Let's Talk About Vocal Challenges

To be a part of the Vocal Media Writers community on social media is to be an anthropologist majoring in imposter syndrome and grandiose delusions. I myself am not exempt from either of these descriptors. I have experienced both, and each in response to the announcement of challenge winners. As someone who has been watching (and engaging in) discussions about Vocal challenges for five months now, I have a few words of advice and some questions I would like to extend to the lovely people who make it all work.

(I encourage you to read the following advice and questions in a curious and light-hearted tone - remember, the Vocal Moderators and challenge winners are deserving of your kindness as well!)

Okay, as I was saying...

If you win a challenge

Stay off social media.

Before the winners of the Summer Sonnet challenge had been announced, I had only beared-witness to one row of discontent from the Vocal Writers Community. It was in response to the Stray to Stay challenge. One of the winners hadn't mentioned a stray-pet, and thus, had many up in arms. I understood the complaint, and agreed, but I also enjoyed the story in question. I think this moment may have been what really caused a ripple of growing agitation to spread amongst many creators.

When I entered four sonnets into the Summer Sonnet challenge I read and re-read the guidelines too many times to count. I could have dictated them on command, meaning, I knew all that was required of me to be eligible for a winning entry;

1. That the sonnet be about summer;
2. That the sonnet be about a memory, and
3. That the sonnet be inspired by traditional sonnets

Note the word 'inspired'. I had read articles by previous challenge winners encouraging participants to subvert the judges expectations. So, I went with a traditional Shakespearean sonnet, but I added a line here or there, and played around with syllables.

I ended up winning this challenge, and I don't think there has ever been a more benign action that has caused such significant upheaval. The response was - to put it delicately - disgusting. Perhaps I am too fragile for saying so, but to be on the receiving end of insults from significant people in a community who had originally only had nice things to say was a shock I was not ready to experience. I was very lucky to have a few kind people reach out to me to assure me that it was okay to be proud of myself, and it is because of these people that I stayed engaged in the community. I left most of the Facebook groups due to the backlash, but remained in the ones were I experienced kindness.

So, for any new or recurring challenge winners, my advice to you; don't go on social media. Or, if you do, expect the worst.

If you lose a challenge

Don't read the winners.

At least, not right away. If you read a challenge win within the context of disappointment, you might find yourself nit-picking at the winning entries. Maybe you desperately analyse the piece, searching for over-used phrases or poor punctuation. I've seen a lot of grammatical errors in winning entries, but I don't believe poor gramma reduces the quality of an emotive piece. Now, I might say otherwise if I just lost a challenge to a story riddled with run-on sentences, but in a clear state of mind I genuinely believe it to be true.

If you want to improve your writing consider reading older pieces instead, or wait until the sting of rejection is replaced by a genuine curiosity. And don't just be curious; try to find the merit in every piece, because I promise you it's there. And remember, Vocal is not a proper publication; it's a tool for creators to explore themselves as writers, and sometimes this might mean that the emotive quality of a piece will stand out regardless of the merit earned by prose (even if it's broken challenge guidelines!), so keep an open mind.

My request to Vocal

I have two words.

Clarity

and

Consistency

Sounds simple enough, so why haven't we been getting it? I in no way intend to attack the moderators and judges at Vocal. They are hard-working people who I have always found to be very kind and helpful (so thank you!) but I am curious as to what is causing the wavering integrity around Vocal Challenges.

Let's explore a few examples;

A story about cosplaying (which clearly requires the use of scissors, if one is designing the costumes) was removed from the Fiskar 'Create Your Happiness' challenge. My story about a spilt glass of wine was removed from the Dream Date challenge because I forgot to mention the word 'Merlot' - I had no qualm with this decision, it only taught me to follow the guidelines more strictly.

Am I clowning myself though? Because it seems as though the guidelines only apply to some of us. Some winners have won by making loose reference to the required topic, and others have outright breached the seemingly clear guidelines.

Let me include a brief disclaimer before we continue; as someone who has been on the receiving end of vitriol in response to my win I understand the hopelessness that accompanies complaints such as this. It is not the writers fault, nor is it their responsibility to make Vocal take their own challenge guidelines more seriously. I raise this quarrel with Vocal alone. We want clarity, and we want consistency. I have a few questions whose answers might help clear up the discontent;

• Can we break the word count/can our piece be removed from a challenge if it doesn't adhere to the word count?
• Is the wordcount a suggestion or something entries should strictly adhere to?
• How does a judge decide if a piece of work is good enough quality for it to be exempt from the challenge guidelines?
• If quality is subjective to the readers experience, how can there be a fair method of deciding which pieces get to ignore guidelines, and which don't?
• Are some pieces read thoroughly, while others are merely skimmed for compliance to the Vocal Community standards?
• How are challenge entries short-listed?
• How many challenge entries make it to the judges?

Vocal is a fantastic platform that has completely changed the way I write, and for that I am incredibly grateful. I pose these questions with the genuine hope that this platform can continue to grow and develop as a platform with integrity and a well deserved reputation.

Thanks for reading!