Official Crime and Punishment 2025 Story Event Support Thread

[Voboy]

Same here, I actually submitted mine a couple of days before the deadline and it's still listed as pending. Sad to not get in with the initial slate. Hope it's not a bad sign.

Based on the reception mine is getting, it's a great sign.

I hate when I have to settle for Erotic Couplings.

 

[Actingup]

golly - thanks heaps @Candy_Kane54 and @TheRedLantern. I wouldn’t have thought to check that. I think that ‘newest’ is the default sort when looking at somebody’s profile.

Just for the record.. it took about 36 hours for the story to show on my profile under 'newest'. My other story is still in pending. Clearly there's some sort of long-running industrial dispute involving the site maintenance elves, or else they've had some visa issues.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Same here, I actually submitted mine a couple of days before the deadline and it's still listed as pending. Sad to not get in with the initial slate. Hope it's not a bad sign.

Mine's still pending as well so you are not alone

 

[Jorunn]

Mine's still pending as well so you are not alone

What is worrisome about this is that these are entries for a challenge. Easy to identify by Notes and Tags. And they have a list with a scheduled date to go on. One would assume some urgency or priority.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I think it’s a pretty serious issue that the challenge list is posted and there are still stories submitted before the deadline pending.

In more than eight years on Lit, I have entered a lot of challenges and contests. I don’t recall that ever happening. I consider it a pretty major breach of trust between the site and the authors.

I strongly advise anyone submitting to the Halloween and Winter Holidays contests to get their entries submitted well before the deadline.

 

[FreyaGersemi]

I think it’s a pretty serious issue that the challenge list is posted and there are still stories submitted before the deadline pending.

In more than eight years on Lit, I have entered a lot of challenges and contests. I don’t recall that ever happening. I consider it a pretty major breach of trust between the site and the authors.

Giving the benefit of the doubt, maybe there's a bigger issue going on? I hope the site owners are well!

 

[MelissaBaby]

Giving the benefit of the doubt, maybe there's a bigger issue going on? I hope the site owners are well!

I’d gladly grant the benefit of the doubt in exchange for a simple notification that there is an issue.

I busted my butt to finish my story by the deadline, and it appears I need not have bothered.

 

[dreams_in_words]

Nope. I just pulled mine from pending back into drafts. I think of it as a blessing in disguise.

I rushed to get it in on the 17th and it sat pending for 8 days. At this point it's handicapped for winning the event by losing all that time.

So I'll just save it for a later date and clean it up first.

Not sad, just disappointed.

 

[FreyaGersemi]

At this point it's handicapped for winning the event by losing all that time.

I believe this is an author's challenge, not a competition. So, we're all winners in this one!!

 

[MelissaBaby]

Nope, still waiting. I wrote to Laurel yesterday, but have not heard back yet.

 

[FreyaGersemi]

Has anyone heard from any of the site owners/managers on or off of the Literotica site? Social media or otherwise?

 

[MelissaBaby]

Has anyone heard from any of the site owners/managers on or off of the Literotica site? Social media or otherwise?

If I don’t hear from Laurel today, I’ll try her on BlueSky.

 

[FreyaGersemi]

If I don’t hear from Laurel today, I’ll try her on BlueSky.

I just checked and it looks like the last activity Literotica had on Bluesky and on Twitter was five days ago. That's unusual. I hope they are okay. Does anyone have any way to personally contact them? Like in the real world?

 

[ChloeTzang]

Well, at least I am not alone. I submitted my Crime and Punishment story on Sunday 21st - still in pending and hasn't been looked at. Messaged Laurel but no response so what the heck, I'm not going to bug her. She has enough on her plate.

Not worrying about it because I've been editing away on it and its a lot better for it. As soon as my edits are done, I'm going to delete and resubmit.

 

[old_prof]

Well, at least I am not alone. I submitted my Crime and Punishment story on Sunday 21st - still in pending and hasn't been looked at. Messaged Laurel but no response so what the heck, I'm not going to bug her. She has enough on her plate.

Not worrying about it because I've been editing away on it and its a lot better for it. As soon as my edits are done, I'm going to delete and resubmit.

If you are definitely going to replace it anyway, it seems nicer to Laurel to delete it now before she might start reviewing it.

 

[MelissaBaby]

If you are definitely going to replace it anyway, it seems nicer to Laurel to delete it now before she might start reviewing it.

Thoughtful advice, but I suspect Laurel’s review of Chloe’s stories takes about the amount of time it takes to read her name.

 

[FreyaGersemi]

The Literotica front page says: "09/26 - The Literotica Annual Halloween Story Contest is coming in October and is open to all writers!"

