A handful of improvements for your writing pleasure.

Improvement: Center Alignment

The center alignment icon in the writing editor toolbar now works as intended. You can center paragraphs as you see fit.

Improvement: Tabs

Tabs will now insert four spaces when used while using the writing editor, rather than unfocusing the editing area.

Improvement: Formatting

The formatting icons on the formatting toolbar in the writing editor now highlight to indicate current bold, italic, underline, and centering status. Also, clicking the buttons will no longer deselect your selected text.

Bug Fix: Letter Spacing

Some of you pointed out that multiple consecutive spaces would not properly display after publishing. That’s been fixed. If you don’t believe me here’s proof.

Bug Fix: Editing

Fixed a bug preventing users from saving edits on some posts.

Bug Fix: Account Settings

Fixed a bug that prevented users from updating their profile images, usernames, etc.

Happy November Writers and Readers;

Fall is a time of change, a time of ponderance, preparation, and preservation. And with the final month of fall comes our first $100 Challenge of the Month, wherein we explore the bright colors and darkening skies of autumn. Not only will the winner receive the $100 purse, we’ll also be sharing all outstanding submissions with our publishing partners and contacts. When you’re ready to get started, you’ll find the prompt here: https://theprose.com/challenge/7775. Best of luck!

With the arrival of our monthly challenge, we thought we’d shed a little light on how we’ll be judging your entries (and how we’ve been judging your entries in the Challenge of the Week). In particular we look for: creativity, fire, memorability, coherence, proper grammar, and linguistic mastery. Let’s take a closer look.

The First Paragraph

We read a lot of your writing, and usually don’t have the time to give every word and sentence the attention they deserve. As such, we will commonly eliminate entries immediately if the first couple of paragraphs are rife with spelling or grammatical errors, don’t read clearly, or don’t intrigue. Our advice - make your first paragraph your best paragraph. Make it captivating and irresistable. Make it shine. More advice on how to do so below.

Creativity

Written creativity can take many forms, and pervades every category along which we judge. It could take the form of compelling characters, exotic settings, unusual word choice, unique story arcs, and everything in-between. We want to think “wow, I would never have expected/conceived of/realized that.”

Fire

Fire is passion. We want to see your love for the craft of composition shine through. Whether a controlled burn, or a raging blaze, we want to see your dedication to the story, the characters, the poetry, and the craft. Some of the best writing reads as though the author agonized over every syllable.

Memorability

This is related to creativity, but somewhat different. It hinges a bit more specifically on the author’s ability to clearly convey that creativity. As we’re reading challenge entries, we keep a list of the pieces that catch our eye. When we’re done, we go back over that list of top contenders and choose the winner(s). More often than not, we’ll choose the stories we remember most vividly. In addition to compelling characters and themes, little details can go a long way towards making a piece more memorable. A perfectly crafted sentence. A witty title. A surprising interaction.

Coherence

Your writing should be lucid and coherent. If it’s hard to follow the plot, be it theater or thesis, it’ll be difficult to win. Avoid rambling, over-description, and muddled thoughts. Read your work back to yourself as though you hadn’t written it. Ask yourself, “what am I trying to communicate? Did I do so clearly? Is any of this hard to follow?” If we find ourselves lost or unsure of what’s going on anymore, we usually move along.

Spelling & Grammar

Do not underestimate the importance of proper spelling and grammar. Here at Prose, we respect, if not revere, the King’s English. While we forgive the rogue missing letter or misplaced comma (it happens to the best of us), repeated offenses and gross negligence are to be avoided at all costs. You are of course free to make stylistic choices like omitting capitalization; but unless it’s in the service of some artistic vision it’ll generally be frowned upon.

Linguistic Mastery

This is the x-factor, and the thing that sets great writing apart from good writing. This is proper useage of metaphor, descriptive language, imagery, word choice, alliteration, sentence/paragraph composition, overall flow, finesse, nuance, restraint, and everything in-between. For examples of “linguistic mastery,” please read some of the winning entries from our Challenge of the Week. The winners typically demonstrate a high degree of mastery in their work. To further illustrate what we mean, consider the following two sentences:

“The crows’ calls blared through the quiet like a siren, a dreadful cacophony that rose and fell like the tide, under the chilling, pale light of the full moon.”

