The Official Author's Hangout Halloween Contest Support Thread

[MSTarot]

Well the writing is finished, now the editing begins.

Should you're own story be spooking you? I'll have to take it as a good sign I guess.

I don't know how I will do for votes on this one. If it got any darker I would need a flashlight to read it by. The few others I have done like that haven't gotten good scores, but then this is Halloween. Dark is in season this time of year.

M.S.Tarot

 

[topace]

Would a story that involves Samhain be eligible for this contest?

 

[MatthewVett]

Would a story that involves Samhain be eligible for this contest?

Yes, but remember that readers votes' can be affected by whether *they* think it should be eligible for this contest.

 

[damppanties]

Would a story that involves Samhain be eligible for this contest?

Yep, mine was, about 5 years ago. Didn't do too badly.

 

[Cruel2BKind]

Getting excited

 

[MatthewVett]

Inspiration struck last night. I'm having way too much fun just writing the introduction to this. I'm kind of a nerd.

Out of curiosity, should a humorous how-to masquerading as a serious how-to go in How To or Humor? I'm guessing Humor myself, but I wanted to double-check.

 

[NymphWriter]

Ready to try

I kicked myself for not entering Summer Lovin' with a story I posted so I've decided to try Halloween and see how I do there. I'm hoping to do well so that I'd be willing to try again later.

 

[MatthewVett]

I kicked myself for not entering Summer Lovin' with a story I posted so I've decided to try Halloween and see how I do there. I'm hoping to do well so that I'd be willing to try again later.

Good luck, Nymph! And one of the good things about contests is that even if you don't place, you still win just from the increase in readers and feedback you get.

 

[beatrice_dreams]

Category question...

So how far into the paranormal do you have to go before you should be posting in sci-fi/fantasy?

I have a little story idea I would like to put in Romance, and there are some slightly magical/mystical elements. No ghosts. Would that still be okay for Romance do you think?

(remembering PennLady's Summer entry with very faint hints at magic with Calypso...)

 

[sethp]

I'm in!

I"m so in this year! I love this contest! I need a good one. I love writing Halloween and Christmas stories the best!

I may do another Costume switch story. I have to think....hmmmmm

 

[PennLady]

So how far into the paranormal do you have to go before you should be posting in sci-fi/fantasy?

I have a little story idea I would like to put in Romance, and there are some slightly magical/mystical elements. No ghosts. Would that still be okay for Romance do you think?

(remembering PennLady's Summer entry with very faint hints at magic with Calypso...)

I think you have a lot of latitude in the romance category with stuff like that. I don't know how to tell you where the line is, though.

My first story, "Make a Wish," involves a genie. Another (not here anymore) called "Ghosts of the Forum," involved ghosts (obviously). I've done that "hinting" thing in three stories that I can think of, "King's Bay," "Unexpected Gifts," and "The Relationship Business." All of those are under romance, because I didn't think the fantasy element was strong enough to warrant being in the sf/f category.

To me -- I think -- because I just played with the rules of the "real" world, I counted them as romance. If I had made up new worlds with new rules, or used conventional magic things like wizards and such, I would have put it under fantasy. This is one of those times when the categories can be tricky.

 

[beatrice_dreams]

To me -- I think -- because I just played with the rules of the "real" world, I counted them as romance. If I had made up new worlds with new rules, or used conventional magic things like wizards and such, I would have put it under fantasy. This is one of those times when the categories can be tricky.

This makes a lot of sense - thanks PennLady! There also seem to be a number of popular love stories which have some strange element to them which I would want to classify as Romance - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Time Traveler's Wife, etc. I mean, if we're talking the Outlander Books by Diana Gabaldon it's all full of time travel, right?

Okay, I feel reassured...will maintain my Romantic direction

 

[PennLady]

This makes a lot of sense - thanks PennLady! There also seem to be a number of popular love stories which have some strange element to them which I would want to classify as Romance - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Time Traveler's Wife, etc. I mean, if we're talking the Outlander Books by Diana Gabaldon it's all full of time travel, right?

Okay, I feel reassured...will maintain my Romantic direction

You're welcome and good.

I haven't read the stories you've mentioned but in many that I have, there's that element of fantasy, or possible fantasy, that exists in the story and to me that's what keeps it in "romance" as opposed to something else.

 

[Lien_Geller]

I'm having a similar problem with categorisation. My story could quite cheerfully fit into Romance, Horror, NonHuman and First Time. I usually don't have this problem because I usually write Sci-fi/Fantasy which can quite cheerfully blanket several other categories. Usually I'd pick the one that's most likely not to put anyone off but my story has strong themes of all of the above. So obviously I don't want to plunk it in a place where it turns readers off for having too much of the other themes.

I might just put a little note at the start to let folks know it spans several different zones in the Lit world.

 

[MatthewVett]

I'm having a similar problem with categorisation. My story could quite cheerfully fit into Romance, Horror, NonHuman and First Time. I usually don't have this problem because I usually write Sci-fi/Fantasy which can quite cheerfully blanket several other categories. Usually I'd pick the one that's most likely not to put anyone off but my story has strong themes of all of the above. So obviously I don't want to plunk it in a place where it turns readers off for having too much of the other themes.

