# September 2014 - LM - Alien Mating Rituals - Scores



## Fin

*LITERARY MANEUVERS*
Alien Mating Rituals


 A big thank you to everyone who participated and an even bigger thank you to our judges, Folcro, Guy Faukes, Pluralized and Smith for taking the time out of their lives to review the entries.


*Scores*​
*Folcro**Guy Faukes **Pluralized**Smith**Average**Shinyford*161518.51816.87*InkwellMachine*151717.51716.62*Terry D*1714161816.25*garza*12171817.516.12*Thepancreas11*1216161815.5*InstituteMan*121616.51715.37*amsawtell*1215171715.25*Kepharel*14131815.2515.06*Ibb*1612181415*Emma Sohan*13151416.514.62*Bishop*111515.51614.37*Kilroy214*10131416.2513.31*Plasticweld*1016141313.25*midnightpoet*1012141512.75*W.Goepner*9111312.511.37*Miles-Kirk*87121510.5*Fivetide*611131110.25

In first place, congratulations to *shinyford* with his entry *Spede, Dating.*
In second, we have *InkwellMachine* with his entry *Concerning What Goes On Inside Playhouses.*
And in third place, we have *Terry D* with his entry *An Alien Encounter at Red Willow Point.*



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

[spoiler2=Folcro’s scores]


An Alien Encounter at Red Willow Point
Terry D

Grammar: 5
Voice: 5
Effect: 7
*Total: 17*

*"Dogwoods."*
*I have to say something: *This is part of my problem with present tense narration. I got over it, but for anything to trip the reader up at the very opening is... almost... never a good thing. "I had to say something," would have made it clearer. Now, I'm wondering if, even though this is present tense, does that particular sentence have to conform? I only ask because, even if the character is describing what is happening as it is happening, that sentence would still be told in past tense (for example: *I thought of this place right off when she said she’d take a walk with me after school*).

*“What about ‘em?”
Even her voice is hot: *And this is one of the rare occasions I find present tense can work. I feel on par with the character's emotion--- I can relate to his desire.

*Great! I just earned my dork merit badge: *I would ditch the exclamation mark.

*Mom told me Dad brought her here sometimes before they were married. It’s supposed to be romantic. I don’t know: *Longer to shorter sentences into uncertainty. It works. Also, the fact that this kid would take his girl to a place based on the advice of his parents speaks to his character; nothing bad, mind you (though to some perhaps), I find it endearing.

*“Willow… willow sounds better.” She’s decided: *I would be quick to strike the underlined.

*She’s smiling as she says it… but: *Excellent sentence.

The language was pristine, the pacing superb. Your way of wording things could have failed as they very often do among writers striving to be clever. Here, for the most part, they succeed, and make a young man's struggles real.

I would have preferred to see more of the girl, what's she doing while she speaks? More on what she looks like, perhaps?

I don't judge the use of the prompt, in fact I often forget what the prompt is while I judge, I just look at the story. Having said that, there was a way you could have made the trigger more subtle, perhaps without using the word "alien" at all, which I believe you are capable of, certainly not twice. But as I said, I don't really factor that sort of thing into my adjudication.


You Have a New Personal Message
Plasticweld

Grammar: 3
Voice: 3
Effect: 4
*Total: 10*

*I ask that you let me present the information I found, it is shocking. Let me plead my case, so to say and let you decide. Most of you will think I am crazy… Please just listen to the facts, it sounds crazy but the facts all make perfect sense: *If it is that important that we receive this message, you just wasted at least twenty seconds. Do you not care about us? But I suppose you made up for time by not proofreading.

*...somehow in order for them to survive they need to take your intellect: *Interesting, I did notice certain admins seem like vacuums of intelligence.

*It is just like a woman at the grocery store squeezing the melons: *Easy now, the aliens don't welcome erotica on their site.

*If you have all kinds of “likes” and “lol” you are on their list: *I thought they were looking for intellect.

*As best I can tell it takes anywhere from one to three years before they have fattened you up enough to satisfy their needs:* A mind foolish to worthy of intergalactic aliens in less than three years? Maybe there's hope for humanity yet.


Alien Mating Rituals
W.Goepner

Grammar: 3
Voice: 2
Effect: 4
*Total: 9*

*"You know how badly I laughed when you told me.": *Always see a red flag when one of your characters begins a sentence with "you know this," or "you know that"--- makes it sound less like the character is talking to another and more like they are talking to the audience. Unless you're going for a Ferris Bueller approach (please don't) this may well irk an audience. I think simply cutting this sentence would clear your opening line.

*Sampson groaned out: *Growled, roared, snapped, or perhaps just groaned?

One thing I urge you to watch out for is dialogue tags. It is common that when a writer feels they are not doing enough, insecurity can lead to overwriting. Things like "he groaned out," and "he chortled," especially at the end of the line (that is, when we are already finished reading it and have imagined what it might sound like) slam the breaks on any flow you establish in your prose. Even something as benign as "he said" is very often unnecessary.

*"...as a knock resounded on our hatch.": *This dude likes his flowery exposition almost as much as you do... is he still high?

*Clean, cool, fresh air,assailed my lungs: *Fresh air is usually clean. The guy's also a bit of an adjective whore, isn't he?

*"We swing this way from time to time.": *These guys assimilated quite well, I almost dare to call them Americanized, squeezing two American idioms into one sentence.

So, even though these are aliens, and there is no female human involved... it still takes nine months? Go figure.

One of the biggest things that held you back here is proofreading. It can bear a heavy impact on every element of the final score. The grammar and punctuation seemed all but ignored, transitions (such as when Sampson decided to spontaneously info-dump me with where he was and what he was doing when it all happened) detracted from the pacing, and I was hiding under my desk in fear of an adjective invasion. This is certainly understandable for a first draft. But you must learn to go back and proofread. In the meantime, it wouldn't be cheating to show your story to a friend (preferably not on here though) and have them go over, at the very least, the technical aspects of it. Good luck.


A Night to Remember
Thepancreas11

Grammar: 4
Voice: 3
Effect: 5
*Total: 12*

*“I really like your blaargs.”: *That was kind of funny.

*... which did nothing for my erection:* That was kind of not.

*...the previous contents of her stomach:* Was there a better way you could have worded that? The _former_ contents, perhaps?

*Hannah’s oral contributions: *Yeah, something more like that.

*“Iggy! My man!”:* Hi, I'm the quirky best friend!

*“She was…amazing,” I lied: *Yes... yes you did. Having been there and this having been all of five seconds ago, I would have known even if you didn't tell me, but yes. You're a liar.

*I realized all of the sudden that I had become and actor on the stage in the world’s most interesting play: *Just be grateful you're not the editor.

So... you jabbed the air with your fingers, did you? I guess that means business. Personally, I'm not sure it's such a good thing anymore when I hear the national anthem resounding in my mind when somebody makes a speech, especially when everybody knows you're gonna totally wreck that slut when she's not blowing chunks on you.

Or to put it more civilly, I think the point you were trying to make would have been stronger (rather, made at all) if the thing that stopped him from knocking-that-down came from within himself, instead of a pretentious expostulation with overzealous gesticulations. Or hell, can't a story just be about a bad guy anymore? I don't know.


Strange Magic
Kilroy214

Grammar: 4
Voice: 2
Effect: 4
*Total: 10*

*The trimmed grass...:* We're inside now... Is there grass inside?

*She was near the back in a yellow sundress that showed her beautiful calves: *The adjective game doesn't work here... it seems like you're still talking about "the old black woman."

*"Especially one by a fugitive as pretty as yourself": *Say it to her, not the audience.

*"This is a voodoo wedding": *in a Catholic church? The dude blessed himself with holy water at the kudzu-covered trellised archway, did he not? Though I suppose the two faiths are often mixed in parts of the Caribbean. But that wouldn't be the case if there is a priestess involved... and the great creator spirit... Oh, maybe I'm overthinking it.

*She grinned that perfect grin: *Which perfect grin was that?

*“I’m not going to need the handcuffs, am I?”: *What a polite cop.

*“those are for later.”: *I get it, kink and all that, but what does that line really mean? Are they going to have sex or is he going to arrest her (without handcuffs)?

One of the big problems here was the dialogue, on which your story leaned heavily. I kept feeling like every word one spoke was meant for me, and not the other. Naturally, this is always the case, but it shouldn't appear that way. Like when he said "Wyatt Erp on VHS". People would usually say "on tape" if they would even go into that detail. And why was this guy deigning to converse with this "fugitive" at all? Why did he sit to watch this wedding?


Documentary
A.M. Sawtell

Grammar: 4
Voice: 3
Effect: 5
*Total: 12*

*Light shone through the partially closed door:* Do you mean partially open?

*Olly said with his best Australian accent into the camera he'd turned back around towards himself:* I think there were a couple of words this sentence could have done without.  Maybe mention the position switch before "Crikey"?

*The music was drowned out by the loud machine:* The music that was blaring? I know hairdryers are loud, but damn.

*"see how she's plumped it up?":* I'm trying to imagine this creep is younger than 13, bust some affirmation of that would have been so nice.

Is the camera really picking up the audio with all that noise?

*Olly heard drawers slamming:* I guess she turned the music off?

Cute. I'm not sure if there was enough essence here for its own self-contained story, but cute.


Alien Control Squad
midnightpoet

Grammar: 3
Voice: 2
Effect: 5
*Total: 10*

*...eclectic ebook shop on Alpha Street: *Well I should hope it's eclectic, if a store that sells things people can just purchase digitally is going to stay in business or even pretend it does... how does that work again? Do you mean ebook _readers_, like tablets?

*"It’s a Carpathian":* Didn't Viggo wipe them out already?

*Although small by Earth standards, it controlled most of the illicit commerce in the Zeta Quadrant. When the Earth Council allowed them space visas we were put on high alert: *I forgot everything in this sentence before I was done reading it.

*We’ve got a tongue print. He’s known on the street as Ox: *In contrast, this line is much better. You give us one strange yet simple detail, and let our imaginations go with it. Sentences like these will bring your world to life far more effectively than that directly above.

*Watch this surveillance video:* Is Agent X too stupid to realize what kind of video he is watching? Or was that line intended for the audience? Lines of dialogue should never feel like they are intended for the audience.

*Bulging yellow eye, check. Long reptilian tail, check. Piggish nose, check. Long prehensile tongue, check. Size of an ox, check:* I understand the need for description here, but why a checklist?

*Scum of the Galaxy bar:* I guess that's where the bad guys go?

*You know this little piggy came out in just two weeks? ...I may keep it though, it’s kinda cute: *Just to make sure we're on the same page... this woman was just raped by the tongue of a beastly extraterrestrial, right? And this is the child of said beastly extraterrestrial, right?

*He needs to be deported, at least:* Is there no judicial system in this world?

*I’ll take my trusty 45-caliber pistol:* Who talks like that?

*He was also the local fence, but he was useful at times:* Relevance?

*Anatomically impossible sex was common:* Eh?

*Q called, but it was too late. His tongue reached out and grabbed my weapon. Before he could use it, Q fired several times. Pinkish, stinking body fluids covered the ground: *Please be mindful of your pronouns; you were doing fine with them up until this point--- action scenes have a way of making us forget their proper use. _Q's_ tongue? Before _Q _could use it?

Fitting stories into such small spaces is not easy: work on your form, your balance, and constantly ask yourself what is needed and what is not. Before long, it will come as second nature to you.


A First Time for Everything
Kepharel

Grammar: 5
Voice: 3
Effect: 6
*Total: 14*

*From it he took out the contents piece by piece in a time worn ritual of order:* "From it" vexes me, almost sounds like you're talking about the bathroom mirror. I would just cut that out and go straight to "He took out the contents..." As for the end there, while I see the note you're trying to strike, that line does not fit with the tone that surrounds it. You have a good thing going there; this line, and a few like it, stick out uncomfortably.

*Leaning forward, he gazed closely into the mirror and into his eyes:* I think the sentence would fall together better had you put it "he gazed closely into the mirror, into his eyes." I find the word "and" is often overused, as it is such an easy word to use, to the extent that many fail to see the effect that can be achieved in its absence.

*They were the colour of a cold, bleak, grey winter’s day: *How about "they were the color of a winter's day?" (disregarding the spelling, of course--- I understand they do things differently across the pond).

*Tonight was a night of firsts for him and he was not a man who felt comfortable with new experiences: *I want you to take a close look at this sentence. Can you find what's wrong with it? Neither can I. It's perfect. You present an idea simply yet fluidly; you do not encumber me with big words and complex syntax. You seem to be at an impasse between sentences like these and the first one I stopped you on. If you want my opinion, lean harder in this direction.

*If one had to sum up Oswald, it would seem an appropriate reflection upon him that his only rebellion so far in life had been one of abstinence brought on by a childhood living in the boozy chaos of his mother and father. /He had, by his mid forties, become the kind of man that if you had asked him to write his autobiography would have presented it to you in a tabbed, indexed, cross referenced lever arch file: *Pick the sentence you like better and ditch the other (hint: pick number two!)

*...there was never any urge to take up the offers: *Well, if he's dating her (/him?) I'm not sure I would call it an offer. At least, if he's not as sexual, then why not accommodate his partner? I know impotence isn't his problem, as he seems to get it up just fine by his ditsy boss's "considerable breasts." Now, I'm starting to feel as though the man is a little apathetic towards others and maybe self-absorbed. I believe you used the word "offers" because you felt it sounded best in the prose. But it throws your character in a direction I don't think you realize.

*all those thrashing limbs:* That is some wild sex. Somebody should tell Ozzie that no one is expecting him to do _that_.

*His face a study in exasperation: *No

*A slightly swaying Daisy finally succeeded in releasing her considerable breasts from the confines of her brassiere...: *That was a lot of words. A sentence like this, central as it is, should read like an action scene. I want to see the image as clear as lightning bolts. "The brassiere snapped, slid forward. Her bountiful (I think reads more seductive than "considerable") breasts shifted to her swaying form."

