Improving our 300 Word Stories -- READ FIRST POST!

[The Judge]

You're absolutely right, mosaix, and I meant to add that dialogue is definitely one of your strengths and it read as very natural and realistic. Nonetheless, I'd still have been tempted to cut some of the extraneous bits -- the story was strong enough not to need any further plot in this instance so the words weren't wasted as such, but I'd personally have made it a touch tighter.

Ursa, I really liked yours, but I got a bit confused about who everyone was and why it was happening. Having read your explanation in the Discussion thread it makes perfect sense, as does the difference between the two Magick-y terms. I think if I'd understood that better you'd have been definitely in the running for a vote, though I'm not sure who'd have lost out in that case. (mosaix possibly, for being so careless with his commas. )

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Thanks, everyone -- I see now that it wasn't anywhere near as clear on paper as it was in my head!

The idea was that the Horseman wasn't really just a legend, he was real; wherever he appeared, there was a battle, but it was correlation rather than causation. He appeared wherever a battle was about to start, looking for the raiders (really not the right word, but I didn't want "warriors" for both sides) who had killed him -- but of course, it became a legend that he brought battle with him, and he became a bad omen.

So Shara sees him coming, and she is afraid of him, but she runs to warn her village that a battle is coming. They get ready for battle, and when the other guys show up, they are ready to meet them instead of being surprised and slaughtered. Then the Headless Horseman comes out, and it appears that he has come with the bad guys to attack the village, but instead he joins the village side and they win. The title comes from a Bob Dylan song of the same name, about how everyone who wins thinks it was because God was on their side.

I think this ought to be a longer story.

Springs, I really thought your story was a lot like mine, when all I had was the idea. I had to think it over before I decided it wasn't close enough to worry about. I really loved yours, and it was so close to being a vote.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Cheers, everyone (and for the nearly vote, TDZ.) it sounds like we took a similar wrongturning, on terms of getting our stakes clear and out there!

Mosaix, for me I needed something to break up the dialogue, and that's not like me. Just a tiny beat or two more would have done it for me. Ursa, all went over my head, sorry. (But I'm a bit of a bear of little brain about those sort of things. )

 

[Mr Orange]

thought i'd keep this thread going a little bit longer, hopefully people are still going to come back and have a look....

mosaix: i liked yours a lot, hence the vote. i guess as has been mentioned, it could have been tightened a bit more. not sure what else you could have done as i thought it was great.

springs: i really liked the premise of yours but it lacked depth for me. the girl's father has been searching for years, then she joins him and lo and behold, she finds the key, puts it in the soldier, they come to life, will save the day, and the father and daughter go home... i would have liked more mention of what the Alymic are actually doing, naybe have the daughter search for years after the father has truly gone mad, searching just on a promise, then maybe having the rusty old army heading off to fight the Alymic and there being a question over whether they will win... just my 2c...

so i thought i'd put mine up, hope it's not too late to get some comments. i really had no inspiration this time around and actually said to myself "it's just a bloody painting!" that then became the first line (later edited out) and the story went from there. one problem i did have was when i realised i hadn't actually described the painting at all and so for someone that hadn't seen the inspiration pic, it made no sense. describing it stole valuable words and made it harder to get a developed story in there:
________________________________________________________________________________________

Futility of the Innocent, Claudio della Inganno (c.1645)


Fifty three ornate paintings hung in the dusty gallery, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the lively, dappled light of one intricate scene. A tall warrior sat on his white charger, lance held proudly over the small girl in front of him. Her unseen face gazed up at the gallant knight. I stood in the reflected glow, captivated.

I was there for hours before I noticed it. For some reason I decided to count brush strokes between the knight’s lance and the girl’s head, and I lost my place. When I started again I realised there wasn’t a full brush stroke below the lance anymore. It was some kind of half stroke, as if the lance had dropped towards the girl. Then, the slightest whisper, like unseen leaves swirling.

Help.
~

The dark, empty gallery rang with the squeal of copper against plastic as I unscrewed the screen. It dropped to the ground with a cacophonic clatter.

The uncovered painting shimmered and danced, and the lance jerked towards the girl. I heard a faint, plaintive cry and instinctively reached for the lance. As my fingertips touched the rough surface of the painting the girl’s small hand shot out and gripped mine. Her fingers were cold and clammy, like a fish, and her grip was strong. She turned, her face a black space beneath soft curls. Red, malevolent eyes glared and a cackle like a drowning raven rang out from the painting.
~

I woke on the floor of the gallery, rushing whispers in my ears and an empty, dark painting on the wall in front of me. The girl and the knight had gone. The gallery was empty, but I did not feel alone.

