Calvin Coolidge was a Republican, therefor his government must have been literally in the devil's pocket, right? Frankly, I'm hoping the jokes and hints were directed at government in general, but these days it's hard to tell.

Anyway, I came away with mixed feelings. Businessmen are evil by default and Jews are greedy as sin. Go figure. Can we have an extra glass of stereotyping, please? I'm not so bothered by the whole 'all Southerners are racists' bit because it's 1927, so historically this is at least marginally accurate.

I am less certain about my feelings towards the writing style. It's dated, but then, so is the timing of the events. If the author was trying to imitate that aspect, congratulations, you did a smashing job. Unfortunately, that means all the pitfalls are there as well, such as the dialogue feeling overlong and needlessly detailed. And Beaumont thought the martini was dry.

I do like this interpretation of the devil. Less "mwahaha I'm evil", but not necessarily of the "Trust me, I'm not evil, really" sort, either. Brandt felt more interesting than the usual fare, and for that I am pleased. Even so, the whole 'meeting with the devil' shtick has been done to Hell and back, and this doesn't really bring anything new to the table aside from the devil's defense – and I acknowledge that I may have simply not seen it before.

So.. the devil is the spotlight. And the others are right, the characterization overall is solid. But at no point did I ever really get invested in this one, and I blame that almost entirely on the dragging nature of the conversation with its many tangents. It's not a bad story by any means, but I think it could use some pruning.

I tend to get picky when people try to use the journal style of writing. This one felt odd to me more or less immediately, specifically because it's supposed to be written by a 12-year-old. It... doesn't read like it. It all sounds too mature, even before the 'problem' starts. Our protagonist sounded less like a little girl and more like an adult trying to act like a little girl.

The entries are also too direct and simple for the type of situation we're dealing with. This has aspects of horror in its content, but there's no effort made to bring out the horror for the reader, so it all falls flat. Journals are exceptionally good tools for getting into the head of the narrator, but that depends upon the narrator diving in and making the journal personal. Our protagonist never does; she just writes what happens in a general sense.

My advice: when writing journal-style stories, get in the head of the narrator. Don't just write "The crazies somehow got organized and mounted an attacked on the camp." This is a big event, your character is going to be physically exhausted and scared out of her wits, and the writing needs to show us that. Tell us what she sees, hears, feels and thinks. This is how the reader becomes invested in what is happening.

Overall, great concept. Keep practicing and you'll also end up with a great story.

Usually, I reply to each comment individually but this time I'm feeling lazy.
>>All_Art_Is_Quite_Useless
>>Ritsuko
>>Zaid Val'Roa
>>Not_A_Hat
>>georg
>>PaulAsaran
>>Ranmilia
>>Monokeras

I thank every one of you nonetheless for your time and your comments. I challenged myself pretty hard with this story because it's somehow between a translation and a rewrite of a comedy sketch by Pierre Desproges. It was a challenge because his way of talking is full of 'pretty words' as Quill would say, with very long sentences. That's the main reason for the tone that could seem off by some of you, because I have still troubles with writting with a consistent tone. Moreover, the challenge was also on the tenses. The narration starts with the present but when the narrator tells his story, the tense switch from present to past.

But my main goal is achieved. Some of you have found the story funny and I couldn't ask for more. In fact, I didn't want it to have more. I feared that, because of the prompt, almost all the stories would be sad and dark. I wanted to lighten up the mood with a funny story. It might be a weak or a cheap goal but that was still my goal nonetheless.

About the fact that the narrator isn't likeable, I was playing on the ambiguity of an unlikeable character and a situation we have all probably lived but it seems I didn't handle that very well.

PS: By the way, please keep in mind that the author's view and the narrator's view are two different things. I don't agree with almost all the comments the narrator has made.

I appreciate the humor in this, which is original and engrossing. But I find myself leaning toward MrNumbers' problem that there's ultimately not too deep of a story here. I read this a few days ago, and I'm having trouble recalling any of the significant details now, including how it ends. I just remember that it mixed electronics and demonology and I thought it was pretty funny.

So I think I'll end up scoring this fairly high, but it won't break into the top ranks where dwell those stories with more meat on them.

Some pretty nice imagery here, and I really like the way the protagonist sees coins everywhere.

My only problem, and it didn't even occur to me until the next morning after I'd read it, was that I don't really see why this story about overcoming addiction is set in a fantasy world with dragons.

Normally when we use fantasy to explore a familiar theme, it's because the elements of fantasy let us address a topic in ways that a more true-to-life telling couldn't. Animal Farm, for instance, or The Lord of the Rings. George Orwell is able to condense the horrific march of totalitarianism into a compact fable, and Tolkien was able to render a world-spanning conflict of good against evil as an allegory for the two World Wars he had lived through.

But Chasing the Dragon? All I'm seeing is a story about addiction, but with dragons (and other fantastic creatures) instead of humans. I don't understand why the elements of fantasy have been introduced, except as a way for the author to make the story different from all the other stories about addiction we've read. I mean, replace 'coins' with 'heroin' and there's not much in this story that couldn't be set in Scranton.

Author, when you revise this, find some way to make the fantasy revelatory to our ideas about addiction. It should be clear to the reader why you've chosen a fantasy motif to address a real-world problem.

Edit: In case that sounds too harsh, this fic is currently sitting in my top three.

>>Zaid Val'Roa
>>All_Art_Is_Quite_Useless
>>horizon
>>Fenton
>>Cold in Gardez
>>QuillScratch
>>Not_A_Hat
>>Chris
>>Orbiting_kettle
>>Ranmilia
First of all, thanks for taking the time to read my entry and putting in the effort of responding.

Secondly, I am making the doc open at; My Little Portal

Ugh, I've had no time this time, not even to review the good sounding ones here.

Congrats to the finalists and go future medalists go!

Thank you all very much for your thoughts and comments! This story has a lot of issues (many of them stemming from my lazy refusal to write the story linearly to begin with), but it's the first piece in a long while that I've wanted to fix. I typed out a retrospective, then decided I liked the tl;dr version better, so here it is:

Repeated Writeoff participation helped me realize I want to write a book. This story will hopefully be that book.


(Because it's rather apparent it doesn't work as a flashback-laden bit of literary origami lol thanks for bearing with it y'all)

Curious, and I can't help but wonder if it is based on something else. I like the overall idea and how it is delivered – mostly. If anything causes this story trouble, it is the unfortunate tendency to go into deep description of things we don't necessarily need to know. Granted, the audience can't be expected to be history buffs and it helps to have some knowledge of what's going on, but I am a firm believer that exposition is not the way to go about doing this.

Ignoring that? I enjoyed this one. Unexpected, interesting and mysterious.

So, to be blunt, I feel this story would benefit from being about half as long. A lot of the internal dialogue really only serves to remove subtlety (and inform the reader about things they should be able to infer based on context clues). Similarly, a lot of the dialogue is overwrought. There's some clever stuff in there, but it gets really bogged down in a lot of weasel words and phrasing. Some of that is fine for characterization (which you do a solid job of), but, on the whole, it makes the dialogue a lot more of a slog than you'd expect from a pair of smart assholes.

This is not necessarily a thing that needs to change, but worth noting: you are sitting on some unfortunate implications. While the racism is period and not an unreasonable character trait, the affectations of the devil (with the Star of David and all) along with the story's closing line can potentially be read in really unfriendly ways.

Like I said about characterization: it is pretty good, though Teddy has some issues in that he bounces between being kinda cartoonishly assholish and not. Honestly, this could be cleaned up almost entirely with my above suggestion (cutting a lot of words, particularly explanatory internal dialogue).

Writing is quite snappy! Very nice beat to it. Just great prose all around. Unfortunately that's about all that worked here for me.

I dunno, honestly, the story kinda depressed me and I ultimately don't really end up knowing what to do with it. Really, it's too melancholy and frustrating for me to think of it as funny, too absurd for me to really find it sad, and it actively derides you for trying to read it as anything but literal, so I'm really not left with anything to grab onto in the end. While there is something to be said for leaving it up to the reader what they take away from something, the risk there is that the reader will take away nothing... and that's where this fic leaves me.