I really do love the point of this story. The very act of human relations is something alien to Oswald, the most creative take on the prompt I've read thus far. I just wish it didn't have to end as though the beginning to a porno.

Here is what I believe to be your biggest problem as a writer: you're a little scared. A might insecure, perhaps, but that's normal from writers nine to ninety-nine. I believe there is not a writer on the forums, old or new, who will benefit more than you by constantly finding ways to get your writing out there, via this contest and beyond. You need to find your voice without the hindering worry of who thinks what about it. That will fade quickly the more opportunities you find to haul yourself on stage.


Spacebound
Ibb

Grammar: 4
Voice: 4
Effect: 8
*Total: 16*

Are you really making me read about teenagers having sex?

And... where exactly was this kid when he was abducted?

*I’ve seen documentaries about abductees claiming they were tortured, or mated with, or given strange drugs. I never felt any of this:* Yeah you did, you're describing euphoria: that's a common side effect of hallucinogens. And how would you know what alien mating feels like?

*...counting down to the minute:* How did he know the aliens were coming back?

*I didn’t look the way he did:* How does he look? With his eyes?

You take an additional paragraph of exposition to explain why we should feel sorry for this kid whose name we don't even have. Show is always better than tell here, and since we don't have a lot of time for that, it's probably best to just keep all that at the beginning.

There's no need for the tense change at the dialogue part, and you seemed to have some trouble keeping up with it anyway: you go from "*she *said" to "*she'd* whispered" and from "*I'd* started blushing" to "*I* said."

*“No,” I said. “They don’t care about him.”: *Okay, remember what I said about show, not tell? You actually did something really great here. Yeah, it's technically tell, but you're _showing_ me the way this kid interprets what is going on. No exposition to explain it, no additional hints, just this one line surmising what this kid thinks about his brother and this situation. This is a really great line, and was a turning point for me in my view of this piece.

*I’d come home late one evening because I’d taken money out of Mom’s purse to buy pizza and soda at the corner store: *Our hero, ladies and gentleman, the young man we've spent two paragraphs being told we should feel sorry for.

*I’d spent most of my time lounging in the park afterward, not wanting to leave, watching the clouds for spaceships: *Indeed, if he _wanted_ to leave, I imagine he would have left, and would _not _be spending "most of my time" there.

So this was... creepy. I admire that, that you have presented probably one of the most creepy stories I've read without throwing that Tim Burton excrement in my face as so many others do. It is on the surface a normal story about normal people except the younger brother has given up listening to his brother have underage sex because he's going outside to make it with the aliens (that is, by the way what the aliens were doing--- he might have said he "never felt that," but was being tragically manipulated, which is why they left when they were done with him as sexual predators of earth do to others all the time. That is my interpretation, after all. And I actually like it).

I also might have changed my mind a little on the exposition of feeling sorry for the kid. This being told in first person is what verified my conclusion: he's a brat. Yeah, he gets it hard from his family, but this kid is just as selfish as his brother. The only difference is he finds himself lower on the totem pole. So now, he gets to be the one who complains. A kid like this is easily manipulated. I think this story was told by someone with a highly warped perspective.

It is very strange: the more I think about this story, which at first I wanted to skip, the more I like it. You may have noticed the change in attitude from start to finish. It's a story that invites one to think deeply into what is going on. If some of my review seems a ramble towards the end, it is because your story continued to work on my mind as I wrote it. I can't be sure how much of that you did on purpose, but the sheer fact that your writing has accomplished it deserves respect.

One more thing: if you don't know the difference between the colon, semi-colon and period, stick to periods and commas until you learn the rest. I hate to see smart stories lose points for stupid reasons.


Fun Leads to Folly
Miles-Kirk

Grammar: 3
Voice: 2
Effect: 3
*Total: 8*

*I am a fool, she’s screwing my husband and I’m saying ‘good luck’: *This line would have worked out much better had it been established that this is written in first person. Also, mind your paragraphs. Break it up where appropriate. This would be such a time.

*The night started off slow and sophisticated, but it grew wildly out of control. My blouse was torn open and rolls of twenties were stuffed down my knickers as I stumbled out of the bar: *These are two important sentences in the analysis of your story. The first one is all tell: you give us a broad idea of what's going on and expect us to go with it, which most of us will. But the second sentence _shows_ us what happened that night. It seems to me that you could have replaced the first sentence entirely with one that shows the "sophistication" of that night, then jump right to the second sentence showing us how it didn't end that way.

Why are you not breaking paragraph in thought?

*My hand flew to my mouth as my stomach retched violently, bile gargled up my throat, and spittle leaked from the cracks: *As_ I_ retched violently. And what cracks? You mean through your fingers? That wording would have been a lot more visual.

*...I could feel all the strength draining from my body as the atrophy took over:* ?

*...my cheek was met with a steel’s kiss:* No.

*I yelped and writhed in pain, their unwarranted intrusion caused tears to stream down uncontrollably and drench my face: *This sentence defines the biggest part of what is wrong with this piece. This woman is getting gang-raped by aliens, and this is how she describes it? Like a night at the opera?

*Seeking answers...:* How bout seeking to get the hell out of there?

*I received another blow to the face:* Well that was nice of them. Oh, that's... that's a bad thing.

*...the black flesh seared my cheeks with fresh bruises:* There's that problem again: you're making bruises sound like a good thing. And how does she know she's bruised? Is she looking in a mirror?

*I followed the creature with numb, lifeless eyes...:* But you're not dead yet.

If you missed the words, how can you tell me you were there?

It's not really a twist when the villain of the story turns out to be a guy we've never met. Maybe if it were her husband's company, that would have been a little more interesting, not to mention bring things full circle. As it is... no.

Your problem is overwriting. A woman getting the snot raped out of her does not warrant an attempt at Elizabethan prose, which I find overrated anyway. Big words do not impress people: not the intellect looking for an emotional challenge, nor the run-of-the-mill escapist from everyday life. Big words and unnecessarily long sentences are a shield of insecurity, and an insult to your reader. Put the shield down, the reflection is hurting my eyes.


Financial District Alien Pornography
InstituteMan

Grammar: 5
Voice: 3
Effect: 4
*Total: 12*

Unlike my reviews in general, I didn't write a thing down until I was finished. The style with which you chose to write, and the pacing, made that happen. Alas, there were things that held you back.

You tackle dialect and unlike most you out more or less unscathed, but once in a while the language sounded overly expository, or otherwise unnatural, a wide pitfall when writing monologue or long scenes of dialogue. The "kids these days" line(s) sounded forced and the extent of the dialect sounded the same at times. I also wish you would have made an attempt to distinguish the lines he was telling to the bartender from the story he was telling to his friends. Would have made the prose cleaner and easier to follow from the onset.

The story itself was a little gross, but I don't know, it seems that a lot of writers are using this prompt to splooge their need for erotica around here, but I'll not open that can of worms.

The biggest problem was that I didn't really get anything out of this. It had no real kick to me. It was a story told by a cab driver (which you did well to show us without exposition, by the way) at the end of the day. This is fine, and there is potential to be had here... perhaps the idea was wasted on the prompt (which you did not do as well in applying--- another part that came across as quite forced).


The Big Day
Fivetide

Grammar: 2
Voice: 1
Effect: 3
*Total: 6*

*Not a single naughty word in it:* Obviously You are one who knows how to write for a judge. I'm grateful. Now if only we could get you to indent...

*...their excitement was palpable and he felt the weight of their expectations on his shoulders:* You know, I was going to say "palpable" should be the last word of a sentence if you choose to use it. Then I figured, hell, maybe I've met the writer who proved me wrong. Then I realized that every word following "palpable" was defining "palpable." Don't fear, my darling, we've got dictionaries.

*He tentatively prodded the wriggling container with his favourite tentacle, it replied with a sharp squeak and gentle gurgle:* It looks like that period mutated into a comma. Amputate the tail and put that freak back in its place.

*The gesture triggered a murmur of childish banter...: *You mean laughter? Banter involves actual words. Are you paying attention to all of them?

*Mental calculations flashed through his mind, distance, wind speed and trajectory were all considered: *I imagine they would be "mental" if they are flashing through his "mind". I would also imagine that he is, in fact, considering them.

*The sharp stones were beginning to hurt his knees, so he quickly made a final adjustment:* Relevance--- you're not allowed a lot of words here.

*Internal muscles now reacted in a reflex movement:* That's what a reaction is. That's like saying "his finger twitched in a muscle spasm."

What did the apostrophe ever do to you? Or is proof-reading the great nemesis here?

Now they're in a gallery?

*With an audible hummfff:* Strike the underlined.

*Instinct forced down his panic and spurred him on to greater exertions*: Whaaaaaaaa???

Okay, this is really hard to follow, in no small part because of the abysmal formatting. I'm not sure if you had trouble with it, but going to the trouble of asking around to improve it shows that you care. This just makes it difficult for the judge, makes us rush for the end, which isn't fair to us or to you.

But the narrative was also confusing. The only time I felt like I was getting what was going on was when the thing was jumping through tunnels. I figured maybe this dude was a sperm. But even that was hard to grasp because, again, I had no idea what was going on.

In the future, proof read and clean up the formatting. These are not things that should be holding you back. Then we can move on and tackle the other problems. Basics first.


Spede, Dating
Shinyford

Grammar: 5
Voice: 5
Effect: 6
*Total: 16*

*Johannes, haircut neat and shirt well pressed, sat patiently at the small table, his slim, manicured fingers stroking a glass of chilled Spanish wine:* Two sentences, please (the second starting at "Manicured").

*The dimly lit room contained ten or twenty similar tables at which sat ten or twenty men whose similarity to himself varied from ‘not’ to ‘not in the slightest’: *Why the "or"s? They make the sentence a lot longer than they have to be, and detract from the idea in the end. You've been sitting there a while, at least tell me how many tables there are.

*By the door a gaggle of women chatted furtively amongst themselves:* You don't need this word. The ambiguity of their conversation is already explained in the next sentence.

*boys at the tables, girls running round:* Is this a social commentary of some kind? It seems a little backwards.

I will say that you do capture an atmosphere well... I'm thinking posh 1920s. I think the main character's name helped with that. Names don't usually account for much in stories, they just are what they are. It's good to see a writer take the time for such nuances.

*... he part-stood:* Dick.

*“Then we take our clothes off and shag”:* I liked this line, I liked Johanne's reaction to it, and I liked that the young lady was of course kidding. You've already made her a more memorable character than your lead. Make of that what you will.

*to a bearded man wearing a Doctor Who t-shirt:* Wow, this almost looked like a typo for a second, just when I was starting to like this. Try to perhaps _italicize_ such things in the future, put them in quotes or otherwise make them pronounced. See, while everybody else around here is horny for alien sex, I'm horny for deductions. Your job is to give me blue balls.

*Johannes left his card unticked:* Dick.

*Johannes sighed:* Dick.

*His card was devoid of ticks:* "No ticks." Keep it simple. Keep the language straight up, to the point. Your tenth grade teacher and I am just thrilled that you know what the word "devoid" means. I promise you, nobody else cares.

So, the point of the story seems to be split here: at first it seems obvious. In fact, I thought it was very well executed: Johannes is a dick; rather, some combination of a dick and a coward, and unsatisfied because he is as spoiled as a Disney princess, and maybe a little insecure. This I thought you handled really well, all the while surrounding this guy with a solid atmosphere and unique characters. Personally, I thought the man's biggest sin was turning down Suze. I liked her a lot. But the reason I was mad at him for it made the story effective, and I was completely with it.

At long last, I had a complex character in an interesting place.

But then... turns out the dudes just gay. Listen, I've got no problem with that. I'd be lying if I said my personal proclivities were as cut and dry as that of the average man. But it just seemed like you had something there and just switcharooed it for something less interesting (which is ironic, because homosexual romance is usually fascinating). And the plot just seemed to sort of thud to the ground, especially seeing as that I thought the girl he turned down was more interesting as a character than he is--- not good for gay fiction.

I'm not prepared to deduct a heap for it, as you really did a good job with everything else (In fact, I loved how the guy used the word "love" in address to a man; I thought it was unique and made the character pop, maybe he was just a really nice Irish guy or something, but no... he's just gay too). I just think the ending could have been a lot better, even if it was an ending I was expecting.


The Milkshake Date
garza

Grammar: 4
Voice: 3
Effect: 5
*Total: 12*

*'The extra large vanilla milkshake made a 'glop' sound as it slid from the inverted cup and landed in Peggy's lap. Her screams echoed around the car park at Harbour View Drive-In. Heads turned:* Word-efficient. Good, but in hindsight, I'm not sure all the detail was needed when all you're doing is getting this chick out of the car (Update: obviously, the details have relevance, now that I've read it all, but it is still a bit heavy for an opening sentence). And what's with the apostrophe at the start. Typo? As the very first character? That doesn't seem like you.

*'You idiot!' she screamed. More heads turned. 'You've ruined my new dress!' ...She held up her own cup. 'Here. Try this trick on for size.' She poured her large strawberry shake on Nicholas' head: *Are these all the same "she?" If not, which one is Peggy? (Again, looking back I can see it more clear, but again, openers.)

*More offers than were needed came from the circle of boys gathered around her*: Well, more than one is going to be more than needed.

*The sloppy ending of Nicholas Christovich's first date with a Gulfport girl can be traced to a conversation Nicki had a week earlier with Brian McKenzie. You need to know that Nicki was from Biloxi and Briney was from Gulfport. Biloxi boys don't date Gulfport girls. They don't dare. The reverse is true. Physical retaliation inspired by cultural alienation can be the result. That alienation has existed for generations between the towns: *I feel like this slightly over-worded infodump exists only to get the word "alienation" in there. Clever interpretation of the prompt, but you could have wedged it in there a little smoother, and a little more creatively.

