H&V contest results

I didn’t understand it either, but I thought that’s because my English is weak :smile:

@FallenAngelNight13 Can you please clarify this to us? :slight_smile:

I don’t have an opinion at the moment. I didn’t have time to read most contest entries (RL + writing while I can) but I’ll probably read the winning ones to make my own opinion.

About that “quota”, I think it’s a good idea but I’m guessing that it has been already implemented in a way. I consider myself a small author (based on the number of reads/followers). However, I have two contest winning stories (this is something really hard to believe for me). My Mysterious entry last year had about 500 reads when it made the shelf, and my Spotlight entry this year had under 1k. Both times I was surprised and felt like an underdog. Also, both times I had complete stories with different endings that people probably wanted to read up to the end and/or replay. I think the retention mattered the most because it couldn’t have been because of my reads. Being an unknown author that I am, I sort of believe that the system is more or less fair. I also had a contest entry that didn’t win, and I felt bad about it. It’s sad that we can’t have more stories on that shelf (or can we?).

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It’s great you could win twice as an unknown author. I guess - probably because of the high number of contestants - this was not the right time for small writers, but I still think it was a great contest, which gave us some really interesting and amazing stories with a lot of reads, and without.

Recently I feel like I am totally out of character with my pink glitter, shiny comments, because I’m usually a critical and sarcastic person, but there is too much frustration around this contest (mostly in other threads) that I want to strengthen the chilled vibes.

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Hmm I dont know how to explain it any other way sorry

I love critical and sarcastic people! But I agree, there’s no need to increase the frustration. I feel bad for everyone who didn’t win (as always), but at the end of the day, contests aren’t just for winning. First of all, they provide inspiration, and every participant has a new story now. Winner or not, everyone may be proud of creating a story. Also, I believe that publishing a story with a contest theme in the title gives some exposure to every writer. Their stories pop up in the search results, and it’s a chance to get reads/fans (when you publish outside the contests, the chance of being discovered is way smaller).

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You think there’s a hidden limit (which is what a cap is) if a story gets lots of reads (or too many reads ?) like the examples you gave because then they’ll end up on the shelf…

But you’re surprised that one of the stories got on the shelf because they had a lot of reads…

Are you saying that entries with lots of reads shouldn’t win contests? :confused:

no

from previous contests, I’ve noticed that stories with lots of reads don’t get chosen.

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I agree with you! By no means we are trying to offend or kick the famous authors out, not at all. They are great and totally deserve to be in the spotlight. That’s what we love them for as well.

We are just trying to find a balance so that it’s both the popular and the emerging authors with no priority given to either of them.

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Before replying on this, consider the fact that these participants who won worked hard just as everyone else has done, even though you may have wanted one story to win (mine was blurred lines) doesn’t mean you should bring another story down or compare it, each story is different from the other. At the end of the day the winners have been decided, they all deserved it :slight_smile:

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So… discussing the stories that won…

I read H&V: Magician’s Code and I really enjoyed it. I thought the directing was very good but I remember being pretty confused by the ending lol. I’m probably going to have to reread it. I also got distracted at the very end and missed a bit of it, including the photo (I saw a glimpse of it so I think I know what was there, but I didn’t get a good look). It’s a short completed story (only three episodes). If anyone reads this, I would LOVE to know how you interpret the ending :blush:

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Finally, thank you! I was thinking about requesting the thread to be closed, because this was supposed to be a discussion about the winners, but we started discussing everything else instead.
As I mentioned in my opening post Magician’s Code was my favorite entry, but I also have no idea how the ending should be interpreted. So instead of giving you an answer, I give you a +1 for asking the question :smile:

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I feel like the ending is open to interpretation lol but I’m the type of person who likes my Episode stories to be wrapped up with a pretty bow so it frustrated me a little :sweat_smile:

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H&V: Magician’s Code’s ending… I don’t get it too. I mean the MC died?? I thought the guy died and what was he doing in the pic and in the hospital?

There are quite a lot of theories on the author’s Instagram.
It seems like it was purposely left open to interpretation which honestly bugs me a bit :joy:. I like knowing the answer ahhahaha.

Taking note of this. Sometimes I like leaving parts of my stories open to interpretation… if I ever do that again, I’ll make a post on Instagram telling people who are bothered by it to DM me for the answer :joy:

It could be the accountant in me. I like my answers to be black and white :rofl:
I do like that the story had me thinking but I like your suggestion- I’d personally like to be able to get clarification either from the author or in a bonus episode or something if the ending was left quite vague. Shroud was like this too. I didn’t get the ending but I believe the author created a bonus episode? (I never got around to reading it because my app decided to lose all my progress on that story and I haven’t gotten around to rereading yet… )

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I read the majority of these stories and they were very good and I was definitely considering reading a few more of them.

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Closing due to one month of inactivity :slight_smile: