Reposting this. -- Erin

That's right! I'm jumping the gun just a bit, and it's time to announce...

BCTS July 2018 Story Contest: Staycation

It's time our stories got with the times, isn't it? The modern budget-conscious among us don't do "vacations" any more (or at least that's what the media and news feeds seem to tell me.) Instead, what's in is the Staycation: taking your vacation time and, instead of exhausting yourself traveling and fighting with the kids and traffic and paying out lots of money, simply relaxing at home, doing your own thing and being decadent. Topical relevance, hurrah!

And thus, onto the particulars:

-Entries must be posted between July 1st and July 31st 2018 depending on your region. I'm trusting y'all to keep yerselves honest on this one.
-Entries must feature an LGBTQ character in a prominent role in the tale and (obviously) play upon the theme of a "staycation."
-As per usual for my contests, entries must be complete in one posting: no serials, multi-parters, or continuations of other tales.
-While there is no hard rating limitation this time around, I'd personally prefer not to read anything beyond a moderate "R," just so it's said.

Votes will be tallied the first weekend of August, and yet again highest kudos/thumbs up wins, and the prize for the top two authors will be subscriptions to the hatbox. In ADDITION to the prizes, however, I will also donate an additional 1 dollar to the hatbox for every (qualified) entry we receive, up to an arbitrary amount determined at vote counting time (read: however much I can reasonably afford at the time past the cost of prizes.) So, if you want to give to the site and can't afford to right now, chip in on the contest; your entry will help to keep this wonderful place of ours around!

So, what are y'all waitin' for? Pour yourselves a big glass of iced tea, start your own staycation, and write on!

Melanie E.

NOTE: I have had concerns expressed during my last competition concerning the emphasis on single-posting, complete stories. There are a number of reasons I prefer this format for entries, but rest assured: over the next few months I will give authors who prefer to write serialized pieces an opportunity to do so :) Let it not be said I am unfair!

My weekend was crazy, and I don't think I got more than 2 contiguous hours of sleep in the last 3 days, so yeah; contest results will be up in a couple of days. Sorry peeps.

Melanie E.

Hmm.

Tomorrow I SHOULD be posting the second set of challenge words for my "random inspirations challenge," but as of yet I haven't seen any stories posted for the first part (unless I missed them?)

If nobody has any interest in this challenge then that's okay, though I hope it's not because of the lack of a prize.

Melanie E.

Details are somewhat settled on the prize front, and this time we've got something super special for all of you avid readers out there: book bundles!

Yep! Miss Erin's putting in some overtime to help with this 'un, and we're going to offer two bundles of (platform free) ebooks for our top two prizes!

First place: 15 Doppler Press eBooks, 12 curated by me and Erin and the other 3 winner's choice

Second place: 10 Doppler Press eBooks, 8 curated by me and Erin and the other 2 winner's choice

Miss Erin and I have already been hard at work deciding on what books we're going to be picking for the curated list for the prize, and every week until the contest kicks off I'm going to premier the options, first from our curated choices and lastly from those you get to pick from.

This week's preview comes in the form of two classics!

Melanie's Choice: Swifter, Higher, Stronger by Angela Rasch

For those of you unfamiliar with it, Swifter, Higher, Stronger is a touching story about true friendship and love. The ending is bittersweet, but in the best way.

Erin's Choice: Headlights Girl by Catherine Linda Michel

One of the first titles in the Doppler Press library, Headlights Girl has helped pave the way for TG books in a big way, and is certainly worth checking out!

The links above are for the Amazon pages for each of the books in question, and if you have an interest in them and don't want to wait to see if you win the contest then both are available for incredibly reasonable prices there, Headlights Girl even being available in good ol' fashioned dead tree format!

For those of you who dislike Amazon, though, the versions of these books provided as part of the prize package will not be tied to Amazon, but rather Erin is going through the effort to make non-Amazon versions specifically for your benefit. Everyone, please give our benevolent mistress a hand for all her hard work!

Tune in next Friday for the announcement of the next pair of books, and get plugging away at those stories: a good series or serial takes a bit of time to gestate!

Melanie E.

Another weekend, another teaser of some of the books you can find in the Doppler Press bundle being offered as a prize in the Reader Retention contest!

For those of you who may have missed it here are the rules. For everyone else, here's the next two books to be revealed from the curated list!

