# Grand Fiction Challenge Winners !!



## Harper J. Cole (Mar 2, 2018)

Ladies and gentlemen, the results for the 2018 contest are in!


*Story**Folcro**Moderan**Eggo**Average*Steel Machines - _bdcharles_16151615.7Rose Tattoo - _midnightpoet_14151314Comfort - _SueC_14171615.7The Serpent and the Cockroach - _rcallaci_13121212.3The Very Hangry Caterpillar - _rubisco_17151415.3A Special Return Trip - _Clark (Judge)_1061610.7Double - _jenthepen_18171918Encore - _moderan (Judge)_19-1919Life 2.0 - _Candervalle_17151214.7Shaken - _ned_11171213.3The Gatekeeper - _godofwine_10171313.3A Second Life - _J Anfinson (missed deadline)_16171817Second Life - _Smith_17181215.7

These are the winners ...

*1st place*
Double _by jenthepen_
$50 and Meerkat eBook bundle

*2nd/3rd place*
Steel Machines by bdcharles
Comfort by SueC
Second Life by Smith
$10 and Meerkat eBook bundle each

*People's Choice poll winner*
The Gatekeeper by godofwine (6 votes)
$20, month of FoWF and Meerkat eBook bundle

Many congratulations to all of you!
:champagne: :champagne: :champagne:

*Admin note: We would like to extend our thanks to Meerkat Press who not only donated the eBooks, but also all the prize money. You guys rock, thank you!*


A couple of notes ...



With a three-way tie for 2nd place ($20) and 3rd place ($10), the combined $30 for those two places was split evenly between the three contestants
J Anfinson would have been in the prize money, but unfortunately missed the deadline after mistaking GMT for EST. I apologise for a lack of clarity on my part, and will in future give the deadline times in both time zones.

Thanks also to all 13 contestants. For those who didn't qualify this time around, remeber that you can be eligible for our 2019 contest in any one of three ways



By winning a Literary Maneuvers contest during 2018
By winning the soon-to-be-relaunched Colors of Fiction contest during 2018
By judging five of our contests in total, including at least one during 2018


Finally, my deepest gratitude to our trio of judges, Folcro, moderan and Eggo, for their time and skill this year! You can find their comments below ...

[spoiler2="Folcro"]

Steel Machines
16/20

It's not gonna affect your score, but I feel like it's worth mentioning I can't stand sound effects in prose. I always feel like I have to personally sound them out and it's never the same as an actual sound. If you take away both sound effects from your opener, I think it would have been at least as effective. My two cents.

Another pet peeve of mine is present tense narration: it does not and will NEVER convince your reader that the content is happening right now. That is something that simply cannot be done in prose writing. But I should also say your voice shines through. Excellent sentence structure and attention to sentence length makes for a fluid read. Very well done. And since this is a philosophical recollection of a "man" becoming a machine, you can make a case for it. Again, this is not something I would ever deduct points over; I would just advise you that, if you decide to use present tense, do it for flavor and not for drama.

*...but I can't seem to think clearly: *Just say "but I can't think clearly." "Seem" is intensely overused in storytelling. I should know: it's a weakness of mine.

He needed to be reminded of commerce, yet one of his immediate suspicions is that he had been taken to the electric chair? Then he casually references his knowledge of the Dutch language... I'll chalk this up to a scrambled mind doing what scrambled minds do, but it did cut into my following your protagonist.

*...all the while failing to realize that the brain was the essential component: *I mean, I could have told everybody that... and I'm stupid.

*This man-shaped meat doesn't know he isn't alive, because there is no life, only matter: *Ah, but what a fantastic line! Truly the definition of your theme and of this character: a dark and philosophical villain in the making.

Overall, I like your style, but I tend to feel the prose was a little passive. Even though he's a machine, we don't know that until the end and neither does he, so a guy scrambling to remember why he finds himself in a possibly life-altering if not life-threatening situation doesn't sound so exasperated when he uses words like "perhaps" and "seems" and "towards." Storywise, you took a risk tackling a cliché subject matter but you did it in a unique way, taking the perspective of an immobile machine like Hal 9000 or Robert House and discussing their 'becoming' from their own perspective; their acknowledgement of having no conventional limbs was an especially nice touch.

Rose Tattoo
14/20

I think *He flipped a burger *should have started a new paragraph; at first glance, it felt directly related to his last day in prison.

Do all of these people and places really need full names? And heights?

*Old man *usually means father, which made the passage a tad confusing.

Kyle Baker got into his life story pretty fast considering he clearly didn't want to talk about it at first.

*He was a rebel with a hot motorcycle and a bad attitude: *Oh, I thought he was just *lousy at picking friends.
*
*His old man fell off a twenty story girder when he was ten: *A little out of left field with that fact. And don't forget your dashes.

