LWC has been running, as of this month, for the entirety of 2025. Next month will be the year anniversary. We run the first Friday of every month. A warning post is released on Thursday, requirements released on the Friday, and submission closes on the Monday. Voting ends on the following Friday. WHEN>tomorrow morning at 10:00 GMT the character and theme requirements will be releasedRULES>1. incorporate the theme and character requirements (creative interpretations allowed)>2. submissions must be made by Monday 8th December at 22:00 GMT>3. you must submit by use renty.co and posting a rentry.co link of your piece under a unique tripcode (Namefield: Name + "#" + Password)>4 you are allowed to edit your work on rentry.co page until the submission deadline>5 entrants must vote or will be disqualifiedVOTING>anyone can vote>a Strawpoll will be made where you can rank your top three: 1st gets 3 points, 2nd gets 2, 3rd gets 1 For entrants:>use your trip when it asks for your 'name' on the strawpoll reply 'voted' ITT using your trip>anons reply 'voted' ITT first, then use your reply No.# as name>voting for yourself will disqualify you>Results released next Friday 12th Critique other pieces or you're a gaylord.
>GMTThis is too confusing for my American sensibilities
Remember to bump your threads, kids.
Lets get this party started
leetttsss goooooooo
First time participant here. Do I have to give my critiques using my tripcode or can those be submitted anonymously?Also, testing my tripcode
>>24926120You can do whatever you want anon, you have my permission.
>>24926120Make all your posts under one of the recurring trips so your chums will favour your work even when it’s shit. These contests stopped being about honest feedback a while ago.
I'll try to join this time , hopefully the theme and character requirement is something I can work with
>>24926122I'll stick to anonymous feedback then. >>24926199I don't care about winning, I'm in it for the love of the game
>>24925515Really excited to participate in between studying for finals
>>24926120you don't have to use your trip all the time, sometimes people dont just because they think it makes feedback a little fairer. i myself dont use this yodo trip because i prefer the separation of myself as comp organiser and myself as writer and critic. >>24926199 imo never has a shitty story been said it was good. i got torn into last time, quite rightly.
CHARACTER REQUIREMENT:>A character must be convinced someone is breaking into their house and not stealing, but leaving items. THEME REQUIREMENT: >The story must explore ancient traditions in the modern day YOU HAVE UNTIL MONDAY 22:00 GMT TO SUBMIT! GOOD LUCK!
>>24927100This prompt sucks. It's too specific. Pass.
>>24927117Yeah. At least the character req is too specific. I think I'm still gonna try it though
>>24927121It's meant to be santa claus
>>24927121If I remember right the prompts don’t have to be the main focus and the character doesn’t have to be the main character ?
CHARACTER REQ:>An orphan.THEME REQ:>Christmas. That's it. That's the contest let's go
Vote on which story you want to read the mosthttps://strawpoll.com/2ayLQw8G3n4>1A mysterious intruder plants boxes full of coal on the secluded island paradise of a present-day (temporarily embarrassed) Roman emperor.>2A melange of strange inhabitants who refuse to leave a bizarre house lose their tenuous grip on the strange reality as the ancient artifacts of forgotten ages mysteriously appear in strange places. >3In the twenty-five days leading up to Christmas, a pagan shaman—a witch—sneaks twenty-five gifts into the home of her crush, a pessimistic wageslave with a rich inner life. Voting closes in several hours. Hopefully you'll pick the one I already started writing
>>24927674Wow, an attentionfag.
>>24927695Watch that idiot forget to turn the trip off while pretending to be someone else.
>>24927731Website for submission is incorrect so I paste my entry here: Michaela, an anthropologist researching ancient traditions in the modern day, groped around in the dark. A faint gnawing could be heard from the other side of her house. The lights wouldn’t turn on. Her anthropologist husband was still digging up shrunken heads in the Amazon. She was all alone.“What’s that? Who’s there? Are you here to steal my precious artefacts?”“It’s… lit.”“What? It’s who?”“Lit.”Whether it was the season or the unthreatening, childlike timbre of the voice, Michaela wasn’t scared to be in her own home with an apparent stranger.She turned down the hall and fumbled her way up the stairs, and a warm glow peered at her through the study door which was not quite closed, flickering like a candle.Michaela made for the door and with one hand on the jamb opened it like she was pulling apart the lips of a spacious vagina. And the appalling figure she saw there, squatting trouserless in her office chair, tapping away on a mobile phone, utterly flummoxed her.“Your name is… Lit?”“That’s right.”“Why are you taking a dump on my office chair?”“I’m from 4chan, and I'm working on my submission.”
https://rentry.co/brewin-trouble
>>24927834Link is working now:https://rentry.co/d74m4x6i
>>24927843Boring, no hook, get to the point, stop wasting my time showing off your "research"
>>24927834I feel this story should be disqualified. While it fulfils the character requirement, it fails to uphold the given theme. Instead of incorporating ancient traditions in the modern day throughout the story, the writer just inserts an unseen husband character who happens to be working with ancient artifacts. Seems insufficient to me. >>24927843This one has some neat sentences and might be of passing interest to those fascinated by brewing but I can't identify anything resembling an intriguing character or compelling story.
