The 2024 750 Word Story Challenge Support Thread

[MelissaBaby]

Wow. @MelissaBaby won an erotica contest with a non-erotic story.

Okay, yes, it's not a contest and the event doesn't specify erotic content but you all know what I mean.

Nice job, Melissa.

Now, if only I can figure out how to win Powerball without buying a ticket.

 

[DarkWhispers2U]

I had three stories in the works, but couldn't get any of them to come together in time. So, I guess I have a full year to get my shit together on these or give up entirely. *sigh*

I've got the list up and will do my best to sneak a few in here and there. Congrats to those who participated.

 

[lil_jenni]

I had three stories in the works, but couldn't get any of them to come together in time. So, I guess I have a full year to get my shit together on these or give up entirely. *sigh*

I feel you. I only had one in the works, but trying to edit is caused me enough frustration and anxiety that not only did I not finish, I avoided Lit so I could avoid thinking about it.

 

[Duleigh]

Here is the final list
It's all in one chapter​

 

[nerdboy1000]

Maybe this is buried in the previous 53 pages of comments, but I'm wondering how other people approached this?

I started with a document that had 750 words in it - "one two three four five" etc etc., repeating at ten ( "nine ten one...")

It helped a lot. I did have to occasionally adjust things to keep the word count, but I felt it was still a good approach.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

I started with a document that had 750 words in it - "one two three four five" etc etc., repeating at ten ( "nine ten one...")

Are you asking how people count the number of words in their stories?

I paste mine into the plain text story submission form. If you click the diagonal-arrows icon at the top right of the text box, you get an expanded box with a word count at the bottom left. Note that the word count doesn't update unless you click somewhere else in the text box (move the cursor).

 

[theWollstonecraftWoman]

Maybe this is buried in the previous 53 pages of comments, but I'm wondering how other people approached this?

I started with a document that had 750 words in it - "one two three four five" etc etc., repeating at ten ( "nine ten one...")

It helped a lot. I did have to occasionally adjust things to keep the word count, but I felt it was still a good approach.

Word gives me a word count total for a document. I highlight all of the actual story and get a word count from that.

 

[nerdboy1000]

Are you asking how people count the number of words in their stories?

I paste mine into the plain text story submission form. If you click the diagonal-arrows icon at the top right of the text box, you get an expanded box with a word count at the bottom left. Note that the word count doesn't update unless you click somewhere else in the text box (move the cursor).

No, I'm not asking how people count the words. Just how people go about starting the story so they know how to hit all the major points at 750 words.

That is, rather than starting at a blank page, does anyone do anything to assist them to stay in the 750 word limit?

I sort of write off-the-cuff, so I'm not necessarily paying attention to word count - I'm paying attention to story "scenes".

I needed something to help me frame the word limit so I could manage my scenes without spending 300 words on the opening scene. So I wrote a document with 750 "nonsense" words in it (well the words "one" to "ten"), then I sort of broke that into rough paragraphs.

Just wondering if other people do or did something similar.

 

[MrPixel]

Like a lot of things in life, it takes practice. On one (I think the third) of the four 750 stories I wrote this year, the last sentence naturally capped at 753, and obviously it was a quick trim. It's a matter of adjusting the pace of the story. I figure 50% in the setup, 30-40% in the exposition, and the remainder in the resolution. Watching the word count as you go is helpful - once I hit 350-400 words I'd better be starting the action.

YMMV.

 

[EmilyMiller]

No, I'm not asking how people count the words. Just how people go about starting the story so they know how to hit all the major points at 750 words.

That is, rather than starting at a blank page, does anyone do anything to assist them to stay in the 750 word limit?

I sort of write off-the-cuff, so I'm not necessarily paying attention to word count - I'm paying attention to story "scenes".

I needed something to help me frame the word limit so I could manage my scenes without spending 300 words on the opening scene. So I wrote a document with 750 "nonsense" words in it (well the words "one" to "ten"), then I sort of broke that into rough paragraphs.

Just wondering if other people do or did something similar.

Nope.

I have a general feeling for around how many words I have written. And I check the count every now and again once I feel like I’m close. But I don’t panic if I’m over 750 words.

I aim for staying under 900 for a first draft. Then I prune (I keep count of words deleted in my head as I go, then check again at the end).

Very occasionally (say twice out of the twenty I wrote) I’d be under 750 with a first draft, and then would look at some additional content.

Emily

 

[MrPixel]

Then I prune...

Carefully stepping around obvious joke here.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Carefully stepping around obvious joke here.

Good call

 

[nerdboy1000]

I think I just tend to write lengthy stuff by default (recently got a second college degree, and every time the class asked for a 3-5 page paper, I tended to turn in 12 pages).

So I felt it useful to have more of a guideline. It's very easy for me to write a 1200/2500 word story without thinking about it.

It would take me a lot more work to prune down a 2k word story to fit into 750 than to fill in the blanks on something that already had 750 words in it.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

That is, rather than starting at a blank page, does anyone do anything to assist them to stay in the 750 word limit?

Ah, got it. I check my word count periodically as I write, and let myself overshoot by a couple hundred. Then I trim it down to roughly 750, paste into the Literotica submissions form, and use its official word count for the last few cuts.

I've learned that I'm naturally verbose enough that it's pretty easy to cut a hundred words from my first draft. Two hundred takes effort. Three hundred is hard.

I once cut 16k down to 750 but that required some real loss of content and clarity. The result is my worst-rated story, currently below 3.0:

Home For Her Birthday (750 Words)
24/7 slave gets a day off when Mistress's husband comes home.

