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Fears Are Like Dogs
I heard somewhere that fears are like stray dogs: you only collect as many as you can feed.
It turns out that I can feed three.
Fears, not dogs.
My first fear is well-behaved. It doesn't make a fuss, or keep me up at night, or do anything more than whine softly if I look out of my tenth-story office window. It's a reminder more than an annoyance: the ground is very far away.
It's a smart breed. Keeps you alive. Popular, too—go to an amusement park and count the bench-dwellers. Their friends might lead them towards the coasters, but the leash around their wrist pulls them back just as hard.
It doesn't need much feeding. Just stay away from the edge of the bridge, take trains and not planes, don't look down, don't look down, don't look down.
The other two aren't so easy.
Throw the spitball, the second fear would beg when I was younger. Teacher hasn't looked over all day. What if she's forgotten about you?
She never forgot to put me in detention. My boss brings me to negotiations instead. It turns out that management is good exercise for something as insistent as the need to be noticed.
It's an intimidating fear, I suppose. Has a bad reputation simply because it's rowdy and bullish. I don't feed it so much as harness it and set it loose, letting it pull me across the organizational landscape. It comes across as confidence in the conference rooms—I bark over my coworkers, clear and loud. Scary? Maybe.
What matters is it gets the job done. The noise draws their attention to what I have to say, and their eyes to my self-assured face.
If I hold their gaze, I know that they see me.
Don't look down.
Beatrice doesn't seem to have any fears. But she does have a chihuahua, and a garden too small to keep it contained.
I want to stride up her walkway and tell her that I don't mind helping her chase after Taco when he gets out—that I think it's a funny name and he's a funny dog with a charming owner.
I want to tell her that her roses are lovely and I'm rooting for her in her battle against the Homeowner's Association. Because yes, Vintage Olive is a better color for a townhome than Faded Vanilla or Expired Milk or whatever boring shade of off-white adorns my half of the duplex. And I think she's great for refusing to paint it back, and would she like to go out to dinner sometime?
The third fear doesn't have a name. It doesn't need one: all it has to do is chew up my compliments and take a dump on my thoughts. It runs in circles until its leash is tangled around my tongue and I can't do anything but trip over words that should come easily, that did come easily, just this morning. What makes a garden so different from a boardroom?
Beatrice only smiles at me politely, and somehow that makes it worse, because nobody could ever feel ignored with her gaze gently holding theirs. I want to show her that this stuttering mess isn't who I am, that I'm bolder and braver and in possession of a much better vocabulary than the feeble "Hi!" I routinely offer her.
But whenever I meet her eyes, the ground disappears from under me and I'm falling.
Don't look down.
It turns out that I can feed three.
Fears, not dogs.
My first fear is well-behaved. It doesn't make a fuss, or keep me up at night, or do anything more than whine softly if I look out of my tenth-story office window. It's a reminder more than an annoyance: the ground is very far away.
It's a smart breed. Keeps you alive. Popular, too—go to an amusement park and count the bench-dwellers. Their friends might lead them towards the coasters, but the leash around their wrist pulls them back just as hard.
It doesn't need much feeding. Just stay away from the edge of the bridge, take trains and not planes, don't look down, don't look down, don't look down.
The other two aren't so easy.
Throw the spitball, the second fear would beg when I was younger. Teacher hasn't looked over all day. What if she's forgotten about you?
She never forgot to put me in detention. My boss brings me to negotiations instead. It turns out that management is good exercise for something as insistent as the need to be noticed.
It's an intimidating fear, I suppose. Has a bad reputation simply because it's rowdy and bullish. I don't feed it so much as harness it and set it loose, letting it pull me across the organizational landscape. It comes across as confidence in the conference rooms—I bark over my coworkers, clear and loud. Scary? Maybe.
What matters is it gets the job done. The noise draws their attention to what I have to say, and their eyes to my self-assured face.
If I hold their gaze, I know that they see me.
Don't look down.
Beatrice doesn't seem to have any fears. But she does have a chihuahua, and a garden too small to keep it contained.
I want to stride up her walkway and tell her that I don't mind helping her chase after Taco when he gets out—that I think it's a funny name and he's a funny dog with a charming owner.
