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Our group has been a little quiet in recent months and I know there's nothing that gets people talking like the creation of a new list for the following year. Just like last year, the creation process will begin on June 1 which, believe it or not, is less than a month away.

So this is the place to discuss the suggestions, the organization, the results, or anything else about the 2018 challenge. Also feel free to place suggestion ideas here as you think of them. Just to be sure to actually enter them in the suggestions threads once the process begins.

Ready, Set, Go!!

I can't believe it's already (almost) time to start creating next year's list!

Wow, I can't believe it's time already! I haven't even begun to think about what new prompts I would want.

I just thought to myself it was going to be time to start working on next year's list and then this pops up! I really think we should have the core set of prompts that automatically get it so we don't have to vote them in (like book published in 2018, etc). Are we doing that this year?

OMG this is going to be exciting!!!

I remember a few topics that created discussions last year:

Default topics
Some topics were so popular that some members suggested they were added "by default" to the list so other suggestions would have more chance during the polls. I remember there were 4 of them, but looking at this year's list I noted 5 of them and I'm too lazy to go back to the topic ;) Do you remember which were in the discussion?
- a previous suggestion that didn't make the list
- a category from another challenge
- a book from the GR Choice awards
- a book you meant to read in 2017
- published in 2018

I really like those prompts, so I would be in favor of them being by default on the list!

New vs used categories
Some members were more in favor of all new categories, while others suggested prompts that we already had in the past years or that were part of other challenges.

Anyone who participated in creating a challenge list knows that it is sometimes very difficult to be creative while not creating too difficult a prompt. Among our members are very different takes on the challenge, some want it to be hard and to be able to push them out of the comfort zone and others want prompts they can fill from their TBR, with a few added books for specific topics.

I'm therefore not really in favor of all new categories, but we could plan a few polls with all new categories to force us to come up with fun ones!

Defaults: I think four of those were on all of our lists. I do not recall "category from another challenge" as being so popular as should be default. I personally don't like it, but that's just me.

I think the fifth might have been "reader's choice" which is similar.

One idea I had was based on some of the games during our readathons. How about some categories that encompass multiple weeks/prompts? There could be a voting where we can suggest a prompt that involves, say, two to five books. For example, a trilogy/series, read the rainbow, read books from different continents, different decades, etc. What do you think?

You're maybe right and the category from the other challenge wasn't in the batch.

I like the multiple prompts-prompt!

I agree I think the reader's choice was the fifth one. I'm OK with having default topics. I have a hard time believing that those 4 popular topics will not end up on our next list:
- a book you meant to read in 2017
- a 2017 good reads choice award
- a book published in 2018
- reader's choice (a previous category is pretty close to reader's choice imo)

I also really like the idea of multiples prompts, especially the idea of a trilogy. It's something that is pretty easily fulfilled but can be made more challenging by individual members easily too.

I'm ok for the 4 default categories, we could have a yes/no poll for a more wider decision and to avoid infinite discussions on the subject.

I'd also like something over several weeks, like 3 books in a series (rather than trilogy, so you can continue a big series, start a new one, etc, without being limited to a trilogy).
The rainbow is nice but probably complicated for some colors when you use the library.
Each continent would be great too for me, even if I really liked how we had specific prompts this year, Scandinavia is a new favorite of mine (I don't think we should have specific country + 5 continents).

I'm looking forward to the new suggestions (no ideas for the moment on my side). I'll post a poll to see how motivate are people to jump in a new challenge in 2018.

I agree with Peter and the others about having at least the 4 default categories.

The multiple week idea is great too. I'd like to see it be something that doesn't require a series though. While I enjoy series, I know a lot of people don't. There were quite a few people upset about the prospect of doing a "next book in a series" prompt last year. We all have a week or two where we aren't really into the challenge but it would be tough if a group of people felt shut out for a month of challenges. Just my thoughts on it I guess.

I'm quite excited to see what we come up with for a 2018 list. It's going to be difficult to find new and interesting topics I think.

Zaz and Amy, those ae both interesting and valid concerns about the "multiples" prompt idea. On the one hand it makes sense to say the books should be part of a series as not all series are trilogies, but on the other some people don't want to start a series. I guess we will have to leave it up to the votes to decide.