*"Who do I have to kill?": *Okay, ya made me laugh.

This was a difficult read for me. The story revolved around conversation, which is fine, but the dialogue was clunky with subject matter being brought up without prompt as though entire sentences and questions were skipped. Comma placement wasn't up to par either, which grated into me after a few paragraphs.

The big problem for me though was that I had trouble sympathizing with our protagonist; he comes across as judgmental and entitled with comments like "he may have been a hard case, but that was sick," comparing his convicted self with a man who has a non-conventional outlook on love, which may have just been banter anyway. I was also bothered by the "lousy at picking friends" comment I cited earlier, like both he and the general narrative are blaming someone else for his problems.

I like the idea of being given a second chance by a mentor-like character, but I don't buy Robyn. I mean, she's either a fool or just not a believable character. Her case for him was "You've impressed me as a good man." That's it? I know it's hard to get into a whole thing with the word limit but here's a hint– because reader's patience is even more limited than these contests– give a single, specific detail. Have her mention something he did, a thing that he might not have known she even saw. It could be something small and simple, but it has to be specific. I assure you, your audience will buy it.

I find redemption for this story in the atmosphere: there is a feeling of that old southern way, not only in the dialect, but the fact that two neighbors who barely know each other can just sit down and talk. Not a whole lot of that up in Yankeesville. For that I can't say this was a complete miss for me, but in my opinion, it fell a bit short.

Comfort
14/20

Why not give an exact time for how long Michael was waiting for a heart instead of just how long it seemed?

*...so that set the wheels in motion: *I would eliminate this; all it does is make the sentence longer. Sentence length is a cost, not a prize.

Semicolons are not replacements for commas.

At first, I was a little confused as to Michael's age, what point in his life he's at, which is an important thing to understand considering what he's going through. But this confusion only lasted for the first couple of sentences before you gave hints as to the answer. You didn't jump into awkward and forced expository dialogue, you let the audience figure it out. Well done.

The exposition dump by the nurse about the dog's life story was not so well done. Did you have to make it so obvious right away why the dog was drawn to him?

*The woman then told me about George and Comfort: *Why announce what you're already about to describe?

*He almost never used a leash: *Illegal!!!!!

Ah, I was waiting for a "She knows me by heart" joke.

There are a lot of words and clauses that could be eliminated in this story other than what I've highlighted: Use of more efficient descriptions like "I croaked" instead of "I croaked out", and cutting back on the use of "then" would clean up the prose and make for a smoother read. Every unneeded word makes every story just a little harder to read. You want your audience flying through the barrel of a gun, not hitting up against every specificity.

Another problem I had was the dialogue: it didn't seem as though you made the important attempt to change your style, which left the dialogue reading exactly the same way the rest of the exposition did; instead of people actually talking to one another, it felt like people talking _at _one another.

There's really not a lot you need to do to make this better. You have the fundamentals of writing down, it just needs a little more thought.

I want to add one more thing, and this is purely my own personal sense of storytelling: I feel you missed an opportunity at the beginning of this story; you pretty much say "a guy died, so lucky me." I really liked this, the psychological and philosophical doors that swing open over this kind of situation. I would have put a little emphasis on it, how Michael cynically comments on his fortune at the sudden death of another person. This, in my opinion, would have leant more weight to Michael's eventually discovering more about the man from whose death he profited.

The Serpent and the Cockroach
13/20

You used one of my favorite words in your opening sentence. I would urge you to leave that word on its own, so the sentence reads: *Imagine my consternation in finding out I was no longer human. *Remember what William Shatner said: "Brevity is the soul of wit." You want comedy for your opener; comedy is fast.

Your descriptions and language in your opener are unique, and draw me into the character. I'm immersed in the humor but can also feel the tragedy. This is very well done.

*It's how I found you; I guess your bug brain forgot my hearing is quite accurate: *This is one of the few instances you used the semicolon properly.

Did you switch the POV? Why??

Wait, so he was raping her?

I have to say, while this started out strong, it really veered off the rails as it carried on. The writing, once witty, became confusing; the dialogue was very vaudeville and explainy, like the characters are talking to the audience instead of each other. There could be room for "who's the real villain" speculation, but there isn't enough information given for that, and the meat of the story falls a little flat. Again, strong opener, it just wasn't for me.

The Very Hangry Caterpillar
17/20

Great opener: you jump right into the story without explaining things, which is tempting when the characters are not human. My only gripe is that I thought Pat was a tree until the fifth paragraph. Maybe my fault.

Third paragraph was brilliant; I can see the caterpillar stopping to think about what he's doing only do go right back into it. Even though the prose was not very fast, the comedy still shown through.