I want to tell her that her roses are lovely and I'm rooting for her in her battle against the Homeowner's Association. Because yes, Vintage Olive is a better color for a townhome than Faded Vanilla or Expired Milk or whatever boring shade of off-white adorns my half of the duplex. And I think she's great for refusing to paint it back, and would she like to go out to dinner sometime?
The third fear doesn't have a name. It doesn't need one: all it has to do is chew up my compliments and take a dump on my thoughts. It runs in circles until its leash is tangled around my tongue and I can't do anything but trip over words that should come easily, that did come easily, just this morning. What makes a garden so different from a boardroom?
Beatrice only smiles at me politely, and somehow that makes it worse, because nobody could ever feel ignored with her gaze gently holding theirs. I want to show her that this stuttering mess isn't who I am, that I'm bolder and braver and in possession of a much better vocabulary than the feeble "Hi!" I routinely offer her.
But whenever I meet her eyes, the ground disappears from under me and I'm falling.
Don't look down.
The only connection I see to parallel universes is that the fears are tied to hypotheticals. There is nothing explicitly uncanny or extranormal in this story that I can detect.
Even so, this is constructed with a good measure of literary artistry and poetic language, and was a pleasure to read. I will count it as an upper tier effort.
Even so, this is constructed with a good measure of literary artistry and poetic language, and was a pleasure to read. I will count it as an upper tier effort.
I really, really enjoyed this one. I liked how you sustained the metaphor throughout the piece, and used it to give the piece a solid structure. I liked how you maintained continuity between the fears, not only in a narrative sense, but in how the latter two contrasted each other, and yet the persona was made more human for it. I loved the imagery, and the pacing.
This was a great read, author.
However, I'm going to echo Haze and GGA here in that I'm struggling to see a connection with the prompt. This is a fantastic story, and will score highly on my slate - but it doesn't feel particularly crafted for this round.
This was a great read, author.
However, I'm going to echo Haze and GGA here in that I'm struggling to see a connection with the prompt. This is a fantastic story, and will score highly on my slate - but it doesn't feel particularly crafted for this round.
An excellent piece that is not on my slate, but I feel will make it to finals, so that it may be on my slate then.
blah blah blah clearly experienced author blah blah blah engaging prose blah blah blah
At points I feel the metaphor breaks down, particularly with the second "fear" so to speak. I'm not sure if it is just poor conveyance or the specific way the author tried to pin down this fear, but from the explanation, it appears to be another emotion entirely, and I'm sort of torn on deciding what to make of it. My best summation is that the intent was to show a "fear of being left out" but I think the mannerism and emotions that manifest reflect a more domineering trait that is more associated with fear of losing control, or more towards a desire than a fear, like hunger for attention. Reflects a larger issue I have with the story which is that it has good ideas and modes to convey them, but the specifics is where it gets bogged down.
The third fear could stand to be more evocative in terms of how it is described, particularly because it is the more debilitating and personal. I think my distaste with its current description is also due to the fact that it comes directly after what I would consider one of the best solitary paragraphs in the entire competition, so it appears even more dry and lacking by comparison.
Conveyance is one of the weaker points here. I feel as if a lot of the specific thoughts and phrases are just cohesive enough to properly convey the message, but not tight enough to avoid making me balk at some of the turns of phrase and reread certain sentences to make sure I understood the message properly.
eh the ending is kind of weak, you had more words, you could have done more. Why you didn't hard press yourself against the word limit when clearly the descriptiveness of your prose is the lifeblood of this story, I don't know.
blah blah blah clearly experienced author blah blah blah engaging prose blah blah blah
At points I feel the metaphor breaks down, particularly with the second "fear" so to speak. I'm not sure if it is just poor conveyance or the specific way the author tried to pin down this fear, but from the explanation, it appears to be another emotion entirely, and I'm sort of torn on deciding what to make of it. My best summation is that the intent was to show a "fear of being left out" but I think the mannerism and emotions that manifest reflect a more domineering trait that is more associated with fear of losing control, or more towards a desire than a fear, like hunger for attention. Reflects a larger issue I have with the story which is that it has good ideas and modes to convey them, but the specifics is where it gets bogged down.
The third fear could stand to be more evocative in terms of how it is described, particularly because it is the more debilitating and personal. I think my distaste with its current description is also due to the fact that it comes directly after what I would consider one of the best solitary paragraphs in the entire competition, so it appears even more dry and lacking by comparison.
