Valentines Day Contest Support Thread 2025

[Duleigh]

Certainly not an auspicious start to my first ever Valentine's Day Contest entry!!!

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There's always next year.

It's only seven votes, that won't get you into the contest. Wait for the rest of the world to take a look and vote. You'll see that score change.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Maybe, it's at 4.33 now & 9 votes. Still won't get me through the door even. But we have until April. Or is that Pink Orachid?

It's only seven votes, that won't get you into the contest. Wait for the rest of the world to take a look and vote. You'll see that score change.

 

[Duleigh]

Maybe, it's at 4.33 now & 9 votes. Still won't get me through the door even. But we have until April. Or is that Pink Orachid?

You have until February 13. 19 more days.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Well, I'm not expecting to win. But I hoped I would have a 4.5 score, though.

You have until February 13. 19 more days.

 

[Duleigh]

Well, I'm not expecting to win. But I hoped I would have a 4.5 score, though.

You'll get there. Don't forget the possibility of a sweep.

 

[oneagainst]

Cara's Ski Trip Breeding by Daddy went live! Touching, romantic tale of unconventional grown up family building. Doing better than I'd expected in I/T...!

 

[Actingup]

I liked 'Love you to the moon and back' - very well done.

Why thank you... it was good fun to write. I guess a really nice feature of the contests and challenges is to push us to write out of our comfort zones, and I'm glad I attempted this one. I've particularly enjoyed the comments coming in from those who have connected either with the drill and blast mining descriptions or with the space program! Two worlds that I'd never thought would ever meet:

@Iwatchedher
As it happens i spent a long summer long ago as a driller and powder monkey in an open cut mine in WA, and was delighted to be reminded of the delights of precision blasting.... ... Mark's role as described in his letters was one that, at least in my experience long ago, would be fulfilled by a qualified engineer. In our mine a young graduate engineer designed the shot, telling us where to drill, how deep to drill, how big a charge to load in each hole and, critically, how how many microseconds delay the detonator in each hole should deliver. Our supervisor, the guy who actually fired the shot, knew no more about how all these details are worked out than we did. Nowadays, of course, these is probably an app for your iPhone.

@Lemon_Knight_and_Joy_Standing I have a special fondness for the story because in my other life I worked on space projects and even a small part of the Space Station. Of course thousands of people worked on each space project (thousands is just my estimate).

Anon: My father was actually a blast supervisor at an open pit mine. Love that knowledge served me well!

 

[Inkent]

Forget-me-Not, Not Forget Me is my last piece for Valentine’s Day bash. Yup, it's down in LW, written through the eyes of a woman facing a tough Valentine’s day, then the dilemma she faces.

 

[Duleigh]

Forget-me-Not, Not Forget Me is my last piece for Valentine’s Day bash. Yup, it's down in LW, written through the eyes of a woman facing a tough Valentine’s day, then the dilemma she faces.

LW doesn't see enough romance. I put a romance story there and included enough shenanigans to appear as a 'legitimate' LW story. It was an attempt to troll the LW "purist" trolls, but The Preacher and the Chocolate Lady actually did well in the category. A few didn't catch the joke at the end and were angry that a young, married minister would pick up a black, French fashion model, right there in front of the entire village!

 

[D_K_Moon]

Well, I'm not expecting to win. But I hoped I would have a 4.5 score, though.

I'll give your submission a read and a vote this afternoon.

 

[D_K_Moon]

LW doesn't see enough romance. I put a romance story there and included enough shenanigans to appear as a 'legitimate' LW story. It was an attempt to troll the LW "purist" trolls, but The Preacher and the Chocolate Lady actually did well in the category. A few didn't catch the joke at the end and were angry that a young, married minister would pick up a black, French fashion model, right there in front of the entire village!

That's a tough crowd in there! I always thought when it came to that category that "Loving Wives" was a bit of an oxymoron!

 

[MillieDynamite]

There are only 14 votes and all the votes appear to be a 4 or 5. Romance isn't a category I usually post in. And it is an usually strange romance at best perhaps even bazar. There are only 1600 reads so far. Which if people were paying for it, well, I'd be very happy with that. But being free, it isn't all that good. I can't image what there could be to sweep.

You'll get there. Don't forget the possibility of a sweep.

 

[Inkent]

LW doesn't see enough romance. I put a romance story there and included enough shenanigans to appear as a 'legitimate' LW story. It was an attempt to troll the LW "purist" trolls, but The Preacher and the Chocolate Lady actually did well in the category. A few didn't catch the joke at the end and were angry that a young, married minister would pick up a black, French fashion model, right there in front of the entire village!

I posted a story called Shaken by The Hand of God in LW, bit of romance, with a LW undertone. Scored well, so bucked the trend. Some griped it was mis-categorised, unless somethings miles form the mark, does it really matter? The story I posted earlier today started off being scored really badly, the votes in quite short succession. I typically see this when I release stuff in LW. For this one, I suspect the cult of "all woman must burn at the stake" didn't like the way the wife has been portrayed, and the fact it's her account as the narrator.

