fairness enforcement so I had to comment.)
Welcome. And thank you for helping Kerri.
I asked several friends to hit the like button. Dont think any of them are robots. Was considering soliciting all of the dating app connections made over the past few years that I still have numbers for, but decided against it. May still do that.
I know a bunch of people on 4chan and 8chan that like a good story about laying pipe and cocobollo.
Just suggested to repost a semifinal round, and limit the posts to paid members. Eliminates popularity contests and bots.
Interesting... I'm listening.
Prevents outside vote solicitors, like myself, from winning for being industrious. However, writers do need to learn to sell themselves. Also prevents bots. (Assuming that the bots people arent going to pay for dozens or hundreds of subscriptions.)
Assuming that you want the best story to win, heres the plan: I would just repost the stories from each city that are in the top 3, but limit the posts to paid subscribers. Tell everyone that they can only vote once. Plus you vote last, but your vote is worth 5 or 10 student votes, since youre the only person here that knows exactly what makes a good story.
Also, you may not want a winner from each city. Short version: Repost 10-12 that we all like, and keep outsiders from voting. Keep everyone here from casting more than one vote.
Maybe we could have a contest for the most industrious at a later date? Those are still skills that writers need. Except for that bots dont buy books.
Or you just pick the top 3 and save yourself a lot of trouble.
I would rather the best stories win than the most industrious writers. However, thats how its going to be in the published world anyway. People could learn from it.
I'm actually tempted to hire the bots AFTER the contest is over, get 10,000 likes and forward to every friend and family member who couldn't be bothered to listen to the story.
Fortunately, our leader (that's you Chuck), the folks on this substack and the awesome crew in NYC provide more than enough encouragement to keep the motivation dial at 11.
I concur
On the other hand, not having to worry about your friends/family reading or watching is full freedom. Write like no one will read it!
Here's the thing. I completely respect that point of view. However, two issues, at least for me.
I want to write that which speaks to me AND what others want to read. I want my material to be popular and enjoyed by others. I do not want to toil in meaningful obscurity - I want meaningful popularity. To paraphrase Chuck, I want to influence the culture. I don't expect that to happen but that's the goal. I've recently met a fair number of people, including in the low budget movie space. The luck component of success improves with effort but it has to be something people want - even if they don't know it yet. We've been taught to look for the next cultural wave. I see a couple and am working to front run it.
Second, and this maybe is more personal - I expect the people in my life that I have spent significant time with - to find the time to spend 15 minutes listening to a video that I spent significant time and energy on and had the guts to read in front of a culturally significant author. If I've spent scores of hours over the last twenty years listening to someone's personal life, I expect them to watch 15 minutes less tv or doom scrolling and watch my video that a famous author took the time to watch and write a few comments on.
I realize that I am touching on two separate topics. The goal of writing and the emotional roller coaster of those you have close relationships with - some of whom are wonderful and some of which reveal themselves to not care
I can't imagine having a friend send me something like a Story Night video and just...not bothering to watch it. That's inexcusable.
On the clinical/logical side, I would say that those people aren't your audience. Fuck 'em. But on the personal/emotional side, that's incredibly hurtful. You deserve better--as a writer and as a really cool person. And also fuck 'em.
To wit, I've met some really cool people at Story Night. Thanks Karin.
Totally get that, Eric. I want the same things. What I write to be popular and enjoyed by others. I guess what I was getting at is--I used to do the same thing as you. Ask people I love to read something. And weeks would go by and nothing. Pages untouched. My own husband even! And it used to bum me out. But then I thought to myself. You know what? If I can't even get my own husband to read this, I'm gonna go really wild. And it was like the permission I never knew I needed to just write "dangerously" in a way. Freeing for me. And ironically, that was when I started to pick up more of a readership. Anywho, just wanted to share how you can possibly turn that into something powerful for yourself. Write on, my friend! You'll get there.
I was holding back before when I knew I was going to ask friends/family to read. Now that I know I’m not going to share with them, I don’t hold back. Maybe you don’t have this problem, and if not, you are sitting in a great place!!
Thanks. Thank you for sharing that. It is really a struggle for me when people will talk about the trivial but not spare 15 minutes.
I did indeed tell my church and I do have a second account forged in the fires of humiliation and shame. It's not fake. Captain Howdy runs that account...
It's really sad. To pump up a post using bots, to get a win when you actually didn't win at all. What does that give you? 10k? 5k? Sure ( it's nothing). What does that take away? it takes away: Truth. And gives a fake sense of accomplishment that one has made it. If those red flags are true, and cheating is indeed happening, whoever it is, this win will only derail his/hers developement.
Dummy me, I really thought ALL writers are smart enough to try to be honest in everything. That's what counts right? More than money.
Just an idealist here.
Thats the biggest problem with being decent. The assumption that other people have a conscience. Its correct most of the time...
