# August 2014 - LM - Don't Look Back - Scores



## Fin (Aug 31, 2014)

*LITERARY MANEUVERS*
Don’t Look Back


A big thank you to everyone who participated and an even bigger thank you to our judges, Terry D, Pluralized, thepancreas11, amsawtell, kilroy214, and godofwine for taking the time out of their lives to review the entries.


*Scores*​
*Terry D**Pluralized**thepancreas11**amsawtell**kilroy214 **godofwine**Average**Garza*16.5151417.517.752016.79*astroannie*17141417.516.51916.3*Euripides*17161614161816.16*Ibb*171315161916.516.08*Dubhthaigh*16141415161915.66*Jon M*1520161718.75715.62*Bazz Cargo*1514131316.51915.08*Guy Faukes*131517141318.515.08*Circadian*16171117171114.83*T.S.Bowman*1412131517.51614.58*CraniumInsanium*14141315141514.16*”Greater Evil Comes” by Folcro*14131115121914*Plasticweld*12141413131713.83*Smith*14121114.5131613.41*Hopeful Writer*10915141316.512.91*NickWolfe*10101214131512.33*W.Goepner*109121311.51812.25*Ephemeral_One*10141311111913*godofwine*N/AN/AN/AN/AN/AN/AJudge Entry

In third place, we have *Euripides* with her entry *Misinterpretation.*
In second, we have *astroannie* with her entry *Even the Gods were Moved.*
And finally, in first, a big congratulations to *garza* with his entry *Don’t Look Back.*



Congratulations to the winners, and a thank you to everyone else for your time.

[spoiler2=Terry D’s scores]

*Astroannie
“Even the Gods were Moved”
Total – 17 of 20*

Spelling and Grammar – 5 of 5.  Very clean with good variation in sentence structure. Fragments used with purpose.

Tone and Voice – 4 of 5.  The voice was very consistent, with a pleasing rhythm to it. Fluid. It had just a couple of spots where I was brought out of the story by phrases like; “colorful language of the vulgar sort”, and “I had had a great of time to think of what my first words would be.”

Effect – 8 of 10.  Very well written and lyrical,but the story doesn’t add anything to the classic myth, or tweak it any way.The opportunity was there to make this tale your own. It was a very near miss for me.


*Jon M
“How is it Supposed to Feel?”
Total – 15 of 20*

Spelling and Grammar – 5 of 5. No glitches that I saw. Too many fragments for my taste, but that was obviously intentional, so no hit here.

Tone and Voice – 4 of 5. The voice achieved what I believe you set out to do, but its effectiveness was lost for me in the ‘white noise’ of the droning rhythm.

Effect – 6 of 10.  There’s some terrific writing inhere; “The afternoon in April when _anaplastic_and _glioma_ enter your vocabulary.”And “You do it anyway, at the spots where the bloodstains are darkest, looking for more roses.” A very effective piece, in short bursts.


*Bazz Cargo
“The Third Edit”
Total – 15 of 20*

Spelling and Grammar – 5 of 5. I find no nits to pick here.

Tone and Voice – 3 of 5. No inconsistencies of voice, but nothing unique either.

Effect – 7 of 10. Nicely paced little action piece with a lot going on in a short time-frame. I would have liked more context to help me understand what was going on more quickly. It could be a good lead-in to a longer story.


*Plasticweld
“Don’t get caught looking back”
Total – 12 of 20*

Spelling and Grammar – 3 of 5.  A number of punctuation errors in the use of commas and dashes. Enough to make the reading uncomfortable.

Tone and Voice – 3 of 5. I like the light tone and the voice of the bedraggled husband,but neither step forward to give the story a strong identity.

Effect – 6 of 10. The story seems to start twice. Once with the first sentence; “I have always told my kids…”, and then again in paragraph #3; “It starts out the same way…” Either would be a good starting point, but together they sound redundant.I liked the take on the prompt—the eye that’s tempted to wander—and I think you would have had a stronger story if you would have focused more on that.


*T.S.Bowman
“Don’t Look Back”
Total – 14 of 20*

Spelling and Grammar—3 of 5. Some missing and miss-used commas, and Grandma, when used as a name should be capitalized.

Tone and Voice – 4 of 5. Nicely consistent use of voice and vocabulary. The tone was somewhat flat for such a high-stakes situation, but good overall.

Effect – 7 of 10. The pacing was good, but I found myself wondering why the chase is occurring. Even in a flash piece I’m looking for a story, not just a scene. 


*CraniumInsanium
“Tweaking the Grid”
Total – 14 of 20*

Spelling and Grammar – 3 of 5. Since SPaG is the nuts and bolts of construction, I’m going to complain about the formatting in this section. It’s a chore to read a piece without clear paragraph breaks. There were also some infrequent comma and apostrophe usage errors.

Tone and Voice – 4 of 5. I think the short, choppy sentences were intentional, and they did serve to create a hectic feel to the story, but I also think they were a distraction from the flow of the narrative.

Effect – 7 of 10. This is an exciting story—another which could easily be a part of a larger narrative—and I liked most of the technology you brought to the tale.For a 650 word story, however, I think there was a bit too much technology introduced to allow room for character and story. The deeper into the piece I read, the better it got. One small nit which didn’t factor into the scoring at all; Any potential black hole that would be caused by a reactor core implosion would not be large enough (or last long enough) to be a danger to a fleeing ship.


*Circadian
“Mother and World”
Total – 16 of 20*

Spelling and Grammar – 5 of 5. I’m turning over a new leaf and not down-scoring for a lackof quotation marks. I still prefer them, but bend-with-the-wind and all that.

Tone and Voice – 5 of 5. Perfectly consistent and well-modulated voice.

Effect – 6 of 10. It may just be me, but I have no idea what’s going on in this story.Part of me wants to emphasize with Thing—the emotions are human enough—but its vague nature creates too much distance. It may be a parable, but even that’s not clear.


*Garza
“Don’t Look Back”
Total – 16.5 of 20*

Spelling and Grammar – 5 of 5. Clean as a new toothbrush.

Tone and Voice – 4 of 5. In pieces with very little narration there must be a very strong sense of voice coming from the dialogue. There wasn’t as much distinction here as I would expect.

Effect – 7.5of 10. Very well written and very well paced. The opening set me up for a story of regret, or of anger, but the ending went another way. The story, without an emotional payday, came off as flat for me.


*NickWolfe
“Bitter Sweet”
Total – 10 of 20*

Spelling and Grammar – 3 of 5.  Quite a few grammatical issues and comma usage issues.

Tone and Voice – 2 of 5. While the tone remains intentionally dismal throughout, there are so many oddly worded phrases;” …and quickly opened and shut the door after he exited.” How can he open the door _after_he exits? I know what you meant, but the wording is clunky.

Effect – 5 of 10. This is a nice try at a post-apocalyptic story and it raises many questions I’d like to see answered, but it tries too hard to be dramatic, and the resulting phrasing makes the story a difficult read.


*HopefulWriter
“Don’t Look Back”
Total – 10 of 20*

Spelling and Grammar – 3 of 5. Comma issues.

Tone and Voice – 3 of 5. Consistent voice, but the overall tone of the story is bland.

Effect – 4 of 10.  I can appreciate the attempt at a humorous twist, and I could almost visualize the protagonist “half sliding half running” through the kitchen. Overall, however, the story doesn’t work for me.Even in a flash piece like this there needs to be some internal logic, and ‘hungry kitty’ doesn’t do it for me. 


*W.Goepner
“Don’t Look Back”
Total – 10 of 20*

Spelling and Grammar – 3 of 5. Missing and unnecessary commas. Missing possessive ‘s’ apostrophes. 

Tone and Voice – 2 of 5. The style here is flat. There was nothing to engage the reader;no emotion and no texture to the setting or characters.

Effect – 5 of 10. The time travel angle is a good choice for this prompt. It has the potential to be very poignant, but to do that you would need to get inside the characters more—at least inside the test subject. This one doesn’t quite work for me. 


*Smith
“Drama-Rama”
Total – 14 of 20*

Spelling and Grammar – 4 of 5. A few, small grammatical hiccups, but very clean overall.

Tone and Voice – 3 of 5. I think the style was trying for a sarcastic tone which it didn’t quite (to my ear) hit. 

Effect – 7 of 10. Well tied to the prompt, with an extra point or so for intertwining with another entry. Humor is hard to pull off well and this story falls a smidge short of being truly funny, but, in spite of some awkward language, it was a fun read.


*Ibb
“Plummet”
Total – 17 of 20*

Spelling and Grammar – 4 of 5. Mostly spotless. Just a couple of missing commas.

Tone andVoice – 4 of 5. The details of skydiving—and, I’m assuming, BASE jumping—are incorporated into the story flawlessly. Very well done. There is something about the structure which sounds slightly repetitive, almost monotonous. That was a bit distracting for me. It may have something to do with comma placement and the number of syllables between the pauses.

Effect – 9of 10. This story is a complete package, not simply a scene, or a vignette.  That’s something I look for in an LM entry. Good job.


*Dubhthaigh
“The Edge”
Total – 16 of 20*

Spelling and Grammar – 3 of 5. Missing full stops. Missing commas at the end of quotes.

Tone and Voice – 5 of 5. This piece captures the despair of the protagonist as well as possible within the word-count. Nicely done.

Effect – 8 of 10. I like this story very much, but I think you had an opportunity to make it even more powerful. The early paragraphs use too many passive words and phrases. Bits like: “her meek words obliterated by the hungry wind”. This would be more powerful without the word ‘meek’. Also, “…grown in a cancer-like fashion” would read better—IMO—as ‘…grown like a cancer, consuming her’.  Be careful of using too many words like ‘has’ and ‘have’, the passive voice sucks the strength out of your prose.


*Euripides
“Misinterpretation”
Total – 17 of 20*

Spelling and Grammar – 3 of 5. Some small formatting errors (spaces missing in blue cheese,between ‘…her, “Poem…’, and between ‘analogy for’. Also in paragraphs 11 and 12, the closing quotation mark after ‘instead’ should be omitted since the next paragraph starts with a continuation of the same quotation. One other thing, it doesn’t work for me to emphasize a word in dialogue by capitalizing it. A better convention is to use italics. 

Tone and Voice – 5 of 5. You hit just the right tone in this story, and the cadence of the writing was spot on. The characters each had an individual voice.

Effect – 9 of 10. A fully fleshed story with a quietly satisfying conclusion. The dialogue was natural and the feeling of two friends reflecting on the past was realistic. The word limit made it feel a tad rushed, but only a tad.


*Christina Matsuyama
“Greater Evil Comes”
Total – 14 of 20*

Spelling and Grammar – 4 of 5.  Some comma usage issues.

Tone and Voice – 3 of 5. The voice in this story is unique, but ultimately—forme—ineffective. I found myself re-reading passages to decipher their meaning,for example: _”… he pushed the doors back shut, barred them with another log over his tiny shoulders and trembling back…_”

Effect – 7 of 10.  The pacing of the story is good,and I had a good sense of the characters, but the word choices and phrasing distracted rather than added to the tale. For me it’s a case of the style getting in the way of the story.


*Ephemeral_One
“An Exile’s Return”
Total – 10 of 20*

Spelling and Grammar – 3 of 5. Many comma splices and miss-placed commas. The past tense of ‘rend’ is ‘rent’, not ‘rended’.

Tone and Voice – 3 of 5. The narrator comes across as wimpy and ineffective. The prose,in particular the entire second paragraph, only makes him seem more-so.

Effect – 4 of 10.  I like high fantasy, and this story has great aspirations, but there is nothing to set this apart from any other sword and monster tale. I think you might have bitten off too big a piece of the story and tried to make it fit the word count. There is too much going on here to do any single part of it justice. I also don’t see a clear tie-in to the prompt.


*Godofwine
“Johnny Walker Black”
Judge Entry*

Spelling and Grammar – Not much to nit-pick. One or two comma questions, and one misspelling (… the addiction that helped ruin his life, not ‘ruined’).

Tone and Voice –  There were some word choices which seemed a bit clunky to me and roughed up the smooth flow of the prose. In paragraph 5: “Fifteen years ago he went in for just one drink, but he didn’t stop there and it changed his life forever.” This sentence would have sounded better, to me, if you had written it in past perfect_: Fifteen years ago he had dropped in for just one drink, but he hadn’t stopped there, and it had changed his life forever_. By using pluperfect to open the paragraph you would have established the memory seamlessly. 

Effect –  I like the title a lot for some reason. I think it’s the multiple connotations of the word ‘Black’. Since the prompt is ‘Don’t look back’, I’m puzzled by the theme of the piece being about nothing so much as the protagonist dwelling on the past. The tale was also rather predictable. 