>>Fenton

I think this definition might assist a little bit in seeing why people referred to it as meta:

1. (of a creative work) referring to itself or to the conventions of its genre; self-referential.

There's a pretty fair argument that this story is about the concept of literary interpretation itself and the tendency of people to over read the obvious. That's pretty much what every interaction comes down to. "Yo, I got a hole in my chest" "No, that's silly, it must be this emotional/mental thing instead." "No, seriously, I just have a hole in my chest." The initial interactions with the wife set that idea up, and the rest of the story sustains it.

Basically it's a story about reading and/or the frustration of being read. Hence meta: it is self-referential, it is a story about stories.

I liked this! It's fun, the structure is good, the humor is good. This is just an all around fun read.

Mostly my biggest problem is I think this needs an editorial pass just to make it snap a little better. The prose and narrative beats just feel like they still have room to improve (including things like the repitition of ...disposal? which is a bit jarring). So yeah, just a couple layers of polish and I think you'll be awesome.

>>Fenton

I don't agree with almost all the comments the narrator has made.

You should :P

>>Fenton
>>AndrewRogue

There's a pretty fair argument that this story is about the concept of literary interpretation itself and the tendency of people to over read the obvious.

I don't think anyone has actually posted this yet, but there's a viral image that discusses this exact point, and I think is roughly the kind of angle the story was exploring. I would like to state for the record that I disagree with the dichotomy presented by the image (and also the preference for authorial intent), but I think it's relevant to the discussion.

I had trouble with the first scene, I guess because I wasn't in the right mindset. The refusal of the wife to take him seriously even after seeing the hole in the dude's chest just didn't hit that right Kafka-esque note for me.

But the scene in the doctor's office did, and certainly in the psychiatrist's office. That made me reevaluate how I'd read the first scene with his wife, and realize I was expecting the wrong thing out of it. As a result, I found my enjoyment of this story snowballing until I couldn't stop smiling by the end.

Good show, author.

Well, that was some great world-building. There's huge potential here for expansion.

But, uh, the actual story? In my head it went something like this:

1. Great worldbuilding.

2. Watson tells us the backstory.

3. Watson explains the, uh, current story.

4. Holmes discovers a clue.

5. [Scene break, during which the rising action, climax and denouement occur off-camera]

6. Resolution and fin.

So, yeah, change parts 2 and 3 to actual narrative, show all the stuff that occurs during the scene break, and add some significant moral choices, and this story is a winner.

>>AndrewRogue
Added to my post.

>>QuillScratch

I don't think anyone has actually posted this yet, but there's a viral image that discusses this exact point, and I think is roughly the kind of angle the story was exploring. I would like to state for the record that I disagree with the dichotomy presented by the image (and also the preference for authorial intent), but I think it's relevant to the discussion.

I hope the author didn't aim only for the idea contained in the link you gave because this image is tipically the product of a narrow-minded person. The chart is interesting and can means a lot but it had to come with an 'example' that reduces and simplifies the huge open question raised by the said chart.

After a strong initial showing, this one trailed down my finals slate. I think the narrative aspects of this largely felt like they came together; the biggest problem to address in editing is, as several people above me mentioned, simply to trim down aggressively. I'm just going to repeat one of the things I noted during the Writeoff podcast last week:

Annie was greatly surprised by Beaumont's generosity. "But that jar cost 62 cents and you only docked me 20... Sir, are you sure?" Annie worried that this might be a joke at her expense, or worse, a test, to see if she was as greedy as she is lazy. Beaumont's next words helped to reassure her, and she seemed to relax somewhat.

The first sentence is redundant with the first half of the quote. The second (non-quote) sentence is redundant with the second half of the quote. The third sentence is the only one that could be argued to require narration, but it tells us the same thing twice in a row.

In other words, this is a solid quote surrounded by three layers of packing material. Unwrap it! Let your showing stand on its own.

Moving on from that, several commenters are noting problems in what ScarletWeather calls the moral axis, which also are worth examining. There's a certain amount of moral queasiness here that is just going to be inherent to telling a story about a reprehensible individual in a historical setting when his views were more prevalent; the balancing act between "historical representation" and "palatable delivery to modern readers" is a difficult one. Ultimately, your goals for the story, and your intended audience, will make a big difference to how far you want to bend its presentation from its current form, and I don't have good answers for you on that.

This did, regardless, tell a clean and complete story, which counts for a lot against the tight Writeoff time-crunch.

Tier: Strong

Little to add to the above. I'm with >>Cold in Gardez, that the scene break covers a great deal of ground that I'm sure the author intended to include before the deadline swung in, and that as such, the final scene is peremptory and unsatisfying. But this is bursting with character and tone and intriguing ideas. Even unfinished as it is, it took a credible swing at my top 5 and didn't fall far short. Get out there and expand this, author.

Tier: Strong

I gave this one a brief shout-out in the podcast, and it's hovering low in my top five. The good: Every individual scene is vivid to bursting, the writing is crisp, and the entire piece feels saturated with meaning. The bad: Basically what >>Ranmilia said about the not-quite-there feeling of the core theme here. Everything feels like it individually connects to the "staring into the abyss" prompt, but I can't draw lines through that central idea in a way that makes the ideas feel connected to each other.

Maybe the problem is that it's very easy to read the Astronomer's mention of David, and her first star party, as connective tissue: making David the Lover, and the Astronomer and Climber the same person. But that slams into a wall when the Diver and Philosopher vigorously resist any connections to the others (especially with the Philosopher's abstractness … well, near-madness), leaving your five standard tales feeling half-linked. The Void is a reasonable attempt at drawing them all together, but the scope just is so far removed from the others that it doesn't feel particularly satisfying even if you spot it a role as the thematic centerpoint.

If I were to edit this, I would either:

1) work more detail into the five scenes which made it clear that none of the five were linked — doing far more name-dropping and scene-setting, grounding each of them in their own little bubbles, perhaps even hinting that they were all temporally separated as well. Then swing in with the Void as the only possible common element.

or 2) Interlink all five characters and leave the Void out of it.

Everything's in place for this to be fantastic, but in its current form it feels like its meaning is just out of reach, and that left it feeling empty to me.

Tier: (high) Strong

I'm just gonna double down on my statement in the podcast: I hope this is our first "meta" story medalist. It's picking up a fair amount of heat and light in comments, but I think it's got the literary chops to crack the top tier. Another shout-out to >>Obscure for so succinctly encapsulating why it manages to be so great on the meta level.

On the non-meta narrative level, I feel like this is making a statement about the way that magic is built around humanity's response to the impossible, and it's wonderful seeing the juxtaposition of the ordinariness of people's reactions with the craziness of the premise. I further love that it lampshades all the implications of its premise so hard but never once actually squares it with facts. Magical-realist Kafka.

(tl;dr I love crackfics)

If only that last scene wasn't so anticlimactic. It needs to be a lot more than three lines. Here's hoping post-Writeoff editing time has allowed you to flesh that out.

Tier: Top Contender

As I noted in the podcast, it blows my mind that this was right at the 2k minimum. This felt like a much longer story!

It's largely that density which solidified this in my top five. It's got a whimsical core idea but grounds that idea firmly in the human consequences of it. It does, as a consequence of its size, feel a bit rushed — and doesn't really have the room to develop a significant arc, as CiG notes — but I can't come up with any significant faults, and it hits the lower target it aims at with flair and wit.

Tier: Top Contender

Whew, finished assigning values to the votes. Regrettably, every one of them is better than my entry, so I'll be lucky to finish in the teens this time. Also regrettably, every single comment I could make on the stories on my slate had already been made (and much better) by other commenters. So I'll summarize.

My top three are: Chasing the Dragon, Fortune, and There's a Hole in My Chest. We're probably talking about a tenth of a point difference between them, because they're all wonderful in their own way. Chasing is a wonderful angle on addiction, Fortune is a wonderful leap into the great unknown by people who have known only one life forever, and There's a Hole is just this wonderfully oddball sideways look at reality.

