The Poetry Fishbowl and Other Prompted Literature

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Hello, everyone!  I'm Elizabeth Barrette, ysabetwordsmith on LiveJournal.  I'm the list owner of crowdfunding.  I've been studying alternative publishing all along, electronic publishing since the mid-1990s, and the first glimmers of what has become crowdfunding since around 2000 or so.  Today's topic is fishbowls, or more generally, prompted literature.  I'll tell you about the technique in general, and my Poetry Fishbowl project in particular.

( Ooo ... fishies! )

So, I do this thing.. or prompted fiction and writing directly to the audience

[aldersprig.livejournal.com]

So, I do this thing where I take prompts from readers and random passers-by, and write short fiction to those prompts. It's my favorite kind of writing, direct to the audience's wishes, and it's a lot of fun.

I've tried a few different ways of doing it: at first, I called for prompts on a theme, much like ysabetwordsmith's Poetry Fishbowl and, indeed, modeled after the fishbowls. It worked all right, but I found that I was having an enthusiasm gap: I just wasn't getting into it.

Next, and certainly most productive and profitable (and most entertaining, if exhausting), was my Drakeathon, an 8-hour livewriting marathon over two days to raise funds to help offset the costs of my diabetic kitty's insulin, needles, and vet visits.

For 4 hours on Saturday & 4 on Sunday, I took prompts and wrote from them in a GoogleDoc open to anyone who donated.

I received $155 in donations, got 20 prompts from 16 people, 13 of whom donated. (that's 31 times the amount of money I got from the original prompting plan, by the way :-) In addition, I put the stories together into a short e-book, Tales for the Sugar Cat, a collection of short, flash, and micro stories spanning genres and universes, from scifi to fantasy to romance, all written directly to sponsored requests. I'll definitely do this again - for more details on my ups and downs, see the Aftermath Report.

Writing to people's prompts is the most direct form of crowd-sourced writing I've found to date, though I like to kick it up a notch and then, on Twitter/IM/etc., ask my readers for more input: names, descriptions, colors, and so on (this is how I ended up with McAliens, as a note).

My latest iteration of prompting was a two parter: for 24 hour two weekends ago, I took prompts for flash fiction written free, and then opened up those flashes to sponsorship for continuation in what I'm calling a giraffe sale. The income is, I'm not denying it, nice, but knowing what people want to hear more of is both gratifying and free market research!

What's more, I've found new corners of worlds and, indeed, whole new worlds from prompts! I'm currently writing short fiction in enough settings I need a cheat sheet to keep track of them, and then a cheat sheet of my cheat sheets!

If you haven't written to your audience's prompts, I'd urge you to try it. It's a fun way to take your writing in an unexpected direction!

Aether Dancer Steampunk Project!

[jadedeath.livejournal.com]

Needs your support!

We have all the ducks lined up, and Claudia Christian set to star, but we need that one crucial thing before we can proceed, funding.

http://www.indiegogo.com/Aether-Dancer-Steampunk?a=148083&i=addr

Check it out here, and donate if you can, spread the word if you can't!

Thank you all for your support!

Best,
Steven Lambert
Jade Lens Productions

Discussion: Audience Participation

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Let's talk about audience participation.  Cyberfunded creativity lives or dies on interaction.  Audience participation is what distinguishes crowdfunding from a plain old store online.  It's part of the fuel that drives creators to produce more goodies.  It's part of the bait that attracts new viewers and donors. 

So how does it work?  How do you get people talking?  There are many types of interaction, including:
* Posting polls
* Calling for prompts
* Inviting viewer opinions or critiques
* Looping inspiration
* Asking the creator about the project
* Listing favorite projects for people to discuss
For more ideas on this topic, see "How to Boost Your Audience."

As a creator, what kind of audience participation do you find most useful in the creative process?  What things entice your audience to respond?  Have you tried anything that you really thought would work, but it just flopped?  Do you like audience cross-chat, or find it distracting?

As a viewer, what makes you lean forward and start typing?  Do you prefer polls, comments, Like/Favorite buttons, or some other particular option?  Do you have more fun talking to creators, or cross-chat with other audience members, or both?