I've come across at least one person who is convinced the ambassadors judging ONC entries didn't read their story. Why do they think the ambassadors didn't read their story? According to them, the only reads on their story are their own, yet is this true?
If this were true, that they are the only ones to have read their story, then the number of reads should be equal to the number of parts because when we are the writer of the story, only the first time we read the story counts towards the read count. That's to prevent us writers from artificially raising the read count, but if the number of reads isn't equal to the number of parts, someone read your story.
Meaning only the first read of a story is your own, and all the others are other readers. True, one can argue that one can identify who reads a story by who votes on a given chapter or who comments on a given chapter. Still, chances are you won't be able to account for all of the reads that way, but if you had someone voting and commenting, chances are you wouldn't be arguing that nobody is reading your story in the first place, right?
Of course, co-written stories are more likely to have a discrepancy, as the limit on reads only applies to the writer who posted the story to their profile, but did you properly indicate that the story was co-written? Did you leave that out on the form? If I happen to know that you co-wrote a story, then what's to say an ambassador didn't find out? And if you didn't indicate it - well, not properly filling out all information in a contest submission is in writing contests criteria for elimination. And I say this having had an entry one year get nixed during the first round because I accidentally indicated one of my stories was co-written when it was not.
Oh! And don't forget as well that the judges will only read through the first 2k, so there should only be an uptick in reads on those chapters.
On the off chance the parts are equal, did your story meet all criteria, or was it obvious from the info you submitted that your story did not?
For example, I know one writer got eliminated because they openly admitted in their summary that their story was 16+. Yet, they hadn't bothered to mark their story as Mature, which means they weren't rating their story based on Wattpad's guidelines where the ratings are effectively 13+ and 17+, which, yes, that's a criterion for getting eliminated.
So, here are a few questions to ask yourself.
- Did you properly rate your story? If yes, you were fine; if no, you'd have been eliminated for this.
- Did your story contain content that would make featuring your story on an ONC reading list a problem? If no, you were fine; if yes, you'd have been eliminated for this.
- Did you actually use a prompt as a main focus in your story in a way the prompt was not only still recognizable but still gave the ambassadors what they were asking for? If yes, you'd be fine. If not, you'd be eliminated for this.
And before you say, "huh, I answered all those questions, and I shouldn't have been eliminated," are you being honest with yourself? Sometimes, a writer isn't being honest with themselves, such as that one who admitted in the summary that their story wasn't properly rated. Other times a writer can not be aware of something, such as an American not being aware of having an Americacentric bias within their narrative, or a sexist bias, etcetera.
Jumping to the conclusion, "oh, the ambassadors must be biased because I see the same people every year," rather than stopping and examining one's work with a critical eye as to why they might have been eliminated is in itself a bias.
It's not fair to the ambassadors to do this. And while it is true there are those of us whose name does manage to make the ONC list every year, you have actively chosen to ignore the fact there are a ton of new faces on the list simply because you didn't make a list, which is highly unfair to those tons of new faces because you've just claimed there is no way they made a list unless the ambassadors were biased towards them.
Actually, throwing out this accusation isn't fair to the writers whose name does manage to make the ONC list every year because you're actively claiming the reason they do so is that the ambassadors are actively biased towards them rather than the more logical reason, that these writers are doing well because they're experienced writers, so they're going to fair better than less experienced writers.
Experience does help, but I say this, having participated in Wattpad contests since 2014. When I first started out, I was definitely inexperienced, and I didn't get results in contests until I got to be more experienced. Yet I wouldn't say when I first started, I was completely inexperienced, as I'd written fanfic for years prior to participating in contests.
For every contest I've participated in, there are always more entries deserving of winning than can win. When something did win that I wasn't expecting, it was 99.9% of the time because the work wasn't my cup of tea, not because it wasn't deserving of winning, but how can you claim there is a bias when you've not read every single one of the entries that passed the first round, and for some of the works you might have a bias simply because that work isn't your cup of tea.
And, I also don't think you're being fair to some of the younger and/or newbie writers who, yes, their writing isn't as strong as some of the ones who got nixed, but they're honestly trying their hardest, did follow a prompt and didn't have any triggering material during the first round. The fact their writing isn't strong doesn't mean they should get nixed during a round unless their score ends up falling below the minimum score needed to move on to the next round.
If they're letting these writers through, these wonderful younger and/or newbie writers whose writing is obviously not strong as some of the other writers let through, do you really think it's the ambassadors who have the bias, or is it someone else whose not stopping to think about why their story got nixed, just like I carefully thought about why one of my stories got nixed, and know it's not because the ambassadors are biased?
Which, for those complaining about those who have multiple entries not being fair and that being why they got nixed - stop. There are defintiely a few younger writers I'm rooting for (no, they're not on my reading list) simply because I want to see how far they get based on their current writing skills. They've only got a single story, and I, with multiple stories, didn't have all their stories get through the first round.
Stop, and please examine your own bias and stop claiming something isn't fair because you're purposefully looking for anything you can to discredit the judging process. The very fact those younger, newbie writers who hit all the criteria got through the first round despite not having the strongest writing skills means the entire process was quite fair. Please think about how these younger and/or newbie writers are going to feel if you claim the judging was unfair, that they didn't deserve to get through the first round when they did.
And given I saw one of these wonderful younger and/or newbie writers go back and improve what they'd written before judging for the first round started, there is merit to letting through some of the writers who aren't as strong in their writing during the first round, so isn't the ones who aren't being fair here the ones who are within the first twenty-four hours jumping to the conclusion that the judging was biased?