My Choice:

"I'm With the Band" by Melanie Brown

"I'm With the Band" is a TG coming of age tale with some very fun characters, a solid plot, and a good romance subplot. Melanie Brown's been writing forever and her work has always stood out, and this story is no exception.

Erin's Choice:

"Prometheans" by Joyce Melton and Lanie Lee

The introduction to the Promethean universe, one of the longest running TG superhero story series and a great place to start if you haven't checked them out. Joyce and Lanie are both great writers with a terrific sense of style, so you really can't go wrong.

Amazon links are provided above for anyone who wants to check the books out now, and be sure to keep your eyes open next weekend for the reveal of the next pair of curated volumes!

Melanie E.

At least assuming we're not gonna see any entries from Japan/China.

As a reminder, everyone has until the end of February to do their reading and voting (these were a bit longer than your average contest entry story after all!) I'll announce contest winners at the end of the first week or so of March!

Thanks again to everyone who entered the contest. It's been really special to me seeing how enthusiastic everyone, both readers and authors, have been about this one, and I'm really glad we all did this together.

Depending on how my financial future is looking come mid-February I will either announce a contest for March or not. I've already given hints about what I'd like to make the theme, but it will depend on whether I still have a job at the end of the month (by choice, not by loss. It's complicated.)

For now, I'll thank everyone one last time. From the bottom of my heart: you're all the best.

Melanie E.

The contest for July is over! Entries closed! No admittance!

SCRAM!

That said, now that entries are closed, you all still have juuuuuust under a week to get your voting done. I'll be opening all the stories at midnight CST this coming Saturday, and the number of votes the stories have at that time is the value they will be ranked on. You'll get the announcement concerning winners early Sunday, along with the announcement for the September story contest!

From the looks of it we had a grand total of 15 entries! Between me and our mystery donor, that's already 30 bucks going straight into the BCTS coffers, all thanks to y'all's contributions!

Melanie E.

Just a reminder to people that the Staycation story contest closes entries on Tuesday, July 31st at Midnight whatever-the-heck-your-local-time-zone-is, so if you've got an entry waiting to be written then hop to it, and if you've got one waiting to get posted, then what's the hold up huh?

:)

Vote tallying for all qualified entries will be done on Sunday, August 5th, with prizes being doled out to the contest's winners the following weekend. On top of the two prizes -- a 3-month Hatbox sub for each of the two top-voted stories -- I will ALSO be donating an additional dollar to the hatbox for each entry we have by then, currently sitting at a whopping 13! On top of that, I've had a mystery donor offer to equal every dollar of the result, so right now we're looking at 26 dollars in extra funds for the hatbox!

For everyone who's entered so far, thank you. You're all fantastic, and I've been really enthused by the mix of new and old talent who've stepped up to the plate on this. And, if you're out there and haven't entered, either because you don't think you're good enough or don't think you can win, then think about this: win, lose, whatever the results, since I'm donating money for every entry that means that every entry we get helps keep the site around in a very real way, so don't let a little stage fright scare ya away from contributing.

Keep up the good work peeps! I love you all.

Melanie E.

Just a reminder to anyone with plans to enter still, today is the final day of my Fairy Kiss-and-Tale contest! I'm working on the honor system here, so as long as you have your entry in by midnight your time (May 31 2018) we'll call it gravy.

We've had a lot of great entries, and I've already got plans for another contest here in July! Sadly I actually haven't finished my OWN entry for this one yet, though since I'm ineligible for the prize anyway it doesn't matter much :)

Melanie E.

As of today, entries are officially being accepted for the March 2016 contest, "On An Adventure!"

As a reminder, here is the original blog entry, including instructions on what the terms of contest entry and final prizes are. Y'all have two weeks to get your entries in, but with us utilizing the Kudos system for votes there is a minor advantage to posting earlier, though not as much as you might think! (Just look at the last contests' entries to see THAT!)

{Edited} Use the new 2016 March - On an Adventure Contest tag on your story to be included in the contest. :)

I'll be looking forward to seeing what everyone puts in! And, of course, I'll make sure to vote for every single one!

Melanie E.

Sorry people! I know the delay has been problematic, but at last I'm ready to reveal the results of our Double Dip Story Contest!