What can I say? They're wonderful. :)

>>Zaid Val'Roa
Existential pool, that is the Abyss. I could make use of explanations and suggestions.

I guess Transhumanism was entered into the story.

Time restraint is a cleare issue.

>>All_Art_Is_Quite_Useless
How do I react on this? I guess you enjoy how the style came out.

I should ask why it isn't your type of story.

There are hoards of stories to my name, while guess the previous entries received less than warm welcomings.
I hope there are better representations of my story telling at my FiM page. (Ponyess)

Good character work and some bouncy dialogue, but I seem to be in the minority in that I found the world building landed pretty hard on its face. You throw a lot of admittedly interesting ideas out, but none of them really gel into an actually cohesive idea, leaving me with very little in the way of an actual grounding to invest in.

I also kinda feel it doesn't help that we start digging into the weird until like... a third into the story? At this point I've already started to build some expectations only to have them uncomfortably scythed out from under me and be presented with something -significantly- stranger. Like, this stuff should have been presented much earlier in the narrative, especially since it is apparently core to the plot. There's a similar problem with the little "Miss" later in the story. I really should not be sideswiped and have to recast a first person narrator that deep into the story. :p

The shift on using Rubberduck's name is really abrupt considering it is preceded by a "maybe I should upgrade him to having a name."

Another long one, and another story that I think would really benefit from being cut down by a significant margin. The conflict is kind of unopened until decently late (you get hints of the wanderlust, but we can't really do anything with it until later). Moreover, that conflict kinda feels... fake, as it were? Which is unfortunate, as it is the core conflict to the story.

Basically, him not realizing his urge to go explore is kind of boring and makes him kind of an inactive protagonist, really. He steps up really late. I dunno, it's kind of hard to hone directly in on, but Diggory just ends up being kind of boring. You don't really feel his drive because he doesn't do anything about it until a bunch of doors have been opened for him. (And then he chooses quite possibly the most suicidal possible plan. Seriously, mutiny is probably smarter. >>)

Setting idea is neat and there is some good stuff there, but the core conflict with the captain feels... really forced, given this seems to happen every now and then? I mean, apparently if this had happened on Diggory's day off or something they'd have been just as screwed, given how bad every other Watcher on duty is. Having land be mythical when they really want it reported and avoided is honestly self-defeating. Like people are literally not thinking of using the binoculars.

Description of Gemma is -really- weird, given she's the only character we get a really clear physical picture of. You can sorta handwave this as 3rd person limited descriptive eye, but Diggory doesn't actually seem that interested in her.

So yeah, I think there's something neat here, but it needs some tightening and a little more punch to really bring it up to snuff.

Hm. Hm. Hm. I am unsure what to make of this story. It's format reminds me a lot of a supernatural occurance TV show: we get the dramatic recreation from the character POV then the aftermath and such at a distance. Like an episode of Unsolved Mysteries or something.

There is some very good writing here and this definitely seems like it'll appeal to certain types of readers (military fiction folks!) based off some of that. Unfortunately, I'm not one of them.

Honestly, while the scenario is cool and well done and properly (non-frustratingly) mysterious, I just never connected to the characters, so I never really got invested. Like, I was even having a lot of trouble keeping them straight during the story itself. Not quite sure if this is an actual flaw with the writing itself or whether I just bounced off the story, but I think it is more of the latter than the former.

So, let's lead by saying that each individual vignette is quite nicely written. Super solid and pleasant prose all around.

I have a bit of a problem with the fact that each vignette kinda blends together because of the narrative voice you use. The scenarios don't feel like unique individuals. They all roughly feel like the same vaguely poetic person. And then the Void kinda slams in and does the same thing, except being way harder to actually parse (it actually took me a couple reads to both stop glazing over trying to read it and figure it out).

I think I get the idea of the linked narrative you're going for, but ultimately I don't super feel it? It's a series of thematically linked vignettes, but I don't really get a satisfying connection to the Void experience. Moreover, it is so disconnected from the relatively mundane and simple experiences that you covered otherwise that it really just falls flat.

I wanted to post my review of this story along with a few other reviews, but I'm finding that on every other story I'm reading I don't have anything particularly interesting to add to the discussion. So I guess I'll just throw my thoughts here?

I had the same struggle at the start of this piece as >>Chris did. There are some tells near the start that really seem to hammer home the idea that this might be a human-bodied character, most notably this transition:

I dig a hand into the pile to heft my riches

—and my eyes crack open as my claws catch on the mattress springs.

I'm disoriented for a moment, still half in the dream.

The idea of disorientation, of being half-in and half-out of the dream, seems really strongly enforced by the switching of the expected order of "hand(s)" and "claw(s)", which in turn implies that there is a significant difference between the body parts in the dream and in reality (and it certainly doesn't help that the very next time that body part is mentioned, the choice is "hand".) I was incredibly enthused by that transition when I first read it (actually, the whole few paragraphs are phenomenally disorienting in just the right way), but I think I am a little less so now. This wasn't really the story that the transition implies, and because I spent so long expecting a different story, I found myself not fully committed to the fantasy interpretation, which certainly weakened the impact of this story for me.

It's a testament to this story's strength, then, that I was moved beyond words by it.

This was a beautiful and surprisingly personal piece, that kept its focus throughout without wavering. It explores a difficult topic in a rich, exciting world, and always remains caring, gentle, and—most importantly—supportive in its tone. This was the first story I read this round, and it has remained at the top of my slate ever since. Thank you, author.

HHOOOORRRRRSSSSSEEEE

Tier: Top Contender

>>Cold in Gardez
I think the choice of setting, and particularly the choice of dragons, allows the author to make a comment on the nature of addiction as a part of the human condition effortlessly, while the same comments made in a human story would probably come across a little more bluntly. We just accept that the need to hoard is a natural part of what it means to be a dragon when reading this story, which is not something we would necessarily do for a human character dealing with a human addiction. But that's kinda tenuous, and I'm not convinced it was what the author was going for, so I think I agree with you on this.

Cheers to the winners!

Also everyone else.

Congrats to all those who won, and better luck next time (with a handshake and a smile) to those who didn't.

Time to look back at my story and its reception during this round.

I wrote Concrete Masks damn near the deadline, in about three hours and followed up with just a couple of passages of editing. It shows. Lesson learned this time, some stories require more time than others.

A lot of ideas I had fell to the tyranny of time (which, let me reiterate, was my fault). Barrows originally should have been an artificial personality working for the police. She was archetypal because that is what she should have been, an idea of cop solving crimes. I wanted to tell a bit more about what IP Citizens were, why there was a problem with their reproductive rights, the ethical problem of creating non-humanoid descendants and a hint about the body-shop (new and litteral meaning here) that had created the body hosting the child.

Regarding the low stakes, that was kinda intended. The inspiration came from a collection of short stories by an Italian writer, Loriano Macchiavelli, about his character Sarti Antonio, a mediocre detective in Bologna. These stories were non-mysteries in which the cases were solved through sophisticated investigative techniques like asking the neighbors or looking through the archives. The focus was the story of the victim, of the murder or simply how Sarti related to them. They were splendid.

I clearly didn't manage to capture this magic, and in hindsight the reasons are obvious. I'm not Loriano Macchiavelli, the setting was too unfamiliar as to resonate with readers the right way, the characters were new and without any kind of previous emotional investment attached to them. There are a couple more, among them a certain lack of focus, but that's the gist of it.

Regarding the things people liked, I'm flattered that the world-building went over so well. Now I'll only have to work on making decently structured short-stories.

>>All_Art_Is_Quite_Useless
>>Zaid Val'Roa
>>PaulAsaran
>>horizon
I'm seriously thinking about extending this. Let's see if I can transform those intentions into something concrete.

>>QuillScratch

However, I did feel that this entry was let down by a number of incredibly clunky phrasings and strange word-orders ("I sooner or later should have it fixed" is a particularly awkward example) that I found to be particularly jarring. It might just be me, but that kind of phrasing stands out and dampens the impact of a piece---it’s not too difficult to tidy up, but there were enough instances of things like this to hurt my enjoyment of the story. (While we’re on the subject of technical issues, you may want to make sure you focus on comma splices when you’re editing, because I spotted quite a number of those.)

