# Short Story Contest for Spring 2010



## Shouden (Jan 19, 2010)

Since Scotty has yet to make this thread, I figure I would help him out.

The Anthrofiction.net contest for Spring has begun. The theme for this quarter is Wildflowers.



> You may run through them, tromp on them, sleep in or on them (depending on your size), study them, admire them, collect them, give them away (either in innocence or for their symbolic value), and eat them (some types) or use them for their medicinal value (other types).
> Or you could use them symbolically. For example by giving a character the name â€œWildflowerâ€ or the name of a particular wildflower such as â€œPoppyâ€. But if you do you risk some readers giving you a low theme score unless your character fits the name.
> Finally, this is an anthrofiction contest and you may anthropomorphize anythingâ€”animal, vegetable, or mineral. You could make wildflowers your characters.



Deadline for posting stories is March 7th, 2010. Good luck to everyone and have fun.


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## Atrak (Jan 19, 2010)

Wait...I thought it was new life/rebirth? And it doesn't start until March 1st :/ .


Aaahhhhh....I see. Read the post about last season's. It was a glitch, okay  .


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## Suzaba (Jan 19, 2010)

I might give this a shot. I need to work on my courage attribute.


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## Deosil Fox (Jan 20, 2010)

WOOOO! This is going to be really good!


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## Altamont (Jan 20, 2010)

My first anthrofiction Contest entry! My head is already spinning with ideas


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## Atrak (Jan 21, 2010)

Suzaba said:


> I might give this a shot. I need to work on my courage attribute.



You just leveled to level 2! You now have 1 attribute point to distribute. Please choose where you would like to allocate it:

~Writing Skill
~Grammar
~Courage
~Brownie Points with the mods


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## Kolbe (Jan 21, 2010)

atrakaj said:


> You just leveled to level 2! You now have 1 attribute point to distribute. Please choose where you would like to allocate it:
> 
> ~Writing Skill
> ~Grammar
> ...


Pick the last one! =p

I'll give this a whirl. I love flowers! <3


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## M. LeRenard (Jan 21, 2010)

You know, I've got sort of a vague idea for this floating around in my head, but I'm not entirely sure if it's right for this contest.  I wonder if 'anthro' fiction can also pertain to fiction in which a person anthropomorphizes another creature, like maybe a story about an old man who talks to flowers, or something like that.  I'm guessing that's a little too loose a definition for the contest, though.


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## Poetigress (Jan 21, 2010)

M. Le Renard said:


> I wonder if 'anthro' fiction can also pertain to fiction in which a person anthropomorphizes another creature, like maybe a story about an old man who talks to flowers, or something like that.



Only if he hears the flowers talk back, I would think.


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## M. LeRenard (Jan 21, 2010)

Poetigress said:


> Only if he hears the flowers talk back, I would think.


But if he's just crazy, and the flowers aren't really talking back?
Either way, it's not a fully-formed idea yet.


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## Altamont (Jan 21, 2010)

What I'm wondering is how deeply rooted (no pun intended) the wild-flowers have to be in the story. My story focuses on some anthro-children finding..._something_... in the forest. Their quest for wildflowers is what leads them to this place and they serve as symbolic imagery throughout, but a majority of the focus of my story is on this thing they find in the forest, which is decidedly unflowery.


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## Shouden (Jan 21, 2010)

good question. I know my story is going to be of a wolf family that like to journey to a nearby field of wildflowers to play. I think, unless you make it about the flowers themselves, it'd be hard to get a story that is fully about wildflowers.


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## Murphy Z (Jan 22, 2010)

M. Le Renard said:


> But if he's just crazy, and the flowers aren't really talking back?


 
Maybe they're being petulant or he doesn't speak Irish


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## Poetigress (Jan 22, 2010)

M. Le Renard said:


> But if he's just crazy, and the flowers aren't really talking back?



It's a gray area, but I think what matters is that _he_ hears them. For best effect you'd probably have to tell the story from his POV, and likely in more of a magical-realism-type style, where neither he nor anyone else in the story would necessarily question his sanity outright, but the reader is left wondering if it's really happening or all a dream/delusion. It would likely have to be a fairly short piece, and with few characters, I would think, to work, but I'm just speculating.


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## Atrak (Jan 22, 2010)

Well, that's good, as this is a short story contest  .

Hey Phalene, what happened to your avatar?


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## PheonixStar (Jan 23, 2010)

Well, I wrote up a story that anthropomorphizes the months of the year (and most of nature, really) for this.

Then I realized that was just a really stupid idea, lol.

Back to the drawing board, I guess. Do you think going back and reading previous contests' winners would help come up with something more appropriate, or are all the contests so different/ winners so different that doing so would be rather pointless?


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## Poetigress (Jan 23, 2010)

atrakaj said:


> Well, that's good, as this is a short story contest



Well, by 'fairly short piece' I meant more like flash fiction instead of typical short-story length -- more toward 1K than 3K.


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## 2-Tailed Taymon (Jan 23, 2010)

Might have to enter ^^


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## Atrak (Jan 23, 2010)

Poetigress said:


> Well, by 'fairly short piece' I meant more like flash fiction instead of typical short-story length -- more toward 1K than 3K.



Well, there is no limit to shortness, only a cap # of words.

@Phoenix: Reading stories will usually give you ideas of your own, and a lot of times when that happens to me, the idea is totally unrelated to the story I'm reading, so give it a shot  .


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## ScottyDM (Jan 27, 2010)

Shouden said:


> Since Scotty has yet to make this thread, I figure I would help him out.


Ah yes. Thank you, Shouden.



Poetigress said:


> M. Le Renard said:
> 
> 
> > But if he's just crazy, and the flowers aren't really talking back?
> ...


Or one could write it from the flowers' POV. Or maybe start in his POV, throw in some freaky flash-back must-be-my-60s-experience-talking scene, then slide into the flowers' POV. See, the old guy wasn't crazy after all... the reader is.  	;-) 

Plants don't get anthropomorphized very often.


