# May 2013 - LM - Killing Things Best When Selling Nothing - Scores



## Fin (Jun 4, 2013)

*LITERARY MANEUVERS*
Killing Things Best When Selling Nothing
*Language Warning*

Unfortunately, not all of the judges were able to get their scores to me. We hope all goes well for the absent. A big thank you to everyone who participated and an even bigger thank you to our judges, Leyline, Pluralized, and Jon M for taking the time out of their lives to review the entries.


*Scores*​
*Fin**Pluralized**Leyline**Jon M**Average**KyleColorado*1716191817.5*Dictarium*1610171514.5*lasm*1917202019*Pluralized*N/AN/AN/AN/AJudge*Kevin*N/AN/AN/AN/AN/A*Moderan*171619.517.517.5*Inchidoney*148161312.75*J Anfinson*1815171516.25*FleshEater*1617191617*Bilston Blue*1715.5181917.37*Kirra*1614151615.25*RustGold*1613181716*Gargh*1717171717

In third place, we have *Bilston Blue* with his entry *Archibald Eatwell Misses a Sales-to-Target and Customer Satisfaction Report Meeting (or a Very Short Story Highlighting the Dangers of Distraction Whilst Driving).*
In second, we have both*Moderan* and *KyleColorado* with their entries *Killing Things Best When Selling Nothing* and *A New Lease.*
And finally, in first, a big congratulations to *Lasm* with her entry *A Thousand Cuts.*



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

[spoiler2=Fin’s scores]

*KyleColorado
"A New Lease"
Spelling/Grammar: 5
Tone/Voice: 4
Effect: 8
Overall: 17*

I noticed no SPaG problems.

The story was great, which is no surprise as it’s yours. I don’t have much to say as I have no complaints. Your ability to tell such a full story in a limited amount of words impresses me.


*Dictarium
"Kyle Theodore Barnum"
Spelling/Grammar: 4
Tone/Voice: 4
Effect: 7
Overall: 15*

This story would’ve scored much higher if not for the anti-climactic ending. The story started off beautifully but began to fall off the moment you outright stated that the father deserved to pay for what he did, etc, etc. It was always there in the background, I felt it didn’t need to be stated. Took out the dark air and didn’t give the chilling feeling I expected.

Also, I felt that if this guy was such a pro he would have at least done a little bit of research as to where his target was, or would have at the very least noticed that no one lived there.

Up until the point of the outright reveal, I loved the story. Nice job. The prompt was incorporated nicely as well.


*lasm
"A Thousand Cuts"
Spelling/Grammar: 5
Tone/Voice: 5
Effect: 9
Overall: 19*

Slightly a step up from the pitchfork and torch you usually wield.

Possibly my new favorite story from you. Very creative, very well done. Saw no errors in your spelling and grammar and your tone was flawless.


*Pluralized
"Giggin'"
Judge Entry*

Strange, strange story. Fun to read; certainly different. The ‘accent’ could have been portrayed a little better in some cases but that’s minor. 

Entertaining story in any case though, so well done.


*Kevin
N/A*

I’m not sure if the attempt made in this story worked all that well. But I enjoyed the tone and I liked reading through this little experiment. Thanks for entering it.


*Moderan
"Killing Things Best When Selling Nothing"
Spelling/Grammar: 4
Tone/Voice: 4
Effect: 9
Overall: 17*

There were a couple typos throughout this. For example: ‘ve’ instead of be, and alreayd instead of already. Reason for the point taken off of SPaG.

The story was certainly unique. Very fun to read through and I hope that says nothing of my sanity. No complaints. 


*Inchidoney
"Can Anyone Help?"
Spelling/Grammar: 4
Tone/Voice: 4
Effect: 6
Overall: 14*

It’s clear you aren’t satisfied with the prompt, which is much understandable. It didn’t really feel like much of a story though so I couldn’t really give you higher marks.

But it was an interesting thing to read nonetheless. 


*J Anfinson"
“Everything’s Bigger in Texas”
Spelling/Grammar: 5
Tone/Voice: 4
Effect: 9
Overall: 18*

Ha, great fun of a story! Thoroughly enjoyed. The ending fell a little flat but that’s what’s going to happen with the word limit. Very nicely done. Mysterious, straightforward and entertaining is what this was.


*FleshEater
"Business is Business"
Spelling/Grammar: 4
Tone/Voice: 4
Effect: 8
Overall: 16

Second story this prompt about a paid killer. While not an entirely unique story, it was entertaining in any case. Well written, and unlike a lot of the other stories in this competition didn’t fall off in the end. 

Thanks for entering.

[*]Bilston Blue
"Archibald Eatwell Misses a Sales-to-Target and Customer Satisfaction Report Meeting (or a Very Short Story Highlighting the Dangers of Distraction Whilst Driving)"
Spelling/Grammar: 5
Tone/Voice: 4
Effect: 8
Overall: 17

Interesting story. Well written and easy to read. The ending may be a tiny bit veiled but I got it. Well done.

[*]Kirra
"Killing By Saying Nothing"
Spelling/Grammar: 5
Tone/Voice: 4
Effect: 7 
Overall:16

Well written and interesting but it didn’t feel whole. It felt like it was always touching the surface of the story but never actually dived in. There lies the sole problem of this story.

[*]RustGold
"Killing Things Best When Selling Nothing"
Spelling/Grammar: 4
Tone/Voice: 4
Effect: 8
Overall: 16

Not exactly sure what was going on there in the middle and towards the end, but it was fun. You kept me immersed in the story and I don’t regret reading it.

[*]Gargh
"The Panacea"
Spelling/Grammar: 5
Tone/Voice: 4
Effect: 8
Overall: 17

Another story that felt like it touched the surface but never really dove in. That’s the only problem with the story. It read great and was fun to read.

*
*
**[/spoiler2]**
[spoiler2=Pluralized’s scores]

Thanks to all who entered, judging this was really fun and there are some great, unique pieces of work here. 

Many thanks for the opportunity to do this. I enjoyed it.


KyleColorado
"A New Lease"
Spelling/Grammar: 4/5
Tone/Voice: 5/5
Effect: 7/10
Overall: =16/20

This was well written and held my interest, despite being somewhat confusing in the storyline. Dialogue is well done, the tense is consistent, and I think you’ve done a good job incorporating the prompt. However, I felt the story took on an enigmatic unraveling.

I wanted more answers. I don’t feel like I really know what’s happened with Swal after the MC takes the shower and disposes of the car. You didn’t leave me enough bread crumbs on this one, unfortunately. He sits on the stairs, crying – odd for a hired gun, presumably – but then he rationalizes the need for working, but then just offs the boss man? That didn’t seem like a way to get more work. Unless the “work” is taking care of Swal? 

The Henalas came out of nowhere. 

I didn’t immediately get what the neighbor was complaining about. An open window? 

Would a mini-fridge be described as “beautiful,” even in the midst of a cheesy pick-up line? Jolted me a bit as an ill-fitting adjective. 

I thought your description of the girl “looking cheap but smelling expensive” was pretty inventive. 

There were just a couple of nits:

The Reaper better bring back up. backup

August, at the end. “August,”


I enjoyed the writing, which was quite clean. The Wing Chun reference was unexpected and I liked that as well. 

I got the sense from this story that you had a thousand words written and had to chop it way down to meet the word count limit, and it felt like some key information went away during that revision. It is all just a bit too cryptic for my simple brain to understand and ‘get’ this as a coherent story.  

Thanks for the read.
Dictarium
"Kyle Theodore Barnum"
Spelling/Grammar: 3/5
Tone/Voice: 2/5
Effect: 5/10
Overall: =10/20

This story felt constipated, sluggish.

The premise was almost interesting, and it narrowly managed to hold my interest, but 645 words to describe walking upstairs and down the hall to find an empty bed quickly grew old. There are many unnecessary descriptions and a clogged-up pacing that left me frustrated, wanting it to move more quickly. 

You’ve used his first name seven times, and he’s the only active character. The word “was” showed up eighteen times. I don’t usually fixate on stuff like that, nor do I notice it typically, but here I was unable to avoid it. 

I felt like this guy wasn’t the best contract killer since he didn’t see any clues about his dad’s absence before looking at a made bed.

A few comments on specific stuff:

Kyle Theodore Barnum went slowly, not wanting to wake the man upstairs with the creaking of the floorboards, up wooden staircase of the old, abandoned-looking house.
Up the wooden staircase

Also – why do we need his middle name? Comes across mildly pretentious.

Before he had this knife, he had one with a flimsy, cracked handle that he would sometimes drop, making him almost lose a few of his target. 
Targets. 
Also – the adjective ‘flimsy’ does not connote a very good murder weapon. Makes the thought of him killing multiple victims seem contrived.

However, he was not selling his blade tonight; tonight it was more than a contract between two strangers who’d met through acquaintances of acquaintances; tonight was the night that more than twenty years of crimes were paid for in the most severe way possible. 

This sentence was a bit of a steamer. Two semicolons and a stunted flow. The double-use of the word ‘acquaintances’ doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. There’s a more efficient way to say “This time, it wasn’t paid work, it was revenge.”


His fingers moved to his nose, feeling along the brim where the noticeable crack had been made. 

– A crack? The brim? These terms don’t create the image of a nose injury. 

Eventually he sat down against the old wooden walls of the old wooden house. 

– Wooden walls of the old wooden house. Also – he could only sit down against one wall.

This was the first time he’d do this without the moral safety net of monetary reward. 

– I just thought this was clunky.  