We rose and walked unsteadily from the room.

 

[The Judge]

I really liked yours Mr O. I understood what happened (at least I think I did...) and the ending was a corker. But a few things made the difference for me between shortlisting and a vote.

I'm not an artist myself, but I've stood in front of plenty of pictures in museums and galleries, and nothing about your description here chimed with reality -- eg there being countable brush strokes between two things close together, eg there being any kind of screen between the painting and the viewer which he has to undo, much less one which is actually screwed into the frame! The threat in the painting didn't feel right to me, either, since the lance is held "over" the girl, not pointed at her -- I know if it landed on her bonce it would probably kill her, but it still doesn't read as a direct threat which for me it should have done.

For me, also, there were far too many words used, mostly adjectives, which weren't quite right in themselves or for the scene to my mind eg "ornate paintings," "intricate scene," "held proudly," "cacophonic clatter" -- that latter a real offender, I regret to say. I'm very conscious of words and word use, and these (and others) all jarred terribly.

Finally, the title didn't quite work for me. I love the idea of using the title of the painting to reflect both the supposed subject-matter and what actually happens, but again to me the choice of words let you down with "Futility". His name, too, was a good idea, but again it doesn't quite work, since he surely wouldn't be known as "Claud of Deception" as one might say "of Turin" but rather something like "Claud the Trickster" (and although I'm no Italian scholar I think it should be "dell'Inganno" shouldn't it?).

As I say I did like it, though, and to my mind it really just needed some tweaking.

 

[Mr Orange]

cheers for the comments TJ. i think that because i was short on inspiration and didn't really think it would come to much, perhaps i didn't give enough care to the story. which is a shame i guess as it may have garnered a few more votes if i had properly polished it.

i'm pretty sure in some of the oil paintings i have seen you can count brush strokes, but i'm not a big art fan. the plastic screen was not meant to be screwed directly into the frame, but rather around it, enclosing the painting (kind of like the protection the mona lisa gets in the louvre). and there was not meant to be any threat to the girl from the lance to begin with, only when the MC realises it's dropping towards her.

i'm really happy you picked up on the title, especially the artist's name! i have thrown a few things into titles before which i'm not sure people have picked up on. again, i picked the italian translations without too much thought. "futility" was meant to give it a more "old-worldy" feel.

again thanks for the comments ans it just goes to show, every story should be polished!

 

[Jo Zebedee]

This month confused me. I thought my entry in the 75 was very ordinary and it won, but I really liked this one, especially the voice, and the idea seemed original, but it didn't make much impact, and I'm a-wondering why. (If it's the slightly uncouth rabbiting of adults by the child, I'll blame Mr Springs' taste as he liked that...)

MR VICKERS’S ALIEN STONE

Mum says I shouldn’t worry about the Alien Stone in the back field. Mr Vickers put it there because his crop circles weren’t even oval and no one came to see them. A man’s got to earn a penny, she said, even if it’s a dodgy one.

“But,” I said, “there’re lights at night. They shine through the holes.”

Of course there were, she laughed. Mr Vickers used his Landrover’s headlights when there was a big crowd, and angled them just so. Since he was charging a tenner to get to the UFO fields, he needed to give some sort of show.

I was going to tell her the lights weren’t yellow like a car’s, but she told me to get my jammies on and went to make supper.

So I tried Dad, telling him about the ships in the sky. He nearly fell off his seat he laughed so hard. Jimmy Vickers had lights attached to his gyrocopter, he said, and when he got the nod he let it off. Then he sent me to bed before Mum had finished supper and it was cheese on toast with burnt bits.

I sat on my windowsill. The Stone was quiet, but soon the lights started. I stood on tiptoe and checked Mr Vickers’s house was empty – on a Sunday, he’d be preaching down the hall and Dad said he could numb a Saint’s arse once he got started. The lights got busier than ever until, with a flash, Mr Vickers’s house was gone, and then the church hall.

“Mum! Dad!” I shouted. They’d have to believe me now. I heard them running up the stairs, and then they stopped.

“Oh crap,” said Dad.

“See?” I said. “Aliens.”

But Daddy didn’t reply. In fact, he just vanished.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

This story certainly isn't bad. Good, clear writing, good characterizations. If I had to make any kind of criticism at all, it might be that the story pattern is somewhat predictable. A situation which is only pretending to be extraordinary turns out to really be extraordinary. From the first paragraph we know that real aliens are going to show up, so it's no big surprise.

