Winter Holiday 2024 Contest Support and Seasonal Story Discussion Thread

[Actingup]

I woke this morning and my toes curled with excitement After a kiss and my coffee. I saw the official announcement for the Winter Holiday Story Contest! Forgive my excitement the holidays are almost here!

My story, The Cruise Companion, is the opening chapter for a new series with a new protagonist. I am giddy with excitement. It is in final editing now and I can't wait!

Happy writing and reading!!

Hi Aoife... well done on the kiss and hopefully the coffee was good too!

Just in terms of the 'opening chapter' thing - how does that sit with this rule?

• All submissions must be stand-alone stories created for this contest theme. We will not accept individual chapters of a larger work submitted separately. If you have a multi-chaptered contest-themed submission, please submit all chapters together as one story submission.

I'm not trying to have a go here, but trying to work out how this is handled smoothly. Just in case my own story needs a sequel.... Good luck in the contest!

 

[ChloeTzang]

I agree with Chloe that you should try to enter the contest early to maximize the attention your story gets. There's some reason to believe that it's not necessarily the best way to win a contest with the highest rating, if that's your goal. Last year I submitted a story to the Halloween contest on the last day or near the last day of eligibility. It had relatively few votes, but it placed third with a high score. I suspect that's just random luck, but who knows?

I think what it is, is that your followers tend to be the first people to read one of your stories, esp if you have a lot of followers, and if its a competition and you post at the last minute, it will mostly be your followers that read and vote right away, thus pushing your score up, and if it's a LONG story, only your followers who really like your stories will read all the way thru, thus maximizing your score in the short term. That said, that can be offset by the trolls who follow you and give you a one every time.

I did win once like that and that was someone else's theory on why it won, so I didn't come up with that on my own, but it kind of makes sense. It wasn't deliberately last minute either - I almost always write down to the wire because I procrastinate like crazy and then write like mad to hit the deadline and quite often scrape it in with scenes deleted because I didn't have time to finish them. Bad bad Chloe. My excuse is I write better to deadlines, and without one I waffle forever writing and rewriting. The winning is usually accidental - whatever is in my head. Which as my husband theorizes, must be a really weird place to be LOL (he was reading "I Married a Heptapod" and laughing so hard he was crying when he said that - the whole bureaucracy scene).

Anyhow, there's all sorts of ways to game the competitions, and who knows what really works. I've won a couple and I remember competing with Ogg to see which of us could get the lowest score once. Ogg won, dammit!!!!! Whichever way you approach it, the important things is to enjoy the writing and not tom take the ratings and placing too seriously.

 

[Voboy]

This one always sneaks up on me.

I've been nugging away on an April Fools piece, completely foorgetting about this one because it's unseasonably warm here and my life is super-busy at the moment.

I've got something for this one, but it'll take some tweaking I think.

 

[Rustyoznail]

I'm having a hard time with my story and I don't know why. It's all straight forward, but I can't get a good roll happening.

My Muse is trying to tell me something, but damned if I know what.

 

[Actingup]

I'm having a hard time with my story and I don't know why. It's all straight forward, but I can't get a good roll happening.

My Muse is trying to tell me something, but damned if I know what.

You need it to be less straight forward so that it's firing you up. Insert a visit from the Wild Hunt into the middle of a chapter, and see what happens?

 

[Rustyoznail]

You need it to be less straight forward so that it's firing you up. Insert a visit from the Wild Hunt into the middle of a chapter, and see what happens?

Yeah, you might be right. That'll teach me to do a simple story about two people thrust together because of a storm.

I'll set it during WWII and have a Japanese sub arrive off shore and kidnap them...

 

[secretLace]

I got an idea of a christmas dispay in a shop gone wild. Let's see if I can finish it in time.

 

[nicksouth]

I got an idea of a christmas dispay in a shop gone wild. Let's see if I can finish it in time.

Do the elves wake up and have a threesome while the shoppers look on in shock and amazement ?

 

[WittyUserName]

View attachment 2412204​

Take it from a dog from Buffalo, nothing beats the winter! Skiing, toboganning, tubing, ice skating... families gathered togeather in warmth, making love in front of a crackling fire by the light of a decorated tree... The theme coveres all of the winter holidays/events/activities from the end of November to the end of January. Some ideas are... winter holiday traditions (dreidles, gift giving, etc.), cold weather (snow, ice, thunder snow), holiday mythology (Santa, Father Christmas, Hogfather, Hanukkah Harry, elves) holiday relocation - running off to Florida, Spain, Australia, Aspen, Jackson Hole

STARTS: November 11
CLOSES: December 6
WINNERS ANNOUNCED: December 13

Further rules will be posted as they become available.

Remember to copy and paste the phrase "WINTER HOLIDAY 2024" to the "Notes to Admin" field of the submission (quotes are not needed).

This thread is to SUPPORT and ENCOURAGE authors to enter stories in the 2024 Winter Holiday Contest If you have questions, post them here and someone will answer. It might be me, it might be someone else here but don't be shy. Ask.

If you're a first time writer, or this is the first time you're putting a story in to a contest on Literotica, hey, don't get stressed about it. You don't have to have written anything before to write for this contest. This isn’t a “by invitation only” event it's open to everyone. Don't stress out, nobody is going to get hurt, just give it your best shot and the story with the highest scores win.