I really like the dialogue; I get a feel for which character is speaking most of the time, and there are only two, so you can afford to cut back on the dialogue tags a little. All the "he said," "she said" grates after a bit.

*...and they tasted the breeze: *Great description.

This was a fine little story and a creative take on the prompt. It was unpredictable and funny and actually made me think in the end. There's room for a bigger story here, maybe even a dark children's book. I liked this a lot.

A Special Return Trip
10/20

You know God invented punctuation for a reason right? I'm assuming this opening... paragraph... was designed with creative intent, like an ethereal, confusing experience, but you don't want your reader to be confused. And this was barely readable. Maybe if there was a little bit of a structured opener, and a shorter freight train of emotion, then things come together when the main character realizes what's going on and starts yelling at the paramedics to save her. I mean... Asian village what?

Why switch tenses? That only makes things even more confusing.

*"You've got more shunts and bypasses in there now than a busy interchange on an LA freeway": *Someone should tell Dr. McLeod that God invented bedside manner for a reason.

Wow, the doctor might have been a little bumbling, but Marlene's an ungrateful bitch... maybe it's just because she obviously has trouble thinking straight.

I'm going to be honest, this particular piece was painful to read. It started with a rant that I was relieved to finish, and then describes a character who is rude to people and constantly saying "I don't care" while expecting me to care about her. Probably my biggest criticism of the story is that this bitch should have died much earlier on. Sorry, I just wasn't with this one.

Double
18/20

Excellent opener, perfect sentence structure with smooth action lacing crisp descriptions. Highly visual, almost poetic. Skillfully done.

This masterful writing continues on, describing so mundane a thing as an old lady and her cat with a narrative so clear I'm afraid this old woman I barely know might succumb to poor health.

I should point out that it's often not advisable to switch perspective. The story starts out revolving around the cat, but then the cat's asleep and now the story is about the old woman. It wasn't too jarring and maybe just a personal thing; you seemed to know what you were doing and Frank Herbert broke this rule pervasively throughout his novels as well, so I can't complain too much.

Why the cruel comments? I guess it's up to the imagination, unless I missed something.

This was a somber and despondent story which was beautifully described, even if it falls victim, like so many other good stories do, to the word count limit. But you are nonetheless an excellent writer. I wonder if I know you.

Encore
19/20

Love the opener: well-paced and drops the reader into an orchestral performer, a topic I don't see every day. Good work.

This was an absolute pleasure to read. There is very little I can suggest to change it. Maybe the final point was ever-so-slightly ham-handed, a typo here and there, but the quality of writing made it difficult to care. Your sentences, well-paced and gripping, flowed in a river of emotion that left me lying on a bank in the end. You gave us an innocent man, made him miserable, and threw him in an ocean of oblivious humanity, a topic which sadly may never get old.

It was just a really fantastic piece of writing that made me glad I signed on to judge this contest.

Life 2.0
17/20

You establish this story with a very human opener; a relatable language that tastefully weaves a little self-depreciational humor into the character's situation. Cleverly done.

*...made it passed: *Past.

It's worth mentioning that you have a unique and effective way of threading detail into your story. After establishing history with natural exposition in a somewhat sarcastic opener, you casually bring up Kirk's knowledge of AI, and by extension, the fact that such things exist in this world. And just when I was about to suggest you tell me why he did in fact get canned from his old job for the sake of character development, you did just that.

The one thing that threw me off in the opening few paragraphs, and this could easily be just me, was when you said "An ex-wife" in the second paragraph, I thought that your character was saying that he _was_ an ex-wife, which led me to believe he was female. I thought that was a clever way of establishing that your character was female, and was enjoying this character as a female until you said "Sort of like my ex-wife." Again, could be just me, but I want to emphasize that I was enjoying this quantum AI programmer as a female.

So, criticisms first...

There were a lot of syntax errors and typos in this story, especially toward the end; missing words was the main culprit. I feel like one or two revisions might have spared you the dock, which is a shame. The subject matter, as you are no doubt aware, has been done to death and the ending wasn't much to get to.

However...

Where you shine is characterization. Both Kirk and Lionel felt like their own beings. Even though Lionel is a machine, he had relatability. You are also a fine writer. I think the problems with the story had largely to do with the restraints. This is a big topic to take on in a thousand words or less and there is often going to be narrative distance and just explaining away months of important action in a sentence, anticlimactically taking us from point A to point B.

Overall, you show ample competence in storytelling; that's what it all comes down to.

Shaken
11/20

*'Archie Malloy': *You're proud of this name; you should be, it's a great name for a mob boss. But it doesn't need to be in quotes. In fact, and I hate to say it, the boss just isn't an important enough character in this story to really be named, in my opinion. I would much rather you save this great name for another story. Let this guy just be 'the boss.'

