# November 2017 - LM - I Could See Them Coming - Scores



## kilroy214 (Dec 4, 2017)

I Could See Them Coming - Scores
​ 


PluralizedppsagebdcharlesSueCtotesRoac151618.51917.1MacDub1317171816.2Joshbo161612.51815.6Jenthepen1416141715.2midnightpoet171510.51414.1ppsage----jebdcharles----jeSueC----je



We've arrived again, my friends, to the end of another competition and I behold unto you the winner of the I Could See Them Coming Prompt (drumroll)

In first place, we have *Roac* with his piece _Superheroes 
_In second, we have *MacDub* with _Hindsight
_And in third, *Joshybo* with _Thy will be Done_

Many thank yous to our precious judges. Congratulations to our winners! We'll see you all next month for the December Competition. Until then, keep your stick on the ice. And of course...scores!

[spoiler2=ppsages scores]  
[1]*jenthepen
“Trouble"
Spelling/Grammar: 5
Tone/Voice: 3
Effect: 8
Overall: 16


Review: This seems to me a fairly good job of fitting all a story into 650 words. I like the breaks/skips, although perhaps they're not balanced as they might be. Maybe the first section runs on a little long, and rushes the ending. We get the idea before it's over and then there's no real hint of how the vengeance is accomplished, which nags a bit. I find the voices of the devil and Mordred somewhat vanilla and turgid and exactly the same. There's an underlying (political?) earnestness to the telling that strikes me as a bit misplaced. Overall this is a workpersonlike effort, that maybe just needs a bit more spark and discovery.




[2]SueC
“I Can See You Still"
Spelling/Grammar: 
Tone/Voice: 
Effect: 
Overall:Judge entry


Review: Sweet holiday story. Or vignette maybe? I had the feeling here, on my first time through, of hosting a reception line and only getting about half of who's who. After careful rereading, I think I've got it straight. Took me a while to figure out that the relationship titles were from the perspective of the baby's generation.




[3]midightpoet
“BorderRun"
Spelling/Grammar: 2
Tone/Voice: 4
Effect: 9
Overall: 15


Review: With the long introduction, I didn't think this entry would be able to wrap up in time but it does so pretty well. I'm a bit time-lost in it, and I feel like it's the sort of story where this should be explicit. I think maybe the abortion reference is anachronistic to the actual time period. Also the sheriff would have noticed already, if she's going into labor now. This promising entry is wrecked by careless posting. The spacing issues should have been addressed in the preview window. 




[4]ppsage
“I can see them coming"
Spelling/Grammar: 
Tone/Voice: 
Effect: 
Overall:Judge entry


Review




[5]joshybo
“Thy Will Be Done"
Spelling/Grammar: 4
Tone/Voice: 5
Effect: 7
Overall: 16


Review: The power of well-supported dialogue! The scene really comes to life. I would have broken up the speeches a bit more with paragraphing: I think all in a text block hurries it too much. A couple of the speech tags are a bit of a stretch, which isn't needed when the quoted speech is already so intensely characterizing. My final assumption, after some analysis, is that Jeremy's sin is vaguely homosexual. This is something I shouldn't have to be trying to figure out, if you're intending to drown him in the baptismal font! 




[6]bdcharles
“Barney"
Spelling/Grammar: 
Tone/Voice: 
Effect: 
Overall:Judge entry


Review: I found this a very clever and entertaining story--on the second and subsequent reads. This is mostly just me; I don't usually get what's entertaining about twists: maybe I just don't like to be tricked. Anyway if I were going to suggest any change, it would be to make it easier to guess where it was headed, so the reader could enjoy the ride and be smug about being right. I do think it would be better to either explain Tophet in the reference or change it to Hades or something people recognize or just not explain it--rather than include an extremely clunky and interfering parenthetical.




[7]Roac
“Superheroes"
Spelling/Grammar: 4
Tone/Voice: 4
Effect: 8
Overall: 16


Review: My personal opinion is that sentimentality should never be unmitigated, it must be adulterated by reality, especially in fiction. This is however, possibly more of a philosophical judgment than a literary one, and so not too germane to my task here. This is a fine job of fitting a whole story, with a logical plot sequence and an actual resolution, into the tiny LM Challenge format. One of the best at that. All the questions are answered and all the promises kept. Part of this is due to the characters, especially a first-person narrator (!) being as thin and under-drawn as cartoon superheroes. Still a strong and punchy entry, for all its rosy tints.