*Guy Faukes
“Escape from Hades”
Total – 13 of 20*

Spelling and Grammar – 3 of 5. Missing paragraph break between paragraphs 2 and 3. Misplaced ‘it’ in paragraph 3: “I imagine it we will continue…” Missing space between ‘back’ and ‘from’ in the final paragraph.

Tone and Voice – 4 of 5. Consistent voice, but the tone is too melodramatic to be effective for me.

Effect – 6 of 10. The prompt tie-in was clear and well handled, and there were some nice phrases: “This is but one pit of hell, one flavour of the underworld.” I also like: “So, I store and put away the pains, anxieties and terrors around me,categorizing them into mental jars, hoping that with time and apathy that they will fade away.” In total, however, the piece is too purple and overwrought.
[/spoiler2]
[spoiler2=Pluralized’s scores]

*Astroannie*
*“Even the Gods Were Moved”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 4*
*Tone/Voice: 3*
*Effect: 6*
*Overall: 14*

This story intrigued me from the moment I realized where it was headed, and I liked how you incorporated Greek Mythology into such an opaque prompt-reference. Like as in, real opaque, and I wasn’t convinced the story was written for the prompt. But it’s pretty open, so maybe that explains it.

I found the voice to be wandering, detached, disinterested, despite the interesting theme and references to mythological deities. For some reason, I found it hard to enjoy, which is strange, because I like stories that step outside the norm and explore archaic and obscure territory. Thought the ending could be stronger, I guess. Maybe once the story launched into god-land, there were no stakes and no tension and no reason to care what happened.

In technical terms, it’s fairly well written, although I stumbled more than once. Most notably in the beginning with “And Aristaeus.” It’s like the narrator hears Aristaeus, but without a specific reference to what he was saying, it was too vague. Following that up with “He was most displeased” and “used colorful language of the vulgar sort” just blew the disbelief for me and the voice spluttered. I didn’t think “He had wanted me” in the eleventh sentence needed to be in the pluperfect.

Also, there’s a comma bust – there should be a comma after ‘ferryman’ to  indicate parenthetical information.

Tense seems to wander in other places, too. I stopped trying to reconcile the mixture of past/present/pluperfect, as we’re dealing with deities at the end of the day. Still felt funky in places.

*But when he had thought that was all he had left to him *>> eh?

Overall, a fun and imaginative jaunt into the world of dreamy god-lands, good solid use of mythology, mostly believable in that regard, but maybe just not graceful enough for me personally. Just never really hit its stride, unfortunately. I’d have liked more forays into more complex prose, given the subject matter, longer sentences, more metaphorical ways to say things like “Yet my eyes saw the sky and clouds, flowers and grass.” These are the throes of death we’re talking about, after all. And it was supposedly moving fast. My favorite thing about this piece was the title line and its appearance in the text. Very nice work there.


*Jon M*
*“How is it Supposed to Feel?”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 5*
*Tone/Voice: 5*
*Effect: 10*
*Overall: 20*

It’s just rocket-ship fast, smooth, with potent and visceral grace. Swimming in this dense packet of words was a sensual, bracing experience. Locked me into the world of junk sickness, in its many iterations all at once, including the addiction to unhealthy humans in our lives, enjoyed this with its many strong and well-considered phrasings and superb word choices. Love the image of an addict digging at (her?) arms with those rose-red fingers. Didn’t know what “skinjacks” were, and wanted a hyphen somewhere in there, like maybe “once-stolen” or somewhere. Honestly, I found this story to be avant-garde and so far beyond anything else I’ve judged here, stylistically just really impressed with how taut and charged this piece is, 650 words on the button, every one of them with purpose. Exceptional, inspiring work.


*Bazz Cargo*
*“The Third Edit”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 4*
*Tone/Voice: 3*
*Effect: 7*
*Overall: 14*

The impact factor is there, and I really felt the action pulling me along. Great job there. This Keff, she’s a badass, isn’t she! Scraping the guy’s finger-skin off was particularly nasty, but I like the speed at which this helps to push the pacing early on.

Not sure exactly what to think of the story as a whole, because it’s, well, incomplete. There are 216 words left for you to use, and I think had you used them to tactfully illustrate her motivations and, even with an opaque swipe, given us a more well-rounded story. As it stands, I have no idea where she’s going or why it’s going to be a long night. Just a small bit of dialogue through a concealed earpiece, something, could’ve pumped this one up and rounded it out.

Biggest Spag thing I want to point out is, you need semicolons in many places here. Any time your sentence takes a hard turn, as in beginning new, independent clauses, separate those thoughts with a semicolon. There are several instances, e.g.: “Now she had a gun, the car would be good for a short while.” (forgetting for a moment that there may be logic problems with “the car would be good”) There’s definitely a semicolon needed instead of the comma.

Holds together pretty well, and very entertaining.


*Plasticweld*
*“Don’t get caught looking back”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 3*
*Tone/Voice: 4*
*Effect: 7*
*Overall: 14*

I really like what you’ve done with the prompt here, and the overall tone of this piece is great fun. Lecherous, but lovable. There’s something to that which reminds me of my dad.

Spag’s all over the place, mostly with hyphens and commas, needed or not. A couple places wanted a semicolon. Many places I think contractions would’ve helped out the flow (e.g., I am already >>> I’m already, etc.).

discrete >>> discreet
un-known >>> unknown
I been >>> I’ve been

Not sure the term ‘brunette’ is all that complimentary these days, especially whilst ogling front and back, but somehow the bumbling narrator gets away without being too creepy.

The sentence that really sums up the piece, and probably made two points back on the effect-meter, was this one: “Even though I would rather be someplace else, it is still good to be someplace with her.”  -- I like the simple honesty of this piece a lot.

Well done.


*T.S. Bowman*
*“Don’t Look Back”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 4*
*Tone/Voice: 4*
*Effect: 4*
*Overall: 12*

I like action, and cursing and stuff, but the narrator is pretty heavy with the ‘fucksticks’ and ‘no-neck jackoffs’ and ‘broads’ to the point I didn’t sense enough ancillary tension to get into that groove. Sure, he’s being chased by guys with guns through Mc Doogle’s [sic] (possibly “McDoogle’s, unless it’s a rapper, like MC Doogle’s) and that’s high drama and all, but with granny’s recitation of the prompt echoing, it all feels a bit forced.

Still, I like stories with pursuit and action, and there’s a hard-boiled edge to this that could yield beneficial results, even if just through practice.

Spag’s pretty darn good, just one or two rogue spacing issues, and the overt cursing, but overall not too shabby. Not enough dialogue to warrant the single line, I don’t think, but that’s personal preference. It’s like if you’re going to sprinkle a little bit in, let it be enough and not too much. Felt like a token line, and the ending felt tacked-on.

Pacing was good though, and strong subject matter with potential. I bet if you really tried, those missing 86 words could’ve taken our narrator through a quick flashback or something, or perhaps a whispered conversation with granny in his head, providing deepened atmosphere and better tone.   


*CraniumInsanium*
*“Tweaking the Grid”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 4*
*Tone/Voice: 4*
*Effect: 7*
*Overall: 14*

Great imagination; super fun to read this ambitious sci-fi piece. I like self-confident science, and ideas that excite me. Like Hyperpods. Couldn’t you just use the crap out of one of those right about now? I sure as hell could.

As the story goes, I think it’s just a bit too easy. Kelsaw’s on the lam, hauling ass. But the resistance is way too little, and she’s just blasting off, Flexing the hell up out of there. And the power cores turning into black holes sure seems like a liability that might outweigh the benefits of such propulsion, particularly with a button right nearby that says, FLEX. 

Spag’s good, not perfect. Lots of places that need hyphens, like ‘grape-sized’ and ‘life-threatening’ and ‘last-resort life-saver’. Other than that, the writing’s good and rolls along nicely. I enjoyed the concept of ‘battlesyrup’ too, I might add.

There’s one line, “This is what Kelsaw wanted” that seems worthy of mention. I try to stay off the whole “show v tell” bandwagon, but this is a great example of how a ‘tell’ can really betray your overall effect. By virtue of her running to the Hyperpods and hacking in, melting hair and such, we get fed the concept of “This is what Kelsaw wanted” much more effectively.

POV seemed to wander as the narrative had her ‘swallowed’ by the crowd. Not sure that’s necessarily a bad thing, but it stuck out at me.

Good writing, good imagination, and a pleasure to read. I think with a bit of a pause from the double-barreled sci-fi infodump machine, there would be more space to develop the character alongside all that fun stuff. Not far from being awesome, though.


*Circadian*
*“Mother and World”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 5*
*Tone/Voice: 4*
*Effect: 8*
*Overall: 17*

I’m on board. Liked this a lot. Refreshing, fun story. I really enjoyed figuring things out for myself, not being led by the hand, which made it all the more unpleasant when I got to the info-dumpy part that told me “The Thing did not want to leave Mother” and how the warm presence and nice room made it even better. The excellent back-and-forth you did just before that part already took me there, and way more effectively and truer to the subjects.

All things considered, it’s a story that almost demands a bit more sterility and obfuscation. Like don’t tell me the markings on the surface of Mother are “strange” because to these weirdos, it’s all Mother and all good. What’s strange is World, and that’s why they want to go ‘sploring’.

Can’t really bag on you for much Spag stuff; you’ve got a grasp on mechanics it seems, maybe if I’m nit-picking the first four sentences of the story felt a wee bit funky and I thought could’ve been reworded. Can’t really justify pulling points though, mostly because it’s real clean.

So, there’s that, and the ending. With so many unused words, the ending kind of fell flat. It’s good, don’t get me wrong, but how much better could it have been if Other said to Thing, “Must go” and left Thing clinging to its fear. Just where my brain wanted it to go, I guess – something with more textural emotion to ruminate on. As it stands though, strong work and I think you accomplished what you wanted to with this piece. Enjoyed.


*Garza*
*“Don’t Look Back”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 5*
*Tone/Voice: 4*
*Effect: 6*
*Overall: 15*

Quite a nice piece of writing. I liked the conversation, once I got my feet planted. I’m spoiled by the concept of a narrator, one who’s constantly doling out attributions and such, but it’s kind of a nice change to see a consistently told story through the intermediary characters with enough confidence to pull it off. Therefore, the voice is robust by default, though I thought a little tiny bit of something extra was needed since this is, after all, just a conversation.

I’m a jaded SOB, so I have to tell you it’s a bit bland, though there are emotional overtones at the beginning and end, in all the right places. Maybe the piece felt like it wasted a bit too much time on the situational stasis-building, and could’ve used one or two small injections of spice. Like something that happened in the 70s, maybe something to help us form an opinion about these codgers shooting the breeze.

As it stands, it’s like Jimbo telling Billy Bob that everything turned out fine in spite of the ball & chain running off and leaving him with the boy, and he just don’t bother looking back. In that way, it satisfies the prompt but not my yearning for ‘something to happen’ that I approach just about every story with an appetite for. That’s a bit unfair, as you’ve created undeniable characters here, so apologies perhaps that I’m not moved quite enough by the emotional undulations to overlook the lack of booms and crashes and bangs. My immaturity, maybe.

Spag’s good, strong, as we expect. Places felt pretty “reporter-ish” such as using “US Troops” instead of ‘troops’ like this casual, beer-type conversation might want for. Especially with some of the other slang (which, by the way, makes the British use of ‘realises’ stand out pretty bad).

Noticed just one error, I think – *When the fighter finds out, he says “ >>> *I think there should be a comma between ‘says’ and the start of the dialogue. Petty, yes. Not enough to dock you for. Nice work overall.


*NickWolfe*
*“Bitter Sweet”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 3*
*Tone/Voice: 3*
*Effect: 4 *
*Overall: 10*

There’s a cool idea at work here, and I get the sense that it was fun to explore this chaotic world. Some issues with the writing from the outset, starting with the title. For whatever reason, it seems like it should be “Bittersweet” but hey – that’s pickin’.

Voice of the narrator feels overwrought throughout the piece, like maybe too stiff or formal or something. Getting in there a bit tighter, naming the middle-aged woman, for instance, might’ve made the whole situation matter a bit more. As is, I found many of the descriptions and actions written with language that protruded and made the overall landscape of this piece hard to enjoy.

I did like the impending doom aspect of it, just wasn’t quite on the mark.


*Hopeful Writer*
*“Don’t Look Back”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 3*
*Tone/Voice: 3*
*Effect: 3*
*Overall: 9*

So short, it feels like a wasted opportunity. Fun idea though, and whimsical. Something this short really needs to be well written and carry some heavy effect. Thanks for entering.