Whoo boy! Okay, so first off, not doing THAT again. The whole "two contests" thing sounds like fun in theory, but it's far more troublesome than I think it was worth, especially given the resounding preference for the "Song" portion of the contest over the "Stage" side of things. In total during my sorting of stories I only found 5 of the 18 entries that seemed to target "Stage" primarily, and the voting results show that, with with the top 4 stories in terms of votes all being part of the "Song" portion. Having said all that, we had some incredibly good entries this time around too: everyone put in their best effort, and the result is a handful of stories that went as far as to make me cry tears of happiness reading them.

Now, on with the results!

*SONG*

As I said before, the top 4 stories in terms of votes were ALL from the "Song" subcategory, and the top five were as follows:

5th: Corey's Last Concert by Eric
4th: Blue Light Yokohama by Melanie Brown
3rd: I'm Still Standing by Jennifer Sue
Runner Up: Hidden Talent by SamanthaMD

There were less than 3 votes separating our runner up in this subcategory from our victor, with BOTH stories gathering nearly 300 votes each (and both being new favorites of yours truly.) Despite that, there is only one award being given in "Song," and that goes to:

Winner: I'm Not Leesa by Sigh

Congratulations!

Now, without catching a breath let's move on to the next category shall we?

*Stage*

Given that there were only 5 entries total that qualified for the "Stage" portion of the competition, barely over a quarter of the total entries made, I'll list them all here for your consideration:

5th: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road by Jessica C
4th: Over the Rainbow- . . . And Dance by Maeryn Lamonte
3rd: Two Auditions and a Fairy by Frances Penwiddy
Runner Up: It's Curtains for Me by Dorothy Colleen

Our winner came in in both categories, but only took top marks on this side (which isn't a bad thing since you could only win one anyhow!) And that winner is . . .

Winner: Petticoat Acres by Jennifer Sue

Woo! Yay! Congrats!

To both Jennifer Sue and Sigh: your prizes will be delivered this coming weekend, a 3 month sub to the Hatbox for each of you! Win or not, though, a big thanks goes out to everyone who participated in the contest. Every story here helps to provide incentive to readers, new and old, to be a part of our community and contribute to the site.

On a special note, we had three authors put in the extra effort to enter both categories this time around.

Maeryn Lamonte
Jennifer Sue
Dorothy Colleen

Thank you, ladies, for going above and beyond the call with your stories! *hugs*

Unfortunately, at this point I DO have to close our celebrations with a bit less happy announcement, and that being that I'm going to have to postpone my planned November contest for the time being. Between Medical Stuff and general Life, finances are time are both a bit tight at the moment, and I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to dedicate the time to the contest needed to run it properly (much like what happened this time around, only I imagine worse given how busy the next couple months will be.) As a result, look for my next contest most likely in January, when things have slowed down a bit.

Thank you everyone!

Melanie E.

Heya folks! I know it's a bit late, but here I am to announce a challenge for next month: Random Inspirations!

This time 'round there are a few things we'll be doing different though:

1. I won't be able to provide a prize for this one. Don't worry: prizes for the January contest are still gonna be a thing! But I won't be able to do that again for a while after those are delivered, and this month is the first of that. Sorry.

2. There will be no winners or losers this time 'round: instead, everyone who completes the challenge will get a special mention in a "Thank You" blog post in April.

I know I'd said I was considering a Henry Harrelson challenge for March, but let's be honest here: as much as I've always REALLY liked the stories that have come from the universe in the past it isn't popular or open enough to really get the amount of participation I want to see. So what am I doing instead, you might wonder? Well, it's very simple.

I've found a random word generator online.

Each Friday in March I will post a selection of 3 words chosen by the generator. Those will be the prompts for that week.

The challenge? Use those 3 words provided as inspiration to create a story of at least 500 words. I'd like to humbly request avoiding anything too risque' as well, but that's mostly personal preference and I won't actually hold anyone's choices for story content against them.

The "inspiration" provided by the words can come in a variety of ways. Perhaps you use them literally, building a phrase or theme around them. Maybe you use them as points of interest or character quirks. Try your best to find ways to utilize them where their influence is obvious, but devious twisting of the concepts and creative use of them can also be very interesting too!

Entries can be submitted up until the time I post the blog entry with the new words the next Friday: I'll try to maintain consistency as best I can, but best bet is that I'll likely be posting the new words around 1-3 AM CST each week.

The challenge officially ends on the fifth of April, and I'll try to throw out the congratulations blog the following weekend.

Sound fun? I think it does.