They deserved revenge, and the inhabitant of the room at the end of the hall deserved what he was going to get. 
“They deserved to be avenged.” Also I didn’t like the use of “the inhabitant of the room at the end of the hall.” I think at this point you should be thinking about turning dad into a character that I can climb on your shoulders and co-hate. By keeping his identity in the generic terms of “the inhabitant,” you’re missing an opportunity to make your reader care about the situation. 

With a surge of emotion and a feeling of reinvigorated purpose, Kyle began to take long, confident strides down the hallway. He no longer cared that every time he took a step the floorboard was causing the house to moan louder than a banshee. 

I do not believe the bit about him creeping down this immeasurably long hallway, taking a rest, pensively flipping his blade about, and then deciding to take long strides. How many strides are we talking about here? Four? Sixteen? How long is this hall, anyhow?

Banshee is rather cliché. Imagine the actual sound the floorboards are squeaking out. A banshee is a screaming paranormal entity with big lungs and a wail that will scare the hair off a man’s chest. Boards squeak. Banshees wail. 

The doorway was getting closer as time seemingly slowed before the final turn into the room. 
The doorway was getting closer, as time seemingly slowed… that is a very passive observation and makes this whole scene come off as melodramatic and stalling. 

The white moonlight from a window spilled onto his right leg and his knife-hand as they lead the charge into the damned man’s bedroom. 
Led the charge

He was ready. He was going to do it. He was ready.
So, you’re saying he was ready? 

But he did not. The bed was empty and well-made. His father must've moved out years ago. He should’ve known, Kyle scolded himself. His father must’ve moved out.
A couple of issues with this – from this painstakingly long voyage down the immeasurable length of this hallway, wouldn’t there be hints? Pictures hanging? A car in the driveway when he showed up? The furniture? Oh, and he scolded himself? Since this is such an action-driven story, the voyage down the hallway had to be incredibly adrenalin-producing. I know I would have done more than scold myself. I would have kicked a hole in the wall, picked up a nightstand and thrown it through the window, bashed my head against the door. Oh, and who made the bed?

Kyle was conflicted by simultaneous feelings of relief and being cheated. He drove the blade, all six inches of it, into the floorboards that had been announcing his presence to the vacant house for the past twenty minutes.
Whoa. He drove all six inches of a knife into the floorboards? That’s a bad dude. All of the floorboards? Or just one of them? All six inches? Shoving a knife through wood isn’t easy - and, at this point - you already made clear that the floorboards were squeaky. Since there’s nobody there it no longer matters. The floorboards didn’t announce anything. They just squeaked and he was the only one there to hear them.

He would never know how sweet the revenge or how bitter the taste of taking the life of the man who’d created his own would’ve been. 

Unfortunately, I think this sentence is superfluous. You’re not allowing the reader to work anything out, you’re telling me something that is quite obvious. Give the reader some credit. Also, read that sentence aloud. Then do it again. I think if you took “the man who’d created his own” and instead used “his father” you could have a much less convoluted sentence on your hands. Even then, the whole sentiment goes without saying.

For me, I thought the story had potential but you’ve struggled to get the pacing down and there’s a ton of clutter here. There’s nothing that says you can’t write a scene where someone is en route to murder someone, but instead of focusing all that energy on floorboards, banshees, and the ruminations at hand, you could employ a creative preparatory scene where he’s loading a gun or parking his car in the woods a mile away, or some other kind of interjection of conflict to bolster the motivation for murder. 

You’ve mentioned “what he did” to the family that was so awful, but we’ve no idea what that was. You might’ve dropped some additional tension into the story and held my interest more if I knew some of the horrible things pops was doing. Also, what’s his name? Work it out to where I can ride on the narrator’s shoulders with a pitchfork held high, screaming, “I’m here to stab daddy!”

Okay so this is probably way longer than it needs to be, but I was hoping to help. Sorry this story didn’t work better for me. Thank you for entering.
 Lasm
"A Thousand Cuts"
Spelling/Grammar: 5/5
Tone/Voice: 5/5
Effect: 7/10
Overall: =17/20

Wowsers. This has punch, I can certainly say that. 

My finger hovered over the SPaG score for considerably longer than it should have due to the use of fragments, but in the end I gave you top marks. I realize fragments are a style choice, and your use of them is quite effective. I detest fragments, but I couldn’t justify anything less than 5/5.

The voice is chilling, bleak, and super clean which made for a clear atmosphere of evil. Top marks there as well. I’m actually a bit more afraid of you than I was before. 

The story is masterful in its own way, and your use of the prompt words is inventive and executed well. I’ve labored over this, read it six times, and have only one complaint. I wish there was more of a core to it. I suppose that by laying out the words from the prompt and giving them each a paragraph, there’s been a little bit of a disjointed connection established between the components. Still, it holds together well enough and works. This is a hallmark of your style, and there’s nothing wrong with making the reader puzzle things out, but I thought a little more fundamental stasis-building was in order.

I wanted to know the MC’s name, that is probably part of the abstract feel of it. Or the victim’s name. Or the guy giving instructions, what’s he about? The salesman? What’s that about? A few too many stubs for such a short piece. That’s all I can come up with, and what kept it from working better for me. The characterization is through a filter, which is obviously the intended effect, but it held me at arm’s length and that’s explanation enough for the effect score, I hope. 

If this was longer, I’d read on. Well done.
Pluralized – Judge’s Entry
N/A 
Kevin – Just for fun entry

N/A
Moderan
"Killing Things Best When Selling Nothing"
Spelling/Grammar: 4/5
Tone/Voice: 5/5
Effect: 7/10
Overall: =16/20

Glad you decided to enter. I’ll start with the stuff that worked for me and that I liked:

This thing flows, like most everything I’ve ever read of yours. The work at hand not only is fast reading, it goes down smooth, with great pacing. That is worth a lot, regardless of subject matter.

The voice is confident, sure, and evil. I liked that.

This story was funny and witty, and unique. The idea of selling wool suits in the desert would probably drive anyone to serial murder. Also, I liked how you structured the paragraphs, then the one-line sentences that pinpointed the effect. 

You’ve incorporated the confounding prompt fully. Well done.

Now for the stuff I didn’t like. 

Emotionally, the story is basically flat for me. The narrator is slick and crass, cunning and evil, but he’s a little too flippant and it’s all just too easy. He kills a pigeon, then a lady and ten others, inexplicably putting the first lady’s ‘remains’ in a bag and tossing them out but sticking her head on a rack, then a dog and a cat, more birds, and some border guards. Is this just a flip-out murder session? How did he kill them? Also, sawing heads off is a lot of work, which might deserve at least a mention. Then he takes off for Mexico? Why? Wasn’t there a big mess from all that killing, seems like to leap-frog that scene give short shrift to the impact factor.

The dropping of the pants was a bit over-the-top, but fitting for this tone. It was a bit of a turn-off for me as I read through, but it did catch me off guard, for what that’s worth. I will say, nice use of ‘moue,’ a word which I hadn’t encountered.

I would have liked some kind of plot besides “I sell wool suits and kill folk.” I also thought that the bit about being bullied was out of sequence, could’ve been used earlier to build this character with more motivation for the crazy homicidal spree.

A few nits – 

My speciality is boldness. 
specialty

might actually ve useful. 
be

the jucuzzi end 
Jacuzzi

its orange eyes alreayd clouding over, 
already

judgement
I am not sure whether it is really ‘judgment’ or ‘judgement,’ so I cannot call you out on that one. I would use the former, almost exclusively. 

She inexpensively clad in the latest Sears 
My brain wanted “She was inexpensively….” 


In summary, good writing, good tone, fun times all around, just not the most interesting or effective story. More nits than I would have expected to see, which I’ll attribute to the flustering prompt. I enjoyed reading it, just wished for more a more substantive tale.

Thank you.
Inchidoney
"Can Anyone Help?"
Spelling/Grammar: 3/5
Tone/Voice: 2/5 
Effect: 3/10
Overall: =8/20
This really needs something, but I just can’t put my finger on it. Perhaps a liberal application of the ‘delete’ key.

We all do this from time to time, bang something out that is all stream-of-consciousness blather. That doesn’t excuse this from a low score, but I’ll excuse it from any further commentary, as it probably wouldn’t be terribly uplifting. Thanks for entering, and sorry I can’t get behind this piece.

8. J Anfinson
"Everything’s Bigger in Texas”
Spelling/Grammar: 5/5
Tone/Voice: 4/5 
Effect: 6/10
Overall: =15/20

This is a prime example of how dialogue can propel a story. It honestly felt like you drove me to the show in a Ferrari, but instead of throttling back, slowing down to savor the act, you drove right through the back door with your foot on the gas. Pacing is a big part of enjoyable reading and this has a crazy pacing that drove off and left the tension behind.

There are bits of information that could have served the story better if they’d been removed. For instance, the first ten or so sentences would have been better removed, and their space in the word count used on the back end, where the action is. In other words, build the story around this giant snake and the tension surrounding that, and leave out some of the inconsequential stuff at the beginning. You’ve managed to work in the prompt well enough, and this was a really entertaining read.

The Texas rancher was almost believable – almost. If it weren’t for this bit, bigger un than that. 

Also, I didn’t get a clear image of the snake. Car tire and basketball? Not exactly quick imagery. If it was too dark to see the forked tongue flitting in and out of its mouth, its yellow eyes, or the slickness of its scaly skin, it could just be a tire on the floor. This experienced snake wrangler would probably know if it were male or female, etc. I had “big black snake” in my mind, but wanted to know about the shape of its head and just how attentive to movement it was. Did it tighten its coil as he approached? Felt like a missed opportunity to make it a HARDCORE snake session.

The ‘F’-bomb probably wasn’t necessary, and I’m not sure it needed to be capitalized. My opinion, in both cases.