A few years ago I accepted a story where a witch transformed this guy who was dying into a leopard plush, at his request. After the transformation she put the plush in restraints (she was a dominatrix too) and installed him in her boudoir, where she talked to him and treated him as if he were aware and could hear her. She was a petite woman and after the transformation she could easily pick him up, so he did become a plush. I accepted the story because she anthropomorphized the plush.

PG-13? Sure it was a touch kinky, but there was no sex scene. Not even an implied sex scene during the period of the story. If a kid had read it he or she would probably react most strongly to the idea of the transformation itself and probably skimmed over the part about the restraints.

S~


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## Shouden (Jan 27, 2010)

You're very welcome, Scotty.

I still don't know what exactly, I'm going to do for this contest, But, I do want to enter this time...It's been a while since I entered in an anthroficiton contest (and last time I had a cool story about Wolves who brought winter and snow to the land.) But, we'll see. Maybe I'll do something where the wolves can talk to the flowers...actually, I just thought of a cool idea! Alright, I'm off to do some writing...I just hope I can get this story and the one I'm working of for Valentine's Day, done as well.


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## M. LeRenard (Jan 27, 2010)

> Plants don't get anthropomorphized very often.


Yeah... that's why I came up with the idea I did, because I couldn't think of a realistic way to do it without having someone else anthropomorphize the plants.  I mean, I understand photosynthesis, but that doesn't help much when writing from a plant's point of view.  And I'm not poetic, so that's not going to work.  I suppose I could do something like Spar, from Breath of Fire II, but that seems a little silly.
But if you accepted a story where a woman talked to a stuffed animal, I guess I'll get started with my idea.  Thanks.


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## Blayze (Jan 28, 2010)

Augh. If I had seen this sooner I might have been able to come up with something. It would be crap in this amount of time though, especially with the shortage of time I seem to be having. 

EDIT: On second thought, flowers aren't really my thing. My writing style tends to be very violent. I'd lose pretty easily.


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## Atrak (Jan 29, 2010)

Blayze said:


> Augh. If I had seen this sooner I might have been able to come up with something. It would be crap in this amount of time though, especially with the shortage of time I seem to be having.
> 
> EDIT: On second thought, flowers aren't really my thing. My writing style tends to be very violent. I'd lose pretty easily.


 
If the flowers eat people, and aren't giant Venus Fly Traps, then you've got a story  .


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## Blayze (Jan 29, 2010)

Hmmm, I don't know. I always thought that the idea of giant man-eating plants was kinda far-fetched. Or maybe I could write something real quick about a warrior who takes a moment between battles to notice a field of flowers and how odd it is to see something so peaceful when all he's ever known is war. But again, that's not really how I like to write. Is there a summer short story contest?


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## Altamont (Jan 29, 2010)

As it turns out, poignant anthropomorphic allegory is a little more challenging than originally intended.

But the challenge is the fun part 

I guess I'll have to study up on some Joyce and Co. Maybe even a little King. Learn from the best, I always say, and then become the best yourself.


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## Torrijos-sama (Jan 29, 2010)

I'm working on mine. :V


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## Scotty1700 (Jan 30, 2010)

*pheww* for a second I got real confused...then I realized that there was another person named scotty  Small world.


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## ScottyDM (Jan 30, 2010)

Scotty1700 said:


> *pheww* for a second I got real confused...then I realized that there was another person named scotty  Small world.



Heeh!


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## Atrak (Feb 2, 2010)

ScottyDM said:


> Scotty1700 said:
> 
> 
> > *pheww* for a second I got real confused...then I realized that there was another person named scotty  Small world.
> ...


 
From this moment forward thou shalt be referred to as Scotty-B and F-Scot. At least by me  .

...

When I remember to.

...

If I feel like it.

...

I sound very sure about it, don't I?  Okay, I'll try it again.

I am definitely maybe going to call you guys that. No, that's not right...

I might be definite about calling you guys that. No, that's not it either...


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## ScottyDM (Feb 3, 2010)

atrakaj said:


> From this moment forward thou shalt be referred to as Scotty-B and F-Scot. At least by me  .
> 
> ...
> 
> ...


How about if you think of me as ScottyDM, since that's my name (more or less). The pure awesomeness of ScottyDM is that thousands of other netizens don't want the name.

S~


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## M. LeRenard (Feb 3, 2010)

I always think of you as Dungeon Master Scotty.

I still haven't written anything for this contest.  I kind of only have vague half-formed ideas, and nothing's come together.  I might just sit down for an hour and brainstorm, then write something.
Here's an idea, though, if anyone else is lost: a lot of wildflowers have names with stories behind them (Forget-Me-Nots, for example).  Reading those might help spark something interesting.  And you'd get kudos for doing research.


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## Blayze (Feb 3, 2010)

Ooh! That's a good idea. I could probably think of something for that!  *goes off to find flower names*


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## Murphy Z (Feb 3, 2010)

M. Le Renard said:


> I always think of you as Dungeon Master Scotty.



Me too! 



> then I realized that there was another person named scotty



There can only be one Scotty! *holds up a certain breed of dog while lightning crashes down*

http://www.goantiques.com/detail,highland-scottish-terrier,924773.html

Get it? Scotty? *Highland*er? *requests whatever you do, not to the face plz*


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## Shouden (Feb 3, 2010)

M. Le Renard said:


> Here's an idea, though, if anyone else is lost: a lot of wildflowers have names with stories behind them (Forget-Me-Nots, for example).  Reading those might help spark something interesting.  And you'd get kudos for doing research.



The most famous of these is posies. They have ties in the plague. As the old chant goes: "Ring-around the rosie, pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes we all fall down." Although, probably not the original meaning, a lot of people associate the rhyme with the plague. Posies were carried in the pocket of plague victims as they thought it would provide them with protection from the deadly disease.


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## ScottyDM (Feb 3, 2010)

Shouden said:


> The most famous of these is posies. They have ties in the plague. As the old chant goes: "Ring-around the rosie, pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes we all fall down." Although, probably not the original meaning, a lot of people associate the rhyme with the plague. Posies were carried in the pocket of plague victims as they thought it would provide them with protection from the deadly disease.


But, but, but, if they are already plague victims (ill with the plague) then isn't it too late for posy protection?

