# Short Story Contest for Fall 2008



## ScottyDM (Oct 9, 2008)

Greets, Peeps!

*The short story contest for fall 2008 is upon us.* The theme for this quarter is *Ghost Story*.

I probably need to come up with a decent writeup for the theme, but how hard can ghost story be? Well, it's also got to be anthrofiction as well as a ghost story, and I won't accept the argument that ordinary ghosts are anthropomorphic characters.

That's all for now.

Scotty


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## Shouden (Oct 10, 2008)

Nice! I will definitely have to try my hand at this one. And this time it will be a full Anthro story. Although, I have done a couple of stories with ghosts in the past. I just have never done the anthropomorphic ghost story.

Ghost stories aren't hard, it's the good ghost stories that are hard to write. Especially coming up with something that no one has done before and still keep it PG-13. Anyways, I look forward to reading these stories and participating in these contest


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## ScottyDM (Oct 10, 2008)

Some ghost stories are about creepy unexplained stuff. A kid peeks through a keyhole and sees something, but later all evidence of what he might have seen is gone. Or perhaps someone tries to stay in a room at a hotel or bed and breakfast and has some weird experience. There are some cool vids on YouTube of that type of ghost story.

I thought of this theme only two weeks ago (since it's approximately Halloween time) and I immediately thought of a story I'd outlined a couple of years back, but never started. Then I realize it wasn't anthro and I didn't want to make it anthro. :-? That story's concept is that ghosts are like a 3-D playback, or an echo of real people that existed long before. Like a recording they don't think or feel, but simply do. However they profoundly affect two living people in the story.

So I came up with a new ghost concept set in an existing storyworld I want to expand. This ghost concept is that they are goal-driven ancestor spirits that can interact with and direct the living. I'm struggling a bit with how to get from point A to point B, or even what those points are. Currently I open with a malevolent demon spirit my adventures need to escape from, and that experience leaves them in a world of hurt that the ghost tries to rectify in exchange for them helping him. It also leaves one of them with a sensitivity to the spirit world. I don't like my title. :? 

I hope I can get something uploadable soon.

Fun stuff!

Scotty


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## M. LeRenard (Oct 10, 2008)

First thing this made me think of was the somewhat anthropomorphic story _Ghosteye_, by Marion Bauer, which I read a long time ago.  If anyone's read it, there's a story idea you could go off of.  I might try something else, myself, but I thought I'd put it out there.


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## Poetigress (Oct 10, 2008)

I'm boycotting the contest until I get the two plaques I'm due.    :-D


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## TakeWalker (Oct 10, 2008)

Oh that Poetigress, she is such a snob who thinks she is too good for us blah blah whine D:

Furry ghost stories, huh? Gonna have to think about that one.


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## GraemeLion (Oct 10, 2008)

Well, I'm certainly in.  I had an outline for a suspense story that I can bang into this 
1500 - 3000 words, hmm..


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## Frasque (Oct 10, 2008)

ScottyDM said:


> I thought of this theme only two weeks ago (since it's approximately Halloween time) and I immediately thought of a story I'd outlined a couple of years back, but never started. Then I realize it wasn't anthro and I didn't want to make it anthro. :-? That story's concept is that ghosts are like a 3-D playback, or an echo of real people that existed long before. Like a recording they don't think or feel, but simply do. However they profoundly affect two living people in the story.
> Scotty


 
That reminds me of a theory I read that ghosts are emotional impressions recorded as magnetic impressions on iron, kind of like supernatural videotape. Or the holographic universe theory, which says we're all playbacks.


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## ScottyDM (Oct 11, 2008)

M. Le Renard said:


> First thing this made me think of was the somewhat anthropomorphic story _Ghosteye_, by Marion Bauer, which I read a long time ago.  If anyone's read it, there's a story idea you could go off of.  I might try something else, myself, but I thought I'd put it out there.


The dude who does Bitey Castle (the Brackenwood Flash movies) has a collection of ghost stories on his site.

