The 2023 Geek Pride Story Event: Official Support Page

[MargotPayge]

I have one almost done. I hope it will be in time. I plan to spend the next few evenings on it. It's pretty close I think, but I'd like someone to read it and get some feedback before I submit it.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

OKAY!!!
Eldritch Pact is finished and pending acceptance!
12k words, and I've been working on this bitch FOREVER...

I am gonna lose my ever-loving shit if it gets rejected because of the exaggerated diacritics.


(by exaggerated diacritics, I mean that my eldritch creature talks l̶͚͚̑i̸̫̚̚k̶̯͎̍e̷̝͚͒̕ ̴̛̙ť̸̖̓h̶̖̼̉͛ĭ̷́͜s̶͇̆̂ (She doesn't have a ton of dialog like this, but damn I love the way that looks like insane speech)

If they just fail to appear properly, I'll cry, but I'm gonna kill myself if it gets rejected entirely. Lmao

I tried to do a miniature test run with a poem, which pended for two-fucking-weeks and the got rejected because it wasn't "POEM-Y" enough ("Please post this as a story" was the rejection reason, but it was just a couple of lines as prose. I thought that would work.)

 

[gunhilltrain]

Happy early birthday to you… and hey, I don’t blame you at all. Ambiguity is one of the many greats of the internet. Swapping out my avatar is experimental, my nonchalance withstanding. I wondered if it would effect viewership. I suppose I’ll soon find out.

I think the subway train photo would go over quite nicely as an author portrait for a novel

Thank you. But so far I've learned that a series (like ten chapters maybe) is enough for me. I don't think I'll be doing any novels soon, if ever.

My guess is that avatars, or changing them, has little impact on views.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

ELDRITCH PACT GOT ACCEPTED AND IS PENDING PUBLICATION!

WOOT WOOT!

(That means I've still gotta wait until the 25th to see if it maintains the formatting, but I'll take the acceptance as a positive sign!)

Now I eagerly await all the comments from guys claiming that the story is somehow gay, because it has pegging in it.

That's FINE!

The boys can get pissy with this one all they want! This story is my baby, and I'm so proud of it!

 

[gunhilltrain]

ELDRITCH PACT GOT ACCEPTED AND IS PENDING PUBLICATION!

WOOT WOOT!

(That means I've still gotta wait until the 25th to see if it maintains the formatting, but I'll take the acceptance as a positive sign!)

Now I eagerly await all the comments from guys claiming that the story is somehow gay, because it has pegging in it.

That's FINE!

The boys can get pissy with this one all they want! This story is my baby, and I'm so proud of it!

As I've said before, don't give away too many details; surprise us!

 

[MediocreAuthor]

As I've said before, don't give away too many details; surprise us!

Fair enough...

However, I put a warning about pegging right up front in the story's forward. I feel like it's decisive enough that I don't want anybody stumbling on it if they hate it.

That way, if someone hates pegging and reads the story anyway, they have only themselves to blame.

Sexual kinks are esoteric by nature. And while I wouldn't consider pegging a kink of mine per say, (it's a fun idea, but I definitely included it to serve the story) I know that it's one that plenty of people feel very strongly about... Both positively and negatively.

I kinda feel that the worst faux pas that an erotica author can commit is to spring some fetish on an unsuspecting reader. I mean I guess sometimes it might be fun, but the readers seem to hate it, and I don't prefer it when I read.

That said, I'll be quiet now. No more spoilers

 

[gunhilltrain]

Fair enough...

However, I put a warning about pegging right up front in the story's forward. I feel like it's decisive enough that I don't want anybody stumbling on it if they hate it.

That way, if someone hates pegging and reads the story anyway, they have only themselves to blame.

Sexual kinks are esoteric by nature. And while I wouldn't consider pegging a kink of mine per say, (it's a fun idea, but I definitely included it to serve the story) I know that it's one that plenty of people feel very strongly about... Both positively and negatively.

I kinda feel that the worst faux pas that an erotica author can commit is to spring some fetish on an unsuspecting reader. I mean I guess sometimes it might be fun, but the readers seem to hate it, and I don't prefer it when I read.

That said, I'll be quiet now. No more spoilers

It's fine to put a disclaimer at the top if you wish. My feeling is that if you are reading Lit, one should be prepared for anything, But a comment at the top is appropriate; and I've done that a number of times. No point in making unnecessary enemies. Probably the context matters and the nature of the surprise. I didn't put a ghost story in Non-human because it seemed like a spoiler to me. No one complained.