But, hey, if you never overshoot, you're just not aiming high enough. At least, that's what I tell myself every time I see that story's score.

 

[nerdboy1000]

But, hey, if you never overshoot, you're just not aiming high enough. At least, that's what I tell myself every time I see that story's score.

... Yeah, maybe. But as you say, it's much better to overshoot by about 100/200 words than 1k/2k. And I know I'd overshoot by at least 500 words if I didn't frame things first.

My story ( Basics of Chemistry ) is not the best, and is not rated nearly as high as all my others ( it's one of two rated below 4, and the other one had lots of typos/word errors). But it's also my first entry. So I could "greater than 3" as a minor victory (lays curse on his own story ratings)

 

[Lifestyle66]

... Yeah, maybe. But as you say, it's much better to overshoot by about 100/200 words than 1k/2k. And I know I'd overshoot by at least 500 words if I didn't frame things first.

My story ( Basics of Chemistry ) is not the best, and is not rated nearly as high as all my others ( it's one of two rated below 4, and the other one had lots of typos/word errors). But it's also my first entry. So I could "greater than 3" as a minor victory (lays curse on his own story ratings)

My very first story posted to LitE was a 750-word story "He Missed You (750 Word Project)" posted three years ago. It started as 1,500 words.

The trick is to read and re-read your story as you whittle out those things which are not necessarily required to tell the core story. Then try choosing and using your words more efficiently to reduce sentences by a word or two here and there.

It's a very good writing exercise, and you'll learn from it. And you might not be able to do that with every story. But you might find one scene in which you can describe with its own beginning, middle, and ending.

 

[Rob_Royale]

I think I just tend to write lengthy stuff by default (recently got a second college degree, and every time the class asked for a 3-5 page paper, I tended to turn in 12 pages).

So I felt it useful to have more of a guideline. It's very easy for me to write a 1200/2500 word story without thinking about it.

It would take me a lot more work to prune down a 2k word story to fit into 750 than to fill in the blanks on something that already had 750 words in it.

The key to a 750 word story is to write about a moment in time. No backstory, just about what is happening at that moment. Descriptions as brief as can be. Then just describe what happens between the characters in an interaction that lasts minutes.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

The key to a 750 word story is to write about a moment in time. No backstory, just about what is happening at that moment. Descriptions as brief as can be. Then just describe what happens between the characters in an interaction that lasts minutes.

This is certainly a way to do a 750 word story but not the only way. I have two at 4.44 which cover months of time:

A Smile To Remember (750 Words)
Lonely single parents find love on the playground.

He Showed Her His Porn (750 Words)
...his femdom shoe fetish porn, in class, by accident...oops

 

[XerXesXu]

The key to a 750 word story is to write about a moment in time. No backstory, just about what is happening at that moment. Descriptions as brief as can be. Then just describe what happens between the characters in an interaction that lasts minutes.

My target for a 750 story is to include extension in time and place with more than one person featured in each. A query arose about whether one could chapterise a 750 story, so I started with a 200-word story I’d written for a thread about something, maybe AI, and added 3 more chapters.

Sonya's Plan - Transgender & Crossdressers - Literotica.com

I’ve got nothing against vignettes and scenes, but they don’t fall within my idea of a story.

 

[MyBareTorso]

No, I'm not asking how people count the words. Just how people go about starting the story so they know how to hit all the major points at 750 words.

That is, rather than starting at a blank page, does anyone do anything to assist them to stay in the 750 word limit?

I sort of write off-the-cuff, so I'm not necessarily paying attention to word count - I'm paying attention to story "scenes".

I needed something to help me frame the word limit so I could manage my scenes without spending 300 words on the opening scene. So I wrote a document with 750 "nonsense" words in it (well the words "one" to "ten"), then I sort of broke that into rough paragraphs.

Just wondering if other people do or did something similar.

My six 750 worders this year were just very, very simple and singular vignettes that turned me on, so I knew they couldn't fatten out to anything more. Most ended up being less (!) than 750 words on first write, so I added a little more description and detail until they hit the 750 word mark.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Three hundred more words than the 750 limit gives so much more latitude for a writer. A 1000 words more is easier. They are still moments in time. My brother tried his hand at writing a few years back, and it wasn't pretty. He crammed a dozen scenes into 2000 words. There was no discernable plot but a jumbled mass of words where nothing happened. Nothing made sense. I tried to be positive about it and said, "You have a start, but need to expand each scene and put the missing things in the story."

"What things are missing?" he asked.

My father couldn't stay quiet any longer.

"The story is missing, son; it isn't a story."

Needless to say, Bro ain't shown us any writing lately.

 

[TheRedChamber]

I plan my stories, so I have a fair idea of where I ideally want to be at 250,375 and 500 words.

One thing to say is, by all means try to write a 750 word story, but if your story gets to 1,000 or 1,500 words and they're all necessary, just publish it a short story ourside the 750-event. That's happened to me twice. For my Bond spoof On Her Majesty's Secretarial Service I actually got to exactly 750 words that I was happy with before I realized that adding just one more scene made the whole thing much better (and ensured it was actually Moneypenny's story). I didn't fancy editing down and cutting out good jokes, so I just wrote the scene on top. For A Half-Decent Peformance, I was never sure if it could be a 750-word story, tried to write miserly but just quickly realized it needed the extra space in both of its two scenes to work properly.

It's often said here that a story is as long as it needs to be. Some stories are naturally 750-wordable. Some are not.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Just came across this from a few months back. Thought it was funny.

I’ve never written a 750 (did a 100 once). I imagine they are quite hard to do. I got a sense of emotion and dynamics. It was well-written.

Em

Hehehe.