You mention that they draw straws and that it couldn’t happen again. Might that have prepared our hero so that he mightn’t have shat in his tight whites?

I liked this overall, your SpaG is excellent, tone is firm and consistent, but man – what happened with the giant snake???! You’ve dangled that out there, put up an opportunity for a serious battle royale, and just slammed the door on what could have been an epic scene. Still, it did elicit a smile and I thought you did a good job. Your writing shows a very clean, basic style that is pleasant to read when the action is on. 

I put this through the online word counter just for fun – 666. Can’t decide whether to add to your score or subtract for that. 

Thanks for entering and for the opportunity to read your work here. I enjoyed this.
FleshEater
"Business is Business”
Spelling/Grammar: 5/5
Tone/Voice: 5/5 
Effect: 7/10
Overall: =17/20

This story reads well and I like what you’ve done with the mildly ominous and malevolent tone. Hooked me right in – until the logic problems started grabbing me.

Full marks for SPaG. This reads really clean. 

I’m not sold on the storyline, and found the logic to be just a few notches short of my expectations for the piece.

He is way too fast and loose with the murder weapons. Throwing a gun in the dumpster at the scene of the murder isn’t believable for me. Throwing away guns is something assassins, at least good ones, just don’t do flagrantly. Even on their first job. To be narrating it ten years later as if that’s normal? It stuck out.

And I have to ask, who on earth pays seventy thousand for a job like that from a young man who’s never completed a kill? Seems like a high-dollar ticket for the first job, and further serves to confound the ending line. 

The second woman he presumably shoots – you’ve told us that he sticks the gun under her nose, then you’re right off to dropping it in her lap. I was confused about whether he was just dropping the gun in a motion of “I quit,” or shooting her. You didn’t really say he blew her face off, which at point blank range would probably knock her over and her “lap” would not offer a place to drop a gun, and wouldn’t be described as such. And again, why is this guy so quick to leave murder weapons at the scene of the crime? I don’t get the sense he’s terribly adept at the murdering, but with the experience under his belt, he’d have to be.

He says “not worth it.” Seventy grand? That’s a big payday for a single victim, and presumably he’s spent ten years racking up similar dough. Thinking of doing it for free, getting out of the game, not sure what the motivation there is. I have a difficult time with what your intended path for this guy is. The ending line where he says “I did a better job when selling nothing,” doesn’t make any sense. Doing a better job at what, the killing? Don’t know how it could get much “better” than shooting someone dead. And the “job” is killing for money. How can you do that “job” for no money? 

She was holding thirty large in her hands, “balled up?” You make it sound like she’s got thirty bucks crumpled in her fist. Ever held thirty thousand dollars? Me neither, but the image fails in my mind due to the sheer enormity of the stack of paper. That’s minimum three hundred bills, which might weigh a couple pounds and way too thick to ball up. Cleavage and cash, though, hard to argue with for effect.

So what is this story about? A hired gun, hates his job. Wants out. Meets a potential client whom he just shoots and walks away to go out and kill for free? Okay, I’ll bite, but it doesn’t seem to have sufficient purpose behind it. Seems like the part of the job you’d hate would be the killing, not the cash. 

Still a very respectable piece of flash and I liked your presentation. Sorry to be so cynical about the logic, but it was a bit hard to swallow at times. This story has potential, but seems like it needs to cook for another hour.

Well done, and thanks for the read.
Bilston Blue
"Archibald Eatwell Misses a Sales-to-Target and Customer Satisfaction Report Meeting”
Spelling/Grammar: 5/5
Tone/Voice: 4/5 
Effect: 6.5/10
Overall: =15.5/20

Enjoyed this one. The prose is a bit over-the-top for me, though. You’re not allowing me to come up for air often enough. For such a short piece, I came to the end of it having digested a great deal of words, but not feeling like I got my story’s worth out of the deal.  

The first paragraph is a monster. There’s no appreciable hook. The sentences are long, which is not always a bad thing, but they’re long enough that I had to drop anchor and read them a few times.

There are several asides which did nothing for me. In particular, the Poundzone rant. When I’m reading a sentence like that, you’ve started telling me about this phone holder, and I’ve had to hang on, find out about the homeless in front of a store, then ‘oh yeah,’ the phone holder thing. Obviously this happens all the time and is a legitimate way to feed information, but some of the asides here seemed totally unimportant to the story as a whole and bogged the momentum.

The finish, the negligent MC smacking this poor girl with his car, being preoccupied with the Blackberry, is just a bit untimely and confusing. You built the character from the start, telling us about his three jobs, the state of the economy and how it related to his work, but then he just becomes a negligent boob.

Probably the biggest logic problem with this story is the clock in the car. Since the Blackberry would have an accurate clock, I would have to think, this sort of pokes a hole in the entire thing. Maybe that’s unreasonable, but the entire premise is that this dude is late, hauling arse toward the meeting, running folk down. Right? 

Also – slamming on the brakes in a cloud of smoke the first time, I thought you pulled it off. I was there with him. However, as he smacked into the second pedestrian, I didn’t quite realize he had gotten back up to speed. I would trade you one of those first-paragraph sentences for a simple indication that he was again moving at sufficient speed to smack someone and send them flying. The sequence of events wasn’t sufficiently clear on the first read, and still seems awkward to me.

SPaG – Cleanly written. There are hardly any nits worth mentioning. Digited perhaps? I liked the use of it in this instance, though. 

The recession would have triple-dipped had not the government’s well-paid and slick media arm been quick to suggest such an occurrence had been avoided and that the period's 0.08% of growth was the seed from which would grow an economic recovery to rival that of the mid-nineties until, probably, the bubble burst again.


Say that five times fast.

Or this:  

Finally, Eatwell pondered, he’d explain how he was juggling three jobs, including further establishing King Freddie’s oven cleaning empire, and how the other two reduce greatly time available to demonstrate to potential clients how Sparkle will improve their lives by increasing their degree of happiness because, hell, they’ll be able to see their own damn and distorted reflections in the silver rings surrounding their ovens’ hobs.


A 56-word sentence, then a 66-word sentence, really bogged the start of this story down for me. But then again, I’m fairly simple in how I like my words. It’s all about flow, and for whatever reason, these sentences were hard to read. That long sentence – what were the three jobs? I think we were only really told about one, but I was interested in the other two. Would have helped flesh this man out as a character.

Turnover – does that mean revenue, or sales numbers? I have always identified this term with frequent change of employees in a given position. Therefore, I stumbled at first with the story until I got the context right. 

So here we go – Freddie’s sales guy, Archie, is preparing for a meeting with the big boss and is all consumed with what they’ll discuss, his future potentially hanging in the balance. En route, his stress level, combined with distractions and being tardy cause him to nearly run down one pedestrian, then inexplicably and immediately run over another, sending her flying into the path of a bus and killing her. At the end, we realize his clock was wrong all along and he’s not late, just negligent? I get it, I think, but had a hard time feeling the impact at the end. 

I do like your style, your wit, and I see the potential in the work. 

Thanks for entering, and thanks for the read.
 Kirra
"Killing by Saying Nothing”
Spelling/Grammar: 4/5
Tone/Voice: 4/5 
Effect: 6/10
Overall: =14/20

Ah, family. You’ve hit on a resonant theme for a lot of us I’m sure, and speaking for myself these are very familiar sentiments. I have been estranged from the various elements of my parental “family” at one time or another, and can relate to feeling like this. I’ve taken part in emotional death, both as instigator and recipient. It’s probably one of the principal challenges we face as adults in this modern age, trying to reconcile taking ownership of our own being and maintaining a semblance of connection to the nest from whence we hatched.

The piece was well written, mostly, but I struggle to come up with a commentary that would be of any help and not pick apart the obviously personal and intimate struggle you’ve had to deal with. First, I have to determine whether this is a piece of a memoir (which I presume it is), or a piece of fiction. Looking at this from a “story” standpoint, let’s examine the constituent parts and see what we have here:

First, a paragraph starting with “I enter what had been home.” I assumed that you walked through a door, and prepared for a story to begin. Then the next four sentences of the paragraph are a perplexing back-look at theoretical family status. The line “I didn’t mean to murder, but I wonder if I’m trying to resurrect the dead” sort of reads weird to me. Not sure what you’re trying to say with that line. At this point in the tale, we wonder if you’ve actually killed someone or just killed the relationship with your family. Obviously you work this out later on, but it stumbles pretty badly starting out. So we end paragraph one with you entering home, then telling us about your damaged relationship with the fam. Fair enough.

Paragraph two is a bit longer, going through what “should” have been done to fight back against dad’s overbearing, unreasonable, and antiquated expectations for his daughter’s path. Very passively written, which weakens the setting in my mind. This was an opportunity to illustrate an ugly conversation, an argument that got heated, or perhaps dad doing something that decides the narrator’s path for her. After all, this is fiction. Make it interesting. 

Third, the departure. You struggled, got on well enough. Another very passive statement “I believed I could make it. And I did.” This flattens the story further for me, because I need some element of suspense to keep me reading. You say “And I did,” and I now know the struggle isn’t worth reading about. That’s the kind of thing that turns on my skimmer. 

Fourth, another statement about an ethereal ability to sell yourself. Again, there’s very little happening from a “story” standpoint, and the tension is not building. It’s interesting, only because I can relate to the sentiments and the situation you find yourself in. 

Fifth – enter mom. She may or may not call. It’s not quite riveting at this point, see what I mean? Finally at the last of this paragraph, something happens. You knock on the door. Didn’t you start the story with entering the home? Perhaps years have passed in the story since then, but as a reader I like having an anchor point. It got glitchy for me.