As an example, using the word generator I've found I generate the following list of words:

Sleep
Crook
Youthful

How do I use them? Maybe I write something like an inverted Rip Van Winkle, where an elderly conman falls asleep and awakes as a beautiful young woman in another century. Or perhaps I write a story set in the land of Dreams, wherein a princess must stop a thief from taking Morpheus' power? Maybe the words are traits for three different characters in a more real-world tale: how would I weave those characters into an interesting storyline? Wait! Maybe my story's title is "Sleeping at the Youthful Crook," and takes place in the Youthful Crook tavern on a fateful night? Whatever you choose to do, be creative with the use of the inspirational words and you'll be fine.

Most importantly, even if you can't keep up with the whole challenge, feel free to tackle them when and if you can! The point of my contests and challenges is simple: to get more stories on the site from more authors, new and old. So long as we're doing that, we're all winning.

:)

If anyone wants a practice, here are a few sample sets to get you going. Remember, though, that none of these will be used for the actual challenge: they're just here for you to get an idea of what you'll be tackling when the first rolls around.

Practice set 1:

Gather: Window: Glistening

Practice set 2:

Escape: Follow: Adventurous

Practice set 3:

Cabbage: Earsplitting: Productive

Practice set 4:

Basin: Please: Spill

Practice set 5:

Past: Back: Rake

Anywho, let me know what y'all think of this challenge, and if anyone wants to run a more normal contest-type thing, feel free! Thanks to all of y'all for everything you do.

Melanie E.

The tag is set (see above for evidence,) and it's time for the first week's challenge words!

Ready folks?

The words are as follows:

Smelly
Birds
Lush

Hmm. That's a weird trio! Nevertheless, it's what we got, so it's what we get.

Ready . . . set . . . WRITE!

Melanie E.

It's been a week, and huzzah! The votes are in!

All the stories in the contest did quite well, but two in particular managed to grab the most thumbs-up from our readership, and those two were:

Cursed, by Nuuan

The Fairy, by Bru

Congrats, young authoresses! I get paid this coming Thursday, upon which each of you will be given your prize, a three month subscription to the BCTS Hatbox!

That's not to slight the work of our other contestants! Everyone did great jobs, and gave us a lot of different takes on the idea of a fairy tale romance, from the surprisingly dark to the quirkily parodic (is "parodic" a word? Feh.) Thank you to every one of our entrants; you're all fantastic, and I'm proud to have been a part of this with you!

If you haven't checked out everyone's work yet, be sure to go to the contest tag in this blog's description and let the authors know how much you appreciate them. I may not have commented on every story, but I've got a vote cast for every one :) And, last but not least, be sure to tune in next weekend for July's contest announcement, with another two subscriptions available for the taking!

Melanie E.

Just a reminder to people that the last day to publish valid entries in the Reader Retention Contest is next Thursday at midnight (your local time.) If you have a story going you have one more week to finish it up: if you haven't started one yet, well, there's still time to pop out some 4-5k words and split 'em up and get 'em out there!

Just a reminder/update on how voting's gonna work this time around:

I won't be tallying vote(s) on stories until probably the beginning of March: that will give latecomers a chance to catch up on the stories and vote for their favorites, including me since I'm waiting 'til things are over to dive into anything. Results of the contest will be posted around March 15th, with prizes delivered some time between then and the 21st.

I'm hoping to have a contest going for March as well, but certain financial things in my life are in flux at the moment so that may not be possible: we will have to see mid-February. That said, there's nothing stopping anyone ELSE from running a contest either! Me and Erin have a little bit of a System going, but if anyone IS interested in sponsoring something contact Erin and she can help you work out precisely what would be involved. Maybe we could even get a contest every month if we did that!

Good luck to everyone! I've been really happy with the results of the contest challenge this time around, thank you EVERYONE, both authors and readers, for joining in on this crazy adventure.

Melanie E.

Despite not getting ANYTHING posted for the first set of prompts I'm gonna give this another shot.

As a reminder to people: this is about using the 3 words to INSPIRE a story, NOT "using the three words supplied IN a story." While the former might potentially mean the latter, they are not by any means the same thing. This week's words:

View
Miss
Loving

A few ways to consider how to use these words as inspiration:

View. To experience. To look at. Are the characters maybe going to a movie? Did the main character grow up near or are they currently in an area or place with a beautiful vista they admire? Perhaps they're on the outside of events looking in, and their perspective is being changed by witnessing experiences they've never personally had? Or maybe you simply write the story from an interesting POV to begin with, like a second-person narrative or with multiple people's experiences of the same events and how that changes their interpretation of what happens?