Perhaps these updates are scheduled, but maybe it means that there is someone still running the site...?

 

[FreyaGersemi]

The Literotica front page says: "09/26 - The Literotica Annual Halloween Story Contest is coming in October and is open to all writers!"

Perhaps these updates are scheduled, but maybe it means that there is someone still running the site...?

Forget it. The date changes each day automatically.

 

[FreyaGersemi]

So, has anyone heard anything from the site owners/managers?

 

[ChloeTzang]

Thoughtful advice, but I suspect Laurel’s review of Chloe’s stories takes about the amount of time it takes to read her name.

LOL. Usually, altho I have had the odd one sent back now and then, usually for sliding over the boundaries of the under-18 rule. LOL.

Anyhow, my edits are resulting in a vastly improved story, so I have decided to just delete the old one - its way too late for the Crime and Punishment event page to have any impact on views so I'll just tweak it and resubmit for the Halloween competition seeing as that opens on Oct 2nd. Put all this work into it so I may as well go for the views.

 

[Eisenloewe]

Update: I submitted before the deadline for Crime & Punishment and after the deadline for Dark Fairy Tales, several days later.

My story for Dark Fairy Tales was just published. My story for Crime & Punishment remains pending.

The mystery deepens. I must conjure a hardboiled, licentious detective to investigate.

 

[FreyaGersemi]

Update: I submitted before the deadline for Crime & Punishment and after the deadline for Dark Fairy Tales, several days later.

My story for Dark Fairy Tales was just published. My story for Crime & Punishment remains pending.

The mystery deepens.

On another thread, someone suggested pulling your submission, then resubmitting it. That worked for some people. There's clearly a glitch going on. But coupled with the fact that Literotica has had no interactions on either Bluesky or Twitter in over a week, makes me concerned that this could be something more than just a glitch.

Does anyone have any more information about this? Is there a dedicated thread to what's happening?

EDIT: And I just noticed that my avatar has disappeared. It's there when I click on my page, but just a blank circle on the forum...

 

[old_prof]

LOL. Usually, altho I have had the odd one sent back now and then, usually for sliding over the boundaries of the under-18 rule. LOL.

Anyhow, my edits are resulting in a vastly improved story, so I have decided to just delete the old one - its way too late for the Crime and Punishment event page to have any impact on views so I'll just tweak it and resubmit for the Halloween competition seeing as that opens on Oct 2nd. Put all this work into it so I may as well go for the views.

Not related to the topic of the post and you can DM me. How long did the story sit in pending before being rejected. My rejections were all early on dialogue issues, so I got bounced pretty quickly. Just curious to better understand the review process when it was working.

 

[Eisenloewe]

@Eisenloewe I think most of us have given up waiting for this event and are repurposing our stories for the Halloween contest as best as we can.

On another thread, someone suggested pulling your submission, then resubmitting it. That worked for some people. There's clearly a glitch going on. But coupled with the fact that Literotica has had no interactions on either Bluesky or Twitter in over a week, makes me concerned that this could be something more than just a glitch.

Does anyone have any more information about this? Is there a dedicated thread to what's happening?

EDIT: And I just noticed that my avatar has disappeared. It's there when I click on my page, but just a blank circle on the forum...

I'm going to leave it in Pending because it really doesn't work for a Halloween tale, and I also already pulled and resubmitted it once (all before the original deadline). I also secretly hope that when the glitch resolves, however it does, they re-bump the Crime & Punishment anthology page to the front page with all the submissions. The current anthology page was actually published before the official publication date originally announced for the challenge, so I thought it was a "first installment" of a sort, done because they had a lot of entries. If I'm wrong, so it goes. It does seem odd to me that many more "normal" (non-challenge) submissions have continued to roll out in the same category (BDSM) where I submitted my challenge entry.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I'm going to leave it in Pending because it really doesn't work for a Halloween tale, and I also already pulled and resubmitted it once (all before the original deadline). I also secretly hope that when the glitch resolves, however it does, they re-bump the Crime & Punishment anthology page to the front page with all the submissions. The current anthology page was actually published before the official publication date originally announced for the challenge, so I thought it was a "first installment" of a sort, done because they had a lot of entries. If I'm wrong, so it goes. It does seem odd to me that many more "normal" (non-challenge) submissions have continued to roll out in the same category (BDSM) where I submitted

Laurel has explained in the past that she has the ability to search for terms in the authors notes, which is why she insists on exact wordage for contest and challenge entries. It allows her to make sure all submissions with that designation get included in the list. Whatever is going on, that apparently didn’t happen with this event.