I admit this is more of a reader's question than a writer's, but I just saw "Dinner Guest", looked over to the right of my screen and saw that it's in the Horror subforum of SYW (a grand total of 99 words, go ahead...), and, well, it made me think of something.
In our Sunday Night Flash Fiction Challenges, all one knows about another's story is the prompt that the author made the story around. Last Sunday was "The Lie." There were violent deaths, explict or implied, in every story from last Sunday (and we didn't have a 'death pact' either!), but that's not always true for our Sunday Night stories in general. The genre, as well as the story itself, is a surprise when you start reading it. There's been fantasy, SF, and sweetsyruppy sentimental stories as well, and I've enjoyed reading them without knowing anything about it at the start, other than some limited fact such as "someone's gonna tell a lie." The prompt doesn't neccesarily even give a single hint to the story's content, such as my "Summer" and several others who did different takes on a prompt that could mean many things.
I went to Dinner Guest when I saw it was in Horror, but I think I would have preferred not to know anything about it but the title before reading it. I know the board doesn't allow for hiding the section of SYW a story is in, and I'm not (neccesarily) asking for that to be changed. I'm just wondering how others feel about knowing a story's genre (or any other possible hint about its content, such as the author's name) before reading it.
In our Sunday Night Flash Fiction Challenges, all one knows about another's story is the prompt that the author made the story around. Last Sunday was "The Lie." There were violent deaths, explict or implied, in every story from last Sunday (and we didn't have a 'death pact' either!), but that's not always true for our Sunday Night stories in general. The genre, as well as the story itself, is a surprise when you start reading it. There's been fantasy, SF, and sweet
I went to Dinner Guest when I saw it was in Horror, but I think I would have preferred not to know anything about it but the title before reading it. I know the board doesn't allow for hiding the section of SYW a story is in, and I'm not (neccesarily) asking for that to be changed. I'm just wondering how others feel about knowing a story's genre (or any other possible hint about its content, such as the author's name) before reading it.
