The Official Authors' Hangout Summer Lovin' Contest 2017 Support Thread

[ChloeTzang]

Alas, so ends my (probably) last nude beach day of the summer. No more lotioned-up bodies, sandy butt cracks, and competing in naked limbo contests for boob luge shots. Off it goes until next year, carrying with it all my Summer Lovin' inspiration.
Sadness.
Fortunately, I have read Chloe's submission, so I'm extra prepared for the solemn and inevitable passage of time. Looking forward to the remaining stories of you last minute submitters to eke out every last bit of summer fun that I can!

Oh wow, you read Summertime Sadness? Hope you had the tissues handy. I'm sniffling just thinking about it. And I just submitted my 2nd and final entry, The Temptation of Sammi Woo". A 20 lit page extravaganza in the Group Sex category. A Chinese girl, a v-card that needs swiping, a strip club and bikers? And a Summertime 18th birthday party. ....

 

[HuckPilgrim]

I got some fabulous feedback on my story in the contest, but it came in from another group. It just tickled me so much to read it, I wanted to post it here.

Having studied Japanese, been to Japan 7 times and had a Japanese lover
for awhile, I feel a little more culturally aware of the country and its
norms than most Americans. Having said that, I absolutely loved the
Japanese theme of this story. You beautifully captured the cultural nuances
of that country perfectly exhibited on the commuter trains, I could have
not done it any better. ...

That's just the good stuff. He gave me some advice about overall length and losing the piece after the significant break. I have to give it some thought.

EDIT: If you want to see the whole quote, I added it to a comment on the story just now.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I'm finding the ratings on my story quite fascinating. Every day it picks up one or two five stars and creeps up and then every morning like a clock there's a one star that brings it down again. The one day it climbed to 5.67 there were enough one stars to get it down to 5.58 that morning. I'm fascinated watching this. I can understand one stars for Summertime Sadness, it's not mainstream LIT jerkoff stuff, but every morning? Like a clock? Brings a smile to my face every morning l.

 

[SolarRay]

Oh wow, you read Summertime Sadness? Hope you had the tissues handy. I'm sniffling just thinking about it. And I just submitted my 2nd and final entry, The Temptation of Sammi Woo". A 20 lit page extravaganza in the Group Sex category. A Chinese girl, a v-card that needs swiping, a strip club and bikers? And a Summertime 18th birthday party. ....

Yes, and enjoyed it! I'm always amazed at those of you who can finish and submit multiple stories in time...

 

[oggbashan]

Yes, and enjoyed it! I'm always amazed at those of you who can finish and submit multiple stories in time...

Some of us have suitable stories that were started a year, a few years, or a decade ago.

But sometimes the Muses demand a new one written NOW.

Of my three entries, Boat to Looe was written in July and August 2017; Mother's Consent was started in 2006; and Pram Wheels was started in 2003.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Some of us have suitable stories that were started a year, a few years, or a decade ago.

But sometimes the Muses demand a new one written NOW.

Of my three entries, Boat to Looe was written in July and August 2017; Mother's Consent was started in 2006; and Pram Wheels was started in 2003.

Yes, I've been writing Sammi Woo for ages. Meant to have it done end of last year, then for Nude Day and just made it for this. 70k words and I can already spot some spelling mistakes. Aaaaiiiiyah

But the good thing is that as of the afternoon it was still pending so to heck with it, I got my corrections in and corrected the glaring typos.

 

[Kethandra]

I'm finding the ratings on my story quite fascinating. Every day it picks up one or two five stars and creeps up and then every morning like a clock there's a one star that brings it down again. The one day it climbed to 5.67 there were enough one stars to get it down to 5.58 that morning. I'm fascinated watching this. I can understand one stars for Summertime Sadness, it's not mainstream LIT jerkoff stuff, but every morning? Like a clock? Brings a smile to my face every morning l.

I had seen a similar pattern until this weekend. Between Friday eve and Sunday eve my entry got 12 votes and 10 of them saw the vote drop. It sure seemed like a concerted bombing campaign.

 

[KindofHere]

I had seen a similar pattern until this weekend. Between Friday eve and Sunday eve my entry got 12 votes and 10 of them saw the vote drop. It sure seemed like a concerted bombing campaign.

I've got this too. I've got twenty 1 votes that I know of. It started early, but whenever I hit 4.00 - BAM! 1 and then when I was able to get to 4.20, BAM! 1 (my bomber must have been napping for a bit) ... I imagine it will be more of the same today.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I had seen a similar pattern until this weekend. Between Friday eve and Sunday eve my entry got 12 votes and 10 of them saw the vote drop. It sure seemed like a concerted bombing campaign.

Yes I've been watching your story get hit as well, plus a few others. Seems very deliberate across the board and targeting many of the stories that were leading over the first week or so. I'm kind of thinking those sweeps better be really thorough this time round coz it's kind of obvious which stories are being targeted.

 

[NotWise]

I had seen a similar pattern until this weekend. Between Friday eve and Sunday eve my entry got 12 votes and 10 of them saw the vote drop. It sure seemed like a concerted bombing campaign.

You really did take a hit. The sweeps are going to be interesting, aren't they?

My story dropped off the new list and the category hub at the same time and the voting pattern seems to have changed now that views are probably coming mostly from the contest page. In my case the number of views didn't decline much but the number of votes/view seemed to drop.

On the other hand, the score has gone up slightly based on the small number of votes it's still getting. By now I have too many votes for the score to go up very much without a sweep.

When I checked contest scores a few days ago my story was right around the median, so I'm way to far out of the competition to draw much attention.

 

[toetyper]

my story is holding steady at 4.39 with 38 votes. i understand that my story will have limited interest, but isnt 38 votes really low?

