*MCL CONTEST -- WINNERS AND POST GAME TALK*

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c.e.lawson

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A couple more comments on entries:

#7 – Maryn – Nicely detailed. The thing I like best about this is how Maryn weaved in the backstory without it feeling like info dumping. Each remembrance/thought of Brenda’s was tied closely into something happening in the present. And it was so different to have 9/11 tied into the story. Some of the lines were just perfect –

“Amen,” her family chorused, except Lauren. Ironic, considering the oversized silver cross on a heavy chain, today paired with a studded dog collar.

Whether your oldest had figured out why Daddy’s assistant at Cantor Fitzgerald felt free to adjust his tie and touched him more than Mom did.

She did a great job at showing Brenda’s exhaustion and a family’s pain but ended on a positive, going forward note. We know they’ll make it.

#4 – c.bronco – Lots of good plot weaved into a short piece. Great beginning. The narrative voice conveyed a certain personality of the MC which went quite well with the plot – a bit hair raising, too. Nicely done!

#2 - orchDork - Lovely description of the snow and cold. I liked Brenda's relationship with her horse. I also liked the part about Brenda's boys - was this the only entry where Brenda had three boys? - how the ranch had turned them into men. And a suspenseful ending! Nice job.


I've got to run out again, but I'm not finished. :)

c.e.
 

Teige Benson

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Do please tell us about the larger Brenda with beef stuck in her teeth and her hair chopped off. I'd really like to hear more about how you came at that character. I think many times we're afraid to give our characters 'uncomfortable' flaws. I mean, there's the "he's a perfectionist, so he's hard on himself and others" type of flaw, and then there's the chunk of beef in her teeth and extra rolls around the midriff in a scene where a man is sexually attracted to a character. I found that fascinating.

c.e.

Thanks for your interest (both you and WittyandorIronic) on this character. I wanted to write about someone who was different from the typical beautiful and strong female main characters we're used to reading about and seeing in movies.

I wanted this Brenda to be part of the reality we see around us. A lot of time, when people try to escape or hide from their problems, they turn to food. I also had this character cut all her hair off (partly as her way to cut ties to the past) and partly to show that she doesn't want to care (for her hair/appearance or anything else).

Hank sees more than he wants to - both in her external appearance and in the woman she tries to hide.
 

orchdork

Compass didn't work so well this time...

Hello???
...
...
...
Ah well, because I'm a newbie, I need to explain my compass didn't work. (Damn that Brenda and her ranch ethics anyways) I went to Cabela's to pick up one of them new fangled global positioning systems but when I described to the counter guy what I wanted to do (find my way through the massive AW forums) he laughed and said I needed a Galaxy positioning system thingy. They weren't on sale so I've been milling around the internet wondering what happened to the first piece of writing I've ever presented to the world at large. (Imagine, MCL???)

What is that I wondered? I read about the contest while lurking on the novel writing threads, a place I found last June or July. When the Moderator closed the thread under novel writing, I was thinking "what the ****?

Now that my daughter (home at thanksgiving) found me wandering around aimlessly, blabbering incoherently, (she says) I have now found where I'm supposed to be....I think.

I literally wrote most of my submission at lunch on the 22nd. I just happened to read the post on the contest and the story popped into my head.

When I read the others I thought "Holy cripes these folks are serious!"

Did I mention that I liked Pajamas? Really made me smile.

I would like to challenge all of this years contestants to next years contest. I promise to give it a lot more attention next November.

What is it with the Red/Auburn hair?

Thanks for the nice comments. I've been accused of senility for getting lost....

At least I wasn't scared.

Thank you for all of the work putting this thing on.

