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It's that time of year, people are going back to school (if they're YOUNG and GROSS) and the apathy of the summertime becomes but a fond memory. Instead of procrastinating on writing, the youth can now procrastinate on their schoolwork WITH writing while also becoming RICH in collaboration with their fellow Cystians, in the Summer's End Synergy Contest, in a beautiful surprise twist to close out the season.

Naturally, the reward for winning the contest is fortune, glory, and prestige.

However, to spice things up this time around, I've cooked up some bonus incentives in order to increase our numbers.

BONUS INCENTIVES! (No, they don't stack)

1. If there are at least 10 successful contest entries, the top five will receive 50 points, while all other valid participants receive 25 points.

2. If there are at least 15 successful contest entries, the top five will receive 75 points, while all other valid participants receive 50 points.

3. If there are at least 20 successful contest entries, the top five will receive 100 points and guaranteed story commendations, while all other valid participants receive 75 points.

Prompt: A recent event has caused the protagonist to go through a difficult change.

It's a pretty open-ended prompt, there are a lot of directions you could go with it. Just as long as you don't tuck any relevance of the prompt away hidden in one specific page in a sub-branch, you're going to be okay, I promise, just stop freaking out, just calm down.

I should also note that while anything above minimum site standards technically qualifies as a valid entry, any 3.01/8, 2000-word slop will be thoroughly looked down upon by my higher council, and I might just feed your points to @ISentinelPenguinI out of spite. Do yourself a favor, start early!

The deadline will be October 31st November 3rd at 11:59 PM (PST).

Best of luck!

I'm in. 200.

:^)

As I don't have any points to bet, I will be betting using the rest of Suranna's points. Thanks.

Locked, best of luck!

I'm in

Locked, good luck!

Count me in! :D

Locked, glhf!

I'm in.

Good luck to everyone!

I should also note that while anything above minimum site standards technically qualifies as a valid entry, any 3.01/8, 2000-word slop will be thoroughly looked down upon by my higher council, and I might just feed your points to @ISentinelPenguinI out of spite. Do yourself a favor, start early!

I agree that it wouldn't be fair to the real entrants to cut down on the number of "successful entries" over this. But I'm just making any would be offenders aware that if you knowingly serve up steaming garbage on a platter, I'm coming after you, personally.

The contest host and anyone kind enough to do early reviews should not have to divert their attention from the real efforts to something that's getting yanked down an hour after judging, just take the SHAME you deserve without wasting other people's time please.

mmMMmm... steaming garbage on a platter...

I'm in

Who are you?

Well, good luck lol

New site user. Just joined. how do you submit story to contest? Do you have to send a link or do you just write on top "For xyzed" contest

Both is the norm, just write in your story description that it's for the contest and post a link in this thread when you publish!

Thanks sherbert

Just post the link here, but usually people also note that it's for a specific contest in their description. There's a contest entry tag too if you want to really go all out.

Oh, and it you're writing the story offline and do the procrastinating till the last minute thing everyone likes to do, make sure the game you'll be pasting it all too is still actually created a couple of days in advance. There's a 48 hour delay before a newly created game can be published.

I will definitely not procrastinate. Obviously I won't finish too early, I'll take time. This is the most fun thing I've been involved in in a hot minute

Thanks Mizal, appreciate the help

The shortest storygame I've made so far, but hopefully still enjoyable. Here it is: GOL'BURGER

I’m in. Nothing spookier than a deadline, fr.

Locked.

I suppose ill join too. 

Locked

I dont know what i was thinking, im actually a fool, smh. 

I feel like perhaps more than just you knew this

lol, perhaps time will be the healer to my foolish nature. Im currently reading in moonlit waters, but once im done with that and finished reviewing it (halfway through). I think ill finally head on to reading some of your stories. 

Just pointing out that if you guys get your stories out early, you miiiight catch some comments from Darius and Mystic as they fight for the review contest win .

Locked, good luck have fun

delicious, finally some good fucking poopybarf

Have I ever claimed to be capable of finishing a story?

You have a double digit amount of published games, which makes you in the top 5% of CYS, and I've heard recently that anybody who can complete a story about anything has no excuse to not enter.

A ford story sounds fun. 

they're only good for three pages max before I leave my desk and forget what it was supposed to be about

And it's always impressive how distinctly obvious that is when reading them.

are you joining then mizal?

Apparently.

hmmmm, lol. I expect you to deliver something, please? 

Sign me up

Going for the win this time?

I'm in

Locked. Good luck!

Last contest, I got second to last. This time, I’m going to redeem myself. Count me in.

Locked, good luck!

After some internal debate, I'm in. How could I not contribute my efforts to such a worthy cause?

Locked, best of luck!

Hi I'm quite new here, but I want in. Could I join the contest?

You're in, have fun.

im a newbie too, good luck man

Thank you, good luck to you, too.

I really love this prompt, because I keep looking at it and going, "Okay, time to write a story about ...
...
[BLANK]"

You really have to have something of your own in mind already, and the prompt will fit it, but it's not there to hand your lazy ass any ideas.

