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WCT - The Writing Competition Thread [Short Story Results]

Imagist

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Jam Stunna Newbie

Jam Stunna

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Everyone, I have a favor to ask: if you have some free time in the next couple of days and feel like thoroughly critiquing my entry, could you PM me a write-up of your thoughts? I'm trying to work it up into a final project of sorts for my creative writing class (1000 words max, so not much longer than its current length) and I could use all the input I can get, unless you have nothing more to say than "I liked/didn't like it." Anyone who does this by Wednesday (a second draft is due Thursday) will get an extra point toward their own submission--err, I mean... much gratitude. :wink:

I'll take the case!

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Manic Cinq Newbie

Manic Cinq

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Why does it take so long to vote & judge?

I understand giving people time to look over the stories carefully & procrastinate, but what's the judging part about? Leeway for the coordinator to not be annoyed by people asking for the results to be posted?

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Imagist Newbie

Imagist

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All the entrants have voted, but for everyone else, there's still a little over a whole day to get those votes in. For those like Jam that missed out on submitting, you can still influence this competition one way or another!

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Imagist Newbie

Imagist

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Okay, I'd better get this done before studying for my last final consumes me. So here goes:

THE RESULTS ARE IN!

Runners-Up: GA Jedi Knight, Imagery, & just64helpin

1st Place: Ubernym

Yeah, this contest has a way of producing wacky results. For a while there I thought it was a close bid for second, but then the last few votes had to go and prove me wrong by making it even closer. Here's the vote spread:

Barnsalot - 2

GA Jedi Knight - 8

Imagery - 8

just64helpin - 8

Manic Cinq - 1

Ubernym - 15

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HalcyonSpirit Newbie

HalcyonSpirit

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Very nice. Congrats to everyone, and even more congrats to Ubernym on a job well-done. As soon as I saw he had submitted something, I knew he'd take the majority of votes. But I wasn't expecting a 3-way-tie for Runner-Up, especially not with me as one of them. So good job everyone! Hope to see you all for the next competition!

By the way, if anyone would be willing to give me a critique for my story, I would very much appreciate it. Thanks. :-D

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ubernym Newbie

ubernym

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:oops: I really didn't expect to win. I didn't even vote for myself, because I was unsatisfied with my own story.

But a hearty THANK YOU to those of you who liked my story. It's a big boost for me to see others enjoy my work, and it keeps me motivated.

More importantly, congratulations are in order to the runners up, but also to everyone who participated.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm happiest when I'm creating something, whether it's a story or a song or a LEGO spaceship. These competitions motivate me to create, and that makes me happy, so thanks for spreading the happiness. And thanks to Imagery for making it possible. I can't wait for the next one!

Now critiques* are definitely in order. I'd love to hear what you liked or didn't like about my story, and I'll share some of my thoughts about yours:

Imagery:

Great tone, interesting concept. The plot arc feels more like a vignette than a story (so does mine, I think). I really like the narrative's restraint, which leaves much to the imagination. It does make it a bit difficult to read, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Again, this feels like part of a larger framework, and that's the only unsatisfying thing about it: at the end I felt like I wanted more context, more information. Perhaps that was your intention, and if so, Bravo.

just64helpin:

If there was a beautiful fantasy world where TV stations aired kick ass Saturday-morning cartoon version of the twilight zone, your story would not be out of place there. There's a great Dickian vibe going on here (as in one of my favorite writers, Philip K. Dick). I like that you tried to present the viewpoint of the Stick, but sometimes it was a little hard to get my head around, as in the following sentence: 'Though her eyes could not be seen, the Stick could tell that Shella had closed them.' I just don't get that. I thought you were trying to say that the Stick just doesn't observe people in the same way that we do, but I was never confident in my interpretation of the sentence. It's a troubling sentence to me. Other than that, I think your descriptions are great and you were able to do a lot with the characters in the short space. Great work.