[8]MacDub
“Hindsight"
Spelling/Grammar: 5
Tone/Voice: 3
Effect: 9
Overall:17


Review: I had a big personal problem with this on my initial read-through. The surname Gen(eration)+number is a pretty much universal trope in SF for naming robots and androids and so from the get-go I had to consider if these were really people or just automatons taking the place of humans. Once this question occurs (which maybe it doesn't for most readers) it's never definitively answered; all there is is a strong inference from the ending. So my re-read went much better. This is another pretty good job of getting a whole story into a Challenge entry which is especially impressive for SF which is always quite setting heavy. A more evocative vocabulary could have been employed; this is pretty vanilla and often unnecessarily passive.* [/spoiler2]

[spoiler2=Pluralized's Scores] Thanks for entering, everyone! Some good stories this round, all cleanly written. Enjoyed reading them all, and hope to see you all entering again next go-round. 

Jenthepen - “Trouble”
Score: 14

Review: This is fun stuff, Hell’s Kitchen and all that. Thought it had moments of good back and forth dialogue, even humanizing old Beezlebub for a moment or two. Wanted more in the way of Mordred’s ultimate purpose in this tale, being that it was a story set in hell with the devil and his minions about, seemed this witch was just there to cook a pot of something or other.

Wish we’d found out exactly what was in the stew; her hammock was made from moleskins so I suppose it was a ‘signature brew’ made from rodents. Fun! But maybe just a couple of points short of really doing anything potent for me, story-wise. I did enjoy it though.

If I were picking on stuff grammatically/structurally, I would say the biggest distraction for me was the POV of Mordred. We’re entertaining a close third with her, but at times we are hearing about her ‘glittering eyes’ and ‘pouted prettily’ which betrays the POV somewhat. Some dialogue punctuation glitches also happened along the way, but I didn’t have too much trouble reading it. Not bad overall, but not overwhelmingly great, either. Thanks for entering!

SueC - “I Can See You Still”
Score: 

Nice sentiment here, lovely little flashback story. I like this sort of thing, when it’s well done, and I thought this was pretty solid. Only recommendation is to maybe take up more of the time between opening of the comp and deadline so you can re-read closer to deadline and fine tune. Seems a wasted opportunity to lock it up prior to deadline. Just a thought.
Overall well done, maybe a tad over-descriptive for my taste, though stylistically consistent and a good honest voice throughout. I can’t really fault the structure so much, as it’s done a lot with the word count. Nice mix of dialogue, exposition, and scene-setting. Probably my only gripe is the fact that it is much more like a diary entry, an episode, than a proper story. This type of writing screams for a simile here and there, and perhaps one or two poetic turns of phrase. I think that’s at the root of why it didn’t really engage me as deeply despite the warm, genuine emotional content. Well done, and I hope you’ll continue to enter the competition. Great take on the prompt.

Midnightpoet - BorderRun
Score: 17

Hey, this was really good! Kind of petered out at the end, and had these weird glitches where I assume you composed in another word processor then pasted it to WF, but it was compelling and a great story with excellent narrative tone. I liked this a lot.
Big logic glitch though: if they’re just bouncing out of town that night, hauling ass for the border, and she’s popping a baby out, wouldn’t it stand to reason that the Virginia would have been very obviously pregnant and her father would have known for a while? As it stands, he had to “beat it out” of the mother and that seems unnecessarily mean given that he could have just glanced down at her huge pregnant belly.
Anyhow, great stuff. Nice job. With a better ending and a bit more proofreading for those odd spacing faults, this could have been a very high score.

ppsage - “I can see them coming”
Judge E.

Delicious writing for the most part, just inventive and lovely. I found it to be stout and compelling. Metaphorical underpinnings, however opaque, seem to abound. Emma and Moffet are great characters, especially Emma. That old dried-up bag really showed up here. Nice job.
Not sure if ‘editable’ was part of your metaphor-sammich or if it should have been edible. Also Moffet was up on his hind legs, so I was wondering at that for a time.
The setting detail, the narrative voice, the dialogue, all felt fresh and original and quite fitting for this dusty world we’re plunked into for a while. Enjoyed overall, still scratching my head over parts of it and that is probably the point, presumably. Thanks for writing this.

