The Official Authors' Hangout 2023 Valentine's Day Contest Support thread

[Kumquatqueen]

Phew, story done. I'll give it another once-over and submit it tomorrow. I predicted people will hate it, carried on writing anyway, then realised there's no sex in it, which will annoy readers even more. Ah well, I'm quite happy with it.

(Femdom SM, since you ask)

 

[MillieDynamite]

Haven't been writing like I wanted to. Jo told me I should tell everyone my participation in this contest is now officially doubtful.

 

[SomaSlave]

Phew, story done. I'll give it another once-over and submit it tomorrow. I predicted people will hate it, carried on writing anyway, then realised there's no sex in it, which will annoy readers even more. Ah well, I'm quite happy with it.

(Femdom SM, since you ask)

Ah, Femdom SM: the one place where readers expect topping from below. I've never understood the expectation that, in SM fiction, or real life, a sub should expect sexual gratification. If he's truly devoted to his Domme, he should never initiate the subject (unless his Domme wants to enjoy his pleas for a release he's not going to get).

Remember the classic exchange between a sadist and a masochist:

Masochist: Beat me!
Sadist: No.

 

[Trionyx]

Haven't been writing like I wanted to. Jo told me I should tell everyone my participation in this contest is now officially doubtful.

Sorry to hear that.

 

[SouthernCrossfire]

I wrote most of the weekend to finish my rough draft (when I wasn't coughing and hacking), with editing on Monday evening and final polishing yesterday. Submitted!

 

[SomaSlave]

Finally submitted! Now, the waiting begins. Thanks to my beta reader, Peter, for his patience in wading through my verbiage and making it more readable. After consulting with him, I decided to put it in T/C, though I hope it attracts some readers who don't normally go there. I really wanted to put it in Romance, or, possibly Mature, but I haven't seen a lot of m/m stories in those categories.

Thanks to everyone in AH for the encouragement you offer writers. You make Literotica a better place to read.

 

[PennameWombat]

That's a good point. The only way to see the forums is lit has a link to them on the home page and I think another if you click stories on the home page.
That's an issue in itself because I think a lot of people here enter the site directly on just the new story page or other bookmarks.

I'm not sure how they could call more attention to the forums, but its something to think about because to your point, people coming here do get more info on the contests and other things as well.

FWIW and maybe I'm unusual, but I found the Forums, and especially AH, before I ever laid eyes on a story here.

I can't recall the precise path, but I saw mention of 'Literotica' a few years back (2018, had never heard of or seen the site before that). I assume I found the front page (yeah, the incredibly modern front page) and reading through that found the "Bulletin Board" link and from there found AH.

I lurked for a few days and tracked the discussions here, and THEN I went and read various stories, created my account and posted here and submitted my first stories.

This might've been the case because I deliberately looked for Lit as a place to write, I didn't look for it primarily as a reader who decided to try my hand at writing. So I looked for links and info relevant to authors first, rather than for readers.

 

[PennameWombat]

And further in the FWIW category... just submitted my Valentine's story. Once again, late.

It's in Erotic Horror and features a serial killer, abuse, murder, demons, revenge... but above all, hearts. Lots of hearts. Where else would a Valentine's Day story belong?

I could've saved it for the 'Crime & Punishment' event, but I already have a WIP that I prefer for that, although both that one and this one I just submitted were mooted as Valentine's stories. They just both feature murders and blood and... ah well.

 

[SouthernCrossfire]

... Submitted!

Laurel had it approved and in the queue in less than four hours (thanks, Laurel!) and it's live today.

Perfection.

 

[SomaSlave]

Whew! I'm finally finished with the first draft (23,000+ words; my longest story by a mile). Tomorrow, I give it the once over, add some section titles and, hopefully get it to my beta reader. His previous suggestions were spot on. We'll see how the full tale goes. As my first plunge into romance, it's probably far too sappy, but there are some twists and my usual obscure cultural references to redeem it somewhat.

I'm learning much from the folks here in AH and I'm looking forward to spreading my wings in my writing.

That was fast. It's showing a publish date of 2/3. I guess Laurel is prioritizing contest entries.

 

[mythtrav16]

That was fast. It's showing a publish date of 2/3. I guess Laurel is prioritizing contest entries.

I'm sure I've read somewhere before that contest entries get priority in the acceptance process.

I didn't put a stopwatch on my entry, but I'm sure it was up within 24hrs of me submitting it. Around 16-20hrs, if I recall correctly. That's pretty damned impressive considering my entry is about 40k words in length.

 

[SyleusSnow]

My modest contribution went live this morning after roughly 18 hours in the queue. But that may be because it has the words "high school" throughout, marking it for extra special scrutiny.

It got sandbagged by 1-bombs right away, of course, but now it's doing great with the score and number of favorites. Far better than I expected for a romance where the guy is threatened with getting railed by a dragon dildo

 

[MillieDynamite]

Sigh, I have been working on things not related to Lierotica. I have been working on stories that won't appear here. They are my stories, not ghost work, but I still would rather be working on stuff to put up here.