“The shrieking of the crows sliced the silence, an unholy symphony beneath a cold, ghostly moon.”

Both are more interesting than “The crows were cawing loudly in the moonlight.” But the first exhibits a sort of scattershot approach, calls upon multiple disjointed metaphors, and betrays a lack of restraint. The second, by contrast, by surgical use of words like “sliced,” “unholy,” and “ghostly,” evokes a certain eeriness. It feels more intentional, and reads more clearly.

These are just a few of the things we look for, and we urge you not to think of them as some sort of “checklist” or “rubric.” Hopefully this has been informative, and will be of aid to you as your craft your entries.

Happy writes,

Prose.

Greetings Fellow Writers and Readers;

We’re excited to announce a couple new features that we’ve just released as of moments ago, along with some exciting things coming soon. But first, some methodical musings on money and the state of web-based businesses.

Internet businesses, like all other businesses, require capital to run. There are server expenses, engineering expenses, legal expenses, marketing expenses, and many other expenses, too expansive to enumerate. Companies like Facebook and Twitter, which claim to be “forever free,” are not. While users may not have to pay for access to their services, somebody does have to pay the bills. In the case of Facebook, it is the advertisers who assume that responsibility. As such, the end users of Facebook are not its customers, the advertisers are. So rather than selling a service to users, Facebook sells its users’ data to advertisers. That business model has always seemed a bit disingenuous to us. While there is nobility in offering a service at no cash cost, it’s inaccurate to claim that it’s “free.” With that in mind, we decided early on to take a two-pronged approach with Prose, seeking the best of both worlds. For those of you who don’t want to pay for access to Prose, you don’t have to. Advertisers cover that cost for you. But for those of you can afford $6/month, who don’t want to see advertisements, we offer Prose Gold.

In our ideal world, all of you would subscribe to Gold. That would allow us to focus all of our effort on doing what we really care about doing - creating the best possible site for social writing and reading - rather than splitting our resources between building what you need and what advertisers need.

One criticism we’ve seen from time to time is that we only care about our Gold subscribers, or that we only care about making more money. This could not be farther from the truth. We care about words and stories, writers and readers, fiction and non-fiction, poetry and Prose.

With that in mind, our latest set of features is designed to add a bit more value to our Gold subscription service, both to sweeten the deal for existing subscribers and perhaps encourage a few more of you to consider subscribing.

New Feature: Fonts

We’ve added the option to change the font of your posts, and change your default “reading font.” When publishing a new post, Gold subscribers will see an option to select a font. This font will not display in feeds, but will display when the full post is opened. We’ve also added a new setting on the account settings (https://theprose.com/settings) page called “reading font.” This will change the default font of all posts to a font of your choosing. Give it a try, let us know what you think! If you have any favorite fonts you’d like to see added, please let us know in the comments below.

New Feature: Platinum

Platinum is a new tier of subscription, intended for our most enthusiastic Prose fans. It offers little more than Gold, other than a badge on your profile, but goes a long ways towards supporting the development and growth of Prose. If you’re currently subscribed to Gold and would like to upgrade, you can do so at https://theprose.com/settings/subscription.

Coming Soon: Dark Theme

We’re currently working on a new “Dark Theme” that will switch all the bright whites on Prose to a darker palette more suitable for nighttime reading. You may have seen similar features on YouTube or the mot recent update to macOS. This feature will be exclusive to Gold and Platinum subscribers.

Coming Soon: Center Justification

We used to allow you to center-justify content you wrote. We removed this during a big site overhaul and just haven’t had time to reinstate the feature. Rest assured, it’ll be back soon.

Coming Soon: Challenge Improvements

We want to drastically improve our challenge system by offering better ways to sort and find challenges, along with enhanced visibility for challenges with attached prizes. We also want to allow challenges with multiple entries.