Damn, I was sure I had at least a couple of those issues down by now.

>>Not_A_Hat
Mr.Numbers got the Rubberduck reference right. I was pretty sure it was a bit more common knowledge, but I was wrong, which means it probably will have to go in a future revision.

>>MrNumbers
The cutting of the fact that Barrows was an archetype, and not metaphorically speaking, was probably one of the most damaging omissions.

>>Cold in Gardez
If you take this story, but you know, make it better then it will be good. Jokes aside, I agree completely with you. I really didn't have the foundations for the non-mystery I was trying to go for, so I will have to develop the story in a more classic way. Maybe not necessarily by changing the nature of the case, but certainly by showing what's happening without the cheap cut to the end.

>>AndrewRogue
The shift in the name was admittedly too abrupt. I kind of want to keep the turning up of weirdness the further we go into the story, but you are right that I should have hinted at it sooner.

---

As usual, thank you all for the time you took to read and review this story. It has been extremely useful and I'm grateful for it.

Oh hey, I came second. Neat.

There isn't more of a story here because it was just meant to be a quick, snappy piece whose sole purpose was to entertain. Adding more to it might have made it a better story but it also was far more likely to weigh the piece down, in my opinion. Pretty happy with the final balance.

There's a scene in my head where Luke goes in to Dave's room and there's just a live goat, bleating in pain and misery, its entrails organized into a complex pentagram.

"Dave! I'm trying to study!"

"Sorry man. Check it out though; Totally retro, just like gramma used to make."

"You can do the same thing with a laser pointer and three glass prisms, and a bag of donor blood."

"Correction: I can do the same thing with a laser pointer and two glass prisms. You see, I optimized-"

"For fuck's sake, Dave, can you please put this thing out of my misery?"

"But if I kill it, I'll lose all kinds of fidelity. Besides, then it'll start to stink, and trash pickup isn't for another three days. Don't you just have noise cancelling headphones?"

"Eugh. Yeah, fine. What are you using it for, anyway?"

"Literally -- literally -- the only way I could get us off AT&T and back onto Comcast."

"Oh. Shit, yeah, man, I'll get it some water then. Does it eat carrots?"

>>MrNumbers

"Literally -- literally -- the only way I could get us off AT&T and back onto Comcast."

Dammit, Numbers, I thought you were writing fiction. :V

My warmest congratulations to the usual suspects this round's medalists: horizon, MrNumbers, and Cold in Gardez. Some fine work, all around. To all of you, I say: Urrah!

I would also like to give a more minor Urrah! to All_Art_Is_Quite_Useless, whose very first story in the Writeoffs managed to land a spot in the finals. Good job!

All that said, I would like to proffer a small apology to the group at large. Despite reading all of the entries here, I did not write a single review this round. This is in large part due to life events (a combination of work and packing up my apartment for a move this coming weekend), coupled with the fact that most criticisms I could make were largely covered by the other reviews. Still, I am sorry for not being a bit more useful here, and I shall endeavor to be more vocal in the next round in which I participate (likely the next original mini-fic round).

Lastly, I will write a retrospective on "Skyward," both to discuss the story's background, and, more importantly, to engage with some of its reviews and criticisms. However, it won't be happening until after this coming weekend. So, for those who care, stay tuned!

Again, my congratulations to the medalists, and I'm sending out some general positive waves to all the other participants, reviewers, and sundry passers-by. I hope y'all had an instructive and illuminating time.

Obviously, God was waiting on the next Rock Pitt story too. (snerk)

Seventh place. Better than I expected by about ten. I’m going to confess. The Greatest Challenge is mine. Part of it is sheer wonder at the ability of Clive Cussler to constantly pull story ideas out of his (censored) for big six-foot hero type Dirk Pitt and his crew to overcome. I mean for crying out loud, in one of his early books he raises the Titanic. How do you top that? Part of this is admiration for Monster Hunters International by Larry Correia, where his hero Owen Zastiva Pitt (catching a theme yet?) is also a big six-foot plus muscle type. In recent stories, he’s shooting deamons in the face with a shotgun. What better contrast than a nerdy little nebbish author who can’t even open a can of beans without cutting his thumb? (By the way, that’s not me. Larry Correia *is* a huge bear of a man who uses guns like fashion accessories. I’m just tall, and really prefer my turkeys to come out of the freezer section. However, I can shoot the ten ring out of about any target you put out there, and drop quail like they were clay pigeons.)

Admittedly, I needed some sort of lead-in between his “I have to think” and the doctor’s office to make that flow, possibly some sort of insinuation that his bankruptcy will hurt his family (which it probably would, since he seems to be supporting his mother and his sister in style.)

(going to add this)

---

“So. Now what?”

“Bankruptcy?” Fenton ran his fingers through his thinning hair while his agent shook his head.

“They’ll claw back the money you put into your mother’s trust and your sister’s education fund. Bankruptcy lawyers are nasty. Worse than divorce lawyers.” Murray shuddered.

“I’ll think of something.” Benton pushed the glass of whiskey over to his agent….

---

>>Ranmilia
>>Cold in Gardez
>>Monokeras (Ok, I'll fix the 'Could Care Less' too.)
>>AndrewRogue
>>PaulAsaran I shall never write sparkling vampires! Never! (Unless given a large enough check)

>>Chris Good whiskey *can* have water added to it, you just have to be careful about how much and what kind.
>>Not_A_Hat
>>Fenton It's always hit and miss to go meta *and* hit something as un-funny as a suicide attempt in a story that is mostly comedy.
>>GroaningGreyAgony Well, this Benton Harbor doesn't fight crime or work as a shoe salesman. :)
>>horizon Comedy is hit and miss. One thing that helps is to make the jokes/gags roll at a respectable pace so if somebody misses one, they have another coming up at them in a second.

Huh. Story #5 made 5th. Go fig.

Seeing as I tend to approach these stories with a competitive mindset, my initial reaction was something along the lines of "What? Fifth? Curses! I will get one of those medals some day!" Then I gave myself a metaphorical slap on the back of the head and acknowledged that this is my second best placement ever when one considers number of entrants, and that cheered me up significantly.

So, I think we can all see that the biggest issue this story has is in fact my over-ambition. >>Fenton and >>Zaid Val'Roa have me pegged; I was writing this with an eye for potential future expansion. But then, I have trouble with that because I write everything with an eye for potential expansion, always looking for ways to make something into a potential epic. This often ends up getting in the way when dealing with short stories, because I neglect the fact that those little hints and ideas I seed in there can act as a distraction from what's supposed to be the point of a small one shot.

Thus we get things like Diggory's undeveloped sister Clio or hints at Fishel being a darker individual than first glance suggests. It also leads to the little descriptive wrinkles I try to add for atmosphere, but which only end up getting in the way.

On the plus side, these are issues I'm already aware of, and this just reminded me of them yet again. On the negative side, I clearly failed to do anything about it this time. But y'know? I'm okay with that. Eventually I'll make the mistakes enough times to finally not make them. That's what these contests are for, in a sense.

Anyway, inspirations! There were a couple of things on my mind when this contest came along, the first being OleGrayMane's Pioneer (highly recommended). From there I got the idea of wanderlust and the need to do something 'different.' But the setting? That came from a case of boredom-induced Wikipedia browsing, which led me to research on phantom islands such as Antillia and Satanazes. I found myself interested in finding a way to plant a phantom island in one of my ongoing stories, but then this hit me as a better use for the inspiration, and here we are.

>>Zaid Val'Roa >>Monokeras
Actually, you're both off about the Fortunate Captain and his missing 'watchers'. If you check the meeting scene again, you'll note that the watchers only made up a tiny portion of the people present. The runaways make up individuals from all walks of life and all sorts of jobs, rather than being any one position x100. Indeed, it's not a question of the Captain missing 70 or so watchers, but a question of 70 or so civilians from a wide range of locations and tasks and responsibilities – which is much harder to watch for.

