The 2024 750 Word Story Challenge Support Thread

Wow...
Dan's, Jan's and Teds' in bed.
Hope none get a fright.
Seems they had a busy night.
These are characters I developed in my other swinger stories.

Ted and Jan are my favorite main characters, a swinger couple after 30-years of marriage. Dan and his wife Maggie host swinger house parties, with Maggie being Ted's favorite partner at the parties. Jan enjoys Roger, a divorced guy who hooked up with (Beth), a divorcee who now looks for women at the swinger parties but will take on a guy. Roger and Beth hooked up to act as a couple to get invites to the "couple's only" parties.

Making Beth a divorcee who has sort of sworn off men due to her cheating husband is a new development in the story. I wrote this story to try showing the LW haters that sex isn't love. But many of them still don't get it and never will.

EDIT: Talk about "a busy night", some of my other stories have Jan MUCH busier. Try reading "A Hard Lesson" to see what happened when she got mad at her husband at a party.
 
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These are characters I developed in my other swinger stories.

Ted and Jan are my favorite main characters, a swinger couple after 30-years of marriage. Dan and his wife Maggie host swinger house parties, with Maggie being Ted's favorite partner at the parties. Jan enjoys Roger, a divorced guy who hooked up with (Beth), a divorcee who now looks for women at the swinger parties but will take on a guy. Roger and Beth hooked up to act as a couple to get invites to the "couple's only" parties.

Making Beth a divorcee who has sort of sworn off men due to her cheating husband is a new development in the story. I wrote this story to try showing the LW haters that sex isn't love. But many of them still don't get it and never will.
Ahh that makes sense...I needed to know your back catalogue. Thanks :)
 
I think the word counting mechanism at Lit must have either fewer or more fingers and toes than I do, because the first time I submitted my story if was sent back with a note that it was only 743 words long, even though my computer Word counter said 750 exactly. After making a few minor changes and adding the appropriate number of words, with my computer insisting now it was 757 words long which I thought would bring Lit’s count up to 750, it was published as a 766-word story. Maybe it’s all just a crap shoot, anyway.
 
I think different word counts come from how punctuation is handled. I've noticed the official lit count considers "this...thing" one word.
 
I think the word counting mechanism at Lit must have either fewer or more fingers and toes than I do, because the first time I submitted my story if was sent back with a note that it was only 743 words long, even though my computer Word counter said 750 exactly. After making a few minor changes and adding the appropriate number of words, with my computer insisting now it was 757 words long which I thought would bring Lit’s count up to 750, it was published as a 766-word story. Maybe it’s all just a crap shoot, anyway.

You can see in advance how the website will count the words, if you click on the two arrows in the upper corner of the text box when you go to publish your work called "expand full screen editor". In there, the word count will be listed at the bottom. I learned this the hard way myself.
 
UPDATE:

THE END IS IN SIGHT!

So I’ve published 14 - this where I am:

  1. SciFi & Fantasy ✅
  2. Non-erotic ✅
  3. Romance ✅
  4. BDSM ✅
  5. Humor & Satire ✅
  6. Gay Male ✅
  7. Lesbian Sex ✅
  8. Toys & Masturbation ✅
  9. Toys & Masturbation (couldn’t be two more dissimilar stories) ✅
  10. Interracial Love Lesbian ✅
  11. Mind Control ✅
  12. Mature ✅
  13. Transgender & Cross Dressing ✅
  14. Celebrities & Fan Fiction ✅
  15. Reviews & Essays ⬅️ tomorrow
  16. Erotic Horror
  17. Non-human
Yet another new category (none left that make sense), my first non-human.

Emily
 
I think different word counts come from how punctuation is handled. I've noticed the official lit count considers "this...thing" one word.
Yeah, it's a total headache. Google Docs and Microsoft Word count hyphenated words differently. Best of all, there's readers out there who will count your words then email me, tell me you're cheating and you should be barred from winning and receive no money. I assure them that it's within my power to promise that.
 