And there is a lot of variation here about how much authors want to talk about their upcoming stories.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

It's fine to put a disclaimer at the top if you wish. My feeling is that if you are reading Lit, one should be prepared for anything, But a comment at the top is appropriate; and I've done that a number of times. No point in making unnecessary enemies. Probably the context matters and the nature of the surprise. I didn't put a ghost story in Non-human because it seemed like a spoiler to me. No one complained.

And there is a lot of variation here about how much authors want to talk about their upcoming stories.

I honestly feel like I needed more than 10 tags to include all of the "stuff" in this story. Obviously the Eldritch creature in question is "non-human" but I only had 8 tags to use (two of the tags were used up by "Geek Pride" and "Geek Pride 2023"

Also, even when I'm writing in the NC/R category, I always spend one tag to list "non-con." That is, in my opinion, perhaps the most divisive inclusion that the site allows... I NEVER want to surprise anyone with that, for obvious reasons.

 

[Duleigh]

ELDRITCH PACT GOT ACCEPTED AND IS PENDING PUBLICATION!

WOOT WOOT!

(That means I've still gotta wait until the 25th to see if it maintains the formatting, but I'll take the acceptance as a positive sign!)

Now I eagerly await all the comments from guys claiming that the story is somehow gay, because it has pegging in it.

That's FINE!

The boys can get pissy with this one all they want! This story is my baby, and I'm so proud of it!

I can't wait to see how the diacritics turn out, when I realized I was doing a story with the anthropomorphic personification of Death as a character I needed to see if small caps could come through so I put some in A Pilots Consent Switch and they didn't come through. Now I have to use all caps and it's going to look like death is shouting. Bummer. I hope your diacritics comes through, I have some evil spirits in a later installation of Enchantress and I'll need your technical expertise.

 

[MargotPayge]

I’m still working on my story, but I am starting to panic that it won't get done in time. It's fictional fanfic for fans of... fictional fanfic? I created a whole new universe for the graphic novel series in my story so my fanboys would have ample fan theories to debate; I geeked out a bit too hard - ended up penning more backstory than the actual plot!

 

[MediocreAuthor]

I can't wait to see how the diacritics turn out, when I realized I was doing a story with the anthropomorphic personification of Death as a character I needed to see if small caps could come through so I put some in A Pilots Consent Switch and they didn't come through. Now I have to use all caps and it's going to look like death is shouting. Bummer. I hope your diacritics comes through, I have some evil spirits in a later installation of Enchantress and I'll need your technical expertise.

So my only hope is that I'll get it through when you didn't because you posted it as a doc.file, right? I posted mine in the box labeled

Story Text*

That might not save me, but when I tried to test it with a poem, the mod said "You can always test the diacritics in the with the "Preview and Publish" button. Well in the preview screen both thick diacritics and the small caps work. Idk if anything will change when it finally publishes
We'll see

 

[Duleigh]

I’m still working on my story, but I am starting to panic that it won't get done in time. It's fictional fanfic for fans of... fictional fanfic? I created a whole new universe for the graphic novel series in my story so my fanboys would have ample fan theories to debate; I geeked out a bit too hard - ended up penning more backstory than the actual plot!

Welcome to the Verbose Logorrhea club. I just hit 22K words on my current love child and am just starting to get into the "meat" of the story. Part one will spring on May 25 with 51.8K words

 

[Eisenloewe]

So, long time lurker, possible first time publisher. I've got a geek-friendly story clocking in around 28-29k words, in four chapters. Apologies if this is better for some tech support thread but I'm also a board virgin and this will be my first time publishing on this platform. With a mid-length story like that, how do I indicate on the upload wizard where I want page/chapter breaks to go? Do I upload four separate word docs for four separate 6-8k word chapters? Or do I put something in the word doc itself ("heading" styles or something) that indicate where I want those breaks to go? Use the section-breaks function in Word?

P.S. I searched for a FAQ and didn't find one for this, but if one exists, feel free to just send me that way and carry on with what you were doing.

P.P.S. Is there a soft expectation regarding "tag overload etiquette" on this site? Or if I want to put in 20+ tags, if each fits at least one chapter, is that OK?

