Winning Survivor - with One Story

The Literotica Survivor challenge is a grueling year-long competition pitting writers against each other to see who can garner the most points by writing a lot of stories. This article is designed to show my fellow writers how to reduce the stress and effort it takes to win the challenge.

There is nothing in the survivor rules that state you have to write about multiple subjects. One of the biggest challenges for survivor contestants is developing the multitude of plots required to write hundreds of stories. You can fix this by writing a series of stories with a single plotline, instead of many separate stories. Okay you can stop laughing now, I'm serious.

Here are some simple suggestions that can help you win survivor using the single story concept:

1. Keep each story short- The minimum submission guideline for the contest and the site in general is 750 words. I know you are thinking what kind of a story can you develop in just that many words. That might be a problem if you were only writing one such story. With this concept, you will be writing hundreds of chapters. Therefore, you can develop the plot gradually over the course of those many chapters.

Besides, 750 words is not that short. There is an article written by Oggbashan about creating 50 word stories. If you can write an effective story in 50 words, just imagine the creative freedom you get from 750 words. The secret is to keep the story as close to the minimum number of words as possible without going under.

2. Write at least one chapter in every category- There are critical bonuses for filling every category that add 60 points to your total if you fill them all. This is a necessary part of accumulating that winning score. There are 31 story categories that cover a wide range of topics. Getting chapters to flow into each other will be the biggest challenge. It's highly unlikely you will be able to flow a first time story into a BDSM or anal category.

Some of the categories are going to require some creativity, but you can't expect me to do all the work for you. The categories that might be the hardest to incorporate are How-to, Reviews & Essays, Humor & Satire and Celebrities. You can cover some of these categories by writing about the process of writing a complex series of stories. Not to mention the contest has immunities available that can help rid you of a few pesky categories.

The only exception to the 750 word rule is the Novels category. It requires a minimum story length of 7500 words. With those word limits in mind, it will take a minimum of 30,000 words to create an entry in each category. Instead of getting credit for a few short stories, all those words can gain you 156 points, a very good start on your way to victory.

3. Keep your characters limited- With fewer characters to worry about, you spend less time developing them. My ideal plan is to have only four total characters. This may seem ridiculous as you wonder how you could possibly write hundreds of stories with only four characters. This allows you to make your characters more fluid in the way they develop. They will have to be due to the requirement to fill all the categories. Your characters will have to take on multiple roles and experience a wide variety of activities.

4. Keep the setting basic- Having only a short amount of words to work with, you do not have time to write extensively about the stories setting. Writing as many of the chapters in the same setting can help alleviate this problem. It may not be overly interesting for the reader, but we are really going for quantity not quality. Being the sole survivor is not about making friends or getting people to read what you write, it's about getting as many points as possible. There are several contests through the year that reward good writing. Survivor is not the place for this.

5. Writing Poetry- Having one story with only a few characters should also help you fulfill your poetry requirements. There are four poetry categories to complete. With four characters, you could choose to write one about each character. There are no minimum lengths required for poetry entries so keep them short.

If you follow these four simple suggestions, you can be on your way to survivor glory and bringing home the cold hard cash. After using the same four characters, in the same settings and writing short burst entries you may be very tired of your characters and take great joy in killing them off at the end. If you have a lot of free time and a good imagination, this How-To can make you a survivor.