I think it's because the prompt is so broad. You can almost write about anything, which is both an advantage and disadvantage lol. 

The Participants (So Far)

 

Suranna

Ford

Yummyfood

Clayfinger

WizzyCat

RKrallonor

granolagoth

mrcrimsonclean

Mizal

Orange

Marte

ItzSugar

MiltonManThing

Fabrikant

bezro

Abgeofriends

Cat2002116

15 entrants so far! Just enough to get the second bonus incentive on the table.

I know I'm late but I would like to join the contest

Already deep in the shit, might as well go big or go home right?

Locked in, good luck!

I've written about 2k words, which is something, but I should probably pick up the pace if I'm gonna get it done in time.

Well...

I had actually written about two-thirds of my first story when the contest was announced. The story kind of fit the theme so I thought I might as well join the contest and post it as my contest entry so it would get more eyes on it when published. The story is actually finished and ready to publish but after consultation with a proofreader here, I got the feeling that it was a bit too short.

Since I still had plenty of time, I thought I might try my hand at a longer story for the contest. I've almost mapped out all the paths I want the story to take. Just need to get around to actually writing it now. Hopefully, I can get it finished before the deadline but even if I can't, I still have the first story as a backup so I will submit something for sure.

So, to answer your question, I have both already finished and not yet started XD

Funny thing is, a lot of people will talk about using this strategy of writing a quick short game first and then setting it aside to try and tackle a more ambitious one. But usually they don't start early enough or run into some other issue with finishing even that one that leaves them flailing at the finish line the same as everyone else. Good job successfully pulling it off, I bet the week before the deadline will feel great without all the panic and regret. (Not that I would know.)

Haha, thanks. I think the best part is that I can make sure the second one is a good quality story without having to rush to get it out before the deadline.

Actually, I was a bit hesitant to ask but is it possible for me to change the story I want to submit for a contest after I've already submitted a story? If yes, then I could post my first story right now as my contest submission. If I happen to finish the second story before the deadline, then I can have that be my entry instead. I wasn't really sure if this was allowed, so I've been sitting tight.

Probably simplest to just enter both stories, Sherbet will end up reading them both anyway if one is published early. Or at least it seems like entering then withdrawing then reentering might make things unnecessarily confusing. But it's Sherbet's contest so it'd be his call.

Yeah multiple entries is fine, as long as they're both good.
Especially considering a big goal with this contest is storygame quantity, I do like the sound of multiple entries. What I don't want to encourage is people submitting short 3/8ish placeholder games to save themselves while the 'real' story may or may not happen.

So yeah, in other words, go for it, but the first submission should still be up to contest standards.

Well, here it is: https://chooseyourstory.com/story/ignis-and-aero

Hope you enjoy :]

damn that has to be the fastest entree submission ever on cys

I always finish fast B)

Wait, that didn't come out right. Fuck!

Hah, you just called yourself out

Honestly? I'm inspired to try two entries as well. Since Clayfinger had most of his first story done before the contest was announced, can I do the same thing with one of my stories I've had sitting around for a couple years? I'm also working on a new one that was started after the contest if that helps.

What I mean is, after I finish the newer story I'm working on, may I use one of my older, pre-contest stories as a second entry as long as they both fit the prompt? 

Soo, a bit of bad news... I don't think I'll be able to get my second story done by the end of the deadline. I'd love to say it was because of other commitments, but honestly, I think I just managed my time terribly. My second story is nowhere near done and I don't think trying to rush it will help its quality. Therefore, I've made the decision to post that one outside of the competition.

Just wanted to drop a message here in case anyone was looking forward to it. I might be able to post it in a week or two, provided I actually learn from my mistakes.

Not me, sadly I've been super busy, working, and then after working I'm studying. That grocery store job is so shit, I'm sorry I bothered, you were right. I've had many jobs before, but this job is an actual sweatshop job. It's such a time crunch, it's 1 person doing a 3 person job. Undoubtedly my least favourite job so far, the customers need to stop talking to me, they're assholes and im too busy to help, all they do is make me either go home late or feel like shit when I couldn't finish my work and force it on another staff member. Shite job, I'm just gonna give it a few more weeks and then quit I think. Not for me. Impossible workload. Realistically I'd have to not have my 30 minute lunch break to finish or even get close to finishing what they need me to do. Which is what the girl before me was doing lol

 

Today some old ass man with a cane was walking super slow, and blocking up the staff door, so I subtly squeezed passed him and I shit you not he said "what an ignorant piece of shit" Like wtfff, I'm just shocked at the nerve of some people. 

Lol

locked?

He already joined, he was just going on about how he's going to get SHAMED due to his shitty job where he hilariously gets called named by old people.

*one to two days a week

No more three day work weeks! Lol 

You realize the old guy was terrified of you?

I think he just felt like I invaded his space, I didn't even touch him. 