*W. Goepner*
*“Don’t Look Back”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 3*
*Tone/Voice: 2*
*Effect: 4*
*Overall: 9*

Time-travel stories are fun, aren’t they – always an element of wanting the MC to ‘fix’ some past transgression. This one swirls around and comes close, but ultimately there’s just too much time spent grab-assing and not enough action. Get on with it, and take us with you.

Spag’s a hot mess, mostly just odd phrasing. Grammatically, I struggle to read sentences like: *“…I then try my hand staying in the military, I crash in a helicopter I repaired…”* It’s challenging to know what it’s trying to convey, accurately.
Same goes for this one: *Placing a hand on the mans shoulder, the Dr. asked him, “Is there any thing you would change if you could?” *Could be tightened, shortened, and corrected, probably for greater effect. Many examples of this kind of sentence-level editing needed.

The good thing is, I like your overarching theme. Just need to think about maybe naming your MC, thinking on the science of it all a bit more (focused energy and light), and reading through carefully for readability. Sorry this one didn’t work better for me.


*Smith*
*“Drama-rama”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 4*
*Tone/Voice: 3*
*Effect: 5*
*Overall: 12*

Not super keen on including actual forum users by name in a story, unless of course you’ve asked them first. Maybe you did. Still seems like a throwaway story, so I’m not going to put a whole ton of energy in it. Jamie did this kind of thing and won a year or so ago, but his was really really tight. If you want to jam something like this in the judges’ asses, you’d better come correct with your style.

But, just so you know I’m not totally just being an asshole, … I see what you did there. 


*Ibb*
*“Plummet”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 4*
*Tone/Voice: 3*
*Effect: 6*
*Overall: 13*

This story moved along pretty well. I was intrigued by the parachuting, maybe even perplexed at the ‘why’ of it all. Still, jumping out of a shuttle over the ocean takes balls, and that’s probably the highlight of the story for me.

Something about the opening just didn’t make sense. He’s had ‘sudden, rising bile’ in his stomach ALWAYS? Poor guy. What’s his name?

When the wind buffeted his scalp and formed that purple thing behind him, I couldn’t get a decent image. Is this dude rocking a man-pony? I kid; my point is that we lose a little bit of focus on what we should be thinking about, which is the tension surrounding his huge fucking jump, worrying about hair and scalps and bile.

Anything that doesn’t move characterization forward, or move action forward, should be examined. Probably cut. Things like the ocean’s “slow palpitations of its dark, beating heart” are just over-the-top. Likewise, “his stomach churned once more before it settled” and “A hailstorm of non-belligerent fuck-yous was roundly issued”. I found those asides to take the story nowhere, in fact they serve as fenceposts in the dark, waiting to implant themselves in my unsuspecting groin as I race through the story. Clear the brush. Scrape off some of those barnacles.

All told, I did enjoy the concept and I’m impressed at your bang-on word count. The prompt didn’t exactly feel authentically used, but that’s not always fair to say. The guy dying at the end, “instantaneously” further served to deflate my hot-air balloon of suspended disbelief.


*Dubhthaigh*
*“The Edge”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 4*
*Tone/Voice: 4*
*Effect: 7*
*Overall: 14*

Super dark atmosphere with this one, and if you hadn’t said toward the end “She is glad that she looked back”, I probably would’ve surmised as much. In fact, probably would’ve believed the prompt a bit more, to be honest.

Spag’s pretty dang solid. Got a little froggy as you moved through some of the dialogue, though, so I’ve docked you a point for that.

Voice didn’t bother me, but also didn’t excite me. When the narrative tells me stuff like “She can feel his smile on her back” then I must consider how the writer has used voice to convey the events in the story, and take points off accordingly.

Overall, a very coherent piece, lots to like about it, and sadness abounds. Good stuff.


*Euripides*
*“Misinterpretation”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 4*
*Tone/Voice: 5*
*Effect: 7*
*Overall: 16*

Pretty sound use of prompt, I think. Good dialogue, good ending, good use of Frost’s persona and work. Liked it overall.

Stuff I didn’t like: In the two long paragraphs about MIT, that was the same person talking, right? I idled between them for a moment wondering what was transitioning. Could maybe have done that without ending and beginning the quote marks? Not sure what proper usage says about forum presentation, but I’d have inserted a cough or nervous motion from the narrator in between, or perhaps even identified that she was still droning on.

MIT is a high level school, and getting in there means you go, or so my story-brain told me. Just a minor thing, but a lesser school would’ve been way more believable.

Bluecheese? Maybe Bleu Cheese? Didn’t look it up.
Some spacing issues and one or two other minor punctuation things, where a semicolon should’ve been used in lieu of a comma. Brightly colored needs a hyphen.

Enjoyed it, overall. Thought it held together well and you did a nice job with the breezy ending.


*Anon*
*“Greater Evil Comes”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 5*
*Tone/Voice: 4*
*Effect: 4*
*Overall: 13*

The wicked king comes out of the gate dropping logs! That was awesome.

I think this story does a nice job using dialogue and is edited fairly well. The use of line breaks is overwhelming though, and makes the tone seem very melodramatic. Given the royal characters, the fantasy feel, this is problematic for me to read through with any sense for pacing.

Some weird usage things, odd word choices, like ‘mired her stride’ and the door slamming ‘ever inward’. Things like that stuck out. At the end, when the bad guys are breaking through the door and windows, and the King lowers her into the tunnel, I sort of wondered why we opened this story calling him “wicked”. Seems like he’s actually pretty darn nice, doesn’t it?

At the end, I am just not sure what I read. Feels like we had a scene in a room and then she gets out through the tunnel and the King presumably gets devoured or whatever, but there’s little sense throughout the piece that anything’s on track to resolve any problems.

Still, read through pretty clean and smooth and fast, no real huge hangups besides just not knowing anything about ‘why’. And that’s too bad.


*Ephemeral_One*
*“An Exile’s Return”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 5*
*Tone/Voice: 4*
*Effect: 5*
*Overall: 14*

That first sentence is a great example of trying to pack too many modifiers and info into a small space. I read it a few times, and I think if it hadn’t been for the word ‘high, and mention of the hometown, it could’ve worked. Still, to start the story out that way didn’t exactly put me on track for smooth reading.

There are two places that I questioned: where we see ‘against my orders’ and ‘without my orders’, is the intent that this leader of “monsters” has no control over the horde, or is that some kind of slip? It didn’t seem to make any sense, particularly when I reached the second instance.

Nit picking aside, the story feels out of control. The Empress, MC’s mom, and the old dad who gets the knife, both have no motivations. They show up and do their thing in the story and the overall tension isn’t helped nor hindered by their presence. The MC’s goal is to get in there and take the power back, coming out of exile, do away with the old woman, but buried in all that over-written prose are no clues into anyone’s true nature or situational responses besides the obvious violence. Old dad, when he’s stabbed, throws out a cheeky response about the knife being poisoned, but doesn’t scream, he smiles. Eh?

Cool part about this story, and the most enjoyable thing for me, was how firmly entrenched the stasis is in the world of fantasy. You took off, swords blazing, and didn’t tiptoe at all. Sort of heavy-handed and clumsy overall, but I think it’s worth mentioning how congruous all 645 words are against the backdrop of genre. It was a fun story – sorry if I’ve been harsh in my comments.


*godofwine*
*“Johnny Walker Black”*
*Judge’s Entry*

The old drunk, burdened by heavy guilt. Nice job here – enjoyed the vicarious misery.

Only thing that I didn’t like was how I just didn’t believe he’d be able to get away with it. Surely someone would’ve noticed the totaled car in the neighborhood drunk’s driveway,  especially if there had been survivors at the bus stop.

Also, when the story dropped back into the “He never should have gotten in that car” bit, I felt the tense should have been more fully entrenched in the pluperfect. Like maybe “but he’d only lived two blocks away at the time” or something that really puts the flashback in its appropriate time-frame.

Anyway, cool concept and very cleanly-written story for the most part, just needs a little more realism. Dude pops awake after a blackout-hangover with a little too much cheer, and the atmosphere of addiction felt overtly fabricated.

* Guy Faukes*
*“Escape From Hades”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 4*
*Tone/Voice: 5*
*Effect: 6*
*Overall: 15*

Hard to take the pompous academic seriously, even with excellent musings like “Screw Eurydice” (and six-hundred-odd words of other circular rumination that ultimately seem erudite on the surface but go nowhere), when some of the simple things were overlooked.

Dropping high-octane bombs like ‘rota fortunae’ are legit, provided you spell ‘fortunae’ correctly.

Same goes for ubiquitous literary giants, except when you misspell ‘Hemingway’.

I’m probably extra hard on you for this outcome, because the voice and vocabulary of the piece are really strong. The Hades of your own making, perhaps someone else’s design.

Enjoyed it nonetheless, and applaud your very smart use of the prompt. The overall construction of the writing gets you back a couple points on effect. Nice work.


*Kepharel*
*“No Regrets”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 0*
*Tone/Voice: 0*
*Effect: 0*
*Overall: 0*

No score – sorry, Kepharel. I read this before you pulled it, and thought it was a good story. I hope you’ll enter next round.
[/spoiler2]
[spoiler2=thepancreas11’s scores]

*astroannie
Even the Gods Were Moved
Overall: 14
*


You seem to have the same disease that I do, this need to take the conventional and flip it on its head. You’ll always win extra points with this judge giving normalcy the shrug. I commend you on the buildup too. Even though I knew the story of Orpheus, I wondered whether you might do the same thing to the end of the story that you did to the rest.

I guess it fell flat because it didn’t really move. I felt like the exposition about Orpheus would have been better served as some dialogue, maybe play out the scene in a present kind of tense. It sounded as though she was just recalling it at some kind of Greeks Anonymous meeting by the end.

I wish it had a little more punch; it would have done a little better in the points.


*bazz cargo
The Third Edit
Overall: 13
*


Action-packed from start to finish; a heart-stopping, adrenaline pumping (Ferris Bueller quoting, which wins you extra points) run from the moment she slammed down on the guy’s fingers. The pace of this thing was unbelievable. By the time I looked up, it was over, the girl escaped on to her next escapade. Sometimes these entries can seem a little heavy, but this one had a wispier feel to it.

That being said, it also didn’t have much in the way of character development or resolution, only because I couldn’t figure out what the conflict was. I understand that she’s fighting these strange men, but who are they and what do they want? Who is she and what does she want? I root for her only because it sounds as though she got trapped in the attic or something. I’d like to see some more depth in here, not necessarily exposition. Details, little things, a hundred more words, maybe.

As always though, your stuff get me hyped in some way, whether it be emotionally or in this case adrenergically.


*Plasticweld
Don’t get caught looking back.
Overall: 14
*


Cute, cuddly, a warm read with a bit of an edge to it. Reminds me of my father, actually, and the way he always grumbles when he has to do something for my mother. A story that invokes an image can have real staying power, and this story shows that. I feel like you tell the story out of personal experience, like I’m one of your friends, and we’re just shooting the crap at a BBQ.

I guess it just didn’t feel much like a story until the back third. The first part felt like an elaborate setup for the punch-line. I wish you had spent more time in the scene that mattered, that scene in the mall. If you had made this some kind of argument between the man and his wife, it would have meant more to me.

I think next time, translate it into a scene, and you’ll have a beautiful little piece on your hands.


*T.S. Bowman
Don’t Look Back
Overall: 13
*


This would have been a great story if you had just jumped straight into the action. Honestly, I thought the character and the situation worked for the story and had a lot of humor to them in a satirical kind of way, mocking that bad guy stereotype that we’ve come to know and love. I had no trouble reading through the portion that happened at the end, but I just felt like it could have easily started with him in the car talking about the bullets. It meandered through the first one hundred words a little too much for me.


*Circadian
Mother and World
Overall: 11
*


Ambitious. Perhaps the best abstract birth metaphor I’ve seen in a while, but still, lacked a little luster I associate with more depth.

I thought it had a kind of funny rhythm, this ebb and flow between the two characters. I liked the way they interacted, the way they kind of came into their own. You built a situation from the ground up, a mechanism that I hope you use again. When writing dialogue, people often forget all the different kinds of reactions that you can have, so, by all means, remember this kind of sensory material.

The characters didn’t develop for me. They felt flat, a little ambiguous, plagued by the shapelessness of their names and bodies. If I had felt a little more toward them, I would have given this a better score.


*garza
Don’t Look Back
Overall: 14
*


I don’t know about this one for me.

On the one hand, I tell everyone that dialogue can make a story. I think you definitely showed that here. We don’t need to see the characters to know who they are, what they’ve been through, and where they’re going with their lives. You have a reasonably believable conflict and a resolution on top of that, all of which constitutes a cool story to read.