In the past when looking for inspiration I've found Google to be awesome. The semi-random nature of the links provides the serendipity factor.

And there's a bit over 4 weeks left.

------
I used to be a dungeon master long, long ago. But no more. D is my middle initial, M my last.

S~


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## Shouden (Feb 3, 2010)

yeah, we humans tend to be a little ignorant at times. But, a pocket of posies in plague time would also let everyone else know you had the disease. but yeah, once you have it, you're screwed, as there's no known cure. (at least I don't think there is. I think the plague kind of died out on it's own due to sterilzation and the mass killing of rats and stuff.)

Anyways, I've already finished and submitted my story. I still have to read through it a couple more times to make sure it's edited to my liking, though.


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## Altamont (Feb 4, 2010)

Been reading up on some Beckett, Joyce, et al, and my excitement factor is just growing daily as I write this story. I love this medium, and I'm really excited to see where this story goes.

Hm...one minor plot hole...not nessecarily fixable...well now...


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## ScottyDM (Feb 23, 2010)

*Twelve days left to enter the contest.*

Scotty dogs have huge freakin' heads! They are all jaw. And weren't they bred to kill rats in barns?

S~


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## Warnndog (Feb 26, 2010)

Ahh! I just discovered this Thread. And I have only Nine days! I don't know if I can whip anything together, but I could try.


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## Atrak (Feb 26, 2010)

Warnndog said:


> Ahh! I just discovered this Thread. And I have only Nine days! I don't know if I can whip anything together, but I could try.


 
I still haven't bothered giving any of it thought. I prefer to wait for the official start of the contest :V . It makes it more challenging.


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## Murphy Z (Mar 3, 2010)

There's a little less than four days to enter.


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## Atrak (Mar 4, 2010)

Oh, wow, I completely forgot about this -.- . Wonder if I can whip something together in three days  .


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## ScottyDM (Mar 4, 2010)

*Three days...*

I usually like to look over the entries before now, in case something's unsuitable. For example if it's not anthrofiction, or doesn't even pretend to use the theme. Three days is not enough time to fix a major problem like that.

But I did _glance_ at them just now. Look over a few paragraphs in each. Five stories by four authors. All are anthrofiction (at least at first glance) and all at least mention flowers. A couple of stories seem to be about domestic flowers... but it was only a quick glance. I'll read them over later tonight.


Been working on my long novel, and obsessing over my time line. The dang thing is going to be unsellable as a first novel unless I can beat it back to 100,000 words. At least that's what I've heard about first novels--keep them under 100,000 words.

The time line is key. First, all action is packed into 5 1/2 months. Second, it depends on the seasonality of both the vulpine (fox) fertility cycle and the human female fertility cycle. Third, some scene locations are only available on Wednesday evenings, or every other Sunday, or whatever, plus there's Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, and Valentine's. And fourth, I don't want unrealistic timings--events that should take seven weeks take one, or stuff that only needs a week gets stretched to five.

Thursday evenings I meet with my RL critique group. Last Thursday I took them my incomplete time line. I did get some good feedback from one person. Unfortunately it's not easy to read and requires knowledge of the characters, etc. as most events are rendered as sentence fragments.

Well, the rewrite (redraw?) of my time line isn't ready for tonight. I also wanted to simplify my character sketches so other group members would at least have a clue. I have a short story I should take, but the closing needs some work. I suppose I should get to work on that right now.


When I get home at ten tonight, I'll read through your stories.

S~


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## M. LeRenard (Mar 4, 2010)

So you haven't looked at them yet....
Now I'm a little worried, because mine is so incredibly borderline anthrofiction.  I guess I'll wait for your word before I go through and edit it.  It's short, though, so maybe a rewrite (say, tomorrow) wouldn't be impossible if it came to that.


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## Scarborough (Mar 4, 2010)

I wrote a little ditty for this.

It turned out to be only 500 words. And I can't expand it without making the story feel really contrived. So... this will be interesting for me. /first timer


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## ScottyDM (Mar 5, 2010)

Okaaaay...

Read all six stories (one added since my earlier post). Yes, all are anthrofiction, but only three are furry fiction. And all use wild flowers as the theme, but one is wild only in name, but it's cool.

I suppose I should contact some of the authors. I saw verb tense slips in three of the stories. A typo where three words were run together. A misused botanical word. A semicolon where a colon should have been. Missing or misplaced punctuation on dialog. And an odd description that left me scrambling to Wiki, just to see if it was I or the author who was crazy. Hmmm on that last one. ;-) And while I did read through all the stories, I didn't scrutinize them.

Maybe beta readers would help. There are 2 1/2 days left.

S~


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## Murphy Z (Mar 7, 2010)

ScottyDM said:


> Okaaaay...
> 
> Read all six stories (one added since my earlier post). Yes, all are anthrofiction, but only three are furry fiction. And all use wild flowers as the theme, but one is wild only in name, but it's cool.
> 
> ...



Sorry about my "misused botanical word," etc. I knew it wasn't quite the right word, but I left it in until I found a better one. Something is wrong with my device at home that connects me to the internet, so I entered what I had written just in case I couldn't get online again. I'm at my university's union now, and luckily it's open even though it's Spring Break here.  

Anyways, I usually enter my "final draft" into the contest, but this time, I'm making corrections whenever I can at the contest site itself. My apologies for using such seedy methods. 

Anyways, about two hours and forty five minutes left.


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## ScottyDM (Mar 8, 2010)

*The entry period is closed and the judging period open.*

Behold, the eight stories in this quarterâ€™s contest. As always, you need to be logged in to view the stories.

So read, enjoy, score, and comment.