You were there I wasn't. But if you say he was walking very slowly I am thinking he is probably in pain, possibly chronic maybe recent surgery or something. He may have been thinking something like, 'if that guy bumps into me I might fall and that means straight back to hospital' or something. The response you quoted sounded very aggressive and aggression often is a response to fear. (Or he was just a jerk, who knows)

I just like to imagine this is all going on with everyone sounding like a bunch of cockney gangsters and chavs.

I'm surprised you even know about chavs and cockney accents. I do live more up North, so I do meet some people with more 'harsh' accents, like the scousers, one of my dad's ex wives was a scouser, VERY distinctive accent (think paddy the baddy pimblett). Chavs are something else, we call them road men here now  and you can almost always spot them by the way they dress and talk, which once again, Is like another language. They're usually hyper aggressive - also known as lovers of petty crime. 

My grandmother was from a small town in England. (Probably not as small anymore)

Also Briar's a chavette so we're quite familiar with them.

Plus she'd say all of you that live up north are a bunch of poofters and wankers.

Count me in! I already have a started story game that fits this prompt well. So I suppose you can count me in!

 

Locked.

Good luck!

Wavering a bit, but I'm in. Hopefully, I will actually be able to finish something this time!

Oh hello, it's that IS refugee again.

Good luck!

I'm in. I need a bit more of a push to work on my current story.

Locked.

Good luck!

The Participants (So Far)

 

Suranna

Ford

Yummyfood

Clayfinger (DONE)

WizzyCat

RKrallonor

granolagoth

mrcrimsonclean

Mizal

Orange

Marte

ItzSugar

MiltonManThing

Fabrikant

bezro

Abgeofriends

Cat2002116

sitelung

benholman44

Payaso

fresh_out_the_oven

Why do you have to scare us by putting a giant list of our names like that? It makes us feel like if we didn't start, we're being called out by our conscience.

Lol

Then start

good point, thank you

RKRALLONOR

^

you are being called out because we know you ain't done shit yet.

At least he wrote your name right.

Hint: If you hear your conscience, it belongs to you and no one else. If you feel guilty, just write. You got this.

Hello, I am your conscience, please remove these two gay wolves in here with me - they're making it really awkward.

I might start today.

Maybe.

Still tons of time really.

Fuck it. I'm in. Also, I'll bet 225 points I can submit a valid contest entry. I figure that should be enough to motivate me to not slack off like I have in past contests. 

Locked

Ok. 1,500 words in three days. Meeting my goals so far. Now all I have to do is resist the urge to procrastinate for long periods of time after I start off strong like I've done in the last two contests.

1,500 in three days?? That's like one page a day

500 a day, yeah. I know it's small, but I have this issue where I write a bunch in the beginning and then get burnt out and ignore it till the very end of the contest. I think by pacing myself I'll be fine. Besides, 500 words a day is the minimum amount. I'm planning to write more than that.

With a month left and 19 (ALLEGED) participants, surely a brave hero will come forth and push us to 20.

I don't know man, coming up with an event that caused a difficulty might all just be a little too much.

No excuses anymore, twenty one ideas right here for people who are struggling.

1. The protagonist's life is turned upside down when they receive a terminal diagnosis.
2. After a car accident, the protagonist is left to navigate life with a permanent disability.
3. The sudden death of a loved one forces the protagonist to reevaluate their life choices.
4. The protagonist is betrayed by a close friend, leaving them questioning who to trust.
5. The protagonist’s family moves across the country, uprooting their life and relationships.
6. A breakup shatters the protagonist’s sense of self, pushing them into emotional turmoil.
7. The protagonist’s best friend gets married, and they feel left behind.
8. A natural disaster destroys the protagonist’s home, forcing them to rebuild from scratch.
9. The protagonist’s sibling goes missing, and they must deal with the emotional fallout.
10. The protagonist's parents get divorced, forcing them to choose sides.
11. The protagonist loses their sense of identity after a severe injury changes their appearance.
12. The protagonist’s child is diagnosed with a rare illness, and they must navigate the medical world.
13. A lifelong dream is dashed when the protagonist suffers an unexpected physical setback.
14. After witnessing a crime, the protagonist must deal with trauma and fear of retaliation.
15. The protagonist discovers they were adopted, leading them on a journey of self-discovery.
16. The protagonist is abandoned by their partner, leaving them to rebuild their life alone.
17. The protagonist’s romantic partner cheats, and they must confront the end of the relationship.
18. After being diagnosed with a mental health condition, the protagonist struggles to accept it.
19. The protagonist’s life is forever changed after they become the caretaker of a terminally ill parent.
20. A house fire leaves the protagonist without a home or possessions.
21. The protagonist loses their memory after an accident, struggling to reconnect with their past.

Did you think of these yourself?

The first five, I realized the class was almost up and I didn't want to bring it to another class so I told some chatbot to finish the list and I looked it over briefly. Why, is it a bad list?

idk I didnt read it

Do i have to submit an application or is me saying I'll do it enough to qualify entry? I'll do it :]

You're in. Don't fuck this up.