Coming Soon: Challenge of the Month

November will mark the return of our “Challenge of the Month.” We’ll be offering $100 prizes each month for our favorite entry. We’ll also be submitting all outstanding entries to our publishing partners (we are talking to some very big players).

Improvement: Publishing Options

We’ve simplified the publishing options a bit, improving the UI and removing the distinction between “gold status” and “pricing strategy,” which we thought were a bit redundant.

Improvement: Author Browsing

We’ve added a couple new ways to browse authors at https://theprose.com/explore/people. The "Just Joined" category will display the newest folks to register on Prose. The "Need Followers" category will display people who've been writing a lot, but could use a few more followers. Consider giving them a look!

Bug Fix: Books

We found a bug that prevented new books from being created. That’s been fixed.

Feedback and Suggestions

We recognize it’s been a bit difficult or inconsistent for you to supply us with your feedback. Prose is for you, and we’re making it a priority to make sure we hear and reply to all of your feedback and suggestions. With that in mind, the best way to reach us is to email us at info@theprose.com. You can also publish a post with your feedback if you wish, but make sure to tag @A, @Z, and @Prose in the comments after you do so we don’t miss it. If you think it would be helpful, we can also create a dedicated feedback form where you can submit ideas. If you have any quick suggestions, please feel free to leave them in the comments section on this post.

That’s it for now folks. We hope this sheds some light on what we’ve been working on and where we’re headed. Please let us know what you think!

Prose.

Note: I will be returning to posting shortly. I am not going to delete this post as I want all members to have the opportunity to read this if they wish and to feel free to discuss any concerns that might arise in the future with me or the Prose administration directly.

     I thank all of you for your incredible support and interest, not just in my own writing, but in the writing of all Prosers in the community. It remains a joy to share in the journey that is writing with all of you, and I look forward to reading more and more of your work.

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It is with great sadness that I am informing all of you dear Prosers that I will not be writing anything more on this site in the foreseeable future.

     I read through the recent conversations about various aspects of the administration of Prose and the results of the Simon and Schuster challenge, and I have been thinking about the comments made by various Prosers, as well as the earlier posts about said challenge that have long since been deleted from the site. I have also seen a number of comments on various posts while I was reading new works recently that I found very concerning. Many things were said that, to me, are indicative of a very serious change in the atmosphere in this community that I cannot support, even indirectly, and that also makes me very concerned for my fellow Prosers and the future of the community.

     I usually refrain from involving myself in conflicts among community members and, up to this point, I have not participated in any of the discussions that have taken place concerning the running of the site and the challenges. I feel that everyone is entitled to their own opinion and, if any individual feels it is appropriate to voice their opinion in public, then that is also their choice. What has led me to say my own piece about these issues now is that Prose no longer feels like the welcoming, open, inclusive community that it was when I joined a little over a year ago. Instead, it feels increasingly hostile and petty with some members attempting to construct a social hierarchy where the thoughts and opinions of certain writers are taken as more important and worthy of note than those of others.

     The Simon and Schuster challenge is a prime example of these changes within the community. I was very disturbed to read some of the comments made upon the announcement of the winners. Some Prosers congratulated some of the winners while implying or openly stating that the others were less worthy, or not worthy at all, of winning. There were also comments made suggesting that certain Prosers were less entitled to win because they are not as active on the site as others, are new members, or because they did not receive as many “likes” as others. These statements are mean-spirited, unnecessary, and suggest that time spent on Prose and indications of popularity within the community are valid reasons for winning a contest. They also imply that members who do not post regularly, who joined the site recently, or who do not interact with a chosen circle of Prosers are not real members of the community. Regardless of whether or not anyone thought there were irregularities with the contest judging or rules, it was not fair to denigrate the challenge winners because the contest did not turn out the way certain individuals wanted. The winners had nothing to do with the judging and for some Prosers to diminish their work and achievement because of perceived slights or issues with the judging is an attitude that does not support the creative, community-minded spirit that is supposed to be part of the purpose of the site. Any issues with the contest could have been directed at Prose, Simon and Schuster, and the judges without demeaning the winners, regardless of whether or not any members of the Prose community would have chosen those entries as the winners or how much they felt their own work should have been chosen.