Barnsalot:

Interesting story. Dark, obviously. I don't have a lot of complaints about the story as a whole, it just didn't resonate with me. It felt...soulless. This is fitting, to be sure, but also makes it hard to enjoy in my opinion. This is an aesthetics thing, and doesn't reflect on your merits as a writer. I also felt some of your descriptions were a little heavy-handed. For example: 'the slowly methodical, high-pitched beeping of the cardiogram' seems overwrought. Perhaps it could be rendered more simply, and yet still convey the image: 'the slow, high-pitch beep of the cardiogram' works better to me. This is only my opinion, but the the words 'slowly methodical' weight down your description and take to long to get to the point. That's just an example, but a good tip to remember is to look at your story and ask yourself which words are absolutely necessary, and which are not. Kill any word that isn't essential.

GA Jedi Knight:

The first paragraph of your story reads like the intro to a space sim. But this is a short story, not a video game. In this case, the background information isn't necessary to plot, and just ends up weighing it down. Remember, your first paragraph introduces the tone of your story. With your original first paragraph, the story seems too juvenile, as if the reader needs help imagining the story. Cut it out and start with opeining line with your dialog. It brings the plot to a faster clip and makes the story more interesting. Beyond that, my critique follows the line in Barnsalots: watch your descriptions.

Also, this sentence needs help: "The mission was boring, but the subject matter was anything but." Too many buts. Maybe it's just a typo?

Manic Cinq: I liked your minimalism, but the story was a little confusing too. Too many characters without definition, I got lost easily. I felt like the plot jumped too quickly from point to point. It was like you were trying to write a bedtime story but got caught up in a lot of dialogue that diluted the plot. I felt like you could have spen more time describing the events and less time on the chit-chat of the characters. The story is mainly between Himeko and Rei, the other character don't need so much spotlight. The inclusion of details like 'her robotic sister' and 'testing the conversational abilities of...AI progams' is interesting, but also a little distracting. I think this story has great potential, but needs some tweaking.

*I present my critiques as food for thought, not the final word. In case it isn't obvious, I subscribe to the Hemingway school of thought, which can be summed up thusly:

“I write one page of masterpiece to ninety one pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.”

-Ernest Hemingway

:nicework: Nice Work Everyone!

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Barnsalot Newbie

Barnsalot

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Wow, thanks for that critique, Ubernym. I'm serious, that's really helpful. Also, congratulations! :D

I thought that brevity might work in my favor since all the other stories were long, but I guess I was wrong. I'll try to come up with something better next time! :)

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Imagist Newbie

Imagist

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Wow. Is it really the 27th? Just a few more days until the May competition should be starting. Now, here's what I'm wondering: since we did poetry in January, we should (theoretically) be on freeform now. However, we did poetry in January by switching it with freeform in November to begin with, so if we return to the original rotation it's poetry time again. Now, I have no preference, so which you guys would prefer to do this month: poetry or freeform?

I'll go ahead and post the time frame now, anyway.

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HalcyonSpirit Newbie

HalcyonSpirit

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The competition has been getting more participation lately, so it'd be kinda hard to make a judgment call on it based solely on past participation.

Now, if we go Poetry this time, Freeform would follow; that would place FF squarely in the middle of summer. Likewise, if we keep the current rotation, Poetry would end up starting in July. Honestly, I think we should do Poetry next and keep the rotation on the set schedule afterwards. Here's why:

FF: Jan-Feb, July-August

SS: March-April, Sept-Oct

Poetry: May-June, Nov-Dec

Following this pattern, Poetry always falls on the months that are most likely to be busy for participants (many of whom are still going to school), and SS/FF do not. The significance is that writing short stories typically requires more time than poetry does, and the Freeform competition tends to receive both short story submissions (or works similar to short stories) and Poetry. Having Poetry at the above times might thin the participation slightly for that specific category, but considering that having either SS or FF at those times would likely result in even less participation, it's probably a fair trade-off.

I could be wrong, though.

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Imagist Newbie

Imagist

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Right. I think we used similar logic when we switched poetry and freeform in the first place, saying that most people were fairly busy during November and as such it was sensible to allow them to submit whatever they had time for, but seeing as we got half poetry, half randomness and no term papers, I see no benefit in having poetry over freeform.

Back to the original rotation it is, then. May's poetry competition will begin this Saturday. Ready yourselves!

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