OD
 

jst5150

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Orchdork,

Thank you for the submission! It was great! You should be proud for entering -- more fuel for the many other upcoming contests in AW!

jt
 

III

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Congratulations to everyone and kudos to Jason for putting so much heart and effort into the contest. I really enjoyed reading the entries. Poor Brenda got put through almost as much pain as Haggis! I loved it!
 

c.e.lawson

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Last entries to comment on:

#11 - reigningcatsanddogs - This one had some similarities to my entry - the talk with a male for emotional support, the tragic car accident backstory. As a mom who used to work more hours and then pared them down once I had kids, I definitely can relate to Brenda's guilt. Loved the banter between Brenda and her uncle about the horse - especially the part about the horse's name. I felt for Brenda here - building her protective wall around her. Good thing she's got her uncle. Nicely done.

#10 - qdsb - I think this is another courageous entry. Courageous because qdsb dared to have her MC take the easy (and I would say cowardly) way out - leaving her children and what sounds like a supportive, loving husband to escape her own personal, work-related fall out and let them deal with it. And it sure doesn't sound like she's in any hurry to return to her family. I'd be interested to see what ramifications her decision has on her future. Nice descriptions of Brenda and her family, too - I got a good visual and a clear slice of each of their personalities in such a short snippet.

#5 - nessam - Interesting idea to have her escaping from her convicted, embezzler husband. You paint a vivid picture of Brenda here. Lots of visual and behavioral cues to help the reader imagine the scene clearly. I love the idea of her personal sacrifice to keep the kids safe. Interesting angle also to have Brenda hate being at the ranch. Most of the other entries had the ranch as a sort of ideal place of escape where it offered peace and comfort, but she was there only to keep the kids safe. Nice job!

Great work, everybody! You should all be proud. Now I'm heading over to the Christian Forum Writing Contest to give them some support, since some of those guys read and voted here.

c.e.
 

jst5150

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All:

With apologies to Teige Benson, I never made clear which if the entries was a winner. It was Entry #12. I'll correct the first entry here as well to reflect that.

Jason
 

kdnxdr

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Congratulations to all!

How cool!

I have to admit, I wimped out and am now regretting that I didn't enter. Congratulations to all who did participate and a special "YAHOO" for all the winners!

kid
 

jst5150

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(I've PM'd all involved here, but want to ensure all contestants get the word)

All:

I told you I would bring in someone to offer comments on your work. He has. He is a former feature writer for the DOD (like me, but he;s also worked for NASA doing the same. He's served as the Public Relations lead for the Hilton in Waikiki and is now working for a public relations firm in Colorado. Most recently, his first book will be available in 2008 (don't recall the publisher's name). He is not a member of the AW Forum.

So, I have his comments. :)

His comments are more direct than mine, as I recused myself from judgement. However, I think you'll find them insightful. So, here's the deal.

I can release the entire list to each of you privately. Or, I can post it on the forum. Or I can keep them to myself. So three choices. :)

Please let me know which you'd prefer within the next 24 hours or so. That should give everyone sufficient time to respond here. Just PM me. I'll tally the votes and that's what we'll do.

Thanks!

Jason
 

C.bronco

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Wow, I just saw this today. Congratulations to the winners! I didn't know how everyone would approach this, and I think I fell short on the description of physical details- oh plotty me!
It was fun to read, and a good learning experience. Thanks Jason!
 

jst5150

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"Celebrity" comments

OK folks, the majority has spoken and you wanted the comments here. So, what follows are his remarks:

#1. I struggled with the direction on this one. An insecure woman struggling to come out of the shadow of a dominating relationship yet also looking for the new guy to shelter(shadow) her? It seemed melodramatic, or an illustration of an insecure woman repeating a behavior.


#2. "Snow flakes exploding" doesn't click for me. The ending didn't, either. This has potential, but lacks polish and flow.


#3. Man, what a great concept. Character study of someone struggling with an (at the outset) unrevealed handicap, trying to deal with the simplest task. But I think it focused too much on the conversation after the fact, and the guy coming to find her. Way more effective would have been to keep the focus on Brenda, struggling alone with a basic challenge against a disability she has not always had, with the guy coming along for reinforcement in at the end.