*Shaken not stirred: *I wasn't sure why you threw this line in here, and at first I was annoyed at how the clichés were piling up, but then I realized that Harry thought he was James Bond, which tied back to his "spurred confidence." So actually, I started to love this line and how you threw it in there without having to explain the connection to James Bond.

But then you did explain it... shame. I was really enjoying the subtlety.

It's also incredibly jarring how you feel you have to keep hammering home the 'second life' theme. Nobody cares about the prompt, we just want to read a good story.
He hired a car? Is that a British term?

*Archie immediately knew something was up: *This story is told from Harry's perspective, so why do we automatically know what Archie knows?

My big gripe with this story: there's a lot of 'this happened, then that happened,' and basic explanation as to why certain little things were happening. Do this too much and a narrative starts to read more like an outline than a story. You give a lot of names of people and locations that get lost in all the goings on of a novel squeezed into a thousand words. You had a good idea with the bond references with "shaken not stirred" and "diamonds are forever." I feel like a great piece could have come if you made a little story out of the closing scene of this one: the emotions of a man caught up in innocent excitement which ultimately leads to his death. As it is, the story just doesn't work for me.

The Gatekeeper
10/20

*Saint Peter contemplated his purpose as The Gatekeeper: *Well, it's about time, isn't it? You would think after two thousand years, he would have had this talk with himself by now.

*...running the gambit: *Gamut.

*Saint Peter had never seen a parent so desperately clinging to their child's life: *Um... really?

*He hadn't even had a chance to tell the man his own life had been spared: *Wow, Saint Peter is a real moron in this story.

*For the second time in 400 years: *Eh? Saint Peter died in approximately 64-68 AD. The combustion engine entered main stream use in 1908. That's 1,840 years at the very least, not 400. Or are you implying that Peter took the job of gatekeeper during the Renaissance age?

*"Come on, David, please," he pleaded: *This is a prime example of overusing dialogue tags, which occurs throughout the story.

I'm going to be honest here, this story was... a bit of a mess. The story itself was baffling: how can the concept of a parent clinging to their child possibly be new to Peter? Even if he was doing this for 400 years instead of 2,000 and adding on top of that the fact that he _witnessed_ greater levels of sacrifice than this when he was alive.

The prose itself was very passive, which lends no credence to an emotional story. A lot of times, overwriting is like overacting: it's the mark of a good artist who just needs to hone their craft a little more, which could easily be what's going on here, or you're taking on a style of writing you're not used to. Believe me, I understand that trying to create a story with a word count limit is not easy. The way I see it, you fell flat this time, but it's nothing worry about. Sometimes experiments just don't work.

A Second Life
16/20

I love this opening line. Grips me right away. I want to know more.

You follow it up with a dark, twisted explanation of his process. Again, loving it.

*We wouldn't want to hurt her: *Delightfully creepy.

*Then he remembered the funeral director had locked it with a special key: *Why?

*She hadn't been embalmed and rigor mortis was beginning to set in: *Wait, she died and finished her funeral before rigor mortis set in? You know that rarely takes less than six hours, right? He even had time to choose a location and the funeral director had time to pick out a nice locked casket for her (which still confuses me, by the way).

*Looking around, he realized he hadn't thought of a way to lift her out of the hole: *Oh, come on! He thought of everything else but this? How heavy could she be, anyway? Was she a big fat fatty?

*...laying on the ground in the shade: *Lying.

*"I know losing Melanie must have been awful":* Well goodness, lady, have a heart! Zing!

*A good, working heart. Just what Melanie needed: *And a good working brain, and lungs, and stomach, and liver, and eyes, and... hey, here's an idea, why not just bang Karen?

So, you held my curiosity as to just what Nathan was doing. I was a little disappointed to learn he was just a sicko who thought his dead wife needed a heart to live. But the writing was good, and you do establish a sicko rather well. As Melanie went from death, Nathan's finding her, deciding a funeral location to digging her up all by rigor mortis o'clock, it makes me wonder if Nathan was in fact the one who killed her, which would certainly have sped things up. Still, a little outside the scope of realism for me, all because you just had to go mentioning rigor mortis in the first place.

In all, it was a well-told story, I was just jarred by some of the continuity issues and a little disappointed by the ending.

Second Life
17/20

*His shoulders burned from abuse and his back from the sun:* Excellent use of zeugma.

*Death was his only salvation:* I would cut this sentence; leave the idea for a little later on.

I like the idea behind their force-feeding him, prolonging the suffering. And all just to get the most out of a single life-sentence!

The info dump where you explain the Unconscious could have been done better. When I first heard that word in your story, my imagination started spiraling. The info dump didn't help; if anything, it only threw a wet blanket over what I was imagining.