Oh fudgecicles :[

1) isn't that just Breaking Bad

Just write a breaking bad fanfic

Drug empire gets shut down. Gay and De-methed.
Anyway, locked. Good luck!

Wait

No

Shoot

You've been here long enough to know better.

It'll be alright. Looks like you already probably have more written than most of the people who have been in the contest for a month now.

Daily word count!!!

Oct 3: 1331
Oct 4: 954 so far (2285 total)

How can you actually see how much you got?

... and now I can't edit my post.

Anyway, every page tells you the word count, so just add those together. Don't respond to this post (:

Oct 3: 1331
Oct 4: 1799 (3130 total) Yay, I reached and surpassed my total word count goal for today.
Oct 5: Today was the final tennis meet of my high school career. I've been busy, I'm tired. But hey, I won! Also, 567 (3697 total) Also also, I'm past the "oh my gosh I'm so good at this look at me go" stage and to the part where I'm more like "oh my gosh I suck at writing and this is trash". Most of all, I SUCK AT DESCRIBING THE SETTING. In my brain it's just not important. I don't picture it, I don't care. I skip over that kinda stuff when reading half the time (makes reading Tolkien a lot faster for sure). But that's the #1 comment I get on all my writing– all they get is talking heads. I don't know what the classroom looks like. It could be any classroom, it doesn't matter! Why is it so vital?? (Wasted all these words and all this time ranting when I coulda been working on my story)

Not sure if you've read the article yet, but Mystic wrote a very good one that explains the exact situation you just described and how to overcome it. I'll leave the link in case you haven't seen it yet, and I hope it helps some.

As for lack of description in setting, I admit I myself have had that problem, and I prefer stories that have little to no description of a setting to give my imagination more license to visualize the story. I guess you could picture a scene in your head and write a few sentences giving a basic summary? Idk

https://chooseyourstory.com/help/articles/article.aspx?ArticleId=4345

Haven't read that, thank you! 

Word Count
Oct 3: 1331
Oct 4: 1799 (3130 total). Story is longer now than G&D!! ever was
Oct 5: 567 (3697 total)
Oct 6: :P (3697 total)
Oct 7: 1069 (4766 total)
Oct 8: 19 (: (4785 total)
Oct 9: 0 (4785 total)
Oct 10: T-T maybe just 500 a day wouldn't be so bad
Oct 11: 818 (5603 total)
Oct 12: 243 (5846 total)
Oct 13: 154 (6000 total)
Oct 14: Nothing, nada, zilch.
Oct 15: 2830 (8830 total) finished variables. Wrote more words today than G&D!! has total
Oct 16: 1144 (9974 total)
Oct 17: 601 (10575 total)
Oct 18: 1198 (11773 total) did some editing
Oct 19: 479 (12252 total)
Oct 20: 25 (12277 total)
Oct 21: 2607 (14884 total)
Oct 22: 216 (15100 total)
Oct 23: ...
Oct 24: 207 (15307 total)
Oct 25: my bday :)
Oct 26-29: hahaha
Oct 30: 539 (15846 total)
Oct 31 (original deadline): 29 (15875 total) lots of editing though
Nov 1: 2244 (18119 total)

Only proofreading remains.

A small sketch of my main character I did instead of writing greater than 20 words yesterday!

Just hover over the '?/8' next to 'Play Length' on the title page.

What
I didn't know that

Nice, thank you very much!

Word count so far,

51,345 words

can I make it to 100,000k?

Probably not

 

But I wrote that over the last year or so

 

50k?!? Holy

The Participants (So Far)

Suranna

Ford

Yummyfood

Clayfinger (DONE)

WizzyCat

RKrallonor

granolagoth

mrcrimsonclean (SHAME)

Mizal

Orange

Marte

ItzSugar

MiltonManThing

Fabrikant

bezro

Abgeofriends

Cat2002116

sitelung

benholman44

Payaso

fresh_out_the_oven

Fluxion

Since some people have been asking about how allowed it is to submit stories they were writing before the contest was announced; you are allowed to submit a story that you started before the contest, but the majority of your writing should take place during the contest period.

Granted, the fact that Clayfinger was about 2/3rds done with his story beforehand slipped by my radar at the time (I think I interpreted it as a much lower fraction in a state of exhaustion), but his wasn't especially long, a good portion of the writing happened during the contest, and he's apparently working on submitting a second story in addition to it.

I'd really like not to encourage people to prewrite and sit on storygames waiting for contests to roll around, so yeah- just make sure most of the writing happens between the announcement and the deadline, and all will be well. Cheers.

Ahh, I see. Noted. Sorry, I'm new to writing storygames, let alone participating in contests. Hopefully, I will be able to get my second story done in time. If not, I will publish it after the contest ends anyway. I honestly don't mind being disqualified if I'm unable to publish my second story, though I do dread dropping into the shame pit :(

I don't think yours was an issue, he was just needing to speak up on the subject now that other people were doing it to a more extreme degree.