 

[SeraphNocturne]

So, long time lurker, possible first time publisher. I've got a geek-friendly story clocking in around 28-29k words, in four chapters. Apologies if this is better for some tech support thread but I'm also a board virgin and this will be my first time publishing on this platform. With a mid-length story like that, how do I indicate on the upload wizard where I want page/chapter breaks to go? Do I upload four separate word docs for four separate 6-8k word chapters? Or do I put something in the word doc itself ("heading" styles or something) that indicate where I want those breaks to go? Use the section-breaks function in Word?

P.S. I searched for a FAQ and didn't find one for this, but if one exists, feel free to just send me that way and carry on with what you were doing.

P.P.S. Is there a soft expectation regarding "tag overload etiquette" on this site? Or if I want to put in 20+ tags, if each fits at least one chapter, is that OK?

You get ten tags per submission.

With a word count that large I'd break it into at least two parts if I were you. You can use basic HTML for breaks. I typically use dashes and center them where I want my breaks to be. You can use a 'heading' if you'd like and center that as well, should go over just fine.

 

[Duleigh]

So, long time lurker, possible first time publisher. I've got a geek-friendly story clocking in around 28-29k words, in four chapters. Apologies if this is better for some tech support thread but I'm also a board virgin and this will be my first time publishing on this platform. With a mid-length story like that, how do I indicate on the upload wizard where I want page/chapter breaks to go? Do I upload four separate word docs for four separate 6-8k word chapters? Or do I put something in the word doc itself ("heading" styles or something) that indicate where I want those breaks to go? Use the section-breaks function in Word?

P.S. I searched for a FAQ and didn't find one for this, but if one exists, feel free to just send me that way and carry on with what you were doing.

P.P.S. Is there a soft expectation regarding "tag overload etiquette" on this site? Or if I want to put in 20+ tags, if each fits at least one chapter, is that OK?

1. Welcome aboard! And rest assured you have no questions or worries that haven't been asked or suffered through ten thousand times before
2. Sorry, there's no page breaks/chapter breaks inside a story that is posted, that's just the nature of the beast. One font, italics, boldface, underscore. I have fun with symbols to indicate breaks inside a story
3. What most people do is what you mentioned, a different doc for each chapter. Then when you're asked to name each story give it the story name followed by Chapter 1. They'll end up in order on your works page
4. There's no faq for chapter breaks because there is no chapter breaks, BUT - you looked! First time writers forget that part of the process
5. 10 tags max. and you might want to use one of those tags for Geek Pride 2023

 

[Eisenloewe]

Maybe I'm asking this wrong ... I see stories all the time here that have "pages" or sections numbered like 1, 2, 3, separate links at the bottom within the same story link from an author's profile page. One of my favorites on this site has 46 (https://www.literotica.com/s/the-preacher-man) within a single story link. That's what I'm asking about.

For this Geek Pride event, I was under the impression we weren't supposed to have something be multiple independent links on our profiles ("My Story Pt. 01, My Story Pt. 02," etc.). Did I get that wrong? :-(

 

[MargotPayge]

Welcome to the Verbose Logorrhea club. I just hit 22K words on my current love child and am just starting to get into the "meat" of the story. Part one will spring on May 25 with 51.8K words

I guess I'm a light weight. Mine is just under 6K words. the story. The backstory another 6K words
I have been practicing editing and cutting material in another thread. I am trying to up my game. I don't think I've ever written anything this long before. I hope it works.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Maybe I'm asking this wrong ... I see stories all the time here that have "pages" or sections numbered like 1, 2, 3, separate links at the bottom within the same story link from an author's profile page. One of my favorites on this site has 46 (https://www.literotica.com/s/the-preacher-man) within a single story link. That's what I'm asking about.

For this Geek Pride event, I was under the impression we weren't supposed to have something be multiple independent links on our profiles ("My Story Pt. 01, My Story Pt. 02," etc.). Did I get that wrong? :-(

First of all, are we even allowed to have a series in this event?

In your second paragraph, yes, that's it I think, although it's usually Ch.01, Ch. 02, etc. (chapters, not parts). Here's one I did a while back, chapter 7 of an eight part series.

https://classic.literotica.com/s/bronx-park-east-ch-07

I see I only linked it to the previous chapter, not back to my profile, although I guess I could have. The site itself lists the other chapters in the box to the right. The tagline of the chapter, which is sort of the chapter title, doesn't appear with the story as far as I can tell. ("Aunt Julia, Jesus Loves You More Than You Will Know.") I could have added that text to the top of the story (probably in bold face), but it didn't occur to me.