It gets a lot worse with the following paragraph. It seems as though this idea belongs to a work that already exists in a much larger form, and you had big trouble whittling it down. This paragraph (about the debate team) had little relevance to the story. The basis of it is "he wasn't supposed to date her. But they met at an official debate held in neutral territory. He was smitten." Getting into all that detail with the debate is so unnecessary it hurts.

I'm glad you didn't go into the history of Harbour View after Nicki asked what it is... but I've got this morbid suspicion it was because your word count had run to max.

*What happened 'after that'...: *This really seemed like a start to what happened _directly _'after that.' I would ditch the line.

Now, I caught that the trick was done by Briney on purpose against Nicki, and I feel most others did as well, and don't feel an explanation was needed. In fact, I knew you must have been leading up to something good, and I thought that would be the thing we just either got or didn't get. Not only was I a little miffed to see an explanation, but it actually made things start to get confusing. Like this line:

*'My first thought was to beat him up. Then I remembered seeing the milkshake trick fail when the car hop was slow. So last night I slipped Bertha five bucks to take her time.'*

Why is this in quotes? I assume Nicki is saying/thinking/narrating it, why is he not reacting? And what's that about the car hop? And who's Bertha?

Why would Briney apologize to Peggy? Isn't she a "cheeky Czech girl"?

I don't think this story needed to be quite as complex and (sporadically) detailed as it was. Again, it feels like a larger work poorly compressed to accommodate the rules. There was certainly something there, there was some nuance and good lines, but in all the story fell flatter than it should have.


No Different
Bishop

Grammar: 5
Voice: 3
Effect: 3
*Total: 11*

*...he had a deep fondness for her tentacles: *Superb. A sexual buildup to ironic revelation (even if the main character is a horse). And your description of her could easily have tilted into over-writing, but you held the balance quite well.

*...the kind that rest around your neck and you can change the shape of by downloading new structures for it: *That sounds... really stupid. As in, it exists-only-because-well-it's-the-future stupid. But having latter read the entire thing, I guess these are younger people, but you never really establish the age. In middle school, this is acceptable, in college, it is stupid. (Given Trigor's occupation, I'm guessing nearer to the latter.)

Hmm... general cosmic particle clutter, huh?

*Aliens’re no differen’:* Please tell me that's not the line upon which this story is going to hinge. Why? Because tentacles.

*The few credits Trigor received per hour compounded:* Is that the right word here? Is he investing? I guess I'll go ahead and assume he is.

*Trigor sat waiting outside of the jeweler’s shop to wait for Illia:* Sounds like the only thing compounding around here is his waiting.

*Trigor’s heart leapt into his throat: *This line is the Platinum Chip of cliches.

*He still smelled like space dust, and cursed himself for not buying some cologne: *Try this sentence without the "and." It may sound strange at first, I know, but try it out a bit.

*Three boys, all from their class: *Whose class? Trigor and the tentacle bitch? They share a class? Did I miss that?

*Two were xaltonian, like Illia, and the other was a kerinan:* I remembered, thank you. And why aren't we capitalizing the races?

*“Tole ya, boy. They’re no diffren’*”: Sorry, Clarence, I still don't get it. What, Alien girls have friends too, and aren't always looking at the distant creeps who think they are in love with them because she has, what was it, the hips that "blossom out into the focal points of male sexual aggression"? And knows nothing else about her, but tries to justify his male sexual aggression into love by spending money? Yeah, those women, man, thur no difrnt and they took er jerbs!!!

In all seriousness, you built this story around a line, and I could tell from the start it wasn't going to work and not even because of the inevitable misogynistic interpretations. But you took what I thought would fail and made it... _really_ fail. You were kept above the water by your ever-solid prose and pinpoint proofreading, and a few good lines.

To quote a mutual friend: "_I like to think you have enough sense to do the right thing. The rewards for doing so are immense... as are the punishments for not doing so._"


What If?
Emma Sohan

Grammar: 4
Voice: 3
Effect: 6
*Total: 13*

*some sex. Duh: *Why "duh"? Some of the best stories I've read here this month didn't have any sex at all.

*She's wonderful:* How?

*I love her:* Why?

*She's beautiful:* Oh.

*"You may go to the connecting room":* I actually like this line a lot. You carried me smoothly toward it, and the meaning of "connecting" was obvious, so you actually pulled it off quite well.

*Finally, I ejaculate into her:* ...That's nice.

I've never experienced a copulation where the couple thereafter discuss their "orgasm" with each other... but then again, I've never been to Draltha.

*I indicate to my parents that we [had some awesome sex], and my mother starts crying with happiness. My father tries to wipe a tear off his dry face: *And I don't think I want to.

*[We prove to everyone in the room how great the sex was] and everybody claps*: Really... _really_ don't want to.

*[Daddy makes a joke about how great our sex was] everybody laughs: *Please get me out of here.

Okay so the verdict is that I like the idea a lot more than I liked the story. Can hardly blame you for that, this kind of compact writing is enough to make the heads of geniuses spin from their shoulders. There are massive possibilities with this idea, I was actually feeling the suspense in the story, the horrifying thought of a man feeling his wife getting raped or murdered; not to mention how this "connection" can affect the dynamics of a relationship, particularly among those who do not share the gift. Again, the possibilities are truly inspiring. Do hold on to this, do expand upon it.


Concerning What Goes On Inside Playhouses
InkwellMachine

Grammar: 4
Voice: 5
Effect: 6
*Total: 15*

*I held the wrapper between my sticky fingers, trying to figure out what possessed me to spend three whole dollars on an ice cream sandwich:* And there he goes again, making the most mundane things sound awesome.

*On the platform where the monkey bars connected to the rest of the play set there stood a girl no more than a year older than him, watching: *"There" is obsolete here. No deductions, but the sentence would have been better without it.

*It was the look of a small caught up in something:* Are we missing a word here? I'll say I'm just reading it wrong.

*A libido, for instance. Maybe that was it: *I would have just said "A libido, perhaps."

*wondering if I’d ever been that way as I child:* God damn it, Inkwell.

Your prose is superb and only getting better. It's a shame we haven't seen so much of you in a while.  I'm actually surprised this was over 600 words, it felt a lot shorter, I was going to say maybe you could have gotten into the guy's head a bit more. It was still a nice, simple piece on a father and his son, one of those rare instances in this contest where the aliens were people and the coitus was non-existent (right?)

Maybe I would have shaken things up, made the guy divorced, his wife being a negative influence on his son, his being afraid of her, all that mixing with the simple notion of never having talked to his son about the birds and the bees and God-knows-what that good for nothing trailer trash is teaching him. But again, I'm a shaker, and usually need a lot more space to prove myself than you do.
[/spoiler2]
[spoiler2=Guy Faukes’ scores]

*TerryD
“An Alien Encounter at Red Willow Point “*
*SPaG 5/5 *
*Tone 3/5 *
*Effect: 6*
*Overall: 14*
I enjoyed the tone of an awkward teen trying to get some but entirely inexperienced in doing so. Nice bits of humor such as “a direct link between that spot and the chubster”. I like the comparison between teenage romance and alien mating rituals, as well as the usage of a closely winning prompt. Ultimately, these elements have been commonly used (in my experience), so another layer or reinterpretation would’ve been nice.
Tone was decent until the last paragraph. It was an attempt to demonstrate hormonal confusion, but I felt it was too short and rushed to achieve that effect.
Good use of the prompt, but it needed just a bit more.


*Plasticweld
“You have a new personal message”*
*SPaG 3/5 *
*Tone 5/5 *
*Effect: 8/10*
*Overall: 16*

Well done! I loved the entry. It poked some fun at those who keep this forum running and managed to pervert the daily rituals of many on the site. Bravo! (no sarcasm)

Grammatically, it is spotty with various run-ons, missing punctuation and the odd spelling error. This seems to be a consistent problem with your past LMs entries. I would definitely give yourself more time to proofread or get another pair of eyes, as it cost you some vital points.

The voice and tone were good. It definitely read like a tin-foil hat sort of conspiracy theory with the wild accusations and illegal methods of intelligence gathering. My only suggestion would be to add in small cues to characterize the person behind the warning (yourself). Otherwise, it reads as a frantic, friendly warning, which is sufficient.

The piece was exceptional in tying the conspiracy with the features of the site. The analogy to livestock being fattened up may be a common one, but it had good effect when you paired it with the little rep bar. The humor is grotesque and whimsical, which is always enjoyable.

Overall, it was an excellent use of the prompt. You definitely have an twisted and wild imagination. I would’ve rated it higher but our alien overlords are secretly suppressing the score of your revealing piece and are threatening to take us I should balance my preference for a piece with objective evaluation. Ahem.


*W. Goepner
“Alien Mating Rituals”*
*SPaG 3/5 *
*Tone 3/5 *
*Effect: 5/10*
*Overall: 11*

There were many issues with grammar, formatting, tense usage and the odd spelling error as well, such as:
_“Sampson groaned out, ‘I know damn it. Get the doctor to give me a shot will you?’ _[Next line] _He sigh_[ed] _as another pain subsided.”_ –another pain? What other pain?
_ “All joking left the doctors voice_…” [doctor’s] Awkward phrasing

_“The doctor took forceps in hand and picked up a gauze pad soaked in the sterilizing solution*,*_[period] [H]e _rubbed it on the shaved portion of Sampson's belly.“_ 

commit -> comet
arewelcome -> are welcome

Voice/tone was a bit bumpy with awkward phrasing and clunky dialogue.

_“… and gave forth the view”_ Awkward phrasing

_"Now please, tell us how it happened again. I must log it and we would like to stay in touch, so his growth progress can be monitored."_ – I don’t think hospitals actually do this, especially with an alien or hybrid babies. How Sampson reacts is almost robotically to push the story along.

The way that Sampson depicts the sodomy seemed too flowery and literary for normal conversation and gave the notion that it was effectively your writing in quotations.

Overall, it was a decent idea for a short, but it was predictable (given the prompt) and the piece itself could use refinement. It reminded me of an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie.


*thepancreas11
“A Night to Remember”*
*SPaG 5/5 *
*Tone 4/5 *
*Effect: 7/10*
*Overall:  16*

S&G was good overall. Nothing to note, except that I think a hyphen or ellipsis should go before “_blaargh_”.

The formatting broke down at the last paragraph. He’s definitely on a roll with his rant but space between the sentences would’ve been stronger.

You have a sharp narrative voice in this one along with a dry, witty, sense of humor (much to my liking). 
The “which did nothing for my erection” line was great because it can be interpreted in a few ways. Nuanced dick jokes, what can I say? 

I believe they would be at least 18, perhaps college students. It’s a bit late for Iggy to be losing his “V-card”, and I think someone of the guys he doesn’t know would’ve said something. I wasn’t entirely convinced that the theme tied in with the prompt, but it was an entertaining and different angle, so I let it slide.

You definitely have enough nuance in your writing to pull off a convincing conversation between the “bros”. I definitely like Iggy’s gumption to fight against peer pressure, especially at that age.

Overall, it was a well rounded story. 


*kilroy214
“Strange Magic”*
*SPaG 4/5 *
*Tone 4/5 *
*Effect: 5/10*
*Overall:  13*

You have a good repertoire of landscaping descriptors. I never know what to call features when describing a property. 

There are a few S&G to discuss. 
Capitalization after dialogue tends to be a consistent issue.
_““This must be the place,” _[h]_e said”_
_“What exactly am I looking at here?” _[h]_e finally asked._

There are some missing conjunctions:
_“The priestess gave them a votive, one of Erzulie Freda, the spirit of true love_, *[and]*_ the other of Gede, the spirit of regeneration.”_

A few unanswered questions remain. Why did she invite him to a voodoo wedding specifically? What exactly motivated him to go? It might me being age-ist, but the imagery of an “old woman” doesn’t tie well with “beautiful calves” since everything tends to wrinkle and sag in the later years. Did you mean she was an “older” women, who was attractive to Marshal? He is (at most) 29 years old if this story occurred during present day. It was all a bit ambiguous. 

_“It was her turn to be intrigued”_ seemed a bit too on-the-nose. A more subtle display of interest would’ve sufficed.

Overall, it was a decent entry. The elements could tie-in with each other more.


*amsawtell
“Documentary”*
*SPaG 4/5 *
*Tone 4/5 *
*Effect: 7/10*
*Overall:  15*

I was hoping for a Steve Irwin (may he rest in peace) impression in this challenge, so I was pleased with this entry.

S&G was good, but there were a few, minor nits.
_himself,"do _– spacing 

_Watch as she applies the dyes_.
_‘She has spent hours watching older females…_ _._- a transition is needed between these lines, perhaps “’Watch as she applies the dyes.’ he said, pausing for his would-be audience.”

_“…into the camera he'd turned back around towards himself.”_ is wordy and could’ve been simplified to “… into the camera he flipped towards himself.”

There were some excellent touches, like her brother getting bored during the filming when watching the marathon that is makeup application; I never got how fanning oneself would be soothing after a mild injury.

I was a bit bothered by the fact that her brother’s first instinct was to take a camera to video tape a sister who showers with the door slightly open, but who knows? Maybe it’s her private shower and he timed it out. I just hope she confronted him before she transitioned from the towel. 

I would’ve liked just a bit more sharpness in his observation, a bit more of stereotypical Australian speech pattern come through the dialogue. You had a bit more space to color in the scene. 
This entry left me wanting just a little bit more, like an itch that was just barely scratched, but overall, well done! 


*midnightpoet
“Alien Control Squad”*
*SPaG 3/5 *
*Tone 3/5 *
*Effect: 6/10*
*Overall:  12*

S&G had a few small nits: 

_“I felt for the mouse *[semi-colon]* I’ve been there.”_
“_Under The Red Willow was a_*[n]*_ eclectic ebookshop on Alpha Street”_ Also, what exactly is The Red Willow?