>>Not_A_Hat

So... what was that bit about the bottles in the corner of the pantry? And why was he so afraid of speaking to the one person?

I knew that scene with the woman in the hall would be a weak point, but I was running out of time and couldn't think of any way to deal with it other than blatant removal, and I thought that would have been worse. As for the bottles, they were meant to be a clue as to the ship's natural motions, but it ended up being far too subtle to be effective. Oops.

>>horizon
Actually, the alarm clock thing is quite natural. I myself have my alarm clock set to 5:45 every day, but I'm only woken up by it maybe twice a year. I still keep it on as a precaution, because those 1 or 2 days still happen. My parents are the same, seldom needing their clock but my Dad having it on just in case, and when he wakes up he resets it for Mom so she can get up on time afterwards. It might make no sense to you, but for me it's a very natural action to take.

Also, >>GroaningGreyAgony has it correct: the whole 'placing the clock on the pillow' bit was meant to be a mild aside to relate how his sister violently lashes out when woken up in the mornings, so the pillow was to soften the blow. This is another old problem of mine: utilizing subtlety where being direct would have been better. It comes back to bite me fairly regularly, but I'd like to think I'm at least getting better at it. Just not this time.

>>Ranmilia
Glad you liked it! Most of your suggestions make perfect sense, but I think the one I'm most concerned with is the development of conflict. I very intentionally didn't want to go into why these people were on the Winds of Fortune, but I also didn't want a leader who was stereotypical "They saw the Land! Get a firing squad set up!" I wanted someone who was a lot more reasonable. It seems that I overplayed that hand, however, so if I do a rewrite someday I'll definitely have to think on how to adjust that. There are hundreds of potential routes to take this, most of them obvious and easy, so it's something I'll have to think about.

>>MrNumbers >>AndrewRogue
Well, you know what they say: you can't please everyone. But I do appreciate the input regarding pacing. As mentioned before, I have a problem with that in shorter stories since my MO has always been big, epic tales that tend to take on a slower pace. In a big way, I get into these contests to learn how to speed things up and improve my stories' rate of development. Guess that didn't work this time.

Also, I kinda miss Waterworld. I'd be lying if I said it didn't come to mind once or twice as I was writing this.




Whelp, it was a nice run. See you all in the next contest (I hope). As always, thanks for the constructive criticism! I'll have that shiny, clinky gold eventually.

A'ight, retrospective time:

There's a Hole in My Chest

This is my first attempt at writing original fiction for a contest, and I wanted to push my range a bit. There's a Hole in My Chest was my attempt at writing absurdist open-interp, and was inspired in no small part by the fact that absurdist open-interp generally does very poorly around these parts (and, you know, among the general public). The reason why it does is pretty clear, if you're familiar with its lowest-common-denominator form: we call it the "lolrandom self-aware trollfic." But even more serious attempts at the style have generally fallen flat, largely because they end up relying on the reader bringing a very specific mindset, knowledge base, or what have you to the reading; think about some of the Joyce-esque stories we've seen come through here, for example, and how there's invariably a sizeable contingent of readers for whom those are going to be a total failure, no matter how "well" written.

So, I wanted to write something absurd, and which relied on the reader to provide meaning, but which was still broadly accessable. What I came up with was a story about a man who's got a literal hole in his chest, but who gets treated as if it's figurative.

So, what is the meaning? Well, that's up to the reader. Is the hole even actually there? One could certainly invoke unreliable narrator to claim it isn't, and you can see several people came to that conclusion in the comments. If it is real, then why can't people see it? It could be "idiot ball"ing, or it could be read as something more declarative about the human condition (or it could just be that there's a unicorn living in the hole). And what of his decision at the end? Is it an affirmative ending, or a dark one? And either way, did he do it for the right reason, or the (a?) wrong one?

I am very pleased by the amount of discussion this generated, because it tells me that I at least managed to approach what I was trying to do. People were able to read it as a straightforward comedy, which is what I wanted people to be able to do. People were able to read it as an examination of depression, or a commentary on literary criticism, or an existentialist horror story, and I wanted the story to be able to support all that, too! Ultimately, my hope was that this story would be something of a rorschach test: that what a person saw in this story would say a little bit about them. That's a pretty high bar to aim for, and I don't think this was a success in that regard, but it seems to have worked for at least some folks, and that's something.

Unfortunately, it also became clear pretty quickly that I'd fallen well short of my goal, and that there were plenty of people who weren't able to find anything worthy in it at all (note: I consider "it was funny" worthy, and think anyone who read this as a straight comedy and enjoyed it read the story in at least one of the ways I intended it to be read). That's disappointing to me, and I regret creating what was clearly a very negative reading experience for several readers. I don't know if I'll ever do anything further with this fic, but if I do, it will only be after I find a way to make it a more positive experience for all involved.

Now, individual responses:

>>All_Art_Is_Quite_Useless
>>MLPmatthewl419
>>Zaid Val'Roa
>>Orbiting_kettle
>>shinygiratinaz
>>georg
>>Cold in Gardez

Glad you all enjoyed!

>>Obscure
>>Obscure

I thought it was wonderful to see people looking for meaning in a story in which there is no (author-directed) meaning, and was gratified to see so many different answers--including "there is no meaning." But I wanted this to be a story that could stand alone, without having to read a bunch of commentary or read between the lines in order to find an enjoyable fic. And good call on the doctor; I'll remember that if I decide to do anything with this.

>>Fenton
>>Fenton

It must be a pain to try to express these ideas in a second language D:

Thank you very much for the breakdown! I definitely do consider this metafiction, albeit not in the most literal sense of "is aware of its own medium," and it was nice to see that aspect of it so thoroughly analyzed.

>>Ranmilia

Could you clarify what the twist was, and what you think the ending communicates so clearly that it destroys any subtlety or nuance of the story? Because I definitely did not intent for there to be any big twists to this story, nor for the ending to forcefully communicate a single irrefutable authorial belief. That I seem to have done so nevertheless is a failing on my part, and I apologize.

If I decide to do anything with this, I would definitely avoid all three paths you laid out, since to make this explicitly one thing or another would defeat the whole purpose of the story, and (knowing me) would either turn it into something dismally tryhard or something totally vapid, depending on whether I went with the first two choices or with the third. That I've left you feeling like I was trying to communicate a single, inarguable idea to you is, again, my fault, and I'm sorry that I gave you such a negative reading experience.

>>MrNumbers

I'm sorry to you, too, that this was such a frustrating experience. For what it's worth, I tried very hard to keep the protagonist's reactions believable (if that's even the right word for how you react to something so impossible): he knows it's impossible, he's not in pain, he doesn't seem to be in any danger, and he's so fully out of his element that all he really can do is go along. Why would he be screaming and flailing about, when everything seems to be fine? That this felt so artificial suggests to me that I shouldn't have relied on my own instincts to guide me in the realm of human interaction; if I ever do anything with this fic, that's something I'll get some wider advice on. To you as well, I'm sorry to have written something that I left you feeling like there was a point you were missing and for failing to write something you could enjoy.

>>PaulAsaran

Well, we all have our different things. Sorry this one wasn't yours, but I'm glad it wasn't a total failure!

>>AndrewRogue
>>QuillScratch
>>Fenton

This story as commentary on over-analysis of literature is definitely an interpretation I considered when I wrote it, but it's also definitely not intended to be the necessary or "correct" reading. Literary analysis is a wonderful thing in moderation, and occasionally even to excess, and I'd hate to come across as someone reflexively opposed to it!

The important distinction, of course, is that words do have deeper meanings than even their authors intended sometimes; to speak contrariwise to that meme, if the story would be worse with pink curtains instead of blue ones, then the author should perhaps reflect on how they subconsciously evoked an appropriate mood through color, rather than reflexively hating on any reading which they didn't anticipate.

>>Not_A_Hat
>>horizon

Re: the ending: I originally conceived of this ending with the second wife scene, to bring it full circle with the opening. But when I put it down on paper, that felt too incomplete; it seemed to need to come back to the bartender a second time, to where the protagonist reached his decision.