Years ago in _Smithsonian Magazine_ they had a little article about "urban exploration" and the author interviewed a woman with a fascinating website titled Dark Passage. This woman doesn't write ghost stories, but she does explore places that would make the perfect setting for a ghost story, and she has some very creepy stuff on her site. If you can only read one of her stories, I recommend The Hospital of Seven Teeth. Since reading that I've felt compelled to use the steam tunnels below the campus of an abandoned mental hospital as the setting for a scene in one of my stories.

There are many "urban exploration" websites, but Dark Passage is one of the best. There are also some terrific vids on YouTube about abandoned hospitals that could provide an inspiring setting. Go to YouTube and search for "state hospital" and you'll find plenty of material. Here's an example of Torrance State Hospital at night.

There's a British TV show called _Most Haunted_ and some folks have uploaded segments or even whole episodes to YouTube. Some feel _Most Haunted_ is faked or that their mediums are faking it. Doesn't matter. The idea is, what's in the realm of inspiration for your story. So another thing to search for on YouTube is "most haunted".

Speaking of mediums, there's a term called "time slipping" where you surround yourself with artifacts and costumes of a particular period to bring out or attract the spirits from that period.

Are the vids on YouTube proof of ghosts? Consider that the animal brain (humans are animals too) is specifically designed to find patterns--sometimes where there are none. So we see faces and shapes in the mist, or in the noise generated by an imaging chip when it's pushed to its limit. Plus some people fake stuff. I thought this little 53 second video was particularly well done.

In summer of 2005, when Nadan managed the writing contest (he created it), one of the entries was _From the Sea, the Ghosts_ by Alex Vance--the guy who publishes _Fang_. So there _is_ such a thing as a ghost story that's also anthrofiction.


So what to write?

Assume that ghosts are real--or that they aren't, but some other phenomenon.
Sent your characters out looking for them--or let your characters stumble over them.
Have your ghosts able to interact with the physical world--or not.
Have your ghosts able to communicate with ordinary people--or not. Even have them able to influence people (perhaps for the worst).
Are some characters immune to ghost-like activity with others are easily creeped out?
Are ghosts connected to people from a prior time--or are they the spiritual manifestation of something entirely different, demons perhaps?
What is your character's attitude toward ghosts; something to be appeased or even worshiped--or something to be feared and shunned?
Other choices exist too.

The ghost story has a long tradition and probably goes back to when man first created language.

Scotty


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## ScottyDM (Oct 11, 2008)

Frasque said:


> That reminds me of a theory I read that ghosts are emotional impressions recorded as magnetic impressions on iron, kind of like supernatural videotape. Or the holographic universe theory, which says we're all playbacks.


My outlined story takes that approach. Ghosts are like automatons stuck in a loop. Every so often they are triggered and replay out their role--and scare the bejezus out of any witnesses. But in that story they have an mental and emotional effect on the living that goes beyond mere fright. Almost like a possession.

The story I've started writing is quite different.


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## Shouden (Oct 11, 2008)

Blah! I wrote one "ghost" story but I am not sure if I like how it turned out. I think I will add a few more details in it an might toss it in to the mix to see how it does, but I will defiantly write another one.

I like the haunted hospital idea. The major (fictional) hospital I use in a lot of my stories I had very haunted 'cause there was a lot of evil stuff that went on there, but then it was torn down and rebuilt. But, some of the old ghosts linger, and some new ones have appeared. The Coma Ward is particularly haunted.

One element I included for the old hospital was the "Blood Room" of the hospital, which was the nickname that was given to the very bottom floor of the building which I had seen as simply a big empty room that was used mainly for storage. It got it's name 'cause some people went down there and never came back, but one of my characters had an experience where she went down there and with the lights off, in the dim light of the door from the hall behind her, the room appeared to be filled with a couple feet of blood. And even felt like it when she went down into the basement, but when the lights turned on, there was nothing there. (although she had seen a couple ghosts there once or twice.) She stopped getting supplies from down there when the lights shut off while she was in the center of the room and she felt and saw more than blood on the floor.

I think A haunted hospital will be the setting for my second story....or maybe a hospital that becomes haunted. First though, I need to finish this series of stories I am working on.


