Winter Holiday 2024 Contest Support and Seasonal Story Discussion Thread

[Duleigh]

Waiting for next years competition timetable to arrive and take a leaf out of your book get an early start

I tried that in 2022 with A Krissmas Karole. It was a Christmas based horror story and was done in January 2022 so I got bored and started writing the back story of the characters in the story. By the time October came around I had to re-write it, I just couldn't kill off the lead character in the backstory, so I had to re-write it. I thought it was a crappy re-write but it kept Lanh alive. This is A Krissmas Karole that I submitted and this is the Original Version and several writers thanked me for posting the original version long after We're a Wonderful Wife series ended.

 

[Actingup]

Hallmark classic?

I'm sure that someone working in that universe has the essay bookmarked for ideas...

Complete digression - there was a quirky band in Australia, "The Whitlams", who had a minor radio hit with a song called "I Make Hamburgers" (followed by a couple of major hits). It was a perfectly innocent song about a guy who works in burger van. Until the first time you hear the sound of creaking bedsprings...

 

[Wineandcheese]

Echo your sentiments. I have one fairly hefty Halloween tale that started well, then lost its way along with an AI one for the AI challenge earlier this year that I ran out of time with.

Waiting for next years competition timetable to arrive and take a leaf out of your book get an early start

I totally missed the AI challenge. That was early in my Lit writing days, and I hadn’t yet discovered contests and challenges. I even wrote an AI story early this year, AI Denise. I wonder how it might have fared in the competition.

 

[Duleigh]

I totally missed the AI challenge. That was early in my Lit writing days, and I hadn’t yet discovered contests and challenges. I even wrote an AI story early this year, AI Denise. I wonder how it might have fared in the competition.

It's not a contest or competition. It's an exercise like the 750 Word event. We gather together to write about a specific subject. There's no score keeping or check writing (shame). I have an idea for a story to close up my two AI stories but I never got to it this year.

 

[WriterPerson314159]

I'd say The Waitresses - Christmas Rappin' was doing well with 1253 views in 13 hours, but it has had (AFAICT) two 1 bombs amongst the 19 votes so a Grinch laden 4.21/19 despite being on three favourites! Also either a lot of 4s or some 2s in the pot as well!

Those 1s (assuming they are 1s) are difficult to recover from without a lot of votes, especially if you're hoping to be above 4.5 or near the top (which is somewhere over 4.8 as of now, depending on what happens with the sweeps). If you get 20 votes, and 19 are 5s and one is a 1, that's a 4.8. To get in the top 3, which probably is around a 4.85 or so, then you need 26 5s for any 1 someone decides to throw in there. For any story to stay up there, it needs a lot of 5s plus avoiding either trolls throwing 1s around or people who genuinely hate the story that much. It tells you something about the stories that manage to stay above 4.9 for a long time.

 

[Inkent]

Don't know about the rest of you, but enjoyed this Winter Story romp from the writing to the banter in this thread, so a big thanks to you all

 

[Actingup]

Another 10 stories today (including my own Remembering the Storm - submitted under Romance last night - it's about this year's 50th anniversary of the devastation of Darwin in Australia by Tropical Cyclone Tracy on 24/25 December 1974). There's probably a way to automatically create a list of the new Competition stories every day... maybe next time. It's impressive how the publication rate has stayed up over Thanksgiving.

 

[Actingup]

Another 10 - now 136.

 

[oneagainst]

Another 10 - now 136.

View attachment 2437415

We're soooo close to the top righthand corner of the graph now. I'm so excited!

Or is that OCD?

 

[Trionyx]

Another 10 - now 136.

View attachment 2437415

Curve may tick up a bit as procrastinators rush to get their stories posted and others play the “later stories score higher” game.

 

[Actingup]

Curve may tick up a bit as procrastinators rush to get their stories posted and others play the “later stories score higher” game.

Yep - that definitely seems to be happening. I guess I've done it myself by putting in a 2nd story on Sunday. What's surprised me is not the scoring (which is similar to my other story or a bit below), but the engagement - I expected that the later ones would get lost more easily, but it doesn't seem to be making a difference. Maybe readers fire up a bit more as the end of the comp approaches?

 

[AlexFourways]

Yep - that definitely seems to be happening. I guess I've done it myself by putting in a 2nd story on Sunday. What's surprised me is not the scoring (which is similar to my other story or a bit below), but the engagement - I expected that the later ones would get lost more easily, but it doesn't seem to be making a difference. Maybe readers fire up a bit more as the end of the comp approaches?