Another option (although it may make things comolicated) would be to have a multiple choice type list for some of the topics...

for example: Three books from the same series OR Three books written by the same author.

This option may not be appropriate for the entire list but could be used selectively to help with more challenging or specific topics? It doesn't have to be used for just "multilles" topics either; I remember last year there was some debate on how specific vs generic people wanted the topics so it could be used to give varying degrees of challenge to more specific prompts. Another example would be A book published the year you were born OR A book published within 5 years of you birthday (before or after).

I actually find it kind of funny that everyone seems so into the "four default prompts" idea now. When it was brought up last year (and I was one of the people who brought it up frequently), it seemed that people weren't so into it. If I remember correctly, in the end the consensus was the challenge was still too new to really know which prompts were popular enough to be defaults. I'm all for the four topics above being default, since I'm sure they're a shoo-in to win their polls anyway.

The four topics that I had suggested were:
- A book published this year
- A book you meant to read last year but didn't
- A book from the GoodReads Choice Awards
- A previous suggestion that didn't make it

I agree with the comment above about "reading the rainbow" -- it's tough to control which edition of a book is available to you to make sure you have all the colours. Something from each continent is interesting...although Antarctica?

I like Peter's suggestion of a multiple choice option for certain topics. I don't necessarily think it will be necessary for all prompts, but it definitely introduces some great options for variety.

On the other hand, multiple books for one prompt can frustrate me sometimes when it comes to keeping track of numbers/checking off items. It's not very satisfying to be unable to check off a book after I finish it because I still have to read several others for the same prompt.

Peter, I like your suggestion of "3 books in a series" OR "3 books by the same author". Rachel, I think those would be 3 separate prompts so we would still have 52 of them, so you could check them off like always ;)

If reading the rainbow was in the list, I wouldn't fuss about the specific edition I would be reading, but as long as one edition is violet for example, it's alright.

I'm brainstorming ideas for multi-prompts not involving series:
- 3 books starting with a specific letter
- 3 books starting with letters following each other in the alphabet (eg. L-M-N)
- 3 books having increasing number in the title (eg.Slaughterhouse-Five, The Woman in Cabin 10, Around the World in Eighty Days)

I really like the idea of expanding our list to include multiple weeks that are connected. I think it allows for some diversity in our challenge. I've started to become a little concerned that I can't manage to fit other challenges along with this one. This would allow me to feel like I'm sneaking in some other challenges :)

Sophie wrote: "Peter, I like your suggestion of "3 books in a series" OR "3 books by the same author". Rachel, I think those would be 3 separate prompts so we would still have 52 of them, so you could check them ..."

Those are some interesting ideas! Same author is also good. So maybe one poll could be all ideas to span 3 or 4 weeks? I think that would be fun.

I like that idea Amy! So we would have to be very creative to find multiple weeks ideas.

Are we still going with 20 prompts per poll? I remember discussions about it being too much, but can't remember if we decided anything regarding this.

I like 20 prompts. I think more gets clunky and 10 just isn't enough. I'd be OK with 15, but I think fewer than that can be limiting.

Just so I'm understanding correctly, hypothetically say we decide on "a trilogy" as one of the topics. This would count as 3 weeks correct? So our topics would theoretically be:
Week 1 - book 1
Week 2 - book 2
Week 3 - book 3

Am I correct with that line of thinking?

Alternatively, we could come up with our list of 52 topics as individual prompts and then decide on 12 (one a month) linked prompts or multiples prompt that individual books can be used to fulfill. So we would have a total of 64 prompts, but the twelve "multiples" wouldn't be separate books, they would be checked off using the books from out regular list. Does that make sense?

Do you mean like a alternative challenge, like read the rainbow among the 52 books you read for the ATY list? That could work, but would add to the complexity of the tracking...

I think I would prefer for the trilogy to occupy 3 slots out of the 52, but that's just my opinion!

Peter wrote: "I like 20 prompts. I think more gets clunky and 10 just isn't enough. I'd be OK with 15, but I think fewer than that can be limiting.

Just so I'm understanding correctly, hypothetically say we dec..."