"The Preacher Man." Wow, 46 Lit pages in one submission. I would have broken that up into a real series, but he chose not to. How many chapters does he have?

 

[SeraphNocturne]

I guess I'm a light weight. Mine is just under 6K words. the story. The backstory another 6K words
I have been practicing editing and cutting material in another thread. I am trying to up my game. I don't think I've ever written anything this long before. I hope it works.

I'm sure it's going to be just fine! The typical sweet spot for most stories I think is around 10K word count so that should do well!

I've got a standalone pushing 8K words halfway through, and I'm trying hard to keep it short and sweet. Considering I've gotten one erotic scene in already, I say I'm doing good by my standards. The collaboration story for the event that I'm working on will probably be pushing close to 13K, again, still pretty good by my long-handed standards and with two minds at work on it.

Maybe I'm asking this wrong ... I see stories all the time here that have "pages" or sections numbered like 1, 2, 3, separate links at the bottom within the same story link from an author's profile page. One of my favorites on this site has 46 (https://www.literotica.com/s/the-preacher-man) within a single story link. That's what I'm asking about.

For this Geek Pride event, I was under the impression we weren't supposed to have something be multiple independent links on our profiles ("My Story Pt. 01, My Story Pt. 02," etc.). Did I get that wrong? :-(

I'm understanding that 'standalone' means that the submission has a complete focus from start to finish - beginning, middle and conclusion. No cliff hangers or anything like that. I'm not even certain that prohibits you from turning your story into a series after the fact, but for the initial event submission in general it seems they're looking for completed works out the gate.

I am also assuming that does not essentially limit you to how many submissions of your story you put in regarding the length of the work. So I think if you wanted to break up a very long story into sections, it would be allowed? But I really don't know for certain, to be honest... you may have to wait for someone who knows absolutely for sure if that'll be allowed to come along.

My only reasoning for breaking it up to begin with is that nearly 30K word stories do end up having a lot of 'Lit pages', and that might be a turn off to some readers. It's gonna look crazy long. But then again some of them might not have any issues with the length especially if the story is engaging. If it comes down to it, always better safe than sorry, I would submit it as one complete work! That said, you'll still only get 10 tags for your story and one of them should be Geek Pride 2023.

This is my first writing Event myself so all of this is just what I've garnered from stalking old Event threads and the information available here on the OP of this thread. @ChloeTzang might be able to confirm or shed a bit more helpful insight here, if you wanted to DM her.

 

[MediocreAuthor]

Maybe I'm asking this wrong ... I see stories all the time here that have "pages" or sections numbered like 1, 2, 3, separate links at the bottom within the same story link from an author's profile page. One of my favorites on this site has 46 (https://www.literotica.com/s/the-preacher-man) within a single story link. That's what I'm asking about.

For this Geek Pride event, I was under the impression we weren't supposed to have something be multiple independent links on our profiles ("My Story Pt. 01, My Story Pt. 02," etc.). Did I get that wrong? :-(

Okay, maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but it seems like you're asking how to denote where to begin each new page within one story?

Like page

1 2 3 4 5

That is automatic and unchangeable.

3500 words is the average length per page, but you cannot decide where each page break goes to my knowledge.

Does that answer your question?

Secondly, if you did want to break your story into numerous stories within this event... You SORT of can, although only the first chapter is allowed without within any event, and is customary to NOT include "Chapter' in the title.

(Fucky Friday was my April Fool's entry, and Sucky Saturday was a stand alone followup in the On The Job Event. Both are part of the 3 part "Weird-ass Weekend" collection, but each stood by itself as a single tale)

 

[ElectricBlue]

Maybe I'm asking this wrong ... I see stories all the time here that have "pages" or sections numbered like 1, 2, 3, separate links at the bottom within the same story link from an author's profile page. One of my favorites on this site has 46 (https://www.literotica.com/s/the-preacher-man) within a single story link. That's what I'm asking about.

For this Geek Pride event, I was under the impression we weren't supposed to have something be multiple independent links on our profiles ("My Story Pt. 01, My Story Pt. 02," etc.). Did I get that wrong? :-(

The anthologies are for stand-alone stories only, that is, no chapters.

But - 30k is not a long story by Lit standards, so my suggestion is to signify the chapter breaks internally and submit as a single story. For example:

* * * *

Chapter Two

For future reference, there are two ways to do a chaptered story:

1. Submit individual chapters, same Title Title Ch.01 Ch.02 etc. The site joins things up automatically, using an alpha-numeric sort sequence. 01, 02, 03 is needed if you have more that ten chapters, or the sequencing will go wrong.

