Valentine's Day Story Contest 2009 Reminder and Support Thread

[Jack_Samuel]

huzzah i finished a short one for the valantine theme.

Its only 3k words. In your opinions is that long enough to attract an audience?

Now if i can only think of a title

 

[oggbashan]

Hearts and Flowers Bump Again...

Og

 

[starrkers]

huzzah i finished a short one for the valantine theme.

Its only 3k words. In your opinions is that long enough to attract an audience?

Now if i can only think of a title

Definitely. In contests, shorter can be better (recently proven wrong by Abstruse's win with a long tale).

 

[KarennaC]

My BDSM story topped out around 2600 words, I think. I finished it over the past weekend. Now I need another Valentine story; I want to have at least two this year, since I had two last year.

 

[christabelll]

writing writing writing, raw words...writing writing writing.....Raw Words!

crap its supposed to be a short story?

Ummmmm I'm at 46 pages and no end in sight....

 

[Jack_Samuel]

writing writing writing, raw words...writing writing writing.....Raw Words!

crap its supposed to be a short story?

Ummmmm I'm at 46 pages and no end in sight....

Ouch Christa,

You must be a gluton for punishment. The more words you manage to write the more effort to edit them. Good luck to you.

Maybe you can slice and dice. Then you could have several chapters

 

[DeeZire]

writing writing writing, raw words...writing writing writing.....Raw Words!

crap its supposed to be a short story?

Ummmmm I'm at 46 pages and no end in sight....

Showoff.

I have written a one-sentence synopsis - in my head. Now I need to take a break and reflect on my progress.

 

[christabelll]

Lololol.... that was me for most of last year. Couldnt write to save my life, and luckily I didn't have to.
Must be the new year and all that... the flood gates have opened and its just pouring out of me....

Ugh - editing... Anyone editing these days?
Its being looked over but not edited.... (at least I dont know so...)

Ummm---its not erotic yet either..... uh oh - you all are gonna shoot me aren't you.


eta: and I did that auto summary that word provides? hysterical took 17000 words to 3000 and holy crap was it ugly. Delete delete delete....
I am not sure slashing it would help... but maybe if some one else did the slashing I could bear it

 

[christabelll]

bumpetee---good god time is running too fast

 

[bb_peaks]

Hopefully this can get me out of my writing funk. I had several ideas and finished two stories for the winter contest but didn't get them finished until after the deadline. Now I'm stuck on about 5-10 stories that start and the fizzle. GRRR. Have a couple of ideas in mind though.

 

[christabelll]

Hopefully this can get me out of my writing funk. I had several ideas and finished two stories for the winter contest but didn't get them finished until after the deadline. Now I'm stuck on about 5-10 stories that start and the fizzle. GRRR. Have a couple of ideas in mind though.

Well its still winter Any chance you can change them up to meet the Valentines requirement?
Just go for it

 

[christabelll]

How long is too long for a contest?

I've been writing up a storm and have exceeded 70 pages on the story. Word count at this moment is 24k and I suspect by the time its at its conclusion it will be roughly 100 -120 pages... 35 -40k...
I want to submit it for the contest, but am afraid its too long for most to want read there.

Any advice about this besides, slash it to pieces fool!??

I even went so far as to read all the guidelines and rules again and could find nothing on this particular subject.

I see this was mentioned elsewhere but I don't think it was in reference to a (the) contest section.

Anyone?

 

[PrincessErin]

.....

 

[KarennaC]

Depends on the rest of the story; does it need a sex scene?

I wrote a second story for the contest today; it's romantic, but there's zero sex in it. The characters decided they didn't know each other well enough, which was fine with me.

 

[Darkniciad]

Well, blow me down. Somewhere between a thread about AEDs ( portable defibrillators ) on another forum and talking to a new author who saw my post in the anonymous thread about a slew of "you made me wet" feedback of late, I actually had a spark of an idea.

It's aimed right at the same audiance that's been leaving me that feedback, taps hard into a couple of fantasy hot points for that audiance, and I already have the whole background/setup/meeting/initial emotional connection written in just over 800 words over the last hour or so.

Always nice when what is jumping in your head actually has some positive demographics *laugh*

I'll still never come close to the top three spots, though.

 

[Jack_Samuel]

Well, blow me down. Somewhere between a thread about AEDs ( portable defibrillators ) on another forum and talking to a new author who saw my post in the anonymous thread about a slew of "you made me wet" feedback of late, I actually had a spark of an idea.

It's aimed right at the same audiance that's been leaving me that feedback, taps hard into a couple of fantasy hot points for that audiance, and I already have the whole background/setup/meeting/initial emotional connection written in just over 800 words over the last hour or so.

Always nice when what is jumping in your head actually has some positive demographics *laugh*

I'll still never come close to the top three spots, though.

congratulations Dark. Ideas like that seem to come along far to infrequently

Good luck for the top 3.

 

[Darkniciad]

congratulations Dark. Ideas like that seem to come along far to infrequently

Good luck for the top 3.

Never happen. I'm a half decent story teller. The contests have this annoying habit of attracting real authors *laugh*

 

[Lee Chambers]

Argh, this is going to be close. I've started writing for this one but I don't think mine will be up on opening day like I wanted but rather I'll have to submit on opening day. A little over a week and only the first part is done.

 

[Jack_Samuel]

Sorry for being obtuse... i did read the rules.

Do we submit on the 20th or can we submit before that and thats the date that voting starts?

 

[oggbashan]

Sorry for being obtuse... i did read the rules.

Do we submit on the 20th or can we submit before that and thats the date that voting starts?

You can submit before the 20th IF you include the correct message in the Notes field - VALENTINE'S DAY STORY CONTEST 2009 - AND ask for the story not to be posted until the 20th.

Og

 

[Jack_Samuel]

Thanks Ogg,

But for the sake of convience i will just wait until the 20th

 

[christabelll]

whose convenience? LOLOLOL.....


so no answer(s) to my previous inquiry ???



well I'm writing anyway...................................:caning:

 

[Darkniciad]

whose convenience? LOLOLOL.....


so no answer(s) to my previous inquiry ???



well I'm writing anyway...................................:caning:

You're certainly well outside the average readership with a story that long. You may very well struggle to pick up th 25 votes to qualify simply on the number of pages at the bottom, no matter how good the story is.

On the other hand, if enough people finish it, you may find that those who get to the voting form have a high probability of clicking "5" when they finish. If you stick with a story of that length, there's a reason for it.

You're already well on your way to done. If you can trim it without killing the story, then hack-n-slash away. If not, put it in there as it is when you finish it. Just because it's outside the norms for contest length doesn't mean that it doesn't belong there.

 

[christabelll]

Thankyou Dark Nic.

Yeah, I was kind of hoping to hear something like that -

I know a lot of people will click away - because they don't want to read something that long --- stroganoff--- and all that... LOL... but still some do and thats who its aimed for anyway those who like to read a story...

The people who have honored me by reading it to date have made me feel humbled... and estatic.... hopefully those who read the finished product will too.

Here's to shooting at stars!

 

[christabelll]

wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!