In this post, we’ll be learning more about Max and Teona Bjork, the work they do in managing Writing Battle, and where this writing competition may be headed in the near future. Max Bjork is the Halifax-based creator of Writing Battle and runs it along with Teona Bjork who is a full-time mom and part-time Writing Battle administrator.
There were over 1200 stories in the recent Winter Flash Fiction Battle. What has been the most surprising thing about these tournaments so far?
Max: For me, the most surprising thing is how much people enjoy reading and judging the short stories. The idea of this contest is that we could make a writing challenge with feedback super cheap if each writer put in a bit of work and helped judge. It was a way to distribute the workload so that the entry fee didn’t have to cover the cost of dozens of judges. What was surprising was that this turned out to not be “work” at all. Instead, it is the best and most fun thing about the contest for the majority of people and it also doubles as a writing workshop. Do you know how to become a better writer? Read and judge ten short stories of varying quality and be forced to truly consider what you liked and why.
Teona: Umm… that people like us? Haha But seriously, people seem to like how Writing Battle runs. We are always giddy when people ask us for Battle Stats– like, we’re all word-nerds here but it’s so fun and surprising to see how into the stats our fellow nerds are! (you all rock, by the way!!!) The input from the community has been by far the most impressive thing I have seen. They have been patient while we iterate and optimize (which we continue to do) and they will run simulations to try and figure out how we can improve. It really is amazing.
Max & Teona, you are both hands-on with every aspect of Writing Battle, including monitoring peer feedback, providing updates on battle statistics, and responding to questions in the forum. This must make things extra busy for you while a tournament is in progress. What steps do you take to manage the business side of things while balancing home and family life?
T: So I think this is particularly where our partnership shines. Max and I have always held open and honest communication at the forefront of our relationship and we’re always checking in with one another to make sure things are still working/manageable for one another. Battle seasons definitely take center stage in our home and we agree to divide and conquer at those times. I will say, however, now that Writing Battle has a more defined and structured set-up (and Max is no longer programming on the fly), balance has been a lot easier to attain.
M: Honestly, I’m still trying to figure out a work/life balance. Luckily I have nearly 2 months in-between Battles to decompress. It’s fun, but it’s a lot of work!
Writing Battle stands out from a plethora of writing contests in that it has genre categories instead of an overall emphasis on “literary fiction.” How do you think this has contributed to its growing popularity and number of participants?
T: I think what people like is that not only are they participating in a challenge, but the whacky genres push them further from their comfort zones. In addition, though we provide a loose definition as to what one might expect from such a genre, people are given the artistic license to play with the genre since there isn’t an exact model or typical framework for a lot of the more out-there genres.
In the end, it is a prompt-based writing game. People like playing with the ideas they are dealt and may or may not choose to change their cards. There’s just as much risk in changing their cards as there is to keeping the original ones dealt. For some, the allure of the re-draw button just cannot be resisted.
If a story ranks high in the peer-judged Swiss-style duels, it will advance to the Final Showdown with a panel of industry judges. How do you go about selecting members of this judging panel? What criteria are these industry judges looking for in a piece that reaches this level?
T: Max started with cold-emailing people and was initially completely floored when he got responses back. This was also in the days when Writing Battle was a Screenwriting contest. Since then it has continued with emails, and we have quite a few repeat judges because they truly enjoy the stories that come out of our contest!
M: There is no rubric beyond “Which story do you believe is stronger?” It remains a pop-culture contest and if one resonates with the pro-judge more than the other then ultimately that’s what we’re after. Personally, I’ve always been skeptical of writing criteria or a rubric. I believe that people are just going to mold their true feelings to the scorecard anyway, ya know? Plus, with my computer science background, binary choices between A/B have always interested me. You’ve read these two stories – cool – Okay, now which one do you like better?
Newcomers to Writing Battle may be surprised to learn that it evolved from Screenwriting Battle. Can you comment on those early days and the decision to move toward short stories?
M: I love the craft of screenwriting. Really. I think I’ve read more scripts than any other format. Starting the Battles in Screenwriting was just because it held my interest more than other forms of writing. But the problem with peer-judging and screenwriting is that screenwriting is too technical. The peer-feedback would often sound too harsh, restrictive, and judgmental, which did not make for a pleasant community. We tried one short story contest and it was obvious that the Battles had a better home in prose.
One thing is certain: Writing Battle is NOT boring. You’ve got trading card prompts, a vibrant community of participants, and a videogame-esque trophy system. So far this has been open to adult participation. Will you be designing a Writing Battle for youth?
T: Honestly, that would be amazing. We do have a participant who encouraged a few of his creative writing students to join him and as far as I know, they are having a great time! What is tricky with this format is there are no guarantees for the types of written content within the stories and we do not have the resources to vet stories prior to assigning the duels. If we do design something for youth, it would have to be a somewhat locked format that the teachers could run/monitor.
M: Thank you so much! We’re talking about this a lot. But as Teona said, it requires a lot of careful consideration. I would be surprised if we don’t spawn a sister company for youth – sometime in the next couple years.
Aside from being a competition, Writing Battle’s structure resembles a year-long writing course. There’s a variety of story lengths with detailed writing prompts, ample opportunity to give and receive peer-derived feedback, and an active discussion forum. All at a mere fraction of the price of standard tuition for an online course. Do you see Writing Battle expanding in the direction of education?
M: Maybe! The directions that we could take this do seem endless. Firstly, I think we need to adapt the marketing because I agree with you–it absolutely resembles a year long writing course. Being surrounded by the sheer talent of our community is kind of inspiring. We probably need to include this in our marketing, but who knows… maybe we could partner with someone from our community and offer a course too. We’re definitely open to exploring this.
Rumor has it that this summer’s nanofiction battle may be changing. Are there any upcoming developments we should know about? What further improvements can we expect to see in the near future?
M: We ran a massive poll/questionnaire, and as it turns out, too many people wanted to see Nanofiction stick around. So we’re keeping it as-is (for this year anyway). For upcoming developments, this year we will have a whole host of quality of life improvements for the forums and the rest of the site. I want this to feel like a fairly smooth social-media-lite experience. But the big feature that will be coming is an unnamed feature (let’s call it Arena for now), where you can upload any short story and post it to a forum that’s similar to our Battle Debrief. This would be a place where you can get feedback on any of your short story works or perhaps further drafts of past Battle submissions (after the Battle is done of course). The cards you choose to represent your story, you will have to earn by competing in Battles or you could order the physical decks and that would come with a digital copy of all the cards. What’s also cool about Arena is–eventually–you will be able to create your own tournaments. Choosing your own Genres, prompts, and anything else. I imagine people creating specialty tournaments with 20 of their writing buddies during or in-between the quarterly Writing Battles. All included in the price of joining at least one of our Battles per year.
There’s a lot more coming too! I promise we’re just getting started 🙂
Check out Writing Battle’s website.
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Cover Image: Photo by Monica Silvestre on Pexels.com
Pauline Shen 