The problem, then, was "what's left to say?" As you can see, I didn't exactly come up with a perfect answer to that. If either of you have any thoughts on how I could gussy that up without sacrificing the story's open-interp nature, I'd appreciate the thoughts.

Oh, and P.S. to horizon: glad you liked it so much! Sorry I couldn't bring home the first metafiction medal, though; my bad :B

>>Chris

The problem, then, was "what's left to say?"

Yeah, that's exactly the problem, isn't it? Because if you actually 'say something' you ruin the whole 'open to interpretation' thing.

Honestly, I'm not sure I can help you here, so take this with a grain of salt. Stories that are way too open to interpretation bug me; they feel like clickbait, which uses linguistic tricks and cognitive dissonance to draw attention, but ends up as unsatisfying and insubstantial. I read this as a story that tried, but failed, to say something, which is different from a story that's trying to not say anything. Personally, I feel like stories are open to interpretation enough without specifically constructing them to be more so, but eh.

Anyways, there may be one meaning you can honestly convey without actually ruining that intent, and it's something like 'in the end, you decide'. I mean, in 'The Lady, or the Tiger?' the author literally puts something in the last line like 'I'll leave it up to you'.

Which, admittedly, I still don't like, but is at least clear and straightforwards.

So... I dunno if that's helpful or not. But I think that clarifying your intent of having the reader interpret the story might be about the only thing you can actually say while still maintaining your open to interpretation intent.

>>Chris

The problem, then, was "what's left to say?" As you can see, I didn't exactly come up with a perfect answer to that. If either of you have any thoughts on how I could gussy that up without sacrificing the story's open-interp nature, I'd appreciate the thoughts.

Briefly, my complaint with the last scene was that it felt like it skipped right over the climactic decision of the story. Getting from "Oh, and there’s someone else who helped, too, and I really ought to pop over and thank him tomorrow." to "There’s not a hole in my chest." is a really significant leap.

I think the fact that you're ending with the main character declaring that there is not a hole in his chest knocks away the complete open-interpretation nature of it; the narrator is making a decision which takes a stand on the reality of the hole. I also don't think that's a bad thing -- ending in the same place you start, with the reality of it in limbo, creates a sense of narrative stasis that would make it unsatisfying. (n.b. "I've decided it's unknowable" isn't stasis, but it's tougher to sell.)

Basically though, if you're committing to him removing the hole through the power of disbelief, let's see the actual thought process that leads him to make that final declaration. Whether it's giving in to the therapist out of distrust for his experiences, or whether it's trusting his experiences but making the pragmatic decision to choose to deny them in order to improve his quality of life, or making the pragmatic decision to choose to deny them in order to simplify his worldview, or ... idk, maybe lay those out like a buffet and try to weasel around what made the difference.

Hope that helps.

Also, one lesson I've had heavily reinforced from the writeoffs (and see all the time in reviewer discussion) is that no story is going to work for everyone (even at the top of the charts). Just because a story doesn't work for everyone doesn't mean that it doesn't have value for the people it works for. Certainly you can try to broaden its appeal, but be careful: it's all too easy to wreck what made the story special to its core audience by trying to pave it over for the benefit of the out-crowd. The Case of the Cowled Changelings foundered in editing for that reason; I made the decision to bring in half a dozen prereaders who disagreed on where the story should go to see if I could steer a path between them, and ended up with a draft that didn't make anyone happy.

Ultimately, you've gotta have a vision for the story, and some feedback just isn't going to push you toward that vision. (I hope authors keep that in mind when reading my own critiques, as well.)

h

Congratulations to Numbers and CiG for their medals — and to everyone who participated this round! Original Fiction competitions, especially short-story rounds, are Writeoff Hard Mode™, and I sincerely believe that the act of throwing your hat (or not-a-hat) in the ring counts as some kind of win.

It's easy to look at how far your story falls short and get discouraged. Don't. We're juggling so many more balls in the Original Fiction rounds than we are in the fanfic rounds -- with the benefit of twelve OF rounds under my belt, I speak from experience when I say that it's basically a given that the finished products will have issues. (This especially applies to every one of my own medalists. No, seriously, go back and read the comments. Or just glance up the page.)

---

Chasing the Dragon: A Brief Retrospective

I'm surprised more people didn't guess me for this, especially after all the joking in chat about how blindingly obvious it was that the dragon wrote the story about hoarding. Double especially after I submitted a 5000-word anthro tale immediately after plugging a furry Original Fiction anthology in my FIMFic blog. I guess that fake review threw people off the track. :yay:

So, in short, this was written simultaneously to two prompts: "Staring into the Abyss" for the Writeoffs, and the Tarot card "Strength" with an eye toward post-Writeoff submission to the Arcana anthology. What came out of that was a story about addiction. I am slightly embarrassed to admit that my primary source on that was having recently watched Season 1 of "Elementary", but given the relative lack of critique on the depiction of addiction (and >>Ranmilia's informed opinion that I didn't trainwreck with it) I'll take that as a win.

I'm definitely grateful for the informed perspective, Ranmilia. I'm toning down Kori's dialogue somewhat in hopes of bringing him more into the realm of believable — although him toeing the line of perfect is ultimately by design, since for the anthology I'm explicitly shooting for an examination of Strength, and I'm trying to invoke an archetype with him even as I'm trying to paint him as a character.

I think Mr. Beaumont would at least have the self-respect to cook the nuts if you paid him the 20 bucks.

Does it make a difference that this is explicitly set during the countdown to war with a country full of dragons? In my head, he's not normally that bad, but when people get riled up by the zeitgeist they can get ugly. (This *cough* may have been informed by the horror with which I watch current events.)

Dragons really do want your coins, and always will, and while killing for copper might be a racist distortion, there really is a nation full of dragons fixing to invade not-Zootopia for their shinies. The implications are very unfortunate.
...
I'm not sure what to do about the racism, that's a tough one and kind of endemic to doing anthros with "instincts" of any sort.

I can agree with both halves of this, especially the point about it being endemic to the choice of backdrop. I'm sure there's a dialogue to be opened there about the idea of essentialism and its unfortunate allegorical links to modern human life. (It's more complexly problematic than I think it often gets credit for; while it's used as a dangerous cudgel against a number of minority groups, there are also areas such as sexual and gender identity where it's used as an affirmative basis for progress, which I think as an abstract approach is not ideal but at the same time I don't want to harm people by declaring it a blanket wrong.) The one thing that surprised me a little was having the critique come up in a group that essentially is a My Little Pony writing group which has turned its focus outward. Given how insanely deep essentialism is baked into Equestrian life (let's start with cutie marks and move on to names from there ...) I honestly would have figured that was something in our collective blind spots.

Speaking somewhat of which, there was a bit of an interesting split among commenters on the anthro angle:
>>Cold in Gardez

I don't understand why the elements of fantasy have been introduced, except as a way for the author to make the story different from all the other stories about addiction we've read. I mean, replace 'coins' with 'heroin' and there's not much in this story that couldn't be set in Scranton.

>>Monokeras

I don't see the point of using fantasy creatures whereas you could've written an excellent story “in the real world”; that setup adds few, if anything, to the story, and for me it even detracted from it. It's too thinly veiled to be actually of value.

vs.
>>GroaningGreyAgony

I love seeing the hazards of recovery from addiction portrayed from the perspective of a dragon, ordinarily among the most powerful creatures in fantasy literature.

>>Chris

Giving a real-world problem a fantasy veneer is a good way to separate it enough from reality to help readers let go of preconceptions and see the emotions as the author would have them be seen, rather than through the lense of our society's collective understanding of what this-or-that "should" look/feel like.

(Edit: And >>QuillScratch)

We just accept that the need to hoard is a natural part of what it means to be a dragon when reading this story, which is not something we would necessarily do for a human character dealing with a human addiction.