     The fact that so many people were openly bitter about the contest results is, in and of itself, a sign of growing jealousy, hostility, and a general lack of sensitivity within the community. Any contest in a creative field will necessarily be judged subjectively and according to the tastes and perceptions of the judge or judges. I personally have extensive experience participating in competitions in both writing and music performance, and I can say from my own experience that the Simon and Schuster contest was not unusual. Entering competitions in the creative arts is a choice, and anyone who chooses to enter such a competition must accept the rules and procedures of the contest, and any subsequent rulings. I have won some competitions in my life and lost others, and some certainly appeared to be more “fair” than others, but complaining openly about the results of a contest after winners were announced is something I have never done. Interestingly, my fellow musicians and writer friends have also never openly questioned the results of a contest, which leads me to the realization that this is a change, and a negative one at that, in the attitudes of those who now consider themselves to be professionals or semi-professionals in creative fields.

     None of this is to say that anyone is not entitled to their feelings. It is perfectly natural to feel upset, disappointed, or even angry when the results of a competition do not go one’s way, and it is absolutely the right of every individual to feel this way. But it is completely unnecessary to make nasty, hostile, or demeaning comments in a public forum. What is ironic about the discussions that took place upon the conclusion of the Simon and Schuster challenge is that many of those who were the angriest and the most hostile toward the winners are the same ones who openly defended the contest, Prose, and the judgment of the administrators when some of the same questions as to the legitimacy of the contest arose prior to its closing. The impression this gives is that those people assumed they would win, or that they were hoping that praising and defending Prose and the administrators might be a way to curry favor with the judges. Similarly, many of those people attacked other Prosers who had the courage to ask questions about the contest rules and judging while it was still open. This amounts to bullying and gives a very negative impression of the community, one that suggests that conformity is valued above free expression and that the opinions of all members are not equally valid. To me, this goes against the ethics that Prose and its members profess to stand for, and such behavior is not representative of the kind of attitudes that are appropriate for the site.

     Another issue that concerns me greatly is the implication that arose in some of the conversations of an “inner circle” of writers in the Prose community who should, in various ways, be deferred to in matters of site administration and community activities. This defeats the purpose of a creative writing forum. If Prose becomes a site where certain members are viewed as elite in some way simply because they are the most aggressive or vocal, or because they post more than other members, it will very quickly become a place where individuals are excluded simply because they are unable or unwilling to follow the ideas of those chosen few who position themselves as de facto leaders within the community. There is already some indication that this is happening. Mass tagging on posts is an exclusionary practice that gives the impression that the opinions of certain Prosers are more valid than others. It also implies that if Prosers do not leave a public indication that they have read a given work, either through a “like” or by leaving a comment, then they will not be included among the Prose inner circle. Even in the discussions of the Simon and Schuster results, Prosers were tagging each other, which adds to the impression that only certain members had a right to raise concerns about the issues being discussed and that some members are inherently more qualified to comment on those issues than others.

     A related issue that concerns me greatly is the one of feedback. There has been a lot of discussion of ways to give and receive feedback, what level of feedback is appropriate, and the importance of getting feedback. This is a very important issue and, in my opinion, there is only one answer. It is not appropriate to give feedback. The one exception is when one individual expressly asks another for feedback on a specific post. Even then, it should only be given by the person who was asked and only on the post in question. The reason for this is very simple. Prose is an online community and there is no way to be certain who anyone is talking to at any given time. It is presumptuous, egotistical, and potentially offensive to give unsolicited feedback as it assumes an unequal relationship where the person giving the comments is inherently qualified to make professional judgments about the person to whom the comments are directed. Regardless of what professional qualifications or experience are possessed by any individual on the site, it is inappropriate to make such assumptions and to suggest that everyone should automatically be receptive to feedback. These assumptions additionally further the exclusionary atmosphere that is developing and could make some members feel reluctant to post freely out of fear or embarrassment. Further, Prose is a site for creative writing. Creative writing can only be judged subjectively and everyone should have the right to write what they please, in the way they please, and accept that some readers will enjoy their writing and continue to read their work and others will not be interested and move on to a different writer. In other words, Prosers should simply express themselves creatively and, in turn, find readers who enjoy their personal style and ideas and who will follow them in order to read more, without fear of public shame and with no risk that they will be excluded for failing to go along with the majority.