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## M. LeRenard (Oct 11, 2008)

> There's a British TV show called Most Haunted and some folks have uploaded segments or even whole episodes to YouTube. Some feel Most Haunted is faked or that their mediums are faking it. Doesn't matter. The idea is, what's in the realm of inspiration for your story. So another thing to search for on YouTube is "most haunted".


Just a little warning about this show: I'm not a complete fuddy-duddy when it comes to ghost stuff, but there is nothing about this show that I find at all convincing.  I watch it because it's hilarious, but that's not particularly inspiring if I'm wanting to write something scary myself.  If you're really jumpy and prone to believe just about anything you see on television, go ahead and watch the show, but otherwise maybe don't waste your time.  Or at the very least don't watch the 'live' broadcasts they do; the show is much better when it undergoes editing.  Surprise surprise.


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## Nargle (Oct 14, 2008)

I have two questions... 

Does it have to be scary? And can the ghosts be metaphorical?


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## ScottyDM (Oct 20, 2008)

Nargle said:


> I have two questions...
> 
> Does it have to be scary? And can the ghosts be metaphorical?


No it does not have to be scary, and the ghosts can be anything at all--even a kid under a sheet. Scooby Doo didn't have real ghosts. But a symbolic ghost? Yea, maybe. As they say, "Run it up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes."

The contest was created by Nadan and in summer 2005 I entered a story. The theme was beaches/oceans and I used that theme in an abstract way. Some hated it and gave me terrible score for theme and some loved it. The result was the story placed in the middle of the pack overall. My score for creativity was first by a fair margin and I tied for first in technical (there were only the three criteria that quarter). So yea, a metaphorical ghost will probably get theme scores that are all over the place.

Another of the scoring criteria is enjoyability. It's supposed to be subjective: how did you (the reader) _feel_ about this story? If a reader is looking for a good scare and you deliver something quite different, then you can probably expect your story's enjoyability scores will be all over the place too. Of course some will think your use of the theme is awesome and they'll love your unconventional story all to pieces.


I suppose one could ask, "What is a ghost story?" An easier question to answer is, "What is a typical ghost story?"

*Writers write for many reasons, but the primary reason readers read is for the emotional experience.* A superior story gives the reader a superior emotional experience. And readers choose their genre based on what sort of emotions they want to experience.

So the answer for a _typical_ ghost story is that _it must give the reader a deliciously creepy feeling_. It should raise goosebumps and cause a shiver to run up and down the back. It should raise the readers hackles.


----
I keep thinking up story ideas for this theme. What I'd started to write had a ghost who was an ancestor spirit (my storyworld is a stone-age society), and this ghost was aware of his state and capable of complex planning and actions. Unfortunately some of my stories have a tendency to grow and I think this one has grown somewhat complex. Maybe if I beat it with a rake I can keep it below 3500 words.

Then a video on YouTube inspired me to think of a story idea (and write a quick outline) where the ghost is a case of mistaken identity. The ghost is flesh and blood. Of course the people who see it think it's the real deal and have a massive panic attack.

A third idea is to extract a ghost scene from a novella I abandoned in 2004 and plunk it down in a stand-alone story. The problem is too much backstory and the storyworld kind of blunts the impact of the ghosts. It would take a massive effort to create something fresh around the scene.

NaNoWriMo starts soon. The contest entry deadline isn't until about a week after NaNo ends, but to be an effective sample, my stories need to be completed long before that. If I don't get something done before the 1st, there won't be a sample story this quarter--not that anybody really needs one.


Best of luck, everyone. Have fun writing.

Scotty


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## ScottyDM (Oct 20, 2008)

M. Le Renard said:


> Just a little warning about this show: I'm not a complete fuddy-duddy when it comes to ghost stuff, but there is nothing about this show that I find at all convincing.  I watch it because it's hilarious, but that's not particularly inspiring if I'm wanting to write something scary myself.  If you're really jumpy and prone to believe just about anything you see on television, go ahead and watch the show, but otherwise maybe don't waste your time.  Or at the very least don't watch the 'live' broadcasts they do; the show is much better when it undergoes editing.  Surprise surprise.