It does make sense, but I think it's important to keep that number...52..very firm. If people think it's more, they might shy away from the entire challenge before they realize that a few weeks actually count as two weekly challenges. People seem to see 52 and think, yup, that is do-able. Any more than that and I think some people panic. Just my two cents. Right now, I think having it as either as three weeks in a row, or the first week of three consecutive months possibly, would work. Oh I like the brainstorming!

I love the brainstorming too Amy! I love how we have the opportunity to shape the challenge how we want :D

We could do a 5 continent challenge for the weeks that end with a 0 (10 = Africa, 20 = America, 30 = Asia, 40 = Europe, 50 = Oceania).

Yeah I was just thinking out loud about having the multiples run concurrently with the regular challenge but as pointed out above, it definitely complicates things.

That said, I would prefer the majority of the challenge to be individual prompts and only have 1 or 2 multiple prompts. Say a trilogy and read 3 books by the same author as examples and the rest regular prompts. With those two as examples that's 6 weeks taken up with just two "multiples" prompts.

Just while I was typing this I thought of a couple interesting ideas that could be either multiples or individual prompts and just want to write them down so I don't forget when it comes time for the polls.

3 books of the same genre written at least 10 years apart (spanning 30 years at least). The idea would be to see how the genre has changed or stayed the same at different periods of time.


A book from each major writing perspective.
- first person (written from a single character's perspective using "I")
- third person (written from a single characters perspective using "he" and "she")
- Third person omniscient (third person but the reader is given information from all characters not just a pov character)

I'm on my phone so I can't edit, have to add a new comment.

But I really like Sophie's 5 continent idea!! You should definitely put that idea in the polls because it's pretty cool!

I really like your 30 years spanning a particular genre! You should also put it in the poll! ;)

I love Peter's suggestion above of the three different points of view. I also agree with his comment about limiting the "multiples" topics. I like that the challenge has 52 unique categories. In these kinds of challenges, there's always bound to be something we're not so keen on, so having 52 different topics allows a lot more variety.

I also agree that we should keep the list to 52 items. I know when I saw that PopSugar last year had "only" 40 items last year, I was a little disappointed that it was shorter. 52 seems manageable for most people, and I think a longer list would look overwhelming.

I agree we should keep it at 52. It's already a lot for the slow readers and it's a good number for the others because they still can read other books for other challenges/ free reads.

I'd be ok with 2 sets of grouped prompts if they are different, for exemple the 5 continents one + 3 books by the same author. More seems less interesting, but it depends the prompts. And yes, it needs to be a number per book in the final list, it's too complicated to manage otherwise.

I'd like a dedicated poll for the selection, with 1 winner (2 polls if we decide we want 2 categories).

I like most of the grouped prompts proposed so far :)

For the polls, 20 worked better than 30 and 15. We can have short and longer to add some variety like the previous years, but 20 should be the rule.

Rachel wrote: "I actually find it kind of funny that everyone seems so into the "four default prompts" idea now."

Only 5 people have commented on the idea so far, so it's a bit early to say that everybody seems into the idea.

I'm not a fan of the default prompts. I'm a little tired of those prompts, but I know it's likely that they'll end up being picked either way. I just don't think that they are that inspiring or challenging anymore and I find them a bit repetitive.

If you decide to make them default prompts or not doesn't make much difference in my opinion. They take up a spot and leaves a little less room for other ideas no matter what. Or actually it does make a difference... If they are in the poll like every other idea they might get voted out. It's a small might, but it's still possible.

I love the multiple prompts of three books by one author or three books in a series. I feel like with this challenge I started a couple of new series with the first book and can't sneak the next ones in unless I don't finish my challenge.

I'd also like to see a book written between 1850-1900 a book written 1900-1925 a book written 1925-1950? I'm not sure what the span of years would be but that would interest me.

I do like the multiple points of view choice and the continents would push me to read out of my comfort zone most likely.

Since we usually have some time to spare with the polls, I could have a short poll for the first one with the default prompts. The answers would just be:

- A book published this year
- A book you meant to read last year but didn't
- A book from the GoodReads Choice Awards
- A previous suggestion that didn't make it
- All 4 prompts
- I'd rather include them in the regular polls

I love all the ideas for the multiple week prompts so far. I would be good with just one multi-week challenge but 2 would work as long as it was under 6 weeks total? And if the two prompts were very different from each other of course.

