Here's my way of facing the assignment:
A. Click bait title
B. Don't screw up the grammar or writing (include writing structure)
C. Make the format look pretty and easy to read
D. Try to find a personal image that is real to you (preferable something you make or caught on your camera.)
E. Give them something to chew on
F. Beginning, middle and twist
G. Think about the topic a few days
H. Make it funny and alive
I. Grab the audience with a personal or at least relatable story
J. Include your own art or at least artistic perspective
K. Make the reader feel good
L - O. AVOID
This comment, here! 💯I do spend a good few days each week researching around the topic at hand and mulling over ideas in my head, playing with scenarios, storylines etc BEFORE I hit "create post". Then I draft it all out and revisit it a few times to edit, refine etc before finally submitting it. Complete respect to the WOTW admins and reviewers. It can't be an easy task and it must take a lot of time. If anyone wants to improve their writing, the best thing to do is to write regularly, challenge yourself and when entering WOTW, analyse your feedback from prior weeks against the merit grading system, and look at where you are falling short. I do this as there is always room for improvement and I have a long way to go. Then I check through against the grading system after I have written, to make sure I have hit the mark wherever it is possible within the constraints of my genre and perspective. I know there is an area for example that I can do more in: informative. This pops up time and again for me as a lower score and I know it's because I am primarily writing creative short stories and poetry, but I am hoping to weave more informative elements into my stories going forwards; if I feel it will detract from the perspective or creativity though, I will make do without it :-) Congrats to everyone who took the time to enter the contest and to the winners. I have been away for the long weekend in the UK since Thurday and only just arrived back home, so catching up. Keep writing everyone, I'm off to read the few WOTW entries that hadn't been posted before I left for the weekend, including the winning post which I am really excited to read! Have a great week everyone :-)
Look at this. More free advice:
That's how I followed it when I participated in the beginning. It worked quite well for me.
Sometimes I feel sorry for you judges. It would be nice to have more support from the whales. At the same time it is clear that the contest is supported well in POB upvotes. Even if you don't win you find a pretty fat upvote. There is reasoning in all writing about one word. If we choose the right word and there is enough specific information and links we may target potential key word rankings.
That's pretty impressive 👍. Winning Secrets from the best. 😊🙏
@wiseagent, @hranhuk, @mineopoly, @vikbuddy, @samsmith1971, @corporateay
I've been thinking about you guys. Let me know what you think. It should clear things up a bit more. It's an update to the public merit system @Calumam developed. It's a lot of work to grade in this manner, but I'll do it for at least the next couple of weeks to give everyone an idea of how we get the grading done.
It's also a justification for why I reward higher for the contests. I've asked trostparadox to give me his input on the process. He stands apart from the contest.
I know, I know guys. No one asked me to do this, but things are a bit more stable in my life at this time. It's how Calumam wanted things done anyway.
wow! so what I can see from the link is a personalised response to each person on each grading element as well as an engagement value. Am I correct in my understanding? Sounds like a lot of extra work but will really provide exceptional value in feedback to everyone who takes part especially if there is complete transparency of comments across all entrants for everyone to see. I hope the engagement portion doesn't stop some from engaging on other's posts as it boosts other's scores vs theirs. It won't stop me lol as engagement on other's posts is just as important to me as on my own; it was just a slightly cynical thought lol as the margins have been very tight amongst the placed entries and we wouldn't want an engagement score to inadvertently serve to reduce engagement. Perhaps the engagement score should also require meaningful engagement by contestants on at least a couple of other WOTW entries too, to negate any potential for an unintended drop in engagement?
The engagement section is new and experimental. It requires me to check on posts at least twice during the contest week. The only time you'll get a point removed is if people are engaging in the article, but the author doesn't response to any of them at least once.
For now, I need to keep it simple and directed towards the article. If, however, I wanted to do a bonus round for individual authors, then maybe I could focus on an author's cross-commenting on different articles.
Oh completely understand the time requirement is immense. Just a few thoughts from me ;-)