*Kyan had wanted to awaken and liberate them. All they wanted was to go back to sleep: *Why tell me what you just got done showing me? Are you afraid I wasn't going to understand what you were saying? Readers don't like when writers think that way. I understand the temptation and often fall victim to it myself, but we must do what we can to overcome it. It was a great image you provided; you did not need to explain it.

Oh, but what an awesome ending! Brilliant!

You're a great writer. The story's one glaring weakness was the exposition. You seem like someone who likes to tell big stories, and short-story writing is a different world of its own than novel writing. This didn't necessarily need to be a novel, but it did need to be a lot longer than it was. Maybe not the best story for this contest, but you were good enough to pull it three points away from perfect for me.[/spoiler2]

[spoiler2="Moderan"]

I should say at the outset that I thank everyone for participating. It takes courage to hold your work up for public viewing and the ministrations of strangers. As usual, I looked at each piece as though the author was trying to get me to include the story in a publication and pay them accordingly. Thanks for writing Good luck!

*Steel Machines*
Spelling/Grammar: 4/5
Tone/Voice: 5/5
Effect: 6/10
Overall: 15

There are some rather minor spagnits…for example, “ I try to open my eyes but eyes are not part of my normal experience. There’s no muscle for it.” Should read “There are no muscles for that.”
I really dislike the next paragraph. It takes the whole piece off-course and it stays there.
“We have visuals.” That voice again. A man’s voice. Man. Man and woman. There’s a figure in a white coat, charging about. Is this a hospital? Am I a man? Did I have an accident? I try to prepare myself for every eventuality, but I can’t seem to think clearly. What’s happened? Try, dammit, think back. I remember … what? What is remembering? Pictures in the mind from long ago. Switch off your thoughts, relax, and drift downstream. What am I?
Five hundred years from now, and they’re wearing white coats, in a conventional stereotypical laboratory. “We have visual” would be more correct here. And this is all tell, in the wrong place for elucidation. The subject would think MUCH more clearly in the electronic environment. 
And it goes on to paper readouts and so on.
I LOVE the premise. But this is *so* anachronistic. It’s actually decently written as far as mechanics, but it’s imperfectly imagined. And the “Beatles quote” is wrong. “Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream.” Why would someone five hundred years from now recognize that? And why would they use the again-anachronistic phrase “old-school”?
It’s as bad as the newspaper office in Asimov’s NIGHTFALL, on a different planet, in a different society. Good try. I can see language skills, for sure. You can tell a story. But this needs more work.

*
Rose Tattoo*
Spelling/Grammar: 4/5
Tone/Voice: 4/5
Effect: 7/10
Overall: 15

This story tries real hard to be heart-wrenching and almost, almost makes it. The bleeding rose tattoo is an indelible image, and there’s a lot of effort expended on characterization. Sorta boilerplate but not so bad that the characters don’t get up and shamble around a bit. The problem for me is that there’s no real grit, no action…everything is at arm’s-length. The phrasing is fairly awkward in spots and the whole needs to be punched up. Overdoses are not unfamiliar to junkies. And you’re normally not that lucid once the kick comes in. Just a little research would have kicked this into higher gear.
Again…definitely storytelling abilities. Just needs some fine-tuning.

*A Second Life*
Spelling/Grammar: 4/5
Tone/Voice: 5/5
Effect: 8/10
Overall: 17/20

This had some development and a neat little climax. Lots of character. The opening lines should have been hyphenated: “He’d thought burying her would be the hardest thing he’d ever have to do. Three days later he decided he’d been wrong -- digging her back up was far more difficult.”
Otherwise good. Some small awkwardnesses but nothing egregious. Not sure the scenario would work but it also works if the mc is quite mad. 
*

Second Life*
Spelling/Grammar: 5/5
Tone/Voice: 5/5
Effect: 8/10
Overall: 18/20

The only nit I have with this is that the hivemind people in the pods would have advanced muscular atrophy and wouldn’t be going anywhere, but one can always invent the tech to make that not an issue.
I liked the little false ending. I’d have liked it better if they simply revived him instead of moving him to cyber-existence.

*
Comfort*
Spelling/Grammar: 4/5
Tone/Voice: 5/5
Effect: 8/10
Overall: 17/10

Sweet little story about a dog who loves its owner so much that she follows his heart to another man. Just odd enough to suit me. Some awkward sentence structures – for example, “In a neighboring town, a healthy, middle-aged man had been walking his dog and was struck by a city bus. He had died on the spot.”
Might be better as “In a neighboring town, a healthy middle-aged man walking his dog had been struck and killed by a city bus.”
Just a thought. It works fairly well, in the end.