My first story, The Druid was at just over 6080 reads and went live on day 1 - my second, Rappin' live for less than three days is on 3100 reads despite having a non-hot* 4.28/36 for most of the time, wheras The Druid was hot for most of the time but has cooled to 4.47/71 (again about a 2 to 1 on votes as reads).

*I'm hoping the sweep will return them to hot as either I was 1 bombed on both more than once or I had some odd voting patterns like 553354 instead of 551554
If people want links - The Druid's Winter Solstice Gift & The Waitresses - Christmas Rappin'

 

[Duleigh]

Yep - that definitely seems to be happening. I guess I've done it myself by putting in a 2nd story on Sunday. What's surprised me is not the scoring (which is similar to my other story or a bit below), but the engagement - I expected that the later ones would get lost more easily, but it doesn't seem to be making a difference. Maybe readers fire up a bit more as the end of the comp approaches?

It works, I don't know, but it works. I saw someone I won't name (Cough @ChloeTzang Cough) drop a story at the very last second and still win. I've never had the guts to do that. Some time around 2 weeks remaining alarm bells go off in my head and I panic - do I have enough time? (I posted it weeks ago)

 

[ChloeTzang]

It works, I don't know, but it works. I saw someone I won't name (Cough @ChloeTzang Cough) drop a story at the very last second and still win. I've never had the guts to do that. Some time around 2 weeks remaining alarm bells go off in my head and I panic - do I have enough time? (I posted it weeks ago)

Blushes. Yes. I did that. Lol. This year is going to be down to the wire too. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin is not providing the quotes on original sin that I need. The research I do for my stories!!!!!

 

[mrs_mackenzie]

My Winter Holidays entry, The Shared Bath, has gone up today in I/T. Took me long enough... It was really challenging to get over the block and finish a story.

 

[OffNSFW]

I've received a couple lovely comments on my story, "Gift Givers." I also received this:

This was.. weirdly constructed. I loved the characters, and the story started of hot as hell but decflated completely with detailed descriptions of gear breaking down, having financial worries etc. I am a fan of mundane and this might be someone's cup of tea, but when I read Literotica I do it as an escapist action. I read fantasies. My fantasies do not include financial problems and details of sexual frustration, at least not due to gear breaking down.

I'm not complaining. (Okay, I am.) But this is an object lesson in why you read the whole story before rating/commenting.

Not only does the final act of the story contain exactly what this reader was hoping for, but they would hopefully realize that the story is a reference to O. Henry's "Gift of the Magi." It's about a poor couple who comes to understand that they don't need expensive stuff to make the holidays special as long as they have each other. I just did mine with queer girls and explicit sex scenes.

 

[Duleigh]

Blushes. Yes. I did that. Lol. This year is going to be down to the wire too. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin is not providing the quotes on original sin that I need. The research I do for my stories!!!!!

Original Sin? That's easy...

"Gee that looks tasty."

"Here have a bite..."

GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!

 

[ChloeTzang]

Curve may tick up a bit as procrastinators rush to get their stories posted and others play the “later stories score higher” game.

That's me. Down to the wire.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Original Sin? That's easy...

"Gee that looks tasty."

"Here have a bite..."

GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!

It's not that simple. It's a mass and the priest is expounding on original sin and a little theology is needed to help. Transubstantiation is easy but..

 

[NotWise]

It's not that simple. It's a mass and the priest is expounding on original sin and a little theology is needed to help. Transubstantiation is easy but..

Saint Augustine had a lot to say about original sin, since he invented the term. I imagine you're past this point, but Wikipedia has a significant article under "original sin."

 

[Duleigh]

It's not that simple. It's a mass and the priest is expounding on original sin and a little theology is needed to help. Transubstantiation is easy but..

Oh. You didn't say you wanted Theology. I usually turn to Charles Spurgeon who believed in the concept of original sin but he didn't belabor it. "Sin is sin" and he was a pretty sharp guy (even though he hated the United States)

You cannot say to any sin, "You may dwell in my heart and be my friend." It cannot be your friend; evil is our natural and necessary enemy and we must treat it as such.

 

[RBeemer]

Can anyone explain why a reader would mark a story as a favorite but NOT give it a star rating?

Very frustrating....

 

[NotWise]

Can anyone explain why a reader would mark a story as a favorite but NOT give it a star rating?

Very frustrating....

No explanation necessary. Lots of readers will favorite and not vote. Nothing requires they do both (or either).

 

[Fatdog25]

Can anyone explain why a reader would mark a story as a favorite but NOT give it a star rating?

Very frustrating....

Some readers treat Favorites as a To Be Read Later list. They'll subsequently unmark it after they've read it.

 

[RBeemer]

No explanation necessary. Lots of readers will favorite and not vote. Nothing requires they do both (or either).

Of course. I was just curious.