Thank you to all the writers, commenters, and voters – your participation was awesome!
First Place: A Present for Austin – BPClavel
(The grand winner!)
(The surprising dark horse! – there is always one)
(A decent achievement, despite coming in after a number of votes had been cast.)
Virgin Award: (We have a 3-way tie!)
(First-time story posters)
Social Experiment – grumpyolddom
Aubrey’s Weird Christmas – HelenRipley
Magic gone wrong – arthwys
Naughty Award: Aubrey’s Weird Christmas – HelenRipley
(guilty pleasures)
Epic Award: Unwrapping the Gift – Kinsey Bay
(most serious and long lasting)
Close Runner Up: Magic gone wrong – arthwys
Most Creative Award: One for One – Cave
(experimental, surprising use of technique)
Close Runner Up: Aubrey’s Weird Christmas – HelenRipley
Finally, a thank you to the remaining participating stories:
Allegra Caught Naked – CountryMouse
Dog Lucky – ReaderMan
So that’s it. This was a blast. This has been the first (and not the last) unleashing of our creative community. If you missed any of the stories, they are here for your reading pleasure. Until next time! Cheers!
Congratulations to Blair for claiming first place, but also to the other winners. I loved all the different stories in the contest, and it was wonderful to see so many new writers.
Thank you to the writers, the readers (and voters), and especially to ReaderMan for making it happen by coming up with the contest idea.
Wow! I’m delighted but humbled. I didn’t expect this as there were so many wonderful entries. I’m glad that ‘A Present for Austin’ was well received. My sincere thanks.
As this tally clearly shows, most stores had their fans. The biggest surprise for me here is that Allegra Caught Naked didn’t finish higher. I’m certain that it received votes. Frankly, it was among my favorites. That would be apparent to anyone who goes back to read the comment I posted below it. Maybe it was a little light on the enf, but it was long on fun — and the happy ending! I’m a sucker for happy endings. As a I posted there, “If you post more stories, I expect to be one of your readers. Because this is fun. Because the dialogue is nice.”
But anyway, thank you ReaderMan — wonderful contest. And thank you to everyone who took part. And, between you and me, ReaderMan, the only reason that Dog Lucky didn’t finish in the money is that the story ended just as the good stuff was in sight! Had you written the card game scene, the one with the dog lover in the collar, then it would have been the favorite of many.
Before I close, there are two stories that I’d really like to see continued:
First, Aubrey’s Weird Christmas.The golden torque necklace — I guess Aubrey is unable to remove it. Is it just jewelry, or has her life as a slave begun?
And Second, Unwrapping the Gift.Such a wonderful cast of characters. Such an interesting relationship (Teddy and Sophie). There’s no way that this won’t be interesting and fun to watch as it unfolds.
Best Regards Everyone,
Blair
When I see so many stories written and posted in such a short time I feel an infectious excitement in the air. It sparks the imagination, get’s our ideas flowing and has a wonderful snowball effect. I really love that – the entire creative process really. I can’t help but to wonder about all those stories that ‘almost’ got posted. Maybe next time?
Congrats to our top three writers Blair, Helen and Kinsey and the epic stories they shared. A lot of blush, sweat and tears to achieve those elite ranks!
There were a few contenders for the Most Dramatic Award, but Blair worked hard for that one. His high-speed drama rollercoaster was a wild ride from start to finish and it was a well-deserved win.
I wasn’t surprised at all to see Helen nab the Naughty Award. Her story was smoking hot and more naughty than all stories combined!
The Epic Award was leaning towards Arthwys initially, as his story had seriously epic repercussions for those poor female elves but then Kinsey came surfing along upon a tidal wave of epic emotion, snatching that award with a grin as she glided away with a friendly wave.
The most creative award was taken by Cave. A mystery and puzzle, cleverly encapsulated within a very short story. Helen tried to grab it from her, but Cave held on. “You won enough,” Cave muttered, gripping her award tightly.
I loved that we had a three-way tie with the Virgin Award. Our first-time posters were all amazing. GrumpyOldDom and Arthwys very nearly stole first place from Blair. I think that itself was big. And Helen snatched two trophies. Not to mention we all want to see the Social Experiment turn into a series as it was a very popular story. And that elf story was magical – I can practically see Elyna right now!
CountryMouse and I didn’t win anything or get any honorable mentions, but we had a lot of fun participating.
I know everyone worked hard. But it was totally worth it right? We feel awesome now as we shared with so many people. Nothing feels as great as posting a story. Well, getting comments is nice too.
Thank you everyone. Until next time!
I really had fun participating. I really like this little community here.
The way how people here participate in a kind, friendly and constructive way is something precious.
I would really like to thank you specifically for this little nudge that I needed to restart writing and put in the extra effort to familiarise myself with the English language.
First of all, I would like to thank ReaderMan for the idea of a story contest and for organizing everything. Most, if not all, of these stories would not have been written without this idea. We would have missed so much. Thank you very much!
Congratulations to Blair for his winning story! It was also one of my favorites. But I enjoyed all the stories a lot.
And I would like to thank all my readers. For me this was a first time ever, and I never expected that the story would be so well received. This is very encouraging.
Honored to have participated in our very first contest…the first of hopefully many more to come!
Congrats to Blair and the other winners and thanks to all for participating.
Guess who visited this site at least three times since 17 January and didn’t see this post since today. Yeah you’re right. Of course it was me!
Im quite surprised and humbled that “Social Experiment” was ranked this high and I thank everybody who left kind words and encouragement for me.
I really apreciate it. I find working on it tedious and hard, for languagereasons alone. Your encouragement helped (and helps) me a lot. Thank you!