Finally, we have a paragraph about walking out to the car and noticing that you’ve begun to cry. Then more expounding on the virtues of selling yourself, and wistful wishing about family bonds, and it’s just all too bland, frankly. I feel for you, as I’m sure a lot of people do, but this being a fiction competition – make some sparks. Make stuff up. Enter some kind of relatable action, whether verbal or physical. Keep some tension, raise some questions. This just didn’t have any spice, any flame under it. 

So, in summary – you entered what ‘had’ been home, then thought a LOT about selling yourself metaphorically to your family to gain their acceptance, put yourself through school and then went back to the house, didn’t go in, then cried in your car. Then thought more about the unfairness of it all. Pretty thick stuff.

Overall, you write well, and I like the tone of it. Very memoir-esque. I saw very few SPaG nits, aside from wanting to shuffle commas for flow. I’m glad you were ambitious enough to enter it after just joining the site, and hope you’ll do so again. Sorry if my comments seem disappointing, but this didn’t really excite me as a reader. Thank you for the opportunity to read it though.
Rustgold
"Killing things best when selling nothing”
Spelling/Grammar: 4/5
Tone/Voice: 3/5 
Effect: 6/10
Overall: =13/20

Enjoyed this. It’s perhaps a bit chaotic, but the tone was pretty consistent.

I had a hard time with all the semicolons. Sixteen of them. I don’t necessarily think they are all wrong, just a bit overboard, to be honest. 

The story certainly held me; a couple of thugs pursuing a girl into a swamp, one of them getting shot with an arrow, then an apparent croc attack? That’s good action, at the very least. I didn’t quite know what to make of the ending line. It felt rather like you realized your word count was up, and just parked it. Then again, that’s where I figured you had a croc eat the guy… not sure which. Either way, it was a decent story and I enjoyed it. Also liked the homage to Jack, that was a nice touch. In fact, of the six times “Johnny” appeared, I was disappointed that you didn’t somehow work that into the ending.

In the first paragraph – rots >>> rot’s

Toward the end, second-to-last paragraph
 – leaving leave me >>> omit “leave”

After a while, the use of “stupid” wore thin. There are thirteen instances in use here, and I would suspect one would have been plenty. Accordingly, the term “flipping” appeared five times. It’s like every time you reached an opportunity for an adjective, you chose either “stupid,” or “flipping,” or just combined them.

Also – what do you mean by “little mess,” when you say “everybody’s dead,” and “butcher everybody?” It’s like you’ve never killed anyone before. It’s a “flipping” mess.

In the swamp, after “not Johnny” gets shot with the arrow, you had Rob go off and “have fun with his purchase.” What does that mean? I might be overlooking something but I read this several times. Curious about that line. 

Other than that, it wasn’t a bad read. You’ve managed to keep it moving, but just barely. I don’t have much sense of stasis, and I suspect that is primarily due to the tense problems inherent in the piece. You start out with a statement “here we are,” then launch into “This was Rob,” and then you go on… “Johnny isn’t my name, I won’t tell you what it was, but it’s not Johnny.” The tense got real confusing here. Also, I think you needed semicolons in places where you didn’t use them, which is ironic. I think in the above sentence, you probably could have gotten away with one after “name.”

You’ve called the girl “cow” six times. It isn’t my intent to poke you over the use of words, but I would suggest finding a way to vary this. It absolutely pulled me out of the story when you kept repeating some of these words. To vary each instance or use something innocuous would keep it from sticking out. Kind of like you did with “mozzie,” you know, before the word “croc” appeared four times. But who’s counting, anyway?

Another thing that got me: What is “no sale?” That term appeared several times as the girl was shooting him with the arrow, and I am just curious if that was a thing you invented to incorporate the “selling nothing,” (which is pretty damn clever), or if that means something else. 

Overall – a good effort that just needed to be gone through a few times and word choices considered. Thanks for the read.
Gargh!
"Panacea”
Spelling/Grammar: 4/5
Tone/Voice: 5/5 
Effect: 8/10
Overall: =17/20

I really enjoyed reading this. Competently written, nice tone, and interesting subject matter. I found the route you took to be a little too easy, just “sugary vitamins and a pep talk,” but your story was very consistent and held together under full weight of scrutiny. Not a lot of low-hanging fruit, in terms of errors or usage issues, that I could pick up.

Here are the nits I found, and some specific commentary:

in to >> into

loved ones prompt return >>> one’s or ones’

No other cure or resolution was available and, if the hypothesis were correct, panic would only increase the efficiency of the disease.
I had a couple of minor issues with this sentence – first, I don’t like the comma after “and.” I’m not totally sure it’s wrong, but it honked at me. Also, panic increasing the efficiency? Reads weird. 

hypothesis were >>> hypotheses were (or, alternately – hypothesis was). Hypothesis is singular.

There is a rogue semicolon in the final paragraph after “faith,” which I did not enjoy. There you go, that’s all I could come up with. Enough to justify docking a point, but not much to complain about. Nice work. 

I commend you for this piece. While I thought it had a little too much simplicity behind the plot, that was made up for by the tight writing. 

Thank you for entering and for the opportunity to read and comment.
[/spoiler2]
[spoiler2=Leyline’s scores]


First off, my apologies for the short nature of my comments. Arthritis is still flaring and it's painful to type. Pluralized -- I'll critique your judge entry when my hand isn't throbbing, OK?

-G.


KyleColorado
“A New Lease”

Extremely well written -- really loved the noir voice, but the similes were a might too crowded in the beginning, seemed to me. Interesting character, excellent tone, and a fantastic amount of plot motion in such a short piece.

Score: 19


Dictarium
“Kyle Theodore Barnum”

A couple of minor nits: a missing 'the' in the first sentence, a missing 's' on target. This is a pretty good story, though it struck me as anti-climactic. Surely a professional would make sure his target was where it was supposed to be? The tone was consistent throughout and the prompt was very well used.

Score: 17


lasm
“a thousand cuts”

As usual, this is just gorgeously written. Loved the style, found the narrative gripping and compulsively readable. No nits. No complaints from me. Fantastic work, and best in show. 

Score: 20


Pluralized
“Giggin'”

N/A


Kevin
“Kim joggin'”

I found this rather hilarious -- and the voice was great. I thought I saw a few nits but couldn't decide if they were just aspects of that voice. I guess my only real problem with it was that not a whole lot happened. Still, it was nice to have some humor and an entry that tried something different. Lots of hit-men this go around. Haha.

Score: 18


moderan
“Killing Things Best When Selling Nothing”

Dark and funny! Great stuff. It kept me guessing until the very end. I noticed one or two minor nits, but only on a second read. I actually cracked up at the 'Ron' bit, it was just so unexpected and funny. Great stuff, man.

Score: 19.5


Inchidoney
“Can Anyone Help?”

A strange one, but not in a bad way. I felt the same sort of frustration at the prompt, so I understand where you are coming for. The writing is quite solid, and there were several very nice turns of phrase. But it's not really a story to me -- nothing really happens and the only character (the narrator) is in the exact same place he or she began in. Still, this was smoothly readable and rather enjoyable.

Score: 16


J. Anfinson
“Everything's Bigger In Texas”

The only nit I caught was a missing question mark in the second sentence. This one was fun, and I was enjoying it greatly right up until the ending. You do the 'tall tale' style quite well, but I found the ending -- just a sort of basic joke -- very anticlimactic. You sort of telegraphed the 'surprise' that the snake was gigantic all through the build up. Still -- this was well written and enjoyable, and I think you could use it as the basis for a longer (and stranger) story.

Score: 17


FleshEater
“Business Is Business”

Quite excellent. My only problem is that I felt it was more build up than pay off.  Reads clean and smooth, and an excellent use of the prompt. 

Score: 19


Bilston Blue
“Archibald Eatwell Misses a Sales-to-Target and Customer Satisfaction Report Meeting (or a Very Short Story Highlighting the Dangers of Distraction Whilst Driving)”

Strange and intriguing, but loaded with a bit too much jargon for my taste. I felt the sort of arch, formal style blunted both the horror and the humor of the ending. But this was well written, extremely readable, and with a sort of bleak humor that I quite like. Great title too.

Score: 18


Kirra
“Killing by saying nothing.”

The writing here is solid, and it's an interesting approach to the prompt. My big problem is that this reads very much like a summary of a story, with lots of questions I'd have been interested in seeing explored. 

Score: 15


Rustgold
“Killing things best when selling nothing.”

Two nits: It's 'Knicks', and missing punctuation after 'Oomph.' Otherwise, this read clean and smooth. Good voice, and a nice plot progression. I'm not quite sure exactly who or what these guys were, but that ambiguity didn't really bother me. Well done.

Score: 18


Gargh
“The Panacea”

A very cool concept and solidly written, but another that reads a bit too much like a summary of a great story rather than a story that stands on it's own. I'd love to see what you did with this idea in a longer work with more room for characterization and a slower buildup to the concept of the cure. 

Score: 17
[/spoiler2]
[spoiler2=Jon M’s scores]

KyleColorado
“A New Lease”
Overall: 18/20

A tough bit of story here. By the end, I could hear the dirt and the gravel in this guy’s voice. Structured well, cinematic almost. Effective at conveying a sense that time and distances have been covered. Life goes on for this guy and his new girl, August.

Maybe the story trods old ground: guy’s in with some bad people, can’t get out, story’s about him successfully getting out and on with his life and by the end he gets the girl, too. But that is a minor nit; the writing is punchy at times, fresh and immediate, and reading the story’s a breeze.

Felt like the dialogue tags were exaggerated at times. Swal barks, the narrator growls. Either one is fine, but both of them together and it’s almost too much, too spicy if you get what I mean. I’d personally drop the second tag—growls—and stick with something simple.