Conveyance is one of the weaker points here. I feel as if a lot of the specific thoughts and phrases are just cohesive enough to properly convey the message, but not tight enough to avoid making me balk at some of the turns of phrase and reread certain sentences to make sure I understood the message properly.
eh the ending is kind of weak, you had more words, you could have done more. Why you didn't hard press yourself against the word limit when clearly the descriptiveness of your prose is the lifeblood of this story, I don't know.
With the winning prompt being a gaming meme, I had some high hopes for what this title could be riffing on. Alas, twas not to be...
Litfic, take three! >>Cassius is along the lines I'm going in here. Experienced author, good writing chops, can spin a word, and all that jazz. But what about the story arc?
Unfortunately, when it comes to storytelling and elements I'm looking for in Writeoffs, this is not on the level of the other two dramatic emotional litfics I've read this round (Pickup Trucks and Burden). I was already dinging those two for barely having narrative arcs, and this goes a few levels beyond "barely." If you squint hard, you can read some narrative arcs into it, but for me they just aren't there on the page.
This is not a story, or even a vignette, it's an essay. An evocative essay, to be sure! But not a story, not reasonably or discernably based on the round prompt, and honestly, not even unambiguously fictional. Because of these factors, I'm going to have to rank it below everything that is a story written to the prompt and following the competition rules.
As always when this sort of thing happens, please do not take my vote as an indication of any ill will, hurt feelings, or condemnation of the author or their work, or representative of anything but my own opinion! It's a very nice piece, and I certainly don't believe it was submitted with any but the best of intentions. It's just drifted a ways across the line of what I can consider fair to judge alongside other entries, under my interpretation of the rules. Other people will certainly have their own interpretations (in particular, I am interpreting "fiction" in the ruleset to mean "narrative prose fiction") and that's fine.
With that out of the way, some comments on the content. The dog metaphor seems a little strained to me. The opening talks about a capability to support a certain number, and other passages allude to some sort of system for managing dogfears, but as the piece proceeds these concepts get dropped. By the end, the dog metaphor seems to have been thoroughly overtaken by "don't look down." Given how separate the first fear is from the others, I wonder if it might not have been better to drop the dog aspect entirely and instead structure the piece around flight/falling/height metaphors.
As others have noted, the third fear is not very well described. I very much liked the second fear's presentation of what, precisely the writer was afraid of (being ignored/forgotten), and so I expected a similar climax for the third fear, but received an anticlimax instead. That's disappointing, because it isn't very difficult to figure out some possibilities (rejection, embarrassment, exposure) and the more specific they are, the more doors they would open to land some grand slam wordplay.
Also, the specific nature of the fears can make the piece hard to relate to. I'm not sure if this is a flaw so much as an unavoidable consequence, but I think it could be mitigated more than it currently is, and the piece made more accessible overall, if the effects of the fears on the writer were more clearly outlined. Why is it a problem if the first fear "whines," what does that mean, how does it change their life and mentality? Again, the third fear especially could benefit from some more concrete illustration in this regard.
Even if I did squint and not pseudo-DQ-vote this, I'm afraid it wouldn't rise to the absolute top for me, because I value strong narrative construction over emotionally evocative language in general. But that's me, and clearly this is pleasing many other readers. Thank you for writing, author! Turn your talents to constructing narratives (and meeting prompts) as well as you construct prose, and you'll win me over with ease! (I mean, you're probably already a regular and know that, but anyway, <3)
Litfic, take three! >>Cassius is along the lines I'm going in here. Experienced author, good writing chops, can spin a word, and all that jazz. But what about the story arc?
Unfortunately, when it comes to storytelling and elements I'm looking for in Writeoffs, this is not on the level of the other two dramatic emotional litfics I've read this round (Pickup Trucks and Burden). I was already dinging those two for barely having narrative arcs, and this goes a few levels beyond "barely." If you squint hard, you can read some narrative arcs into it, but for me they just aren't there on the page.
This is not a story, or even a vignette, it's an essay. An evocative essay, to be sure! But not a story, not reasonably or discernably based on the round prompt, and honestly, not even unambiguously fictional. Because of these factors, I'm going to have to rank it below everything that is a story written to the prompt and following the competition rules.
