Announcing our Dirty Talk competition

Quote by Longhair
I would put the first comma outside the quotes ("The dog", said Susan, "is on the couch."), because it doesn't belong in the sentence.

And we'd either change it, if we were feeling generous, lol, or send it back for correction. It's pretty universally accepted that the comma should go inside the speech marks, and that's certainly the convention we hold here.

Quote by wxt55uk

I might be on my own here. But with the low word count limit, I still hope there is room for a story amongst the mass of naughty words that the dialogue will undoubtedly produce. This is just my reflection, I think the competition theme is a good one.

I have every faith. This dude did it in 100 words

Quote by Jen

And we'd either change it, if we were feeling generous, lol, or send it back for correction.

Then I won't take part. Thanks for the clarification.

"In the US, commas and periods always go inside the quotation marks. In the UK, the tendency is to place them outside, unless they appear in the original quotation, in which case they go inside."

https://www.grammar-monster.com/lessons/quotation_(speech)_marks_punctuation_in_or_out.htm

"Commas always go inside quotation marks in American (and often Canadian) style. In British (and often Australian) style, commas go inside or outside depending on whether they are meant to punctuate the text within quotes or the surrounding sentence."

https://editorsmanual.com/articles/commas-with-quotes/

Quote by Longhair
In the UK, the tendency is to place them outside

Weird. I just straw-polled ten books on my physical and digital bookshelves from a bunch of UK authors and they all use double quotes for speech, and trailing punctuation inside them.

I'm British and don't think I've read a book in the last 40 years that has punctuation outside the quotes, so I'm not sure where this "tendency" comes from. Maybe I'm reading the wrong books.

Either way, we adopt the 'inside' convention here. If you don't want to play, that's a shame but it's up to you.

Quote by Longhair

Then I won't take part. Thanks for the clarification.

No worries at all. Just something to bear in mind though, if you decide to submit stories here in the future.

Quote by WannabeWordsmith
I'm British and don't think I've read a book in the last 40 years that has punctuation outside the quotes, so I'm not sure where this "tendency" comes from. Maybe I'm reading the wrong books.

Scottish. And yeah, I've never seen it taught any other way. I suspect someone made up an article one time because they were annoyed about being wrong, lol. Gotta love the internet.

Quote by Jen

Yeah, I'm gonna have to say no on the whole play/script thing. We've had too many folk in the past use it as a workaround to have proper formatting.

If someone wants to start lushscreenplays.com, go for it

OK, thanks!

This is a brilliant competition!

Oh, I have an idea, however, it is rude to speak with your mouth full. 😘

All the very best to all who enter. 😘

Quote by TheShyThespian

I was just saying to a friend that we'd never had (as far as I can remember) a comp with a 2,000 word limit and how I'd appreciate a shorter one. How's that for mind-reading... 😊

Well, we've already got one that's over 4 thousand words...

Awww Jeez Louise! Can I resubmit the story I wrote for the last comp? It was nothing BUT dialog, and would have made a perfect entry!

https://www.lushstories.com/stories/bdsm/my-hungry-little-cocksucking-slut

Of course, it was over 5,000 words, but still…

Mon Dieu, I finished the story, but only 40% is speech. I need more dirty talk... 😈 I am going to hell for this one. I am such a slut.

All right, yesterday I picked a good story whose first draft I wrote several years ago, and is already very heavy on dialogue. It's 4900 words now, but as I recall that is about where my 2000-word Free Spirit entry started. Now to begin the distillation process and boil it down to its essence. (Utters mad-scientist cackle).

(Edit: a couple of hours of editing later, biggest fat trimmed and down to 2800. Each pass is going to get more painful, but I think this is doable. And hot).

Kimmi’s in! I know. Dialogue is NOT one of my strengths which is why I wanted to enter. I enjoy a little pain. And mine’s a little less than 2/3 dialogue. I separated it out from rest, did a math calculation to check it was over half. 🤣 And one character has no dialogue because her mouth’s full the whole time. 😳

If you dare…

https://www.lushstories.com/stories/straight-sex/dare-to-fuck-with-the-devil

So how are people keeping track of dialogue? Just eyeballing number of lines and hoping its close? Or actually doing the math like Kimmi? That seems like pretty hefty lifting to me, especially once you get past 1000 words. Yes, I've started mine.