Another instance where the description didn’t work for me is Swal’s Italian sausage hands. Fun, but a little over the top. Also, the description is not totally accurate, it’s his fat fingers we’re really talking about. Though it occurs to me that if you cut ‘Italian’ from the description, I’d have less problem with it overall, so maybe the issue for me lies in the extreme specificity — Italian sausage vs. sausage. Reads a little clunky because of this, although I do get why you tossed ‘Italian’ in there—it colors everything in the scene. Suddenly Swal and his boys aren’t just regular people but Italian goons. So I can appreciate the subtlety, the sheer amount of characterization that one word provides.

Enjoyed how the nurse’s hair was described as red, but ‘not like blood. Like cherries.’ Rather impressive what is accomplished here, psychologically, in just a few words. The narrator’s trying to get out of a life of killing, has, in fact, "a new lease" on life, and though he’s still viewing life through the filter of his work, associating red with blood, my sense is he’s trying hard to think in a new way, a positive way — red isn’t just for blood anymore, it’s for cherries, too.

Liked how this story is organized and comes full-circle by the end. Feels complete. Overall, I think the story relies heavily on cliche for much of its descriptive / narrative power, and by that I mean it’s a safe bet most readers have seen a lot of this stuff in movies before. For example, when the narrator says the mini-fridge is beautiful, looking her ‘right in the eyes’ — a sort of double entendre — I can easily picture that because I’m sure I’ve seen it in a movie before. And this is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact I think it is kind of smart — you are aware of the tropes, and you chose to incorporate them because you know the reader is going to bring a lot of that descriptive / narrative information to his reading experience. The risk to this approach, of course, is that behind all of this good writing hides well-trodden, cliche subject matter — the ‘stuff of movies’.

Like the month.
But I leave that last part out, and just smile.
This ending is fine, but another version came to mind. It’s a little cheekier, little more fun:
"Who’s the lucky girl?" [he asks.]
August, I tell him.
"Like the month," he says.
Like the month. 


Dictarium
“Kyle Theodore Barnum”
Overall: 15/20

Some of the prose here tries to explain itself, and it is almost always clunky to read. For example: "He no longer cared that every time he took a step the floorboard was causing the house to moan louder than a banshee." Too much is packed into this sentence. ‘was causing’ is really awkward. Could have written the sentence this way: "...confident strides down the hallway. The house moaned [like a banshee]. He no longer cared about being quiet."

Another instance where you explain too much is here: "Keeping one hand on the banister for balance". The last part of this (‘for balance’) can be left out; the reader knows what a bannister is, and he knows what they are typically used for.

Otherwise, felt like this story was DOA. All this build-up toward literally nothing. Dad’s not around anymore, in fact he "must’ve moved out years ago." The story as a whole seems to fall apart around this idea, because it’s difficult to believe Kyle wouldn’t have noticed, say, no car in the drive-way, or the lack of furnishings in the home, or any other tell-tale sign that the residents have moved out. This makes Kyle look incredibly inept. So inept that again it is hard to believe Kyle would be "selling his services" to anyone.

A lot of the stories in the LM from (relatively) new participants seem to be similarly structured: the best part or the twist generally delayed to the very end. Most of the time this approach backfires, at least with me it does. The story builds and builds for six hundred words and fizzles out with a weak or nonexistent ending. Here, you make it obvious that the killing is personal, so I figured one of two outcomes was likely: he kills the father, or, in a cunning twist, Kyle enters the room and confronts a mirror which he knew all along was there and stabs himself there before it. The poorer choice is killing the father (unimaginative, boringly linear), the best the suicide in front of the mirror (a twist), and this ending—the father’s absence—falling somewhere between the two. For me it is not believable how someone enters a home and fails to notice or at least suspect that the occupants have moved.

Other nits:

checking its sharpness with his thumb every now and then
‘checking its sharpness’ is somewhat expository, dull; something like ‘scraping the blade under his thumb every now and then’ might have been better.

He drove the blade, all six inches of it, into the floorboards
seems exaggerated; ‘all six inches of it’ is a detail that only gets you in trouble: at best, it’s unbelievable, stretches credibility; at worst, it’s uninteresting, unnecessary.

Eventually he sat down against the old wooden walls of the old wooden house.
‘sat down’ could be replaced by a better verb, like ‘slumped’. "Eventually he slumped down against the wall." Personally wouldn’t have bothered with the ‘old wooden’ details. Word-count gets eaten up by these inconsequential details.

up wooden staircase of the old
up the

making him almost lose a few of his target.
targets


lasm
“A Thousand Cuts”
Overall: 20/20

Felt like sometimes the order of details was wrong, mixed-up, like here: "So here we are, this cold February night, in this rotting-down barn, amid these sleeted fields. Here’s our guy, hanging by his ankles from the hay loft, ...." If you imagine these images through a camera lens, you’d start widest and close in on the scene, so the order would be: February night, the sleeted fields, the barn, the guy hanging by his ankles.

blades etched with poetry,
seems like the better word is ‘edged’

hanging by his ankles from the hay loft, naked and twisting in the utility light’s glare;
Fine as-is; when reading I mentally re-wrote it this way: "twisting from the hay loft, ankles over head in the utility light’s glare"; not necessarily better, just an alternative to consider.

There’s no art to this. Oh some people pretend. Those people with their shiny wires, blades etched with poetry, clever gestures: all bullshit.
Another alternative: "Some pretend, but there’s no art to this. The clever gestures, taut [singing] wire, blades edged with poetry: all bullshit." Slightly leaner. Maybe it loses the voice, though. A little thin on the art-associations, ‘poetry’ is the only one. Tossed ‘singing’ in there for help in that regard.

I’m an efficient man, usually. An explosion is efficient. A bullet is efficient.
Unsure if it was intentional, but the repetition of ‘efficient’ faintly suggests, to my mind anyway, that his methods are also repetitive, in keeping with this efficiency. A mild case of form following function, which I liked. 

A single blotched cornea glares through a slit, straight at me.
Unsure about this; corneas don’t normally glare. Was thinking this might work: "A single blotched cornea visible through a slit, blood-fogged; the eye that stares straight at me." Also, ‘blood-fogged’ was something that popped into my head while reading; just thought it was cool maybe.

The first paragraph under ‘nothing’ has three similes. Reads sloppy, unfocused. Here is the original—would revise this way:

Not this way, cut up like a bloody puzzle, pieces missing. Unconscious now, sagging from the rafter like a soaked towel.
"... ticking down soft into the night. Not this way: jigsawed, sagging from the rafter like a soaked towel. Unconscious now. I could be the hunter and ..."

‘jigsawed’ says everything. It is primarily associated with puzzles anyway; readers will intuitively understand that comparison, as well as ‘saw’ hinting at the ‘cut up’ visuals. ‘soaked towel’ is by far the most accurate and vivid comparison, so out of the two that one ought to stay. And ‘I could be the hunter’ avoids the need to use ‘like’ a third time.

So, strong voice here. The prose has a terrific immediacy. Like the structure a lot; one of my favorite interpretations of the prompt thus far. A nice reprieve from all of the twists and gotchas.


Pluralized
“Giggin’”
Overall: N/A

Thought this was a pretty good story, entertaining. Sometimes the voice seemed overwrought, and maybe not as accurate or consistent as it could be. It’s one thing to drop the -g’s from words to evoke a southern drawl, but it’s another to change syntax, switch words around, drop words, to get that same feeling. The first is easy, the second’s not but ultimately more rewarding. What you have here seems like a pretty typical attempt at a southern voice. If all the misspellings were correct the prose would read mostly correct—astonishingly correct for characters presumably without a formal education. So that’s why I think if sought greater authenticity you’d really have to experiment with changing the syntax. But I love the use of ‘gigging’ here—to ‘gig’ a frog. Cool sounds in that.

Enjoyed this story, though. Claude comes through well enough as a character—a couple of interesting, well-seen description. Particularly liked the red spot that glowed with his anger. I’m assuming a birth-mark of some kind.

The mention of gators at the beginning feels like an unkept promise, kind of assumed/expected to see them mentioned again at some later point. Disappointed they were not. And I think my biggest issue with this story is how the young narrator makes it sound like this is the first time they’ve ever hunted frogs. Living in the Bayou so long, this isn’t believable. I’d also think that they wouldn’t have to make giggin’ sticks, but already have some that they’d made prior. And that angle could get especially interesting, because not all sticks are created (or carved) equal, and maybe Claude’s giggin’ stick was an extra-fine one, and maybe he’d killed a lot of things with it and regarded the weapon with a bit of superstition — his lucky stick. Then at story’s end, surprise surprise, Claude dies on his own lucky giggin’ stick.

So I think you just have to try and get into the world of your story better. Figure out its problems, its solutions. But otherwise, this was a fun, cool read.

When somebody got sick an’ died
decent as-is; could be: "When one of us..." or "When our boys..."[/QUOTE]


Kevin
“Kim joggin’”
Overall: N/A

Think you could have had some fun with the voice here, considering it’s First Person and not a native speaker. For example:

The first thing I want to say is that I am master of my own universe.
First thing I wish say is I am master of my own universe; using ‘wish say’ in place of ‘want to say’ or any ‘say’ constructions.

Think this one misses the mark, though. Narrator seems to get too focused on dispelling myths, too much talk of military and the United States and it loses what I think is its best quality—the irreverent, wacky humor. 