Joshybo - “Thy Will be Done”
Score: 16

Good stuff, DEPRAVED! I liked it. The story got weird, sort of a convenient ending with a whole lot of buildup, but I liked the reverend’s character. The dad, not all that believable. It’s got potential to be some kind of horrible baptist allegory for forcing religion on your kids though, so kudos.

Couple spots where the writing didn’t seem as smooth as it should’ve, one being the intro line where the door opened “letting the hymns being sung in the main room.” I thought somewhat passive in tone. Also when he pulled at the shoulder of his ‘robes’ it caught me weird, maybe would have thought ‘robe’ fit better. When the father "looks down on" his son at the outset, I thought 'looked down at' would have been better. But then when I saw that "looking down on" repeated, I realized maybe what you were trying to do. And I approve. The stale water missed the mark, though I get it, just not sure what the detection mechanism for that might be. My own baptismal ignorance shining through perhaps.

Receive the Lord’s blessing, indeed!

Good work, just a few clicks off from feeling like a complete, viable story, in line with the prompt. Not the fault of the writing though, which is overall very strong. 

BDCharles
“Barney”
Score: 

Good gravy, what did I just read? Like prattle from deep within an asylum, this was disconcerting and rather odd, and at the end of it all, seemed mildly pretentious if for no other reason than it seemed to embrace its own disjointed eight-year-old ramblings. I can’t say it was satisfying, but I do commend the author on some decent mechanics of writing and wacky moments that felt genuine and unique. Sorry it wasn't more pleasing to this judge; it just felt like riffing on the prompt. 

Roac - “Superheroes”
Score: 15

Nice story, compact and potent. I liked it. Felt the grief, saw the flashback scene clearly, and enjoyed the use of the charred hat as a device to make the loss of the firefighter dad a bit more poignant.
Only complaints would be to examine the writing and to see where unnecessary and flabby parts could be trimmed back to tighten the narrative and give it more PUNCH!
“My attention was drawn outside, to the sound of two car doors shutting.” - consider how much quicker you could get to the point without all that filtering. Try something like “Out front, two car doors slammed.”

Accordingly,
“Curious to see who would be coming to the house, I peeked out the front window.” - No need for the filtering. “I peeked through the curtains and there they were. Dad’s boss and the chief” - or something like that, just trying to generally make a point. I think overall this was very well done and felt like a complete piece of flash. Good job.

MacDub - “Hindsight”
Score: 13

The structure of the piece has merit, certainly enjoyed the way it was stacked with the AI’s musings front and back, but failed to really grok the connection between the seemingly disparate tale of James and John and GOD played into the overall story. Perhaps the first-person narrator was GOD at the end of it, but there was something perhaps predictable or cliched in that assumption so I tried not to embrace it.

Thought-provoking, especially to consider how seemingly innocuous James’s desires really were, and the overly harsh punishment of being vaporized. He didn’t really even get to the “lewd” part and I think the story could benefit from that.

Didn’t have much trouble reading it, thought it was competently written, but wondered if the voice could be spicier, and more robust. Felt a bit bland overall.

“My children programs” - I thought “child” would have fit better.
“They are able to erase” - “they erase”

Good stuff, thanks for entering.  [/spoiler2]


[spoiler2=bdcharles's scores]   *jenthepen
"trouble"*
Spelling/Grammar: 4.5/5
Tone/Voice: 3/5
Effect: 6.5/10
Overall: 14/20

Review:
Love the names: Snipe, Snapneck. And this is a cute, funny story that seems to touch on very topical things like the treatment of women. There were a couple of grammar blips:

“Look, I’m only doing my job here,” he muttered,[<- should be full stop] “It’s not like this place is heaven on earth for me either, you know.”
“What can I say,” she purred,[<- should be full stop, though it potentially worksm if a bit comma splicily] “I’m a witch and a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.”

I enjoyed this line alot: 
T"he devil laughed loud and long, making the Earth tremble and sparking volcanoes across the globe."
which gave it a broad, epic, fable-y, creation myth feel. 