Miss. This could mean woman. This could mean longing. This could mean poor aim. Or perhaps the first thing that popped into your head is Ol' Miss, and the story takes place on one of America's most relied-upon waterways, or involves the sports team in some way.

Loving. Loving one's self. Loving another, either romantically or platonically. To care for, or to have a caring or empathetic personality. Is it the main character who acts or feels these ways, or is it another? Is it toward the main character or someone else? Perhaps you take the tact of looking at some other words that are related to this one, such as jealousy, desire, loneliness, and how those concepts reflect on the idea of loving or being loved.

Now how can these ideas relate to one another?

Random Inspirations. NOT "random words to use," but things meant to make you think about or present your story idea in a new way. Hence the 500 word requirement.

I usually try to avoid entering my own contests/challenges any more, but maybe I should hop in on this 'un just to try and help people have a point of reference? Leave me a comment letting me know whether you think that would be a good idea.

Melanie E.

Another Friday, another trio of words!

This week's words are:

Rotten
Development
Accessible

Rotten. Spoiled, wasted, or otherwise worthless. Could be in reference to a terrible person, or more lightheartedly toward a character who is doted upon (spoiled rotten.) Other options could include simply having the character in a "rotten" situation, or perhaps dealing with outdated or worthless materials or foodstuffs. Alternatively, the story could be about the Sex Pistols.

Development. Growth, change, advancement. Also often used to refer to housing complexes or other construction projects. Software development, personal development, body development (such as puberty,) or simply plot development as the story goes on.

Accessible. Easy to understand or use. Open to many. Usable. Is it the story itself that is accessible, or something within? Perhaps you go with the opposite, and the pursuit of an otherwise inaccessible goal?

Used together, you have a number of options. What kind of legitimately rotten development could befall your characters? How do you choose to embrace the idea of accessibility in that context as well. Perhaps the accessible element is, itself a bad thing, such as identity theft (personal information being accessed on the dark web,) or mind control?

Good luck!

Melanie E.

We had family visiting the last two days so sorry for missing my Friday posting schedule on these!

This next week's 3 words are:

Hand
Needless
Route

A quick breakdown for 'em:

Hand. An extremity used for grasping and moving things. To pass something to another. A selection of usable options. Helping hand, hand of cards, the hand we're dealt, idle hands, hand of fate.

Needless. Pointless. Inane. Meaningless. Or, alternatively, "needless" could apply as in someone or something without any needs, something complete.

Route. A path, or to direct someone or something along one. Routing the enemy, router, route 66. The route less traveled.

These words have plenty of obvious ways they can work together, so I will skip the normal combined examples section.

People REALLY haven't seemed to have been into this month's challenge, so this is probably the last set of these I'll post. I'll try to figure out something more compelling for May.

Melanie E.

The results are in!

And technically would have been up like 2 days ago if I hadn't had to debate with myself on one particular issue (we'll get into that later.)

For now, let's focus on how things went down.

This contest got some phenomenal response, peeps. Thank you all SO MUCH for both writing stories, and for reading and voting for them. A big thanks goes out to all the authors who completed entries for the contest especially:

Bobbie C
Maeryn Lamonte
Casey Brooke
Angela Rasch
Melanie Brown
Cheryl Bishop
Nuuan
My5InchFMHeels (not a fan of the name, though :P)
Jennifer Sue
Sigh
Jessica C
Dorothy Colleen
Donna T
Aylesea

A special shout-out also goes to both Rachel M. Moore and Enemyoffun, who began posting tales for the contest but didn't complete in time to qualify. I hope I didn't miss anyone!

Now, for the results. We had some impressive totals overall: it seems like the dropoff in response on most stories tended to be between 1/3 to 1/2 less Kudos on the last part versus the first part of every tale, with the hits roughly lining up with that as well. Due to popular suggestion all we're worried about is average Kudos overall, though, and our top winner there was . . . .

Melanie Brown, with her tale The Texas Belles! There was a lot of controversy over this one, but in the end it still managed to pull an average of 266 Kudos per part.

Congratulations Melanie!

We didn't have one, but TWO major prizes for this contest, so who managed to pull our runner-up prize? None other than . . . .

Casey Brooke's "Doorway to Amaru Meru!" I saw a lot of people recommending this story off-site, so congrats to you Casey on catching people's attention! At 233 average Kudos the race was closer than it probably seems on these.

