We, the Vocalites, SPEAK!

Wow; what a crazy couple of months the "Vocal" community has had!

We have had our requests; and Vocal has been LISTENING!

+So many of Vocal's contributors (namely, me) normally master in FICTION and needed an easy place to pigeonhole "Fiction" into the Vocal community (without always calling it "Parody," "Journal," or "Fact or Fiction"). Enter the brand new "FICTION" community and a summer's worth of challenges to promote it.

This is great for myself and other members of the Fiction community to truly flex our talents. However, it DOES beg the question of where this has left our poets or strict article publishers this summer.

+We contributors occasionally do go back and read our own work once it's published to bask in the glory of our own creativi..."WHAT'S THIS? AN ERROR?" "HOW DID I THINK THAT THIS SENTENCE MADE SENSE WITHOUT THAT CRITICAL WORD?" "I PUBLISHED THIS FOLLOW-UP STORY THAT REALLY DESERVES TO BE CONNECTED TO THE ORIGINAL! DO I REALLY NEED TO GO THROUGH A FULL 24-48 HOUR PURGATORY PERIOD TO REVIEW AND RERELEASE MY WRITINGS?"

Enter "Quick Edit." With the magic of "Quick Edit," we can CORRECT our prose that we were so proud of in a snap...

...or, like myself, I can learn to quickly "Hyperlink" and intertwine connected stories together in a far shorter timeframe. ("Hanna, The Barberian," in five parts, is now interconnected. "Teen Justice's" tales are now intertwined with one another. "Marigold" and "Marigold Fields Forever" are now tied together properly. I might still have to correct "The Perks of Being a Gentleman" and "The Potential Pangs of Being the Good Guy." etc.)

Now, for some people, "Quick Edit" has resulted in "double link clicks." This could be corrected in time.

+ "This writer's SO great! If only I could..."

"Wait; could it be???"

SUBSCRIBE!

"Subscribe" is NOW a thing! We can rediscover, find, and "follow" our favorite creators to have a content page specifically curated JUST FOR US! (Plus, through the use of the "Stats" page, we creators can judge our own outreach by seeing how many followers WE have. Because THAT'S important too; you know, for the fragile human ego that we artist types seem to carry in spades...)

"Vocal" has been doing so much for the community lately; with the constant promise of "MORE to come in coming weeks..."

Now just may be the time to dust off my list of remaining requests...

FOLDER SYSTEM TO MANAGE WRITINGS

Part of this goes back to simply "hyperlinking" interconnecting stories/articles together in hopes that the link works.

However, that doesn't always work out. Besides, sometimes stories/articles aren't REALLY woven together; but are simply one genre.

With a "Folder" system, I, for instance, would put together all five parts of "Hanna, The Barberian." In a Sci-Fi folder, I'd hide "Ava" and "Stolen Heart." "Underdwellers," "The Sea-Heart," "Skylanders," and "Lotek" are all interwoven into one larger narrative. I'd put my "Thrifty Buys..." Trilogy into yet another folder together. My reminiscing on television and videogames could always go together.

...Okay, my point being that if a person on "Vocal Creation Suite" strictly wants you to post "Sci-Fi" ("Articles"/"Poems"/what-have-you...) and you write A LOT of everything, but don't feel like burdening them with your full profile for THEM to do the homework of perusing, a "folder" system would work.

The "Public Profile" system would still list the stories in the order in which they were published. A SUB category under "Public Profile" could be for the folder system.

MAKE IT CLEARER WHAT CONSTITUTES A "READ."

Okay, you're perusing your stats on "Vocal" (because we do that; many of us are using this to get our names out there and we're NATURALLY CURIOUS!) You find that your latest has five "HEARTS!" YES! You're making a SPLASH! Your work matters and...what's this; ZERO reads??? Five Hearts; 0 Reads. What the...?

Who HASN'T been here yet? This is CONFUSING! And I doubt that every single example is a person clicking a link, reading two words, and "hearting" for (the title/the picture/the content creator/an insincere ego stroke/etc.).

