Once more, this year’s writers amazed us with the quality of their entries for the second round, writing (what easily could have become boring) dating profiles. However, none of them were boring – the writers kept us interested in their words from beginning to end.
Just to recap: once the second writing round closed, all stories were sent to the judges – anonymized – and the public voting round opened.
During the public voting round, feedback was left on the stories, which you can find at the bottom of the second voting round post.
A tip on reading the feedback: not all feedback will be good, and you might feel negative emotions when you read it. Don’t. It’s been given to help you, to give you tips to improve your writing. It’s up to you whether you do anything with the feedback, or just ignore it, but never feel discouraged when you read it. Turn it into something positive, and ace your next assignment!
Let’s get on to the official part of the 2022 second round results.
The authors
1. Modern Romance – August Wright
2. Quite the Catch – Stephanie Scissom
3. Sweet and Spicy – Hardison Parker
4. Wimps need not apply – Alex Irvine
5. My, what big – Eric J Stover
6. Smooth Gentleman – Jacques Gerard
7. Let’s Write Life Together – Josh Balerite Acol
8. Domestic Cougar Seeks Partner – Caitlin Mazur
9. Looking for Fellow Nerd – Steeled Snake Charmer
10. Fun-seeking (Former) Princess – Jessica Wilcox
11. Virtually Guaranteed Great Time – Kristen Haveman
12. Help Me Grow – Marsha Adams
13. Come Search with Me – Michael Williams
14. King Seeks Damsel – J. Sharland Day
15. Sports Fan seeks Partner – Gerad Carrier
16. GWP Seeks Landlubber – Bob Merckel
17. Chester Has a Question – Julius Evans
18. Undead Dating – Christopher Robin
19. Interview with my heart – My Naughty Ideas
20. Throttlebottom Seeking… – The barefoot sub
21. Can’t Be Too Careful – Valerie Kittell
22. Shake It Off – Kelly Cathy
23. Incel Abrasion of Delusion – Marcello Spektor
24. Our Fates – David Mei
25. Are You Man Enough? – Alexander Gibbons
26. Let’s Do Lunch – Rose Shavelle
27. Between the Lines – Elk Vilianni
28. A Ripping Good Time – Lyndsey Ellis-Holloway
Public vote
We kept track of all votes during the public voting round, and in total 55 legitimate votes have been received. We are amazed and grateful for your support!
Winner of the public vote: Quite the Catch by Stephanie Scissom
The result of the voting can be found below.
This is the full result of the public vote:
Jury vote
Each jury member sends in their votes individually. The lowest score is removed, and the average of the three remaining scores is the jury result.
Winner of the jury vote: Between the Lines by Elk Vilianni
The jury’s votes are as follows:
Overall results for second round
The public votes and that of the jury are added up to get to the end result for the round.
The overall winner of the second round is Between the Lines by Elk Vilianni
The overall results for round 2 are as follows:
Rankings after second round
We work with rankings from the first to the fourth round, where writers accumulate points from the jury and public votes. Those at the bottom of the rankings will be knocked out in the rounds where it’s applicable.
In the table below you find the rankings after two rounds.
Knocked out
All writers go through to the next round, as is stated in the marathon rules. At the end of round 3 there will be knockouts, as round 4 has 20 writers.
As said above, the accumulating of points only happens until round 4. In round 5 the slates are wiped clean, and all writers that remain in the competition, will be on equal footing.
Next round
Thank you to everyone who has written for this round and thank you to all the voters who have taken the time to read the entries, to vote and for those who have given feedback. A special thanks to the jury members for their hard work!
The writers will be sent the third assignment later today and have until midnight London time on 24 June 2022 to send in their stories. The next public voting round opens on 27 June 2022.
Well, knock me down with a feather! I didn’t expect to come out of that round anywhere near the top of the pile; as I said in my feedback comments, I really disliked my entry for this round. To be honest, this is probably one of only a few times in all of my Smut/Fiction Marathon rounds when I DIDN’T expect to be triumphant – generally, I have an excessively high opinion of my own work! But thank you to all of you, public and jury alike, who appreciated my efforts.
I’m also really surprised that ‘Let’s Do Lunch’ (26) didn’t score better – I hope Rose Shavelle will take a tiny bit of consolation from knowing that it was my pick of the bunch and it was also much better favoured by the jury than the public (which is normally how I’m consoling myself…)
Thank you for your words of encouragement.