Congratulations Casey!

Now, for the third "prize" I'd initially offered, namely the Hatbox subscription for the story that lost the lowest percentage of readers from the first part to the last part.

This one is probably the most interesting run of all, and I'm curious what the results of this challenge, both in terms of Kudos and hits, says about site metrics regarding readership, re-readership, and Kudos, though I can't say I'm entirely surprised by the results. On average, reader retention sat at a mean value of 50 percent regardless of story length. What this means for authors is mutable, but can probably be summed up as meaning that a serial or series' readership isn't significantly affected by the length of the tale itself per se, especially given that there was no such consistency found in regards to readership for stories with more parts versus those with less parts.

What surprised me the least, though, is who won. It did give me a conundrum, however, since I could hardly give her the Hatbox sub prize since she is already one of the site's biggest contributors.

Our author with the least amount of reader dropoff is . . . .

Angela Rasch, and "The Womb of the Unknown Cheerleader." At a 67 percent reader retention rate her story managed to beat the odds in more ways than one, both being one of our shortest entries overall and from the author least likely to write a serial/series story in the first place :)

Angie, I know you already have a Hatbox sub, so I'm giving you an option: you can either gift the sub to another entrant you think is deserving or simply leave it as a donation to the site. PM me with your choice, and I'll do whichever you want.

Thank you again everyone who entered our little contest! We saw a lot of creativity this time around, both in the stories and in people's pushes to market themselves to everyone else. I want to give a special mention on that front to both Dorothy Colleen and Bobbie C., who both gave the contest more face time than it might otherwise have had with their efforts to promote votes for their work.

*hugs*

I'll send Erin a PM tonight informing her of the results, and either her or another member of the site's administrative staff should contact our victors in a couple of days about prize delivery. Be prepared, Melanie and Casey: you're both gonna have a few choices to make!

Melanie E.

Welcome to the master list page for Ready Reads!

So, what is Ready Reads? Well, it's a weekly sampling of reader-suggested, complete stories available here on BCTS. Each entry contains a number of stories based around a theme, with the following stipulations:

--Stories must be completed: no incomplete serials or works that require reading other stories to make sense.
--Length is flexible, but typically stories should be a couple of thousand words or more to qualify for inclusion.
--While I won't deny consideration of a submission just because the author submits it themselves, suggestions of others' work will receive higher priority when it comes to paring down the lists to between 5 and 10 stories.

New entries will come every Sunday for so long as I can get enough feedback from interested readers on stories to include.

Alright, so . . . yeah. If it ain't obvious I got nothing ready for today.

I'll be honest here: I really overcommitted on this. I don't have the head space right now or really the time to dedicate to doing this properly.

So, I'm asking for help.

I like the concept I had with the whole Ready Reads thing, but I'm not in any shape to be doing it right now. So, if anyone wants to reach out to me to take it over, that would be grand: I can forward you the recommendations for this last entry I was supposed to get up, and after that put it in your hands.

Anywho, that's all I got for tonight. This week has been busy, and stressful, and generally a weird mix of awesome and lousy, and it's looking like that's the foreseeable future for me.

Sorry about this peeps. I just can't handle the responsibility of this right now.

*hugs*

Melanie E.

I know, I'm doing terrible at this so far.

I spent most of today at the hospital in Capital City (a 2 1/2 hour drive away) and will be doing the same tomorrow. Wednesday is Thanksgiving prep, and Thursday thanksgiving itself. Saturday my cousins have Plans for me.

To put none too fine a point on it, this is going to be a Busy Week, and I just don't have the time or headspace to do Ready Reads right now.

"Tweens" will appear on Sunday. The winner from the poll for the next subject was "High School Daze," so characters 14-18. I guess you have two weeks to make suggestions on that one.

Sorry peeps.

Melanie E.

Holy cow!

Thank you SO much everyone who's already chipped into the new contest! Wow! I've already got a ton of stuff to read, and I still haven't finished all the entries from the LAST contest (sorry Angie!)

Y'all're all awesome :)

Melanie E.

PS: Call it a bit of ego, but I was thinking of running a Henry Harrelson's Custom Fit Boots contest for March if there was enough interest: otherwise I'd come up with something else. Opinions?

It's time to announce the winners of the July story contest!

We had a lot of great entries this time around. I want to make sure every last author who wrote for the contest knows just how much I appreciate their hard work. It's the stories that keep a site like BCTS alive, and without your dedication and effort none of us would have this wonderful place to call home.

