Flash Fiction Winners

[gumOnShoe]

Fiction Page

WINNERS

First place prize goes to.......... oh I'll go backwards.

Third place winner is JackPhantasm. The story was interesting, unique and creative. Jack showed an excellent mastery of his prose and wrote two fairly well developed characters in a small space. I'm not sure who I felt worse for in the story.

Second place goes to Earfetish and his story about the meaning of life and companionship or lack there of, you know killing your best friend by scaring the hell out of him and then slaying dragons and having your balls coddled. AH ball coddling. A well shaped entry.

First place goes to RapeMuffin, the author of a short story about two real human beings who have run into the end of their time together at the hands of the law. An excellent portrayal of the moment of parting.

Sekhem offered prizes on the first page of the contest. Contact him to see whats up for grabs, its between you guys.

Honorable mentions go to, in no particular order: TacticleShoe, THEJamoke, and LazyPint

[Sekhem]

i think i got some more prizes lined up for them too, giving them out tommorow btw.

[squidly]

Fiction competition?

Damn, should've known about this while it was still going.
Are you going to do another sometime next year?

[Lost-Chances]

Damn it, I probably should of entered.

Anyway, well done to the winners.

[gumOnShoe]

At 12/24/08 08:12 PM, squidly wrote: Fiction competition?

Damn, should've known about this while it was still going.
Are you going to do another sometime next year?

I'm going to attempt to get judges together to get monthly or bi-monthly writing competitions next year. So just keep your eyes open. They will run for a majority of a month and should be hard to miss. You'll be able to find them by searching for: MWC2009

[JKMonkey]

congrats to all the winners, and i wish i would've known about it, i wouldda written something

[Serbian-terrorist]

Uhm, congratulations?

[TacticalShoe]

Wow, I didn't think that my story would even make an honorable mention, how cool.

Congrats to all the winners and I hope for more cool contests in the future.

[Toukeman]

Congrats to the winners. Maybe next time I'll get my butt in gear and make something up on time.

I never did find time to finish that story.

[Idiot-Finder]

I'll wait for the next competition.

[Luxury-Yacht]

Hmm, I probably should have entered something I actually spent time on instead of copy-pasting the first piece that came to my. Maybe I could have made one of the Honorable Mentions. Or maybe not.

Anyways, congrats to all those whose works were mentioned.

[Peaceblossom]

I guess I'll just have to try harder next time. Gratz to all the winners.

[theshadowwolf]

Awesome... You should have posted links to them. Err... their stories. Stupid grammar issue

[darknessdweller]

At 12/24/08 08:08 PM, gumOnShoe wrote: Fiction Page

I wonder how the hell that slipped past me!

WINNERS

Congrats!

[WritersBlock]

At 12/24/08 10:13 PM, TacticalShoe wrote: Wow, I didn't think that my story would even make an honorable mention, how cool.

Congrats to all the winners and I hope for more cool contests in the future.

A well deserved honorable mention, your story had a great plot, way to blow things out of proportions. It was well written, congrats on making it this far.

Also, congratulations to the winners, they truly were great stories, and I really enjoyed reading them. To the ones that failed to top the list, keep at it, and I hope to see you guys around and writing in the future.

Great work, gum, I'd have to say that this competition turned out quite well. I can't wait to see what you've got in store for next year, and I'd love to continue to participate and/or judge in future writing competitions.

I started out writing comments and criticisms for each story, but it became too tiresome and time consuming, but if anyone would like me to make a newspost and give my feedback there, I'd be more than happy to post what I've written/write my thoughts and comments up on a post-per-request basis.

Again, congratulations, guys, and merry christmas.

[RedDreadSky]

I thought it said Flash Friction. Oh how I was mistaken.

[sirtom93]

So while I lost an inexistent review does not help me to improve. Why send two pm's when I have received no feedback as of yet.