> *Phantom and the Flowers*
> 
> They call me â€œPhantom.â€ And that is what I call myself. My real name I forgot a long time ago, but I know it was in the Language of the Wolves. My age is unknown, even to me. All I know is my power is great and that I am the leader of an unusual band of heroes. That, and we all get our powers from a special specie of wildflower. Known to us as the â€œAlien Flowerâ€, this special plant gives unlimited power and immortality to a certain number of animals. â€¦





> *The Parhelion Boy*
> 
> Heâ€™d come home with bruises again. Cuts and grazes on that muzzle that his parents would question and worry after. Poor Blyth had had another rough day at school. It wasnâ€™t as if he didnâ€™t try. It wasnâ€™t as if he wasnâ€™t normal. A young and vulnerable teenager, Blyth was sensitive and sweet, tortured endlessly after classes and during lunch break for his effete affectation. And the one other thing that would make the punches and the kicks hurt all the more? â€¦





> *Wisdom*
> 
> _How do you get the flowers to grow, Doug?_
> 
> ...





> *Dogstone Tea*
> 
> It had been years now since theyâ€™d disappeared. But their family had moved on, or at least tried.
> The Summer was consolingly hot that year, as was this one, sash windows opened, allowing cool breezes to brush through curtains and across stuffy and tired tails and fur. Dyfri had taken to wearing shorts, those smart below knee-length cargo style ones that had more pockets than one could ever really put to use. And yet he cut a solemn form as he wandered across the landing, his tail drooped and still, his deep yellow-ochre eyes wide and concentrating. â€¦





> *Garden Gangland*
> 
> Hetty Weatherwax was a retired and widowed old lady, living in a comfortable little house on Markson Park Avenue 45, Aldia Falls. After her career in a shoe factory and her husbandâ€™s death, and as her children and grand children lived out of town, she had only one real purpose in her life; Gardening.
> 
> Behind Hettyâ€™s house there was a small but cozy little garden. It was her pride and joy. Each spring she planned what flowers she would plant, how she would arrange the beds, â€¦





> *Daisy and Dandelion*
> 
> Mae was a daisy who was different from most of the other flowers, but didnâ€™t feel very special. She lived in a hamlet called Fiore, and it was filled with roses, orchids, irises, lilies, and chrysanthemums, and other flowers who prided themselves on their beauty; Mae thought that was about the dumbest thing in the world.
> 
> She didnâ€™t care about outer beauty one whit, well, she mostly didnâ€™t care. Instead of burning daylight fussing over herself, mirror gazing, or even pruning, she would explore around outside her small village. â€¦





> *Hellflower*
> 
> Once upon a time, a wildflower sprang up in Hell somewhere on the border of The Gray Wastes of Destituteness and The Screaming Sands of Anguish. Nobody knows how it got there, and that is a power all wildflowers have.
> 
> Cthaniel, a tallish demon that was the color of neon pond scum, and his friend Prunk, who was a squat demon very close to that shade of brown you can only get when you mix all your modeling clay together, were both walking home from working long hours as lower middle managers in the Sexual Deviant Division. â€¦





> *Fortinbras Gets His Say*
> 
> The first of the flowers had thrust itself bravely up through the snow where the wind had blown it thin. The green of it had a startling quality against the white of the world.
> 
> ...



S~


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## ScottyDM (Mar 8, 2010)

< Stares at Murphy Z's species under his avatar >

Umm, so might one properly call a kilted platypus, a plaidypus?

S~


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## TakeWalker (Mar 8, 2010)

Never have so many good openings been ruined by so much gross exposition. D:

I should really try and get on the ball with this reading and judging stuff.


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## ScottyDM (Mar 9, 2010)

TakeWalker said:


> Never have so many good openings been ruined by so much gross exposition. D:


Part of the reason I post the title and first 80 to 90 words of each story is so those who don't want to commit to reading every story, can choose which ones they'll read. I feel this is a fair way for people to decide in a contest because it is the way agents, editors, and eventually readers in bookstores decide which stories to buy.

Randy Ingermanson addresses the first chapter as a marketing tool in his February newsletter. Starting with page 8, "4) Marketing: A Killer First Chapter."

A few years ago I posted the title and first 80 to 90 words of each story to the forums at CritiqueCircle in an ongoing thread, "Critique my first line." I gathered up the comments and included them in my ballot--labeled as comments from CritiqueCircle.


Sometimes when I'm out surfing the Web and I find a story, I'm really lazy. I might give a story only 20 seconds to capture my attention, or I'm gone. It's even more ridiculous on YouTube. If the first 10 seconds of a video suck, I'm off onto another video. It can be as bad as channel surfing.


A bang up opening is something that we writers need to keep in mind. And perhaps something we can strive to improve next quarter.

S~


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## TakeWalker (Mar 9, 2010)

Go figure, I sat down and did the whole thing last night. :V Wasn't very difficult, but some parts were _definitely_ painful.

And my first-line analysis came up short in one respect. But that discussion can be saved for after the results.


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## ScottyDM (Mar 9, 2010)

Wow, you did. Cool beans.

S~


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## M. LeRenard (Mar 9, 2010)

I think we should all give bonus points to all the stories that don't mention *wolves*.  Jeez.  Every freaking quarter, it's wolves, wolves, wolves.  And maybe a fox.  I mean... jeez.  Let's try for a little more variety, huh?

That said, I did really enjoy a couple of the stories this time.  Though, of course, Take isn't wrong about certain things being... um, tough to get through.


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## TakeWalker (Mar 9, 2010)

M. Le Renard said:


> Though, of course, Take isn't wrong about certain things being... um, tough to get through.



In my opinion, two were great, two were awful, and the rest were in between, though more towards the latter than the former.

Also, I think I recognize your submission, assuming you did just one. :V


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## M. LeRenard (Mar 10, 2010)

TakeWalker said:
			
		

> Also, I think I recognize your submission, assuming you did just one. :V


I sure hope it was one of those in the 'great' category.
Actually, it's funny.  I think someone from these forums read my post a while back and kind of hijacked the idea that I proposed.  Not that I have a problem with that, but it might make people think I wrote something that I didn't write.
I have a hunch which one is Murphy Z's, myself.  Though it didn't feature platypuses this time.  Fere's style is also pretty easy to recognize.  The rest I have no clue.


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## Fere (Mar 10, 2010)

M. Le Renard said:


> Fere's style is also pretty easy to recognize.