And these:
All the solid evidence of his prey was gone but the pool of smoking red liquid told its own story.
"She stared back at him steadily; fiery, beautiful and defiant."
which are great examples of well-controlled prose.

Be mindful of your use of ~ly adverbs. Most are fine, but some venture a little close to "disgustedly" territory, where the adverb gets a bit too shoehorned-in and where a visual would work better as it builds setting as well as mood. 

You, like me, use more dynamic dialogue tags than just "said". "purred", "muttered", "cackled". Some people don't care too much for this, but I like them (within reason - no '"Gadzooks!" exposited Seamus amusingly.' or anything :smile: ). They have an effect (eg. kind of light hearted, comical) and that effect seems to have been what you were going for here.

I suppose the actual events of the story, while linked to the prompt, were a little underwhelming. The chatty setup could possibly be shorter, and the resolution more dramatic with that freed-up space, to give you a bit more room to create. But yep - other than that no real complaints.


*SueC
"I Can See You Still"*
Spelling/Grammar: /5
Tone/Voice: /5
Effect: /10
Overall: /20

Review:

You seem to have a knack - no, more than a knack, a passion - for heartwarming family scenes, and you do them well. It could easily be the sort of thing I skim over but you make it as appealing as a warm Christmas jumper and a mug of Horlicks (dunno if they have that in Kansas, but they should) by the fireside. Which is great, of course :smile:

At first I did think "hmm, not much has bappened" but I realise that is not what your writing is about. You aim to capture a feeling, a memory, and you do, in exactly the way it should be captured. So there's no explosions and karate but that's ok. It's not about that.

When you had the title, plus "I can see them coming" in the second para, and "I could see them coming up the driveway" in the fifth, I got excited because it seemed I was in for a motif, which I really enjoy - that gentle, repeated beat throughout the prose that lends it a little musicality - but it never came. I feel if you had done that, it would have added an intangible something extra. Mind you there were occasional bits where you repeat a structure for a similar effect, eg:

"Judy worked the green bean casserole. I just sat and watched the show."

And of course you revisited it in the final paragraph. Just a thought.

This:
"Mom engineered the gravy."
is perfect. One word that spins up so many images and personalities. Brilliant!

Can't see any SPaG issues. I actually don't think I've ever seen one in your writing, which, to an arch-grammar-pedant like myself, is only as it should be :smile:

I did wonder about the uncles - Bob and Jim (and were these names deliberate - Jimbob?). When you mention them, they are very young and un-uncley, and it took me a sec to realise that of course they would be, the picture and memory were old. It just threw me. Maybe think about where you can skim off some extra text to leave you room to manage those edges. Eg:

"How to stuff, when to stuff and so on"
Where "and so on" could go, taking nothing away, revealing voice.

But good. Yep. I find you style very comforting! 


*midnightpoet
"BorderRun"*
Spelling/Grammar: 4.5/5
Tone/Voice: 2/5
Effect: 4/10
Overall: 10.5/20

Review:

I really liked the title and it drew me straight in. I see the famous WF gremlins have eaten a lot of your spaces but it actually made the title that bit more intriguing, in my view. I overlooked the rest. I had no trouble following of visualising things. SPAG was pretty much on point; just one tinny thing that cost you a .5. In general though I suppose I found the dialogue a little stilted. That can work if you make a "thing" of it, but I don't think such a thing was made here. The pace of narration also was a bit rushed and unvarying. They're here, they're in Mexico, she goes into labour, posse come bang-bang-bang. I don't even know if Harkins died. All I know is that a baby was born in challenging circumstances.

Take for example this:

“I don’t know yet,” he said. He was worried about her, but didn’t know how he could help. The third day they found a place in some rocks above a canyon.

You could do stuff to the pace very easily, in two simple keystrokes of the same key, to manage the speed a little more:

“I don’t know yet,” he said. He was worried about her, but didn’t know how he could help.

The third day they found a place in some rocks above a canyon.

Lastly, I was not sure why you commaspliced this: "They fired back, bullets pinged off nearbyrocks."

So yep - just think about pace and slowing down when you want to and speeding up when you want to. Don't be afraid of a little detail if it adds something.