As much as I'd love to say that my choice was driven by the latter arguments, or to open up a conversation about defending them ... the truth is that I wrote this as a furry story because I'm going to submit it to a furry anthology. ¯\_ツ_/¯ If I had to rewrite it from scratch I would still probably do it this way, because I side most closely with Chris, but that's not something that's going to change, due to the story's intended audience.

That ties a little bit into the confusing opening which basically everyone commented on. I didn't think it was going to be an issue because I was thinking in the context of the furry anthology I'm submitting to. Arguably, it might not be when I push it at the target audience. However, I think the wisdom of crowds is onto something here, so I've wiped out "hands" and redone all the terminology. I'm really not sure what else I can do to effectively smooth out the opening, but I'll try to at least trim it down to get quicker to the shower scene where the story takes off.

>>AndrewRogue >>PaulAsaran
Sorry about the prose density. It didn't seem like a common complaint, so I'm trying to figure out if this is a matter of reading tastes or whether I did just overwrite sections/the whole thing. Aside from the flight scene, were there other segments or lines or quotes which stood out? Within the flight scene, what rubbed you the wrong way the most?

>>Not_A_Hat
Thank you for the specific nitpicks.

>>Zaid Val'Roa >>Fenton >>MLPmatthewl419 >>Ritsuko >>georg >>QuillScratch
Even if I'm not responding specifically to your criticisms, I appreciate that you offered your feedback, and I'm incorporating what I usefully can.

Thank you all for reading, and see you next round!

Also, I'd like to note that -- due to the anthology submission -- I'll be taking the unusual-for-me step of removing this from the Writeoff site within approximately another week. (If it's rejected and I can't get it republished elsewhere, I'll drop it on my website.)

Congrats to the medalists, and a salute to the other participants. I am in a writing contest and will have to delay my retrospective for a bit. In the meantime, thanks to all who reviewed!

>>Not_A_Hat

Thanks for expanding on that a bit! I'll give it some thought.

>>horizon
And thank you for the same!

And I'm not going to beat myself up about not everyone liking my stories; as you say, no story will be universally beloved. But I feel like this one really let some people down. Ranmilia and MrNumbers both clearly found this story to be a negative reading experience, and I hate to think that I've stolen fifteen minutes of their lives (plus review-writing time). An ill-constructed story, or a dull story, are one thing; a story that leaves you frustrated or disappointed is another. Heck, Not_A_Hat said that my entire approach to the story seemed, though he didn't use the word, disrespectful.

I don't think it's okay for an author to disrespect their readers, nor to put together something that people will wish they hadn't read. So... in the end, I feel pretty bad about this fic. But all I can do is apologize to the others, and try not to repeat that mistake in the future.

>>georg

The amount of water you could, possibly, consider adding to your whisky is measured in drops, not "shots."

And I don't care what anyone says, ice in good whisky is wrong. For goodness sake, they make whisky rocks for a reason!

*grumbles something about getting off the lawn*

>>Chris
Hey yo, just saw this. I'm going to try and give a longer discussion response later tonight (which will almost inevitably balloon out into another gigantic megapost, apologies in advance) but wanted to reply ASAP that you should not feel bad about writing this.

Quite the opposite, thank you very much for participating! Writeoff is hard! Any good faith entry is worthy of respect, and it's clear you did put a lot of thought and effort into this. I definitely do not feel disrespected, or that you've wasted any of my time.

My initial comments were a bit more negatively slanted than I would usually write them, and the reason for that was that I was aiming at the comments thread in addition to the entry itself. I saw a lot of rave reviews and explicit "top slate!" remarks, and thought "wow, did I read the same story? I guess since my feedback is going to be such a contrast, I'd better not slack on it. Probably don't need to worry about pulling punches either, there are so many glowing comments already that I don't think I'll make the author sad."

Clearly I was wrong. Profuse apologies!

>>Chris

Heck, Not_A_Hat said that my entire approach to the story seemed, though he didn't use the word, disrespectful.

While I can't really deny that what I've said can be read like that, I want to assure you that I fully support everyone's right to submit stories I personally disagree with to the writeoff. I don't have the right - or even the inclination, most days - to claim people have to adhere to my ideas of literature and what makes a good story.... even if I do spend considerable effort telling people what those theories are and how they could adhere to them more closely. :P

Anyways, while I'm disappointed when a story feels like it should be meaningful, but isn't, it's more in the way I might feel if I discovered what I'd thought was a chocolate-chip cookie turned out to be an oatmeal-raisin one. There's nothing at all wrong with oatmeal raisin, and the fault was mine for misunderstanding. While I don't particularly enjoy oatmeal raisin, lots of people think they're just great, and I wish them the joy of it.

This is, perhaps, complicated by the somewhat transactional feeling of the writeoff? I submit stories, and people review them; it's easy to feel like I'm responsible for how they've spent their time, because they need to read to vote. But when people say that sort of thing, I feel like all I can respond with is that I take responsibility myself for the time I've invested in the writeoff, and they don't need to also feel responsible for it; I do this for my own sake, and I don't begrudge them anything.

On the other hand, I do agree with what you've said about respecting readers, so maybe there's more to it than that. :/

I hope this is even a little encouraging. I've been trying to think of what to say to this for a while now, and I'm not sure I'm really happy with this, but I think if I don't say this I'll end up not saying anything at all and I like that idea even less.

>>Ranmilia
>>Not_A_Hat

Well, I'm glad you two didn't feel disrespected. I guess that's something I'm sensitive to, because it was one of the drivers of me getting out of the writeoffs altogether for a while; I felt like I couldn't assume authorial goodwill from all the participants, and there were a few too many cases where I felt like people were taking advantage of my commitment to reading and critiquing to do something deliberately stupid or random (distinct from trying something experimental), and having a laugh at people wasting their time reading and trying to comment on it. I don't mind when people write something I don't like, but I hate the idea of being forced (if only by convention) to read something written with the intent of mocking the reader for devoting their time and attention to it. It's something I hate, and I don't want to inflict it on anyone else.

I'm glad that you're both saying that I didn't do that. I can handle people disliking a story, but I dread the idea of making someone feel like they wasted their time. Thanks for letting me know.

I liked this; I thought it was a decent enough take on the issue, and I don't often see the dragon's impulse to hoard presented like this.

This story definitely got a few laughs out of me while reading it. Practical mundane magic always makes me smile a bit, especially the use of black magic for extremely mundane tasks.

I liked this. You made highly effective use of the power of repetition. I have to admit, the first scene didn't really suck me in, but the second scene, where the doctor declared the hole "psychosomatic" after sticking his stethoscope into it greatly amused me.

I find myself in agreement with >>horizon and >>Chris - I liked this quite well but I saw the same issues that they did.

Well, where do I start? I suppose the first thing I should do is apologise for being away and unable to reply for a few days, but I was abroad, I hope you'll understand. (For those interested, there's a blog regarding that here) https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/723430/back-to-our-regularly-scheduled-programming

Now, onto the important bits.

First thing I would like to say on the story, before delving into individual replies, is thank you. I mean seriously, thank you very much. My story was literally on the word limit, that's quite a bit of reading, and to everyone who got through it, or at least attempted to, you've really made my week.

Now, I got the idea for this original fiction after reading a few fin de siecle type pieces that use aesthete-esque writing. As such, I wrote in an entirely different style to how I usually would. I thought that rather than writing from a post-modernist perspective, I could attempt to replicate the wording and verbiage used in that time, as well as the unique writing style.

I had a suspicion that it may come across as dry to some, hence the title. But then, that's how I felt about many older novels once, I much prefer them now.

This was a total experiment, one that I think I could have definitely written better, but also feel that certain things, which some people didn't exactly like, couldn't be changed without making this not what I intended it to be.

Now, let's address some comments:

>>Fenton I'm glad you liked the characters! Honestly, getting the characters right was my main focus. You know, I never even considered Jameson when writing Beaumont, but as soon as you mentioned it I saw the connection. Honestly, when I wrote him, I didn't have a specific character in mind, I just wanted to capture the important elements of his personality succinctly.