Hmm, I see. Well for what it's worth, I promise to keep my writing within the contest time for contest storygames going forward.

Just found this. Since working on something you've already started is allowed, I think I'd like to try to see if I can finish a storygame I was working on. So, if it's not too late, sign me up.

Locked

Just a little over two weeks left, who is starting today?

I wanted to be done by today, but my ends keep proliferating. Enjoying the writing though, so two more weeks of fun is good.

I will never start. Ill just make up for my lack of participation`with indepth reviews instead. 

I'm going to KILL you

I can't die yet. Arcane season 2 hasn't even been released yet! 

#TeamJinx

I can fix her. 

Can't wait to hopefully see warwick in season 2 and Viktor ASCENDING. 

So Crimson just admitted to giving up. Alright I'll just mark him for SHAME now then.

Can't give up if you don't try to begin with.

Fair point

Apparently Fluxion.

Almost done!!!!

Same, though I haven't worked on it in 3 weeks, maybe I should get to finishing it up and proofreading for the 6th time.

I believe in you! Don't leave it all to the last minute, do it when you have time to do it well. (:

Two weeks left!!

Down to our last week.

Now would be a good time to start, if you haven't already.

I'm in

Locked.

The Participants (So Far)

Suranna

Yummyfood

Clayfinger (DONE)

WizzyCat

RKrallonor

granolagoth

mrcrimsonclean AKA Crimson (SHAME)

Mizal

Orange

Marte

ItzSugar

MiltonManThing

Fabrikant (DONE)

bezro

Abgeofriends

Cat2002116

sitelung

benholman44

Payaso

fresh_out_the_oven

Fluxion

Petros

Anthraxus

Depresbian

EndMaster sir, why is my name bolded and in large size?

Thought it was obvious, you called attention to yourself.

Just think about how big the SHAME label is going to be if you fail...

Locked, good luck!

Dirty trick!  My goose, it is cooked to blackened.

And there's nothing wrong with that

Certain mormons would disagree.

23 entrants not counting Crimson. I'm expecting roughly 13 or 14 entries, though of course hoping for that lucky number 15.

This rundown comes without looking at any of their profiles to see if they've even made a story, lol.

Suranna has failed in the past and has succeeded iirc. I think she'll do it

Yummyfood could submit something, but considering where he is in the pit it's not looking likely.

Clayfinger is obviously already done, but I heard something about possibly a second entry? Cool cool

Wizzy will probably submit an entry.

Mizal is also likely to submit, albeit it'll be very last second.

Orange is a toss up. Seems to be doing better as of late and I doubt he's willing to go back to the pit so soon— but old habits die hard.

Milton will probably submit an entry

Bezro is shamed, but hey so am I. Maybe he'll pull through

Abgeofriends looks like she's likely to actually come through, but ya never know. I'd say yes for this one though

Ben? I have no clue how he does in contests.

I'm gonna submit something! Yay me

Flux is shamed, but that's a recent thing, right? I believe in him

Petros is a pretty safe bet imo

Anthraxus is pretty 50/50. That's my gut feeling, anyway.

As for the noobs, I expect 2, maybe 3 entries tops.

you think she'll play hot to go?

Ford, this is Sherbert's Summer's End Synergy Contest..

Locked.

Looking forward to your entry.

I feel your pain Dep.

Rejoice, for the deadline has just become a lot less spooky!
In other words, you get an extension.

The new deadline is November 3rd at 11:59 PM (PST). Enjoy the extra weekend!

I could kiss you, you bag-headed freak

Ah, it's a Day of the Dead deadline now, very nice.

Day of the Deadline

I appreciate you so much.

Since the prompt is 'A recent event has caused the protagonist to go through a difficult change' one could still write something autobiographical where the 'event' is signing up to this contest, right? ;)

Ultra gay. What hole did this inbred crawl out of? It's already been done, bucko

I guess I can wait a couple more days to start.

Might as well wait until Friday now.

Just enough time for the final adjustments, thanks.

That means I don't have to write anything until November!!! (jkjk... kinda)

Just make sure you have a blank one ready to go, I won't let you post it if the story game was created less than two days ago. (Learned the hard way)

Oh, I've started. I'm just saying there's no real rush to finish.

I've been proofreading for 2 weeks, making sure it all makes sense. And when I fix a plot hole, it feels like another one comes up. (Pretty frustrating) Other than that though I'm pretty much done!

I'm down to the ending of one final branch. I just have no motivation 

Lost momentum over my birthday weekend and have since been struggling

That is exactly how I feel, happy birthday btw

:)

May i have the blurb for your story?

Me? or fresh?

Both actually!

I have the preview available for everyone to see on my profile! If you want to check it out.

I cant find it for some reason lol can you link it here please?

Define "blurb"

Like a summary or preview pretty sure

You dont know what a blurb is? I didnt know it was only a UK thing, but when you buy a book, theres a summary of what the story is about on the back cover. 