*ppsage (Judge entry)
"I can See Them Coming"*
Spelling/Grammar: /5
Tone/Voice: /5
Effect: /10
Overall: 

Review:

Oh, I love the start of this. Opens with some fabulous sensory imagery - shriek and slap and enraged macrame (I think that is a sort of needlework, is it?) I really like the voice here. It's kind of odd and disconnected and I keep thinking I mishear stuff. It's a bit like the futurey bit on the island in Cloud Atlas. The command of language here is really good, and the setting is strange yet accessible. What are they - a pair of de-tombed mummies rampaging about the place in rags?

And here's more imagery: Geometric basalt! Gesticulating like a windmill! Woohoo!

"In the dry heaves of October there ain't much browse" - I don't even know what this means, and I love it. :smile: I guess it means the shrubs are sparse that time of year. That's what I got from it anyway.

When I was done reading, I wanted the title to have been "Emma's Mausoleum" or "Emma's Tomb". That was really the only think I knocked points off for. "Seeing them coming" didn't really seem to relate all that much and given it was pretty much the prompt verbatim, I just think it could use a little TLC.

Great use of the weather motif to bookend the piece See? See? Weather can work! It's a great narrative device, so there :smile: Yeah, I really enjoyed this.


*joshybo
"Thy Will Be Done"*
Spelling/Grammar: 5/5
Tone/Voice: 2.5/5
Effect: 5/10
Overall: 12.5/20

Review:

I like the character of the Reverend. I know I am not supposed to but he is very well done. "I hit my knees and asked Him..." - great expression!

Mmm. Can this: "Jeremy pulled at the shoulder of his white robes defensively." be made more visual. How does one pull on one's robes defensively? Particularly since you have an affinity for ~ly adverbs. Visualise and depict by making happen. As for the events in the story, I sort of know where it was going. Not that that's a bad thing, but if the story is fairly straight-down-the-line, I think that could benefit by being propped up by full on characterisation, setting, etc. I suppose Jeremy felt, for me, a little dialled in.

SPaG pretty solid. Oh, and I liked this expression: "The reverend cornered his eyes at Jeremy" Perfect characterisation. 


*bdcharles (Judge entry / own entry)
"Barney"*
Spelling/Grammar: /5
Tone/Voice: /5
Effect: /10
Overall: /20

Review:
Huh, I'd completely forgotten about this. I can't even remember what it was about. I just wanted to experiment with an unreliable narrator. I think the ending is too rushed and inconclusive. 

*
Roac
"Superheroes"*
Spelling/Grammar: 5/5
Tone/Voice: 4.5/5
Effect: 9/10
Overall: 18.5/20

Review:
Moments. Ooh, I like "moments". And the way you kick things off pretty sharpish is effective: pleasant day playing and then ... things change. Great symbolism in the soot-covered helmet that really sets the sombre mood. I am commenting as I write and I am thinking - that is the father's helmet and he has died. Let's see

"her smile collapsed." - great use of verb.

"Reaching out, she brought me in tight, grasping me in a superhero hug, as if she never wanted to let me go." I must be honest, I really don't often get a lump in the throat when reading, but you have achieved that here. Brilliant, reusing the superhero motif at this moment. Well done. And that last paragraph just seals the deal for me. Is this a true story, I have to ask?

The voice is vell-controlled. Not hugely original but very well done nevertheless. Not everything must be weird or strange or unusual. Sometimes it simply needs to be relatable, which you have here. The only fix I would do is just to skim out a couple of extraneous words, eg:

Walking over, I simply stood there for a moment, unsure of what to do. => remove "simply"
The older man placed a comforting hand gently on my head, while the younger man placed the fireman’s helmet on the small table next to the door. => remove comforting or gently, and this is not really the moment to deploy repetition - "older man/younger man" and "placed". The moment is too tender.

But yeah. I really enjoyed the way you parallel the child's action figures with the fall of his real life heroes. Pwerful stuff.


*MacDub
"Hindsight"*
Spelling/Grammar: 5/5
Tone/Voice: 4/5
Effect: 8/10
Overall: 17/20

Review:

Well, I do like a good story of AI sentience. And I could really see the settings and the characters here.

Interestingly, while there is something about the word "tugged" that, pfft, I dunno, it sets my teeth on edge - as a movement, it suggests depencency and a kind of weakness - you seem to capitalise on that and have the taller man pat the tugged fabric back into place. I wonder why. Characterisation purposes? Let's see.