*
The Serpent and the Cockroach*
Spelling/Grammar: 4/5
Tone/Voice: 3/5
Effect: 5/10
Overall: 12/10

A mix of spiteful anger and thesaurus-consulting; an allegory? If this isn’t allegorical, then it’s just plain weird. I don’t understand how it’s supposed to work. Cockroach testes, btw, are buried in the body, not accessible from the exterior. I looked it up.
Just doesn’t work for me. The symbolism doesn’t jibe, the dragon’s speech is supervillain declaiming out of a Charlton comic. Sorry.

*
The Very Hangry Caterpillar*
Spelling/Grammar: 4/5
Tone/Voice: 4/5
Effect: 7/10
Overall: 15/20

The word at the end of the first paragraph should be “it” instead of ‘them”. Otherwise nothing glaring. The transition between caterpillar and flying insect is probably longer, but as this is a parable, that’s not really an issue.
However, as a parable, it fails. Those almost all have a moral message. This has survival-of-the-most-amoral written into it. The moth’s character stays true to form, and I understand about defying convention, but this makes a noir out of a children’s tale, and imo sends the wrong message…especially since the narrative tone is identical to a children’s story. What you have is something simultaneously sweet and nasty, like a piece of fruit with a worm in it.

*
A Special Return Trip*
Spelling/Grammar: 3/5
Tone/Voice: 3/5
Effect: 3/10
Overall: 6/20

That block of text right at the start is an awful trick to play on a reader. I get the intent but it doesn’t work. It’s way too hard to get through – I’d bypass it in any book I read. It took me three tries to get the sense of it. And it’s in third person, when the rest of the text is in first person.
Doesn’t work for me. At all. The sequence with the doctor is just tacked-on-feeling, and the last sentence about the bell invokes the wrong sentiment. The bell symbolism is approaching death, not continued life (The Bell Tolls For Thee). 
Sorry. This needed a lot more work and thought put into it. Is the third-person sequence meant to be a distancing effect? It isn’t really effective. You’d need to have Marlene refer to herself in the third person at least once in the first-person narrative portion to make the device fit, at the very least.

*
Double*
Spelling/Grammar: 4/5
Tone/Voice: 5/5
Effect: 8/10
Overall: 17/10

Maybe Bert _did_ come back. Anyway that’s the subtext. The cat has two mistresses…that symbolism is crystal-clear. Could be spelled out better but okay. The descriptions of the cat’s grace and supple movements are excellent. 
Has a poignance. A couple of misplaced commas take away a point.


*Encore*
I cannot in all fairness review this.

*
Life 2.0*
Spelling/Grammar: 4/5
Tone/Voice: 4/5
Effect: 7/10
Overall: 15/20

The sentences are on the choppy side. I’d suggest reading them out loud to get the rhythms right. Otherwise decent if pedestrian reading of the transhumanist experience with a little bit of HARLIE in it. There’s a whole body of literature along these lines. This isn’t bad…but it’s been done better.


*Shaken*
Spelling/Grammar: 4/5
Tone/Voice: 4/5
Effect: 8/10
Overall: 17/20

I was not stirred by this narrative; neither did I consult Her Majesty’s Secret Service about my thoughts. I did find it amusing, and the Fleming-voice was very well-done indeed. A few words that should either be hyphenated or written as one were separated (fly weight, for example). 

*
The Gatekeeper*
Spelling/Grammar: 5/5
Tone/Voice: 4/5
Effect: 8/10
Overall: 17/10

Predictable but not by-the-numbers rendition of this trope. Laudable for the lack of spagnits and the consistent tone, which increased the impact of the piece considerably. Could have been a little more confrontational, and I dunno about the head-hop into St. Peter’s pov.
Not bad though. Looks good in this field.[/spoiler2]

[spoiler2="Eggo"]

Steel Machines
  Nice idea that’s not really breaking any new ground.
  The thing that was really missing was his humanity. Where are his thoughts about his loved ones (his cat even), his want to pee or blink. These are the things that make it horror. Possibly wrongly thinking the doctor killed his family.
  And that’s the question that remains, does the tech destroy his humanity or does his humanity destroy the tech?
  I read a while back “We are Bob” about an engineer who becomes an AI in the future. Good read the handles this with aplomb. 
  Score: 16

Rose Tattoo
  “Kyle Baker remembered his last day in prison, and the cell door clanging behind him for the last time.”
  ,when the cell door clanged behind him…
  Some tense issues on the front side.
   The cliché here brought this down, the loss of a father image, losing his girlfriend to the quarterback, Black man in the prison singing the blues…
  There wasn’t a lot here to elevate this, to break through the readers disbelief and make the characters breathe.
  Score: 13

A Second Life
  “In just three days he’d begun to feel like he was losing his mind.”
  This line was a bit heavy handed.
  Good story, missing a few touches of depth. Great opener..

