Announcing our Dirty Talk competition

Is the 2k word limit strictly enforced? Suppose someone wrote a moderately decent story that wound up at 2.2k, would this person, whoever they are, be able to squeak by?

Quote by bojacauthor

Is the 2k word limit strictly enforced? Suppose someone wrote a moderately decent story that wound up at 2.2k, would this person, whoever they are, be able to squeak by?

Nope. The cap is part of the challenge.

Quote by bojacauthor
story that wound up at 2.2k

See this post for more.

https://www.lushstories.com/forum/welcome-to-lushstoriescom-site-guidelines-help/lush-stories-competition-judging-process?page=1&post=4421087

Quote by WannabeWordsmith

See this post for more.

https://www.lushstories.com/forum/welcome-to-lushstoriescom-site-guidelines-help/lush-stories-competition-judging-process?page=1&post=4421087

Thank you for posting this link WW, I was looking for this a couple of days ago but failed.

In the past, I have noticed that the stories with the most likes and comments have not always made the top ten. Then I read this on the link above...

"Doing it this way eliminates people winning through popularity, or spamming etc."

This raises a question: Do readers' likes and comments have any "significant" influence on competition story judging?

I believe the answer is no. But maybe, it might be handy to clarify in the guidelines or here.

Quote by wxt55uk

This raises a question: Do readers' likes and comments have any "significant" influence on competition story judging?

I believe the answer is no. But maybe, it might be handy to clarify in the guidelines or here.

No. Some places do it that way, but we don't.

Quote by Jen

No. Some places do it that way, but we don't.

Thank you, for clarifying Jen. It is appreciated.

Quote by AvidlyCurious

Nope. The cap is part of the challenge.

Agreed, and the mods couldn’t make exceptions in holding everyone to the same standard.

In the case of my Free Spirit entry last year, chopping those last two hundred words forced me to rethink how I was saying things and even rearrange a few things to streamline the flow. The result, despite some hard work, was a significantly better story.

Quote by AvidlyCurious

The cap is part of the challenge

This.

We appreciate there may be a few-word leeway if you've used, say, a story divider or 'space hyphen space' between words, etc, as each of these stylistic elements may rob a "word" off the counter. So an author might get away with 2005 or something in that vicinity. But 200 more? Nope, sorry!

Quote by wxt55uk

Thank you for posting this link WW, I was looking for this a couple of days ago but failed.

In the past, I have noticed that the stories with the most likes and comments have not always made the top ten. Then I read this on the link above...

"Doing it this way eliminates people winning through popularity, or spamming etc."

This raises a question: Do readers' likes and comments have any "significant" influence on competition story judging?

I believe the answer is no. But maybe, it might be handy to clarify in the guidelines or here.

That is interesting, specifically how different programs have different counts. You'd think we'd have that figured out by now. I'll write a letter to silicon valley.

In any case, I immediately thought "You are all fools, it is very obviously contractions!"

It was not contractions.

Thanks for the info by the way!

Quote by bojacauthor
different programs have different counts. You'd think we'd have that figured out by now

Yeah. Even word processors disagree among themselves. Some count hyphenated or em-dashed words as one, others count them as two. Some ignore hyphens and ellipses and dividers, some don't. Some (like our public-facing counter here currently) seem to take headings and, maybe, the tagline and perhaps tags, and maybe some hidden markup too, and then rounds up. Who knows.

We haven't identified why there's a difference just that there is. Moderators use the counter in the story Edit window as the stake in the ground, not whatever is displayed on the website.

Even when that's "fixed" it'll likely still disagree with other systems, and be different to the value in our Story Edit panel. That's the nature of code.

Are we allowed multiple entries?

Quote by SusanQuiet04

Are we allowed multiple entries?

Nope.

This is so exciting for me. I can't wait to share a recent conversation with my sex therapist. Thanks for this opportunity!

Quote by Darlene69

This is so exciting for me. I can't wait to share a recent conversation with my sex therapist. Thanks for this opportunity!

Ooh, that could be fun! We have had an entry where the protagonist give a filthy confession to a priest, but a sex therapist conversation promises to be a lot more interactive.

I’m in! No-Dating Policy. 58% dialogue.

I'm in! His Voice

Now I'm busy frantically reading other entries. 😘

Quote by SusanQuiet04

Are we allowed multiple entries?

Some genres on Lush positively encourage multiple entries as I understand it😉

Quote by SusanQuiet04

Are we allowed multiple entries?

no. one entry per person, please.

I see today we reached fifty "Dirty Talk" competition entries. 😊

Quote by wxt55uk
I see today we reached fifty "Dirty Talk" competition entries. 😊

And we're only about half way through. Lots of smoking hot talk, phone calls, and confessions so far. Still room for more: can we make it a hundred by the closing date?

If you've not put fingers to keyboard yet, don't be shy. Let your imagination run wild and wow everyone with your steamy, sexy dialogue.

Quote by WannabeWordsmith

See this post for more.

https://www.lushstories.com/forum/welcome-to-lushstoriescom-site-guidelines-help/lush-stories-competition-judging-process?page=1&post=4421087

Thank you for this! I had the same issue. MS Word and my draft both listed 1997 words, but the count shows 2.1K. I appreciate the clarification.

Got mine in the other day. Pretty happy with it, I thought of the ending on this initially and worked my way backward.

https://www.lushstories.com/stories/office-sex/zoom-2

Scrapped the other draft completely for the comp and completed another one that's 300 words over. Now for the editing to make it make sense and bring it under.

Mine was finally approved and posted. I had a lot of fun writing it, even if it ended up somewhere completely different (and much shorter) than intended.

https://www.lushstories.com/stories/cheating/some-things

Quote by Sal469

Mine was finally approved and posted. I had a lot of fun writing it, even if it ended up somewhere completely different (and much shorter) than intended.

https://www.lushstories.com/stories/cheating/some-things

I enjoyed your story. Best of luck!

Quote by RowanThorn

Got mine in the other day. Pretty happy with it, I thought of the ending on this initially and worked my way backward.

https://www.lushstories.com/stories/office-sex/zoom-2

Fun story!

Quote by CarltonStJames

Scrapped the other draft completely for the comp and completed another one that's 300 words over. Now for the editing to make it make sense and bring it under.

Bring it on, CJS! I've been waiting for your particular brand of filthy talk! 😘

I'm a bit frustrated that the day after I submitted my entry, I came up with a much more fun idea. Yeah heartbreak and melancholy are all well and good, but I figured out a way to get weird with it, which I always find so much more fulfilling.

Anyway here's my entry, I like to think it's a pretty unique take, dealing with melancholy, heartbreak, bravado, trust and pain. Feelings!

https://lushstories.com/stories/straight-sex/are-these-tears-of-sadness-tears-of-laughter-tears-of-rage-or-am-i-merely-sweating-2

I finally got something going. Wasn't intended as a comp entry but as I wrote an opening dialogue scene, I decided to see if it could work. I think it will. Needs more editing. Has enough dialogue to meet requirements with a bit of leeway but going to try to increase that on the next edit.

I counted seventy-one "Dirty Talk" competition entries this morning. 😊