Whether or not you remember that is not important.
This line could be cut. Reads better as, "The first thing I wish say is I am master of my own universe. The second thing I wish say is ‘Hello, I greet your cordially and in earnest.’" and the tone is set. I imagine some fat, role-poly of a man who is delusional and (perhaps) totally enamored with American culture, and I wish I would have got more of that. Wanted to be taken into this guy’s bizarro world, had a little fun. When the story touches on serious issues or images is when things fell a bit flat for me.

But a good effort, though.


Moderan
“Killing Things Best When Selling Nothing”
Overall: 17.5/20

So much of this story seems random, which I suppose is in keeping with the random nature of the prompt, but I question whether some of the details should have been included. The entire paragraph of the boss hanging out in Glendale, for example. Interesting but kind of irrelevant. And I’m wondering how the N can be unsure about the boss’ past residence, even generally, but know he lives in Glendale. Like, usually how it works in the real world is people right away ask where you’re from. It’s just a minor nit that didn’t ring true and kind of jarred.

Thought the story was interesting until things began dying. Then it just got dull, predictable. And it isn’t clear what the killings have to do with wool suits or vice versa. So in general the story feels very unfocused. And it doesn’t have an ending so much as ‘just ends’, which makes me wonder if it’s part of a larger story.

It shouldn’t come as any surprise to you that I’m in sales.
no good reason to include the reader; sentence could be more concise; "It shouldn’t be a surprise I’m in sales."

It’s possible that the boss
cut ‘that’

might actually ve useful.
be

sucking on mixed drinks in little glasses with umbrellas for garnish and wondering whether to sit in the hot tub or in the jucuzzi
kind of clumsy; "...sucking[downing] mixed drinks from little glasses with umbrella garnishes and agonizing over whether to sit ..." Felt ‘wondering’ was not sarcastic enough when clearly the rest is.

his little feathered head off, its orange eyes alreayd
‘his’ & ‘its’ inconsistency; ‘already’

stuck it on a popsicle stick
decent, ‘impaled’ would be stronger

Their heads are probably in still there
still in there


Inchidoney
“Can Anyone Help?”
Overall: 13/20

So ... not entirely sure how to approach this. Sense a little butthurt in this rant about the prompt. The rest of it is rather uninteresting, like it’s not sure whether it wants to be fiction or not, whether it even wants to say anythin or not. And I assume that’s the point here—the writer doesn’t think "Killing things best when selling nothing" makes any sense, and so what follows is cliche after cliche after cliche, no doubt intentional, and a ‘story’ or a ‘comment’ just as jumbled, as nonsensical, as the prompt.

The story’s fun in that regard, I suppose. An interesting exercise in form following function. But I just can’t see scoring this above the majority of stories that have at least tried to make sense of an admittedly nonsense prompt.  


J. Anfinson
“Everything’s Bigger in Texas”
Overall: 15/20

Written pretty well, does a good job capturing the voice of the pest control guy and rancher. And the dialogue all sounded natural, was easy to read. Like how the prompt, or part of it anyway, was included in the story. But the story in general doesn’t work so well for me, structurally. You’ve built up this scenario, this problem that must be resolved—how does the pest control guy wrangle the water moccasin?—and that’s your story right there, that’s what I am curious to see resolved. This doesn’t happen, of course; instead, the story achieves a minimum of closure by resorting to a mildly funny cliche—poor guy shit his pants. It’s actually kind of interesting how many cliches there are peppered through this tale, which makes me wonder if it’s intentional. But here’s a rundown of them, beginning to end:

Everything’s bigger in Texas
Draw straws
quitting time
back in no time
out of my league
change of underwear

None of these alone harm your story; in fact, I looked over many of them, casually noting them. Together, however, it’s like they put a dull sheen over the writing—nothing excites, the reader may get the vague sense he’s read this before, etc.

But if the story was better, focused on (in my opinion) the most interesting conflict—the pest control guy’s dilemma—I would have been happy to ignore the minor stuff like cliches. Most if not all the dialogue prior to the Lake Charles bit can be cut. Story could have begun with: "A call had come in...", and maybe a passing reference to Phil, some of that dialogue condensed way down and included only to give a gist of the conversation. The rancher’s outfit could be left out entirely, trusting the reader to draw on his own experience of ranchers, in real life or in the movies, and provide much of that descriptive work himself—not much of a stretch to go from ‘rancher’ to ‘Wranglers, boots, cowboy hat’. It’s fairly typical attire.

Point is, if you have any interest making this piece of flash work better, you’d have to cut and summarize a lot of the build-up here, and that can be done in an elegant, artful way, in order to have room for the showdown with the water moccasin. That’s the real bind these folks find themselves in. If story is defined as an interruption of the status quo, then this, clearly, is your story. So you can’t really build up to the start of the conflict and just end and expect to have a story that anyone cares about.

But your writing is very clean and easy to read. Story felt shorter than it is, which is always a good sign. Means the prose doesn’t drag, not weighed down with adjectives, adverbs, etc. Liked seeing the occasional simile used, although I’m ambivalent as to whether they work or not. The car tire one is okay, gets me thinking about the color black, and oil, and grime; but the basketball simile doesn’t work at all — the color changes on me, I’m trying to picture a slithery moccasin and suddenly there’s a splash of basketball orange coloring my mental image, there’s the whole association with sports, I hear tennis shoes squeaking on the shiny floor. Tonally, the two similes do not work together or with their subject. Just keep that in mind when dreaming up similes — the best ones not only help the reader envision, but supply a branching tree of associations and subtext that also cleverly ties in with the thing to be described.


FleshEater
“Business is Business”
Overall: 16/20

Written well. The story is focused and structured better than some of the others I’ve read so far, and the ending is satisfying—actually feels like an ending. Problem is, this story (excluding the ending where he realizes he prefers the spontaneity of murder) has already been written millions of times: the guy who whacks people for money who is tired and wants to get out but can’t get out. So while the writing carried me along and kept me entertained all by itself, I can’t really say the story interested me.

In addition, there were several times when I felt the writing could have been leaner. Mentioned below are some examples.

The people I work for, they’re the same people approving your mortgages...
think this sentence has a few issues — the order of images/ideas is mortgage, car, open-heart surgery, dentist, and that doesn’t strike me as correct ... better to progress from car to mortgage to dentist, to surgery; the images occurring in a way that makes sense, according to expense/seriousness.

Additionally, while the prose is decent, it could be better. I know I just said ‘images’ up there, but the truth is there aren’t any images. Consider something like this: "...they’re the ones who’ll someday crack open your chest and touch your heart back into normal sinus rhythm, the ones with their latexed fingers crammed in your mouth, scraping out the plaque." Ignoring the word-count for a moment, because I know that has to be factored into any decision about the writing, the point is in writing creatively, in new, fresh, vivid ways.

Every night she walked down that same dark alley alone, to her car.
this sentence doesn’t really add anything to the story and, worse, is cliche. Makes her look like an idiot when there’s hardly any point in doing so. Would cut the entire thing.

I said sorry, and shot her in the face
This is the only part worth saving in the paragraph. The rest could be cut, as it adds little beyond some fairly typical visuals. In fact, I think hiding this particular line in among descriptions of her death lessens its power. This line is powerful because it is stark, blunt, and we don’t really anticipate the gruesome visual. 

My first job was...
I think your story could actually begin here without losing much. Some of the content from the paragraphs before could be weaved in here and there, but the rest is mostly dead weight.


Bliston Blue
“Archibald Eatwell Misses a Sales-to-Target and Customer Satisfaction Report Meeting (or a Very Short Story Highlighting the Dangers of Distraction Whilst Driving)”
Overall: 19/20

This story seemed a little unfocused at the beginning. On one hand, there’s this cool DFW-esque style to the writing, long sentences weighed down with lots of information. But some details, like that whole line about Poundzone, do not appear to have much relevance to the larger narrative.

Really like paragraph two, though. Great details throughout, and an especially the last line where all his anxieties coalesce into a loud, singular ‘Fuck!’. Good, good stuff.

So the punchline is Eatwell thinks he’s twenty minutes late when in fact it’s only two. At the moment, the story doesn’t feel like it resolves totally—we’re kind of left to figure out, "Oh, hey, bummer—poor guy needs a new clock." I think the story would have been improved if you’d ended with a callback—Eatwell yelling "Fuck!" again. Just to give a sense that things have come full-circle. It would also seem vaguely like a ‘Damn if you do, damn if you don’t’ scenario—Eatwell’s pissed at being so late, then Eatwell’s again pissed because he’s not as late as he thought, but he’s still late, and ensnared in some traffic hullabaloo.

But a really good story overall. Liked how dense the prose was. Somewhat like Chris’s stuff.

to demonstrate to potential clients how Sparkle will improve their lives by increasing their degree of happiness because, hell, they’ll be able to see their own damn and distorted reflections
Have read this sentence many, many times over trying to figure out if there’s a tense slip here. I think so. Consider the alternative: "...to demonstrate to potential clients how Sparkle would improve their lives by increasing their degree of happiness because, hell, they’d be able to see their own damn, distorted reflections ..."

sending the cheap, plastic stand; the phone; and his wife’s whining voice sliding across the dashboard before they tumbled into the footwell.
wordy; "...sliding across the dash-board into the footwell."


Kirra
“Killing by saying nothing”
Overall: 16/20

I like many of the ideas here—trying to connect or re-connect with family – but feel that we are in the narrator’s head too much. That might sound ridiculous, since this is First Person, but even the narrators of First Person stories give a sense of the world and the people outside of their own heads. But not much of that is happening here. In order to feel anything for these characters, I first have to have a sense of who they are, and unfortunately I don’t get much of that here. Paragraph two is about the closest you get, that bit about the father. Needed to be more of that. Story needed to be brought down into specifics more. But it is a good attempt. The prose style is light, flowed well, carried me along easily. 