>>24927943You must be new. The rules are interpreted loosely. They are mainly there to inform the voting. This has been the case in every single /lwc/
>>24927964>The rules are interpreted looselyOh, so, there are no rules. Got it
>>24927843Dreadfully boring I’m afraid. Feels like I’m reading a textbook. Don’t start with a wall of technical description next time. >>24927873If you’re going to write a shit story it should at least be funny, and if this counts then the rules truly do mean nothing.
>>24928190Come on mate. You internally chuckled. Admit it.
>>24928166>>24928190You can consider them more like voting criteria; if you think a story didn't follow the character and theme requirements closely enough, then you don't vote for it. The voters also know the requirements, so it gets filtered out by consensus, same as a piece that's bad for any other reason. Theme and character are at least somewhat ambiguous, so I think this is the better approach compared to having the OP put hard filters on what makes it into voting (besides things that break more explicit rules, like lateness or improper format).
>>24925515Good luck aons, I'll read every submission so actually give up your gooning and girlfriend and write this time.
>>24927196yes, father christmas!>>24927943don't worry, i don't put these shit posts in the strawpoll. >>24928263this is true, you lot are good at sorting yourselves out and i just leave out shitposts from the strawpoll.>>24928190>>24927878please try not to critique until submissions close. it can cause people to edit their stories, leading to some people reading one version and other people reading the edited.
>>24929488Great, more depressing slop, less joy, more TV/modern fantasy dialogue, no actual narratives.Winner this month (spoiler alert): >A vaguely ethnic young woman and a vaguely troubled young man who once knew each other during childhood discover something mysterious from the past which either re-unites them or leaves them with a bitter sweet parting. The entire story is without charm and humourless and the dialogue sounds like it was wrote by a spastic autist who has never had a real conversation in their lives (because it was).Either that or one boring symbolism reveal after an endless description of scene.I literally cannot wait.
>another thinly veiled and limp promptAt least he stopped pretending they are randomly generated.
Here's your bingo card, lads
>>24929597Where's the>really good and interesting Sqaure?
>>24927674It was a tie, so I made the executive decision to do the one nobody voted for. Here's my entry:https://rentry.co/Great_Caesar
>>24929982>a happens>then b happensGreat story
November's winners are compiled in the PDF with the green cover here:https://mega.nz/folder/usNllbQC#yWk55Mj355BvqwtUrfbYegbooks of the August, September, and October winners are also there, and include the /wibac/ winners of each monthprops to last month's fourth-placer swapping his entry for an ASCII cock
>>24929597kek>>24929488sorry
>>24930017>things... happened?very strange for a story
>>24930017>>24930643For me it's:>nothing happens
>>24930467this is very good. and I mean very good.
>>24929597This is the real challenge.
>>24931146You mean the documents themselves, or the piece in the preview?
>>24931137Two things with no bearing on the other happening one after the other? Maybe not strange, but certainly flat
Good luck everybodyhttps://rentry.co/94pbb3w5
>>24931833
>>24931812What happened in that story that you've deemed unconnected?
My entry:https://rentry.co/3ogsfoxz
>>24931981Literally none of these are from my story
thanks everyone so far, we have just over 24 hours until submissions close. the strawpoll will open tomorrow 22:01>>24930467the typesetting on this is great. thanks.
bump
>4chan will be down for scheduled maintenance at 11AM EST on Monday the 8thI hope this maintenance ends before 22:00 GMT, so that I can submit on time.But if the site only comes back online after the deadline, as long as we hit “Go” on our Rentry entries before 22:00 GMT (and didn’t edit them afterward), we should still be able to legitimately post our submission links here afterward, right?
My submission:rentry.co/oqo8qti8
>>24931144You'll like a lot of these submissions so far, then
>>24934756More misery slop
>Remember this exists and that I missed it last month>Check in>It's literally just a weekend thing and there's only a few hours left to submit anythingYeesh
https://rentry.co/Sir-Burton
https://rentry.co/Felicity_by_ineptiaAs always, best wishes to all!
Aaahhhhhttps://rentry.co/Avemas
SUBMISSIONS CLOSEDthank you everyone who has submitted. Good turn out this month, too. excited about reading how youve all interpreted the prompts. i pulled them out my ass, as you can probably tell. but i thought they were christmassy enough. THE COMPETITION: https://rentry.co/Great_Caesar - ProductionBlues!TB/jHk2lt.https://rentry.co/94pbb3w5 - Bartlebooth !.3c0oZ3PRQhttps://rentry.co/Sir-Burton - Duck !mwG/19ioworentry.co/oqo8qti8 - akimbokonata !h5lZis5iEwhttps://rentry.co/Felicity_by_ineptiahttps://rentry.co/Avemas - WouldBird !xODIqgqvrMhttps://rentry.co/brewin-trouble - brewski!Qv6ztbH1lYhttps://rentry.co/3ogsfoxz - Bold !!GeBOMO7W2X1VOTE HERE (ranked 1st, 2nd, 3rd):https://strawpoll.com/wAg3QMzvOy8Please keep the thread alive by critiquing each other and giving feedback and working out your top three.