Incomplete? Yeah, I suppose it is. I've noticed a lot of people around here seem to like finality, but I don't see the issue with leaving something like this without a concrete ending. I suppose it's up to the reader to choose the ending.

Well it went to tenth, does that count? (Only joking, I'm really glad it made the finals!)

>>Obscure Well thank you for the compliment! All of my words are fresh and grown organically. It's not original, is it? The concept has been done almost to death, but I tried to put a bit of an original spin on it with Avi's characterisation, something I think I pulled off to a degree.

You might be right about that though, something more mundane may have served better, but if I were to revise the story to make it that way I'd have to restructure the entire thing.

>>Zaid Val'Roa Well if the pacing was strong in your eyes and the characters felt real then I'm glad I've done a satisfactory job!

Ah, that's a point I tried to subtly put to the reader, but may not have managed to. Beaumont isn't meant to be the main focus of this story. Well, not in the end at least. He leaves centre stage as soon as Avi enters the room, and continues to ride in the backseat until the conclusion, if you could call it that.

Beaumont has little depth of character, his individuality and moments of conscience are hinted at, but mostly he's everything that he's made out to be. Avi's ability to cause him indecision is what broke his resolve.

Thank you very much though, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

>>All_Art_Is_Quite_Useless Yeah, cheers.

>>Not_A_Hat First of a good few to have an issue with the pacing, and I can see why. Modern stories, the ones most commonly enjoyed at least, don't have fifteen page long, massive sprawling conversations littering their pages. Especially tangential ones. This can come as a little jarring to readers, I'll bet! Like I said, experiment with an essentially archaic style of writing.

First line of italics could have been placed better, a couple of people had that, and I can kind of see why.

He's meant to be that way. A typical, faceless representation of 1920's republican bureaucracy, not a terrible man by those times, but an unpleasant one. I mean yeah, by today's standards, this Beaumont prick would be vilified with his horrible, radical views and his terrible manners, but in context, there were many worse than him then.

I'd disagree there, I think the identity reveal was pretty well timed, but that's just me.

Okay so here's what I was going for. At the beginning of the story, Annie was bewitched by Avi, which he was only able to do by planting seeds in her head, using her attraction to him, and sympathy for his affliction as a means by which to subliminally convince her, and by extension Beaumont, that he was worth seeing immediately. Something similar is meant to happen towards the end. Avi explains that he cannot brainwash another, but he can influence them, if they are already disposed towards agreeing with him on something, in some capacity. That's why he chooses to sit and convince Beaumont to help him, rather than just busting out the potentially dues ex machina brainwave powers and winning him over.

I'm glad you enjoyed elements of the story, however, that's all I could ask for.

On a side note, I was interested to hear your thoughts during the podcast, you, Horizon and Quill all made some pretty interesting points regarding my story, it was great to listen to!

Can I write the rest of this later? A friend wants to go to lunch with me. Wait, why am I asking? I'll write the rest of this later. But I'll say it once now, and say it again later, thanks so much for your comments and feedback guys! Now, time to go eat.

AAIQU

>>All_Art_Is_Quite_Useless

I'm glad you liked the characters! Honestly, getting the characters right was my main focus. You know, I never even considered Jameson when writing Beaumont, but as soon as you mentioned it I saw the connection. Honestly, when I wrote him, I didn't have a specific character in mind, I just wanted to capture the important elements of his personality succinctly.

Well, James came to my mind because he represents and concentrate in a more exagerate way a type of character I've seen plenty of times in fictions. So it's not surprising that you didn't have him in mind when you wrote Beaumont.
And if the characters was your main focus, you achieve it well and I don't think I'm the only one to think this way.

Incomplete? Yeah, I suppose it is. I've noticed a lot of people around here seem to like finality, but I don't see the issue with leaving something like this without a concrete ending. I suppose it's up to the reader to choose the ending.

I may have some additions to make to my previous comment about the feeling of incompleteness.
I pointed that we don't know Teddy's choice. Not because I think you should have shown us what was his choice but rather because it was an obvious way to have your reader getting away with something strong.
The ending here felt like the rest of the story. Everything makes it go up, and up, and up, but there's no strong 'down'. What I mean by that is we have witnessed a human being talking with the Devil himself. Whatever was his choice, I wanted to see him have a strong reaction.
Don't get me wrong, his distress at the end was here but it seemed a bit too light the way you wrote it.

I've got the impression I could go on and on to try be as clear as I can so I'll stop here. If you want some precision, I'll come back though.

And congratulations for your first entry getting to the Finale.

>>horizon
Way belated, but I still wanted to get to this before I do things for the next round. So let's tackle this now.

First and foremost, I do suspect there is at least some clash of reader taste and writer style. I'm a fan of, for lack of a better word I guess, snappier structure. If you check out anything I write, I run much, much shorter paragraphs on average and, I suspect if I busted out some physical books (rather than all the audios books I've been dealing with lately >>) I'd find the same is somewhat true. Moreover, I admittedly found myself thinking a few times during this that I would probably be more interested if I were more into the actual... furriness, I guess, I want to say?

Basically, I think that flying scene is for somebody. Just not for me.

Anyhow, to try and dig in a little more.

The icefire is spreading through my veins to my temple, and my vision is starting to fuzz at the edges. I give in to something more primal and throw myself off the bed, staggerlanding on all fours. The lines and angles of the room are bleeding into circles, and a hot metallic taste is gripping my throat, and I'm charging to pounce the disc of my laundry hamper. As my claws reach forward to rip it apart in search of treasure, some remnant of self-control makes me flare my wings at the last second, and I fling my weight sideways and slam into my door. My claws scramble for the circlesphere of the doorknob, wrenching it toward me, and I fall across the hall and into the bathroom, banging my knee on the doorway. I drag myself to the tub, heave myself over the rim—landing in the cold and distant and uncaring embrace of the porcelain—and fumble for the cold-water tap. The shower gurgles, then bursts to life, and actual ice-water sets my nerves to screaming, flushing the adrenaline ice-water from my veins.

Like, I functionally like this paragraph quite a bit, and the depth of description here is super functional for really getting at the heightened sense of awareness, but, at the same time, it is really, really dense. In the space of that paragraph we charge the hamper, uncharge the hamper, charge the door, wrench the door, bang a knee, leap in the tub, get the water, and all the sensory information that goes with it. That's a lot of shit for a single paragraph.

I don't want to fault the amount of detail in this particular instance - it is serving a purpose - but I kinda feel like there are a fair number of sequences like this that I personally find a bit overwhelming to deal with.

The flight sequence is a case where I sort of lose interest in the exact detail. It is written very similarly. While I get what you're going for (the wonder of flight and how it helps), I just don't really invest in the particular detail of it, if that makes sense. I like the heavy detail when he's freaking out because it really amplifies the sensation of what's going on for me.

A slight pitch to my wings guides me into a slow, arcing U of a climb, and when I feel my momentum bleeding away, I roll to expose my belly to the sun, feeling heat gather on my scales for a moment before the next gust of early autumn air steals away the warmth.

Example. Like I have a very clear image of what's going on, but it is in such agonizingly precise detail if I'm not actually that invested in the particulars of the flight (which I'm not - the emotive part of it is important and you are using this information to feed into it, of course, but for me it ends up reading as so much padding around the heart of the matter.

That said, this is kind of why I suspect this is just a personal taste issue: the audience I believe this anthology is for is much more likely to be interested in these particulars than me.

Hopefully that gets at it a little better?

>>AndrewRogue

That said, this is kind of why I suspect this is just a personal taste issue: the audience I believe this anthology is for is much more likely to be interested in these particulars than me.

Well, FWIW (that's to say zilch) I concur with you Andrew.

>>AndrewRogue
>>Monokeras
I appreciate the detail. I did go back and try to rein in those sections a bit.

>>horizon
You're welcome.

>>horizon
I've just received word that it was accepted! :D

My first professionally published (paid) story! That's one huge check off the bucket list!

I don't know when the anthology will be printed, but I'll keep y'all posted.

>>horizon
:pinkiegasp: That's awesome! Congratulations! :pinkiehappy: