Theft Story Challenge 2014

I have read over half of them now. There are some very ingenious twists to common spanking-for-theft themes

I doubt if I'm the first, but I just now finished story # 65. It was an easy job because they are a great crop of stories. It also helps that their average length is rather modest.

Congratulations to all the writers.

Not so, at least not in comparison to other Challenges. Only 30% are below 3,000 words, with just 15% below 2,000 words.

In the latest previous Challenge, 2/3 were below 3,000 words, and 40% below 2,000 words. In the Challenge before that, almost 3/4 were below 3,000 words, with 40% being below 2,000 words. The Keyhole challenge (the one before that) had a 2,500-word limit, and so is not a fair comparison. The one before that had half the stories below 3,000 words, and 40% below 2,000.

So this latest Challenge actually has perhaps the longest average story length.

I haven't quite finished yet, but have to agree that there is a great crop of stories, including serious drama, fantasies, and lighthearted quasi-comedy. Some I've already read have been outstanding. I don't know about the statistics on length, but I've found most of the stories enjoyable and it has not been as not as much a chore to get through the bulk of them as in some previous challenges. Good job by all contestants.

That's it! Perhaps they are so good that they just seemed shorter.

Guy

Yes. Let's go with that.

I agree with Guy and Ryan. I am only a little over 1/2 of the way through, but I have found these stories so great and so delightful to read that it has been a great pleasure reading each and every story. This has been a great challenge!

I have an idea that in this particular challenge it's going to be a very close call. I've read stories in this challenge that were just so easy to give high marks to. I believe I have about 13 more read. I also agree with the word count discussion. Some of the best stories were a bit over 2000 and 3000.

Ah, but njrick, statisticians tend to ignore the outliers (readings that are way off the graph). There are no low outliers this time (stories of less than 1,000 words), but two that are far, far longer than the others at well over 10,000 words. Leave those out and the result might be different.

However, I do agree that the stories aren't generally shorter.

So far (I've read just over half) there are fewer than usual that I consider weak, but I thought that last time and I'd been saving up the ones I really didn't like till last! So far I haven't found a single one that doesn't seem to meet the challenge criteria, and if there's not one by the end, that will be new. There are of course lots that are brilliant.

I gave up on reading the submissions . While the few I read weren't bad I kept finding pairings I don't care for.