I got a kick out of "Afterwards, it can be said they've never felt more deceased." As I did when the GOD acronym dawned on me. :smile:

One thing was - I am not sure what the purpose of the beginning and ending sections is. Who is this first AI and what is his or her or its relevance to John and James. What changes were coming? Can that be expanded on or clarified and made more of a thing? But SPaG was right on the money and I thought the slightly lovelorn voices of the men was very convincing. I did think at first that J and J were androids themselves. But I guess the AI was in the punitive system to keep them in line, and the bookending voice is the earliest version of that, who bridges the gap between man and machine. Is that right? If so, it would be good to hear more of that old release AI in the piece.[/spoiler2]​

[spoiler2=SueC's Scores]  *1) Trouble
Jenthepen
Spelling/Grammar: 5
Tone/Voice: 3
Effect: 9
Overall: 17

Review: This was creepy from the git-go, and I really liked the humanity of both Satan and Mordred, aside from the horn and pointed tail. The dialogue was good and entertaining, the back and forth between the two, and the visuals were great. it seemed that Mordred has some sort of position in Hell's Kitchen that was above the rest. I was a little confused about the little demons anger at her. Since they seemed to relish all things bad, and she was behaving badly, I don't know what their problem was with her. The only clue was that they thought Satan was "different since she turned up there." I know it's hard with a word limit, but something to explain (i.e. she moved up to head cook over them, she didn't make their favorite food, or she threw water on them, something like that) would have made it a little more cohesive. All of that aside, I found the grammar to be without error and really a fun read. The ending was great! Good job.

(2) Border Run
Midnight Poet
Spelling/Grammar: 4
Tone/Voice: 3
Effect: 7
Overall: 14

Review: The overall effect of this entry is troubling on many levels. I was able to follow along, but I could see weak breaks in continuity of the story. There were a couple of places where the visuals were done really well, but other areas seem dry. In the beginning, just to capture our attention, I think it would have been good to have a little more depth to the scene you wanted us to see, other than it was just "dark." At that moment, Virginia comes in to tell Carl that her father is aware of her pregnancy, and they take off together. The impression I got at that moment was that the pregnancy was still early on, she was fit to ride, but by the end of your story we find she is actually ready to give birth. I hate to say this, but I find it difficult to understand a woman getting on a horse and riding away in terror when she is so close to having a baby. The end sort of ran out of steam. In reference to the "bleeding," I wasn't sure if it was Virginia (who said the baby was coming) or Carl who was bleeding. There are some spacing issues between words as well. I did get into the drama of the piece and I think if you had more words to spare, those gaps could have been dealt with. Good job!

(3) I Can See Them Coming
ppsage
Spelling/Grammar: 
Tone/Voice: 
Effect: 
Overall: 

Review: This was quite an unusual piece. I found I could understand it better if I read it aloud, but even then I had questions at the end. I do not know if everyone in the story is a ghost or if only Emma is a ghost that can be seen by the two men. I appreciate your hard work on the descriptions of the area; such a good effort to make us actually feel the dryness they are experiencing. I had to get a drink of water! However, some of the descriptions are almost overwhelming. ("Cascades of blowing swirl down the canyon like enraged macramé;") Even reading them aloud made it difficult to be sure I had it right. Since the MC thought Emma had gone for a "lark," I assumed she was alive, but then came the discussion of her tomb - so she is dead, I thought. Further confusion when she showed up on horseback. There is so much about this work that I like, and I think it could be really good if you had twice the number of words to work with, but it seems like a lot is left out, or maybe too much is left to the readers' imagination. Good job, though, and very, very creative.

(4) Thy Will be Done
Joshybo
Spelling/Grammar: 5
Tone/Voice: 5
Effect: 8
Overall: 18 

Review: I think you did a great job painting the picture, or should I say pictures, you were trying to convey. The father's barely-controlled anger, the preachy preacher fitting the stereo-type, and the terrified young man. I did wonder, why was he terrified? If the boy had some kind of inkling that his father would take any opportunity availed to him to be rid of his son because of his very nature, then the fear and panic to perform this rite would be more understandable. And the sense I got was fear, not just unwillingness or a disinterest. At any rate, you did a super job building up the tension. Without letting your readers know too much, and almost no background information, we only gleaned the boy's predicament by one word, "him." I think you did a super job. 

