Announcing our Dirty Talk competition

Words. Here at Lush we like to use them to stimulate your senses. Descriptive words. Whispered words. The dirtier the better.

This competition, we want you to concentrate on those words. Specifically, we’re looking for stories that are very dialogue heavy, because as well as wanting to thoroughly arouse you, we also want to make sure everyone’s dialogue punctuation is as good as it can be, lol.

Perhaps you overhear two lovers talking about their previous sexploits. Maybe you and your partner are currently separated by distance, and phone sex or face-timing is all you have to keep you going. Or maybe you’re someone who likes to talk dirty to their lover(s) during sex as an additional turn on.

Whatever the situation, we want you to let your imagination (and your tongue) run free. As always, have a look at the various story categories to assist you in your ideas.

Because we’re concentrating on dialogue/conversation, we’ll keep this one short, so stories should be between 600 and 2,000 words in length and at least half your story should be dialogue. This means that you can use the flash category if you like. Poems and things formatted as chat transcripts are not acceptable.

This competition will run through Sunday 11th August and winners will be announced on Monday 26th August.

Happy writing!

Full details here. Please note prizes can be paid as a PayPal transfer, or taken as lush coins.

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... 😊

“I love dialogue,” said the redhead with the dirty mind and even dirtier mouth. “I am fucking excited about this comp theme!”

Yay!

If you'd only announced the competition a few days ago... and provided a more generous word limit... and maybe looked past the formatting... my latest might have made the cut. Oh well.

But I really like the theme and I'm looking forward to writing a brand new entry for this comp. Good luck to everyone!

dirty talk, you say. Can’t wait to read the filth flowing from y’all’s talented fingertips. Dialogue is NOT my forte for sure, so I’m gonna be a sponge soaking up y’all’s teachings.

May the dirtiest talker win! (and melt my panties 😳)

“Wow!” I exclaimed, “This motherfucking competition is right up my alley. My sex-scented fingers cannot wait to pound the keyboard and spew dirty talk while my recently-satiated lover sucks my cock and finishes me off with one of her trademark hummers. Fuuuuuuuck,”

"Fuck yeah," said the Wordsmith.

Quote by Jen

we also want to make sure everyone’s dialogue punctuation is as good as it can be, lol.

Ahem.

I foresee a small problem here. Aren't American and British styles of dialogue punctuation different? At the very least, the question of where the comma goes (inside or outside the quotation marks), I believe. Oh, and "British English" apparently uses single quotes (I've been British all of my life and don't remember that from school!), whilst Americans use double quotes. All I'm saying is that if entries are going to be partly judged on punctuation, then the judges need to be sensitive to that.

Related: Does anyone know of a refresher website for those of us of a British persuasion to brush up on our dialogue punctuation? Thanks!

Quote by Longhair
Does anyone know of a refresher website for those of us of a British persuasion to brush up on our dialogue punctuation

cough cough our Writing Tips area is a good start.

Question: do 1K or under need to be Flash only or are you allowing the 600-1K in other categories? I’d thought other cats needed to be 1001 words, but maybe that’s changed.

Quote by Longhair
Aren't American and British styles of dialogue punctuation different?

Not as far as I'm aware. Closing punctuation always goes on the inside of the quotes. That's the standard we mod to here, and have always done since the site launched. The only exception is if you're quoting someone else and the quote itself doesn't have punctuation at its end. See Quotes within quotes.

As for apostrophe Vs double quotes, that's an author's stylistic choice. We don't care as long as it's consistently used throughout the story and it's clear who's saying what (new speaker new paragraph, and all that good stuff).

Quote by KimmiBeGood

Question: do 1K or under need to be Flash only or are you allowing the 600-1K in other categories?

You can put short works in any category you like. Flash isn't a dumping ground for "anything under 1K" lol.

Flash is an art form to tell a complete story (not just a scene or part of a series) in a very short space that appears bigger than its word count. If you can write the hottest story on earth in under 500 words that gets every reader soaked or horny then it can go in Flash or any category. Also, get an agent and make money off it 😎

Oh I'm excited but I'm such a refined girl I don't know how if I can quite dirty talk without blushing hehehe. Looking forward to this one though it is a challenge as I like to paint a cinematic landscape. Keeping it dialogue heavy will be tough but hey.. as Osgood said, "nobody's perfect."