 

[SomaSlave]

And further in the FWIW category... just submitted my Valentine's story. Once again, late.

It's in Erotic Horror and features a serial killer, abuse, murder, demons, revenge... but above all, hearts. Lots of hearts. Where else would a Valentine's Day story belong?

I could've saved it for the 'Crime & Punishment' event, but I already have a WIP that I prefer for that, although both that one and this one I just submitted were mooted as Valentine's stories. They just both feature murders and blood and... ah well.

Are the hearts still in their original occupants' bodies?

 

[PennameWombat]

Are the hearts still in their original occupants' bodies?

Some are... others...

 

[Kumquatqueen]

600 views, 6 votes. Will it get 19 more votes in time?

(It's in BDSM so not huge traffic, but the only time I placed in a contest was also a BDSM Valentine story. That had 26 votes by the end, one of which was removed after a sweep. So cutting it fine...)

 

[SomaSlave]

Tell me if this has happened to anyone else. I'm a sound sleeper and nothing awakens me or keeps me up. However, last night, I was dreaming about the contest (my story posted this morning) and when/how I would update my profile to mention it. It woke me up around 4:30 and kept me awake off and on the rest of the night. It was kind of creepy, frankly. Has anyone else had an experience like that with their writing?

 

[KeithD]

I do find myself developing stories in my mind at night that is keeping me awake and I have to get up and get the notes out into a computer file before I can return to bed and go to sleep. But I rarely have an appointment to meet, so I can just sleep later on those days.

 

[SomaSlave]

I do find myself developing stories in my mind at night that is keeping me awake and I have to get up and get the notes out into a computer file before I can return to bed and go to sleep. But I rarely have an appointment to meet, so I can just sleep later on those days.

I know that feeling of knowing I'd better write it down because I won't remember it in the morning. Maybe my subconscious was preparing me for what I saw when I opened the story this morning. I remembered the correct instructions, so it's on the list of Valentine's Day stories. What I forgot was to mention anything about the contest at the beginning of the story. DOH!

Oh, well: 5 ratings so far. If I can keep that rate until the 14th, I'll be able to qualify. I'm still waiting for the first comment, which is a shame, because I think the story can provoke some conversation.

 

[SomaSlave]

600 views, 6 votes. Will it get 19 more votes in time?

(It's in BDSM so not huge traffic, but the only time I placed in a contest was also a BDSM Valentine story. That had 26 votes by the end, one of which was removed after a sweep. So cutting it fine...)

You got my vote, and a comment. FWIW, I think it's a very good story with a unique POV.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I won't even be done with mine in time to post.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

You got my vote, and a comment. FWIW, I think it's a very good story with a unique POV.

Thank you, Soma. It's a bit worrying that a woman dominating a submissive male friend for a night in vaguely realistic fashion is considered unique in the BDSM category, but that's Lit for you.

After 24 hours, 20 votes, score of 4.5 exactly, but below 50 votes there's a lot of randomness. The sweeps can change things by 0.3 or more!

 

[TxRad]

You only need 25 votes in the contest.

 

[SomaSlave]

Thank you, Soma. It's a bit worrying that a woman dominating a submissive male friend for a night in vaguely realistic fashion is considered unique in the BDSM category, but that's Lit for you.

After 24 hours, 20 votes, score of 4.5 exactly, but below 50 votes there's a lot of randomness. The sweeps can change things by 0.3 or more!

I'm trying to figure out the BDSM category here. I'm working on a series involving a male sub/female Domme, based on a relationship I had many years ago. It will be as realistic as I can make it/recall, so there will be some intense sensation play, very few orgasms for me (and no cages, either; a good sub shouldn't need one to control his orgasms), and one very unique research project involving the sub fisting the Domme at her request (that was a fun experience, though she nearly broke my wrist). It should be interesting, I hope.

To get back on topic, after 36 hours, 14 votes, score of 4.5, and some nice comments.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Thank you, Soma. It's a bit worrying that a woman dominating a submissive male friend for a night in vaguely realistic fashion is considered unique in the BDSM category, but that's Lit for you.

After 24 hours, 20 votes, score of 4.5 exactly, but below 50 votes there's a lot of randomness. The sweeps can change things by 0.3 or more!

For what it's worth I did an analysis of the BDSM category last year. Of the 107 stories which had a clear PoV protagonist, only 6 were written from the point of view of a dominant woman. The majority (80%) of BDSM seems to be written from the sub perpective, but what dom stuff there is seems to be more often focused on the male fantasy of a simple submissive fuck toy. The good news is that, while there wasn't enough data for a firm conclusion, there wasn't any indication that femdom-PoV stories scored worse than any others. The only thing rarer was true switch characters (i.e. not characters in a heirarchy where A dominates B and B dominates C)