 

[Juliana]

Springs, I really liked yours. It didn't get my vote, but was on my very short shortlist. I liked the voice a lot. But the challenges are odd beasties. In fact, they're probably a lot like queries. It depends on what other stories are in that month's batch, on whether most readers were in the mood for comedy or something more serious on that particular day and hour, etc.

Anyhow, that's not very helpful, so here's a thought: what if you tried Victoria's suggestion, to not give away that the child is right until the end? So change the sentence where the MC says the lights were not yellow, and tweak it so it really sounds like pure imagination. And then the end would come as more of a whammy... (I love the end).

 

[BigJ]

Well I suppose if I intend to post my story here I ought to provide some feedback on yours as well, springs.

If I may be perfectly honest, you tend to write very well, but your stories often don't resonate with me the way they seem to do with everyone else, so I may be the wrong person to comment, but I would have to echo the previous comments in that the ending didn't really surprise me and ultimately I didn't really care about everybody vanishing. It just didn't have that impact for me. On the other hand that may be more a reflection on me than the story . . . in any case, I'm sorry if that's not much help.

Mine didn't garner much attention this month (though I suppose I did get a vote from chrispy so I guess that means my grammar was on point?) and even reading it back myself I find it a bit of an odd duck with an abrupt ending (more on that later) but I think I'd still like to hear some feedback on it.

The Warrior's Twilight

The path is winding and my gait is slowed by the weight of years of combat
The wind howls through the barren trees, wailing a mournful lamentation
My sword burns with hunger on my back; the steel knows only thirst
Finally I brush aside grey hair to see the stone standing proudly alone in the glade

In the fading twilight I see the stone adorned with runes carved to her memory
So long forgotten, the memories flood over me without warning

Her auburn hair blowing in the north wind
Her slender figure glowing in the setting sun
Her emerald eyes dancing over midnight fires
Her toothy smile captivating my wicked mind
Her warm breath caressing the nape of my neck
Her milky flesh ensconced in my calloused hands

My tired eyes snap back to see the sun disappear over the trees
I cannot abide the weakness of the emotions and whims of the child I was
Yet here I stand, in the twilight of my life still tortured by the cruel hand of Fate
Yet here I stand, at the end of my time still bound in servitude to the cursed touch of Love

So many years had passed, would she be waiting for me beyond the shadow of this life?
A life spent in a maelstrom of steel and fire, could she forgive me for all the blood I’ve spilled?
When the beasts took her from me and left me alone, I swore my life to the Knights Errant
To live and die by the sword, for the steel knows only thirst, and this night one more soul to take

I lie alone with my sword by my side; life is pouring out of me
As the world fades to black, slender fingers grasp my hand


**NOTE**: I had originally intended a much darker ending, with the slender fingers being the cold bony hands of Death himself who greeted the protagonist with a message that the gods had need of him on the battlefields of the Plains of Creation or some such thing, and our hero remarking on how the touch of Fate and Love extends beyond death, then looking one last time upon his body laying next to the stone before departing the mortal realm. Ran out of words though, and didn't have time to adjust the whole story to fit all that in so I kind of just chopped it, hence the abruptness.

 

[Mr Orange]

springs, I was short on time so did my voting on the fly and shortlisted stories that drew me in quickly and deeply. yours unfortunately didn't. i guess i was looking for depth in the stories and didn't get it from yours. i also think victoria makes a good point in that there was no twist or surprise at the end, very early on we knew what was going to happen.

bigj yours did draw me in, hence the vote. looking at it now i can see that the ending is indeed a little abrupt and there could have been more of a story in it but like i said you did draw me in with the first para and i really liked it.

so on to my story.... see quote from the discussion for details, and the story is below. 1 vote for what i guess is a bit of an odd story, but i'd like to know what you all thought of it.

for my story, when i saw the picture i immediately thought of some kind of ancient creature. my original creature was stuck in between dimensions but it was too hard to build a story around that so it became a, well, god. the story looked odd written in normal paragraphs so i split it into the final lines and verses.

Annihilation of the Gods

I stretch across the aeons,
I am here and I am at the beginning of time.
My ken seeded this rock;
We were, are and forever will be the chosen.

In the darkness before dawn we fly
Across deep, empty spaces
And infinitely deeper time,
Fleeing the ruin of our kingdom.
Pitiless forces would destroy us.
In the depths there is haven.