I just didn't know the word for it

Avery did a video on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3N8cnjXDb0

So you play as this dude named Teshi who lives in Historia, which is kinda a school but really an entire society. They make stories, and Teshi is a character. He gets cast as the lead in something and really hates it because he could actually die, so you've got the option to rebel at several points in the story. There's also the option to just go along with the plot and that was gonna be a while thing and has ended up being nothing too great.

It sounds stupid when I describe it and worse when I read it, but what's done is done.

Sounds very cool, can't wait to read it!

Sounds a bit like the movie Black Swan. At least in the potential to die during the performance. 

Making me google so many things smh

I quite liked the movie. Definitely one of the most memorable endings for a movie ive seen in a very long time. 

Id definitely reccomend you watch the movie if you need some quick inspiration to continue, or a way to enhance the ending, since it does seem to share some parallels.

Nothing makes you more productive than a 2-day deadline, At least I live in the EST timezone, so I get an extra few hours. Goodluck, I'm on the grind.

When it's 12am in the PST timezone, it's 10pm for me. But I plan on doing all of my writing today and using tomorrow just to proofread some more before publishing midday Sunday. I've really got very little left to go; I've made bracket summaries for the unwritten bits of both unfinished pages and simply have to translate them into the actual narrative.

I should have been working the whole past month; now I don't know If I'm going to finish. I should have made the story shorter and ended the paths sooner; now I have 70k words without a way to end it that feels fulfilling. Might have to make a part 2 or something later. Honestly the quality of writing is good, and the story is really solid. There are just a ton of plot holes I need to iron out, and I need a way to end it. Sounds like a tomorrow problem.

Guess I should start today, but I won't be home till pretty late.

Done. That was quite a learning curve, but now my first storygame is published:

Link

(Please let me know if you find any issues.)

The Participants (So Far)

Suranna (SHAME)

Yummyfood (SHAME)

Clayfinger (DONE)

WizzyCat (SHAME)

RKrallonor (DONE)

granolagoth (SHAME)

mrcrimsonclean AKA Crimson (SHAME)

Mizal (DETROIT)

Orange (DONE)

Marte (SHAME)

ItzSugar (SHAME)

MiltonManThing (DONE)

Fabrikant (DONE)

bezro (SHAME)

Abgeofriends (SHAME)

Cat2002116 (DONE)

sitelung (DONE)

benholman44 (DONE)

Payaso (SHAME)

fresh_out_the_oven (DONE)

Fluxion (DONE)

Petros (DONE)

Anthraxus (DONE)

Depresbian (SHAME)

Holy shit, it got even bigger!

Why is Rkrallonor as big as texas?

He called attention to himself.

mrcrimsonclean changed his name? I thought that was a whole other person I was talking to.

Ten valid entries right at the deadline! Yes!

Just accidentally deleted over a thousand fucking words of fucking writing. Love my life. Now I have to redo a whole fucking page. (: 

im really sorry man. is there any way you can get it back?

By writing it :P
I'll survive. I wrote it once and I keep doing stupid things to my pages. I saved over all my work with a nearly blank page. Actually when I realized what I had done I said "Fuck" out loud in a quiet classroom, so that was fun.

Just a lesson on thinking more before I do things that could potentially be really really bad.

At least it was a page I had recently written, and I still have the bracketed page summary. It was the longest of the pages I'd written... around 1032 words. All gone

Type in a document somewhere and not in the place where you're shuffling windows and sometimes their duplicates around and saving and closing them while not fully paying attention.

Or just highlight and copy a finished page before you do anything else to it.

Oh, sorry, I meant, "lol, fag".

I know I should do that, but after a while with no issues it seems unnecessary and I stop. Then I regret it deeply. And this the cycle begins again

You can do it. I know you can.

In high school I once lost an entire story I wrote. 30 pages front and back handwritten just gone.

Re-wrote it in one night just working off memory. Pretty sure I got everything the same other than one minor change I knowingly did.

Damn that sucks, will we ever get to see it remastered on a CYS format? To remember the full 30 pages is super impressive. 

Nah, everything I wrote in highschool mainly involved various classmates at the time. So while portraying someone as a degenerate might get a chuckle, most of the humor is lost due to none of you actually knowing said person. (Sort of like if you went on about a member here on some other website. Might get a chuckle, but not nearly as much as it would here since everyone knows that person)

The story itself is more or less a Wizard of Oz parody though not exactly the same. Follows a girl who gets transported to a magical world that has a lot of sexual shit in it and hilarious hijinx ensue. Off the top of my head, Fornication Forest was one of the locations as I remember. Oh and the Buttfucking Beast of Syphilis Swamp. The story ended up being the first part of a trilogy (Last part was about 70 pages hand written front and back.)

Don't think a "remaster" would really work, but I DID predict the war against the aggressive transsexual lesbians decades before it became a horrible reality!

Anyway it was a different time (A better time of course). Nowadays if I was a teenager writing what I wrote in highschool, I would've gotten accused of sexual harassment, bullying, racism, sexism, whatever-phobia, etc. and gotten thrown out of the school.