A silly observation. The top ten rated 750 stories are spread across several categories none of which is Loving Wives. The top ten under 'Favorites' are all in Loving Wives. LW is an funny category.
 
Yeah, it's a total headache. Google Docs and Microsoft Word count hyphenated words differently. Best of all, there's readers out there who will count your words then email me, tell me you're cheating and you should be barred from winning and receive no money. I assure them that it's within my power to promise that.
Word counts need a space at the end to count.

The example given above: "this...thing" will count as one word, while "this... thing" will count as two. And "this - thing" will probably count as three. White spaces matter, when you count.
 
Not very happy with either the number of readers or votes on my story this year. Such is writing, feast, or famine.
 
Yeah, it's a total headache. Google Docs and Microsoft Word count hyphenated words differently. Best of all, there's readers out there who will count your words then email me, tell me you're cheating and you should be barred from winning and receive no money. I assure them that it's within my power to promise that.
I think emdashes are another difference. Changed two to commas and the word count went down by two.

Em
 
A silly observation. The top ten rated 750 stories are spread across several categories none of which is Loving Wives. The top ten under 'Favorites' are all in Loving Wives. LW is an funny category.
Rating is an average. Favorites is a count. So that’s not surprising.

Emily
 
I want to but several of my 750 word stories are in a series. You can only put a story in one series.
The series concept isn’t so flexible is it?

With my “series” Eden’s Explorations, I have the stand alone story, At Whorey’s Piers, and the series, Teaching Eden. It’s a bit clumsy to say the least.

Emily
 
The series concept isn’t so flexible is it?

With my “series” Eden’s Explorations, I have the stand alone story, At Whorey’s Piers, and the series, Teaching Eden. It’s a bit clumsy to say the least.

Emily
Two of my seven fifty word stories came in very handy. I have two characters, sisters in law, who challenged each other to a baby race. I revealed a year ago who won the race, these 750 word stories tell the start of the race. (Would Niagara Falls on Valentines Day with a rich husband paying the bills be considered cheating? Taking unfair advantage?)
 
I took the plunge. A sex-free romance story, I don't have any fears of it scoring well, but it was fun to cut down to 750 words.
I think the word counting mechanism at Lit must have either fewer or more fingers and toes than I do, because the first time I submitted my story if was sent back with a note that it was only 743 words long, even though my computer Word counter said 750 exactly. After making a few minor changes and adding the appropriate number of words, with my computer insisting now it was 757 words long which I thought would bring Lit’s count up to 750, it was published as a 766-word story. Maybe it’s all just a crap shoot, anyway.
Does it count text formatting tags as well? Because I have run my through two word counters, as well as Google Doc's tools, to get 750, and Lit has me at 770.
 
I think emdashes are another difference. Changed two to commas and the word count went down by two.

Em
It would depend on the way the emdashes are presented. Any space is going to be seen as the end of a word, and be counted.

Not that it matters. Given that most people have a one sentence intro followed by a line indicator * * * * of some sort, any "requirement" for "a minimum of 750 words" will be met.

At most, the limitation is arbitrary, defined by the site so it can reject micro-stories. It can't be anything technical, because tiny poems are allowed.

People are getting worked up over nothing, I reckon. It's a non-problem.
 
I took the plunge. A sex-free romance story, I don't have any fears of it scoring well, but it was fun to cut down to 750 words.

Does it count text formatting tags as well? Because I have run my through two word counters, as well as Google Doc's tools, to get 750, and Lit has me at 770.
I do not use text formatting tags, being an anti-luddite (someone with a fear of ancient, forgotten technology) I let my word processor handle that. Maybe @EmilyMiller can answer that question
 
I took the plunge. A sex-free romance story, I don't have any fears of it scoring well, but it was fun to cut down to 750 words.

Does it count text formatting tags as well? Because I have run my through two word counters, as well as Google Doc's tools, to get 750, and Lit has me at 770.
@Duleigh mentioned me, markup doesn’t count as words as per:

IMG_7681.jpeg

Emily
 
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