That being said, I think that the voices didn’t have the consistency I think they needed to pull this off. On the one hand, you have them saying thinks like, “willya?” and “somethin’?” but then you have lines about the “edge of bitterness” that just doesn’t follow in normal conversation, given their speech types. I wish that I could have gotten a little less exposition out of the dialogue too, and I would have made this a top spot for me, if only because I find it resolved and creative.


*NickWolfe
Bitter Sweet
Overall: 12
*


Ah, man. Living never sounded so damn awful to me. I never thought of that kind of thing, which definitely gained you some points. Any time you can get me thinking along a new line, you’ve got me hooked on your writing. I would love to see some more of your stuff.

Great imagery, too. You painted some wonderful, if terrifying, pictures for me to read, some very stylistic and colorful things. I appreciate the amount of time you took to impact the danger of the scene upon me.

I took points because I felt a lot of the sentences got windy. You could lose a few more adjectives and spend a little more time on the plot, if you asked me. Specifics are good, but only to a point (i.e. 50 gallon drum), and if you keep packing them on top of each other, it loses its affect. Similarly, the overuse of figurative language can make that pretty painting all brown.

Good entry. I can’t wait to see another.


*W. Goepner
Don’t Look Back
Overall: 12
*


I think what makes a story interesting is the implication it has on the world in which it exists but also the way it maps on our societies and our lives. Some can do it with a more clever or subtle touch than this time traveling scheme, I must admit, but I would venture to say that your message rings as true and as meaningful as any other I’ve read. Simply, we must live, the best we possibly can; live with your decisions, do the best with the present without the fear of the future or regret for the past. I thought you did a great job of imprinting that thought process on the story and indeed, on me, the reader.

I wish you had actually started with the bit about the two realities crashing into one another because that felt like the most interesting and poignant part of the story. The rest just explained a bunch of backstory, which, to be honest, plagued a lot of entries on this past-driven list. I think that the trap in this competition was trying to avoid delving too much into what was happening and letting the action speak for itself. I think you tried a little too hard to make this work, too, with the amount of sciency info-loading you did towards the middle.

Watch you tenses, focus more on your here and now, and you’ll churn out a killer story next time around, my friend.


*Smith
Drama-rama
Overall: 11
*


I thought this had a more facetious feel, not so much a concentrated story, and I think in that respect, it had a lot of the humor and “drama” that you wanted without so much the weight of a theme, per se. I almost put it in the vein of the mockumentary, which I appreciate as much as the next person, although, to be honest, I think a little less sparkly language would go a long way to keeping the satire going.


*Ibb
Plummet
Overall: 15
*


As someone who has experienced that free-falling terror, I thought you captured it perfectly. All the tense moments, the exchange of “yes” and “no” within the mind, I remember going through all of that. You really translated that event into a story. Too many times, an action simply stays an action, disassociated from the underlying theme or from the character development, and yet, here, you plastered them all together. A great show of talent. I especially approve of the lack of unnecessary movement: everything kind of came together in the end, even the flashback at the beginning.

What would have gotten your more points, you ask? Well, for one, I think a lot of the prose feels forced, like you’re trying to get some of the bigger words in there, as if you need to avoid using some words that you find repellently simple. I would caution you in thinking that way. A lot of times, the most apt manner of speaking can be the most basic. When you read through the words, they should sound conversational, like a story recanted to friends or something. There’s a time and a place for vocab, to be sure, but often, if used incorrectly, it can just muck everything up, flow most of all.

I’d like to see you in more of these competitions though. You could be a winner sooner than you might think. Have you posted in the Prose Writer’s Workshop in a while? If so, let me know. I’d love to give it a read.


* Dubhthaigh
The Edge
Overall: 14
*


My you started strong, I just wish you ended with that kind of power.

The imagery, the nostalgia you stirred up with that first section could bring a grown man to his knees if he read it correctly. Something about her vulnerability and the way you portray it, with that hammer blow of losing Norma to articulate it, just hit me in the diaphragm. I thought not a word got wasted to start things off, nothing felt out of place. You wanted them all to count towards driving both the emotion and the character development, and that you did very well. Almost every entry has been plagued by some kind of exposition, this no different than any other, but yours felt more purposeful.

You definitely lost steam though. By the time you started talking about inching her feet up to the edge, you lost me. That part felt a little drawn out, which means that the tension slackens, kind of like when you overstretch an elastic band. It’s all about the quick movement, the constant pressure, moments from snapping. You can’t hold it there too long, or it simply deforms into a flaccid, rubbery mess. You did well to pick up by the end, but losing some of that overdone suspense could have done you really well in this competition.

I appreciated her victory, it just felt a little less than it could have if I was still practically mourning for her.


* Euripides
Misinterpretation
Overall: 16
*


If it makes you feel any better, I hate poets too, although mostly because I can’t write decent poetry to save my life.

As I’ve said many times in this competition before, if you can take the expected and shove it in someone’s tailpipe, I take my hat off to you. You know, I have often lamented the glorification of this kind of rich and famous idolization, and I think you really appealed to me (whether you knew you would or not) by making some of the simplest things in life seem like such exorbitant pleasures here. Anyone who can take the everyday struggle and turn it into something worth reading wins some serious points in my book.

The only reason you didn’t score higher was because of that kind of wishy-washy paragraph about the things that could have happened. She seemed really conflicted already, and it sapped a little of the energy out of the revelation at the end when little Gavin came in. You could have really bowled me over if you kept that power-train coming. You seemed to hid the brakes a bit.

Regardless, I thought you did an exceptional job here. I loved the way the narrator reacted to things. Clearly, a self-absorbed and simple creature. Not unlike many I’ve ever met.


* Anonymous
Greater Evil Comes
Overall: 11
*


I’m just not sure that this came together for me. Too much of it felt unexplained or out of nowhere. For one, he’s the wicked king, right? So why are we supposed to feel for him? I think word choice would definitely help you out a lot here. I appreciate the sentiments you tried to stir, but the ambiguity really put a damper on them.

The good news is, it didn’t really suffer from that age old problem of info-dumping. I think if you could just find a little balance between showing and telling, where you have just enough of the latter to get the story settled, you’d be a great story writer.


* Ephemeral_One
An Exile’s Return
Overall: 13
*


You often have the ambition, in these competitions I think, to try and set up entire realms with naught but 650 words. Kudos to you for that. I think you have become better at it as time has passed, and I must say, this might be the best in world structure I’ve seen from you. The soap-opera-esque nature of the confrontation with its many winding snarling connections just builds and builds and never stops. I never fear for excitement reading your stuff.

Although, I must say, in certain cases, these fantastical epics can become either confusing or a bit haphazard. I noticed that the ebb and flow of his mind back and forth between hope and doom feels more like you dropped his mind into one of those Plinko games where it rattles around and you don’t know where it will end. Building conflict relies more on a direction, a purpose, fuzzy at times, always uncertain, but definitely strong in its resolve. This kind of swim from one side to the other, from having no hope of living to being king in the space of moments really tramples on that focus you need.

I would like to see you venture out of fantasy in future competitions simply because I think it has become a bit of a comfort zone, not unlike Science Fiction is for me. I think it really makes you start to think about the elements of your stories rather than the plot.


* godofwine
Johnny Walker Black
Judge Entry
*


Hard hitting stuff.

I thought this was one of the better stories because it carried perhaps the most powerful message but in a way that felt very grounded and down to earth. I like the way that you kind of muted the lesson being told here until the very last bit and then just smashed it home.

That flashback could use a little work, though. Often times, drumming up sympathy or anger can be hard when you look back because nostalgia doesn’t really lend itself to either of those feelings. To keep them propped up and free flowing, you need to make the imagery more specific, more in-your-face. This felt blearier. I would have liked to seen him on that morning as opposed to the fogginess of that night.

Keep up the good work.


* Jon M
How is supposed to feel?
Overall: 16
*


Epic sci-fi backstory; very grounded issues. Jon, you have a talent for making things so realistic and moving without boundaries put up by genre. I find reading your pieces often enlightens me to certain ways of thinking, and I appreciate that. Your characters can give me hope and yet frustrate the hell out of me. I don’t know how to deal with addiction any better than they do; you do an amazing job of conveying that helplessness.

Not much to say in negative regards other than that I find some bits confusing. I don’t know what really confuses me, maybe that I don’t understand exactly what kind of world they live in and how they’re addicted, or maybe it’s because I just don’t know what they’re going through.

I’m always glad to see your stuff in this competition. I hope you’ll do the Colors of Fiction sometime soon too.


* CraniumInsanium
Tweaking the Grid
Overall: 13
*


The story fades a little as time goes on. You start strong, building this character and the reality she lives in, but the action simply gets bogged down by the weight of the necessary explanation. I think there might be better ways of injecting the scene with the backstory that leave it a little more free flowing.

I think my biggest qualm was that a lot of it actually seemed unnecessary to her situation and almost on the side of confusing. When you flood a small amount of writing with stuff to hold onto, you make it hard to decipher what we should want and what we shouldn’t.

I think it has promise as an extended story but might be a little too difficult to get out in such a small space.


* Hopeful Writer
An Exile’s Return
Overall: 15
*


Dawwww. Hungry kitty. I love this story. Even though most of it really just led up to a punchline, I think this kind of thing is exactly what flash fiction is supposed to be. I read a story, it gave me the feels, this time towards happiness, I read it quickly and happily, and I’m affected for it.

The ending, while adorable, kind of felt a little too corny for me. The meow would have been enough. That last sentence just didn’t need to be there, I think. Also, the clichés wildly abounding in the terror chase made it seem a little overdone.

Short sweet and worth it. Good stuff, hopeful writer.


* Guy Faukes
Escape from Hades
Overall: 17
*


I loved this story all the way up until the last paragraph where I think it fell flat.

What incredible voice, first of all. You definitely got that angsty teenager with too much intelligence down to a tee. I’ve heard this voice before, but maybe not with this much firepower. I thought you did an impeccable job of employing your vocab and your revved-up speech patterns. I just want you to know, I thought this was the best story that I read, even though it didn’t have much in the way of narrative, only because it had the most relatable and enjoyable feel.

I stole points for that kind of contrived ending. I thought it just sounded a bit forced and overdone. You had a bunch of good directions to take that in, and it didn’t really go that smoothly. Up until that very last paragraph, I thought you did everything right.

So close to something spectacular, good Faukes. Next time!


[/spoiler2]
[spoiler2=amsawtell’s scores]

*astroannie
"Even the Gods were Moved"*

*SPaG: 4.5/5
Tone: 4/5
Effect: 9/10
Overall:  17.5/20*

*Review:
*I love this myth and I feel that you captured Eurydice's voice well--especially since she's hardly in any myths.  I also enjoyed that you went with Eurydice's point of view instead of Orpheus'.

_"And I love him I do, though he is not . . ."
_The "I do" is an aside and should be in two commas.

_"I had a great of time . . ."_
There is a word missing in this sentence.  Perhaps it should be "deal?"

I had very few problems with this other than there's a distance between Eurydice's narration and the events--she feels like she's telling the story by rote and as though it happened to someone else.  I loved the opening paragraph and the details.  I wish there had been more solid description in the rest of the story.


*
Jon M
"How is it Supposed to Feel?"*
*
SPaG:  5/5
Tone:  4/5
Effect:  8/10
Overall:  17/20

Review:
*This is an interesting mental disorder/drug-addiction/break-up story.  I deducted from tone because I felt (oddly enough) as though this needed to be _more_ of a run-on.  I imagined this being told in a few deep breaths quickly so the narrator doesn't start crying.  I felt conflicted having to suggest making run-ons as a judge but in the end I think it will make this a better piece.


*
Bazz Cargo
"The Third Edit"

SPaG:  4/5
Tone:  3/5
Effect:  6/10
Overall:  13/20*

*Review:
*
This is great action with a smart character and I liked the gory finger-skinning scene.

Keff really should have been introduced by name in the first paragraph, because she wasn't introduced by her name until the second I had to go back and re-read to figure out who "she" is--naming her off the bat will also keep the action of the piece flowing smoothly.

I would have liked to have seen some "reason" as to why she was being chased.  The action was well-written and the writing was engaging but Keff doesn't have any goals but to get away and the readers don't know why.

Further, there's no real conclusion or story arc to follow--just mindless action which, combined with no reason for the chase to begin with, makes the whole story feel like an excerpt from a larger piece.

And mimes?  That was an odd detail.


*Plasticweld
"Don't Get Caught Looking Back"

SPaG: 3/5
Tone: 4/5
Effect: 6/10
Overall: 13/20

Review: 

*The narrator's sarcasm comes through loud and clear.  So does his grudging defeat.

