Yeah, I agree. Definitely not as many that were outright NO this time around, although a lot in the 'minus' category!

Stay tuned for a “Nicest Nine” vague tweet from me…

I actually don't allocate 'favourites' - mainly as A&E have final say and I'm essentially just recommending if it should go in the LL or not. (But yes, I have faves, and obviously they were your stories, duh.)

As for batch 9, also no YES stories from me. Well, hey, at least we have different tastes as judges...

Okay, so batch EIGHT:
Fave/Yes: 0
Maybe+: 8
Maybe: 10
Maybe-: 2
No: 0

So okay, there were no "no's" at least. But a little underwhelming. Let's see if batch 9 delivers?

#batchplease

You mean your entry from 2024, although who knows, your Nov 2025 could do just as well!

IKR??? Who thinks of these things? (I'm very grateful they do though.)

And to clarify FURTHER (haha):
We are judging to decide on a LONG LIST. Once the LL is assembled, Amanda and Ed will reassess all those stories and while it's likely that say a story that was 3x YES might proceed to the SL, the slate is kind of cleared to judge them alongside the rest in the LL.

(And I DO keep reading, in case anyone was wondering.)

Yeah to back that up, as the author of the original post, it's not a guaranteed NO but you'll need to be VERY clever!

So anyone who wrote a rhyming story for this NQW round (you know who you are) better WATCH OUT!

Have to keep some mystery!

I think the reason why "maybe" works is that it's all so subjective. We've had someone give a YES to the same story another gave a MAYBE- etc. So yeah, it could be a maybe for the LL if the others like it a LOT!