  Score : 18

Comfort

  “I had been waiting for what seemed like years for a new heart. My family and I were even beginning to go through the process of preparing for the worst when we finally got the call. In a neighboring town, a healthy, middle-aged man had been walking his dog and was struck by a city bus. He had died on the spot. His heart was a match, with a donor card, so that set the wheels in motion.”

  The opener seemed to be a tape at Fast Forward (dating myself ). Somewhat expositional, when you could commit the opening to character building.

  “Was it possible? Could this be the same dog that belonged to my donor?”

  A little too telling. I would just leave the reference to check the dog’s tag instead. It’s the first thing I’d do. Trust your reader to find these clues. I always write as if a reader is smarter than me, which is invariably true.

16/20

The Serpent and the Cockroach

  “Imagine my consternation and complete confusion in finding out I was no longer human. I was transmuted into a fucking cockroach! Not just an ordinary little slippery slimy cockroach, mind you, but one ugly disgusting giant puss-filled bugged-eyed bug. This was against all the laws of nature. I was quite baffled, befuddled, and perplexed.”

  A tad bit verbose. 

  “You lying piece of bug shit, you know damn well why I’m enraged. Your recklessness and goddamn ego are the reasons we’re in this freak show. I pleaded with you not to activate the dimensional portal until we were sure about the scientific parameters involved, as well as following the proper safety protocols. But being a foolhardy sociopathic narcissist; you activated the portal, jumped in, and pushed me in with you. And here we landed---transported in this Kafkaesque nightmare. I should flay you alive; you fucking bug-fucker.”

  This is your opener. Let your reader figure out the whole bug thing, that WTF moment will hook them.

  “They cut to bone and make me weep.”

  No one says I’m weeping. 


  The cockroach’s eyes nearly popped out in disbelief.
  Waivers between third person and first.

  12/20

The Very Hangry Caterpillar


  “Don’t see no name on them,” said Sammy. Pat pushed Sammy out of the way and felt for her leaves, but her body felt open air.

  I thought she was falling into the “open air” , felt nothing seemed closer.

  Pat looked across from her, and there sat a fat, grey moth.

  Somewhat clumsy, consider her opening here eyes to Pat waiting

  14/20

A SPECIAL RETURN TRIP

  Cool stream-of-consciousness piece.

  “One moment Marlene was walking through the door of Old Navy into the mall thinking a comfy name like Old Navy deserved a grey plank door with rusty hinges not gleaming chrome and glass then she was lying on the cold tiles”

  Adding these pronouns makes me keep finding places where a sentence break should go.

  One moment Marlene was walking through the door of Old Navy into the mall thinking a comfy name like Old Navy deserved a grey plank door with rusty hinges not gleaming chrome and glass the next was lying on the cold tiles..

  SOC needs flow, these pronouns pull up us short. Trust your reader to keep up with this

  “I feel the deep weight”

  Change in POV. She was , now I feel.


  “No you didn’t I came back the smile made a decision had made it before giving me the glimpse I don’t know god that smile”

  God had that smile.. maybe?


  Got the punch in the face, but what was the change? Where did the character evolve or what change was brought about as consequence?  

  16/20

Double

  Great story. The actions of the cat were spot on.

  “If Bert could have come back for a second go at life, I reckon he would have come back as you!” she sighed.

  This was too telling for me. I would have had the old woman name the cat Bert or perhaps just a “B” name and strike this .
  Perhaps she could sigh and say, “Bert when will you be home?”

  19/20

Encore 

  A great piece on the uncontrollability of life. We have to be happy with the small things we can control because that is all life has to offer us.
  Very dark and without hope in a Kafkaesque flavor that makes you want to go outside and see the sun.
  I wonder if a few lighter memories of Grantham might have offset this a bit and add a bit more to the fabric? 
  Cool piece

  Score: 19

Life 2.0

  A breezy flight through and into computer life.
   The things about brain tumors are the headaches. As the tumor grows it pushes against the inside of your skull pushing to get out. The pain is unrelenting and anything that makes you you is forcefully squished away until you forget how to breath.
  Humanity is what’s needed here to flesh out this character. Why should I care if this divorced , drunken thief lives?

  12/20

Shaken

  "with the resources of the whole outfit behind him"

  Cliché runs through this James Bond homage. I thought this might have worked better if you embraced the thing a bit more…a Blofeld here, Money Penny, M…gone right off the edge. Pun us to death

  Although the diamond heist was somewhat pedestrianvehicle,  needed  something else.

  12/20

The Gatekeeper

  Good story.  Let it breathe a little though.
  progressive clarity, word clawed, shattered lives

  You tend to use a lot of modifiers and the reality is instead of enhancing imagery they can detract for it.