We are the creators,
Our wings rupturing the ether.
Gas and fire where there was none.
A unified, instant thought,
Breathing life into the swirling mass.
It is a mistake.

We watch as it takes hold.
Waiting. Idle but ever patient.
In the oceans, the forests,
The deserts and the mountains.
Content to lie in the shadows.

Something looks up to the sky.
A blink, and we are exposed.
And we are exulted.
For a time we welcome it.

But Gods are known in heaven.
Faith rings out across epochs
And reaches beyond galaxies.
And they hear.
And they come.
On the wings of darkness,
Bearing death.

I am the last.
Belief gave us strength
And we fought them for millennia.
Once, victory was near;
Now the faith, our lifeblood,
Has bled away.

I am the last.
Unheeded, blasphemed, betrayed.
A forgotten God at the end.
Breaking, scattering
To the ends of time and space.

This is the end of our age.
We were here.
We were at the dawn of time.
We have no future.
All that remains is our gift.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Thanks, guys. (And @BigJ , don't worry, we all have different styles we like. I will excuse you from my plans for world domination. just )

Okay, a wee bit telegraphed. I can see that. Brilliant, thank you. I was worried it was the voice as I could see me using it elsewhere. And I'm glad the last line worked for you @Juliana because I liked it and thought my taste mechanism had been broken.

@BigJ and @Mr Orange poetry very rarely draws me in, so this might well be a bad on me rather than your pieces . But, also, they both came across as a little serious for my taste.

 

[Sancho]

Hi
Please find my comments below:

Springs
I thought the characters were well thought out and believable, especially the boy that no one believed. I agree with the other comments that a little more mystery, tension or perhaps a twist could have helped here. I think that the UFO in the backyard storyline has suffered from Speilberg type saturation making it even more challenging to make it stand out.

Big J
I liked the depth you gave to your character by slowly revealing his backstory. The ending did seem abrupt and made the story seem unbalanced. It felt like you needed another few hundred words to match the build up.

Mr Orange
I shortlisted your poem because I liked the feeling of timelessness that the beings and the poem projected. I thought that the structure fits it well. I think the only reason that I didn't vote for it was because I think it needed some kind of juxtaposition to make the passing of the aeons more powerful. For example if the immortal gods being offset somehow against a mere mortal timespan in some way.

This was my first 300 so I really would like some feedback on my story. I was happy that it got quite a few mentions but with only one vote, I would appreciate pointers on what I could do to improve it.


The Death of Innocents

The tall, square-jawed young Commander combed his blond hair in the mirror wall. Nestra bounced in, brown eyes gleaming. She jumped on him, kissing him.
"Quit messin up my uniform!" complained Shepherd,
"Did you get your orders?" asked Nestra
"Yup! Got the 1300s!" he readjusted his uniform, "You?"
"Yes, but... I've never killed anyone before!"
"Ain't about killin, Ness! It's about savin the gene pool."
"It's still terrible for them..."
"It's still orders for us!"

Nestra fired the Time ship's retro-thrusters, "Computer! Confirm date!"
"FEBRUARY 2015"
"Execute program YUTH-N8",
"INITIATING RE-ENTRY!"
The ship criss-crossed Eurasia, seeding cloud cover, finishing in Geo-synchronous orbit.
"SCANNING DISPERSION RATE..."
Nestra watched people emerge from their homes as the sun rose...
"SPACE-TIME DISTRESS BEACON DETECTED"
Impossible! WHERE?" she shouted.

Nestra exited her Time ship, strode up and touched her security tags to the Continuum symbol on the petrified tree stump. It shimmered open...
A bent, wrinkled old man tumbled out. Nestra dived to catch him.
He looked up, "Thank you Ness."
"...Shepherd?" She cradled his head, "...What happened to you?"
"Crashed in 1300's!... Had to watch millions die from the bubonic plague, THAT I SEEDED! Children... whole cities erased!" He gasped, "Couldn't face it! Tried to kill myself but...I met someone.
"Who?"
"Someone so innocent, so good! Ness! Showed me over the years how to help survivors."
"You only left this morning...?"
"After she died..." he coughed toward the stump. "...built dimensional stasis field... Knew you'd find me."
"Ness!... I was wrong. WE DO have a choice! Don't activate virus! Save... us!" He thrust something into her hand, sighed and lay still.

Opening her hand, Nestra found her own, timeworn security tags. She compared it to the shiny one around her neck. It was identical! Except for one word scratched on the back, "INNOCENT!"

 

[The Storyteller]

Alright, well I 'll put in my two cents here then!