 

[RejectReality]

my story is holding steady at 4.39 with 38 votes. i understand that my story will have limited interest, but isnt 38 votes really low?

Not in the Celeb category. It's amongst the lowest readership categories on the site. Managing to get the 25 votes to qualify in that category is an accomplishment.

Keeping enough of them after the sweeps to remain qualified will be a victory no matter what your score ends at.

 

[ChloeTzang]

You really did take a hit. The sweeps are going to be interesting, aren't they?......

When I checked contest scores a few days ago my story was right around the median, so I'm way to far out of the competition to draw much attention.

When I look at the stories and scores, anything under 4.6 looks like it's been left alone. The higher ranked stories with large view #s haven't been impacted but they tend to stabilize mostly in the mid 4.6s fairly quickly and once they're there they don't tend to fluctuate much.

The lead story for the first week or two has been hammered right down and someone's been playing whack a mole with "Summertime Sadness", which I find quite funny coz seriously, I never thought it was a contender. Left alone, it'd probably be sitting in the high 4.6's and not going anywhere.

Who says paranoia can't be fun

 

[ChloeTzang]

Aaaaaaaand my 2nd story made it in, finally, at last and it was such a rush there's a couple of glaring typo's, still. Oh well, at least it's in. And that was exhausting....

Have to go back and submit a corrected version tonight.

 

[TxRad]

Aaaaaaaand my 2nd story made it in, finally, at last and it was such a rush there's a couple of glaring typo's, still. Oh well, at least it's in. And that was exhausting....

Have to go back and submit a corrected version tonight.

Congratulations.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Who says paranoia can't be fun

And oooooh, Sammi Woo had straight 5s and then in 2 minutes there were four one stars. Go figure the obviousness of that one. LOL. Someone is playing silly games.

 

[Kethandra]

And oooooh, Sammi Woo had straight 5s and then in 2 minutes there were four one stars. Go figure the obviousness of that one. LOL. Someone is playing silly games.

Yeah, maybe it is my lower vote total, but the down voting has really kicked in with a vengeance on this contest.

In Sweeps We Trust

 

[HuckPilgrim]

Looks like a sweep in Noncon just went through.

 

[Halin24]

Yep, a few votes gone, score up... 0.01...

 

[NotWise]

Yep, a few votes gone, score up... 0.01...

I had two votes added, then soon after that five votes were removed. Removing five votes bumped my score by 0.02. That was good because the score was 4.49 before the sweep.

 

[49greg]

Well my last minute entry (yesterday afternoon) got rejected. I didn't get around to checking lit until an hour ago or so. They said because the contest entries have to be complete stories - I knew that - but that additional parts can be added later.

Have to admit I wasn't anywhere near the end that my outline planned, but it was at least four lit pages long. Since I hadn't got to the planned end, I found a stopping place and submitted it with a "Ch. 01" at the end of the title. I guess that was the big giveaway. I just didn't realize that they were that strict about the story being complete. Now I know.

Oh well, I had strayed from the original plan and there was only a minimal connection to summer anyway. In fact, when I saw that it had been rejected my first thought was that it lacked clear 'summer lovin' action.

So I'll put it on the back burner and maybe at a later date complete it and post as a two or three chapter non contest story.

Live and learn.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Well my last minute entry (yesterday afternoon) got rejected...... So I'll put it on the back burner and maybe at a later date complete it and post as a two or three chapter non contest story.

Live and learn.

How about repurposing it for the next competition? A Halloween theme tweak. And a few extra weeks. That's what I did with Sammi Woo. It missed being finished for the Nude Day competition so I edited it for Summer instead. Then finished it in one mammoth burst.

 

[NotWise]

Well my last minute entry (yesterday afternoon) got rejected. I didn't get around to checking lit until an hour ago or so. They said because the contest entries have to be complete stories - I knew that - but that additional parts can be added later.

My "Valentine's Day Mess" started as what was supposed to be a stand-alone contest story, but I ended it so poorly that most of the comments were "More!" So I added parts, numbering them Pt 2 and Pt 3. Five total are planned. For me the title has now become a triple entendre. The characters used it to describe how messy it can be to eat a chocolate cherry cordial. It also referred to the mess they made out of their lives. The third reference is to the total mess I made out of the ending.

The last time I submitted edits, Laurel chose to rename the first story "Pt 1," which probably wouldn't have floated if I named it that way to start with. So maybe the idea is just to leave out the Chapter reference, suffer the slings and arrows, and go on with the story afterwards.

 

[sr71plt]

I think that the major problem is that the bulk of the readers on Literotica are so unsophisticated in gauging writing quality that winning a contest here on anything but the arousal factor is pretty meaningless. If they know so little about the difference between a chapter and a story and are mesmerized by high wordage, as has become pretty obvious here, "winning" a contest is a shrug. I've reviewed some of the stories this time, and the not-so-well-written and plotted stories are doing just as well, if not better, than the really well written ones are. So, "shrug" to the contests here. They are useful in building a fan base. And that's reason enough to enter them. After you've entered a few, though, you will have gotten your fan base.

Incidentally, if you think you've got to write 10,000 words or more to get in everything that's needed, you don't know the difference between a short story and a novel (which is just another thing that most readers at Literotica don't grasp--along with their need for never-ending epics).

 

[KindofHere]

Incidentally, if you think you've got to write 10,000 words or more to get in everything that's needed, you don't know the difference between a short story and a novel (which is just another thing that most readers at Literotica don't grasp--along with their need for never-ending epics).

I looked up the Contest rules and Literotica's submission guidelines and nowhere does it say to only submit 'Short Stories.' The only rules about story length are no stories under 750 words. If someone wrote a short story, they wrote a short one and if someone wrote a long one, they wrote a long one, what's the big deal?