(5) Barney
bdcharles
Spelling/Grammar: 
Tone/Voice: 
Effect: 
Overall: 

Review: The mind of a troubled child? A child possessed by a much older persona with experiences beyond a boy's ken? A possessed dog? I had to read it a couple of times to be sure I got the nuances, the point of the story. It is beautifully written, very compelling, but there is such a disparity between the thought process that is written and the revelation that those very thoughts come from an eight year old; so much so that I can't figure it out. There are no discernible grammatical errors, but there are several incomplete sentences. That is not a fatal flaw, of course, I know we use them for emphasis. At the end, still thinking this is a child waiting for friends, the idea of a dog pops and is reinforced by his friends being caught behind a "weathered" pane of glass. Well written all the same. Good job!

(6) Super Heroes
Roac
Spelling/Grammar: 5
Tone/Voice: 5
Effect: 9
Overall: 19

Review: Very, very nice story. The visuals were all there; I could see the little boy, his eight-year-old self with action figures and I think his behaviors were spot on when the news came in. The descriptions of the two men, and the pain reflected in their eyes was well done. No grammatical errors to detect. This piece relayed a moment in time; with excellent "showing" skills in demeanor of two people, actually four people, so deeply affected by tragedy. I got the sense this was a memory, rather than a story pulled out of the air. Very well done.

(7) Hindsight
MacDub
Spelling/Grammar: 5
Tone/Voice: 5
Effect: 8
Overall: 18

Review: This was really neat. I had no difficulty following along with the story, and I was hopeful for John Gen312! Disappointed came for him, but I think the prompt for this story was very apt, and sometimes futuristic ideas such as this can be a little discomforting. We always seem to get so excited the more machines can do for us, that it does make you wonder what life will be like when our children's children are grandparents. Anyway, you did a super job. Visuals were good and I didn't feel like I was in unfamiliar territory, in your writing about the future. No grammatical errors to detect, and an all over good job!
* [/spoiler2]


----------



## midnightpoet (Dec 5, 2017)

Thanks for the comments; this is the second time I've had formatting issues with transferring text from Word to WF.  I originally tried to send it to Kilroy but that didn't work so I sent it on hoping I could fix the posting issues but I was interrupted about halfway through and wasn't able to fix it in the ten minutes.   My original text was fine (in any case, I wasn't being "careless"). I understand the other comments and agree I should have done a better job on some issues.

And congrats to the winners, great job.


----------



## SueC (Dec 5, 2017)

Congratulations to Roac, MacDub and Joshybo - great job by all.


----------



## Roac (Dec 5, 2017)

I am truly honoured. Thank you.

A big thank you to the judges for volunteering their time. I especially appreciate the comments and suggestions for improving the writing. That is exactly what I was hoping for. 

To answer both SueC and bdcharles, who asked if this story was a memory or a true story, I have a simple answer…nope, I just made it up. My goal was to write something that would evoke emotions in the reader.

And bdcharles, thank you for highlighting my favourite line in the story:

"Reaching out, she brought me in tight, grasping me in a superhero hug, as if she never wanted to let me go."

I had a lump in my throat while I was writing it!

Finally, a big shout out to Kilroy214 for making this competition happen. Can’t thank you enough!!


----------



## bdcharles (Dec 5, 2017)

Good work all  Sonme great reads


----------



## joshybo (Dec 5, 2017)

Congrats to Roac and MacDub and thank you to the judges and kilroy for your feedback, effort, and time! I appreciate your comments on my work and am glad that each of you were able to find some favor in the piece, as I had some concerns with the finished product. Your suggestions are spot on and will help to tighten this one up a bit for some potential polishing on my part. Much appreciated!


----------



## jenthepen (Dec 5, 2017)

Congratulations to Roac, MacDub and Josh. Great stories all. :champagne:

Thanks to all the judges too, for taking the time to critique in such careful detail. It really does help to receive such astute observations and advisory gems. This is a rare and special challenge.


----------



## MacDub (Dec 11, 2017)

Thanks for reading, writing, and the feedback. Appreciate it. Looking forward to the next one.


----------