I would have more empathy for this guy if he didn't seem so resentful of his wife.  Don't get me wrong--I would probably resent her too--I just found it a bit heavy-handed (I'm with the guy on kayaking).

There are quite a few stray commas and the "emphatic" punctuation gets distracting.  It might work better if, with some of the emphatic sarcastic lines, some were formatted with italics or quotations.  There are other grammatical issues like some of your hyphens are misplaced and there are periods outside of their quotation marks.

My favorite line:  "If you can't be good, be discrete."  That should really be a tee-shirt.


*T. S. Bowman
"Don't Look Back"

SPaG: 4/5
Tone:  3/5
Effect:  8/10
Overall:  15/20

Review:

*I like the hard-nosed mafia vibe this has going.  I think I'd like the narrator in a longer story.

Despite how much I like the story and the character I felt like I've been told this same story before.  Other than his grandma's advice Jimmy doesn't offer anything new.  You did a great job at portraying this poor dumb schmuck and I would love to see more of him--he seems like the good guy that just got mixed up in bad shit.


*Craniuminsanium
"Tweaking the Grid"

SPaG: 4/5
Tone: 4/5
Effect: 7/10
Overall: 15/20

Review:

*This had good action, a solid sci-fi setting, and some interesting concepts.

The heavy use of hard breaks made this read choppy which is great in the action sequences but tedious during exposition.

_"A stray lock of black hair was brushed away . . ."
_This is passive voice and would be better phrased like this: "Kelsaw blinked, rubbed her eyes, and brushed away a stray lock of black hair."

There are actually quite a few places where this slips into passive voice.  You would have had more room to explain things to your readers so they would have a better grounding in this universe had the voice been more active.  This would have been useful because, as a reader, I had no idea what or why the SSF is so bad.

Because we don't know anything about the "evil organization" all we see is that Kelsaw just blew up a spacestation full of innocents.  Without knowing what these guys are about all we can assume is that Kelsaw is a terrorist--a fanatic of some kind.


*Circadian
"Mother and World"

SPaG: 5/5
Tone: 5/5
Effect: 7/10
Overall: 17/20

Review:

*This is very well executed on a technical level.  Despite the technical ability on display there is an emotional (I thought deliberate because of the language) distance, which suits the story well.  This voice is distinct and unique.  I felt a little lost and couldn't really tell what the "character" was.


*Garza
"Don't Look Back"

SPaG: 4.5/5
Tone: 5/5
Effect: 8/10
Overall: 17.5/20

Review:

*You have a great touch with dialect and dialogue--it's always very believable.

I enjoyed this "contenda's" voice but found the change of heart a little abrupt.  Besides the abruptness of the change of heart the tone and character made it believable.


*NickWolfe
"Bitter Sweet"

SPaG: 2/5
Tone: 4/5
Effect: 8/10
Overall: 14/20

Review:

*I'm a fan of apocalyptic scenarios and you've caught an atomic/war-situational apocalypse well without going into tedious political commentary.

This would have scored higher if your grammar had been cleaned up better.  The beginning would have been stronger had the opening line been dropped in favor of "Stephen sat cradling himself . . ."  I suggest this change because we never again are privy to Stephen's thoughts, and because starting with something more concrete captures the reader better than starting with an abstract concept.
_
"It was at the end of . . ."_
This sentence is oddly worded and could be rephrased in several ways.

_" . . . and a middle-aged *women *. . ." "in her eyes."_
Woman.  Women is plural.  The end period should be a comma and there shouldn't be a paragraph break before her dialogue.  Keep tags with the their dialogue, please.

_" . . . helped her stand up."_
Cut "up."  Also in the next sentence "getting to one's feet" implies "standing"--cut one or the other.

Starting at the paragraph about the hazmat suit the story picks up a passive voice (it borders on passive throughout but gets very noticeable here).  Example:  _"Light flashed at his eyes and he became dazed for a few seconds."_  This sentence can be re-written as "Light flashed in his eyes, dazing him until his eyes adjusted." (Which doubles up and gets rid of the next sentence).

_" . . . Looking up and realizing . . ."_
This is a tense shift.  Keep it in past tense.

_"The building is gone."_
I would suggest just dropping this line but if you keep it then *is *needs to be *was.


*_" . . . trudged up the stairs quickly . . ."_
Can one trudge quickly?  These are complete opposites.
_
"When he got to the top . . . gaped in horror . . ."_
Passive voice again.  Gaping implies horror.
_
"The world took on . . ."_
"Took" should be "had taken."  

_" . . . blood was used as food coloring . . ."_
Very odd.  Red in a blue sky wouldn't turn it orange.  Also, who uses blood as food coloring?
_
"Dark clouds . . ."_
Wasn't he just dazed by the brightness?

_" . . . that he had to lost . . ."_
Drop "to."

_" . . . made him stoop over and sob."_
Drop "over."  The act of stooping implies a specific, bent-over position.

With editing this could be a very strong and impactful story about man's destructive tendencies.  I think it could have been stronger if he was the only one huddled in this basement only to emerge to find himself alone.  There was a chance we could have seen a nervousness and loneliness before he left his shelter only to discover that his world really is that bleak.


*Hopeful Writer
"Untitled"

SPaG: 3/5
Tone: 4/5
Effect:7/10
Overall: 14/20

Review:

*[/B][/B][/B]This was a pleasant surprise.  I liked the suspense giving way to silliness.

There are a few punctuation problems and some things are oddly worded.  The tense is odd and shifts between past and present.  This would benefit from shorter sentences to keep the tension up.

This story made me laugh the first time I read it and you did a good job of describing terror without telling us that the character was terrified.


*W. Goepner
"Don't Look Back"

SPaG: 3/5
Tone: 3/5
Effect: 7/10
Overall: 13/20

Review:

*This would make a great longer story.  I think it would work better in a longer format where we can see the lab tests and the guy trying to fix his life in the past.

I have trouble with time travel stories because there is no way for them to end well without a plot hole.  The plot hole in your story is this: if the guy successfully changed his past then the future is also changed--Doctor Davison wouldn't be able to keep tabs of how many times this guy was sent back meaning this isn't a repeatable experiment with the same person.  If the test subject remembers the changes he's made á la "Butterfly Effect" and goes to the researchers with this information they'll believe he's crazy unless he can present incontrovertible proof.

There is a massive tense shift, an "info dump" that isn't needed, some punctuation problems and inconsistencies with how numbers are written.


*Smith
"Drama-Rama"

SPaG: 3.5/5
Tone: 4/5
Effect: 7/10
Overall: 14.5/20

Review:


*Interesting bit of satire.  The first paragraph feels a little clunky and doesn't set up the story as satire very well.  Starting at the line about food and drink this paragraph starts to tell the reader what's going on instead of describing or showing.

"Them and their families . . ."
This felt like a voice change.  The language here doesn't fit with the rest of the story.

"Goepner's" grumbling isn't in quotes.  The time is oddly specific and unimportant.

This didn't strike me as funny but I did have a strong reaction to it which is why I gave this such a high score for effect.


*Ibb
"Plummet"

SPaG: 3/5
Tone: 4/5
Effect: 9/10
Overall: 16/20

Review:*
There are some beautiful metaphors and description here.  You've created a surprisingly touching, poignant piece. I wish your punctuation was better, especially in that first paragraph._

" . . . the shuttle was *alit *. . ."
_"Lit."
_
" . . . and he *awaited *and missed the tug *of* his . . ."_
"Waited" and "tug _on _his."
_
" hesitating at the cliff; and *he* saying . . ."
_"Him."

Cut "dying instantly."  This is the emotional impact and being told this lessens that impact.

Some things I loved: ". . .*gunshot whipping *of the chute."  I also liked that you brought back the idea of bullets and guns later--reinforcing just how deadly this sport can be.


*Dubthaigh
"The Edge"

SPaG: 4/5
Tone: 3/5
Effect: 8/10
Overall: 15/20

Review:

*The impact and tone of this were, for me, damaged by a few things.  First, the readers are made aware that, yes, she is literally standing on the edge of a roof but we are never given that as a setting.  We don't see her standing there staring at the city's distant lights.  Instead we're told about this "darkness."  As a metaphor this falls short because we don't see any description of it--it remains abstract.  The "darkness"--both literal (set at night) and figurative (depression, grief, despair) could have benefitted from a solid depiction.

Second, the exploration of grief and depression is diluted and set aside for a more action-packed revenge story.

Third, the depiction of her husband(?) is so short and obscure that we don't really know why Norma's death was ruled accidental--there is no doubt that he killed Norma, his actions and words make that clear--but he's too much of an enigma.

I would have preferred seeing this story work through Anna's grief and depression without this third malevolent character.  Have her stand on the edge of the roof ready to jump but instead of giving us this monster of a husband(?)  give us flashbacks of Norma.  I would have enjoyed seeing flashback of a quiet, playful moment with Norma and then seeing Anna back on the roof, then seeing the horrible flashback when she's discovered her daughter has died.  Both of those flashbacks would have strengthened Anna as a character and given us more of an idea of who she is.

This is a strong and, potentially, very stirring story.


*Euripides
"Misinterpretation"

SPaG: 4/5
Tone: 4/5
Effect: 6/10
Overall: 14/20

Review:* 

The voice and the story were very believable.

I found the emphasis on certain words distracting (especially STUFF).  Also, most of the well-educated people I know lose the valley-girl accent.

_" . . . who cheats on me by the way."_
Comma needed before "by the way."
_
"I know right?"_
Comma needed before "right."

_" . . . but in the end doesn't sound too great, what about grad school?"_
This is a comma splice, because there's already a conjunction before this second comma make this second one a period and start a new sentence.


*Christina Matsuyama
"Greater Evil Comes"

SPaG: 4/5
Tone: 4/5
Effect: 7/10
Overall: 15/20

Review:*

The writing is clear and straight forward.

_" . . . shards of stained glass falling from around them."_
Were they encased in stained glass?  If not then there needs to be an "all" before "around" or "from" needs to be dropped.

_"Panting, the child looked . . ."_
This is a comma spliced sentence.  There needs to be an "and after the comma or the comma needs to be a period and a "she" needs to be added after "hand" and before "lifted."

There are a few other places needing punctuation.  This story seems to really be from the point of view of the girl, as such would she really think the king is wicked?  If she doesn't then why would we need to be told he is?  Further, if she's a child would she really understand or care about the politics behind the coup?  Also, what is the king's relationship to this girl?


*Ephemeral_One
"An Exile's Return"

SPaG: 3/5
Tone: 3/5
Effect: 5/10
Overall: 11/20

Review:*

There were some interesting details and good elements that hint at a deeper, well-thought out world.

The largest problem, besides numerous punctuation and capitalization issues is the plot-hole.  What is he going to rule over if the city is gone?

There are also some tense issues throughout.  I think an action scene at the beginning where we see these monsters in action would really drive home what a monster Tophen has become.


*godofwine
*judge's entry*
"Johnny Walker Black"

Review:

*I can appreciate a story about a guy trying to stand up and finally do what's right.

Your spelling and grammar are fairly clean and tone is consistent and even.  The major spelling problem I see is that the b_rand name _the story is titled after is misspelled (should be Johnnie).  As far as tone--I've read similar stories before and there's nothing really new about this one.  It was easy to see where this was going.

I think that with some work that this could be a strong story, most especially if Harvey's guilt were left ambiguous.


*Guy Faukes
"Escape From Hades"

SPaG: 5/5
Tone: 4/5
Effect: 5/10
Overall: 14/20

Review:

*Your writing is clean and intelligent.

This is based on my favorite Greek myth--despite my affection for the mythical Orpheus I strongly dislike this rendition.  Don't get me wrong--your writing is excellent--I just dislike the overblown cliché  you've turned him into.  I would have preferred seeing something of his Eurydice _before _the end of the story--give us a reason for the later "Screw Eurydice" line.

How is high school a "Hades of my own design" for him?  It isn't as though anyone chooses to go to high school--in most places attendance is required by law.

I could have empathized with the "screw Eurydice" line had the next line been an accurate interpretation of her character.  In fact, I would drop everything after "Screw Eurydice" to end on a strong note.
[/spoiler2]
[spoiler2=kilroy214’s scores]

*astroannie
Even the Gods were Moved
SPaG:  4.5    Missing word, missing comma
Tone:  5
Effect:  7
Total:  16.5*

A well told rendition of the Greek myth told from the perspective of Eurydice.  It was fairly clean SPaG-wise for the most part, and read well, and I believe this was a very factual retelling of this classic epic.
My only problem is it is a little dry.  It is a classic tale that we have heard many times, and though told from a different point of view, but to me it did not really convey anything new of fresh to a tale that could use a new and fresh perspective.


*Jon M
How is it Supposed to Feel?