Now, on to our entries! We had 15 wonderful stories officially entered for the contest as well as a couple of "unofficial" ones as well. Chalk that up to a total of let's say 17 stories total, shall we? Given I have a generous co-donator this time 'round that makes for a grand total of 34 dollars going to the site's coffers before the prizes are even doled out, hooray! And all thanks to the following tremendous people:

Dorothy Colleen
Melanie Brown
Efindumb
Emma P
Donna T
Leslie Moore
Nuuan
Bronwen Welsh
CrazyPaganGurl
Ray Drouillard
Samantha MD
Karen Lockhart
Jennifer Sue
Elle Jay

Give 'em all a big hand, please!

Unfortunately, this being a contest and all, prizes can only go to a couple of our entries. Of our 15 entries only 14 qualified for voting (since one author entered twice; I'm counting it for the donation total but only the highest voted story gets considered for prize calculations.) We had a lot of really highly-voted stories this time around too! Of all the stories we received, though, the two highest voted total were:

"Mouse," by Leslie Moore, at 231 votes

"Staycation - Hacked Off?," by Samantha MD, at 226 votes

Congratulations, authoresses! I get paid on Thursday, so (unless something goes horribly wrong) I will be delivering your prizes the following Friday or Saturday. Prizes are being awarded as 3 month Hatbox subscriptions, giving you access to a world of premium stories right here!

Another big thanks to everyone who participated. Every one of you, whether as a reader, voter, or a writer, has helped to make our site what it is today.

Tune in next weekend for the announcement of September's contest!

Melanie E.

I'm running a bit behind on reading/commenting on entries (what can I say, I'm terrible at time management,) but if the number of other comments and kudos is anything to judge by then the contest will be fierce.

If you're not sure on the details, just click that story tag over this blog here, and it will take you to a list of all the entries so far, as well as the rules for new stories.

Bonus: if we can get at least 20 entries in total, I'll donate a dollar to the hatbox for every entry written.

Melanie E.

Okay, I know I said I'd wait 'til the end of the month, but dangit I just can't!

It may be a while in the brewin', but that time is gonna be needed if you're gonna make a solid effort at this 'un! That's right, this time around we're goin' fer SERIALS!

For January I've got something special for all of you: the Reader Retention Contest. Sound boring? Far from it!

So, what's the challenge you ask? Well, it's like this. I've had a few people express interest in a contest focused on something OTHER than single-posting stories. You know what? Here's your chance. The Reader Retention Contest is ALL about serials. In fact, that's all that's allowed! Or, at least, multi-part stories. The focus, though, is on having a COMPLETE one, and more to the point, keeping readers interested.

The rules:

--Your entire story must be posted between the dates of January 1st 2019 and January 31st 2019. Allowances will be made for local time zones. Stories MUST BE COMPLETED: if you cannot finish your story within the alotted time, either writing or posting it, then it is disqualified.
--Your story must consist of a MINIMUM of 4 parts, with each part being a MINIMUM of 1000 words.
--No more than 1 part can be posted per day, giving the contest somewhat of a natural limitation of 31 parts for any individual story and preventing the front page getting too overwhelmed: no spamming the front page with 30 parts at the last minute!
--Content should be completely original and unique to the contest. If your story requires the reading or watching of other content not part of the contest material to make sense, then it is disqualified. (In other words, try to avoid just adding to already existing universes unless the new story can stand completely on its own.)
--While there is no limitation or even guideline in place as far as subject matter goes, there IS a rating limitation of nothing more sultry than a hard "R" film rating, or to put it more bluntly, if you couldn't put it in a theatrically released film in the US it probably shouldn't be in your story.

Here's the interesting part. Me and Erin are still working out the details, but there are going to be three prizes on offer this time around.

The first place prize and runner up's prize are still being sorted, but to obtain either one your goal is simple: to maintain the highest average Kudos/Thumbs Up count across your serial. The Kudos from all parts of each serial will be added together then divided by the total number of parts to find this result.

I'm trying to work out a deal with Erin for the first and second place prizes to be Doppler Press book bundles, but we will have to wait and see how feasible that is as a possibility. However it works out, I'll make sure it's something exciting!