As always when this sort of thing happens, please do not take my vote as an indication of any ill will, hurt feelings, or condemnation of the author or their work, or representative of anything but my own opinion! It's a very nice piece, and I certainly don't believe it was submitted with any but the best of intentions. It's just drifted a ways across the line of what I can consider fair to judge alongside other entries, under my interpretation of the rules. Other people will certainly have their own interpretations (in particular, I am interpreting "fiction" in the ruleset to mean "narrative prose fiction") and that's fine.
With that out of the way, some comments on the content. The dog metaphor seems a little strained to me. The opening talks about a capability to support a certain number, and other passages allude to some sort of system for managing dogfears, but as the piece proceeds these concepts get dropped. By the end, the dog metaphor seems to have been thoroughly overtaken by "don't look down." Given how separate the first fear is from the others, I wonder if it might not have been better to drop the dog aspect entirely and instead structure the piece around flight/falling/height metaphors.
As others have noted, the third fear is not very well described. I very much liked the second fear's presentation of what, precisely the writer was afraid of (being ignored/forgotten), and so I expected a similar climax for the third fear, but received an anticlimax instead. That's disappointing, because it isn't very difficult to figure out some possibilities (rejection, embarrassment, exposure) and the more specific they are, the more doors they would open to land some grand slam wordplay.
Also, the specific nature of the fears can make the piece hard to relate to. I'm not sure if this is a flaw so much as an unavoidable consequence, but I think it could be mitigated more than it currently is, and the piece made more accessible overall, if the effects of the fears on the writer were more clearly outlined. Why is it a problem if the first fear "whines," what does that mean, how does it change their life and mentality? Again, the third fear especially could benefit from some more concrete illustration in this regard.
Even if I did squint and not pseudo-DQ-vote this, I'm afraid it wouldn't rise to the absolute top for me, because I value strong narrative construction over emotionally evocative language in general. But that's me, and clearly this is pleasing many other readers. Thank you for writing, author! Turn your talents to constructing narratives (and meeting prompts) as well as you construct prose, and you'll win me over with ease! (I mean, you're probably already a regular and know that, but anyway, <3)
All in all, this was pretty decent. It kept the metaphor going in a pretty plausible way, and the ending was actually effective. The only thing I'd criticize is that maybe the metaphor became a bit too stretched toward that final part, but that's more or less a nitpick.
7/10, would get scared again.
7/10, would get scared again.
This is... a solidly well written little vignette, but yeah, even with my far extended tolerance for low prompt connections, this is pushing it. In a a different round, this would be an upper end story. This round? Unfortunately not.
This is well-written and easy to relate to. The prompt connection is pretty weak, but it's there, so I don't mind.
I could definitely see the ending coming the moment the last section began. That's not a bad thing, but still worthy of note. I'm not sure the "Don't look down." motif worked for me; it seemed a touch heavy-hoofed.
The italic emphasis on 'is' seems strange to me. Are you contrasting it with thinking the ground isn't far away? I don't understand. I'd feel the 'very' would be more appropriate.
I think "leash around their necks" would be more evocative, given the analogy you're using. I also think it would be a good callback if you continued the analogy in the last section. I suspect you may have been trying to with the 'lost dog' thing, which was a clever touch but could be made a bit more overt.
Connecting the second and third fears more explicitly would provide a nice contrast.
I could definitely see the ending coming the moment the last section began. That's not a bad thing, but still worthy of note. I'm not sure the "Don't look down." motif worked for me; it seemed a touch heavy-hoofed.
The italic emphasis on 'is' seems strange to me. Are you contrasting it with thinking the ground isn't far away? I don't understand. I'd feel the 'very' would be more appropriate.
I think "leash around their necks" would be more evocative, given the analogy you're using. I also think it would be a good callback if you continued the analogy in the last section. I suspect you may have been trying to with the 'lost dog' thing, which was a clever touch but could be made a bit more overt.
Connecting the second and third fears more explicitly would provide a nice contrast.
This is ANOTHER great example of litfic that I can't believe I'm just reading now. How come no one told me this was so good?
Love, love, love this. In all honesty—and this is going to sound a bit rude, so I apologize in advance—this feels like it's doing the same thing as "You'd Better Skip This One" (using poetic imagery and personification to describe depression and sadness), but better.
Top slater.
Love, love, love this. In all honesty—and this is going to sound a bit rude, so I apologize in advance—this feels like it's doing the same thing as "You'd Better Skip This One" (using poetic imagery and personification to describe depression and sadness), but better.
Top slater.