What about three book to movie adaptations? Maybe three books/movies from three different decades if you wanted to make it more interesting?

My brain is spinning with all the multi-week possibilities!

Laura wrote: "Since we usually have some time to spare with the polls, I could have a short poll for the first one with the default prompts. The answers would just be:

- A book published this year
- A book you ..."

I think that a poll is a good idea. If nothing else, if there is argument about it later the mods can say, well there was a poll and this is what the members decided. End of discussion. :-)

Laura > ok for me :)

Amy > yes, under 6 weeks if we have 2 sets of 3, or 3 for one + 5 for the other if we pick the continents, etc. Many possibilities here.
If we use a book/movie, I think "book adapted on screen" would be wider (there are currently many adaptations for movies and tv shows, so including both would be nice).

Joan > I was the same these past 2 years with series. This year my goal is to read as many sequels as I can so I put several in my plan.

I'm also not a fan of the default prompts, mostly because I find two of them (Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ, and published this year) pretty limiting, and also, I guess I'm just a bit bored by them.

I'm not sure what I think about the themed/linked prompts, but I definitely wouldn't be keen on three books in the same series.

I'm interested to watch the list take shape again. I'm not sure if it's reading challenges in general, but I'm not getting the same excitement this year, or the same sense of challenge. I know we can make the prompts as easy or difficult to fill as we like, but I've found myself hunting for more specific/random/wacky challenges where I really need to go hunting for a book to fill a prompt. I haven't really needed to do that much this year as the prompts are (mostly) so generic. I know there's been a lot of discussion on it in the past, and that it does suit the wider group, and to be honest, I can't remember what I thought back then, but I'm finding myself wanting more.

Jody wrote: "I'm not sure if it's reading challenges in general, but I'm not getting the same excitement this year, or the same sense of challenge. I know we can make the prompts as easy or difficult to fill as we like, but I've found myself hunting for more specific/random/wacky challenges where I really need to go hunting for a book to fill a prompt. I haven't really needed to do that much this year as the prompts are (mostly) so generic...."

I would agree with that Jody. I easily filled almost every challenge this year just using books on my kindle and my home bookshelves and that wasn't forcing any books into any challenges. Some new twists like the linked prompts will hopefully liven things up for 2018. Fingers crossed!

Laura wrote: "Since we usually have some time to spare with the polls, I could have a short poll for the first one with the default prompts. The answers would just be:

- A book published this year
- A book you ..."

I like the idea of having a poll for default prompts. I also like the 3 books in a series/by the same author idea.
The continents would be challenging, especially finding anything interesting from Oceania.

A few notes to (hopefully) add to the discussion.

- The 2015 reading challenge had a series of linked prompts. (First book in a series, second book, third book -> I reread the Thrawn Trilogy).

The reason to auto-include the Big 4 Popular topics isn't because they are so awesome that they just have to stay. It's because they always win their polls making any solid topic put up against them somewhat wasted. That happened last year when someone threw out one of the Big 4 as the 20th suggestion.

Starting planning for next year is always fun! I somehow felt farther along with my current challenge, last year, when discussions began than I do this year.

I remember the trilogy prompt in the 2015 challenge. I hated it! Three books in a series is less limiting, thankfully, as most trilogies seem to be YA, Fantasy, or both - at least that's what I found when I was looking for one. At least in longer series, there's more variety.

^plus its a bit easier to bet on liking books 4-6 of a series as compared to books 1-3. My biggest fear would be reading book 1, hating it. Moving it to a new prompt. Then reading a new book 1 (rinse and repeat).

I like a prompt with 3 books by the same author/3 books in a series. We could even include 3 books in the same genre or 3 books with the same theme.

I also like the continents challenge. That could even be made into choosing just 3 out of the 7 continents then it would only take three of the weeks.

On the Big 4 Popular topics, I like the idea of Laura's poll (message 28 above).