This was also confusing, since they are field specialists who constantly need intel:
_“__Headquarters was a jumble of blinking lights and unheard conversations.”_ Unheard to whom? To Agent Z, or the Agents manning it?

I think it would be more appropriate to use question marks when Agent Z ran through the checklist. 
“Bulging yellow eye? Check. Long reptilian tail? Check.”  

_“__Anatomically impossible sex was common.”_ I believe this sentence is nonsensical, even if it is exaggeration. 

_“__The combined smells of the detritus of the universe was rank.”_  Did you mean the Galaxy bar? 

It was a bit troubling to see how nonchalant everyone was with sexual assault.  “People are getting raped, FYI.” “Oh, he inseminated me. Kid’s cute though, might just keep the little rug rat.”

There was some strong writing, like the poise in the initial conversation between Agents Q and Z, and the concept of a physical ebook store. 

The _“I like using an old gun”_ is a bit trite, especially when it didn’t really add anything to the story.

I think the confrontation/chase sequence was a bit too rapid to be properly embellished. The story overall might need more space to breathe or you may have cut to confrontation scene immediately to devote more space to it. The dead end alley confrontation was sort of anti-climatic, even if a character addressed it somewhat. 

Overall, not bad. You have the palette to write quirky sci-fi, and better pacing would’ve made this puppy shine. 


*Kepharel
“A First Time for Everything”*
*SPaG 3/5 *
*Tone 4/5 *
*Effect: 6/10*
*Overall:  13*

There were a few problems with S&G. (A Canadian trying to correct a Welshman’s English, this is fresh)
*[,]*_ until tonight_*[,]*_ had been a lifetime teetotaller”_ – missing punctuation

_“He brushed his teeth*,* in strict accordance with his dentist’s instructions_[,]_ of course_[,] [t]_hen a thorough rinse with a proprietary mouthwash.”_ –misplacement of the first comma, while the colon should be a comma and the following “then” should not be capitalized

_“That very personality trait had exposed and excluded him, through those departmental psychometric testing processes favoured by ‘human resources’ bureaucrats, from any leadership role.”_ –awkward sentence

“_Like any scorned suitor_[,]”

_His face a study in exasperation_[,] _he said_[,] _“What on earth are you doing_[?] [H]_ow did you get in here anyways?”_



Overall, I like the notion of someone trying to escape from a disordered household by resorting to a plain life of discipline and abstinence.  Sexual tension is always a great way to propel the reader along, provided that it’s properly being aroused and satisfied. 

I would’ve liked more characterization of Oswald and Daisy. Why would he take up her offer and not the others? Was it her buxom appearance (and if so, please, tell us more)? How would he have known she would’ve come a-knocking in her inebriated state? And why would she want to knock boots with plain, ol’ Oswald? It would be nice to have some clues to the ambiguity. 

All in all, this was a proper entry, it was.


*Ibb
“Spacebound”*
*SPaG 3/5 *
*Tone 3/5 *
*Effect: 6/10*
*Overall:  12*

No spelling errors to note. Grammatically, there are a few nits: 

_“The first time it happened_[,]_ I’d been sneaking out to the garage because that was where Joey hid his Playboys.”_
I believe you need a comma after the “happened” since it is the end of an introductory statement, then remove the second comma to keep the sentence flowing.

_“before throwing something at me [like] an old soda bottle or a pair of my shoes.”_
-I don’t believe a comma works here. You need a preposition. 

_“All the while waiting my legs and arms going soft.”_ - fragment

_“They poured warm liquids over my eyes_[,]_ laid me on tables_[,] [and] _murmured amongst themselves and appeared then disappeared.”_
Commas are needed instead of semi-colons. Also, murmur is used in succession, which weakens its effect.

_“So_[,]_ what’s it like?” she’d asked._

_“No,” I said_[,]_ “[t]hey don’t care about him.”_

Pluperfect tense makes it read like someone trying to explain themselves, but it makes the first sentence a little bit awkward to read. There are a few tense shifts that occur throughout the story (and a complete shift before Emily and Joey knock boots). I believe that this was done for stylistic purposes, but it gets inconsistent at points. I’d be weary of that.

The story perfectly embodies “younger-brother-itis” pretty well. It’s something I can definitely relate to. The “he was everything and I was nothing” sentiment reminds me of Mike Tyson quite a bit. 

It’s not entirely clear why he finds being abducted and caressed by aliens as being peaceful (and why he’d subject himself to it again and again). A bit more detail would be appreciated. 

Overall, it was a decent story of a downtrodden underling. I would be careful of grammar in future entries.


*Miles-Kirk
“Fun Leads to Folly”*
*SPaG 3/5 *
*Tone 2/5 *
*Effect: 2/10*
*Overall:  7*

I was wondering if someone was going to go for the “tentacle porn” sort of entry. Sadly, this notion was confirmed. 

Your entry is pretty pornographic. We have a professional woman who is degraded, then undergoes rape, bondage and lashing scenario so that she will eventually give birth in an “Alien-esque” sort of fashion, all at the familial command of her father.  

Sexual assault is part of the darkness of human nature and should be discussed in literature. However, it is rarely done at all, much less meaningfully. The lack of acknowledgement or reflection on the violation of a person's dignity makes this piece just another blasé attempt at shock and horror. Furthermore, the title “Joy turns to Folly” is an almost childish muse on adult themes. 

Spelling was fine, but grammatically, there were comma splices throughout the piece. 

The line _“Words that in one foul swoop destroyed my remaining humanity”_ was overly dramatic and flat from someone who is being raped and intoxicated. It seems that there are a few elements sort of just parsed on the beginning and end of the piece (Joan and then her dad’s company). And wait, was she wearing a blouse or a D&G Maxi dress?

The voice was not convincingly female, especially one being violated. All in all, it just reads as a fetish piece with a childish sort of perspective. 


*InstituteMan
“Financial District Alien Pornography”*
*SPaG 5/5 *
*Tone 5/5 *
*Effect: 6/10*
*Overall:  16*

This piece was excellent. The singular narrative style worked well. The voice has the nuance to come off as a convincing New York accent… or whatever American, East Coast city accent akin to that. The spelling is flawless. As for grammar, the piece was consistently stylized, so it comes off as polished.

I liked how seamless the connection between a shady, financial dealing and the prompt. Injections of financial terms as sexual innuendo was hilarious. I appreciate cheap sex jokes, what can I say?

The only criticism was on how much importance was put on the conversation in the back seat. If something that homoerotic happened to a seasoned taxi driver, it probably would’ve required a whiskey or two, but probably not three.

Regardless, the entry was well textured and paced. Well done!


*Fivetide
“The big day”*
*SPaG 3/5 *
*Tone 3/5 *
*Effect: 5/10*
*Overall:  11*

There were some spelling mistakes:
lakes  - lake’s
whiteness- witness
accent – ascent

Grammatically, there were a lot of comma splices:

*“*_He tentatively prodded the wriggling container with his favourite tentacle, it replied with a sharp squeak and gentle gurgle.” _Giggity… I mean, this is a comma splice. A semicolon or period is needed here.

_“The juvenile stared at the pouch and gave a last glance over his shoulder, now or never, he thought.”_ – comma splice

“Again[,] a whooping jeer came…” – missing punctuation 

I liked how we got learned about his alien body bit by bit.

There were a bit of continuity issues, like how a branch shattered above his head when you didn’t establish that he exited the tunnel.

The story happens rapidly to the point of being confusing. We sort of feel like we’re being tugged along for the ride, which is an ineffective way to convey a story if the audience isn’t provided enough details to go along for the ride. 

I can sense a good deal of imagination and dynamics here, but you should slow down, explain to the audience what is exactly going on.


 *shinyford
“Spede, Dating”*
*SPaG 4/5 *
*Tone 4/5 *
*Effect: 7/10*
*Overall:  15*

Spelling was flawless, but there was one troublesome sentence:

_“The man smiled, and sat on a chair of his own_[,] [t]_ook Johannes’s well-manicured hand in his, _[and]_ gently touched his _[identifier of which person’s]_ hair_.” – without the correction, the second sentence is a fragment

Although Johannes could’ve been using the term gaggle since he was unfamiliar with women, I would not use the word gaggle to describe women, especially when you are in front of women. Also, I’m not a fan of explicitly mentioning pauses, but it looks like you were at the end of your word count, and couldn’t spare too much space.  

There were some witty touches to the piece: 

_“Hallo,” she said. “Do you like The Slits?”_ – I thought this was a rather crude metaphor, but it was, in fact, a sort of foreshadowing

There were also some excellent little bits of insight (the presumably large, insecure woman going for the insecure man, and the pretty one being a gold digger), as well as hints and foreshadowing to both men’s sexuality.  The themes and prompts of the story were well handled. Overall, well done.


*garza
“The Milkshake Date”*
*SPaG 4/5 *
*Tone 5/5 *
*Effect: 8/10*
*Overall:  17*

Spelling was flawless (as expected). There was one grammar nit at the very end:

_“'Taken care of, and *I'm* been adequately forgiven,' Briney said, and laughed.”_ – even though it’s framed by “quotation marks”, I can’t attribute it to any particular speech pattern.

The story was well rounded with great phrases such as:
_ “More offers than were needed came from the circle of boys gathered around her.” _
_“Physical retaliation inspired by cultural alienation can be the result.”_ –great tie in to the prompt 

I’m not entirely sure why you went with the nicknames you gave to Nick and Brian, unless you were trying to pass Nick as being akin to a gullible chick and Brian as a sort of backwater deterrent to the union.

Overall, it was a well handled, self-contained plot that was perfectly textured and spread over this short length. It was definitely a nice throwback to the ‘70s. 


*Bishop
“No Different”*
*SPaG 5/5 *
*Tone 4/5 *
*Effect: 6/10*
*Overall:  15*

There were no problems with S&G. It was strange to see the species name of the aliens not capitalized, but it sort of balances out with the way we spell “human”. 

_“…here the hips blossom out into the focal points of male sexual aggression”_ –what starts off semi-awkwardly turns into witty writing. 

There were some great science fiction concepts here, like the modifiable holo-medallion and interspecies teen romance.  Although it sets the tone for Trigor, wouldn’t the technology for self-cleaning ships or cleaning robots be available? Eh, minor detail. On a side note, Clarence definitely reminded me of the Sal from Futurama, which was a good thing. 

What exactly does space dust smell of? Dry, crumbled blue cheese? 

Tone wise, everything was consistent. The only nit is that the usage of spun in the phrase _“her tentacles jostling as her head spun”_ was a little bit awkward, since heads “spinning” usually refers to dizziness.

Overall, it’s a good, steady entry. However, I’m not sure what Clarence’s point exactly was. Was it that the pretty ones get more attention than from a humble dockworker? It just seemed like that “the nice, shy guy is going be second again” sort of story, which is true, but sort of the same old.


*EmmaSohan
“WHAT IF?”*
*SPaG 4/5 *
*Tone 4/5 *
*Effect: 7/10*
*Overall:  15*

One nit to pick in terms of S&G: 

_“We lie on the bed and kiss_[,] [l]_ike we've done so many times before.”_ – lose the period and replace with comma

Tone wise, he did seem like an eager and happy husband, but I would’ve liked a bit more texturing of the depth of their relationship or emotion for her, rather than simple joy due to a wedding night. 

  –well, that escalated quickly. 

_"I felt your orgasm after mine. It was pure pleasure."
"Yeah."_ – methinks there may have been a lack of orgasming on someone’s behalf, ahem. 

_“--not all couples can--” _– good little nugget of information

_“My father smiles. ‘Yeah,’ is all he can say. He already knows. My father shouts, ‘A kiss?’ More clapping.”_ – it is a bit awkward with how you structured what his father says to him, than to the crowd. Perhaps “He raised his voice to the crowd, ‘A kiss?’”

_Yurla's father pinches my arm surprisingly hard. Yurla shouts. "Ouch. That hurt!_ _What sadistic pervert thought of that test?"_ – when you were first writing this, was it always his _arm_ that was being pinched?

I thoroughly enjoyed the concept. If I knew how I made someone I was in the throes of passion feel and vice versa, that would be bliss. It’s a neat concept of shared sensory and sexual experience. It reminds me of Ghost in the Shell where the characters can electronically connect to share sensory data on what the other is experiencing, be it sex or what have you. It would be confusing, especially when doing motor tasks to have feedback of two bodies at a time. Also, it would have been interesting to have each person distinguish who is feeling what, and see how it affects the empathy generated by the shared experience. 

The characters were a bit underdeveloped. It’s such a “LM judge” thing to say, but subtle character tells are a great way to add depth and further immersion. 

I didn’t like how the sexual scene was short (not just because I’m a guy). Again, it’s probably due to word limit, but a) it was important to the short because it’s how the two connected and b) the sexual experience itself can be such an intimate and passionate act. I don’t know; it seemed anticlimactic and sterile to me.

Overall, it was a cute, sweet, innocent story that was enjoyable.


*InkwellMachine
“Concerning What Goes On Inside Playhouses”*
*SPaG 5/5 *
*Tone 5/5 *
*Effect: 7/10*
*Overall:  17*

Well done. You have a way of making each sentence do work; the story unravels from an actualized voice (top down) rather than from sentences mended together (bottom up). 

There were great parallels between the father’s suppression of whim and the honesty of his son’s. I just hope he doesn’t pass it onto his son. There were good moments of contrary to usual characterization, like how his mother is into watching sports while his father wasn’t. 

I think we can all sort of relate to feeling the power of libido when it first emerges and how it’s suppressed by our elders, than ourselves. 

