August Contest: Finalists
Well…this is weird. We had a little over twenty entries for the August contest and there’s only one I’d call unreadable. Everything else was good. That’s…not the usual trend.
It was a tough decision. Some stories lost points for simply being out of the time period, some lost points for being a bit too long without necessarily needing to be long, and some lost points for trying to shoehorn clever into a perfectly even and well-executed story. There are actually four stories that I really liked and before getting to my top three I’d like to give a bit of honorable mention to Pete Anderson’s entry “One Evening in St. Paul.” More on that in a minute…finalists!
1) Xander Bennett’s untitled story…the first one I received. Very simple and well executed. It was between this one and Pete Anderson’s, mentioned above. They were similar stories but, when it came down to it, I simply liked the way this one ended – focusing on the forgotten postcard. That sort of captures the feeling of the POSTCARDS project more; forgotten postcards with amazing stories behind them found decades later. Xander’s ending seemed like a subtle nod to that and I appreciated it a bit more because of it.
2) Lynn Turner’s “Wrestling in San Antonio.” When I first read this I was a bit put off by what I considered to be historical inaccuracies. The story felt very modern and the postcard obviously isn’t recent. However, I let it slide this time since the postcard wasn’t mailed - there wasn’t a date stamped on it. I thought this piece was well executed. I kept expecting some sort of “I’m Clever” ending but, instead, it bridged into the obvious story behind the postcard without being too on-the-nose. It was a cute piece – a little uneven at times, but it made me smile and that’s always good.
3) Jesse Hanna’s untitled story is a great example of clever done right. It didn’t try to hard and took advantage of the 500-word maximum to come up with a story that didn’t attempt to disguise its ending but didn’t give the reader enough time to figure it out.
So, there you have it. Thanks to everyone who submitted a story – I hope you had as much fun writing them as I had reading them. I will be doing something similar next month if anyone wanted to take another crack at it. So you know, a super-signed copy of POSTCARDS went for $250 at the CBLDF auction. I guess that makes this a nice little prize.
Vote below – I’ll close this down on the 31st at 11:59PM EST.
CLOSED
It was a tough decision. Some stories lost points for simply being out of the time period, some lost points for being a bit too long without necessarily needing to be long, and some lost points for trying to shoehorn clever into a perfectly even and well-executed story. There are actually four stories that I really liked and before getting to my top three I’d like to give a bit of honorable mention to Pete Anderson’s entry “One Evening in St. Paul.” More on that in a minute…finalists!
1) Xander Bennett’s untitled story…the first one I received. Very simple and well executed. It was between this one and Pete Anderson’s, mentioned above. They were similar stories but, when it came down to it, I simply liked the way this one ended – focusing on the forgotten postcard. That sort of captures the feeling of the POSTCARDS project more; forgotten postcards with amazing stories behind them found decades later. Xander’s ending seemed like a subtle nod to that and I appreciated it a bit more because of it.
2) Lynn Turner’s “Wrestling in San Antonio.” When I first read this I was a bit put off by what I considered to be historical inaccuracies. The story felt very modern and the postcard obviously isn’t recent. However, I let it slide this time since the postcard wasn’t mailed - there wasn’t a date stamped on it. I thought this piece was well executed. I kept expecting some sort of “I’m Clever” ending but, instead, it bridged into the obvious story behind the postcard without being too on-the-nose. It was a cute piece – a little uneven at times, but it made me smile and that’s always good.
3) Jesse Hanna’s untitled story is a great example of clever done right. It didn’t try to hard and took advantage of the 500-word maximum to come up with a story that didn’t attempt to disguise its ending but didn’t give the reader enough time to figure it out.
So, there you have it. Thanks to everyone who submitted a story – I hope you had as much fun writing them as I had reading them. I will be doing something similar next month if anyone wanted to take another crack at it. So you know, a super-signed copy of POSTCARDS went for $250 at the CBLDF auction. I guess that makes this a nice little prize.
Vote below – I’ll close this down on the 31st at 11:59PM EST.
CLOSED
August 27, 2007 5:22 PM
I'm glad to be in such good company. Good luck to the other finalists, and thanks for a fun little competition. :)
xanderbennett.blogspot.com
August 28, 2007 10:17 AM
I love Lynn Turner's story! It has mystery, romance, and humor; many of the things it takes to have a wonderful readable story. My vote is for Lynn.
August 28, 2007 5:59 PM
All of these are good, but I love Lynn Turner's the best. It is funny and very well written. I want more. I felt like this was an excerpt from the middle and I want the beginning and the end. I definately voted for Lynn.