I might just put a little note at the start to let folks know it spans several different zones in the Lit world.

If you're unsure which to put it in, I'd probably pick Horror. First Time is really only one step above Erotic Couplings in terms of default categories, and I figure NonHuman and Romance are more expected in a Horror Story than Horror is in either of the others.

 

[Lien_Geller]

Thanks, it's essentially about a werewolf. So there's definitely lots of horror themes going on there but it's not the usual "Girl meets boy, boy tries to eat her, girl gets naked, boy tries to fuck her instead" story. It's about a girl who gets bitten and slowly starts turning throughout the course of the story. The werewolf isn't going to show up until the very end. This might not seem so bad but it's also a fucking long story too. 90 pages in Word so that's probably going to hit 8-10 Lit pages?

That, with the actual werewolf only showing up in the last twenty pages is what's worrying me about putting it in the horror cat. It's kinda like American Werewolf in London in that there's more subtle experiences throughout the story that are made to unsettle the reader but unlike that movie it's also got a real lovey-dovey build up to it that I'm worried might put horror fans off a bit. I'm definitely leaning toward Horror though, just a bit worried that a wrong cat might tank the votes and such.

 

[nicecthulhu]

That was "Dawn of the Dead," or more specifically a remake of it, directed by Zack Snyder. I've seen most of that and it's pretty good. (For the cast, there's also Ving Rhames, Joe Weber, Matt Frewer in addition to Sarah Polley.)

Actually, "28 Days Later" is from 2002 and "Dawn of the Dead" is from 2004 (yay for google! ). Anyway, there may be running zombies in other Romero movies, because again a common trope (if that's the right word) with zombies is that when they are close to food, they will move faster, whether that's running to catch it or just moving faster to tear it apart. They have to do something b/c if you could always outrun them, there's just not much suspense.

A little like the old Daleks that way. I recall an interview with John Pertwee, the third Doctor Who, who said that the easy way around Daleks was just to get behind them, since they couldn't see behind them.

I bow to your superior abilities. 1) to remember Google exists 2) to actually look it up on Google.
You know I think I'll have this internet thing figured out by the time I'm fifty. What year is this again? Okay, maybe by the time I'm sixty...
I remember the old Daleks. They're a little more mobile now. I remember the old zombies. They're a little more mobile now, too. So many ways to wipe out humanity...

 

[damppanties]

Inspiration struck last night. I'm having way too much fun just writing the introduction to this. I'm kind of a nerd.

Out of curiosity, should a humorous how-to masquerading as a serious how-to go in How To or Humor? I'm guessing Humor myself, but I wanted to double-check.

I'd say How To. See this for instance. Unless it's a complete satire and the 'how to' is more of a 'how not to' -- then that would be Humor and Satire.

 

[damppanties]

Thanks, it's essentially about a werewolf. So there's definitely lots of horror themes going on there but it's not the usual "Girl meets boy, boy tries to eat her, girl gets naked, boy tries to fuck her instead" story. It's about a girl who gets bitten and slowly starts turning throughout the course of the story. The werewolf isn't going to show up until the very end. This might not seem so bad but it's also a fucking long story too. 90 pages in Word so that's probably going to hit 8-10 Lit pages?

That, with the actual werewolf only showing up in the last twenty pages is what's worrying me about putting it in the horror cat. It's kinda like American Werewolf in London in that there's more subtle experiences throughout the story that are made to unsettle the reader but unlike that movie it's also got a real lovey-dovey build up to it that I'm worried might put horror fans off a bit. I'm definitely leaning toward Horror though, just a bit worried that a wrong cat might tank the votes and such.

Sounds more like a NonHuman cat by this description, maybe even a Romance.

 

[Lien_Geller]

I know! *Slams head on table.*

 

[damppanties]

I know! *Slams head on table.*

Submit in NonHuman. There. I made the decision for you. Save your head. And the table.

 

[MatthewVett]

Currently writing a fictional history of a fictional book about fictional people, and I'm loving it. I may be nerdier than I realized.

 

[sr71plt]

Didn't really have time to write a story today, but an e-mail from a reader set up my muse, so that's what I did. A second Halloween contest entry off to the editor.

 

[electric1]

Inspiration struck last night. I'm having way too much fun just writing the introduction to this. I'm kind of a nerd.

Out of curiosity, should a humorous how-to masquerading as a serious how-to go in How To or Humor? I'm guessing Humor myself, but I wanted to double-check.

One thing I learned in last year's Halloween contest: no one reads humor stories. Hell, even *I* won't read humor stories outside of Dark's LST3K. I've just seen too many writers over-estimate their ability to make the reader laugh. (And I guess I'm one of those self-over-estimaters, given the low-score my humor story got even among the few who read it.)

 

[MatthewVett]

One thing I learned in last year's Halloween contest: no one reads humor stories. Hell, even *I* won't read humor stories outside of Dark's LST3K. I've just seen too many writers over-estimate their ability to make the reader laugh. (And I guess I'm one of those self-over-estimaters, given the low-score my humor story got even among the few who read it.)

Hm, I think I'll end up putting it into fantasy.