While the concepts didn’t entirely tickle me, the story itself was well constructed. Well done.
[/spoiler2]
[spoiler2=Pluralized’s scores]

*Terry D*
*“An Alien Encounter at Red Willow Point”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 5*
*Tone/Voice: 4*
*Effect: 7*
*Overall: 16*

This story moved really fast. I had to go back and see that you did, in fact, tell me it was 650 words. Then, just out of sheer curiosity, I put it through wordcounttool.com, just to check. 696 words! Then I checked it in Word. Exactly 650. Well done on the editing!

It’s real clean, real fast-paced, great dialogue and a totally-believable young dude infatuated. I stumbled over the ‘shred me on FB’ thing which sounded a bit forced, and the Miley ref, but I liked this overall and thought it was pretty sweet work. Docked the voice a point though, because I didn’t really feel like you did anything to push the envelope. Or maybe it was the sun pouring like yellow dew, one or the other.

Nice job. Only nittish thing I caught was this:

*If by ‘marry’ she means ‘doing it.’ I think about that all the time.* I think this should be a comma, not a full stop.

Always a pleasure to read your stuff, whether I’m judging or whatever.


*Plasticweld*
*“To the membership.”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 4*
*Tone/Voice: 4*
*Effect: 6*
*Overall: 14*

I thought this was fun, pretty well done, and unique. I usually don’t embrace self-conscious stuff like this, and have an aversion to referring to the forum’s innards in competitions and such. But, I like how mock-serious it is. There are still spelling and grammar glitches, and at then end of it, I’m wishing something a bit more forceful happened, because you did, after all, have more words and could have done anything you wanted.

Still enjoyed it and applaud the funkiness. Good work.


*Goopner*
*“Alien Mating Rituals”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 3*
*Tone/Voice: 4*
*Effect: 6*
*Overall: 13*

Good story. The concept of someone being impregnated by an alien is one I’d hoped we’d see from this prompt. Gestationally speaking, seems you had license to make it weird. Like a shorter gestation would be more urgent and foreign.

Spag’s better, grammar’s better. Thought some of the dialogue was too narrative-ish, like nobody’s going to say “A knock resounded on the hatch” but a narrator.

Capitalize the third sentence.

amniotic sack. >> sac

human like >> human-like

until a commit struck it >> Comet

Good job overall, and thanks for entering.


*L’Pancreas*
*“A night to Remember”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 5*
*Tone/Voice: 5*
*Effect: 6*
*Overall: 16*

The first sentence was hilarious. The story unfolded quickly, was expertly-crafted, and used the prompt in an exceptionally inventive way. I commend you. Not sure what she was saying exactly, and maybe that’s why it’s so funny. “Blaaargs,” indeed.

What I didn’t like was the index finger up in the air, and the pontificating about not wanting to get some drunken ass. I mean, dude had a boner until the puke started flowing. So, I guess I felt a bit like the ‘pelt’ screed was just a touch unbelievable. Like, you’d tell this story to a group of chicks to make them think you’re all upstanding and stuff, you know, so you could sleep with one or more of them.

Good job overall – smooth writing and very competent execution.


*Kilroy214*
*“Strange Magic”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 4*
*Tone/Voice: 4*
*Effect: 6*
*Overall: 14*

Strange Magic, indeed. The thing I like best about this story is how easily you interwove voodoo and reliability, sort of subtlely. Good stuff. There are some Spag things to talk about, minor though they are, like capitalizing ‘he’ when using speech tags – no need. Think of the speech tag as still a part of an active sentence, which isn’t finished yet. That’s why full stops are periods.

Wanted the story to make more of an arc, so the ending didn’t do much for me. I liked the spicy ending in theory, but there’s something about ‘handcuffs’ in the bedroom that I personally have an aversion to. So, I sorta wanted to take a shower. But that’s my hangup, not necessarily a fault in the story.

The setting was close to being immersive, but I think maybe it would’ve been a bit better with more sensory detail. It was outside in a clearing, but it seems like that was forgotten or lost or something as it went along. Still, good dialogue and a fully enjoyable story despite my nittery.


*amsawtell*
*“Documentary”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 5*
*Tone/Voice: 5*
*Effect: 7*
*Overall: 17*

To start out, thematically, I like and agree with the notion that primping and grooming are bizarre mating rituals, and I like how you’ve framed the thematic statement through the use of this comedic setting. Well written, nothing too shabby to point out. Some odd spacing issues but I’m guessing you pasted it in and that’s why. Good use of the word ‘decoctions.’ I thought that was a nice choice, and I liked the rhyme in the following sentence.

So, maybe there were some sentences that could have been woven together better. Like the first two could have been shuffled into something smoother, in my opinion. But I’m literally looking for stuff to point out, so you’ve done well. A tiny bit ‘twee’ for my jaded tastes, but can’t ding you too much for the Spag and voice because I think you knew just what kind of story you wanted to write and did pretty darn well. Takes a lot to tip my Effect Meter, but I can appreciate this use of the prompt and very adept telling of the tale. Great job.


*midnightpoet*
*“Alien Control Squad”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 4*
*Tone/Voice: 4*
*Effect: 6*
*Overall: 14*

I liked the secret hand signal – thought that lent a ton of depth to the piece. Didn’t like the sequence ‘I felt bad vibes’ and ‘Agent Q was at his desk’ because they felt very out of place. The last desk/table I pictured was Shorty’s. Maybe the transition was a bit too fast, even for flash.

Loved the dialogue back-and-forth. Great job keeping us up on who’s who. I laughed at the ‘Sex, among other things’ line.

Toward the end, we start a paragraph with  ‘He was also the local fence’ but I had to stop and wonder to whom we were referring at that point. Honest Joe? Ox? Maybe the paragraph breaks are too deliberate at this juncture.

Nits: ‘a eclectic’ – an eclectic
Need a period after ‘heavy space metal’
I’m not sure you get away with ‘specie types’

Very MIB-style tale here, but perfectly on-prompt. Felt like you could really have closed up some of the loose ends with another few hundred words. I like certain aspects of the story, but we don’t get enough of any one character or one scene to settle in before it’s all covered in pink goo. Still, I like any ending that splatters everywhere, so, well done.


*Kepharel*
*“A First Time for Everything”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 5*
*Tone/Voice: 5*
*Effect: 8*
*Overall: 18*

Gawd, just reading the title excited me. You didn’t disappoint with the prose, either. Very robust voice, superb execution. I found this to be clear, enjoyable, and very intelligently-written. A few things I paused at afterward, since it is so well done, like ‘cold, bleak, grey winter’s day’ – I thought one too many descriptors. Also a few things needed hyphenating, like time-worn and cross-referenced. But I’m really studying for nits, and none are egregious. Great story, solid ending, well written. Not much more I can ask for, but maybe a tiny sprinkle or two of dialogue in between the first two big blocks of text. Could have helped the flow.

Nice work.


*Ibb*
*“Spacebound”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 5*
*Tone/Voice: 5*
*Effect: 8*
*Overall: 18*

Ah, humping. I had sure hoped someone in this prompt would drop that one – thank you!

Great story, and just about flawlessly written. The semicolon exercise was the only thing I paused over – really solid piece here. You gave me just enough ending to ruminate on and puzzle over, and I don’t feel cheated at all. Maybe I want for a tiny bit more subterfuge, tension or something. Like maybe the narrator recalls being told something on the ship that was going to happen, or some such easter egg. It’s really good as-is though. Enjoyed!


* Miles-Kirk*
*“Fun Leads to Folly”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 4*
*Tone/Voice: 3*
*Effect: 5*
*Overall: 12*

Really liked the dark, sci-fi/horror thing going on here, but found it really hard to get immersed in the story because the writing got in the way. Too many protruding metaphors and melodramatic turns of phrase, for my taste. I thought the vomiting could have been wrapped up quick, given how inconsequential it ended up being. The POV gets messed up toward the end because of how tight it is, but also some of the observations she’s making. For instance, if we’re reading from her perspective, how’d she know her face was ‘seared with fresh bruises?’ Doesn’t quite work, does it?

I admire the flowery lilt to the prose, and did enjoy reading it. Just didn’t think it all worked to create a cohesive story. The bones are there, but they’re obscured by layers and layers of unnecessary ‘writing’ and that’s too bad. Sorry this one didn’t work better for me – hope you’ll try again.


* InstituteMan*
*“Financial District Alien Pornography”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 4.5*
*Tone/Voice: 5*
*Effect: 7*
*Overall: 16.5*

The craziest take on the prompt, for sure – enjoyed this. It’s a bit too heavy on the cursing, even for my tainted sensibilities, and maybe a bit too single-course for me. Would have liked to hear some kind of anecdote from Suit or something, convincing Hoodie that ‘dick-pics’ are a good idea for whatever reason. Something to take us out of the driver’s single-track narrative. Still, I’m deliberately having to find stuff to go after – it’s a solid story. Great job.

Whatchyagonnado – this cost you .5 points. Whaddyagonnado would have been so much better.

mother fuckers – combine into one word, methinks.

At the end – No idea what ‘short that shit’ means, though the context got me through with some satisfaction. Might be presuming too much from us non-financial-industry-savvy readers.


* Fivetide*
*“The big day”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 3*
*Tone/Voice: 4*
*Effect: 6*
*Overall: 13*

Gross! ….I think. Really weird, fun stuff here. Pouch, as in – nugget pouch? Right.

So, the story started out strong, sort of got off track in the middle, then tried to circle around to a cheeky ending. I got what you were going for, and enjoyed it. Felt like maybe some of the stuff with the lake and the excreting orbs and such was a tiny bit obscured or maybe buried, could’ve been presented a little more tactfully.

Turning his head to look down his red fur lined back, he lined up the lake with his rear. >>> eh?

hind quarters. >>> hindquarters

Instinct forced down his panic and spurred him on to greater exertions. >>> unnecessarily flowery and verbose, imo.

The lakes surface >>> lake’s

as they whiteness his dilemma. >>> witness

Bugger he thought, then yelled down, “too quick sweet heart?” >>> “Bugger,” he thought, then yelled down, “Too quick, sweetheart?”


* Shinyford*
*“Spede, Dating”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 4.5*
*Tone/Voice: 5*
*Effect: 9*
*Overall: 18.5*

What a simple, well-executed tale. Great work here. The dialogue, the setting, the bright wit, it’s wonderfully well done.

Not much to ding you on, besides this half-point bust: What did woman talk about?  >>> women

Strong contender here. Will be interesting to see what others thought of it, and where it places. I loved it and thought it was the best story in the competition, if nothing more than for poor Johannes’s weary love life. Usually stories that are so dialogue-heavy tend to be light on character development and setting, but I found not a whole lot lacking in this one. Had I experienced more sensory engrossment, I would’ve scored this perfectly.


* Garza*
*“The Milkshake Date”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 4.5*
*Tone/Voice: 5*
*Effect: 8.5*
*Overall: 18*

This prompt has generated some interesting tales of courting, and this was no disappointment. Read this last Tuesday on the beach in Gulfport, incidentally, as I was traveling from Atlanta to Baton Rouge along I-10. Funny coincidence, and not sure how much that impacted my enjoyment. Let’s just say, I found this story to be supremely well written and very true to its voice. The mix of dialogue and exposition are handled well, not too top-heavy or info-dumpy, and believable. I’m pretty cynical, so I tend to think of young people, even back in the day at the drive-in, using some kind of foul language or being slightly more crass. However, I wasn’t there, so I have to take your word for it. Great work.

Didn’t think the ending line made sense, so I’ve docked half point for Spag. I’m been? I don’t know if that’s proper Gulfport slang or not, but given the care you’ve taken with the rest of the prose, I suspect it should’ve been “I’ve been?” If this is some obscure usage thing, I apologize, but I’m dockin’ half point.


* Bishop*
*“No Different”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 4.5*
*Tone/Voice: 4*
*Effect: 7*
*Overall: 15.5*

They’re no different, especially when they take classes and wear their tentacles around their hips like human ladies. Ha! This was like a frolicking romp through some kind of weird alien land, both science fiction and parody. It was like you uncapped a jar full of made-up names and scattered them about. Done pretty well, for the most part, except I kept wondering if those names should be capitalized. Didn’t take points off for that, but wondered more than once. Also, felt like kerinan should have been ‘kerinian’ since we are, after all, describing their race. Like ‘xaltonian’ uses that construction, I would’ve thought… but that’s minor.

Most of the writing’s clean, punctuation’s good, but there were a few places that felt clunky to my ear.  Like: “Illia tumbled forward some in the throes of laughter, catching herself by one foot and balancing with her hand coming up to touch at the kerinan boy’s chest.” >>> I don’t know, maybe it just hangs up on my reading-tongue and doesn’t flow so well. Try reading that bit out loud, see what you think. Maybe I’m just persnickety.

stains from planet atmospheres or general cosmic particle clutter. >>> my brain wanted ‘planetary’ and ‘particle-clutter’

So, the Spag things I’ve pointed out are all sort of personal choice things, but grammatically, I feel like there’s at least a half point’s worth missing from this.

Story-wise, I got what you meant, but maybe wanted a slight bit more in-the-moment and not so much ‘done deal’ narration. It was hard to care about what happened, to be honest. Maybe some of that was getting lost in all the xaltonians and kerinans and tentacles. Still, it was clean and imaginative and I liked it.


* Emma Sohan*
*“What If”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 5*
*Tone/Voice: 4*
*Effect: 5*
*Overall: 14*

Fun times. You had me at ‘ejaculated.’

Really good story, if a bit flat at the end for me personally, but I appreciate what you did and how well you wrote this. Liked the execution a lot. The ending, not so much. Tone/Voice – rather cautious. Would’ve liked something maybe a bit more brazen than ‘ejaculated’ and ‘huge sexual organ’ but then again, I’m maybe not the target audience, either. Good work – solid writing. Thematically, I like the ‘connection’ thing, just saw three or four possibilities on how to end it, and didn’t feel satisfied with the conclusion.