New Writers - these events are a chance to hone your skills and get your name out there, and we're here to help, this forum is for you and for the old hands with the skill to help you.

Experienced Writers - this forum is for you to step up and mentor a new generation of writers

We're all here just writing for fun, come join a bunch of other writers doing the same thing. If you're not sure about what to do, how to submit your story, anything at all in fact, just post your questions here. We've all been there and we're a bunch of very helpful people and we like to pass it on.

I had an idea for this one, but these holiday contests come up so fast! I don't think I'll have time, sadly

 

[Actingup]

Yeah, you might be right. That'll teach me to do a simple story about two people thrust together because of a storm.

I'll set it during WWII and have a Japanese sub arrive off shore and kidnap them...

Make it a two person sub, abandoned on the deserted island that the storm washed them onto, and mysteriously in full working order....

Incidentally, when I was living in Japan some time ago, the media was full of ridiculous stories about North Koreans coming onshore and kidnapping Japanese civilians. Ridiculous, until North Korea eventually admitted that they were true.....

 

[MrStill]

Inspiration hit me in the middle of the night. Another clothed volleyball adjacent story. It should be ready soon except as it stands at the moment, there is no twist at the end.

Er, maybe that's the twist.

 

[Actingup]

Submitted! It's a South Pacific island diplomatic romance. We'll see how it goes, but it was fun to write regardless.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Making the Crew has been submitted.

Chris gets shanghaied onto the Crew at his university. Are their ulterior motives? A ski trip to Vail with his boat gives him all the answers he ever needed.

 

[WriterPerson314159]

This week has been bad for progress on my story for a lot of reasons (the most benign being that I work as an election judge, and that just takes so much time and mental energy). But last night I got back to it…a little …and I expect that I’ll write some more tonight. Plus, I have a job interview, and that’s a good thing.

 

[RBeemer]

My story was submitted yesterday. "The Christmas Package".

No expectations for winning but hoping to score some new readers.

 

[SouthernCrossfire]

Once again, I find myself about 16K words into my 8-10K story (except it's Christmas this time) and still have the last quarter to go. To be safe (unlike the last few times), I'll guess that it will end up at, say, 50K or fewer words.

Congrats to those who've finished and already submitted. Envy....

 

[Voboy]

I need to go over mine before I hit submit. I'm so busy in non-writing ways at the moment; I need a couple hours to focus and knock this one out. I'm hopeful I'll be able to this weekend.

Oddly for me, I wrote two endings. I'm 99% sure which one I'll go with.

 

[AlexIce]

My story, The Ninth Noel, is locked and loaded for release the first day of the contest!

 

[MyBareTorso]

Usually, about three days prior to the start (or more than three days). If you do everything correctly, the story is held until the start date.

Mine's in the chimney, ready to drop...

 

[MyBareTorso]

I agree with Chloe that you should try to enter the contest early to maximize the attention your story gets. There's some reason to believe that it's not necessarily the best way to win a contest with the highest rating, if that's your goal. Last year I submitted a story to the Halloween contest on the last day or near the last day of eligibility. It had relatively few votes, but it placed third with a high score. I suspect that's just random luck, but who knows?

I submit early, during and late with competitions, and I've never come within a whisper of placing...which maybe suggests it's more about the story itself than when you submit it? Purely In terms of eyeballs, however, earliest is definitely best.

 

[Actingup]

I need to go over mine before I hit submit. I'm so busy in non-writing ways at the moment; I need a couple hours to focus and knock this one out. I'm hopeful I'll be able to this weekend.

Oddly for me, I wrote two endings. I'm 99% sure which one I'll go with.

Maybe you should put the other one out simultaneously as the dark side mix? Or the light side, depending on which ending is your 99%. A bit like Peter Gabriel's recent album, except that he then issued a surround sound mix as well....

 

[Inkent]

Last bit of editing, finishing line in sight. Gone for something spanning a year, starting with a NYE party. Plays on a harsh winter and a downward spiral of someone's life. Been a fun write, that's what's mattered

 

[Voboy]

Maybe you should put the other one out simultaneously as the dark side mix? Or the light side, depending on which ending is your 99%. A bit like Peter Gabriel's recent album, except that he then issued a surround sound mix as well....

Nah, that's not really my style. One of them is much stronger than the other, and that's the one I picked.

The two endings addressed just how far the narrator would go in giving in to her lust. This is Lit, so she ended up going quite far. It's what was right for the character, too, I think.

Submitted.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Gotta story to finish!!!! Fueled up on caffeine and carbs and down to writing for the rest of the day. Got tomorrow off too, so two whole days to blast out words.

Have a wonderful Sunday and the best of luck to anyone, who, like me, is still writing away on their entry.

 

[vanmyers86]

As for winning strategies, I also favor the last-minute solution. The sole contest I won featured Vanessa frantically writing up to the deadline and hitting "submit" about 90 seconds before the deadline. I would add that once the story won, it was featured on the Lit landing page as a winner for a couple of weeks, and the story got a lot more views than usual because of that.