Welcome to the Valentine’s Day Challenge 2007 - Valentine's Treats!

Something new, something different for you and your muse to ponder. This year we have three choices, built around our theme this year of Valentine's Treats. :hersheyskiss:

Options:

Option 1: Candy Hearts - Write a story that includes the text of at least five candy conversation heart sayings below. The title can be whatever you choose including one of your hearts, just make sure to include your hearts in your story and COLOR THEM in red so that readers can see them. (To color text, merely highlight it, select the A with the underline from the menu bar and the color menu will drop down. Pick the red (for Valentines Day) and the computer will do the rest.)

3 WISHES
HUG ME
GET REAL
TRUE LOVE
KISS ME
DREAM
EMAIL
MISS YOU
HOW NICE
DEAR JACK
WHIZ KID
WISE UP
TEACH ME
CLASS ACT
EVER AFTER
NEW YOU
MAGIC
DREAM
CHARM ME
START NOW
NEW LOVE
IM ME
DREAM TEAM
HOME SOON

Option 2: "Life is like a box of chocolates... you never know what you're gonna get ."- Forrest Gump. A very wise saying. Think of your story in this light - you never know where life will take you. Use the chocolate analogy, have fun with the Valentine's Day tie in and see where your muse takes you.

Option 3: Old Wives' Tales and Food/Treats- Take an Old Wives tale from below and craft your story around it. Simply note which one you are using in your intro, give your muse free rein and enjoy!
If you break a double strawberry in half and share it with someone, you will fall in love with each other.
If you sit on a kitchen table you will never get married.
If a single woman sleeps with a piece of wedding cake under her pillow, she will dream of her future husband.
If an unmarried woman is anxious to marry her beau, she will suddenly begin to accidentally break dishes more than usual. It is a hint to the beau that she really wants to get married.
Don't sing at the table, you'll marry a crazy person.


The Categories for Awards are as follow:
1) Most Romantic Story (J/S Pairing)
2) Most Romantic Story (Other Pairing)
3) Best Historical Romance
4) Best Paranormal Romance (Time Travel/Cupid's/Ghosts/etc)
5) Best Romantic Suspense (Mystery, Drama, Cliffhanger)
6) Best Romantic Comedy NEW CATEGORY
7) Best Original Character
8) Best Short Story (5,000 words or less)
9) Best Story By a New Writer *

* To Qualify as a New Writer, you must have no stories/scenes on the board at the time of entering the challenge.


The Challenge opens immediately and runs through Valentine’s Day 2007, at midnight in your location. To enter, simply select the Challenge you are going to write - Option 1-3 - and place your name after your title (for example: Opt. 1 - A Simple Kiss – Starbuck) Don't forget to include your rating in the description line! :rocker:

It's time to start and let the challenge begin!!

~The Team at RFF

Please post any questions regarding the Challenge here!

Hi!
I really would like to do a story in this challenge but I have a question:

If I were to use this storyline: If a single woman sleeps with a piece of wedding cake under her pillow, she will dream of her future husband. , then what do I name the title?

Thanks

Tracy

For all of the options in this challenge, you get to make up your own title. Just remember, you need to be able to fit 'Opt. # - (your title) - (your screen name)' all in the title line... so you'll want to keep the title to just a few words.

Okay, so if I did "Hearts in Melody" it would be "Opt#1 - Hearts in Melody - Tracyfbeye"? Please correct me if I'm wrong

Thankyou so much

Tracy

Close! It would be 'Opt. 1 - Hearts in Melody - Tracyfbeye'. We try to keep the formatting the same in all of them so when we sort at the end of the challenge, they go into the proper order. All the best!

Okay, Thankyou very much

A special word of thanks to all of those who worked hard on this challenge. First - a note about the Team at RFF - the Moderators, Supermoderators and Admin who brainstormed the ideas and brought them together!

Also, thank you again to Sue&Jack for the luscious banner she designed to brighten the overall look.

Happy Valentines Day everyone!

I was wondering, can a person do more than one option 3 story?

In other words, if a person wrote Opt. 3 about 'If you break a double strawberry in half and share it with someone, you will fall in love with each other.', could they then write an Opt. 3 about 'If an unmarried woman is anxious to marry her beau, she will suddenly begin to accidentally break dishes more than usual. It is a hint to the beau that she really wants to get married.'?

Or is only one story for each option allowed?

Thanks,
Tracy

For Option #3 only, we'll allow more than one entry. However, just like our previous challenges, a theme may only be used once.