Here's some fine sexy dialog lifted from an old Pixies song I just heard:

"Uh!" said the man to the lady.
"Ooh hoo ooh hoo hoo ooh ooh... Huh!" said the lady to the man she adored
And the whores like a choir go "Uh!" all night...

Wow, interesting theme! One question, if I may? Would script format be acceptable? Some basic stage directions and the rest as dialogue? Or does it have to be a prose story?

I can't even manage a naughty conversation with the voices in my head.

On this like Godzilla on Tokyo.

Quote by MC1982
Would script format be acceptable?

As far as I remember, we don't tend to permit these but we may have published the odd piece. The OP states:

things formatted as chat transcripts are not acceptable

and a script is just a glorified form of back and forth chat with a little scene setting.

So my inclination is no, but wait until the boss weighs in, as she may see things differently.

Quote by WannabeWordsmith

and a script is just a glorified form of back and forth chat with a little scene setting.

So my inclination is no, but wait until the boss weighs in, as she may see things differently.

I think a script sounds like a fun idea. With stage directions and some set descriptions, I think it would be significantly more than just a transcript.

An X-rated play. Hmmm.

Quote by Ensorceled
An X-rated play. Hmmm.

Don't you already have enough writing projects on the go? 😁

I enjoy writing dialogue so might give this a whirl even though my enthusiasm for writing in general, and writing sex in particular, is kind of low right now.

Quote by Seeker4
Don't you already have enough writing projects on the go? 😁

I contain multitudes.

But yeah, I'm stretching myself a bit thin lately. No discipline.

The play I submitted in the past was returned due to format. I don't know why the ban was adopted, but I'm sure there is a reason or two or three.

Quote by kistinspencil

The play I submitted in the past was returned due to format. I don't know why the ban was adopted, but I'm sure there is a reason or two or three.

Yeah, I guess formatting issues would be a nightmare for the mods.

But still...an X-rated play!

Quote by Ensorceled

Yeah, I guess formatting issues would be a nightmare for the mods.

But still...an X-rated play!

Go the whole hog and do it in film script format. .courier font, 12 point, centred for dialogue, left aligned for scene descriptions, caps for location.. yeah I can see why the mods mightn't be too gung-ho for that 🤣

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

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... 😊

Last year's Free Spirit competition had a 2k limit, and resulted in some of the best writing I've seen on this site. For my own submittal, it was a great exercise in rewriting and reediting to cram absolutely as much dirty action as possible into as few words as possible, with as much clarity as possible.

Now to do the same thing with dirty words instead of (or in addition to) dirty action. I expect some very serious competition yet again.

Would it be cheating to have the whole story, save a framing device, be dialogue? In that this is a person recounting events to others? For instance, a group of people all exchanging stories, so the almost all of it is spoken, even if it's a character saying narration?

Quote by TroublesomeBard

Would it be cheating to have the whole story, save a framing device, be dialogue? In that this is a person recounting events to others? For instance, a group of people all exchanging stories, so the almost all of it is spoken, even if it's a character saying narration?

What's that old expression my father liked? "First liar always loses" Something like that? Brilliant idea.

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.

Quote by WannabeWordsmith

Not as far as I'm aware. Closing punctuation always goes on the inside of the quotes. That's the standard we mod to here, and have always done since the site launched. The only exception is if you're quoting someone else and the quote itself doesn't have punctuation at its end.

Thanks for the link to the Writing Tips 👌
In that, I saw an example of what I was talking about. It says

"The dog," said Susan, "is on the couch."

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. You wouldn't say/write

The dog, is on the couch.

it would be

The dog is on the couch.

and therefore the comma is not part of the speech, and so shouldn't be included inside the quotation marks. I've read that that's a British/American difference, but I don't absolutely know that that's the case because I read it on the internet, and you can find all kinds of nonsense there!