[Army of One]

Voting has now closed. Winners announced here.

General Contest Rules:

• All stories submitted between 12:00am September 1, 2021 UTC and 11:59pm September 31, 2021 UTC 3:30am September 1, 2021 UTC and 3:29am October 1, 2021 UTC that fit the topic criteria will be accepted. (Time change will be explained below.)
• Stories can be submitted to any of the story writing boards (this excludes the Roleplay boards); non-English stories will need an English translation linked to them, which must also be in the relevant story section, in order to be accepted.
• Stories must be started in the month stated, and listed here for submission before month's end.

Okay, I'll first deal with the elephant in the room: I lost track of time. With this lockdown, everyone is back home, which (as anyone who has a school-aged child can attest) can be hell when you need to get said child to do their work. So, yes, I put back the contest 3½ hours as a result.

Now, the challenge. I'm going to give you a choice:

• The story must contain no dialogue, explicit or implied. This admittedly is the easier of the choices IMHO, as you can still describe quite a lot, just no dialogue...including internal dialogue. Oh, and no using monologues, spoken or internal, to get around the rules through technicalities.
• If you want a harder challenge, you can tell a story using no words whatsoever. Yes, it is possible to convey a lot with zero words; a non-porn example is SCP-2521. How you do this is up to you, but just remember that it must keep with the site's rules about visual media, and that it must contain no words, so you can't use letter-like emojis to get around the rules.

You have between the times stated at the top to write and submit below. Again, to keep things clean here, any questions you have can be PM'd to me, and I will put answers in the next post below. Also, if we get enough entires of each challenge, I may separate the voting for the two.

Happy writing, everyone.

[Army of One]

Do grunts/moans/signals/non-verbal communication methods counts as dialogue?

Good question, and one that is not as simple as yes or no.

I'll start with what will be counted as dialogue.

• Sign Language: This one's s no-brainer. Sign language is recognised as a spoken language the world over, and thus a means of dialogue. So yeah, no signing in stories.
• Grunts/clicks/other actions as language: Did you know there are languages that are formed just from various tongue clicks? There are, and they're disallowed in your story, as are other languages that use grunts and the like. That means, if you were planning to set your story in prehistoric times, with neanderthals speaking what would be a very primal language of grunts and screeches, you're out of luck.
• Other physical actions as code: Chest beating, talking drums, mime...any set of actions that form a complete code set is disallowed. This one is a bit more complex and context-dependant. For example, raising a finger to one's lips is a universal sign for quiet, but alone does not constitute a language. Army signals, on the other hand, are, as they communicate a set of instructions, and can be used for dialogue, thus will be disallowed in your story.
• Writing: Notes, signs, anything used to communicate between two or more people is disallowed if its main intention is to establish dialogue. So stop signs are fine, but a note asking if one character wants to go out with another is not. Anything in between will depend on context.

That isn't an exhaustive list, and may get expanded upon during the month. But, unless or until I say otherwise, assume it's allowed.

Can I imply indiscernable conversation?

Indiscernable tittering is fine, just don't add in a subject.

Are first person narratives okay?

Yes, they are. Just avoid the narrator's thoughts and any conversation, and you'll be fine.

[SoftGameHunter]

Well, like with so many of these writing prompts, this story came entirely from the contest. It wasn't in my head until I tried to think of one to fit the parameters.

So, I give you, Just Evil. If there are rules issues, please let me know. There's plenty of time to change things, though I'd rather not have to.

I had fun with this one. Here is my entry.

The Switch

Please also let me know if there are rule issues. I hope there aren't because I like it the way it is lol.

[EnabranTain]

This was a tough one to figure out, credit to my wife for the idea of using a library setting.
And like the others have said, I believe I've avoided any rules breaking, but please let me know if there's any issues.

Quiet Study Area

[90lbsofdynamite]

To be honest, I didn't know if I could do this challenge or not. I wrote it, and questioned whether it would pass muster. This is a first person narrative and I wasn't sure it would fly with the rules being what they are.

So, here we go. Submitted for your approval or rejection...

Brief Moments with a Hot Twink http://ravishu.com/forums/index.php?topic=49907.0

[LtBroccoli]

No Words Were Needed (MF, oral, cons)

I'm not gonna lie, this was hard prompt but the story wrote itself.  I had a couple other ideas at first but decided to change it up as soon as this one came to me a couple weeks ago, after a random dream involving an ex-girlfriend.  While the events do not take place, this might be the most "real" story I've written.

[90lbsofdynamite]

I am sure this will sound like an insane request. However, I'm going to compete in multiple Halloween writing contest and I don't believe in posting a story in more than one contest at a time. Can we get a head start on what the contest will look like? I don't plan on starting this story until after October 1st. Still, I'm working on two stories already, and I'd like to know how to plot the third one and the directions I need to follow.

I know, I'm being selfish on this and if my request isn't honored, no biggie.

I have a 30,000 story I'm editing now for Lit, I have another for the always frustrating SOL, that is shorter, but amorphous so far, about Siren needing to produce an offspring. And I have an idea for the story for here, but I have no idea if it will fit the constraints of the contest, it isn't even an outline so far, just an idea and a supernatural being that I intend to use...

The one for Lit I started working on last year for a Halloween release this holiday season. (Yes, fucking Halloween is a holiday)

Anyway, it's just a request. The others need to be done and posted by the first so they have enough exposure t have the volume of votes for even a shot. Here, we have 15 days after the month ends, so plenty of time either way. Just never know when paid work will make me stop free stuff.