This is kind of funny, but I was going to email Prose with this idea I have. What would make Prose a bit better than it is - audio communication during private messages.

It’s one thing to write a story or poem and have people read them but communication via spoken word said and heard, at least in messages would be an added plus and an extremely good feature. Of course, it could/should come with an option to use this feature on both sides of the aisle. Opt in or Opt Out. After all, everything is about choices made.

But it allows Proser’s to put a voice to a member, one who writes and writes well - or not so well. After all, this is a community of writer’s who express what is deep down to their very core.

We all come from different backgrounds, different cultures, beliefs and so forth. Audio cimmunication would also give us a better sense of who and what the Proser is about. There are people from around the world here with stories and emotions to express. Another way to do this is through audio. It saves time in typing, speeds up the issues and can make for a more enjoyable outcome for both sides.

Another aspect of audio, there is a Portal called “Spoken Word”. Make that portal audio as well where only spoken poetry or stories are left for the “listener”to hear; although I don’t know how much bandwith would be used.

This now gives Prose two options to work with and hope to see this happen. I have looked into what is called “voice centric” social networking. The long and the short of this is you are allowed around 40-50 second voice recordings. One can say a lot in that amount of time.

The pandemic has changed the way we communicate with people and voice centric style communication is a key element. In many respects, it is no different than Skype except for no visual communication. But people communicate via audio practically every day. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are but a few places that uses this kind of technology.

So, yeah, let’s join the big boys and be part of the next generation to follow.

1) The option to selectively (checkbox preferably) export your writing into a word document (for printing or consolidation for anthology/contest submission).

2) The option to print books.

3) The option to tag writing and be able to search in your personal archives based on these tags.

4) Versions.

5) Give challenge host the option to restrict revision/editing of entries after submission.

I’m not sure if any of the following features exist on this site because I am still fairly new, but I have some ideas. The first thing I would like to see is a list of advisors. I would love for writers to be able to submit their work for critiquing by a list of established writers. These could either be published writers, winners of challenges posted by Prose, or perhaps English/Marketing majors or possibly graduate students (honestly anyone who would volunteer, you could afford to pay, or as part of challenge win would participate). I would love for their to be different categories such as specific editing (spelling, grammar, line structuring, etc.), overall editing (paragraph structuring, location of concepts/ideas, deletion of sections, etc.), creative editing which would give you ideas on how to come up with subjects, the general themes you want to write about, if you want to write series, etc., and then a marketer/publisher who can help market your book/stories. If you are getting volunteers or individuals with a specialization, you could always create a category just for them.

The second thing I would like to see is a cleaner transition between the site’s info/page and the writer’s info/page. I would like to see them separated more so that there is no confusion when you are clicking on items such as “Post” and “Challenge” because sometimes it does not distinguish very clearly between your posts and general posts or your challenges (both the challenges you created and the challenges you are engaged in) and the list of challenges offered. I would love for there to be a button next to “Prose” that says something to the effect of home page, maybe “Home” and a button next to the writer’s profile picture to the effect of profile page, maybe “Mine”. I would love for these buttons to be visible at all times (after the writer has created a profile) so you can easily switch back and forth.

The third thing is to add an extra tab under “Challenges” where it says “Trending” and “Newest” that would indicate challenges that are offering to pay money. Maybe call it “Payout” or something. Then you can have a subcategory indicating whether the challenge costs the participant money or not. It would also be nice to have a “Search” tab under that category for the participants to better browse a specific topic in a challenge or simply to rediscover a challenge they had previously seen (without scrolling through the whole list again). Another tab that I would like to see under “Challenges” is a tab that would separate the challenges by the time that they end, maybe labeling it “Ending Soon” or something and soon can be defined by x amount of days, perhaps 3-5 days.

The fourth thing I would like to see would be under the "My Posts" section. I think it would be helpful for writers participating in challenges if you added how much time is left on a challenge that the participant has entered next to the challenge. This would be especially helpful if the post is "unpublished" so that the participant can focus on the soonest deadlines first without having to go back to each challenge itself to get the information.

I would like to request that you do not use any of these ideas for premium members only. I would like to see these ideas (if they are to be used) benefit everyone who uses this site.

I think I have been playing with writing here a bit over a year maybe... and still have not learned how it works, what means what, ect....

I do think it would be neat if there was a way folks could volunteer to go into a pool of other and 2 random selected writers are connected to do a challenge. Would be a good way to meet other writers and see what happens.

It would also be really cool to have a monthly group chat of sorts, I never get to find new writers unless they are connected to something I write or challenges I respond to.

:)

I think that some way to save challenges for later would be great. Currently, when I find a challenge that I would like to start on, I find another couple I would like to try to complete. Unable to save them, I end up opening them each in different tabs. This doesn’t make a huge impact, but it might be handy.