More Observations On Vocal Challenges

Introduction

I am glad to see the Vocal smaller short period challenges which gives the platform a more dynamic feel, but the “Blue Haiku” Challenge really hit me mentally.

The previous Haiku Challenge seemed to be reasonable, but “Blue Haiku” followed close on the heels of the first and people realised they could produce haiku very quickly.

While this may not affect Vocal, lots of the Vocal Facebook Groups were flooded with a veritable tsunami of “Blue Haiku” entries and that made me incredibly conflicted because I could read all my friends’ entries and that made me feel incredibly guilty so in the end I just decided to ignore most of my friends’ haiku entries.

As I am an Administrator in Vocal + Assist I have to oversee the posts from the Challenges and try to group them in threads and guides. You can see by clicking on the link and joining the group.

I was going to limit myself to two, but ended up submitting five, so I am no angel.

Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases that contain a kireji, or "cutting word",17 on (phonetic units similar to syllables) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern, and a kigo, or seasonal reference.

The two winning poems in the High-Ku challenge contained no seasonal references so they were not actually haiku but senryū, however that’s down to the Vocal moderators , as they did not specify these criteria in their definition, and I only became aware of it when my friend Lee pointed this out about one of my entries.

Types Of Challenge

In my time on Vocal there seem to be four types of challenge Fiction, True Story, Playlists and Poem. My writing is mostly articles about existing things, and my poetry and fiction is not good enough for top Stories therefore not good enough for a Challenge, although my Playlists and Articles do get Top Stories and I am a Top Creator in the Beat Community so I am anything but off the radar, with over twenty thousand reads.

Generally there people prefer the Fiction Challenge because effort has to be put into producing those stories which must contain more than six hundred words, and very often go up to five thousand words.

These sorts of entries allow creators to make new worlds and experiences for their readers and mine, and while I write every story as a stand alone piece, people often come back with “What Happens Next?” , so often Challenges set off series by many Creators.

Recycling For Challenges

My own opinion is that Challenges should be new stories only, but I can understand the frustration of having an old Vocal story that would be perfect for a Challenge, but the only time I ever recycled a piece for a challenge I was severely criticised for it. Vocal does allow recycling, but I dare not ever do that again.

Challenges As Prompts

One of my favourite things about Vocal Challenges is the fact that they give you prompts to write and create stories. Even if I don’t enter the challenge the challenges prompt me to create and because of the entries I know that is true for all of us, but I do prefer new stories when they finally appear because I know the creator has worked on that to produce their opus.

I think I prefer the fiction ones myself because it really shows that the creators can start with virtually nothing, just a few words from Vocal, and produce a masterful world and experience for us all to fall into.

Conclusion

I hope that this is not too critical or controversial and would love to hear your thoughts on the Challenges. They are what tempted me to join Vocal and I think that they are a great part of the whole Vocal experience.

I included "Sing Your Own Song" by UB40 because that's what we are all doing in our own way on Vocal.