SPaG:  4.75
Tone:  5
Effect:  9
Total:  18.75*

I have to admire the use of stringing this as a stream of consciousness.  I like it, and it worked perfectly here.  If fact, this is one of those instances where you could James-Joyce this bad boy up Finnigan's Wake style and make it one long run-on sentence.
I loved the vibe of it being a possible quasi-science fiction/dystopian tale without it coming right out and saying it.  The real shine here is how you describe some real nitty gritty scenes, images really, so they become perfectly clear in the reader's mind's eye, and it is so vivid that it becomes almost beautiful.  This story came to life to me, a quality which is something all writers (should) strive for.


*bazz cargo
The Third Edit

SPaG:  4.5
Tone:  4
Effect:  8
Total:  16.5*

A gnarly bit of action here, I especially enjoyed the finger stripping scene.  There were a few odd word choices made, I thought.  Dived instead of dove, eye instead of eyes.  I also felt the fourth paragraph's opening sentence could have been broken into two sentences.

The action is well described and choreographed.  At no point was I confused by the action sequences.  I was able to see what I was reading as well. 

I was slightly confused at some points, specifically when thought dialogue popped up.  It gave me pause in most, and I think re-formatting these parts to be italicized or quoted would cease any confusion.  I also thought the character's name should have been introduced in the first paragraph, the beginning of the second sentence even.  I believe having her name early would allow the reader to identify with the character right off the bat.

I know you struggle to fill words here, and by itself, the story is great, but there was room to tell us, perhaps, who is chasing Keff and why, which I think would bring more clarity to the piece.


*Plasticweld
Don't get caught looking back

SPaG:  3
Tone:  3
Effect:  7
Total:  13*

I though this was an interesting take on the prompt and can kind of relate to a certain degree (don't tell amsawtell!)

There were some things that stood out to me.

Being the loving husband that I am, "AKA pussy whipped."  -- is a fragment sentence, the AKA does not go in the quotations and neither does the period.

I been the one... -- I've or I have. Actually, the sixth paragraph seems to repeat itself that it is now "up to me" him to entertain or set things right.

My version of (something)... -- I didn't understand why parenthesis were used here and the others.

"We should go down to Little Lake and put in the Kayaks."  -- Kayaks does not need to be capitalized.

There were also several instances where commas had been placed and didn't need to be (This, was not a question - I think, I am already dressed fine)

I also felt confused by the use of starting off putting special text in quotations, then in parenthesis, and the it is hyphenated later on.  One of these works fine, but all three used throughout only confuses the reader.

The ending also felt a little out of place to me, as well, I felt it was an odd ending for what the story lead up to.


*T.S. Bowman
Don't Look Back

SPaG:  4.5
Tone:  5
Effect:  8
Total:  17.5*

A nice man-on-the-run tale that reads as though we're hearing Jimmy's inner monologue.  It is authentic sounding and could almost be a scene from a gangster movie.

A few things stuck out to me, namely the missing comma before the dialogue at the beginning of the second paragraph.  I think in this instance "no neck" should be hyphenated.

I run into Mc Doogle's department store -- should be McDoogle (one word)

...then start working my way, head below...  -- I think this was supposed to read "my way back"

My shoulders slump... -- I thought this sentence read a little clunky

...back toward the main entrance... -- should read "towards"

I have to applaud the story, for I tend to dislike most stories set in first person perspective.  This story, however, I felt was perfect for this perspective, and flowed well in the style.


*CraniumInsanium
Tweaking the Grid

SPaG:  4  missing comma's and missing apostrophe
Tone:  3
Effect: 7
Total:  14*

First and foremost, what is with all the breaks?  There really is no paragraphical structure here, and I could not understand the reasoning for this.
This sci-fi story is sound and seems like it could be the start of a much larger, interesting tale.  However, I feel like a lot of things told in this story could have been cut to allow more plot driving pieces of the story to be added, giving the story some coherent depth.
There was also a lot of telling and not showing.  It felt like there was more to this story that was cut to fit the word count, and left some things a bit confusing.

They were too powerful, and she was bringing them down.  Not just their project here, but with the data she had stolen. -- this sentence did not make any sense.

When she walked back out, her black bangs and pony tail had been rep[laced by blonde hair that fell down her back. -- how did this happen?  She was just in a bar.

The flex drive kicked in the sublight engines... - ...engaged the flex drive, blindly jumping away... -- is the flex drive for sublights or a hyperdrive?

Blown power cores usually became black holes... -- 1. How? 2. Did she just destroy the whole planet?  If so, doesn't that kind of make all the sneaking, clandestine stuff pointless?  And that makes her a pretty bad person too.

Like I said, I feel like there's a solid story here dying to get out, but some things, like the Medcenter scene, could have been cut down to a few short sentences that would have left room for a tense scene of her actually being chased by the SSF agents she's so afraid of, but we never really see any of them.
Or explain what they're doing that is so horrible that she wants to bring them down.
Or how she came to possess the information to bring them down.
It just seems like too much is trying to fit into this story, and a "less is more" approach would do this a world of good.



*Cicadian
Mother and World

SPaG:  5
Tone:  4
Effect:  8
Total:  17*

A strange tale, if there were subtle clues to give the reader an idea of exactly who the Other, Mother or Thing were, I did not pick up on them (though only I can be blamed for that).

Even though this piece struck me as completely atypical, it was enjoyable all the same.  It was not too obscure or aberrant, and the subject matter was something the reader might not know any exactness, with the setting and characters, it is something that I believe is easily relatable.  Almost like watching a child roll over for the first time, or a pinup leave its mother's side for the first time.

I feel this story capturers the draw that almost all things feel towards the power of curiosity, and the reservations all have felt at the moment we ventured out of our comfort zones.



*Garza
Don't Look Back

SPaG:  4.75
Tone:  5
Effect:  8
Total:  17.75*

a discussion between two barroom buddies lamenting about the 'good ole days' and what could have been.  I felt the atmosphere was well set even though it is described in short sips.  It called to mind an image of an old VFW hall with faded pictures of Raquel Welsh on the wall nicotine stained stucco covered in Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine posters (and maybe a Coast Card bumper-sticker on a wheezy old jukebox).

This story has a breath of life to it, almost as though you aren't really reading it but overhearing this conversation from a few seats over.

It is easily relatable, at least to readers who had children, because no matter how well you are prepared for it, your life gets put on hold for them.  But in the end, all will agree they wouldn't change that part of their lives for all the adventures the world could have offered.


*NickWolfe
Bittersweet

SPaG:  2
Tone:  4
Effect:  7
Total:  13*

No competition is complete without a post-apocalyptic tale of horror, at least in my opinion, anyway.
The narrative here has a nice flow to it, the scene shifts and transitions are east to follow, and even though I have no idea what surviving a nuclear holocaust would be like, I feel like this is a fairly realistic approach of what would happen.
There were a few things that gave me pause, however:

For one, the word "geothermal" does not need to be capitalized.

"It was the end of the day that marked 12 days when Stephen got up..."  --  this sounded very awkward as I read it.  I think 'It was the end of the twelfth day' would have sufficed.

"...to see how the rest of civilization fares."  --  should be 'fared'.

"...a middle aged women replied..."  --  should be 'woman'.

"...her stand up...got onto their feet and stood ... to the western wall... make him stoop over ..."  --  all the underlined bits could be removed to streamline the story a bit.  The "got on the feet and stood" bit is redundant any way as getting to one's feet implies that they are standing up.

"...and _realizing_ that the staircase up lead..."  --  should be 'realized' and again, unnecessary words.

"The building is gone."  --  should be 'was gone'.

"...trudged up the stairs quickly..."  --  this is a contradictory statement, you cannot 'trudge' 'quickly'.

"...gaped in horror."  --  not necessarily bad, but a little cliché.  I feel that leaving it with "He gaped." would be enough.

"The world took on..."  --  should be 'had taken' instead of 'took'.

"...as if blood had been used as food coloring..."  --  this simile does not feel like it works.  Blood as food coloring just seems...weird.

"...the realization he had to lost everything..."  --  extra word that does not belong.

I think the description of the new world as a wasteland could have been made grander and described a little bit more in depth.  All in all, with some clean up, this could be the set up for a great post-apocalyptic story.



*Hopeful Writer
(untitled)

SPaG:  3
Tone:  4
Effect:  6
Total:  13*

A bit of thriller-turned-comedy that left me saying, "Ah, f
**ing cat!"
I think the 'person being chased" scene you've set up was a great way to convey the prompt.  Some things that stood out to me:

"In my hurry, I rushed through, forgetting to close and lock it behind me."  --  In an action thriller, you want the words to pour out fast so the reader can almost fly though them because you've got them on the edge of their seats.  You want to use as little commas as possible, because commas slow the action and give the reader pause.  So this becomes..."
In my hurry to rush through, I forgot to close and lock it behind me."  You could also cut off the 'behind me' as it is already implied.

"...I slid on the apparently freshly mopped floor..."  --  I feel the word "apparently" is extremely unnecessary here.  It is a shot of sarcasm in what should be an intense moment.  Also, slid on doesn't quite sound right. "I slipped on" of  "slid across" should be how it reads.

There were a couple SPaG hiccups, mostly with punctuation, there are a few unnecessary commas, periods where commas should have been used and vice versa.

"...its body pressing against me."  --  should be 'pressed'.

"...and pull the blanket..."  --  'pulled'

Although this feels complete as is, I believe with almost 400 words left over, some extra description and more scenes could have been added to ratchet up more tension.  Perhaps of the attack that started in the chase, or a scene of false security where the person thinks they are safe only to find they are in more danger than ever.
Even with a somewhat silly ending, the thrill factor could have been cranked up a few notches.

[*]W. Goepner
Don't Look Back

SPaG:  3.5 - missing punctuation (mostly apostrophes), extra punctuation, tense shift, doctor not spelled out
Tone:  2
Effect:  6
Total:  11.5

Time travel and the woulda, coulda, shoulda's.  If only.
The concept here is sound and interesting, although a few things threw me off.  For one, the 9th, 10th, and 11th paragraphs are complete info dumps.  This would have been great opportunity to insert this information through conversation between two characters.
The reader is just handed this information, and it really just halts the story, as none of it really moves the plot forward.  The reader does not even really need to know any of this to follow the story.

The tense shift halfway through the story lead to even more confusion, because where it happens, I could not tell if it was intentional or not.

As a fan of sci-fi, I am usually wary of time-travel stories or tales of temporal anomalies and what not.  This tale is a great example of the Grandfather Paradox:

If the volunteer was sent back to fix all these things to give him a better life only to be warned by his future self to not do it, and he doesn't; how then does he get a "future self" to come back and warm him?  He doesn't.  So there's no one there to stop him from trying.  And it just goes around and around.

Also, this story leads the reader to believe this is their first try only to find out at the end it is the 22nd.  If it's only to see if the sending a person back works, meeting their volunteer's future self would prove that it had, successfully, so why send him back 21 more times.
Furthermore, if each time he's sent back results in him having a crappier life, it seems like sending him back 21 more times is a bit excessive.  I would think after the third or fourth time, they'd be like, "F
[*]* it, dude, sucks to be you.  Let's get a different volunteer."
In any case, why are the scientists even interested in helping this guy fix his past problems?  They just want to see if it works, they don't have to time or the funds to help this guy fix all his regrets.

[*]Smith
Drama-rama

SPaG:  3
Tone:  5
Effect:  5
Total:  13

I truly feel satire is a dying art.  And I have to give you kudos for you use of it here.  You do an excellent job of setting a scene and capturing character mood and attitude description.
That being said, I believe using member's handles, with or without consent, disclaimer aside, was in poor taste.

[*]Ibb
Plummet

SPaG:  3
Tone:  5
Effect:  11
Total:  19

First off, before anything, I would highly suggest going over this story with a fine toothed comb, specifically to fix punctuation errors, mostly in the first paragraph.  I wasn't really feeling the semicolon or colon usage either.

"You didn't fucking do it," Nicholas kept shouting..."  --  I think an exclamation point at the end of the dialogue should have been used here.  Also, if this is still a flashback, I would suggest adding 'had' between 'Nicholas' and 'kept'.

"...fuck yous was roundly issued."  --  not really a problem, but I feel 'fuck yous' should be in quotations.

"...and he saying: "Have fun..."  -- should be 'him saying".

I would also highly suggest cutting 'dying instantaneously' from the end, and leave that for the reader's imagination.

All that being said, I loved this story.  The way human emotion of fear and passion as well as the setting, were beautifully described.  The metaphors were wonderful, I especially liked the ones about the sea.
This was a terrific story to read, and I enjoyed it very much.  I would have liked to have given it a 20.