I've been rumbled


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## panzergulo (Mar 10, 2010)

M. Le Renard said:


> Actually, it's funny.  I think someone from these forums read my post a while back and kind of hijacked the idea that I proposed.  Not that I have a problem with that, but it might make people think I wrote something that I didn't write.



Read through the whole thread only today... and it might be my story that resembles the idea you tossed around... and believe it or not, I came up with the story just on my own. You give too much credit for yourself. I have just enough twisted humor of my own to write such a story.

It would be interesting to read what others came up this season, but I fear I won't have the time to read all the stories submitted to the contest. I didn't even take the contest too seriously myself, I assume my submission will rank amongst the three worst stories anyway.

So, yeah, good luck for everybody, and don't give too high scores for the story that resembles the idea Mister L.R. was tossing around early in this thread. ;Ã¾


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## Fere (Mar 10, 2010)

M. Le Renard said:


> I think we should all give bonus points to all the stories that don't mention *wolves*.  Jeez.  Every freaking quarter, it's wolves, wolves, wolves.  And maybe a fox.  I mean... jeez.  Let's try for a little more variety, huh?



I do agree on some levels with that. It's just that people will write within subjects or with characters that they are comfortable with. I hold myself within the same category, but with myself it's not about comfort alone. It's about enjoying who/what I write about. If you don't enjoy using and developing the characters you have, you won't enjoy envisioning the story as becoming anything more than a brief after-thought.

I'm pretty one-dimensional in that respect as I go for the canid side of things all of the time. I can't fully explain why. I guess it's just a part of who I am, and a part of my heritage. 

So with the greatest of respect to all furries who chose a non-canine fursona, I wouldn't *enjoy* using any other species as characters. It wouldn't give me the spark that I have with wolves or foxies etc...


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## TakeWalker (Mar 10, 2010)

M. Le Renard said:


> I sure hope it was one of those in the 'great' category.



It was. :3

Of course, I think yours might be the only one whose style I know. And maybe Panzer.


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## M. LeRenard (Mar 10, 2010)

panzergulo said:


> Read through the whole thread only today... and it might be my story that resembles the idea you tossed around... and believe it or not, I came up with the story just on my own.


Really... that one's yours?  Honestly, I never would have guessed.  Um... forgive me, but it's not your best writing by any stretch of the imagination.  Though it did make me chuckle.
Then call it a coincidence, I guess.  It's a strange coincidence, though, because it's really similar to what I'd been throwing around in this thread.  Like... REALLY similar.  But I guess what I wrote was vague enough, it's not impossible someone else would come up with the same general idea.



			
				Fere said:
			
		

> It's just that people will write within subjects or with characters that they are comfortable with.


I know.  I'm just bitching for the sake of bitching, because for myself, I like to go outside my comfort realm.  So far I've written stories with a Jerusalem cricket, an octopus, a chickadee, and a rat, not including this quarter.  So it's a little amusing when I see that half the other entries feature wolves, the all-time most popular animal in the furry fandom.
You know.  Bear in mind, I represent myself with a fox on this website, so I'm not without guilt.


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## panzergulo (Mar 10, 2010)

M. Le Renard said:


> Really... that one's yours?  Honestly, I never would have guessed.  Um... forgive me, but it's not your best writing by any stretch of the imagination.  Though it did make me chuckle.



Hm... what did I say just a few posts earlier?



panzergulo said:


> I didn't even take the contest too seriously myself, I assume my submission will rank amongst the three worst stories anyway.



I know it sucks. So, no reason to forgive anything. I feel pretty much the same way with this one as I did with 'Evacuation'. Far from my best, destined to drop on the lowliest ranks... although, 'Evacuation' succeeded fairly well. But if the judges have any sense in them this season, the story I submitted will become near-to-last, maybe even the last.

In my own opinion, my best stories are not written for any prompt or contest. That's when I've written something I have really wanted to write. But when I'm given some limits... it comes and goes, sometimes I write well, often not.



M. Le Renard said:


> I know.  I'm just bitching for the sake of bitching, because for myself, I like to go outside my comfort realm.  So far I've written stories with a Jerusalem cricket, an octopus, a chickadee, and a rat, not including this quarter.  So it's a little amusing when I see that half the other entries feature wolves, the all-time most popular animal in the furry fandom.
> You know.  Bear in mind, I represent myself with a fox on this website, so I'm not without guilt.



Choosing a wolf is like choosing vanilla. It's familiar, and mixes well with everything. Choosing something really unfamiliar and farfetched can backfire. Choosing some ugly deep-sea monster fish is like tossing mud onto the food table, if done wrong.

I suppose my readers are already assuming that I choose wolves, foxes, jackals, coyotes and other canine species for weaker roles, like bystanders, support characters and even main characters (aren't main characters meant to be easy to approach and easy to relate with, sort of vanilla?), while featuring not so popular species in more special roles. Some have even commented that my wolverines tend to be the most eccentric characters of mine.

Interesting as such... even if off the topic. Bah. Whatever. MLR started it. ;Ã¾


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## M. LeRenard (Mar 10, 2010)

panzergulo said:
			
		

> But if the judges have any sense in them this season, the story I submitted will become near-to-last, maybe even the last.


I know which one I would give last place, and it's not yours.  I scored yours right in the middle, actually.


> Choosing something really unfamiliar and farfetched can backfire.


That's true, but that just makes it more exciting if you do pull it off.  My octopus story got first place that quarter.


> aren't main characters meant to be easy to approach and easy to relate with, sort of vanilla?


Ehhh... so they say.  I think for certain kinds of stories this is the way to go, but I tend to always find myself hating main characters who are vanilla.  Vanilla to me is tasteful but boring.  I'm much more intrigued when main characters have, you know, quirks.  Not like Rocky Road, which is a little too over the top for a character with so much screen time, but maybe more like raspberry, which is a pleasant, little-used alternative to vanilla.  You know?  I prefer Tony Stark to Superman.


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## Murphy Z (Mar 11, 2010)

M. Le Renard said:


> I sure hope it was one of those in the 'great' category.
> Actually, it's funny.  I think someone from these forums read my post a while back and kind of hijacked the idea that I proposed.  Not that I have a problem with that, but it might make people think I wrote something that I didn't write.



