Shortly before the release of Fifty-Word Stories: Volume One, I announced that FiftyWordStories.com would be holding a Valentine’s Day contest, where the winner would receive a free copy of my ebook. Today is Valentine’s Day, which means that the contest results have been posted.

Rammy’s winning entry, Sisters, earned the prize by being cute, sweet, and clever. I really like the twist on the “always and forever” phrase, and I’m a sucker for stories that create expectations for the reader and then undermine them, which is something Sisters does very well.

Daniel’s Robot Romance is just really funny, and that’s why I picked it as the first runner up. It’s especially good, I find, when you read the story out loud with a robot voice and a “sassy” voice. The story has earned some legitimate laugh-out-loud moments from people I’ve read it to!

I like the poeticism and originality of Derek Mullanari’s story, Binary Love, which earned the second runner up. I know how tough it is to evoke real emotion in 50 words, and I think Derek did a really good job of it, while using a unique setting and characters.

Beyond these three stories, there were a lot of great entires. In total, 22 different people sent in 29 different stories, which, to me, means the contest was a big success. Thank you so much to everyone who entered! I hope to see more stories from all of you in the future.