I've only seen a couple of complete episodes. They've got that medium who pretty much seems to be all the "evidence" they come up with during a show. However, some of the phenomena they uncover are typical for hauntings--such as cold spots in the room, unexplained noises, "orbs", and especially the _feeling_ (in the cast and crew) that something really freaking is going on, about to happen, or that they are being watched. But nothing on camera.

I did see the one where their medium went on and on about how Mary (presumably the resident spirit) loves Dick--until the others burst out laughing. That must have been their April 1st broadcast.  But he's said far stupider stuff.

Maybe that could be an idea for a story. Include a medium like that guy and... :twisted:

Scotty


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## Shouden (Oct 24, 2008)

YAY! I finally figured out what I am going to write for this one. *dances* should be good. Should have it done and edited by next week. Hopefully, I will have internet to submit it before the deadline.


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## ScottyDM (Dec 3, 2008)

Just a reminder.

*Entry deadline is this Sunday, December 7th, at the end of the day (GMT).*

The end of the day comes at 5:00pm for me (mountain time zone).

Scotty


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## Shouden (Dec 3, 2008)

I finally got mine in last week! Wooo!


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## ScottyDM (Dec 14, 2008)

I should have posted this earlier, but *the judging period is open*. Six ballots so far. As I promised, here are direct links to the stories with opening lines for each:


> *Fleeting Glimpse*
> 
> Cody cracked his toy dinosaurs together with a loud, forceful pop. The kitten let out a sharp hiss and a couple of meows, attempting to make his toys sound ferocious as he scraped and banged the plastic beasts against each other. Codyâ€™s father couldnâ€™t help but smile. He watched on from the bench underneath the window alcove as his son tried to imitate the noises of his imaginary, prehistoric duel.
> 
> read more





> *Through Me*
> 
> Red Eye. Thatâ€™s what they call someone like me: someone who can see the dead. Ghosts, demons, angels â€“ whatever you want to call them â€“ I can see them. My name is Rex Tanner. Iâ€™m a homicide detective for what was once Spokane, Washington. Itâ€™s name was changed after the eruption wiped it out and changed the entire landscape of the planet. Yellowstone â€“ Funny, I never thought that Kay was one for geological studies when I met her.
> 
> read more





> *A Fatherâ€™s Skin*
> 
> Amanti was not yet old enough to be initiated, but he knew that it was his father wearing the cloak of furs made from the skins of his ancestors. He had seen the musty old collection of wolf-furs at home, bound and sewn together, a dozen empty heads laying flat against the mud wall and with the shadows through the holes of their eyes, and he knew that his father wore them when the spirits were free to roam, when the ancestors stole back to life.
> 
> read more


A reminder. The theme this quarter is ghost story and here are the rules for story scoring.

Enjoy! And thanks.

Scotty


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## TakeWalker (Dec 14, 2008)

Those get better as you read down. I can all but guarantee the third is the best story. But you've only got three submissions?


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## M. LeRenard (Dec 14, 2008)

I never entered.  Oh well.  I should probably do some judging, in any case.


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## ScottyDM (Dec 15, 2008)

Yea, only three. Maybe I should offer a prize.

Monsieur, please do!

S-


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## M. LeRenard (Dec 16, 2008)

> Maybe I should offer a prize.


PT keeps saying something about a plaque.  Whatever happened to that?


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## Xipoid (Dec 16, 2008)

ScottyDM said:


> Yea, only three. Maybe I should offer a prize.
> 
> Monsieur, please do!
> 
> S-



Only three contestants? How odd. I thought this contest usually ran about twenty or so.


You know, I'm not sure how much offering a prize would help. I've held contests before that offered sums of money for numerous winning positions and yet received a surprisingly low amount of entries. 

To put it into perspective, there were seven possible winners but only six people entered (after four months no less!). Even if someone else had entered and submitted a blank sheet, they would have won by default. Personally, I don't understand.