I came up with my idea the day after the contest was given a new theme. A little while after that, you wrote your idea, which is sort of similar in some ways to mine. But since I thought of mine and didn't tell you, I thought we were both "safe." I don't think any of the stories were "too close for comfort."

I think the problem with the stories having their similarities is that there's only so many ways flowers can be characters in a story. I read the stories a while ago, so forgive me if I'm wrong. One story has them "planthromorphised," where the flowers were actually running around and talking. At least one story they were talking (I think), and in a couple more, they were using telepathy, and in another they might have been using telepathy, maybe not. I can't think of anything else that would give a good story. 

I suppose someone could have written a "wereflower" story, where allergy sufferers are terrorized , or maybe sort of "Weekend at Bernie's" type like where maybe a bunch of wolves have a road trip and take a plant that does nothing along (it might get high creative marks, but I'd give it low theme marks). They're both doable, but one stretches credibility and the other doesn't follow the contest well. I just hope the judges see this. I thought there was a lot of creativity this time. I know the quality varied, but the ideas were neat.



> I've been rumbled [/QUOTE}
> 
> Me too. Is that a good thing?
> 
> ...


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## Fere (Mar 12, 2010)

> Me too. Is that a good thing?


I'm really not sure to be honest with you. I don't dislike it. I just hope my stories are a splash of fun and colour. 

But I guess it depends on what reaction our stories get when they are "recognised" amongst others, and whether that initial reaction is one of simply non-emotional recognition, excitement and/or lethargy.


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## M. LeRenard (Mar 12, 2010)

Murphy Z said:
			
		

> Shouldn't mine be at the bottom?


No way, man.  No way.


Fere said:


> I just hope my stories are a splash of fun and colour.


I recognize your style because it has the most class and elegance, to be honest.  I never can understand why you rarely seem to get a high ranking.  Maybe people are turned off by the almost Dickensian prose.


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## DissidentLove (Mar 12, 2010)

*gasp* *pant* *wheeze* 

Is there still time to enter? I...

Dang.  That's what I get for not going on the forums here for three months.


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## Blayze (Mar 14, 2010)

You and me both... *pant*


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## DissidentLove (Mar 14, 2010)

Is there another story contest coming up soon? I'm fairly bursting with adequatulence... I mean, inspiration.


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## ScottyDM (Mar 14, 2010)

The next quarter starts April 8th. Meanwhile, feel free to read, score, and comment.


We write what we know--consider that 99% of authors write about humans, yet no one complains of that. I'm thrilled so many flowers were anthropomorphized this time. It warms my heart. ;-)

S~


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## Fere (Mar 22, 2010)

ScottyDM said:


> I'm thrilled so many flowers were anthropomorphized this time.S~



Certainly some most intriguing stories this quarter. I don't know why, but I feel that this particular theme (and its relevant entries) has taken us into an evermore fascinating definition of and seperation between furry fiction and anthrofiction. 

Here's me talking... I wrote about wolves again 

Now having read them, I felt 'glued-to-the-screen' fairly recognised the majority.


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## Murphy Z (Apr 3, 2010)

There's less than four days to judge.


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## ScottyDM (Apr 6, 2010)

EIGHT stories...
SIX authors...
and a grand total of FOUR people have turned in at least one ballot, and with only 22 hours left to go.

And that includes me. So I know what I'll be doing tonight. 	;-) 

S~


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## Shouden (Apr 6, 2010)

I MIGHT turn in a ballot or two. I don't know...we'll see...I really should do more reading, though.


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## ScottyDM (Apr 7, 2010)

*I am a first class idiot.*

A few weeks ago I mucked about with the security settings on some of the folders of my server in preparation of adding LAN access for a good customer (co-lo setup). While doing so I broke the web server's ability to write to it's own folders.

In other words, I lost _all_ the ballots turned in over the past three weeks.

The following people have ballots successfully saved in the system:
Take Walker -- all 8 ballots
Le Renard -- all 8 ballots
foozzzball -- 7 ballots
Cerih -- 1 ballot
Additionally, I've lost all the new accounts. Or more accurately they were never saved or activated. If you cannot log in after getting your e-mail, or were never logged in when you clicked that link in your e-mail, you'll need to start over. Feel free to use the same e-mail address and username as the system doesn't remember what you did over the past three weeks. 

The pain lost ballots is that all your lovely comments are gone. Evaporated into the aether. And a reminder: Anyone can go back and reexamine their ballot once cast. Even change it as long as your changes are completed before the closing date.

*Because of this blunder, I'm changing the closing date from Tuesday the 7th, to Sunday the 11th.*

I do apologize for the inconvenience. And, it's working now.

~S

PS: Looks like I need to: #1, be more careful. #2, put a test into my site code so it spews a big ass warning message on the screen when it cannot write the file, and maybe blasts an e-mail to me.


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## Shouden (Apr 7, 2010)

umm...that's WEDNESDAY the 7th (AKA: today) not Tuesday.  I think, because of the extended time, I'll turn in ballots. A lot of stories this time, though.


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## M. LeRenard (Apr 7, 2010)

Ha.... lucky I got mine in so early.
That's okay, Scotty.  You're still doing a great job considering you're running the whole thing almost entirely by yourself.


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## ScottyDM (Apr 7, 2010)

Yes! Lots of stories can be good though, if more work.

Some of us read and score all the stories, but I don't expect everyone do follow suit. However, *I prefer that people read and score more than one story. Two or three is fine. Four or five is better. But how to decide?*

Those who read for pleasure, and when they don't have a clue such as the reputation of the author, will often start reading a story then make a decision if they want to continue. Any professionally published author who has turned writing teacher will stress the importance of your first line and first few paragraphs--your opening. A poor opening leads to rejections, or if you do get published, lost sales.

