Poll Winners - November 'double-crossed' ideas ✔

If my ideas are too similar to someones lmk. I can edit/delete it

Dean

Thank you helpers for comments and feedback! Going forward, I'll do my best to strike a balance between (a) a meaningful poll and (b) getting inspiring story ideas. Above all, this Patreon feed should be fun - if it isn't, we should do something else. Like baking! 😊🥧🥟🥧

I agree with Rick's earlier idea of grouping similar stories into different polls as you've done in the past. (3 polls and the winner of each become the 3 stories.) And also agree with Byron. Double cross in terms pf regression stories is mostly going to follow the "I want to regress x but it backfires and regresses me" formula.

Dean

Building on Byron's ideas, if things feel too similar such as to become stale, and given how competitive the polls were, perhaps the top 6 ideas can be split across the next two months. That way the top voted stories are produced, but spaced out enough such as to make your ideas feel fresh. Ultimately just a suggestion for a form of compromise, as Byron stated above, you're the writer and it's your discretion.

I'm perfectly happy since one of my ideas got chosen anyway (and I think it will be fun to see Valerie face some problems), but with a theme like "double-crossed", surely almost all stories are going to follow the formula of "man (or woman) wants to regress X, but ends up being regressed themselves"? For instance, you went for poll winners #4 and 5 instead of #2 and 3, but they also follow that formula, don't they? "Man wants to hypnotize and regress his roommate, but presumably ends up getting hypnotized himself". And "Valerie tries to regress her target with her usual tricks, but presumably they don't work because Parkdale (or someone) is double-crossing her". I suppose there are other ways you could interpretate the latter two, but if you're going to do that, why not just reinterprete the winning results? If you feel the plot structure of winning stories is too similar, perhaps you could preserve the tone of the idea, but alter the plot to your liking to make its structure sufficiently distinct (as you've done before to great effect, e.g. changing the setting/structure of Appropriate). So for example, if you went with the joint-2nd place idea "a man and his wife plan to mentally regress their daughters so they can't leave home, but really the wife wants a big baby boy", you could alter that to "after a man double-crosses his wife by helping his daughters leave home for college, she decides she wants a big baby boy to satisfy her maternal instincts", or something like that. That way the plot formula is different, so you're happy, but the core of the idea (a mother who fears empty nest syndrome if her daughters leave home, a father who ends up getting mentally regressed) is preserved, so I'm happy. But that's just a suggestion for the future, because like I said, I'm perfectly content with the result given one of my ideas won. I can understand how it might be frustrating for people to lose out on their idea getting made into a story though - seeing it creep ahead in the polls and ultimately get into the top three, then to feel like their legs are being cut out from under them at the last moment. But ultimately you're the writer, and it's up to your discretion - you have to enjoy writing the story, after all, or it won't come out well.

Rick, thank you for the feedback

I have to admit, that is extremely disappointing to say the least. It feels like if the ideas were too similar as to be mutually exclusive with each other then they should have been put into individual categories, as has been done in the past, rather than artificially cherrypicked.

The top 3 ideas in terms of votes were very similar. The 'man wants to regress X, ends up being the one regressed' will be the November exclusive, and so the will of the voters has been obeyed :) I just don't want to write it three times. I'll take more care with putting the poll together in future to try and avoid this month's hot voting mess. Voting should be a bit of fun, I'm sorry if it didn't feel like it this time around. I'm grateful as ever for helpers ideas and enthusiasm.

Don't get me wrong, always fun when an idea of mine/idea I voted for gets picked but I feel like there were several voted higher than mine. I'm a little confused

Dean

Are winning ideas being limited now to 1 per special helper?