[*]Dubhthaigh
The Edge

SPaG:  4
Tone:  5
Effect:  7
Total:  16

I found this to be a very intense tale of sorrow, loss, and revenge.  The revenge aspect was a nice twist and was glad to see you didn't go down the road of "evil baby-daddy's dead so now I can live a happy life" happy ending.  It was nice to see that even though she gets her revenge, it does not make things magically better.

My biggest concern here was the lack of dialogue tags (commas, periods).  While I understood their absence was intentional, I could not understand why.
There were few places it seemed commas were missing.

'It's not my darkness, she realizes with a...'
'...of the regional hospital, there had been no...'
'a small movement of the hand, that's all it takes.'

There was also a small error in spacing near the end of the piece.

I though you did well with your vivid descriptions and simile use, and likes that though this is a very emotionally driven piece, the emotions did not seem overly done or made elaborate.  You allowed them to go were they'd go, and that was nice.

[*]Euripides
Misinterpretation

SPaG:  4
Tone:  4.5
Effect:  7.5
Total:  16

Oh the woulda, coulda, shoulda's in life.  I though it was interesting to see how this kind of story played out from a female's perspective.  I though the setting was well depicted and paced comfortably.
A couple of things I caught right off the bat was the use of the word 'Gawd'.  I am torn by this, because, as it is, it is a misspelled word, deliberate, yes, but it is so glaringly deliberate!  I did not take off for it because I thing it describes the way she phonetically says the word perfectly (caught a bit of 'valley girl'), I would suggest italicizing such words in the future to ensure the reader it is a special text.

The other was the "STUFF" in all caps. I do feel that all caps was not the right choice here.  If you were emphasizing the word, I think italicizing, again, or inner quotations, would have been a better, because I feel that conveys a stressing on the word, which is what, I think, you were going for. 
A word in all caps, to me, is to emphasize a rise in volume, like she suddenly shouts that word "STUFF", which is not what, I think, you were going for.


[*]Greater Evil Comes
Christina Matsuyama

SPaG:  4
Tone:  2
Effect:  6
Total:  12

I have to say, while reading this, I felt like I was seeing an excerpt from a larger piece that had all the vital information need to fully comprehend what was going on.

For one, in the 6th paragraph, we're told the kind is a fairly descent man, bun at the beginning of the story he's introduced as the 'wicked king'.  If the people in this story think he's wicked, that is their purview, but why is he introduced in this fashion to the reader if it is not true?  To be honest, why is it necessary to tell the reader he's wicked at all?  The reader to come to that conclusion themselves by observing his actions.

If the people are revolting, it's not really important to say he was falsely branded wicked and now they want his head.  In a short piece as is this, all that matters is the people are revolting and want his head and again, the reader can conclude from his thoughtless actions to save the girl that he's a good person and there must be something amiss with the people's motives.

SPaG seemed fairly clean throughout, with the exception of a few places, most importantly, here:

"Panting, the child looked into the light that filled the hall, with her free hand lifted the pretty skirt that mired her stride."

One of two words needs to be inserted to make this sentence work  --  "...,and with her free hand..." or "...,with her free hand, she lifted..."

"...shards of glass falling from around them."  --  falling all around them.

"...rows of weapons military and rural stood black..."  --  missing commas, "weapons, military and rural,  stood black..."

I was also very confused by the relationship between the kind and the girl.  It's never really said, but I kind of assumed they were father and daughter, though the story seems to imply they are not.  Which raises the question; who is she and why is she so important?  We never know.
I also though that the king's parting remarks made little sense, again, it felt like something we were reading out of context. 

It was set up to be somewhat thrilling, sad escape scene and all, it was just that so much seemed to depend on information existing outside of the tale itself, the reader is never allowed to fully connect to the story, and it falls flat.

[*]Ephemral_One
An Exile's Return

SPaG: 2
Tone: 3
Effect: 6
Total: 11

Dude's got some mommy issues. Obviously some daddy issues as well.
It felt like there was a lot of story trying to get out of this piece and the reader was being overwhelmed. A lot of this information is not even important to the plot of the story and could have been cut. one of my biggest concerns was how in the first paragraph, Tophen and his army seem to all but be on the brink of defeat, and razing his home town in the process, and he fears his own men will kill him before the opposing forces do. Either that or he is just extremely pessimistic, because suddenly they're storming the palace gates and are all but victorious. His monster army are setting the city on fire against his order and are apparently plotting his murder, and then follow him to the palace without being ordered to like well disciplined soldiers.

Why are we never told what the monsters are? Or at least described? All the reader is told is they are vaguely humanoid and have claws that can rend metal, but also have opposable thumbs because some prefer to use weapons. Which brings me to this:

"...hooked spears." -- A hooked spear? Isn't that an oxymoron? Did you mean a Bill? Or a Scythe? Or a Pick?

"...in a white suit..." -- A suit of what? Armor? Armani?

His father seems to hate him for what he's doing right up until he's killed by Tophen, and then he's all for Tophen's ascension. Why didn't he just defect to Tophen's side and skip the dying part?

All this is leading up to his encounter with his mother, which sounds like it would be epic. I was expecting her to be some kind of sorceress or cleric with insane powers! (My inner D&D nerd got the better of me) But we never see it. The reader is told the major conflict Tophen has is with his mother several times throughout, we see him fight his father, and then the story ends. It was kind of a let down.

"...and the king I was going to have to be tomorrow." -- Dude's not going to be kind of jack shit if his army is torching the city to the ground. Something tells me if he does kill mommy and becomes king, he's not going to want the job once he sees what his little family feud has done to the kingdom.

I think if the story had started at the Tophen/Daddy confrontation, there could have been potential for an emotional, intense fight. Then on to hack up mommy with even more intense, emotional conflict which would have given readers a connection to the characters and story. There was just too much trying to be told here in this confined word count that I think the real story was lost.

[*]godofwine
Johnny Walker Black


SPaG: n/a
Tone: n/a
Effect: n/a
Total: Judge's Entry, so... n/a

This was a well tailored piece about guilt and remorse, and how both of those things can eat away at a person until it completely consumes them. I especially liked that it finally drove him to turn himself in.

My biggest nit..."YOU MISSPELLED JOHNNIE WALKER BLACK, MAN!" Now I sound like the raging alcoholic, knowing how scotch brands are spelled (I was always a J&B man myself)

This also seemed predictable somewhat because of the Urban Legend of drunkard drives home drunk, wakes up late for work the next morning and rushes into his garage to find a little girl/hobo/little old lady/etc... imbedded in the grill of his car.
And while I like that the twist is he turns himself in at the end, I fell the story could have been stronger if his guilt is left ambiguous, like maybe he did kill all those people, or maybe he didn't kill all those people.
He could have spent years going insane, checking the dents in his car (which if he's a drunk I'm sure he's hit things before and I can assume dents are aplenty. One from a; mailbox, deer, street sign, parked car, fence, etc...) trying to remember if they had been there before that night or not.

Because all empathy for the guy is lost by the reader when we're told he is guilty. We feel like he ultimately gets what he deserves in the end. If his guilt or innocence is never confirmed, the reader can commiserate with the character and are torn over how to feel about the situation.

[*]Guy Faukes
Escape from Hades


SPaG: 5
Tone: 5
Effect: 3
Total: 13

As I read along with this story, I was right there with the character, agreeing with the description most bright, atypical thinkers feel about high school and how this was an interesting take on the classic Greek tale.

By the end of the second paragraph, however, I was kind of hoping the story ended with the character meeting some kind of demise.

There were virtually no SPaG issues other than a spacing error I'm chalking up to a formatting error, and am willing to overlook, and the tone was incredibly strong.
The lament of this kid through this narrative just felt so whiney and smarmy and emo I wanted to slap the eyeliner right off his face. I felt bad feeling this way, seeing a beautifully worded narrative seemingly devolve into a self righteous, self-proclaimed non-conformist's manifesto.

I also did not understand the first line. How is this a Hades of his own construction? How did he build this self-made hell?

I really hope this kid gets on some Zoloft, before it is too late.
*
*
**[/spoiler2]**
[spoiler2=godofwine’s scores]

Even the Gods were Moved - astroannie
SpaG: 5
Tone/voice: 5
Effect: 9
Total 19/20

Being named for one of the Gods, Dionysius, I feel a special connection to stories of the Gods. This piece was flawless. Down to the knowledge of the Gods, I felt compelled to Google the Gods mentioned and research their relevance. It is amazing how they are forgotten about in today's writings, so this was refreshing. 


Jon M - How is it Supposed to Feel?
SpaG: 1
Tone/voice: 3
Effect: 3
Total 7/20

This one surprised me. I looked at the creds next to the user and looked at the text and it didn’t fit, I expected more. First of all it is a difficult read as one singular paragraph, but as a published poet/songwriter I expected more. I am not the superior when it comes to commas, but it seems commas were thrown around on this piece haphazardly, like ninja stars. Many were unnecessary to say the least. 

I could see with your word choosing that you were trying to take me somewhere, I just didn’t know where and was even more confused when I got there. Maybe if this were properly formatted I could judge this more fairly, but as it stands it loses me. 


Bazz Cargo - The Third Edit
SpaG: 5
Tone/voice: 5
Effect: 9
Total 19/20

Aww, man. Where's the rest? Excellent way of building story that was gripping and still 200+ words short of the limit. I could see it. The whole thing. Some don't, but I love stories that seem like snippets of a larger piece, because I write the same. It makes me wonder what the backstory is and what the future holds for the character. 


Plasticweld - Don’t get caught looking back

SpaG: 4
Tone/voice: 4
Effect: 9
Total 17/20

Only a few SpAG errors - the ones that make you seethe after you've posted (I been vs I've been). Not a master, but I'd guess that parenthesis (something) should have been italicized vs encased in parenthesis. Again, not a master, but I believe the proper way of writing the passage later on is "I know better than to argue with her - been there, done that." You went with the double dash at times and that is not necessary, and it is also redundant to team it or the single dash with a comma. Just words to grow on. 

When you said you were going to the mall I knew exactly where you were going with it. This is a walk through every man's mind/life at some point in his life - numerous times in most men's lives. Even though I knew the road, I enjoyed being lead. From not doing what you want to do and caving in to what she wants - we always cave - the familiarity was palpable. Not being able to dress yourself and being sent back upstairs was classic. It melted right in to the ending, the brunette and the "don't you dare" moment. The entire piece was familiar because I've been there before.


Don't Look Back 564 Words - T.S.Bowman
SpaG: 4
Tone/voice: 4
Effect: 8
Total 16/20

A man after my own heart. An "excerpt" story. A piece that one would swear was pulled from a larger piece of work, but is actually its own singular piece of work. It starts on the run. The only critique I have is the use of parenthesis, which I believe should be replaced by dashes (i.e. grandma's (God rest her soul) should be grandma's - God rest her soul - ), but other than that it is pretty good. Some fool outthinking himself trying to be clever when he isn't. 


Tweaking The Grid - Michael Pileggi
SpaG: 3
Tone/voice: 4
Effect: 8
Total 15/20

Format errors are killer. You have the 10 minutes to edit it, just take the time. Good start, but reading it I felt that Kelsaw was used far too often, and a use of "she" twice in one sentence was evident, so a mix of pronouns would help in the future. Very visual, and I could see what you were attempting to do, which is great. Creating a new world from scratch is difficult, but you did a pretty good job at it. It is almost sad that this story is compressed to 650 words, because it could be so much more. I'm sure you, as I often do, have the entire world mapped out in your head when you close your eyes. Syfy is big. Work on the art of writing a little more and see about turning this into a novel because it is wasted when there isn't enough room. It is as if your idea was forced into an apartment when you really need a 3000 sqft house. Write more. 


Mother and World - Circadian
SpaG: 5
Tone/voice: 2
Effect: 4
Total 11/20

I didn't fully get what was going on. I read it multiple times and got it a little more with more reads. It was different, yes, but a kind of different that I just didn't truly get.


Don't Look Back - Garza
SpaG: 5
Tone/voice: 5
Effect: 10
Total 20/20

Can I be like you when I grow up? Each character had his own voice, even though there wasn't a single, "Mark said" or "Alan said." No mentioning of names, but you knew the different characters. Not a single "said", not a single name, and yet each character was different. Sounds like regret, but not really - not even close. No mentioning of location other than a bar in Somewhere USA. I don't know if many other writers could have done it so well, cut out all of the fluff, the details about the background environment and kept only the words of the two guys. Then, you didn't bother to distinguish either of the two guys with a name, but to only have two guys who were obviously different with no more explanation needed. Flippin' masterful. 