.

My husband is very good with spreadsheets, and he found me a thing called a macro that counts the words in quotation marks. I have a new laptop, so I hope he has not upset my ancient copy of Word 2013. It works, though, and gives a percentage of words in quotations - which at the moment is 50.43% 😳 I admit, I find this 2,000-word limit and 50% dialogue very difficult.

I am not so good at dialogue, and I often read it back to my husband. I am meant to be writing.

My story, though, is absolutely dirty. My dirtiest yet. 😘

Quote by AmuseBouche
thing called a macro that counts the words in quotation marks

Oo, like that idea. Should probably have thought of that myself. Thanks (to you and hubby).

Sorry, I'm a relative newbie here, and this is my first competition. But I don't see how the stories are scored. Number of likes? Number of favorites? Number or views? Some combination? Thanks!

Quote by Carnevil9

Sorry, I'm a relative newbie here, and this is my first competition. But I don't see how the stories are scored. Number of likes? Number of favorites? Number or views? Some combination? Thanks!

The Score you see with each story is a count of the number of Likes and Favorites combined.

But the competition itself is decided by human judges, not tied to the numeric score.

When your draft is 1129 words and the banging still hasn't started.

Quote by joe71

The Score you see with each story is a count of the number of Likes and Favorites combined.

But the competition itself is decided by human judges, not tied to the numeric score.

Thank you very much!!!

I tried a "words in quotes counting" macro and it insists that my ratio is 49.55% dialogue. And no matter what I try to make it more dialoguey, it won't change much beyond that.

I'll need to hack some prose out and add a few lines of speech. Or try a different macro that gives a more favourable response 🤣

One more editing pass: 50.55%. That'll do for me, woohoo.

Well, I am now in with my competition story - Knickerless - It came in at 53% dialogue. 😊

One trick I’ve done a couple of times so far is to actually shift descriptive/explanatory text into dialogue. Like having a character say, “Ooh, that little black dress looks painted on!” instead of a long paragraph describing what that character was wearing.

Also, question for the mods: if it’s in quotes, does internal monologue count? Example:

“What’s she up to this time?” I asked myself.

Mon dieu! Reading my story to my husband, I think you will all need to sit down for this one (and read in private!)

Welcome to Le Métro - I hope you enjoy the ride.

I used the macro too (thank you to my darling husband) - 50.76% dialogue.

I sympathise, Mr. Wordsmith, it was very difficult to get the balance right.

Quote by joe71
having a character say, “Ooh, that little black dress looks painted on!” instead of a long paragraph describing what that character was wearing.

Yes. That's a great trick, and a perfect example of how to do it well. I had to use it extensively in my competition story. The hard part, as always with dialogue, is making it sound natural.

"Hi Joe. Wow, your 5' 8" brunette neighbour looks hot with her yellow polka dot bikini on and sculpted ass flexing as she swims in your pool" doesn't cut it 🤪🤣

if it’s in quotes, does internal monologue count?

That seems fine to me. I'd even allow it to count if it's not in quotes or you used single quotes or italics to denote thoughts.

Heck, you could even write a story where the character is essentially talking to themself and psyching themself up for something. That would be different. Difficult, but different.

Quote by AmuseBouche
I think you will all need to sit down for this one

I concur.

I sympathise, Mr. Wordsmith, it was very difficult to get the balance tipped in the right direction.

It was. And now readers have not one but two stories set in Paris, submitted seconds apart. A double does of French Filth to get those libidos stirring.

Look at you with your fancy schmancy macros.. I did a word count, made a copy and then deleted all the text not in quotation marks.. 53.4% was left so I just about made it over the boundary wall.... the cuckold category is somewhere I don't venture too often but well, it is a competition.. it's called I'm Home for those who fancy a dander.. and by the way, the double dose of French filth was a very distracting start to my day I can tell you.

You did the category justice and then some. In fact, if I ever make it anywhere near Omnium, that's one of the categories I fear would trip me up, but your treatment gave me ideas on how to approach it. So thank you ❤️