     When I joined Prose, I was welcomed warmly by the community. I felt free to share my writing and to read the writing of other members. Sometimes I “liked” posts, sometimes I left comments, and sometimes others did the same for me. I felt like members were sharing their work and the work of others, and that there was a sense of camaraderie among Prosers, who were also sharing in the experience of writing. Now, I see cliques forming who tag each other on their posts and the posts of others, and who start conversations and invite each other to join in, while ignoring or dismissing the comments of those outside of their groups. I see harsh, rude comments that range from passive aggressive to openly hostile posted for no reason on some posts. And I see increasing bitterness and ill will toward members who show any kind of initiative or achievement that is seen as going against the self-appointed leaders of the Prose community, as well as an increasing lack of acceptance of the work and ideas of new members.

     For these reasons, I will not be posting any more of my writing on the site as I do not wish to participate in a forum where attitudes of hostility, divisiveness, and elitism are apparent, nor do I feel comfortable in an environment where members are treated unfairly for non-conformity or where problems with the administration are taken out on fellow members. I will not be leaving Prose, however, as I genuinely believe in the community and in the potential for the site to return to the warm, supportive forum for reading and writing that it was when I joined. If such a time comes when the community gets past the petty rivalries and nasty, ungracious behaviors that do not befit professionals in any field, I will gladly return to posting. Until then, I will be around, so feel free to contact me if you wish. Please know also that I have a challenge with prizes that is still open and I will absolutely be judging the entries and awarding those prizes upon its conclusion.

     Thank you all for reading this and to those of you who have been, and still are, wonderful and genuine supporters of the writers on this site, I thank you as well.

     Your friend,

     Onyx City

When she woke, she was lying on a cool, smooth cement floor. Her head was pounding and she felt dizzy as she sat up to survey her surroundings.

There was a small bed against the wall with its coverings disheveled and draping. Had she been on that bed?

Looking at herself, she could feel the soft nightgown against her skin. It had a lavender floral pattern, the kind her mother used to wear. She smoothed her hair back with both hands, and wiped saliva off her cheek.

The room was stark and plain. There were no pictures, and the walls and floor were the same color. She took a deep breath and blinked her eyes hard.

A piercing scream made her jump and drew her eyes immediately to a tiny window in the door she hadn't noticed until then. Clumsily she stood and tiptoed like a child until a light switched on, sending a bright beam through the opening.

Heavy footsteps of one and then perhaps three or four people could be heard outside the door.

Daring to squint through the light, she saw three nurses hovering over a frantic young woman. They lifted her, and took her away.

A tiny window,

A breeze wafting in,

The landscape green and luscious,

The trees blooming with buds,

Or maybe,

A tiny window,

A minuscule amount of time,

In which to,

Accomplish and achieve,

Escape and unshackle,

Live and love,

Or maybe,

A tiny window,

Shedding light,

On that one ray,

Filled with hope,

Or maybe,

A tiny window,

Life,

Less than 100 years,

Less than one century,

How much will you do?

In that tiny, tiny window,

With that tiny, tiny window

There was another.

I've heard of her. 

She walks with a limp. Stray eyes would slip and forget at first glance.

But I see straight through her.

Shes an unknown.

She's an Angel.

Not in the strictest sense of the word.

But an angel of The Wood.

I've watched her mend a burnt gash in bark, breathe life into a drooping toadstool. 

Call on the earth and grow a dozen black roses in the dead of December.

Just because she could.

I've seen her smile the way people do when they think they're alone.

Except I was watching and she could only assume paranoia at my presence. 

Tick tick tick went her intuition but she tamped it with a shaky smile.

She'll tack it as waylaid anxiety. 

Why does she ignore a dying tree?

All I asked was for her to turn around.

But she is too young to see.