*Because of the importance of the opening, I feel it's fair to decide which stories in the contest you want to read, based on their openings.* Back on page 2 of this thread I posted the first 90 or so words of each story, with links. I reproduce those here:


> *Phantom and the Flowers*
> 
> They call me â€œPhantom.â€ And that is what I call myself. My real name I forgot a long time ago, but I know it was in the Language of the Wolves. My age is unknown, even to me. All I know is my power is great and that I am the leader of an unusual band of heroes. That, and we all get our powers from a special specie of wildflower. Known to us as the â€œAlien Flowerâ€, this special plant gives unlimited power and immortality to a certain number of animals. â€¦





> *The Parhelion Boy*
> 
> Heâ€™d come home with bruises again. Cuts and grazes on that muzzle that his parents would question and worry after. Poor Blyth had had another rough day at school. It wasnâ€™t as if he didnâ€™t try. It wasnâ€™t as if he wasnâ€™t normal. A young and vulnerable teenager, Blyth was sensitive and sweet, tortured endlessly after classes and during lunch break for his effete affectation. And the one other thing that would make the punches and the kicks hurt all the more? â€¦





> *Wisdom*
> 
> _How do you get the flowers to grow, Doug?_
> 
> ...





> *Dogstone Tea*
> 
> It had been years now since theyâ€™d disappeared. But their family had moved on, or at least tried.
> 
> The Summer was consolingly hot that year, as was this one, sash windows opened, allowing cool breezes to brush through curtains and across stuffy and tired tails and fur. Dyfri had taken to wearing shorts, those smart below knee-length cargo style ones that had more pockets than one could ever really put to use. And yet he cut a solemn form as he wandered across the landing, his tail drooped and still, his deep yellow-ochre eyes wide and concentrating. â€¦





> *Garden Gangland*
> 
> Hetty Weatherwax was a retired and widowed old lady, living in a comfortable little house on Markson Park Avenue 45, Aldia Falls. After her career in a shoe factory and her husbandâ€™s death, and as her children and grand children lived out of town, she had only one real purpose in her life; Gardening.
> 
> Behind Hettyâ€™s house there was a small but cozy little garden. It was her pride and joy. Each spring she planned what flowers she would plant, how she would arrange the beds, â€¦





> *Daisy and Dandelion*
> 
> Mae was a daisy who was different from most of the other flowers, but didnâ€™t feel very special. She lived in a hamlet called Fiore, and it was filled with roses, orchids, irises, lilies, and chrysanthemums, and other flowers who prided themselves on their beauty; Mae thought that was about the dumbest thing in the world.
> 
> She didnâ€™t care about outer beauty one whit, well, she mostly didnâ€™t care. Instead of burning daylight fussing over herself, mirror gazing, or even pruning, she would explore around outside her small village. â€¦





> *Hellflower*
> 
> Once upon a time, a wildflower sprang up in Hell somewhere on the border of The Gray Wastes of Destituteness and The Screaming Sands of Anguish. Nobody knows how it got there, and that is a power all wildflowers have.
> 
> Cthaniel, a tallish demon that was the color of neon pond scum, and his friend Prunk, who was a squat demon very close to that shade of brown you can only get when you mix all your modeling clay together, were both walking home from working long hours as lower middle managers in the Sexual Deviant Division. â€¦





> *Fortinbras Gets His Say*
> 
> The first of the flowers had thrust itself bravely up through the snow where the wind had blown it thin. The green of it had a startling quality against the white of the world.
> 
> ...



If you can't quite decide which to read first, perhaps you can decide which to avoid. 	:-? 

Also, if you decide _not_ to read a story based on the first 90 words, and want to leave the author a note but not score the story (because you haven't read it), my ballot allows you to do just that. Besides the 1 through 5 score, it's also possible to choose "no score". This means no score, not I-hated-it-too-much-for-words score. Your comments count, but not the score.

Likewise some people feel unqualified to judge or score a story. Or they only want to read for pleasure. The final score category is enjoyability. Even if you don't know what to _think_ about a story, you do know how you _feel_ about it, right? Enjoyability is purely subjective--how do you feel about this story? Love it, hate it, or something between.

I look forward to your ballots, scores or not.

S~


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## Shouden (Apr 8, 2010)

just turned in two ballots and checked the other stories. half of them (four) are less than 2000 words and the other half are about 2500 words. if that helps anyone decided on if they should cast ballots. You could easily do all the shorter stories in a day. and the rest could be done another day. That's what I'm gonna do.


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## ScottyDM (Apr 12, 2010)

I've got *the results* calculated, but I don't yet have the little graphs.

Congratulations to Le Renard whose story *Wisdom* won with a score of *4.27*.

Murphy Z's two stories _Hellflower_, and _Daisy and Dandelion_ came in second and third with scores of 4.21 and 4.06.

I'll get the graphs done later and make an official announcement of the results for Spring 2010. And I'll announce the next contest.

S~


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## panzergulo (Apr 12, 2010)

panzergulo said:


> I didn't even take the contest too seriously myself, I assume my submission will rank amongst the three worst stories anyway.
> 
> So, yeah, good luck for everybody, and don't give too high scores for the story that resembles the idea Mister L.R. was tossing around early in this thread. ;Ã¾





panzergulo said:


> I know it sucks. So, no reason to forgive anything. I feel pretty much the same way with this one as I did with 'Evacuation'. Far from my best, destined to drop on the lowliest ranks... although, 'Evacuation' succeeded fairly well. But if the judges have any sense in them this season, the story I submitted will become near-to-last, maybe even the last.





ScottyDM said:


> I've got *the results* calculated [...]



And I checked the results, and now I have to say...

What the hell is wrong with you furries? My story is as uninspired as my stories get, and still... it ranked on the fourth place out of eight. It isn't even on the lower half! Can't you recognize a good story from a crappy story? What the f is wrong with you? How cliched and trite I have to become before you give my stories the ranks they deserve?

I have this awful feeling... I have a feeling, that when and if I actually manage writing something really good to one of these contests, it's not going to get the place it deserves in my opinion.

'Evacuation' was melodramatic crap. It got second place.
'The Midwinter Feast' was far better than 'Evacuation', although still cliched. It got second place.
'Garden Gangland' is the crappiest story I have ever written for Scotty's contest. It got the fourth place out of eight.

Goddammit! I'm angry.

Congrats to MLR and MurphyZ. You deserve it.