>>24935267>Pacts to shoot folks near and Mars far.wtf
>>24935432voted
>>24936043thanks. im curious about your process, any thoughts on the stories you read?
>>24935432Voted.>>24927843I do not like how you shift from casual to technical. Choose a lane and stay in it because it is more annoying than anything. You could have made the process very fun and then it went full retard with>The magic slab also seems to monitor various variables such as oxygen and carbon dioxide levels and whatnot.Which felt more like you the writer giving up than the character getting exhausted from nerding out. You could have started with "It was an impressive setup indeed" and cut all the chaff. Maybe then you'd be forgiven the casual dialogue which is at odds for the technical knowledgeable type you're trying to accomplish. You kind of lost me once the action started and I've no interest in the story to parse it.>>24931833The mice were fun. I hate that the dude is a slob, but the comment about the door being Daniel facing the world was interesting psychology all the same. Shame it kind of devolved because I was hoping for a better payoff with the mice.>acrostic poem.Heh.>>24932639I fear I did not get the globe gift unless it was meant to a gift intended for Andrew. I admire and admonish the fact the rope had no scarf imagery or allusion. The mirror too posed a problem if the man has ailing sight but could see Andrew presumably for greater distance. Making it more indistinct physically but internally knowing the blur or smear could have worked better imo.>>24935196You gets points for the greek mythology. The first person narrator felt pointless and it's in his comments that drag the story down more than anything. That last line dragged it from an attempt at poignant to a flop attempt at humor.>>24929982>waking up with twenty-three stab woundsMade me smile and I liked the twist.
>>24931833>Frank, my landlord, talked to me about my concerns. He is a reasonable man but overly gullible. I laid out to him my argument in simple terms: Ashley and her girlfriend belonged to a coven of witches, and they didn’t like me because Ashley could look inside me and tell that I sometimes imagined her naked. Landlord Frank did not know what to make of my statements and told me he would get back to me.This was pretty fucking funny. I don't know how to critique the whole thing constructively, I think the story itself inhibits its quality, rather than the way it's written. Direct interaction with Alice and her gf would've been nice
>Yes, the tap dancing of little mice keeps me awake long after the sun setsi love this opening. lots of movement, intriguing, want to read more. >On certain summer nights, when the wind is dry and hot, I sleep under my blankets anyway. Even if it is a hundred degrees.i like the misdirect here. '... I sleep under blankets anyway.' one expects of course, for that sentence to end with 'so I sleep butt naked' or something along those lines.>I do not feel this way about my upward neighbour, but I am also twenty-nine, beyond the age a mouse could live toi fucking love this. >Of course my shower started running again. This is one of the longest standing faults with the place, my shower just starts running sometimes.another misdirect here, with the assumption that having said 'my shower started running again' then what must follow : "because it had been shut off" or something along those lines. I like this kind of writing. be careful not to get too cute with it though. I did so once with the line "the door was like his robe, slightly ajar with a sliver of exposed wood.">The water bill does not bother me because I have few uses for money anyway.another line i feel says so much about the character. great job so far. i don't want to take up too many characters pasting quotes, but as i read on, im really enjoying the voice. i love how surprising everything is. the style is great, lulls you into a false sense of simplicity and then, with a misdirect, actually reminds you that the voice is so unique. You read the story, and then once you reach the final line, you realise the story spells out 'yodoisafaggot' and you think omfg lmao you sonofabitch
>>24937923for real though, great writing. i agree with >>24937292>I think the story itself inhibits its quality, rather than the way it's written.this story tapped into a very compelling voice and you decisions in which direction you took the story, following the strange throughout. i wanted to read more of this.
>>24937292>>24937934I’m glad you liked it and the acrostic. Even in a little place like this receiving positive feedback on writing is a special feeling. I’ll anonymously post the remainder of my comments soon.
>>24932639A bit on the nose; really didn’t need the final line. Some cliched descriptions about stuff, you know about a cold sweat, and black terror, ‘sheer moments of panic.’ Read it all before. Needs something to make it more interesting.>>24934728Sorry, I signed up for a short story competition. I would have read more if it rhymed or had some kind of meter. Without at least one of those things I don’t see why anyone would read a poem. >>24935196A little funny, which is good for /lwc/. Your sentences are choppy, especially at the start where it feels like you’ve forgotten to punctuate and they seem to run on despite not being that long. Feels rushed; no capitalisation on French, shouldn’t it be ‘Pliny the full of it’, I think you could’ve used a little more space between your setup and punchline at the end. Loose adherence to the prompts but I guess that’s to be expected. Good contribution. >>24935310Errors in your prose are sinking you before I can even judge the story. The “stink of fish her perfume,” failing to use a comma before a dialogue tag, and “Those who did rarely came back and it was the hope it was because…” I’m don’t think that’s strictly incorrect, but it doesn’t flow at all. There are more — proofread your work.Jolly good. I think there’s one more I’ve got to do before voting.