* InkwellMachine*
*“Concerning What Goes On Inside Playhouses”*
*Spelling/Grammar: 4.5*
*Tone/Voice: 5*
*Effect: 8*
*Overall: 17.5*

Enjoyed this immensely. The FLOW of your writing in this story is just amazing, and I stumbled very little as I read. It comes together nicely, feels authentic and honest, and the voice very robust and consistent. The flavor, maybe two or three clicks off from the spicy variety I favor, and expected, but this is good and strong and poignant in and of itself. Nice job on making it feel complete, even giving us a healthy dollop of characterization right there at the end.

I thought “play set” might want to be “playset” but I’m sure that’s not necessarily incorrect. Found just one error: It was the look of a small caught up in something very serious. >>> A small what, professor?

Good stuff – thanks for entering.
[/spoiler2]
[spoiler2=Smith’s scores]

First off, I would like to apologize. Not a professional reviewer. Learning. Also, my reviews are not conducted with perfect grammar. Ironic. I am unbiased, and carry no personal vendettas. Any questions, comments, or whatever, don’t be shy. <333

*Terry D
“An Alien Encounter at Red Willow Point"
Spelling/Grammar: 5/5
Tone/Voice: 5/5
Effect: 8/10
Overall: 18/20*

I really enjoyed this piece! Maybe a little unfair, considering I’m going through a similar time in my life. Teen angst, relationships and all that. But I was really able to relate to it. Brought back stuff I’m still trying to forgive and forget, but that made it very effective. 

Speaking of which, to be honest I was thinking about giving you a perfect score for Effect. What threw me off though was the dialogue. Not that it was poorly written, but I had to re-read some of it once or twice in order to figure out who was talking. I think this could be overcome by just putting the following sentence on the previous line with the dialogue it goes with. Of course, we all have our own styles, and maybe I’m the only one who had a problem with it. If that’s just part of your style or flow, cool. Not trying to step on any toes, especially considering it isn’t inherently wrong. Just my opinion.


*Plasticweld
“You have a new personal message"
Spelling/Grammar: 3.75/5
Tone/Voice: 3.25/5
Effect: 6/10
Overall: 13/20*

I have to commend you for doing something that, in my opinion, is a little outside the box and unique. I did something based off the forums last competition, but I didn’t really try, and some thought using actual names was in poor taste. Point being, your attempt here is far better than mine in my opinion.

Still a lot of areas that it could improve in though. The most distracting thing was the use of commas, which seemed improper. The pace would have benefited from correct punctuation, and a different style overall really. Shorter, quicker sentences and short fragments to signify there not being a lot of time. He’s in a hurry. Really get across a sense of paranoia you know? “They’re coming for me. The aliens. That’s right, they’re here. Not literally, it’s too late for me. I mean here. On the forums!”

Really that alone could have saved you some points. Otherwise the idea was alright. I love pieces that are creative. This might’ve not been executed to full potential however, though I appreciate the thought that went into it.


* W. Goepner
“Alien Mating Rituals"
Spelling/Grammar: 3/5
Tone/Voice: 3.5/5
Effect: 6/10
Overall: 12.5/20*

I noticed the SPaG was a little off from the first line. It should be…

*“I warned you not to tell them,” Katherine said, shaking her head. “You know how badly I laughed when you told me.” She was doing her best not to giggle.*

or

*Shaking her head, Katherine said, “I warned you not to tell them. You know how badly I laughed when you told me.” She covered her mouth, face red.*

These kinds of punctuation and grammar mistakes continue throughout in regards to dialogue. Other slip-ups were Sampson sometimes being called Samson, or vice-versa, not sure which it is supposed to be. I didn’t consider this an error, but the actual location is Alpha Centauri. Not sure if you meant to spell it a certain way or not, just thought it was worth pointing out.

Another reason I didn’t consider that a real mistake, is because I won’t lie, towards the end you actually made me chuckle a little. Not sure if that was intended, but I did start to see and feel the whole ridiculousness of the situation. Your alien pregnating of the human via hand-shake was definitely an “alien mating ritual” haha. I can only imagine the PDA laws of Alfacentary. No hand-shakes! Do they greet by peeing out of their fingers? Not sure if you’ll get that reference.. 

The tone and voice was okay, but I think there is a lot to improve there as well. I didn’t even really notice it until almost the very end. If you can find a way to make it a little more effective, and come in earlier on, that would be quite beneficial. If you’ve any questions or comments, let me know!


*thepancreas11
“A Night to Remember"
Spelling/Grammar: 5/5
Tone/Voice: 5/5
Effect: 8/10
Overall: 18/20*

I really enjoyed it, similar to the reasons I enjoyed Terry D’s piece. Brought back a conversation I had with some friends I used to hang out with. They’re just acquaintances now, but we were driving around town and three of them were just going back and forth about how long their first times lasted. (I did not have anything to contribute to this conversation, and sat back bored and feeling lame) And when one person would give a longer time, the others would change their stories to ‘45 mins’ etc etc, and then I realized how full of bleep they all were. Personally, I don’t even know if they even had their first times at all, couldn’t be bothered to find out. But after losing some IQ and respect from that conversation, and from going to one of their houses to get aimlessly pathetically hammered and / or high for the upteenth time, I called it quits. Haven’t spoken to them much since.

Of course, that is a much more extreme outcome than what our main character did here. Vomity shirt + face + middle finger + bedroom door slam = pretty freaking awesome too though. Still, my point is, this story also had a great effect on me, and I like that when I read. One thing did distract me a little, which was, “The cut-off kid put down his drink.” I thought maybe I had overlooked somebody getting cut-off in the dialogue previously, so I actually went back and searched, which took me out of the story for a few seconds. Did I miss something? I was very confused. Now that I’ve thought about it some more, I think you were referring to his clothing (the main character calls him Biceps after). Also, later on I caught an error, “I had become and actor” should be “I had become an actor” but other than that I didn’t find anything. So, I didn’t feel it was big enough of a deal to detract any points. It happens. 

That whole rant at the end was great. It’s like all the things I would want to say and yell and do if I were in that situation, or close to it. Sums up a lot of the thoughts I have about people like that, mainly that same group of people I used to hang out with that I mentioned earlier. I know a ton of high-school girls who go to parties like that, and do stuff that is similar to what happened with the main character in the beginning. Part of me wants to care, change it, take action and do something about it. But then it just stresses me out, because either there isn’t anything I can do, or I just don’t know how. Then I give in, because I’m just left sitting here wondering if it is even worth being myself and trying to be a good person. Really powerful stuff for me man, I appreciate the read.


*kilroy214
“You have a new personal message"
Spelling/Grammar: 4.25/5
Tone/Voice: 5/5
Effect: 7/10
Overall: 16.25/20*

A couple things cost you just a little in SPaG, such as the formatting of the dialogue. Aside from that I couldn’t find much wrong with it. As for the effect, the strange wedding was well played. I thought that would be the focus of the entire piece, until you threw that curveball at the end. Great way to tie things up! I love puns. But no, really, talk about a true alien mating ritual… haha. Good stuff, I enjoyed reading. You made the characters believable and rounded them out decently well in such a short time, similar to my favorites from this month, something I have a lot of difficulty doing (and I think maybe I’m starting to learn… hopefully )


*amsawtell
“Documentary"
Spelling/Grammar: 5/5
Tone/Voice: 5/5
Effect: 7/10
Overall: 17/20*

I loved the mockumentary aspect of this. Totally unexpected, and I’m actually a sucker for Australian accents and the whole Bear Grylls type of thing. Had a big effect on me with that alone. The spelling and grammar were also fine. Back to the effect, aside from the Australian survival show (at least, that’s how I imagined it), the situation really got me thinking. Girls spend so much time on make-up and all this other stuff, they sometimes cover up who they actually are. They’re trying so hard to fit this standard as if every day were a beauty contest. Seems like a weird mating ritual to me, attracting people with somebody you’re not. I’m not saying I’ve never pretended to be who I’m not in my life. That was actually a huge personal problem for me. 

But yeah, something seemingly so innocent in which your story revolves around, actually had a pretty big impact on me. Really got me thinking. I’m glad I don’t spend so much time on being who I’m not anymore. In fact, I really don’t spend any time on that now. I just focus on being myself, being unique, and trying to be a good person on this crappy planet. Thanks for getting me to reflect on that and realize how far I’ve come in such a short time with figuring out who I really am. Good story.


*midnightpoet
“Alien Control Squad"
Spelling/Grammar: 4.25/5
Tone/Voice: 4.25/5
Effect: 6.5/10
Overall: 15/20*

Reminded me of Men in Black. In general I liked it, a few places where I thought the dialogue could have used some oomph. For example, *“He needs to be deported, at least. Get a proton plasma blaster from weapons. I’ll take my trusty 45-caliber pistol.”* I don’t know, just something about it. Maybe just me. I think scrapping describing the weapons in this way would be a good start. You can reveal the weapon later on in the brief alley-way scene. Like, *“His tongue reached out and grabbed my proton plasma blaster.”* However, that nit-picking aside, I must really commend you for creating a great universe in such a short amount of time, space, and words. It would actually be cool to learn about Carpathia, hell-whole of a planet, and of course what earth is like. Cool stuff, I love day-dreaming, so that gave you a little extra for Effect. Thanks for the read.


*Kepharel
“A First Time for Everything"
Spelling/Grammar: 4.25/5
Tone/Voice: 4/5
Effect: 7/10
Overall: 15.25/20*

I found myself able to relate to Oswald decently well, and that goes quite a long ways for me. An interesting way of approaching it, compared to the entries I’ve read so far. The right vs. wrong was what made me like the story as much as I did, and even convinced me to give you a little extra in score. Personally I’ve found it sometimes difficult to be the good guy all the time. So much easier to be the bad guy, take advantage of situations, etc. That being said, I feel that there could have been a little more Effect had Oswald actually made a decision at the end. Perhaps that is something to be tackled without word count restriction, or maybe you felt leaving it up to the reader was more beneficial. A couple times where I felt the story went off on a bit of an unnecessary tangent that detracted from it rather than benefit it. Still, you made me think, and I like that.


*Ibb
“Spacebound"
Spelling/Grammar: 5/5
Tone/Voice: 4/5
Effect: 5/10
Overall: 14/20*

As a kid I remember seeing movies and tv shows (some of them “documentaries” on the History Channel and such) about aliens or abduction and that sort of thing. Cartoons even, like Scooby Doo. Even had a dream once or twice if I remember. Not necessarily on purpose. I wasn’t even really into science, space, or aliens. But this piece really reminded me of all that haha. I like finding a way to relate to what I’m reading.

Anyway, I liked the narrator’s older brother. Not because I found his attitude appealing, but rather, you did such a great job of making him feel real. “Don’t touch my magazines, faggot” is exactly how me, and many of the people I know, talk. We’ve all been talking like sailors since, hell, first year of middle school? So like, 11 or 12? And in turn, for me, that made the narrator believable too. While his predicament is a little cliche, I’m usually not too picky about that anyway, and that’s another matter entirely.

Besides, the second he gets abducted from his douchebag brother and his unloving mom, the whole situation is no longer cliche at all. I rather wasn’t expecting this, to be honest. The description of the abduction and aliens is short and sweet, no complaints there. Also how you describe his relationship with these beings is pretty cool. They sort of become a way for him to escape reality I guess. Now, there does come the expected part where he tries to tell his most trusted friend but they don’t believe him. That isn’t really the part that bothers me though. What happens next is suddenly… Emily and Joey are just sitting around with him in the bedroom? Joey tells him to leave his own room… I don’t know why the girl is treating the narrator the way she does… and then there is no abduction. Maybe I’m just missing something, but I was just really confused and let down by the ending.

So, that lost you quite a lot of points in effect. It had the potential, I feel, to be something really cool. If only it were executed in a better way. Another part in the story that I feel could use improvement, is when you start talking about how Joey is his mom’s favorite. That’s fine and all, I see the purpose, but it comes in at the wrong time. It feels like a random off-shoot where it is right now. Mention that earlier on in the story. Still, the main problem is that the ending needed to be stronger and much clearer.


*Miles-Kirk
“Fun Leads to Folly”
Spelling/Grammar: 4/5
Tone/Voice: 4/5
Effect: 7/10
Overall: 15/20*

As it progressed it kept getting better and better, all the way to the big grand finale.

*“I awoke strapped to a table, I turned my head to the left and my cheek was met with a steel’s kiss. My eyes adjusted to the bright, illuminating light that filled the bare room. There was little I could see, mostly blurred shapes, but four white walls and the table I was manacled to were apparent.”*

The first thing I noticed, however, was this paragraph. In the quote above (as well as the sentence that follows said quote) you describe how she is binded three times. You also tell us there’s a table twice. Lastly, you say that her eyes adjust to the light, but there was little she could see besides blurred shapes. So removing one of the times you mention the table and one of the times you mention the bindings, as well as clearing up (pun intended) the blurred vision, would really improve this paragraph and therefore the flow.

A few other little things here or there throughout, but not anything I felt the need to elaborate on. Just nit-picks for the most part. The description of the whole birth scene was really well executed, in my opinion. I like the whole sci-fi feel of it. And man that twist at the end was a doozy! That’s what gave it the 7/10 effect for me, really, because otherwise… I didn’t feel too much for her. Anyway, good story.   


*InstituteMan
“Financial District Alien Pornography”
Spelling/Grammar: 4/5
Tone/Voice: 6/5
Effect: 7/10
Overall: 17/20*

I don’t know if I’m going to get away with giving you an extra point in Tone, but we’ll see.

While the way you formatted things made it a little hard for me to follow (dialogue, who was talking, etc) I was still able to get a hold of what was going on. Your tone was great, and consistent. I share many of the remarks and comments this guy makes about Suit and Hoodie. Many of the things going on in society, as far as expectations, trends, and what not… well, I frankly find sort of ridiculous, so I can really relate to the narrator. But, hey, I’ve got a life to live too, and I’m pretty strange myself. Moving on, this piece really surprised me. For me, currently in high-school and familiar with the whole nudes sharing thing (I’ll let you decide what you think I mean by “familiar”) it doesn’t seem all that alien. NOW I see how alien it really is.