Table for Two Outback, sat in Romance as part of this comp, has been doing reasonably well, Sat bouncing between 4.79 and 4.81 fairly consistently. With todays LW story published, low and behold a drop in rating, within a small volume of votes in a short timeframe which says one of the trolls has a dose of "one" finger syndrome. It does make me chuckle, having a vivid imagination, I can just picture them...

 

[MillieDynamite]

Be gentle it is my first Valentine's Day Contest, and I'm a such a vulnerable person.

I'll give your submission a read and a vote this afternoon.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Apparently, romance isn't my forte!

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

3,900 words going up on the 30th.

 

[TiberiusPrime]

Apparently, romance isn't my forte!

I enjoyed it!

 

[MillieDynamite]

Thanks. I appreciate it that.

I enjoyed it!

 

[nicksouth]

That's a tough crowd in there! I always thought when it came to that category that "Loving Wives" was a bit of an oxymoron!

Leaned my lesson. My lowest-voted story by far. I'll stick to other categories in future.

 

[thanagar]

Leaned my lesson. My lowest-voted story by far. I'll stick to other categories in future.

The pro of that category is you’ll get really good traffic. Lots of people will read it. But ratings-wise, they will kill it. It’s a difficult category to enter in contests.

Last year I had a story accidentally posted twice the same day. Once correctly, and once with the same content, but with a different headline, author and category (it was cleared up after half a day). The same story posted in the Loving Wives category was 30 points lower than the correctly posted one before it was removed.

 

[Actingup]

The pro of that category is you’ll get really good traffic. Lots of people will read it. But ratings-wise, they will kill it. It’s a difficult category to enter in contests.

Last year I had a story accidentally posted twice the same day. Once correctly, and once with the same content, but with a different headline, author and category (it was cleared up after half a day). The same story posted in the Loving Wives category was 30 points lower than the correctly posted one before it was removed.

That’s a great anecdote!
I recently started a thread looking at how story scores relate to story percentiles in LW versus the rest. Using percentiles (ie ‘was my story rated better than 30% of others in LW, or 99% of others in LW?’) it’s possible to get a more objective measure of how a story was received without comparing absolute scores across categories. The short answer was that my stories in LW did range from 30th to 99th percentile, but the collective readership exceeded that of my non-LW stories, so the bruises were arguably worth it. But it’s virtually impossible to win a comp from LW based on how harsh the voting was in 2024 compared to other categories.

 

[Inkent]

The pro of that category is you’ll get really good traffic. Lots of people will read it. But ratings-wise, they will kill it. It’s a difficult category to enter in contests.

Last year I had a story accidentally posted twice the same day. Once correctly, and once with the same content, but with a different headline, author and category (it was cleared up after half a day). The same story posted in the Loving Wives category was 30 points lower than the correctly posted one before it was removed.

I know that I'd never win any comp publishing in LW, my personal view is it adds flavour to competition entries. LW does generate numbers, in 15 months my followers have moved from 4 to over 800.

Here's a screenshot to show how much variation in the numbers there are between two stories heralded as Valentine’s day themed fare. In terms of views the LW one ripped past Romance entry in a couple days, bar the value of the rating score.

Method in my madness!

 

[nicksouth]

That’s a great anecdote!
I recently started a thread looking at how story scores relate to story percentiles in LW versus the rest. Using percentiles (ie ‘was my story rated better than 30% of others in LW, or 99% of others in LW?’) it’s possible to get a more objective measure of how a story was received without comparing absolute scores across categories. The short answer was that my stories in LW did range from 30th to 99th percentile, but the collective readership exceeded that of my non-LW stories, so the bruises were arguably worth it. But it’s virtually impossible to win a comp from LW based on how harsh the voting was in 2024 compared to other categories.

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Interested in how you are pulling the data

 

[nicksouth]

I know that I'd never win any comp publishing in LW, my personal view is it adds flavour to competition entries. LW does generate numbers, in 15 months my followers have moved from 4 to over 800.
View attachment 2480237
Here's a screenshot to show how much variation in the numbers there are between two stories heralded as Valentine’s day themed fare. In terms of views the LW one ripped past Romance entry in a couple days, bar the value of the rating score.

Method in my madness!

My LW one did get a lot of views. The score is in the 2's whereas all my other scores are 4's plus so not sure I am up for that again

 

[MillieDynamite]

I knew from the get-go (my new catchphrase) that I wouldn't win this contest. A) I'm an acquired taste. B) I don't write stories with scores in mind, so I don't craft them with a wide audience in mind. C) I write for me first and the reader second, so no, I don't stand a chance in most contests. I still have hopes, which are at best now fading, of getting to a 4.5.


Got to love it when a reader plays Lloyd Christmas for you. "So, I'm saying you got a chance. Look at me; it was a million to one, but I still had a chance." "How'd that work out for you?" "We're talking about you, not me."

Here's the reality of it.



My chances of even getting to 4.5 seem pretty remote with so few votes, , and comments.