[gumOnShoe]

At 12/25/08 12:49 PM, sirtom93 wrote: So while I lost an inexistent review does not help me to improve. Why send two pm's when I have received no feedback as of yet.

Eh, cause you entered?

I'll try and do a review of your piece as soon as I can. K? :)

[JackPhantasm]

omg you didn't hate it

[LazyPint]

Thanks for the almost-prize guys, I'm half surprised and half determined to do better next time.

[Earfetish]

2nd place, word, I'll pester Sekhem to send me some shit

I'm a creative writing major too, I've not read anyone's piece but I might and if anyone really honestly wants me to criticise their piece (that means say bad things about it) then I'm more than willing to, I do it on a weekly basis and I've got mad skillz at it

[JackPhantasm]

say horrible things about me EF

[Earfetish]

At 12/25/08 11:30 PM, JackPhantasm wrote: say horrible things about me EF

I think one of the most important things you can do with writing is to remove unnecessary, weak words or phrases. Also we keep getting told 'show, don't tell' in our seminars. On that note, I would remove the words 'for you see, Mr. Bungle was a beetle' from the first line. Phrases like 'for you see' or 'as I was saying' or whatever take from the impact of your lines quite badly.

The following sentence sounds a little bit clumsy and full of commas. You've crammed too much information into one mere sentence, consider rearranging it and turning it into three or four sentences.

On a similar note to the first, repetition has to have a real purpose to it and I don't see the purpose of constructions like 'Mr. Bungle rubbed his head and scowled, he scowled for several seconds' - you could just have 'Mr Bungle rubbed his head and scowled for several seconds', and when you say 'he scowled even more', how about 'his scowl grew darker' or something a little spicier. And then 'sleeping children, a young beetle, sound asleep' - you don't have to tell us he's sleeping twice. And again, 'That was a belch; a belch made by Mr. Billington Bungle'. Maybe it's a nice construction but I don't think you should've used it twice. "'FWERV FWOMP', he belched," might be a little nicer. Indeed that would be a better way to put all your onomatopoeic bits in, "his exoskeletion creased and cracked - 'SPPPPPEPEPPPWPT' rather than '-that was the noise there'. Y'know, hone it down, be selective with your word choices. Treat it like poetry.

'fluttered his wings, once more, and then again and again' could be a lot spicier, like since you've gone all onomatopoeic maybe 'flutter flutter flutter' would be sexier but 'he started fluttering his wings' is better than counting how often he fluttered his wings, which is what you seem to be doing.

'For you see, Mr. Beetle was a carnivorous beetle, and he loved a good hunt.' - we've already established he was carnivorous because he ate his kid. Maybe write about his mindset when he's hunting from his pov. Y'know, 'show, don't tell'.

'The enamoured female.' is a sentence that surely needs a verb, but be aware you've already said 'they would say'. Replacing 'they' with 'the enamoured female' might be a plan but I dunno it doesn't sound that hot to me.

Also, you don't need to tell us that the buzzing sound is the sound of the beetle buzzing either. Be careful when you're starting a sentence with 'that was,' tell us what something is going to be beforehand or just let the reader guess. Or like the last time you say it, "CHOMZOPPETH AKOLIA!" Billington Bungle shouted a war cry of victory in ancient nomadic beetle fashion' to me sounds better than how you put it.

I like the punchline, anyway, and I think you've got a good way of constructing sentences; it sounds like dialogue, like very natural, and it's a good idea, and you've made the microscopic world quite realistic and believable and made a good believable character out of a beetle. I just think you need to file away the rough edges.

[Earfetish]

uh oops maybe that should've been a PM

also it comes across a little full of criticism, but it's hard to spend many words writing about why something was successful, that always seems like a last paragraph thing to me, I'm not trying to get down on you or anything but I just think it's useful for other writers to look at your work through their eyes; you don't have to agree with everything (or even anything) I said

and if anyone wants to do something like that for me then I would much appreciate it

and I liked your story, it was a lovely little story