Thanks, carnatic! In that case, I think I'll definitely try my hand at the next one, and maybe it'll encourage more male inflation writers to come forward with it.
Regarding Prose that Blows
First, going to point out that this is in direct reference to Prose that Blows, but I'm making it its own post because I: a, don't want to derail the discussion on any of the official threads thereof, and b, feel like this is an issue that affects the broader inflation community.
So, I was going to write something for Prose that Blows 11, but didn't have time due to school, etc. Which is one thing. But the other thing, which is a major reason why I didn't go out of my way to make time for Prose that Blows, is that I write male inflation.
The one time I did write for Prose that Blows (whichever was the superhero one), my entry was the only male-inflation entry. I somehow doubt anyone other than a select few even actually read it. And I doubt that half of THEM would have read it if I didn't purposely make my protagonist female, even though I have no interest in female inflators at all.
Sure, the contest is about writing, not winning. It's supposed to get the community involved, as an artistic endeavor rather than a competition. But I couldn't bring myself to take the effort to participate in a contest I could never win. The fact is that the majority of interest is geared towards female inflatees and those who would inflate them (chiefly heterosexual men), which is totally exclusive of myself, as a (self-identified) queer person with no interest in women in a sexual context, but also other readers and writers with a (possibly primary) interest in male inflation.
The way the contest is currently set up, there is no way a male inflation story could ever win "Sexiest Story", or really any other category, because even when there's a palateably feminine inflator, the majority of readers take no interest in male inflatees, which sets those of us who do up for failure. And frankly, if it's unlikely anyone will even read it once they notice a lack of women, it doesn't feel worth it to try.
So my question to the community at large is, are there any ideas and/or willingness to try and make sure stuff like this is more inclusive? Personally, I think that in writing contests like this, instead of having an overall, "Sexiest Story", if we could divide it into "Sexiest Female Inflation" and "Sexiest Male Inflation", it would do a lot in terms of making sure that any male-inflation-themed entries had an equal chance of winning at least ONE category, since at least in that category, they couldn't be outvoted by people who never bothered to read them.
Any other ideas on how to navigate this sort of thing, or other problems I haven't addressed?
Sat, 03/28/2015 - 07:02
#3
CorpulentArtifice
Mon, 03/30/2015 - 19:43
#4
doubleintegral
Rather than see the award split into male and female counterparts, I would rather see the "Sexiest Story" award go away entirely. That's also one thing (among several) I would change about the contests that Pakona and I did.
Most of us are here to read sexy stories, and the sexy stories are the ones that will find favor in contests anyway. In the same way that we pared down the number of awards due to some redundancy, at this point I think the "Sexiest Story" award itself is redundant.
In fact, part of me would like to see all of the secondary awards go away and simply have people vote for the overall best story. But that's just me.
Thu, 04/02/2015 - 14:03
#5
CorpulentArtifice
I can see the benefit to just having "overall best" instead of multiple categories, but like you said, doubleintegral, people are basically coming here to read sexy stories. Male inflation fans are still in the minority, so even with just "overall best", a male inflation story has little chance of winning unless you have "best female" and "best male".
Fri, 04/03/2015 - 20:03
#6
doubleintegral
Such is the struggle of a democratic contest.
Thu, 04/09/2015 - 17:13
#7
"Sexiest Story" (in general or by gender) should remain as a category because frankly, many of the stories are not that sexy. Well-written? Absolutely! Just not sexy. I've found that often times, the most arousing pieces are lacking in writing style, but contain good scenarios or descriptions. Obviously a story that is written beautifully and has all these components would be superior, but those are few and far between.
Thu, 04/09/2015 - 23:09
#8
darth_clone19
But how is written beautifully the same thing as sexy? To be jonest, that category is arbitrary and its the one I always have a problem with when voting. Whats the criteria for sexyness when you are already getting off on people blowing up? Thats the sexy part. Whether its well o badly written its irrelevant enough as to a criteria for a category of sexyness. A style category would be enough.
I dont think the contest is exclusive. The community is, however, underrepresenting its variety. Thats the problem, not the contest. Maybe a step forward could be a male inflation PTB? That could get me out of my writers block.