Rustgold
“Killing things best when selling nothing”
Overall: 17/20

Thought the voice was pretty good in this. Seems like a pretty straightforward tale of some guys going after a girl vic, to finish the job. Not much to know beyond that, so the characters don’t really stick with me and the story seems typical, like it doesn’t try to speak to anything larger, doesn’t have any (interesting) themes.

Written well, though, and I liked how the narrator narrated his death, the humor (“Great, I’m bleeding to death here…”). Can’t say I’m sad he’s going to die, considering what a scumbag he seems to be, but again this all has to do with voice and in that respect you did really well.

for the Nix game.
maybe you mean the NY Knicks?

Johnny’s code for you’re about to say ‘Here’s Johnny’ on your victim as you bust your head through a chipboard door; you know, like in the movie
clunky; “Johnny’s code for when you’re about to go all ‘Here’s Johnny!’ on a victim and bust your head through a chipboard door…”

in the movie, where Jack goes hunting
no comma


Gargh
“The Panacea”
Overall: 17/20

Thought this was overall a very smooth read, well-crafted. Obviously written with care. Tempted to say this was the easiest to read, just in terms of how well the sentences lined up and flowed together. You do a very good job presenting all of this backstory in an accessible, interesting, enjoyable way. Had a sense early on this was a virus-tale, or some sort of story about vampires or zombies or ‘the infected’. Subject matter doesn’t totally interest me, being honest, but that’s not something I’ll hold against you or factor into your score. Overall this is just a very competent, well-told story.

I know it looks like there might not be room to incorporate the suggestions I’m about to make, but I think they would improve the story, and at the very least this is all stuff to keep in mind for next time. But there really are no concrete images here, or I should say nothing vivid. Even if you would have picked one face out of the crowd, maybe a mother and daughter, and returned to them once in awhile during the story, I think it would elevate the writing, make it a bit more evocative.

He stood at the window
Jack stood; avoids confusion

in to small groups
into
[/spoiler2]*


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## moderan (Jun 4, 2013)

Thanks to the judges and praise be to the winner, Lasm, and the other entrants. I should probably confess that my piece was first-draft, just written unconsciously in the little window. I'm amazed that it did as well as it did...lotta typos, I know. I didn't edit.


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## Rustgold (Jun 4, 2013)

Fin said:
			
		

> Not exactly sure what was going on there in the middle and towards the end, but it was fun. You kept me immersed in the story and I don’t regret reading it.


I know.  I was energized in the first half, then my interest got shot in the head.  I wanted to complete it, but I lost the will, and this showed in the final product.  All the judges rightly picked up on this.




			
				Pluralized said:
			
		

> Another thing that got me: What is “no sale?” That term appeared several times as the girl was shooting him with the arrow, and I am just curious if that was a thing you invented to incorporate the “selling nothing,” (which is pretty damn clever), or if that means something else.


Yes, it was using the prompt.


Thx to all judges.


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## Staff Deployment (Jun 4, 2013)

Pluralized and Jon M, those are some impressively sonorous critiques! Great job!


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## Bilston Blue (Jun 4, 2013)

I'm short of time so I'll come back this evening with more thoughts and stuff, but I've time for this quickie: Since my first day at WF, probably three years ago and then some, people have insisted on referring to me as Bliston Blue. It's not. I'm not. Please call me Bilston. There is no suburb of Wolverhampton, though once a former market and steel manufacturing town in its own right, called Bliston. Agreed, there is a misspelled sign on the town's entry calling it Bilstone, but it's Bilston, not Bliston. I before L. Bil, not bli. Please. You don't call lasm lams, or Bazz Cargo Bzaz Cargo, or JoeB JoBe. 

Thank you.  :love_heart:

](*,)


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## Gargh (Jun 4, 2013)

Congrats everyone! Lasm, that was a spanking bit of writing with a difficult prompt. I am not surprised you won, I almost didn't enter when I saw it!


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## J Anfinson (Jun 4, 2013)

Amazing critique guys, and congrats to the winner.


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## Deleted member 49710 (Jun 4, 2013)

Very surprised and pleased to win with what I thought might be too odd and ugly of a story. That, by the way, is what happens in my head when there's snow on May 3rd. Thanks, guys. And good work to all the other entrants, it was a weird prompt for sure but I thought a lot of the stories were great.

Fin, I didn't even whine, come on! Or only the tiniest bit. We should celebrate my personal growth. Glad you enjoyed the story. 

Pluralized, don't be afraid of me, I'm an inoffensive little French teacher who barely ever mutilates anybody. You are right that the basic "what happened" of the story is kinda confusing, as well as who these people are. Just to answer your questions: the person giving the instruction is the beaten wife's affectionate uncle, who has hired the narrator to kill the husband. The wife lets the narrator in the house by saying he's a salesman at the door. Thanks for your comments and for reading this six (!) times.

Leyline, thanks! thought about your contract killer character as I was revising this--glad you liked mine. 

Jon, thanks for all your very helpful critique. Very good suggestions for revision here, especially with the order of the details, and "jigsawed," I like that. Pleased to see that you enjoyed this even if there is, as always, room for improvement.


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## PiP (Jun 4, 2013)

Congratulations lasm - it was a tough prompt!


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## FleshEater (Jun 4, 2013)

Congratulations Lasm, Moderan, KyleColorado, and Bilston Blue! Great stories, and well deserved!

Thank you as well judges for your time and participation. Without you there wouldn't be a competition.

FIN: I agree my story wasn't unique. There isn't much left in the hit-man realm, but I'm glad you found it entertaining. That was my only goal; entertainment.

Pluralized: Wow, thanks for the critique. I'd like to explain some of my logic. I think you over thought this piece WAY too much.

As for tossing the firearm away; unregistered guns with destroyed riflings are a dime a dozen in America. Why hold onto a murder weapon? My narrator probably had it oiled heavily and/or wrapped in double sided tape to destroy any evidence. So, why not give the cops all they need? There's the body, there's the murder weapon, there's no suspect...dead end. However, every step away from the crime scene carrying the murder weapon would allow him a chance to be caught with it. Also, I'm sure a hit-man wouldn't be carrying or even applying for a concealed carry permit since that requires a full background check from the sheriff's department. So, if he's caught with the firearm on him he's going to jail for not having a permit, being in posession of a firearm with filed off serial numbers, and there was just a murder.

$70,000...you can't really look up a resume on a hit-man or ask around for references. My narrator was probably young and cocky, full of himself. The man paying $70,000 wanted it done, and didn't want it getting back to him. My narrator assured him he was a professional. Think Fargo.

The second girl was sitting on the edge of a hotel bed, her legs would have kept her body from moving much, and a snub nose .38 isn't going to pack as much of a punch as a .9mm JHP, .40, or .45 would. And, if he didn't kill her, I don't think she'd just let him walk out of the hotel with her money without putting up an argument. I wanted this kill to be brief, cold. It was justice being served. And again, why not give the cops everything but a suspect?

The not worth it was the taking innocent peoples' lives for money. He's having a heartful epiphany. The ending is to show him coming full circle, and killing like a vigalante, serving up his own idea of justice to the people he's worked for. And his better job was because he could live with himself after killing someone that's paying to have someone close to them murdered.

Yes, 300 bills sounds like a lot, but it isn't. I sold a guy a 1971 Chevy Nova and he paid me in $20 bills...that was 210 bills, and my petite wife easily held them in one hand, rolled up with a rubber band.

And you're right, the part of the job he hates is the killing. But, these people are going to pay SOMEONE to kill whoever they want, so he justifies the killing by killing the cold S.O.B.'s before they can pay for innocent murder. Does that make sense?

Leyline: A 19 from you is like winning, so I'm satisfied. Can I ask what would make this pay off worth more?

JonM: I love most of your critique for this piece, and you nailed a few of them. The only one I can't get behind is going into greater detail when discussing the people he works for. It just doesn't seem fitting for me to have this narrator explain a car salesman, a banker, a doctor, a dentist in any other way than that. Would a more literary approach really fit this character? That's the limitation of first person. However, like I said, all of your other critiques are spot on and will be used in rewriting this. Thank you very much.


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## Jon M (Jun 4, 2013)

.


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## Jon M (Jun 4, 2013)

.


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## alanmt (Jun 4, 2013)

Congrats, lasm, moderan, Kyle, and Bilston!  well done!


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## FleshEater (Jun 4, 2013)

Jon M said:


> Didn't mean to toss Fin under the bus with my comment up there^ either. You did an excellent job, Fin, especially when it came to wrangling hooligans and ne'er-do-wells like me who turn scores in late. Your efforts are appreciated, certainly.
> 
> Congrats to the winners.
> 
> You make a really good point there, and I agree. When I was coming up with those examples I may have forgotten about First Person considerations. I suppose what I was getting at is to try and find spots in the story where a really vivid detail could be inserted. I like to think of them as 'moments'. Like, most of the prose is good and it's fun to read, but every now and then there will be a moment where some word or phrase, some simile or maybe just a well-chosen verb, makes you pause and say, "Wow."



Okay, I got it now. Yeah, you're right too. My entry was pretty straight forward. Almost like that hard as steel attitude flowed right into my writing.


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## Bilston Blue (Jun 4, 2013)

Congratulations to lasm on another great entry. *sighs* Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Runner up on four occasions and now a third place. What must I do. First it was Anna Buttons, now it seems lasm has that magic ingredient I can't find. So what? I enter to win it. I've a dirty rotten competitive streak running through me. *Adopts Arnie's voice* "I'll be back."

Well done, too, to Moderan and Kyle for their joint silver medal.

Thank you, of course, to the judges for their time and patience and observations.