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## M. LeRenard (Apr 12, 2010)

Aww... thanks everybody.
And yeah, I recognize now the logic problems with this story.  I blame it on, um, laziness.  I wasn't real sure what point I was making, and never quite gave it enough effort to figure it out, so there you have it.  I guess people liked it anyway!
Who knows?  Maybe I'll fix this one up and send it to some horror magazine.

Congrats, Murphy!  I thought Hellflower was absolutely brilliant, and I'm really happy it got such a high score.  There's always one story where when I finish reading it, I think, "Damn, I really hope this one beats mine," and this was that story this quarter.



			
				panzergulo said:
			
		

> What the hell is wrong with you furries? My story is as uninspired as my stories get, and still... it ranked on the fourth place out of eight. It isn't even on the lower half! Can't you recognize a good story from a crappy story? What the f is wrong with you? How cliched and trite I have to become before you give my stories the ranks they deserve?


I think it's because of the ending, actually.  I wasn't as harsh as maybe you wanted me to be, because the ending worked.  It was a dumb story, but you didn't make any excuses for it.  The lady was just crazy.  Dust off your hands, and voilÃ .  So I think people must have at the very least appreciated your candor.  If you'd have ended with it being a real thing, the flowers really being, um, gangsters, I at least would have torn this story a new one in the comments and scored it really low.  It was a pretty stupid story after all, and it was definitely the worst thing I've ever read of yours.  It just wasn't as stupid as it could have been.
That's my explanation, anyhow.  So you should stop being so angry and take it instead to mean that even when you put out utter garbage, people still enjoy it to some degree.  And besides, if this was a school paper, in the US a 50% is a solid F, so you still failed.  Does that make you feel better?
;-)


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## Tanzenlicht (Apr 12, 2010)

M. Le Renard said:


> And besides, if this was a school paper, in the US a 50% is a solid F, so you still failed.  Does that make you feel better?
> ;-)



Probably not, on the other hand it makes me pretty sad.

Congratulations on your win though.


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## M. LeRenard (Apr 12, 2010)

You know I'm just joking.
Actually, I thought your story should have gotten a much higher score.  I don't ever understand how and why things place the way they do in this contest.
Granted, once again, a lot of the scores are pretty similar.  Excluding the last one, there's only about a 0.6 spread.  I guess it usually comes down to little things.


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## Shouden (Apr 12, 2010)

i thought Tanzen's story was very well written, I just would have like a longer story.  In fact, the only under 2000 word story that actually seemed like it was a complete story was the one about Daisy. Anyways. Better luck next time.


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## TakeWalker (Apr 12, 2010)

Fortinbras Has His Say, I pine for you. ;_;

No, seriously, Wisdom was a great story and deserved the top spot, I think (what did I write about it, lol? I can't fucking log in again), but that was my favorite and I'm sad it didn't do better.


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## Shouden (Apr 13, 2010)

You know what, I do think, of the ones I read, I do think Fortinbras was the one of the best. The only reason I gave it a lower score was because it didn't really fit with the theme and it was too short. Other than that, it was a cool story. The interaction between the rider and his horse was pretty awesome. It really felt like Tanzen has had a horse. But again, I just wish is was longer.


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## ScottyDM (Apr 13, 2010)

Next quarter's contest announcement.

S~


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## Tanzenlicht (Apr 13, 2010)

M. Le Renard said:


> You know I'm just joking.



I do know you're joking.  Wisdom was my favorite and my congratulations were genuine.  You deserved it.

It's just it started with a flower, takes place in a field full of flowers, the antagonist is the field full of flowers walking around wearing a person (who looks like flowers) and I got knocked down for theme?  Maybe I was too subtle.

Also horses, much as I love them, are dumb animals who love you when you have food and sort of appreciate your thumbs.  So even before he was talking, Fort was anthropomorphic.  So I guess it requires too specific of information about horses.  Or some of them have had better horses than I had.

As for length.  Longer does not equal better.  You should really keep that in mind Shouden.  It might improve your writing.

Ok, enough arguing for the sake of argument.


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## Shouden (Apr 13, 2010)

yeah. I know, I have trouble ending a story. I think that's because I'm writing serial stories instead of simply a single story. Perhaps, a little practice at that would help. But, I do agree that a good story doesn't have to be a long one. I've written stories that I love and are only a single page.

As for the horses, *shurg* I don't know much about horses, but it seems cowboys always had sort of a bond with theirs like that of Fort and his rider, but, whatever.

Anyways, I hope to see you all in the next contest. This one will be my last for a while...until I get a job and a computer of my own again.


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## ScottyDM (Apr 13, 2010)

Setting the story in a field of wildflowers is enough to qualify it as an entry, but that shouldn't earn it a 5 for theme. For me your theme score was boosted by two factors: Your wildflowers represented the end of winter and the coming of spring--the symbolism of wildflowers cemented them to your story. And my reaction to your God of the Meadow was that she appeared to be flower-like--specifically a California poppy--but maybe that was only my imagination. Others may not have noticed these factors.


As for length.

I've had writers complain that I don't take stories under 1,000 words, and others complain that 3,500 is too few in which to express themselves. It's not fair to judge a 600 word story against a 6,000 word story so I set limits. If I consistently get lots of stories I may go with categories for shorter and longer. I even have names for these categories: Short Shorts for stories of 200 to 999 words (a.k.a. flash fiction). Shorts for stories of 1,000 to 3,499 words. And Bermuda Shorts for stories of 3,500 to 9,999 words.  :-D 

If you think a story is too short because you like longer stories, then that should affect only the enjoyability score. Enjoyability is 100% subjective and readers can score whatever they feel.

If you think a story is too short because parts of it seem rushed or incomplete, then that will pull the storytelling score down, and if it spoiled your enjoyment it'll also affect enjoyability.

If parts of the story are too long with too much detail that doesn't contribute, and other parts are rushed or incomplete--oh yea, that's a storytelling issue, and very likely an enjoyability issue as well.

Not all readers like the same thing. Not much an author can do about that.

S~


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## Fere (Apr 15, 2010)

Congrats Le Renard on your winning tale


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