Can you do a challenge story line and mix it with a challengefrom last fall? Please PM me. Thanks

BigSister

No, each challenge is different and separate... you cannot mix it with challenge guidelines from the past.

I just have a simple question does the story in whatever category have to be about J/S and the team or could it be a whole different world?

R.A. Bray, the challenges have always been traditionally STFBE, because of the broad base of writers and readers we have in that series. We need to have enough people familiar with the characters to be able to judge and vote intelligently in a challenge.

Having said that, Bones seems to be another show that is very popular on this site. I believe we have enough writers and readers to also make this a success in the challenge.

Hope this helps.

Joy

Since I have no idea what STFBE is, we're allowed to have a Bones story in the challenge? Cause I really want to enter, but the only show I know is Bones...

Thanks,

BonesFan101

By all means... we'd be happy to see a Bones entry... or two... or three...

Yay!! I was also wondering, can we include lyrics in the story?

Thanks again,

BonesFan101

Yes you can include lyrics. Just be sure to give credit where it is due. Looking forward to reading your story.

kav

this is probably a really stupid question but since i'm stupid i'll ask anyway.

i've almost finished christmas carol, i wasn't going to write a wedding scene but someone mentioned it so i was wondering if i could use the valentine challenge to write a sequel of the wedding?

cath

There are no stupid questions and no one on this board is stupid. It is fine to write a Valentine Challenge story as a sequel to another story you wrote here in a previous challenge or in WIP. Just realize that some of the readers may not be familiar with your previous story, so you will want to clearly note which one it is and where they can find it if they need to read in order to understand any original characters or plot points.

thank you

cath

Okay, I didn't read the instructions correctly this morning at 3am and posted my questions on the wrong topic. So here they are:



Just thought of another question. My DREAM question above assumes we can only use the candy words once. Is that the case or can we use them more than once? If only once, can I still use them but leave them in black text?

Welcome, Frwdgranny!!

Your story can be either long or short. We have a word limit on short stories of 5,000 words. Otherwise, your story can be as long as you want as long as you have it finished by the deadline. Stories not finished by the deadline are switched over to WIP and will not be part of the voting.

You can use words from the #1 candy list more than once, but you must use at least 5 different words within your story. All the candy words should be shown in red.

You can quote Bible verses, but please note chapter and verse.

Good luck!! Looking forward to reading your challenge story!!!

Joy

Thanks Joy. I may need some help when I get ready to begin posting since I've never posted anything. I'm writing my story in Word first and then I'll post by chapter once I'm all done.

When is the last day we can post stories?

~BonesFan101

The deadline for stories to be completed is February 14th at midnight in your location.

I have another question. On option 1 candy list is the phrase IM ME. Is there supposed to be an apostrophe; i.e. I'm me?

Also, should we put the words in all caps as they are listed in the challenge instructions or can we leave them in upper/lower case as warranted in the sentence structure? I currently have them in red bold, but not all caps.

Thank you.

Lynn

Lynn, I'm sorry we missed your question over here!! I have received your PM and have answered your questions. Please let us know if you have any more.

Joy

Thank you Joy. I PM'd you another question about posting before you posted this reply.

Lynn

Help! I posted twice this evening and had trouble with formatting the red text and font size on the first one. I finally figured out it was placing quote marks inside the code and I was able to delete them, all except for wise-up. Now I'm able to go into quick edit to see the codes but the screen just hangs up when I update and I end up having to get out of IE and come back in and retry. On full edit the codes don't display so I can't correct them.



Still can't figure out why the text size changes on post #1 at the bottom.



I did figure out how to fix the red text on the 2nd posting but then I noticed the words are outside of the margin, or window, on both postings.



Can you help me? Thanks.

Lynn

Hi - small problem. It is actually 4pm plus here in KS when my fanfic time says it's 10pm plus.......since I figured I would never write a challenge story so there wouldn't be any problem with a deadline, I've never worried about it until today. I want to vote on the Valentine stories but won't get them all read in the next hour to meet the ET deadline of midnight according to my fanfic time. Help!!

Thanks

Skeeter

Go to My Controls and click on "Board Settings" (lower left side of screen) and click on the drop down box for "Your Base Time Zone" and select (GMT - 6 hours Central Time (US & Canada), Mexico City. The time displayed will be the correct for KS.

I'm doing the same thing...frantically reading all the stories so I can vote before 11p tonight.

Good Luck

Lynn