Fri, 04/10/2015 - 06:48
#9
If anything the next Prose that Blows will have more rather than fewer categories; but the reason for that will become clear when it is announced, and I will be taking on board comments to ensure that all categories are easy to vote for.
The emphasis on the choice of categories was always to stimulate expression for both readers and writers, to give the contest a sort of framework, make the contest as inclusive as possible and discourage people from 'writing to win' (even now I still get messages from people asking what I think the best way to win is, what themes people like to read best, and I've always tried to discourage this approach). A selection of categories gives writers the feeling that whatever their style is, there is something there to aim for and they will potentially be rewarded for writing a good story that they want to write rather than a good story that people want to read.
The other thing to remember of course is that the very first Prose that Blows had no theme whatsoever, it was just a word limit and a list of awards you could go for.
Fri, 04/10/2015 - 15:24
#10
LutherVKane
While it may seem redundant to have Best and Sexiest awards in a fetish fiction competition, I don’t think they are in practice. Only one story has ever won both, Christmas Protocol, and there were only four entries that time.
It’s interesting that people asked about how best to win. For me it’s hard enough just getting a story down that’s on-topic and within word count limits by the deadline. Targeting beyond that is more than I could manage. At any rate, you can just look at the past winners to see if there are any patterns.
I actually think a male inflation story could win. There just haven't been many entered. I don't know if adding a separate category would change that, it's worth a shot.
Sat, 04/11/2015 - 00:53
#11
Well just going off what the OP has said, it seems it might encourage at least one person to enter... Maybe more.
Sat, 04/11/2015 - 11:45
#12
Just a question of curiosity -
Previous contests have been read clickable without logging in. This one wasn't. Any reason for the change?
- BF
Sat, 04/11/2015 - 14:17
#13
No idea since they aren't hosted on here, they're hosted on Wordpress. What gets posted here is just a list of links. Since you can't read the forums without logging in that means you can't see the links without logging in. I don't know why it would have been different in the past.
Tue, 04/14/2015 - 03:51
#14
doubleintegral
What he means is that there are no obvious direct links to the stories on the PtB blog itself, so the only place to really get them is from this forum.
1. In the past, when voting was to begin I would make a blog post with direct links to all the stories. Currently the most recent blog post on the site is the one that announces the contest/rules.
2. (Also) In the past, I would put all of the rules for a contest on its own page. Then when the stories were posted, those would also go in their own pages, and they would be sub-pages of the contest page. This time the contest rules went in a blog post and there was no page for it, so the story pages were not grouped together. If you look closely at the list of pages on the right side, you can see all of the stories for this contest, but they're all scattered about.
Tue, 04/14/2015 - 07:18
#15
Ah right... To be honest I wasn't aware that people actually went to the blog itself, I always assumed they just followed links to specific parts of it as they were posted on this site, so it never occurred to me to make the blog navigable.
Sat, 04/11/2015 - 16:05
#16
Personally, I could see a catagory for Male Inflation helping motivate people who might not find that female inflation is their primary focus. Today I do write both male and female inflation, but at one point, female inflation was never on my radar as something I would want to or even be interested in writing, and therefore, discuraged me from entering PTB, since as OP stated, what's the point if no one's going to read it once they realize what it is, and therefore not vote on it.
Thu, 04/23/2015 - 06:25
#17
I didn't know there was a problem - some of my most most MOST favourite writers prefer to write male inflation stories (like Alec Deluxe), and for others it doesn't matter whom to inflate (like Quetzal or Pump1131). This gave me the impression that male inflation is more common in the stories.
I use a text editor rather frequently to change "he" into "she" to enjoy these stories.
But, indeed, if this "s" letter is a stopper for somebody, I'd rather remove the s-brake so that your ideas blossom up.
I'll add those award categories to the next prose that blows. I think there might have been a whole host of categories for the inaugural competition for this reason. Without wanting to open the door for every single subfetish having it's own category, I would say that male inflation is big enough to warrant one, and isn't strictly a subfetish anyway.