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## ScottyDM (Dec 16, 2008)

Xipoid said:


> I've held contests before that offered sums of money for numerous winning positions and yet received a surprisingly low amount of entries.


Promotion is certainly a part of getting attention. I'm mostly sticking to the furry community, but I also promote on one author-centric website.

Promotion is important... no, critical. There are dozens of author-centric sites. And I only touch four furry sites, there are many others. Plus there are lists of writing contests, and I haven't submitted the Anthrofiction Network contest to any of those lists.

Two problems with promotion: it takes time, and I would collapse under the weight of a lot of stories with a lot of ballots. I need more automation on the site. I poke at this now and then, and it's getting there, but I'm not really ready for a flood of stories and ballots. In summer 2007 there were nine stories and 141 ballots. It used to take me about 25 minutes to process each story (now down to about 15 minutes) to prepare it for the website. Then calculating the results used to take a bit over five minutes per ballot (now down to one minute) plus about 45 minutes per story (now down to 20 minutes). Since I'm not a robot it took me almost 2 days to get the results published that quarter. Now I know why Nadan dropped the contest at the end of 2005.

It's getting there, but I'm not quite ready for 20 stories per quarter.

Once that's solved then promoting the site would take some discipline and perhaps a co-manager or two to split the load.

Oh yea, some of those contest lists require a prize or they don't list the contest. If the contest appears to be a scam--high entry fee and everyone is published in an anthology, which authors must buy--that's okay, as long as there's a prize.

Scotty


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## Poetigress (Dec 16, 2008)

M. Le Renard said:


> PT keeps saying something about a plaque.  Whatever happened to that?



I'd be curious on that as well.    For "a sense of wonder," it was going to be a piece of turquoise, that there were pics posted of somewhere.  (Actually, I think all the contest winners that year were getting turquoise, if I remember correctly.) And for "green," it was supposed to be amazonite.  I think the stones were to be mounted on wood, with an engraved little tag with the author's name and the contest, but I could be wrong on the details.

On principle, I don't care all that much if there's a prize or not, although while we're on principle I think if you offer something, you should deliver...   I can say, though, at the risk of sounding avaricious, that from a practical standpoint, if there were some kind of cash prize (even just a $20 Amazon gift certificate or the like for the winner), I would be much more likely to enter every quarter.


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## Poetigress (Dec 16, 2008)

ScottyDM said:


> It's getting there, but I'm not quite ready for 20 stories per quarter.



Frankly, I don't know if the readers/voters would be either.  I think at that point, you'd get very few readers actually reading and voting on all the entries.  If you were to start getting something like 20 stories per quarter, you might have to come up with a different way to judge -- maybe elimination-type rounds, or bringing in a panel to narrow the field, or something, I don't know.  

(Then again, I don't know how many readers vote on every single story now, so maybe it's not a big issue.)


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## foozzzball (Dec 16, 2008)

I'd adore it if there were more exposure for the winners, something to assist in the endless quest to attract readership.


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## Poetigress (Dec 16, 2008)

Maybe the winners should each get a little "guest page" on Anthrofiction.net, with a place for their bio and links and so on...?


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## M. LeRenard (Dec 17, 2008)

Man, that last story on the list was just... even if you don't feel like judging, everyone ought to read at least that one.  You'll be glad you did.

(Hey PT: I think Scott is deliberately ignoring our comments about the plaques.  Ten bucks says they don't exist. )


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## ScottyDM (Dec 17, 2008)

M. Le Renard said:


> (Hey PT: I think Scott is deliberately ignoring our comments about the plaques.  Ten bucks says they don't exist. )


Noooo... Scott is embarrassed because he let something stupid like mental blocks (which he really should be playing with) get in his way of completing the "blue sky" plaques. He has the wood cut, polished, and oiled. And he has the turquoise pieces cut and polished. He's just being a horse's backside.

As far as the amazonite... :-? There's a box of the stuff around here somewhere, but Scott wanted "fresh" crystals. :roll: 

:-|


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## ScottyDM (Jan 7, 2009)

*There are only about 12 hours left to read and judge the three short stories in the contest.* So far only two people besides myself have done so. Authors, you may read and judge too.