If you're silly enough to plan more than a hundred chapters, you'll need 001, 002, 003... Do us all a favour though, don't be silly .

2. Use the Series function - this needs the chapters to be up and live, you can join them up yourself, change the order, put in a brief Series Summary.

1. is easier.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I'm not even certain that prohibits you from turning your story into a series after the fact, but for the initial event submission in general it seems they're looking for completed works out the gate.

Yes, you can continue a chaptered piece outside of the anthology.

I am also assuming that does not essentially limit you to how many submissions of your story you put in regarding the length of the work. So I think if you wanted to break up a very long story into sections, it would be allowed? But I really don't know for certain, to be honest... you may have to wait for someone who knows absolutely for sure if that'll be allowed to come along.

See my post above. Anthologies = no chapters. The constraint was put in to stop folk swamping a collection with multiple chapters.

But, long stories are fine on Lit (and in my experience, possibly even preferred - at least by those who prefer a decent story, not just wank fodder).

This is my first writing Event myself so all of this is just what I've garnered from stalking old Event threads and the information available here on the OP of this thread. @ChloeTzang might be able to confirm or shed a bit more helpful insight here, if you wanted to DM her.

No need - the answer is here .

 

[Eisenloewe]

Okay, maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but it seems like you're asking how to denote where to begin each new page within one story?

Like page

1 2 3 4 5

That is automatic and unchangeable.

This was exactly my question, thank you! I'd planned for four 7000-ish word pages, corresponding roughly to scenes. So that won't work, and it's a waste of time to do hardcoded line/page/chapter breaks in my .doc formatting. I'll switch to inline chapter headings in simple bold underline and let the site pagination algorithm just do what it does.

 

[Duleigh]

Maybe I'm asking this wrong ... I see stories all the time here that have "pages" or sections numbered like 1, 2, 3, separate links at the bottom within the same story link from an author's profile page. One of my favorites on this site has 46 (https://www.literotica.com/s/the-preacher-man) within a single story link. That's what I'm asking about.

For this Geek Pride event, I was under the impression we weren't supposed to have something be multiple independent links on our profiles ("My Story Pt. 01, My Story Pt. 02," etc.). Did I get that wrong? :-(

Those links at the bottom of the page are site auto-generated. I believe each page on the site holds about 3,500 words then your content spills onto another page and a link is born. Some authors are better than others at figuring out where the page break is going to be, but I'm always surprised how many site pages my story will take up. My geek pride story went over 51K words so I'm guessing I'll see 15 pages, it's always a surprise to me

You cannot link to anything outside of the Literotica environment. If I put a link in my story it will go back to the story event page or maybe another associated story, but site moderators will pounce on links to anything outside of literotica. Besides, if you haven't posted a chapter yet, how do you know what the address for that chapter will be?

Also, in contests you can't enter a chapter from a story that isn't part of the contest. If you're building a universe and have many stand-alone stories in that universe a stand alone story is fine, but you can't drop a chapter from an existing story in. This doesn't rule out a multi chapter story if they are all put in the event but to keep from raising the moderators blood pressure it may be wise to put all the chapters in one entry

 

[ElectricBlue]

This was exactly my question, thank you! I'd planned for four 7000-ish word pages, corresponding roughly to scenes. So that won't work, and it's a waste of time to do hardcoded line/page/chapter breaks in my .doc formatting. I'll switch to inline chapter headings in simple bold underline and let the site pagination algorithm just do what it does.

Yes, forget about print book oriented formatting.

You can see the Lit house style - it's a common font, left justified, right ragged, no indents. Do two para returns at the end of each paragraph, and that gets the spacing right (regardless of your docx para spacing set up).

I'd keep the use of bold, italics, underline to a minimum, because when they go wrong, they can do so spectacularly - usually when you don't close the html and it rolls over a page break. You need to code the html yourself, to be sure.

I use 3750 words as a typical Lit page length. It's approximate, plus or minus fifty words or so.

For absolutely fool proof loads, I always copy paste into the Lit Form, and Preview. What you then see is what you get - and you can edit within the form, if you spot glitches.

If it's your first story, be patient. Your text will be scrutinised more closely for content compliance - check the stickies above - and may take up to a week, sometimes.

Good luck, enjoy writing, and yes, you will drive yourself nuts checking your scores. The novelty does wear off after a while, but we all still do it.