There will also be a third prize offered, one of my typical 3 month Hatbox subs, with a little different criteria. This prize will go not to the highest average Kudos, but to the best Kudos retention rating between the first and final parts of the story. In general Kudos tend to drop off as a multi-part story goes along, so the author who manages to maintain the highest Kudos percentage between their first and last postings in their serial (regardless of total Kudo count) will win this one. Consider it a bit of a sub-challenge, eh?

Do you aim for short and sweet, hoping readers will blitz it all, or do you go for the long haul, hoping that more parts will help to cancel out any dips here and there? Do you write something crazy and off the wall to hook your readers and keep them on the edge of their seats, or go the safe route and try for a sure-fire winner? Regardless of your choices, you've got just over 2 months to plan, start writing, or simply keep developing something you've been working on for a while.

Results for the January contest will obviously take a bit longer than usual to calculate due to the nature of the contest. Likewise, I want to give readers time to catch up on as many series as they can. As a result the "voting period" will go until February 15th at Midnight (my time,) and results will be announced on March 1st or 2nd, with winners (hopefully) receiving their prizes the following weekend at the latest.

READERS! This is your time to shine! Those authors will be depending on YOU to give them the best chance possible to win, so if you're enjoying their entries then please, be sure to like, comment, and sub -- wait, sorry, wrong media. Be sure to Kudo/Thumbs Up every part, because the more consistent you are, the better off THEY are! And, just maybe, drop 'em a comment too? Never hurts.

I'll be back with more details as they arise, like prize updates and the like. In the meantime, be planning those stories peeps!

Melanie E.

The contest has officially closed (and been so for several hours too!)

We've had ten excellent entries, and now it's time for you readers to really make your mark! Just click on the tag for the contest above to go to a list with all the stories. Read them, and vote for your favorite ones!

There is no limitation of voting for a single story here; every story you enjoy, make sure to click that thumbs-up for to show the author your appreciation. I'll announce the winners of the contest next Sunday, and the top two most-voted stories will each receive a subscription to the hatbox.

Unfortunately we didn't get enough entries to warrant an additional kick to the 'box on top of everything else, but maybe next contest we can achieve that 'un. And, hey, to anyone who was working on a story and didn't finish in time: post it anyway! Sure, it might not get the contest tag, but a good story is a good story no matter what.

Keep your eyes peeled for our winners, and here in about 2 weeks I'll announce my plans for another contest through the month of July. In the mean time, good writing for all!

Melanie E.

So who's ready for another not-in-any-way-sanctioned-by-management story contest?

Melanie E.'s Fairy Kiss-and-Tale Contest

Dates: May 1st 2018 - May 31st 2018

Everyone loves a little romance, and everyone loves a good fairy tale, right? Well, here's your chance to write your own mash-up of the two!

The challenge is to write a one-part romantic fairy tale. That's right, no chapters, no serials, no continuations or side-stories or connection to any other established universe or series! One-posting, standalone stories only here folks!

There are a few minor restrictions to keep in mind though:
--No stories that bear a rating higher than film equivalent PG-13.
--Really, PG-13. Consider what this implies in terms of character ages, etc. for whatever content you choose to include.
--No fanfiction, and re-interpretations of classic tales should be thoroughly different enough to show creativity.
--As always, at least one member of the romantic couple involved should be part of the LGBTQI spectrum.

That's it! Any length is fine, provided your story is complete in and of one singular posting, and the deadline for stories for the contest is midnight (your local time) on the 31st of May. All entries should have a custom tag of "Fairy Kiss and Tale" in their tags section, for easy finding later, as well as specifically state their intent for inclusion in the contest in their introduction.

EDIT: Milady Erin herself has added an actual contest tag for us, "2018-04 Melanie E.'s Fairy Kiss-and-Tale Contest," so use that rather than a custom tag. It'll be easier for everyone :)

But what about prizes, you ask? Why yes! One week after the deadline is complete I will look over all entries and compare kudos. Two three-month hatbox subs will be awarded to the top two most highly-voted stories! In addition to that, I'm working with another site author to try and organize a series of BCTS compilation books to help raise funds for the site, and, should this contest go well, most or all of the entries may be up for consideration for such a volume in the near-ish future if the authors so wish!

I've been a bit lax in my site participation the last few months. Let's see if we can change that for the better, shall we? I'm not gonna lie, part of my reasoning for sponsoring something like this is to try and see the site get a few more stories along the lines of my own tastes, but hey, if I'm gonna ask for that kinda thing I might as well be willing to pay for it right?

Melanie E.