Bitter Sweet (643 words) - Nickwolfe
SpaG: 4
Tone/voice: 4
Effect: 7
Total 15/20

An end of the world piece. The lines, "The world took on an orange glow, as if blood was used as a food coloring in the sky." were an accurate painting of a picture. There were no major errors in this piece other than small manner of format errors. This was good work. It didn't stand out negatively, but gave me what I expected to see given the subject matter.


Don't Look Back - Hopeful Writer
SpaG: 4
Tone/voice: 4
Effect: 8.5
Total 16.5/20

Not all together sure how it is supposed to be done, but 'Don't look back I repeated to myself' is supposed to have some kind of punctuation in it even when speaking to yourself or creating thought. Next time I would like to see a title and the amount of words, even back on the workshop area - it just looks better. 

The funny thing about this piece is that it could be totally harmless, or some lab creation gone awry and the result was some insanely large cat capable of eating you alive. Or, it could have been just a man playing with his cat. At 260 words, I would have liked more explanation as to what exactly was going on, or maybe you did it exactly as you did, slyly letting us merely taste dinner on a spoon before being sent back upstairs with a message from mom that 'dinner will be ready in an hour.' Enjoyed the "White girl in a scary movie" act of a person choosing the absolute wrong place to escape what they'd hoped to evade. 


Don't Look Back (643 words) -W.Goepner
SpaG: 4
Tone/voice: 5
Effect: 9
Total 18/20

The abbreviation Dr. should only be left there if there is a name following it. Otherwise it is spelled out, ‘doctor’ (pretty sure). Even with the minimal errors I feel a personal connection to a well-told return to the past/back to the future story. We all have things we wish we could change, but this was a great way to capture the theme, "Don't look back." As a movie buff, I am reminded of when Warden Norton and Byron Hadley visited Andy Dufresne in his cell when considering the errors. Hadley said, "A little contraband here, but nothing to get in a twist over.” 


Drama-rama (543 words) - smith
SpaG: 4
Tone/voice: 4
Effect: 8
Total 16/20

Like the blue jay in your avitar in the glasses, "I see what you did there." This has snark written all over it. If this was last month I would be in this because I spoke about my story as they did. Enjoyable involving other members in your entry being a wiseacre without seeming to be a wiseacre. An enjoyable story if you knew the characters of this piece as we all do. I guess he doesn't want us talking about our stories until the judging is done, huh? Not so subtle - haha


Plummet - Ibb
SpaG: 5
Tone/voice: 4
Effect: 7.5
Total 16.5/20

Some sticky sentences in there that I would have written differently. A descent into death. I had to read it twice to get the flashback - and also because I am reading it a little sleepy, but I got it. Very elegant picture you painted of the sea and the world around it. The sticky sentences are what dropped the score a bit, but was a good piece. I don't know how you plummet and fall "quietly" to the grassy floor, that didn't make any sense to me. Really well written outside of the sticky points that lead to the re-reading it. 


dubhthaign - The Edge (644)
SpaG: 5
Tone/voice: 5
Effect: 9
Total 19/20

Powerful. So deep it was almost personal. I love writing like that. When you write something and someone says, "I'm sorry," and you have to explain that it just fiction. Really good stuff. 


Euripedes - Misinterpretation 
SpaG: 5
Tone/voice: 5
Effect: 8
Total 18/20

The road not taken by Robert Frost. I was made to learn it during High School English and can still recite it word for word. Nice to see it in an entry. Very interesting way of looking at Frost's poem. Screw the road not taken. Some people may not like the filler stuff, like the salad dressing on the leg, but that works fine with me. I like a fully painted picture of a house, even if it accidentally includes the neighbor's flowers. 

Anonymous - Greater Evil Comes
Christina Matsuyama

SpaG: 5
Tone/voice: 5
Effect: 9
Total 19/20

Reading stories like this make me long for whatever this author has in their writing for me to have a sliver of it in mine. Protecting someone else's life in spite of your own, sacrificing your own is the most noble. There are pieces of the story that the reader must assume, the why the rebels are attacking, it doesn't matter, but one wonders. The story seems interesting and I wanted the rest - the before and after. Sadly, it is a shorty, so that’s it.


Ephemeral_One - "An Exile's Return"
SpaG: 5
Tone/voice: 5
Effect: 9
Total 19/20

I love revenge. Two of the novels I have started writing are based in this subject matter. There is no more fulfilling feeling, and the writer - the good ones, can draw the reader in with returning to pay a debt - even without knowing what the debt truly was. Great dialogue, and first person which is not often done this well. I can see the fire in the exiled man's eyes storms the palace in search for his mother. The fly move with the hidden knife. Nice piece


Guy Faukes - Escape from Hades
SpaG: 5
Tone/voice: 5
Effect: 8.5
Total 18.5/20

The classrooms of our childhood and the hell of which they seem. Wonderful symbolism. I remember feeling the same way as I sat there - though maybe not so darkly. A very dark way of looking at the tortures of school. Very creative wording to something many of us have felt.
[/spoiler2]*


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## Ariel (Aug 31, 2014)

Congratulations to all the entrants. Thank you to all my fellow judges.


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## aj47 (Aug 31, 2014)

Thank you judges!  And Fin!


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## Guy Faukes (Sep 1, 2014)

Thanks to the judges for taking the time and effort to evaluate the pieces and Fin for neatly putting them in an accessible and easy-to-read format.


*Terry D* - It's ironic, because I normally complain about other people's work when they're being too purple and melodramatic. I'll definitely tone back the black eyeliner next time, haha.

*Pluralized* - "provided that you spell fortunae right"... you know, I've taken Latin in college and looked at that goddarn word a dozen times and I never noticed that. Oi.  
And I agree, there's something contemptible about something that just skids underneath it's potential. I got some work to do with the fundamentals. 
(Btw, some aren't my cup of tea, but I got nothing against the classics. Teenagers in high school, you know?)

*thepancreas11* - I'm really not good with complements, haha. Thank you, I'm definitely flattered! It was exactly my intent to make it a smooth, snarky reflection of an uncomfortable time, and I'm happy that you enjoyed it. :02.47-tranquillity:
The ending was definitely a bit too rushed and overdone. It was hard finding something in pace with the story that felt conclusive. What sort of directions would you have taken the ending? 

*amsamtell* - there's probably a lot more to Orpheus and Eurydice, but I remember thinking "of course she'd be the one to screw up" when I read the tale back in high school. 
I like (trying) to write complex and believable characters, but I got a bit too self-indulgent on this one. Thanks for the critique!

*kilroy214* - LOL. When I was writing it I thought "this is really, REALLY angsty. That's gonna cost me." 
I grew up just before emo became popular, so it surprised me how much this actually came across as being emo. The intention was for it to be a consistently dark and snarky reflection of an uncomfortable time, but slopped on the melodrama too much. I gotta add different tones and elements. Thanks! I know how to ground out and develop this sort of voice. 

*godofwine* - thank you! School could sometimes be just a load of garbage, and kids can take it in different ways.


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## T.S.Bowman (Sep 1, 2014)

I want to thank all the judges for their time and effort. I couldn't be happier with the feedback I have gotten. I'll proudly take my tenth place finish and go merrily on my way. *thumbsup*

The story I entered was my first ever, other than the few lines of the Charon story idea, try at writing something in straight First Person. I guess I didn't hack it up quite as badly as I thought. 

I think I may get a slightly different version of Jimmy's flight in the works, take some of the feedback I got and put it to good use.


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## garza (Sep 1, 2014)

Thank you judges for your generous scores and, more important, your comments which will be added to my personal LM archive in the same folder as a copy of the story as published. Thanks especially to Fin for the good work getting everything organised and bringing it in on the advertised.

astroannie - Again this month, your story was my favourite.


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## T.S.Bowman (Sep 1, 2014)

Oh yeah. I was remiss in not congradulating you, Garza.

Well done and well deserved. 

My congradulations to the rest of the competitors as well. As always, the competition level of the LM never ceases to amaze me.


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## Dubhthaigh (Sep 1, 2014)

Thanks Judges!
5th, I'm over the moon 

Well done to Garza!


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## aj47 (Sep 1, 2014)

Yes, Garza, you rock!


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## Plasticweld (Sep 1, 2014)

Judges, thanks for all of your impute and advice, it means a lot to me and shows me what I need to work on..Bob


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## Euripides (Sep 1, 2014)

Wow . Third!  I'll take it...especially since I was worried about doing a normal every day slice of life use for the prompt. 

Sorry for the bad formatting this time. When I paste the story in it appears a-ok on my screen. ..until I hit the post button and then the spaces and formatting are all mended up  didn't catch them all.

But thank you judges for taking your time to read and give constructive feedback. It's much much appreciated. 
(II'd say more but I'm typing on my phone....)

And the time taken to run the contest, get the scores, do the formatting....Also appreciated)

Congrats Garza for first place and astrange for second.  Really tough competition!


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## Folcro (Sep 1, 2014)

When the primary criticism of a novelist's flash fiction is lack of context, I suppose he could do worse. I believe I will always leave more to the imagination, at least in such stories as these, than many readers find comfortable. Lack of knack, perhaps, but I can live with that; this is a fantastic medium even for me to practice my structure and my prose.

All my love and thanks to every judge, and above all to Fin, who each took the time through the month to make this competition possible.

And my deepest congratulations to Garza, you are a magnificent writer.


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## Jon M (Sep 1, 2014)

kilroy said:
			
		

> this is one of those  instances where you could James-Joyce this bad boy up Finnigan's Wake  style and make it one long run-on sentence.


A paragraph was too much for some; heads would most certainly explode if I did that.


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## Ephemeral_One (Sep 1, 2014)

I cannot say how pleased I am with the responses to my work. Numerical scores never meant much to me so I happily take my rank in this competition because I'm able to see that what I manage to provoke in even as few words as this is satisfying. Like everyone pretty much said, my biggest weakness is trying to fit my idea into the space given. Still, this presents me with a challenge to improve every time. Like, this time, it's been proven that one thing I've always had a good head for is getting into the mentality of a character and dialogue so I feel I've found my strength in first person. Anyway, I appreciate everyone's input and I think I'll go finish up this piece and refine it some.


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## thepancreas11 (Sep 2, 2014)

Hey! Looks like Garza got the prize. A much deserved congratulations to you for your efforts. As I've said previously in my critiques, I rarely read something of yours without learning something about my own writing, the sign of a truly gifted writer.

To all the entrants, please, do this often. It was a pleasure reading your work. Well done, all around.

Dos cervezas para todos.


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## bazz cargo (Sep 2, 2014)

Congratulations to Euripides, AstroAnnie and Garza.

Thanks to Fin, Terry D, Pluralized, thepancreas11, amsawtell, kilroy214 and godofwine.

Hey! I drew with Guy Faukes. Booyah!

This was a tough crowd to compete with, everyone had something that caught my attention. 

Just for the record, Keff was named right at the beginning of the second sentence. This was an experiment to start with, just to see if I could get away from 'talking head syndrome' but as I wrote it I realised it would fit right in with my WIP. Thanks for your remarkably kind words and for your sharply observed help. 

I wish I had time to go for one more edit but life has been a little too busy to spend as much time as I'd like on this and other projects. 

Roll on the next one.


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## Guy Faukes (Sep 2, 2014)

bazz cargo said:


> Hey! I drew with Guy Faukes. Booyah!



bazz is secretly thinking "who is this 'Guy' fella? And how the heck did he end up tying with me?"


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## bazz cargo (Sep 4, 2014)

> *OP Guy Faukes* bazz is secretly thinking "who is this 'Guy' fella? And how the heck did he end up tying with me?"


Mind reader! Are you any good at predicting the lottery?


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## Guy Faukes (Sep 4, 2014)

bazz cargo said:


> Mind reader! Are you any good at predicting the lottery?



Always with the stereotypes... "ooh, so you can read minds? So, can you predict the future? Talk to the dead? Levitate things?"

Nope, nope and nope. I'm sorry. I'm a one beat drum... *runs off and cries*


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## kilroy214 (Sep 5, 2014)

I would like to offer my congratulations to all entrants, and my thanks to all judges. I have to say I was rather surprised by the results.


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## W.Goepner (Sep 5, 2014)

Judges great job, I did not come in last. :champagne: Close though but not last. Any way I want to do a little here, The info dump well I see and get it. I was trying to make it interesting. Big Fail I guess. Seeing as the first three judges felt that as a point to express, I see where it would have been better to put more into the detail of the plot. As to A.M.Sawtell and Kilroy's observations of how many times and the proof of who the guy is. When they get ready to push the button, as it made you believe, it is/was the first time. They were interrupted that many times before sending him off the first time. That would have been explained if I had not done the info dump. 

All I want to say, if it was entertaining for you, then I did good.


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## escorial (Sep 6, 2014)

well done


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