That got me thinking about a lot of stuff, and kind of blew my mind in a way. Pun intended, possibly. But no, really, I don’t have a lot to say in regards to improving the piece, other than maybe making it more clear as to what was going on. Could be just me, I’m still doing my best to sharpen my reading skills. I get tired and / or distracted easily, which does not help. That’s why I tried not to be too hard on the points. I don’t know, I guess at some parts I was just having trouble with being 100% certain as to what the narrator, or Suit / Hoodie, were trying to say. I was also under the assumption that these two were just old teenagers until you brought up the Caribbean, because I’ve never heard of adults sending nudes.. or using bitcoins, guess I kind of just always assumed that was something us youngsters do.

Also, a lot of the lingo really confused me and made me pause a lot, which hurt the flow. Most of that is on me though, and not necessarily the story. From what I gathered (and to put it simply) a cab driver is recollecting this very intriguing ‘alien-mating ritual’ story while he is drinking in a bar? Okay, I think I got it now. Enjoy the 17/20, I really liked this one. Unique and fun stuff. <3


*Fivetide
“The big day”
Spelling/Grammar: 3/5
Tone/Voice: 3/5
Effect: 5/10
Overall: 11/20*

The first thing that struck me was that formatting and organization. Next time I would definitely consider spacing it out more, as it makes for easier reading and flow. 

Some errors throughout as well. “All I have to do now is avoid the Kudelrush snares and I’m free!” Should’ve been italicized to show thought. ‘Whiteness’ should’ve been ‘witness’ and ‘accent’ should’ve been ‘ascent’. Also, nit-picks aside, I’m not too sure what exactly the story was about… I gathered that they are weird, foreign creatures who all get some sort of sack with an egg in it… and they have to run an obstacle course for what? Maybe I missed something, or perhaps I wanted more.

As far as the idea, it was interesting. And the descriptions were nice, so that was enough for the score I gave you in effect. I was looking for more though, regarding what exactly was going on. The who, what, when, where, and why needed to be expanded, which I understand can be difficult to do in 650 words. If I missed something though, please let me know.


*shinyford
“Spede, Dating”
Spelling/Grammar: 5/5
Tone/Voice: 5/5
Effect: 8/10
Overall: 18/20*

Up to this point, I was surprised that a story had not tried to tackle what yours does. So I was pleasantly surprised when I came to this one!

Reminds me of what we do sometimes at school dances. Everyone has to find a partner type of thing. While I’m not homosexual, I could still sort of relate. I stopped trying to figure out “girls” and just stick to trying to figure out who they are as a “person”. Still really difficult, and so far something just isn’t clicking. Really frustrating. It was really nice to be able to relate then to your main character, especially in so few words, and I rewarded you for it in effect.

Your voice is very consistent, and I found no errors. While I did sort of see the twist coming, it was nonetheless great and it left me with a smile on my face. Not sure if the card thing was the alien mating ritual, or their relationship at the end, but either way it was fitting and I really enjoyed this piece. I look forward to more of your stuff. 


*garza
“The Milkshake Date”
Spelling/Grammar: 5/5
Tone/Voice: 5/5
Effect: 7.5/10
Overall: 17.5/20*

This was so believable it was almost scary. Not sure if you maybe based it off a life experience or something, but this was really vivid and I enjoyed it. The only thing that threw me off for a moment was when you started calling Nicholas ‘Nicki’. Just not a nick-name I’m used to I guess. Nothing I detracted points from or anything, just figured it might be worth pointing out. Anyway, this whole thing felt so real, and that really pulled me into it, and I awarded an extra half point for that simple fact. Sorry that I didn’t have a lot to say about this, but that’s mainly because the effect on me had more to do with how pulled in I was, rather than how well I could relate.

Maybe that’s a good thing I can’t relate to dumping a vanilla milkshake on some girl’s lap. xD


*Bishop
“No Different”
Spelling/Grammar: 5/5
Tone/Voice: 5/5
Effect: 6/10
Overall: 16/20*

Just about sums up most of my experiences with girls in high-school, except in a very well executed sci-fi way. You do a good job of capturing the mentality and everything of a kid that age, along with the mockery of an older person such as Clarence. And building a universe (although you don’t go into it very much) in so little space and time was very impressive and well done. I definitely found myself relating to Trigor, at least as far as his crush and what he planned to do about it. With a satisfying ending, this wasn’t a bad piece, and I’d even be interested in reading more if you happened to expand on it.


*EmmaSohan
“What If?”
Spelling/Grammar: 5/5
Tone/Voice: 5/5
Effect: 6.5/10
Overall: 16.5/20*

I commend you for making your everyday sex scene something actually interesting and intriguing. Talent. Pretty raw stuff but the thought that went into the ending was especially great. Made me wonder if I would prefer it to work that way or not. Personally, I don’t think I’d want to literally feel every single thing that my partner felt. And that also raises the question of what happens when either of you die, or how divorce would work. A cool idea that I would like to see explored, which is what earned you your score for effect. 


*InkwellMachine
“Concerning What Goes On Inside Playhouses”
Spelling/Grammar: 5/5
Tone/Voice: 5/5
Effect: 7/10
Overall: 17/20*

What a way to end my first time judging, haha. I thought this was a really cute story, of course until the ending, which was ever so slightly disturbing but mostly funny. One thing I noticed was “It was the look of a small caught up in something serious.” Never heard that phrase before, so if it’s not an actual thing, I’d consider changing up the sentence a little bit. Don’t get me wrong, I understood pretty much what you were saying, just had to think about it for a moment. The story had a pretty good effect on me. Two little kids with a little crushy crushy on eachother is pretty funny and cute, but that ending… talk about unexpected. Seems like that kind of stuff starts younger with every generation… Well done though, apologies that I didn’t have too much to say or critique, but I thought it was a solid piece.
[/spoiler2]


----------



## Ariel

Thank you to the judges and to Fin.  Congratulations to all the participants!


----------



## Bishop

Congrats to those who stole those top slots, especially Mr. Shiny!

At first thought my score was harsh, until I remembered this is out of 20, not 25 like the CoF xD Honestly, I was not proud of this piece for a few reasons: 1) it was an homage to "Araby" by James Joyce, and while that remains one of my favorite short stories, I'm always hesitant to share my homages because they often suck. 2) As Folcro said, I hinged on a line more than a story, and that forced some of the prose, like a building to a cheesy punchline, making it feel spoon-fed. And lastly 3) I listened to Bishopette! Okay, so that last one's not really negative, but I feel like my story about the violent, gun-fighting, mating frenzies of my other race in short story option number 2 was a better tale.

In any case, my thanks to the judges, and I plan to eviscerate next month's so, be ready for that!

Also: Folcro, I sensed a very "I expect better of you, Bishop" kind of tone in your review, which made me smile, then nod. I expect better too.


----------



## Terry D

The judges had a tough job this time around. There were many good entries. Thanks to all the judges, and congratulations to the winners.


----------



## shinyford

Well, gosh. That's fantastic. I didn't think I had a chance in hell this time round - some brilliant stories submitted. 

Pluralized: yeah, I spotted that typo approximately eleven minutes after submitting. You'll be pleased to know I spent a happy evening kicking myself for that one.
Guy Faukes: yes, absolutely a fragment. I quite like using them sometimes - in my head, the words flow better a bit, um, unconstrained. But that doesn't necessarily make it readable so your picking up on it is valuable - thanks. (The Slits were a 70s all-woman feminist punk band, BTW; that may not be well known.)
Folcro: great feedback, thanks. To clarify: what should have been italicised? The words 'Doctor Who'? Or something else? Just to make sure I've understood...
Smith: just thanks for the kind words! Greatly appreciated. 

Thanks to all the judges, everyone who entered and Fin especially. Looking forward to judging next time round...


----------



## Guy Faukes

Congratulations shinyford for taking this round! You had a great entry!

A high five to the other judges and to Fin for organizing it all. 

I'll note that I'm not the most literate or well versed in advanced grammar and spelling. Unless they were blatant, I rounded out potential errors with what may have been for effect.



amsawtell said:


> Thank you to the judges and to Fin. Congratulations to all the participants!



You can put the porkfork down now, Sam... Sam? 



shinyford said:


> Guy Faukes: yes, absolutely a fragment. I quite like using them sometimes - in my head, the words flow better a bit, um, unconstrained. But that doesn't necessarily make it readable so your picking up on it is valuable - thanks. (The Slits were a 70s all-woman feminist punk band, BTW; that may not be well known.)



I wrestled with knocking a point off S&G since it seemed unlikely that you would leave a blunder in the middle of an otherwise pristine entry. 

My generation started in the great dying of music, when rock operas had to have a certain riff and electronic music was taking off. I only faintly remember punk rock with being associated with Iggy and Henry Rollins.


----------



## Kepharel

Thanks judges for the input and the time you take out to do such a thorough job.  Just a bit of an explanation on my part as to what was going through my head on this one, now the comp is over....
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So where is the ‘alien’ in this story? The guys initials are OCD of course. The causes of OCD? Well, to quote OCDUK.Org:

“Major stresses or *traumatic life events* may precipitate the onset of OCD.  However, these are not thought to cause the OCD, but rather trigger it in someone already predisposed to the disorder.”

So here we have a man who knows he is different somehow but doesn’t know the cause.  The reader is made savvy of the “in flagrante” trauma that he has dismissed over his lifetime, though he never connects it with his historical hesitance regarding sex. Not to put a fine a point on it, Oswald, being different from other folks, is the alien. His dilemma with Daisy Dickinson (a much less subtle name) is his frustration with people such as her who get promoted over him time and time again, and this is where the tale becomes one of morals. By copulating with Daisy he sees a chance to screw the system, so to speak, but his innate decency gives him pause for thought.

----------------------------------

Once again thanks, and well done Shinyford, well deserved and congratulations.....


----------



## Kyle R

Great competition. Congrats to *Shiny*, *Inkwell*, and *Garza*! Jobs well done!

And congrats too all the other writers as well. Very fun reading the entries on this unique prompt. :encouragement:


----------



## Bishop

Erm, my eyes may be off, but should third place be Terry D?


----------



## Cran

Bishop said:


> Erm, my eyes may be off, but should third place be Terry D?



I'm guessing Terry D's entry doesn't count, despite being scored, because he's ... well, Terry D, or something.


----------



## shinyford

Guy Faukes said:


> I wrestled with knocking a point off S&G since it seemed unlikely that you would leave a blunder in the middle of an otherwise pristine entry.


Well, it was intentional - but that doesn't necessarily make it right.


----------



## Fin

Bishop said:


> Erm, my eyes may be off, but should third place be Terry D?



I put the order of the chart from first to last, which is something I've done like, twice, ever, yet still managed to get it wrong. One of these days I'll have a flawless score thread. Or one of these days I'll get the winner wrong and have to take away the medal. Could go either way at this point. Gettin' too old.


----------



## Kyle R

Whoops. Congrats on reaching the podium, Terry! :encouragement:


----------



## garza

Thanks for pushing me up a rung, Kyle. 

Yes, the last line should have started 'I've'. I spotted that in the same instant I took my finger off the key to post the story. The next instant I noticed the stray quotation mark at the top. This is what comes of saying to one's self, 'Ah, it's fine - no need to check it again.' The Greeks called that 'hubris'. I don't believe the ten-minute grace period ought to be allowed, so I don't use it, but it appears to be built into the software so it's sort of an honour system. 

Pluralized - No such thing as coincidence. You were meant to read a story about Gulfport while in Gulfport. If you do believe in coincidence, here's another for you. You were on your way to Baton Rouge. My son lives in Baton Rouge. 

Nicki was a common nickname for Nicholas when I was growing up. Biloxi has a big Czech population and Nicholas was a common name. 

The rivalry between Gulfport and Biloxi was real. I remember one night we caught a Biloxi boy with a Gulfport girl at the Park and Eat. He was beaten up pretty badly and we called the girl's parents to come get her. A county deputy took the boy home. The police wouldn't let him drive his car at night with broken headlights. In 1939 the Mississippi National Guard was mobilised to stop a riot after a football game (not real football of course) between the Gulfport High Commodores and the Biloxi High Indians. The same thing happened a couple of years after I graduated.

On Friday nights we all stopped at the Park and Eat before driving out to the end of the Small Craft harbour to watch the submarine races. 

Thanks for all the kind words, judges, and for understanding why the various elements of the story were needed. All comments will go into the LM comments archive.

 And the Order of Merit to Fin for continuing to keep everything organised. _30 days hath September, April, June and November. All the rest have 31, except February which is messed up so badly even Mother Goose is confused._


----------



## Ibb

Congratulations to the winners. Since three out of four judges made mention of it I thought I'd clear up a confusion: In 'Spacebound,' the kid is never abducted. He's an unreliable narrator telling an apocryphal tale regarding the loss of a girl to his rival--his brother. What's verifiable in the story and what isn't depends on your own perceptions regarding the truth-telling capability of teenagers. Otherwise thank you for the insights. A job well done to all involved.


----------



## InkwellMachine

Oh my. Always surprised at my scores on these things. Thanks for the generous appraisals. A few words, because I believe critique is like a form of art unto itself, and like all good art I think it would probably beg to be critiqued if it had faculties appropriate for such behavior. I'll try not to create a singularity out of this:

*Folcro*-- I'll admit, I haven't been doing as much writing as a should. I don't know what it is. I've just been incredibly lazy lately. I hate it, and I'm trying to twist myself back into the semblance of something productive. I'm not sure whether this competition was a distraction or a sign that I'm getting back on the right track, but it was fun either way. In short, it's good to be back, but I can't confirm how long I'll be around for.