Oceania has Australia in it and as far as I know, there's a lot of choice with this country (I think most people are reading an Australian book for the southern hemisphere this year). Europe, Asia and America should be fine too with many choices. Africa is probably more complicated. I think we should be evil with America and use only "South America" because my reads are flooded by US authors.

Jody > NOOOOOO, you're team no plan, you can't complain that you don't have to hunt books for the challenge, you just can't :p

J > good point for the "maybe I won't like the 1st". Same author seems nicer for people as if you pick an author you like, you'll probably enjoy the book. It's also possible to use standalones for robot authors, so it'll please people who don't want to read series.

One thing I did want to suggest, as a change in how we make our list. Is to require suggested topics to be seconded.

A lot of good topics get suggested. But once in a while I see some that are just taking up space. Cut the number of suggestions in a poll to 16, with 4 making the cut and require the suggestions to get seconded and we'll have much better results, imo.

J that's a great idea. Use the same method we use to choose our book of the month. That way the topics that go to the vote have at least someone other than the person who submitted it who is interested in it. Requiring someone to "second" a topic will probably slow the submission process down a little making it easier for people in different time zones to get their idea in. It may mean a little more work for the mods in charge of setting g up the polls because someone will have to track which suggestions get seconded. I would be OK with reducing the number of topics to 16 as well. My reasoning for keeping the vote at 20 was to compensate for the suggestions that are vague, or dont make sense so end up taking up space. With this process a lot of those will just naturally be weeded out.

J wrote: "One thing I did want to suggest, as a change in how we make our list. Is to require suggested topics to be seconded.

A lot of good topics get suggested. But once in a while I see some that are ju..."
I like that. It would also give more time to chime in. I remember wanting to suggest something last year but kept missing the time the thread was put up and poof, it was full.

I think seconding suggestions is a very good idea!

Jody, you can use the reject challenge to fulfill your need to hunt for books! ;)

I like the 2nding idea, it seems to work for the BotM so we could try it. I suppose it would be disappointing for people submitting suggestions that aren't on the popular side but it'll probably help to have a more interesting list. Anyway, we can try it and if it doesn't work, we can come back to the usual. Same for the number of suggestions, I suppose near the end we'll have more difficulties to find prompts new enough to be seconded.
It doesn't seem much more work for the mods, if that is a concern, we'll just have to be careful to not skip a seconded ;)

Would you like 1-2 resubmission topics as last year (one at 6 with the suggestions from 1-5 and one at the end with 7-12)? I quite enjoyed this 2nd chance :)

I'm not too worried about cool topic not being seconded as a few of us like wacky themes ;)

I liked the resubmission topics too!

But I'd prefer only 1 multi-prompt-prompt ;)

I personally am not a huge fan of resubmission polls but then that may be because I often vote along with the majority. I also tend to look at the results and see if there were some close calls. In those instances, I think a resubmission poll is beneficial. But then there are many polls where there's a pretty clear top 4.

My main concern with resubmissions is that there are just some topics that have almost no interest, judging by the results, so then it's a little disheartening when I see them back in another poll. But that may be addressed with the "seconding" system, which sounds like a great idea !

Or we could forget about resubmission polls and allow anyone to resubmit any suggestion anytime, as long as it seconded...

I remembered a suggestion I made last year that could work for the multi-week prompts: books that make you think of the 4 elements (earth, wind, water and fire), either in the title, the cover, the story, etc.

J, so true. I think I swapped out my trilogy three times, and still didn't end up enjoying my final choice.

I like the idea of seconding too. I don't like the resubmission only polls.

Zaz, I know, but I don't hunk I'm missing out on the challenging aspect a little bit. It's been too easy to fit my books in so far!

I think with the seconding idea there won't be as much need for resubmissions. I wouldnt mind seeing those gone. I think not being able to resubmit the same ideas over and over again, it forces people to come up with different topics, or at least to creatively reword their submissions.

For multi-prompts, Zaz, you mentioned 6 weeks if it were two 3 week submissions or 8 weeks if we did a 3 and a 5. I really really wouldn't like 8 weeks of related books. Three or six would be about my personal limit. 2 full months of it is just too much. If continents gets picked, then it should be JUST that one, no other multi week challenges. So one continent challenge or two three week, unrelated challenges. I could deal with that.