There NEEDS to be a better system in place to let readers know when they have actually done a fellow content creator a huge solid of scoring them a "Read." (Because some people DO read faster than others, so a simple "oh; it's a certain amount of time scrolling" just won't cut it).

I understand that "Vocal" rewards their creators, financially, by READS. Unless they want to update this system to include hearts too, something else needs to be done. Maybe hide the option of "hearting" a story until you have scrolled far enough/for a long enough time to record the read. Maybe a message at the top of the story that reads "Read recorded." Maybe something similar. But something needs to be done.

MORE SPECIFIC GUIDELINES

Okay, the challenge in question is behind us and, like every other challenge, I didn't secure the coveted win. I'll try harder for next time.

No, I'm not one of those who threw a fit and BEAN COUNTED every. last. "a," "the," "I," "in..." in a contest winner (really; who HAS that kind of time; and DOESN'T use it to go back and hone their craft?)

I'm a realist; maybe Vocal's judges panel DID decide that a certain story DID deserve a round of applause. And (here's the "and") so what if it didn't QUITE fulfill the maximum word count of what people were convinced was a REQUIREMENT for everyone else to abide by rather than "oh; just a guideline."

...So which is it, Vocal? For the purposes of upcoming challenges, let's try to CLEARLY differentiate between a strict contest rule and a helpful guideline. It could avoid a lot of confusion, and plenty of complaints, in the future...

A WORD COUNTER

Not everyone types their prose to "Microsoft Word" first to copy/paste to "Vocal" later. (Then to have to go through and find what was bolded and italicized and repeat from scratch).

Also, there is nothing worse than waiting in "Reviewgatory" to have a precious prose boomeranged back to you with the dreaded "did not meet Word Count Requirements." (Apparently, the -5000 words is "oh, a guideline;" the 600+ part of that is to be strictly adhered to).

A word counter on "Vocal" could avoid a lot of headaches and a lot of waiting and wondering, only to have to resubmit and wait and wonder all over again.

THE ABILITY TO COMMENT ON VOCAL

"Social Media Communities" are a godsend to garner reads, reacts, and (strictly on social media) critiques.

For me, the "Vocal Creator's Lounge" has been a godsend to get my name out there; and it has shown with the exponential GROWTH of my read counter.

I petition that we add such an option (if the writer so chooses) to the end of certain works HERE on Vocal. It could help the quality of content on the site.

(As with all comment sections, I do NOT condone that this becomes trolling/hate-filled/flaming any more than I condone that every single comment to every single article be "Wow!"/"Great!"/"So true!" [okay; the last one could serve as a helpful comment, as it indicates that they read my work and found some truth in it]).

A RELIGION SECTION

"Religion" is being treated as divisive and inflammatory to too many of our fellow content creators.

"Politics" was once viewed as the same; and along came "The Swamp" or a particular challenge SPECIFICALLY to write a farewell letter to Trump.

The world is made up of a lot of different religions/creeds. All can be interesting and all have aspects that should be respected.

My particular story on my "Lenten journey" is stuck in the purgatory of unpublishable strictly because it is viewed as "Religious content."

I can't exactly go back and remove all religious references from a story about a "Lenten" struggle for a season that is now four months behind me. (I *might* be able to pigeonhole it into "Confessions." Maybe come NEXT year when a Lenten season comes up).

...I think "Vocal" is ready for a "Religion" community. And if we prove otherwise, let me eat my words and YOU do what is best...

We, the content creators (VOCALITES) have been speaking; so far, you, Vocal, have been taking our whims to heart and doing what you can to adjust.

These were just a few more suggestions and I look forward to what you implement in the future.

"Write on," fellow Content Creators!

Interested in joining the Vocal+ community, complete with perks like Quick Edit or Vocal+ specific challenges?

This COULD be your opportunity to say “yes” to a great community!

My personal referral link is below

Thank you.

https://vocal.media/vocal-plus?via=kent