*We have: this story, that story, and the other story.*

Scotty


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## foozzzball (Jan 7, 2009)

This is wonky. I submitted ballots early on, but the system doesn't seem to have them anymore?


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## ScottyDM (Jan 7, 2009)

foozzzball said:


> This is wonky. I submitted ballots early on, but the system doesn't seem to have them anymore?


That _is_ wonky.

The old site code used to store all user-submitted stuff in temporary files and when I went to the new code for summer this year I tried hard to eliminate those temporary files. Unfortunately one of the web browsers I was testing with would eliminate HTML entities while round-tripping with the server (one can submit a comment or story, then loop on that... the round-tripping), so I was forced to use temp files rather than rely on the web browser to do the right thing. Once someone clicks the "Cast Ballot" button the ballot data is put in the ballots database file and the temp file is deleted. I see two temp files left over from December 9th, and they are yours.

So that's what happened. Either you forgot to click the "Cast Ballot" button, or you did click it, but somehow the server didn't see it (a communication failure).

I now see data for two successfully cast ballots in the ballots database with your user ID, so you've corrected the problem. Thanks! However you had comments in your old ballots but not in your new. Would you like me to copy/paste your comments from your old ballots back in? 

Scotty

PS: The system keeps an audit trail of changes to the ballots database file just in case something icky happens when someone clicks the "Cast Ballot" button. Something icky could mean a server failure halfway through updating the file. Same with the users database and stories database files.


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## Poetigress (Jan 7, 2009)

ScottyDM said:


> *There are only about 12 hours left to read and judge the three short stories in the contest.* So far only two people besides myself have done so.



Yikes.  ><  I guess just bad timing with the judging period ending right after the holidays?


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## foozzzball (Jan 7, 2009)

ScottyDM said:


> So that's what happened. Either you forgot to click the "Cast Ballot" button, or you did click it, but somehow the server didn't see it (a communication failure).
> 
> I now see data for two successfully cast ballots in the ballots database with your user ID, so you've corrected the problem. Thanks! However you had comments in your old ballots but not in your new. Would you like me to copy/paste your comments from your old ballots back in?
> 
> Scotty



If you've got the old ballots and comments, use those! I just sent in new ones earlier today, since I thought I'd need to re-do it.

Any chance the same thing happened to other people?


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## ScottyDM (Jan 7, 2009)

Done, Foozzzball.

The temp files contain only your comments, so I just put those into your existing ballots.


The judging period is closed and it's time I started calculating the results. I see there are a total of 22 ballots.

Scotty


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## ScottyDM (Jan 9, 2009)

*Results for the Fall 2008 Anthrofiction Short Story Contest*


*A Fatherâ€™s Skin* by foozzzball won with a score of *4.34*
*Fleeting Glimpse* by Sean Silva a.k.a duroc earned a score of *3.41*
*Through Me* by Azola earned a score of *2.59*
The contest results can be viewed here, and congratulations to all the authors. Each story had something to recommend it.

I'd like to thank the authors and readers for their contributions. Without you the site would be useless.

Scotty


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## foozzzball (Jan 9, 2009)

Thank you guys, I'm just. Wow. I'm very Jaw --> Floor right now. XD

Thank you all, I'm really glad you liked it.


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## M. LeRenard (Jan 10, 2009)

Great work foozzzball.  That was a brilliant story.  Seriously.


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## Shouden (Jan 10, 2009)

man, I really need to read the other two stories....and do better editing when I submit a story. Anyways, I hope to enter the next contest,  so, I'll catch you then.


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## ScottyDM (Jan 13, 2009)

My apologies to the authors. I suffered a brain fart when I hand-prepared the control files that add the ballot comments to the stories. I overlooked an important step because there were no private comments this quarter. Everyone could see comments on other people's stories, but authors could not see them on their own.

Again, my bad.

So authors, if you go to the Fall 2008 contest in the Past Contests folder and click on your story, you'll now see comments.

Scotty


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