For those of you wondering, I successfully rewrote the page and am once again done writing (and I closed all the open tabs then went through to make sure. All good).

Now for real there's only proofreading left

I just hit 77k words, and each time I feel like I want to finish it another branch opportunity comes up and I end up writing more and more paths. There are like 60 - 70  ish pages, I just need to find a good stopping place or it will go forever!`

Sixty pages and you have 77,000 words?? I had 62 pages and didn't even reach 20k. How many words are on a page???

too many

Here ya go.

No point in stalling any longer; I've never been a patient human anyway.

My entry, Re-election Campaign:

https://chooseyourstory.com/story/re~2delection-campaign

(Hint: It may take a few playthroughs to learn what's really going on in Cougar Valley)

 

True word count is much lower, maybe 70-80k. Variations on scenes makes it seem higher than it is.

I look forward to reading everyone else's entries!

Most of the stories this time around seem really long. I better not be reading 100 million words of ass

This one is good though!

Thank you for the story idea

If nothing else, sounds like a great title

I just played the game and explored a few of the paths. man, you did a good job. This is a game that necessitates many playthroughs. With some story games, after one or two times, you're done. Because that's all the story you really wanted to explore. But I have so many questions. Also, in one of the paths, I think when Maria Eckles and her crew are protesting, you straight up get to challenge her to a duel. That was awesome

This one looks really interesting, I see you have made excellent use of the time allotted.

For myself, I'm going to start at 10pm so we'll see what happens. Sherb being in California gives me some extra time too so that's nice.

Looks like were in for another squirrel romance huh

Im reading your story and i just have to say that im really liking it so far, i think you've improved a lot even on your last story. I definitely think this story is going to be hard to beat for the other contestants.

Loved it. One of if not my favourite protagonist on the site. 

Submit more stories, or I start shootin'!

I'm still working at it.

After midnight and just nothing left in the tank. I take my shame.  You can see where I was planning to go with it, but there are several branches I just can't get done in time.

Here it is if anyone wants to waste their time: https://chooseyourstory.com/story/Witness.aspx

I'm trying. I technically have a little under four hours left. I had to cut off one of the main branches, as there's not enough time, and I'm finishing up two endings. 

This one is gonna be a linear (one choice kills you, one choice advances) type of story game, but there should be enough endings near the end to make it a good way to kill twenty minutes 

People are already submitting novels to thing, I can't compete and also I'm sleepy, I'm going to bed.

I think I've got a bit over three hours left (assuming the conversion from UK time to PST is accurate). It's going to be a really close thing, but...I'm hoping I'll sneak in just before the deadline!

If you have Google, just look up what time it is in California and plan accordingly.

I'll take one bullet, please.

Okay well now I just want to know what happened to Abgeofriends, didn't she get like a 50k headstart on everyone else?

Yeah, I fucked up. Badly. Shame me. I'm sorry.

No you didn't, you still have hours left. Don't quit now. Never back down never what?

Never pay your taxes! :D

I think I've checked enough, so here it is! It's quite short but I'm not unhappy with it. https://chooseyourstory.com/story/scapegoat

For whatever reason, your link isn't working for me. Still, it shows up on your profile page.

I just fixed it! I forgot how to use html temporarily.

Man i fucked up the second half of my review on your story due to my shit copy - paste skills lol oh well, you get the point. 

Oh boy. I don't think I'm going to finish this in time. Would it be better to write a 3000 word slop and turn that in, or just accept shame? I know what little reputation I had is already in the dumps, but I don't want it to go any further.

Lol, fag

Oh shut it, I know you're also writing something last minute.

And? I still feel superior

I guess I'll just take the shame. :(

Should have gone for the slop.

Are we allowed to review stories submitted for the contest? Or should we wait till the results are announced?

Nothing wrong with it!

All right, here we are!

I chose to remove some of the choice paths, rather than rush and publish a subpar piece of work. I don't think I missed anything, but if anyone does spot any dead links, please let me know!

I guess it now reads a little more like a story than a game, even though there are choices that affect the path.

Anyway, I actually finished something, even though it wasn't as long as I would have liked it to be!

Happy to see a former Infinite Story member finally get herself out of the SHAME pit.

https://chooseyourstory.com/story/it-happened-at-the-waffle-house

Splattering vomit noise

With less than ten minutes to go, I submit my entry. Admittedly, I, like many of my fellow participants, was unable to make it as long as I wanted it to be, but I still enjoyed writing it.

Thank you for the opportunity, Sherb!

Fleeing the Forest

Pretty sure this isn't done. Got to learn not to procrastinate. Missing an entire branch and ending I wanted to put in, as well as an Epilogue. But I tried. Fey Light

Also had to loop the stupid thing back together to close this unfinished line. Probably have some contradictions now. At least I know some of these will be very fun to read, though.

Thank you so much! By turning this in right before the deadline, you brought us to an exact ten valid entries. As long as these all meet site standards, we get the point bonus.

