Okay, lol had to recall all the way aback to 2016 to remember what kind of changes may be done to voting and sadly cant. I am assuming perhaps i meant that there should be gold, silver, bronze type awards instead of multiple rankings of winners. Never liked that system either because someone who has worked exceedingly hard on their gamebook, submits their work, and gets last place is a slap to the face and hard on moral whereas there are now less writers competing and entering by the year because of fear of rejection and nasty reviews by other non associated websites talking down the pieces submitted. Windhammer is great but as i said trying to recal so far back what a better voting system may look like, rather than grind loss into the nonwinners why not offer a different way of rewarding instead of first, second, third prizes with money offers or basically no prize. Perhaps all stories get reviews from other gamebooks ppl in our community, that would mean alot. Perhaps offer the first prize a chance to be featured on a gamebook site like yours Stuart, their gamebook on there (playable too). Or maybe perhaps involve others familiar with gamebooks fan fiction too to turn it into a simple tiny digital game or i dont know pay someone to turn it into a book or pdf depending on what level of percentage it won at via votes. As for voting not sure how to stop someone from cheating as i realized the voting part anyone can vote and one would never know if the win was genuine or not, unless, the vote is PUBLIC and counted over a series of weeks to a month. My opinion but not sure what else to tell your friend. Good luck! :)

Stuart Lloyd
Wed Sep 29 23:15:06 2021

Thanks, @Tammy. I'm sorry, 5 years is a long time to remember a gamebook competition.
I will offer encouraging feedback. For me, that was the best part of Windhammer.
I've put this out on the Gamebook Authors' Guild on Facebook and the Interactive Fiction and Gamebooks group on Facebook. They are supportive of each other and I expect that they will be supportive of new authors.
I will host the gamebooks. I could ask someone if they would turn it into a digital game. That was going to be a Windhammer prize on year - being in a Tin Man Games app.
As for cheating, I guess I could check the unique number of the location of some emails to make sure no one has made a load of emails. I don't think I could do something if someone gets all of their friends to vote. Maybe I could do a vote via some website rather than emailing me.

Robert Douglas
Thu Sep 30 00:20:39 2021

@Tammy,
That's a very good point you raised regarding a gamebook coming last within competition parameters. Certainly, there's something to be said for constructive criticism - and over the years I've taken on board some advice for future reference. It's always nice to know about mistakes and where improvements can be made. But, like you said, with all that time and effort, it is a shame when somebody comes last. And some comments can be really on the harsh side. To this end, I'd like to quote something from the author Bernard Cornwell, 'I have one golden rule: I never read reviews - the bad ones go to the heart, and the good ones go to the head'. Likewise, I requested of Wayne Densley (the Chronicles of Arborell webmeister) that I wasn't interested in being sent reader comments during the last Windhammer competition. But from authors who understand writing, and how to convey valued advice to potentials in a positive way, I'm more than happy to digest. It is in fact an honour that such authors take precious time to read through the text, take notes, and write up several paragraphs of how the story, grammar, and approach could all be improved! As for the Windhammer Competition, I did enjoy the writing and sending of a gamebook entry, but one reason I didn't enter the recent tourney was due to other commitments. As I understand it, sadly the last Windhammer took place in 2015. Even though six gamebooks were voted through (one achieved winner's prize, two earning merit awards, and another three achieving commendations), it must be remembered that when announcing the Competition results Wayne gave, as always, a well-deserved praise to all (sixteen) entrants for their time and effort. Which is a very nice acknowledgement. One important lesson to all writers is never be discouraged by harsh criticism or not winning a competition.

Stuart Lloyd
Thu Sep 30 14:08:09 2021

@Robert @Tammy
You both make great points. I'm going to be really positive about peoples' entries even if they don't get a prize. I think apart from the people who got prizes, no one knew the actual ranking system.
However, I need to balance out the bad feedback. There was a writer who had a werewolf themed blog who wrote really critical reviews. However, I'll emphasize that a) writing a gamebook in itself is an achievement b) everyone starts off bad at things and that if people review a gamebook, they are probably comparing it to the best ones they know.

Robert Douglas
Thu Sep 30 15:05:52 2021

@ Stuart
That's the best way to look at things. Regarding your second point, I remember when I first started writing/creating gamebooks, during the late 80's (when I should have been revising for my GCSE exams!) - let's just say that they needed a LOT of work to become acceptable reading. Like most things, competency also comes with practice. 'Practice makes perfect' is one of my favourite phrases. Word processors, as opposed to the older electric typewriters, really helped with the editing side.

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