Anthrofiction Short Story Contest for Summer 2007
Submitted by ScottyDM on Tue, 06/12/2007 - 6:07pm.
Announcing...
Anthrofiction Network's Short Story Contest for Summer 2007
And we have a theme! "And isn't she a beaut!" — in the same sense Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, used to use that phrase when describing a big salty. This theme will probably grab a few of the less wary by a limb, drag them into the swamp of their own prose, and put them into a death roll.
Ahh, what is it? Take a peek, if you dare.
And we have the rules.
As always, never any fees to enter. Someday this year I'll have the trophies completed. I still need to get the proper rocks for 2007. Good luck to everyone who attempts an entry! < giggles — then is yanked back into the mire that is his sample story > "Ow! Dang, that's gonna leave a mark."
Scotty
The analysis is done and I can announce the results
144 Ballots
The analysis is done and I can announce the results.
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Childish Things by Renee Carter Hall scored 4.67 with 16 verified ballots.
The Cost of an Heir by Michelle Hicks scored 4.39 with 37 verified ballots.
Ruled by the Water by Teric scored 4.25 with 21 verified ballots.
It's Like a Jungle in There! by Chrissy-ma, aka Chris Hazelgrove, scored 3.82 with 11 verified ballots.
The Gray Wolf: A Fairy Tale Retold by Abby “Merc” Rustad scored 3.77 with 11 verified ballots.
The Otherworld by Vaperfox scored 3.32 with 11 verified ballots.
Butterfly Kisses by McKenna scored 3.27 with 15 verified ballots.
Monkeys and Magic by Andrea M. Bodel scored 3.23 with 11 verified ballots.
Song of the Silent by Angela McKnight scored 2.97 with 9 verified ballots.
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Congratulations to Ms. Hall and to everyone who entered the contest. And thanks to those who scored the stories.
This contest received about three times as many ballots as I'm used to getting and my method for processing them is not very scalable. I need to come up with a new method before December.
Scotty
Edited to add direct links to the stories.
Read Some Sweet Anthrofiction
My apologies. I should have updated this thread almost two weeks ago.
Anthrofiction Network's short story contest for summer 2007 is in the judging phase. The judging phase will close on September 4th at the end of the day (GMT).
The theme this quarter is A Sense of Wonder, which is a challenge for any writer because it's all about the emotion. Two goals: show a character who feels a sense of wonder about something, then write it such that the reader shares that sense of wonder with the character. Very tough.
There are nine stories, so without further ado, here are links to the stories along with a small sample of each....
They say that miracles only happen by chance, or when you just get lucky. Miracles are merely a mistake that can have some good come along by accident. And still some even say that miracles are only a figment of our imaginations. I didn't believe in miracles along with all those other people. But, like them, I was wrong.
David sat in the hospital cafeteria, sipping coffee that had gone cold half an hour before. It didn't matter; he wasn't thirsty, wasn't hungry. He felt rather like the corridors around him: white and blank and cold.
Tall, parched grasses swayed in a lazy pattern around sparse trees. Tree trunks split into gnarled branches, which in turn divided into spider webs of knotted, leafless twigs. Hot, dry winds brought swirling wisps of fine dirt into the air, blowing across the savannah in irregular patterns. Kuru felt her fur ruffle as a breeze brought a fresh dusting onto her back.
"I'm not going over this again," Blinock said as he wrapped his arms around his mate's small frame and gazed up at the stars. It was hard to stay mad with her in his arms.
He stared at the other tools on the table. There was a pair of forceps, which had smooth, flat circular pieces on the inside of the tines, and a cup of water. He had also brought a blade along, which was heating in the fire. His mentor had suggested using a hot blade so that the wound would be seared shut immediately.
"Humble yourself before your king wolf-man, and perhaps he will be merciful," the magistrate intoned.
Perhaps if he did not already have his staff calked to strike the 'doomed' gong I might have been more impressed. It didn't matter anyway.
In the ominous silence of the city street, two people walked hand-in-hand towards the unknown.
Their jovial laughter echoed through the snowy November day. Few pedestrians walked the streets in such cold and the couple found themselves alone.
It has been many appearances of Mother Sun and Father Moon since I last tasted man-flesh. The vivacious star-daughters dance mockingly, and the cloud-sons gust and brood around their dam in the great sky. I cry to them, "Let me join you, oh my kin!" but they do not heed me. My pleas are scorned—banished I remain.
Harold's bottom had hardly settled in his deck-chair when he suddenly remembered his wife's pot plants. He had not watered them since she set off on a rare visit to her sister in Australia. He leapt up like a cat with its tail on fire.
Thanks for participating and I hope that if you're a writer you can join us next quarter. Transformation is always welcome as long as you anthropomorphize at least one of the character's forms.
Scotty
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Anthrofiction Network
The Deadline Cometh!
Greetings!
The entry period for the summer contest is coming to a close. I have six entries so far, but sadly one is not anthrofiction. Hopefully the author can manage to tweak the main character before the entry deadline as the story was interesting.
The theme has been causing trouble, at least the way I see it. I have not been prejudging the entries for theme, as it is very subjective. What I was looking for with the theme is that someone--either a character in the story or the reader--will experience a jaw-dropping sense of "Wow!" Not "Wow!" as in shock, but "Wow!" as in "That's amazing!" A very, very tough thing for any author to accomplish.
The deadline is Tuesday at "the end of the day." What this means is midnight Greenwich Mean Time. So the deadline depends on what timezone you're in. For example we here in the Americas have our deadline well before midnight.
Good luck to the existing entrants and I hope to see more stories.
Scotty
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Anthrofiction Network