LOL awesome. I just hope it gets me out of the Pit of SHAME.

Considering EndMaster marked you as DONE and not SHAME, it probably did.

That's time.
Results post coming within the week- looking forward to these!

Hey Y'all.

I finished my story. It's a prison story with quite a bit of conspiracy and mystery. Hope y'all like it.

https://chooseyourstory.com/story/falsely-accused~3athe-telenorian-kingdom's-worst-prison

One must wonder if this will grow your name even more, or shrink it back to ordinary size.

Did I make it? I feel like I was right on the edge. Can my entry be considered for the contest?

Yeah, you're fine.

Thank you so much, that's really cool of you

I hope my name grows back to normal size with this story

As the one who first made that joke, I'm proud that you got a submission through. Good job! I'll give it a read and review.

Thanks Milton.I also really liked your entry for the contest, Gol'burger, good job

Does it have butt piracy? Otherwise I'll be somewhat disappointed. I mean, what's a prison without butt piracy? Nevertheless, I don't think I've ever seen a prison story here, so this is surely a welcomed addition.

Read it and find out 

No butt piracy, unfortunately.

Still, it's a prison story. There aren't many of those here.

That's true. The plot idea really intrigued me. I just wish I started earlier because both endings leave you on a bit of a cliffhanger. I meant to actually write and complete both those arcs. Nevertheless I think I still managed to give readers a bit of closure, so it's not like it feels like the whole story led up to nothing.

I was hesitant on making a Prison story because I didn't want to make it Prison escape and make it too close to Shawshank redemption

Understandable, but that's a great of a story to shark if one were so inclined. Still, I look forward to reading yours some time when the sun is in the sky.

Names have been thrown in the SHAME pit. In some cases, lower in it.

Special failure goes out to Yummy who somehow managed to sneak into this contest despite already being in the 9th level of SHAME and essentially banned from ever joining one again, and instead of cleverly escaping the SHAME pit, he squandered his opportunity.

Yesterday I worked, then I roleplayed as a vampire, during which time I had TWO drinks that made me pass out, therefore failure was unavoidable and nothing is my fault.

I would enjoy entering another Sherb contest, this was just the practice run.

At least it was time well spent, vampire roleplay does indeed sound fun.

Great job for those that made it, and thank you to the largess of whom ever decided to count mine as complete.  Perhaps with that I will actually finish out the branches I had to summarize.  

Maybe somebody finds this useful:

• Clayfinger Ignis and Aero
• Fabrikant Rainbow-1
• fresh_out_the_oven Yet another world-ending scenario
• Orange Re-election Campaign
• Antrhraxus Witness
• sitelung Scapegoat
• cat2002116 Into the Darkness
• Petros It happened at the waffle house
• benholman44 Fleeing the Forest
• Fluxion Fey Light
• RKrallonorFalsely Accused:The Telenorian Kingdom's Worst Prison
• MiltonManThing GOL'BURGER

Dude you're a legend. Thanks for doing this man!

Your link to your story is broken (at least for me)

Here’s my attempt to fix it

Thank you very much!

Thank you. I take it for granted that there will always be some selfless soul do gather the stories like this. It is appreciated.

I finally got through all of these (first time I've not been a lazy shitbag after these contests), and I'm pleasantly surprised to say that there aren't any pure pieces of trash. Even the worst story here was at least tolerable by my standards, and there were some great gem moments among these. Well done to all of you who avoided the pit of SHAME.

Fuck! I have over 100k words and hundreds of hours of work on this story. Welp, it looks like I'm finally in the pit of shame, honestly surprised I lasted this long. Good luck to everyone who didn't get shamed, I'm officially one step closer to Voldy status. 

Nothing stopping you from publishing it.

I know, I may just wait for another contest to come around and publish it then. 

You would have to write like 150k words, the majority of the writing must happen during the contest.

Yeah, pretty sure Sherbet made a post specifically addressing this prewriting thing. Right here in this very thread in fact!

He hadn't realized it would become such an issue and so hadn't made any rules about it, but now we know.

Oh no, Abgeofriends, you have become "the cause of rules".

Even if he hadn't, aren't there already rules against prewriting? I had only planned to pre-write a second entry if I completed my first, new entry in enough time. As I ended up finishing it literally ten minutes before the deadline, that didn't happen.

Yeah you're not really supposed to be turning in stuff that you've already been working on, though really if you don't actually say anything rather than blab about it like Abridge did, it's not like we're really going to check hard on it.

Of course now Abridge has sort of disqualified herself from any of my contests until further notice since I'm going to assume she's just turning in this story that she's already written.

And yes, even if she turned in something less than over 100K, I still don't know if she just tried to trick me by chopping it up so it didn't look like she's turning in the same story.

Her best bet would be to publish the story so she's got a clean slate for the next contest and try again then.

Just post it on your own, outside of a contest. It's ok.

Now that the contest is over..

I'll read a story or two today.