Persuasive power of the post-it

Anyone sending things in to agents or competitions should consider the 2005 research by Randy Garner which found that people were more than twice as likely to respond to a survey if it had a hand-written post-it note on it.

This much exceeded the effect of a hand-written note on ordinary paper.  What is it about post-its?  Researchers found that not only did more surveys get returned, but they were more fully answered! 

And for the lazy, apparently even a blank post-it note has a slight beneficial effect.  Well, it's worth experimenting with.  Just don't use those cheap ones which fall off.

Garner, R. (2005). Post-It Note Persuasion: A Sticky Influence. Journal of Consumer Psychology. 15(3), 230-237.

Write words - 5 months in...

In August I joined Writewords, a site for creative writers to share and discuss their work, paying £20 (annual) for standard membership.  Like most people, I'm not keen on paying to join websites, but this seemed to offer something that I couldn't get elsewhere...

I had been on a weekend course at Cove Park working on my short stories, and had been advised that getting peer feedback was essential to progress.  I had made some unsuccessful attempts to find a real-world writing group - the only one near enough meets once a week on a Tuesday, at the same time that I have to pick up my kids from school.  I hoped that WW could be like a virtual writing group.

An incentive was the option of a free trial, allowing me to join one group (groups are organised by topic e.g. short story writing, and have a maximum of 30 member) and various other limitations. Although the trial lasts a month, I liked what I saw and upgraded after a couple of days, allowing unlimited groups, uploads of work etc.

I quickly became involved in some of the weekly challenges on the flash fiction groups - the winner of the previous week sets a challenge to the group, such as a theme or keywords, as well as the word limit.  The other members were positive and supportive, often posting very detailed technical feedback.  These groups are lively, and the flash has been a fun form to experiment with (it also fits well with internet submission opportunities).

There are of course some negatives of the site.  The navigation took me a while to get my head around, and a 'random read' button - taking you from any page to a randomly selected piece of work from the archives - often leads to a very old piece of work and/or an inactive user account.

Together with 4 or five others in my village, we are hopefully going to start a real, face-to-face writing group beginning next month.  I think I've seen enough to feel that it is well worth renewing my WW subscription all the same.

Writing competitions

There are so many interesting writing competitions out there, it can be hard to choose (see the NAWE ebulletin for examples).  Naturally, most of them want an entry fee, which from what I have seen, typically ranges from £4-£10.  Some give the offer of feedback.

When I recently met the poet Rab Wilson after a reading he had done, he was very encouraging about my writing attempts, and advised me to send my stuff off to competitions.  It was great of him to be so positive, though I suppose a part of me thought that it's all very well if you're the sort of person who would win the competitions!  If I enter these, will I just be throwing my money into a bottomless pit?

I guess at some point, the time comes to take the plunge and start going for some of these, especially if I'm submitting things that peers have already looked at and liked.