Announcing the winner of our Le Noir Erotique competition

This competition definitely had people bringing their a-game, with many taking full advantage of the longer word count and time limit to really stretch their writing muscles and show off a bit.

A massive congratulations to Jaymal, who takes the $150 top spot with his incredible tale, with WannabeWordsmith close on his heels in second place, winning $100. If this was a competition for story titles, he'd have won hands down, lol.

And kudos to Ensorceled who rounds out the top three beautifully with his masterpiece, taking the $50 third place. I'll be in touch with you all re your prizes shortly.

I really enjoyed this competition and getting stuck into the longer stories. We have some talented folks here.

The full top ten breakdown is as follows:

1 Bitter Honey by Jaymal

2 Choices: Between A Cock And A Hard Place by WannabeWordsmith

3 Amnesia by Ensorceled

4 Death In The Berlin Dawn by SlutRuinator

5 Loyalty by 1meanjean

6 The Case Of The Runaway Wife by Mojavejoe420

7 Payback by hundredpercent

8 Ritual Of Deception by krystalg

9 Love in Vein by cjames23

10 Dick Job by joe71

Thank you to everyone who took part. There were some amazing stories outwith the top ten - it was so difficult narrowing this one down. Thank you also to all the judges for your considered comments and feedback on this one.

Stay tuned for the next competition, which will be announced shortly and run over the rest of the festive season.

Jen ❤️

Congratulations and huge thank you to everyone who entered the comp!

Excellent stories, and not just from our usual suspects. I love to see so many new faces on the Top 10 and amongst the participants. You all rock!

Excellent stories all around! Congratulations to the podium winners, the runners-ups, and all who entered.

i love seeing a lot of new names in the top 10 - awesome job guys and gals

Wow! What a tough competition! Big congrats to the winner, the podium, and the top ten! Great stories all around. Also a huge Thank You to the judges for slogging through all these long stories.

Woohoo! :worship: Definitely one of my fav comps! Y'all all worked so hard on your super duper entries. Congrats to Jake for winning (one of my fav comp stories from you, J), WW for 2nd and Ensorceled for 3rd, Top Ten, and all who entered!

Like Microfiction flexes different writing muscles, so does a 10K long piece. Be proud of your entries!

Quote by KimmiBeGood
Like Microfiction flexes different writing muscles, so does a 10K long piece. Be proud of your entries!

I think we'll need to do one of these next, just for a few weeks

Congrats to all the Winners and Runners Up!!

Quote by Jen

I think we'll need to do one of these next, just for a few weeks

That would be fun! :)

Congrats to Jake, WW and Ensorceled, three fabulous stories. Congrats also to everyone who entered, fabulous stories in and outside the top ten. And to all those who read commented and judged.

I really enjoyed again writing to a 10,000 word limit; the first competition I entered was 10,000 words and I thought that was normal, little did I know that I'd have to learn to write short.

Congratulations to all, especially the top 3. I haven't had much time for reading the entries but I see some familiar names there so I am pretty sure of the quality.

Quote by Jen

I think we'll need to do one of these next, just for a few weeks

Try a hard limit like in the current SS comp sometime (and maybe that's been done here and I just forgot). Working to an exact number rather than just a minimum and/or maximum was a fun challenge.

Congratulations to all that participated in this excellent competition. An impressive array of stories and writing talents, fun to compete and fun to read.

Thanks also to all the moderators and judges involved, this was a ton of work and time and your efforts are appreciated by all of us.

On to the next one!

Congrats to the top 10. I haven't read Jaymal's story, but WW's and Ensorceled's were damn good. I see 1meanjean in that top 10 also, which makes me smile because that story was frigging great!

I didn't read as much of these comp entries as I have in the past due to the story lengths, but the ones I did read were impressive as hell!

Thanks to the judges for their extremely hard work in reading almost a quarter of a million words! Thanks also to EVERYONE who took the trouble to write and submit stories. I really appreciated the diversity of approaches and settings in meeting this challenge, and had a very enjoyable time reading them all. It's clear a lot of people went went to a lot of effort to concoct these tales. And of course, congratulations to the winners. I was a little surprised by the result, expecting it to fall more along the lines of the voting, but I certainly wouldn't argue because you all deserved it! Those were three spicy, inventive, clever stories.

On a personal note, I'm stunned that my own story even cracked the top ten. Thank you for the honor.

This was a frikkin awesome comp. I think folks were flexing different muscles than usual (heh), writing to a longer length and writing with less sex in the equation (for the most part). I'm honored to have cracked the top three. Congrats to everyone who won, everyone who made the top ten, and everyone who entered. Also congrats to those readers out there who took the time to read SO MANY WORDS (I think Joe71 estimated 250,000).

Quote by sprite
i love seeing a lot of new names in the top 10

This. I have saved a few people to check out further because their writing was wonderful.

Congratulations to Jaymal, WW, and Ensorceled for taking the top three and also to the rest of the top ten. You all did such a great job!

Congratulations to the winners, runners-up, and all who entered this comp. As someone who just couldn’t finish my story (I might at some point, perhaps), I can say this was very challenging and I’m please to see such lovely stories/writers being recognized for their efforts. Well done!

Stunned to have made the podium given the incredible field. After reading the first 6 or 7 entries to hit the comp page, I knew I'd have to up my game considerably. The depth of storytelling was beyond impressive.

Cue writing and editing session after session after session, including some frustrating moments where I almost gave up. But I'm glad I persevered and am honoured to be within the company of such talented authors on the podium and beyond.

Thank you as ever to the team running the site, the judges, fellow authors and readers who put so much time and energy into consuming the vast number of words on display and enjoying the stories within.

Love being part of this site.

Lovely to be a part of this - I'm so glad I didn't read any entries before writing and submitting my own, as I mightn't have bothered with the fiercely imaginative and original storytelling on display. I'm still behind on my reading, as winter illness got the better of me, but am looking forward to catching up.

Great comp - got me back into one of my favourite genres in both literature and film and, as others have said, got us all testing our own writing boundaries. Congrats to the other participants - so far I've found great fiction within AND without the top ten. Merry noir-tinged Christmas, everyone.

Congratulations to Jaymal, WW, and Ensorceled! And thanks everyone for some great reads!

Congrats to the top 10!

Admittedly, i haven't been able to read many from this comp as they are a longer read than usual. A handful at most.

However, the top 10 will all be added to my reading queue today.

As its been said plenty times above, its nice to see many new faces in the top 10!!

Seriously, congrats guys, keep up the good work in 2023.

Massive Congratulations to Jake on First Place. And to Podium finishers WannabeWordsmith and Ensorceled. Absolutely 3 great writers on that podium.

And congrats to all the honorable mentions who finished out the Top 10!