Quote by lejeuparfait
I would also like to add a query about covers, in that I added one some time ago (for revision?) and my story disappeared from my profile. I want it back…
Hiya, you story is in your drafts. You will need to submit it again for reverification, thanks.
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.
I just want to update this to explain the word counter for comps. We always go by the word counter in edit mode when verifying, as we've found it's usually on a par with MS Word, which was what we previously used. This is also what you will see before you submit your story. Sometimes, when a story is submitted the count jumps, because it seems to take account of formatting. Not sure why this happens, but this is why you will occasionally see stories which look slightly over the limit. All counts are checked by a moderator to ensure they comply with the limits.
Example:
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 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 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.
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.
A huge thanks to the beautiful AvidlyCurious for all her help and assistance around the site, as always, but especially over the past month. Please know everything you do is very much appreciated. I've sent some coins your way, so happy spending
❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜
My my, this was a fun one to judge. Any reports that I'm late getting this one out because I had to keep stopping for 'comfort breaks' are just vicious rumours and they will be flatly denied 😇
The quality was so good for this one that I chickened out of a top ten and instead sent the judges thirteen fantastic stories for them to read.
There was one runaway winner for this one. He's come close in a few comps of late, but there was no doubt about this one, so a huge congratulations to WannabeWordsmith (anyone else thinks he needs to change his username, lol) for the win here. Talk about tension!
He's closely followed by Lush's all-time most popular author, the lovely techgoddess, so Kat, very well done to you. Rounding out the top three was an absolutely delightful tale from TheShyThespian.
I'll be in touch with the winners regarding their prizes (probably tomorrow) and I'll be sorting the competition admin over the next day or two.
Meantime, here is the full top thirteen, in case anyone is needing some new stories to check out. Very well done to you all. This was a closely fought contest and there are some absolute gems in there.
1. Being Driven Slowly Mad by WannabeWordsmith
2. Alisha Unleashed by techgoddess
3. Down the Rabbit Hole by TheShyThespian
4. The Captain Of Her Heart by Mojavejoe420
6. Sir by chris21235
7. Pick Me Please Pick Me! by EmmaEddie72
9. Bull Shite, Bull Dykes, Bull Fights: That’s Your Everyday D/s Love Story.by CuriousAnnie
10. The Key by deviantsusie
11. Shivani by NishasWorld
12. A Hot Wife Secretly Trains her Husband To Be Her Own Dom by john456berry
13. The Dollification of Olivia by PrincessC
Thank you so much to everyone who took part, and to everyone who helped me judge. Thanks also to those who read, encourage and vote. It's your comments and likes which keep our authors motivated.
A new competition will be announced shortly.
Quote by deviantsusie
I’m sorry if I come across as a paranoid delusional but I feel since the move to lush 2.0 there has bern more interest and development in the other aspects of the community here than in the stories
The chat side is still on v1 code and has been causing issues with reconnections and stability for the whole site, so that's been the focus of late.
Edit: once the new chatrooms are rolled out, they'll be back looking at timelines/newsfeeds for profiles. They've been working on that a while, but another few months should hopefully see it ready for testing.
Quote by LuceDevlin
So in my quest for the omnium badge, I am wondering how strict the mods are with category strictness, especially if things overlap. Could someone write an erotic poem on a true event and put it in the true category? I know the only category supersede is ' fantasy' but what about the other ones? like with the true poetry idea, or like a cuckold that is also about loving your wife, does it go in wife lovers or cuckold, is it the author's choice, or is it like the mods' final say on category regardless of the author's placement, (unless the author puts a note for the mod upon submission) I'm just wondering about this cos a lot of my ideas for stories do straddle a few categories, and while I may try to put it in one category to get the omnium badge, it may get moved by the approving mod, if they think it belongs better in another category, where I have already posted a story for. So just wanted to know how strict the mods are with that, to keep mindful of it as I go along. Thanks.
No for poetry going anywhere other than the poetry categories (except poetry, and don't even start me on that), but other than that, we're not too strict. So long as one of the main themes of the story fit in the category you pick, it's really yours to decide.
Might be worth putting a mod mote in though, just to advise.
I shouldn't even have to write this, but any and all photos shared here in the forum, or stored in albums, must only be of people who are, and also look, 18 and over.
This is not the place to share family photos, photos with kids, photos with babies. If you make a friend here and want to share real world stuff like that, take it off site.
Given the nature of this site, any photos reported or found in albums which feature children will be removed and may result in suspension or a ban. If those photos have been shared with other members, this will result in a ban. This is an adult site. It will be assumed that these photos have been shared for sexual reasons.
I cannot stress this enough. Keep photos of under 18s far away from this site.
At Lush, we have a strict 16+ policy for sexual activity in stories, and 18+ for any photos shared on site, to comply with UK law.
To ensure this is a clear line for people, this also means not having characters engaging in kissing, masturbating, lusting or being lusted after until they're 16+. We will not accept references to someone younger than this age being fair game once they are older, or projections that they'll be as hot as their mother/father/older sibling etc in years to come.
To be blunt, children should only appear in stories as incidentals, e.g. a babysitter putting the kids to bed. They must be fully removed from any scene which involves the merest whiff of sexual thoughts or activity. They are not to overhear or oversee any kind of foreplay or sexual activity.
We appreciate that stories about parents, or babysitters, or siblings might invariably have mention of someone younger to set the scene, but that's all it should be.
For the avoidance of doubt, any stories involving age play should also be limited to characters 16+.
Anyone found violating this rule will be warned, potentially banned, and depending on the severity of the violation, may be reported to the relevant policing authority.
Thank you.
There is some development work ongoing at the moment to try and shift the last of the site over from the old V1 platform to the new V2. Once everything has been moved, I'm hoping these glitches stop. I think there are synching issues between the two which can cause errors.