Some thoughts: 

*@Fin:* 


> Well written and easy to read.


Thank you, sir. I'm glad you found it easy to read.

*@Pluralised:* Turnover = sales revenue.



> The prose is a bit over-the-top for me, though. You’re not allowing me to come up for air often enough. For such a short piece, I came to the end of it having digested a great deal of words, but not feeling like I got my story’s worth out of the deal.
> 
> The first paragraph is a monster. There’s no appreciable hook. The sentences are long, which is not always a bad thing, but they’re long enough that I had to drop anchor and read them a few times.


Try Fin's glasses. :loyal:



> I get it, I think


 I'm not sure there's much to get. Reading the parenthetical title is the key here, it's only a very short story about the dangers of distraction whilst driving. Renders the character pretty much a vehicle only for the story, which renders the nature of his jobs unimportant. At least, that's my take. 

Thank you for the time and effort you put into these crits, Pluralized. It's certainly reassuring knowing how committed to the competition the judges are.

*@ Leyline:*

Thanks for your time with this, George. So glad you like the title. I thought about a six hundred word title and forty odd word story, but hadn't the balls and haven't the skill.

*@ Jon M:*

Thanks for your time and input here. There were two of you who mentioned the relevance of the Poundzone store, so I figure there's some weight to that. I'm starting to see it now. Perhaps it's the sort of thing I might have slipped into a parenthesis on revision, and perhaps then only if the whole thing was expanded some, which I think I'm going to with this one; I like it. 



> to demonstrate to potential clients how Sparkle *will / would* improve their lives by increasing their degree of happiness


I'm going to kindly decline the offer of a tense change. Your choice works, no doubt, but at the demonstrations Eatwell gives, he tells his potential clients "Sparkle will improve blah blah blah..."

Glad you liked the density. Read DFW's _Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way_, if you haven't already. A work of wonder, it should be compulsory reading in schools. Whips Shakespeare's ass all day long.  

Thanks again to all.


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## Lewdog (Jun 4, 2013)

It looks as if my scores wouldn't have changed things much.  Lasm had my highest score with a 19.  Congrats to the winners.  I think for now on Lasm is so good she should get a 10 point handicap to make it fair for everyone else.


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## FleshEater (Jun 4, 2013)

Lewdog said:


> It looks as if my scores wouldn't have changed things much.  Lasm had my highest score with a 19.  Congrats to the winners.  I think for now on Lasm is so good she should get a 10 point handicap to make it fair for everyone else.



Actually, if what you told me about what you scored mine was true, there would have been a three way tie for second place. 

I have no idea what FIN is into...maybe he hates me:hopelessness:. 



Ha-ha!


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## Lewdog (Jun 4, 2013)

FleshEater said:


> Actually, if what you told me about what you scored mine was true, there would have been a three way tie for second place.
> 
> I have no idea what FIN is into...maybe he hates me:hopelessness:.
> 
> ...



"If you're not first, you're last." - Ricky Bobby


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## Deleted member 49710 (Jun 4, 2013)

Lewdog said:


> It looks as if my scores wouldn't have changed things much.  Lasm had my highest score with a 19.  Congrats to the winners.  I think for now on Lasm is so good she should get a 10 point handicap to make it fair for everyone else.


Thanks, Lewdog, glad to hear you liked it. Sorry to hear of your computer troubles etc. Would have been interested to see your comments.


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## Lewdog (Jun 4, 2013)

lasm said:


> Thanks, Lewdog, glad to hear you liked it. Sorry to hear of your computer troubles etc. Would have been interested to see your comments.



Well to be honest I took off the only point because you used a lot of fragment sentences and you didn't capitalize "God."  I was also confused as to why your main character was so mean to his wife.


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## Deleted member 49710 (Jun 4, 2013)

Lewdog said:


> Well to be honest I took off the only point because you used a lot of fragment sentences and you didn't capitalize "God."  I was also confused as to why your main character was so mean to his wife.


Yeah, probably should've capitalized God in that one. Thought about it, felt like the guy wasn't really a big believer, but it's my own convention, I don't cap it unless referring to the Big Guy in a serious manner. Also, that was the guy getting killed who was beating his wife; just a jerk, I think. Dominance issues, maybe.

Maybe next time I enter I'll give myself a no-sentence-fragments rule. I just love 'em so. Oh well. Thanks for your comments!



			
				Bilston Blue said:
			
		

> Congratulations to lasm on another great entry. *sighs*  Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Runner up on four occasions and  now a third place. What must I do. First it was Anna Buttons, now it  seems lasm has that magic ingredient I can't find. So what? I enter to  win it. I've a dirty rotten competitive streak running through me. *Adopts Arnie's voice* "I'll be back."



Thanks, Bilston! Do you know, there is a member of this forum who frequently refers to me as lssam or Isam or some variation, but I like him too much to correct him. I suppose I am not named after a town, though, you've got more than your own identity at stake. In any case, the magic ingredients--probably shouldn't share the secret, but just between you and me--a jot of violence, a dash of sex, judicious placement of sentence fragments, and swear words galore. Depending on the judges, of course.


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## Pluralized (Jun 4, 2013)

Congratulations, Lasm. Good show!

Thanks for the opportunity to be a judge; it was great fun.


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## Dictarium (Jun 4, 2013)

I got the second-lowest score, but I think I deserved the lowest. It just wasn't a very good story all around. Way too rushed and not-well-thought-out.


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## FleshEater (Jun 4, 2013)

Pluralized said:


> FleshEater - thanks for your critique of my critique. It's all good and logical, what you're saying, and I hope you know I gave your story a great deal of respect in the process.



Oh yeah, no worries. Judging is really hard, and I fully understand what it's like to be sitting on that side of the fence playing god, ha-ha! Or, more precisely, playing the bully with the magnifying glass.


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## Lewdog (Jun 4, 2013)

FleshEater said:


> Oh yeah, no worries. Judging is really hard, and I fully understand what it's like to be sitting on that side of the fence playing god, ha-ha! Or, more precisely, playing the bully with the magnifying glass.



If you have good eyesight, you don't need a magnifying glass.


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## Staff Deployment (Jun 4, 2013)

I think he means holding it up to a strong light until everything starts erupting into flames.

If you can do that with your eyes, then _get out of the country while you still can, they're already after you, they're going to harvest your genes to create supersoldiers, oh god Lewdog there's not much time_


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## Lewdog (Jun 4, 2013)

Staff Deployment said:


> I think he means holding it up to a strong light until everything starts erupting into flames.
> 
> If you can do that with your eyes, then _get out of the country while you still can, they're already after you, they're going to harvest your genes to create supersoldiers, oh god Lewdog there's not much time_



As long as you are the only one that knows my secret, I only have one person to get rid of...err I mean make friends with.


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## Kyle R (Jun 5, 2013)

Bravo, Lasm! Very impressive writing. You stomped the rest of us. However...

[video=youtube;E8_GVfPuw4M]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8_GVfPuw4M[/video]



Congrats to Scott and Moderan for getting to the medals!

Kudos to all participants!




Fin: I appreciate the praise. It's always nice to be encouraged!  Cheers!

Rob: Thanks for the honest critique! You're right about the piece originally being over a thousand words. I had to be ruthless with the cuts to get it under the word-limit. Sorry it didn't work for you, but thanks for the feedback! 

Leyline: I agree there was a flurry of similes in the beginning. Sometimes I get carried away.  Thanks for the encouraging feedback. Cheers!

Jon: Great breakdown! You've dissected my story thoroughly and given me a lot to think about in the process. Bravo. Thanks for taking the time to give such a thorough critique. Your suggested ending is one of those things that makes me slap my forehead and say "Why didn't I think of that?!" because it's so perfect. Thanks again for the excellent feedback. Cheers!


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## bazz cargo (Jun 6, 2013)

A big WELL DONE! to all participants. If you aint in it you won't win it. Tough on the judges though.


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## Kirra (Jun 9, 2013)

Thanks to the judges for reading my entry 

Fin,
I definitely should have dug deeper. I'll work on that next time. 

Pluralized,
I'm surprised you thought it might be a memoir. It's definitely (an attempt at, anyway) fiction. As far as family relationships go, mine are pretty good. Not perfect, but family relationships are never perfect. Next time I'll work on trying to make the story interesting. 

Your comments weren't disappointing at all. The whole purpose of entering was for input on what was wrong with the story. I knew it was a mess when I entered it. I just wasn't sure if the areas I thought were wrong were the areas other people thought were wrong (for the most part, they were). 

Leyline, 

You're right. It's definitely too much of a summary and not a story. 

Jon M., 

Saying I was too much in her head makes sense. I didn't ground her and give her a solid place in the world. 


Again, thanks to all of you for the input. At least you didn't point out a ton of spelling and grammar errors. I would have been quite embarrassed if I made them and missed them. Except for commas. I can't figure out how to make commas work.


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## Leyline (Jun 9, 2013)

Kirra said:


> Thanks to the judges for reading my entry
> 
> Fin,
> I definitely should have dug deeper. I'll work on that next time.
> ...



Thank you for entering, and thank you even more for taking the judging in the spirit in which it was intended.


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## Kirra (Jun 9, 2013)

Leyline said:


> Thank you for entering, and thank you even more for taking the judging in the spirit in which it was intended.



I had fun. I'm not sure how else I could have taken the judging. You were all pretty gentle. You could have torn it to pieces, but instead you explained where I went wrong and gave me suggestions on what I should do differently next time. 

Lol I'm pretty used to having what I write be critiqued, though. I'm an English major along with technical writing, and the literature side gets my ideas and interpretations torn apart, and the tech writing gets everything else torn apart.


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