Anyway, your comments in order:

Really? I wasn't actually a fan of that sentence. I've started to develop into a Neil Gaiman sort of writer--the kind that just says exactly what's going on without embellishing the details to strongly. If that works, it's good to know. Thanks for the feedback.

The missing word was "child." I beat myself up a bit for that mistake, and would have corrected it if I'd noticed within the grace period. I'm still not sure why there's no editing allowed after ten minutes, if I'm honest. Since this is a strongly interactive medium and the content is available for anyone to read from the time it's posted, shouldn't it just be that no edits are allowed after the deadline? Doesn't that seem more sensible? Maybe I'll take it up with Fin.

I could swing either way on the fragmentation on the "libido" thing. People are often too verbose when they don't know quite what to say, which could have been relevant here. It could also just gum up the prose, so I'm not too sure where I sit on the matter myself.

Hitting a little too close to home there? Haha.

Yeah, it felt pretty short by the time I'd finished with it. It was maybe a 15-20 minute write, which is odd for me. But then, it's a good thing. I'm trying to figure out how to draft properly, and by that I mean how to write faster than 3 words per hours. I agree with you though--there was definitely some closet space I could have stuffed some prose into here, like his opinion of his ex-wife and what kind of sexual/romantic tension there is between them.

Thanks again for the review. Your criticisms and commentaries always come highly valued. And sorry I haven't been present lately--like I said, in a bit of a creative rut and trying to climb back out of it.


*Guy Faukes* -- The man with the mask. Hello. I'm not sure if I've ever heard from your before, but I've certainly seen you around the forums.

Do I? I have an exceptionally difficult time writing sentences that I feel are... _meat_ for lack of a better word. But if this straightforward approach using voice to contextualize what's going on from the narrator/character's standpoint works for you, then maybe it works for me. 

Actually, that wasn't even something I picked up on until I was almost finished writing the piece. Funny how life almost arbitrarily throws these parallels at us. The ice cream sandwich thing, for instance--that really happened. I bought an ice cream sandwich from a little Hispanic lady with a walking trolley in a park, and I remember feeling distinctly disappointed in myself. I don't quite know why I decided to include it here, but hey, it worked didn't it?

The libido thing was actually the crux of the story. It makes me sad that so many people are so embarrassed about that sort of thing, when exploration really isn't that dangerous. I'm glad it shone through a little.

Thank you. 


*Pluralized *-- We meet again. I'm always fascinated by what an individual that is no longer singular would look like in real life. Unless the tattooed ladies are different pictures of you, perhaps we'll find out through your avatar someday.

I'm glad you enjoyed it. I enjoyed writing it. It kind of just spilled onto the page without any real incident, which is strange for me. I tend to be extremely picky about what I'll let myself write, insomuch that I take half an hour to write a single three-sentence paragraph sometimes. I agree on the flavor comment, as I'm really a writer of weird, pseudo-fantasy-science-fiction and this wasn't quite in that ballpark. I don't know what made me write this. Perhaps it was the obviousness of the prompt. Maybe it would have just been too easy to pour out some story about how I've been watching a pair of alien bacteria in a lab for weeks and something's finally happened. I don't know.

I actually thought that too, but the browser kept trying to correct me, so I eventually gave in. As for the missing word, it should have been "child," my dear student.

Thanks for reading. Genuinely, thank you.


*Smith *-- Terribly sorry to have disturbed you, but it was really all in good fun. I promise.

Clever eyes. The small _something_ was meant to be a child, but alas, it seems my fingers conspired against me to ensure that no one would be able to understand the one sentence.

As for the length of your critique, no worries. I've judged before. I know what it's like. By the end of the five-billionth story you start hankering to go into the kitchen and eat something, not because you're hungry but because it feels like a legitimate excuse to get away from the computer screen. It gets rough.



As always, a special thanks to Fin. Appreciate all the effort you put into making these contests happen--I find them thoroughly enjoyable. I do have one thought, though, which you might have read if you skimmed over the rest of this post: perhaps the grace period on editing could be changed to just "no editing after the deadline"? That way people could find errors and fix 'em up after posting, and the judges would still get an appropriate amount of time to evaluate each submission. Just a thought, since I've seen more than a few instances where that shouldn't have been an issue but ended up messing with peoples' scores anyway.


----------



## W.Goepner

Thank you Judges. Congrats to the winners. 

All right If I made you laugh then I won. I took an old joke and tried to make a 650 word story. 

My spelling of Alpha Centauri was my lack of figuring it out. Where I missed converting Samson to Sampson, Again it was a miss on my behalf. 

I did proof this three or four times before entering it. My lack of catching the errors in my proofs is the reason I do not feel qualified to judge. 

But thank you all, for your time to view my attempts at creation. There might come a day I can get it correct, but I doubt I will ever win one of these contests.


----------



## W.Goepner

Fin said:


> I put the order of the chart from first to last, which is something I've done like, twice, ever, yet still managed to get it wrong. One of these days I'll have a flawless score thread. Or one of these days I'll get the winner wrong and have to take away the medal. Could go either way at this point. Gettin' too old.



Hey fin you have done a fantastic job. One error out of all that? Seems trivial to me.


----------



## InstituteMan

Congrats to all entries and thanks to the judges. I was quite partial to Shiny's piece, it is a deserved winner in a strong field, I daresay!

Edit: Plu, I was worried that at the end the shorting reference would be missed by anyone who doesn't have to know about the financial industry at least a little. Shorting is when you sell a stock before you own it, under the theory that the company is about suffer a sharp drop in stock price and that by the time you have to actually turn over a valid stock to your buyer you will have been able to acquire the stock at a lower price from a desperate seller, pocketing the difference. It's a risky financial play for those without tons of money, and can be a way for an insider to make a killing (in violation of insider trading laws) when they have advance knowledge of news that isn't public yet. Alas, that explanation would put me way over the word limit, and just isn't as catchy.


----------



## shinyford

W.Goepner said:


> Hey fin you have done a fantastic job. One error out of all that? Seems trivial to me.


Wot he said.



InstituteMan said:


> Congrats to all entries and thanks to the judges. I was quite partial to Shiny's piece, it is a deserved winner in a strong field, I daresay!


You're too kind.


----------



## midnightpoet

Thanks to the judges and congrats to the winners.  There were several good stories this month.  I thought my original idea was ok - what would happen in the MIB universe if the aliens were discovered and became part of society (along with interstellar travel possible).
My mistake, I believe, was trying a parody/black humor/sify.  Trying to make it over the top, I made some bad choices.  I thought about the rape business afterward and realized it was quite insensitive.  Hey, I was just one point behind Bishop on Folcro's critique.  Since this was my first try at a sify  story I thought that was pretty good (me on a good day, Bishop on a bad day, haha).:icon_cheesygrin:


----------



## Pluralized

Congratulations, Shinyford -- well deserved. Also congrats to the runners-up, thanks to Fin, and good job other judges!

Fun times -- on to PaperKids!


----------



## Folcro

InkwellMachine said:


> I'm still not sure why there's no editing allowed after ten minutes, if I'm honest. Since this is a strongly interactive medium and the content is available for anyone to read from the time it's posted, shouldn't it just be that no edits are allowed after the deadline? Doesn't that seem more sensible? Maybe I'll take it up with Fin.



I thought about this quite a bit myself, ultimately realizing that many judges (myself included) like to judge the entries more or less as they come in. This provides each contestant with the proper, non-rushed critique they deserve while providing Fin with the time he (/she, it?) requires to sort it all out. Though I definitely understand your logic, my only argument is "then hand the story in at the deadline and just keep proofreading it in the meantime." 

It's not a perfect system, but I do find it preferable.


----------



## Cran

InkwellMachine said:


> I'm still not sure why there's no editing  allowed after ten minutes, if I'm honest. Since this is a strongly  interactive medium and the content is available for anyone to read from  the time it's posted, shouldn't it just be that no edits are allowed  after the deadline? Doesn't that seem more sensible? Maybe I'll take it  up with Fin.





Folcro said:


> I thought about this quite a bit myself, ultimately realizing that many judges (myself included) like to judge the entries more or less as they come in. This provides each contestant with the proper, non-rushed critique they deserve while providing Fin with the time he (/she, it?) requires to sort it all out. Though I definitely understand your logic, my only argument is "then hand the story in at the deadline and just keep proofreading it in the meantime."
> 
> It's not a perfect system, but I do find it preferable.



*Why there is a 10 minute editing "grace" period* - because even with the Advanced [Post+W] option, the formatting might need tweaking; and without that option, it almost always needs tweaking when posting from a Word document or similar into the dialog box. 

*Why there is not an unlimited editing "grace" period* - because the LM Challenge was set up to be as close to the outside, or "real world" of story submissions, especially for competitions, as possible. You don't get second chances when you submit a work under "real world" conditions; your piece is judged or assessed "as is" at the time you submit it. 

The LM Challenge was intended to be a relatively painless exercise in helping writers make their work as publication-ready as possible.


----------



## Folcro

Cran said:


> *Why there is not an unlimited editing "grace" period* - because the LM Challenge was set up to be as close to the outside, or "real world" of story submissions, especially for competitions, as possible. You don't get second chances when you submit a work under "real world" conditions; your piece is judged or assessed "as is" at the time you submit it.



Actually I like that explanation better. I knew there was something I wasn't getting my finger on.


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## garza

Even the ten minute grace period is too much, but, correct me, you techies, if I'm wrong, the allowance for editing immediately after posting is built into the software and is not an option. I spotted two typos in this month's competition within a second or two of submitting. The typos were careless mistakes that I should have corrected before submitting. In good conscience I could not take advantage of the grace period. No one else would have known, but I would have known. If you want to hold yourself to a professional standard, clean up your copy before you submit. 

My living has been made by writing. I've never had a job. In the real world there's no calling the copy back. So in my opinion, for what it's worth, there should be no grace period.


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## Folcro

garza said:


> My living has been made by writing. I've never had a job.


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## Cran

garza said:


> Even the ten minute grace period is too much, but, correct me, you techies, if I'm wrong, the allowance for editing immediately after posting is built into the software and is not an option.


It is an option; one that affects the whole forum and cannot be applied to a single board.

As I indicated before, the grace period is given because posting into the reply dialog box can muck up the formatting when [Post] or [Submit] is clicked - especially the par spacing - and that is not something that happens with emailed or traditionally posted work.


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## Smith

Folcro said:


> View attachment 6599



He's living my dream.  

EDIT: garza is, not Darth Sidious. Although that would be pretty cool too.


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## Kevin

Sometimes  transfer from another format mucks things up.


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## thepancreas11

Muchas gracias a todos los "judges". But really, I know it can consume you, this judging thing, and every month, here we sit, with a winner picked and ne'er a complaint from the ranks...aside from the occasional threat of pork forking, to be sure. I want to thank you for the helpful and constructive feedback.


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## garza

What, I should be jealous of those who suffer the daily grind? I don't think so. I've worked steadily all my life, but on my own terms from my first articles at 14 for the Daily Herald and the Dixie Guide till now, 60 years later. As my signature says, the day has been good.


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## InkwellMachine

I'm fairly certain Folcro was telling you that he's jealous of your success in writing professionally.


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## garza

Oh. Okay. My interpretation was that I should be jealous of people who have jobs. Sorry I got it backward.

So who's the dude in the hoody?


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## Ariel

Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious from "Star Wars."


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## garza

Oh. I suppose I should have known that, but it's been over 30 years since I saw the movie.


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## Guy Faukes

InkwellMachine said:


> *Guy Faukes* -- The man with the mask. Hello. I'm not sure if I've ever heard from your before, but I've certainly seen you around the forums.
> 
> Do I? I have an exceptionally difficult time writing sentences that I feel are... _meat_ for lack of a better word. But if this straightforward approach using voice to contextualize what's going on from the narrator/character's standpoint works for you, then maybe it works for me.
> 
> Actually, that wasn't even something I picked up on until I was almost finished writing the piece. Funny how life almost arbitrarily throws these parallels at us. The ice cream sandwich thing, for instance--that really happened. I bought an ice cream sandwich from a little Hispanic lady with a walking trolley in a park, and I remember feeling distinctly disappointed in myself. I don't quite know why I decided to include it here, but hey, it worked didn't it?
> 
> The libido thing was actually the crux of the story. It makes me sad that so many people are so embarrassed about that sort of thing, when exploration really isn't that dangerous. I'm glad it shone through a little.
> 
> Thank you.



I'll admit that I'm just a simulacrum of the man with the mask and that of a LM judge 

Your stories seem emotionally congruent. From the way it read to me, I thought that you picked a thematic element and work consistently from it. That being said, I'm not entirely experienced in writing or judging, and my inexperience is probably showing. 

A lot of traditional societies suppress libido as a source of shame and control. I think we're still under the Victorian influences here in the West and I hope we develop out of it. Like you said, it's a whole dimension of our personality and expressing it is vital. 

Thank you, I wonder where you'll take your prompt for this month's LM.


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## Ariel

Guy Faukes said:


> You can put the porkfork down now, Sam... Sam?



Who's Sam?


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## Guy Faukes

amsawtell said:


> Who's Sam?



It's just me being slightly dyslexic by apparently inverting the "w" in your name


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## Ariel

Ah.


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## InkwellMachine

I'm afraid I took it in a horrible, dark direction.

I don't know what's wrong with me. :C


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## Fivetide

Thanks for the feedback, and congratulations to the winners.

I  hold it true, whate'er befall;
 I feel it, when I sorrow most;
 'Tis better to have loved and lost
 Than never to have loved at all.


  Back to the day job, but I can honestly say I had great time.


Thanks


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## garza

Has any consideration been given to using six judges again?


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## Fin

January will be the next opportunity for that. It may not happen, but the opportunity will be given in January, among a few other things. Stay tuned.


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## garza

Sounds like something to look forward to in the New Year.


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