#4. I don't get the opening at all. Did Stacy kill Brenda and steal her identity?


#5 A good start. Writer needs to further explore every thought and every sentence. Some of it is very narrative or non-descript. Reminds me of some of my earliest writing. Writer should discard what isn't essential and expand on everything else . . . thoughts, motivators, even descriptions of actions and images.


#6 I kept wondering where's the point? Is this woman happy now? Is this a glimpse at her healing process? Was the cheating dad killed on 9/11 when she was pregnant? Is that too much one-character turmoil to cover in this short a piece?


#7 Nice vignette window into Brenda's character, which is what the rules called for. I thought the dude was a little contrived, but I could see him talking, like a fiction character intentionally painted on the fringe of caricature, so (I hope) that's OK.


#8 Wow. I ate this up. The turns of phrase and metaphors, the way Cal is portrayed as a clear, believable and likable character while staying in the shadow of Brenda, whose mystery remains the focus of the story. This is well-written and highly enjoyable.


#9 Offers me little insight into the character. And is that "Beth" instead of "Brenda" intentional?


#10 Good start, pleasant read, but the end was rather blah, like "and then they find her, and it's gotta be someone important . . . so it's her CEO!"


#11 A little melodramatic, but I was waiting for someone to play the "grieving mom loses kids in accident" angle, so when it came, I was pre-jaded. That said, it did read more like a script of a TV movie.


#12 An enjoyable read that made me want to know Brenda's mysterious background, and culminated with a page-turning teaser that played directly to the contest theme. One minor grammatical note, and I may be wrong about this. In the sentence: "Some things you could outrun, but the haunting sounds of the past were not one of them." Is that a subject-pronoun disconnect on "sounds" and "one of them"?


Overall, that wasn't the only grammatical thing I found … Couple other minor disconnects in other pieces, but nitpicking grammar or usage isn't the purpose, right? No. This was even more enjoyable than I expected, particularly since the topic rang absolutely no "cool-bells" with me. But I read nothing that was bad, only different degrees of development. #8 was hands-down the best in my book. I read several paragraphs twice not for comprehension, but out of appreciation.
 

nerds

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Very, very helpful.

Can't thank you and your friend enough for all the time that's been put into this. Plz buy him a fancy dinner for having the patience to read through twelve versions of the same thing. :D I'd do it, but, well, I don't know him.

:Sun:
 

LimeyDawg

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#8 – LimeyDawg – I really loved the figurative language in this one. The entire piece was poetic, and the voice was very male. I’m envious of how LimeyDawg strings his words together – very beautiful phrases and images throughout. A few of my favorites:

Here, where the ground had generously given up its trove, she gave so little of herself that a man could starve on the difference between what he knew of her and nothing.

Pieces of herself were all she gave, crumbs to the curious, but never enough to satisfy the hunger of curiosity.

She was nitroglycerin in her unpredictability, and the whispers around the 99er was that she blew when the questions cut too close, when the scrape of a comment chased away the veneer of her exile and exposed the skin of her past.

Beautifully done, LimeyDawg.

I'm heading to bed now. More to come tomorrow.

c.e.
Thanks, C.E., I definitely appreciate the nice comments. Congratulations on the win.

MM
 

C.bronco

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OK folks, the majority has spoken and you wanted the comments here. So, what follows are his remarks:



#4. I don't get the opening at all. Did Stacy kill Brenda and steal her identity?
Yep. The second sentence was originally the first sentence, but I added the first because I was afraid it wasn't clear enough. I probably should have added more.
 

jst5150

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Folks, you all did outstanding.

I hope you'll use this asa jumping off point for other contests at AW. Key is writing, not the genre. Jump off and pull your chute when you need to. But enjoy the ride down.

Jason
 

nerds

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We are out standing in our fields. :tongue Good thing I brought pen and paper. :D
 
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