  Think instead of "a word clawed in his throat", "the word stuck in his throat like a sideways chicken bone".

  Imagery invokes feelings, feelings evoke empathy for character, the character becomes real or at least identifiable as real.

  13/20

Second Life
  “having committed treason by setting those poor souls free from their unconscious.”
  Unconsciousness
  Fun story.  The Rabbi seemed to need a bigger part in this.

  12/20[/spoiler2]


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## Smith (Mar 2, 2018)

Congratulations to jen, charles, and Sue!

I am grateful for having been given the opportunity to participate in this challenge. It's something I've wanted to do since I joined this forum years ago.

Thank-you to Folcro, moderan, and Eggo for judging! The feedback was insightful, and will prove very useful for when I rewrite the story. And thanks H.C. for running the show. These challenges and competitions and workshops have helped me become a better writer.

-Kyle


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## Firemajic (Mar 2, 2018)

Congratulations , jen! And congratulations to all who placed, and participated ...:champagne:


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## -xXx- (Mar 2, 2018)

XD
youses rock.
and roll.
both kinds!
congrats all-the-way-around!


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## bdcharles (Mar 2, 2018)

Nice work jenthepen - well deserved! Cheers to godofwine for the people's choice win. And congrats to the other runners up, many thanks to the judges, other entrants and host - a great comp, thoroughly enjoyable.


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## midnightpoet (Mar 2, 2018)

Congrats Jen!  Great job to her and all the participants. Thanks to the judges, and appreciate their comments.

Hey, I didn't come in last.  Movin' on up!  This was an experiment, wanted to see if I could take one of my narrative poems and turn it into a story.  Did have a hard time, as comments suggested, and I'll admit I padded it a little and not much happened.  Had plenty of time, but couldn't come up a better idea - my fault, couldn't get brain out of neutral.


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## Gumby (Mar 2, 2018)

Congrats, jen! 
Well done, all!
Special thanks to the judges, too!


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## Candervalle (Mar 3, 2018)

Congratulations to jenthepen, bdcharles, SueC, Smith, and godofwine! And thank you to the judges and organizers for their diligent work!


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## ned (Mar 3, 2018)

congratulations to J the P, BD, Sue, Smith and Godofwine - and thank you to the judges for your time.

also thank you to Harper for hosting such a great contest.


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## PiP (Mar 3, 2018)

Congratulations to our winners! I would also like to take this opportunity to thank HarperCole for his hard work behind the scenes and front of house, our judges, and Meerkat Press who not only donated the eBook bundle but also the prize money.


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## jenthepen (Mar 3, 2018)

This is the first time I've won one of these big competitions so I won't pretend I'm not pleased and excited. The different takes on all the stories by the judges shows how subjective this stuff can be and any of these great stories could have won so I'm feeling pretty lucky too. Thank you to everyone who left a kind comment for me in this thread.

Many thanks to all the judges. Your advice and suggestions have pointed up things that I need to be aware of as I write more stories and that high level of feedback is invaluable.

Congratulations to the other winners and thanks to everyone who took part and made this such a high-level challenge.

Thanks HP for hosting - taking the responsibility of posting and editing the stories takes a lot of work but you did it seamlessly.

And of course, thanks to MeerKat Press for backing this competition so generously.


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## Terry D (Mar 3, 2018)

Congratulations, Jen! And to all the other winners -- and to Moderan who couldn't win, but offered us a terrific story.


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## H.Brown (Mar 3, 2018)

Congrats to you all who won and entered each story was a joy to read. Thank you to the judges for giving their time and wisdom. A massive thank you to HC for making this challenge possible.


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## J Anfinson (Mar 3, 2018)

Congrats to the winners. Thanks to the judges. You guys rock. Good crit. And Folcro, to answer your question about locking the casket, funeral homes actually do that before lowering it into the vault. I used to work for a vault company, actually, and buried a lot of people. They call it a casket key but really it's just an allen wrench with a tee handle. The one time I asked about it I was told they were required to lock every casket in order to create another obstacle for grave robbers, though in today's world it's kind of pointless since you'd need a backhoe to get the lid off the vault to even get to the casket. Most cemeteries require a concrete-lined container these days. Some rural ones don't. I chose a rural cemetery for convenience. 

Anyways, I had fun even if I couldn't win.


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## Darren White (Mar 4, 2018)

Congratulations to all the winners!!


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## SueC (Mar 5, 2018)

Congratulations to all the winners. Jenthepen - awesome job and everyone else involved was great! All of you rock to the moon and back. What a fun comp.


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## bdcharles (Mar 8, 2018)

Rather thrilled with having received my first ever payment for a story. Thanks, WF!


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