That assumption can indeed create problems, absolutely. But, you know, only things built on solid grounds last longer.
Me too. I feel so naive. But we'll work this out.
I don't think there's any way Joyce would've gotten FINNEGANS' WAKE published had he not had a former reputation. It's way too weird. And it's not for everyone. When Joyce first started sharing it with people, because it was serialized (if I'm remembering right) Ezra Pound called him and said something to the effect of, "your other work is great but this is bullshit. You're going to ruin your reputation." Joyce cried because of how long he'd been working at it. It has a following now, obviously, but I think mostly people find it unreadable. I'm having that struggle with Mark Danielewski's ONLY REVOLUTION'S; his second book after HoL. He didn't want to do the same thing he did in HoL so he really went out there. I'm going to have to spend a lot of time on it because I'm a lot more open to being won over by what Author is trying to do. It might take years to appreciate a work after your first viewing. Sometimes it doesn't hit right away. My relationship with Kubrick has been multi-faceted. I find him mostly boring but boring in an interesting way.
That's a valid last point. Some works tend to grow on a viewer, or reader. That's how I find Paul Thomas Anderson's movies. The Master bored me to death when it came out. Now, it's my favorite movie.
Right now, same thing with Licorice Pizza. But, in 6 or 8 years from now I'm sure I'll love it.
Dude I LOVE MASTER. I loved seeing Cooper Hoffman. There's some scenes where he looks just like his dad. I miss him so much. Irreplaceable.
Since you love it, gotta ask this quick question, who do you think is the Master in that movie?
Probably Amy Adams.
Yes, Amy's calling the shots.
Freddy realizes it that moment when Lancaster is dancing and they both look each other in the eyes and she has that pregnantish belly and he sees what he is. Everyone is somehow naked except for Freddy in that moment.
She has the sexual edge that him and Freddy don't. Remember when they're both looking in the mirror. There's a great interview with Simon Critchley & Hoffman talking about happiness and how Freddy and he want to become one person but they can't. It's not latent homosexuality. It's this insane love they have for each other. You have to watch interview. I'll link it: https://youtu.be/TiQkdprJso0
It's more like a serious heavy meal type movie bromance.
Right. The wrestling. When they get back home from jail. He talks about wrestling with Paul when in real life he meets a girl he loves and he just attacks Phil Hoffman.
I don't think either I have that ability to sell Author's Self. I'm way too timid and introverted. When I first won the Chuck Palahniuk website scholarship it was a total whim. That gave me the idea that I was actually on to something. But I don't know that I can be consistent about it. I'm very mentally ill and that lack of consistency, like Chuck said, helps people forget you. What was it, you have to publish something every three years in order to maintain a reputation in people's minds? I don't think I can stop writing but I also don't think I have the discipline to remain consistent nor sell my work ie. trust that it's good. Remember both Mark Danielewski & Stephen King had to have people go into the garbage to rescue the work. Mark his sister and Steve his wife. It's so hard to see your own work objectively. Impossibly, probably.
Right. I don't think I could keep that up. I don't know how Novelist does it. I move at a most glacial pace. Or the slowest of slow turtles. I have to be dangerously sure that what I'm writing is worth writing.
ugh *sigh*
11:11?
Huh?! To me each story is a one night stand where I WON'T get a disease. It's a pill NOT laced with Fentanyl. I throw myself over the brink...
I'll have to think about that . . .
Now that's a quote!
That's the old Joy Williams quote. You have to be clever enough to write the work, then dumb enough to follow the long, long process to publication. Then dumber yet to do it again.
I say you have to "love the work enough to do it again."
Like the Wallace thing about how it's first about masturbation and then serious literary criticism and then it becomes about masturbation again?
Hah! Shame on you for remembering that! But, yes. Foster Wallace was honest about so many things.
You know a lot of people have some dark stories about him behind the scenes? Like how he was with girlfriends? Mary Karr for instance. Also Elizabeth Wurtzel.
Right? Sadly, if he were around today he'd be canceled for sure. About book tour, he once said, "I had no idea there were so many places to put my dick..."
Ouch.
No shit?
So much for our perceptions of him being St. Dave.
And he reminds me SO SO SO SO SO SO much of Keith Raniere.
Worrisome. The two stories I opened to Comments have yet to get any Comments to confirm their likes. Hope springs eternal.
Awkward.... for them at least.
What’s this? People not playing fair? I’m shocked.
Fuck bots.
The length people would go through for a couple of grand is pathetic. Mortifying. Embarrassing.
I’m fuming. And I don’t even have any story running myself.
To Clarify: we're voting on the best Story Night Stories, the live readings, correct? Sorry, since February my life has been a little wild so I'm a tad out of touch.
Any social system built without skin in the game is doomed to being manipulated. Limiting voting to only paid subscribers goes a loooong way towards ensuring each like is actually a real like.