Springs: I did quite enjoy the voice that you had in yours, and I didn't personally feel like the ending was 'ruined'. For me, it just didn't capture me as much as others. While it was very well-written and I couldn't pinpoint anything wrong with it, it didn't grab me. It wasn't as funny or as unexpected as a few. I think more it is a matter of personal taste and the fact that there were so many good entries, that some don't get picked without any specific reason against them.

BigJ: I liked your story a lot, and it actually went in and out of my choice for votes. I personally liked the ending best, but perhaps because I preferred it over a darker ending. In the end, there were just too many that demanded my votes.

Mr Orange: While I enjoyed your story, it didn't stand out to me as much as many others. One of the things I look for in making my decision is how much the story matches the image. There were other ones to me that seemed to incorporate the picture more clearly and connect to it more closely, so that was one of the factors for me. Still, though it wasn't my first choice of style, it was very well-written!

Sancho: I loved your story! Like with BigJ, it was one of my votes more than once, and in the end only missed it by the narrowest hair. In the end, I'm not really sure there is a reason why something else got chosen over it, other than mere necessity. I liked the idea, I liked the narrative, I liked the characters, I liked the ending; what can I say, I liked it a lot! Sorry I can't give you any constructive criticism; I was surprised your story didn't get more favour to be honest, but my personal preference doesn't always align with others.

And since, I'm here, I'll throw my story out for consideration. It did quite well actually, so I'm not too concerned with it, but I'd be interested to hear what people thought anyway.


The Alien Gate

The alien’s prison was nice enough; smiling ladies served him food, kept his cell clean, and took him for little walks about the enclosure. But Forester didn't care; he wasn't about to let those body-snatching villains conquer Earth without a fight.

Forester had played his part, pretending to be content and harmless. Now their guards were down, and he could escape. The moment he was left unattended, he made his move; stealing a car he sped off, soon arriving at his destination.

He only had a few minutes, but that was all he needed; pilfering supplies from the shed, he then hurried to the wooden totem through which the aliens’ souls came to Earth and invaded human bodies.

Forester doused the carven device with gasoline. His captors arrived, yelling at him to stop.

“Too late Space Fiends!” he cried, and lit the carving.

Forester was dragged away. Flame consumed the wood, and the gate was ruined.

* * *

Becky stared at the charred remains of her sculpture. Grandpa had always loved her work. Now he was breaking out of the Home to burn it.

“He really believes that alien invasion stuff, doesn't he?” asked Jordan, incredulous. “I knew he was senile, but I can’t believe he thought your carving was an alien transporter!”

“Dr. Morrison said he was improving…” Becky sighed. “I better call Mom and tell her what happened.”

* * *

Frowning, Dr. Morrison watched Forester through the observation window. “So, he still remembers…”

“Not where the real gate is, luckily for us, or this invasion would have ended before it began.”

“We can’t risk that happening; drastic measures must be taken. Making Forester senile clearly wasn't enough… I think it’s time the old man had a heart attack; don’t you Nurse?”

“I’ll see to it Commander.”

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Sorry, been under the weather.

Sancho, I found it a but hard to follow in places and that made me lose a bit of interest about a third of the way through. Also, the dialogue punctuation wasn't right, and I tend not to vote for entries with punctuation issues in the challenges (harsh, I know, but the longlist has to be culled somehow.) if it helps, it's mostly that action tags ie ones without any saidisms were linked by commas where it should be full stops - there is an entry in the toolbox about a page back from the end explaining the demon punctuation....

Storyteller, it was a nice tidy story, it just didn't entirely hook me. The ending was good but I'd have needed something to intrigue me more at the start.

 

[Sancho]

I appreciate your feedback Storyteller and am afraid that I can't offer you much more commentary than I already have when I voted for your lovely story.
I appreciate your comments Springs and you have my thanks for pointing me towards the toolkit. It is a treasure trove of useful information. I now understand your "action tags" comment and probably need to pay more attention to my punctuation anyway. Very helpful!

 

[Mr Orange]

apologies for the delay in responding, for some reason our internet has slowed down to the pace of a snail dragging a moose...

thanks for the replies.

springs, i guess if poetry isn't your thing that is fair enough. like i said i turned it into lines and stanzas solely because it looked wrong and i thought it added gravitas. which might also have made it look too serious!

sancho, it's a good point and maybe i should have had a mortal man hearing the words through the carved wood.

the storyteller, funnily enough, when i used to use the "not matching the image" line about choosing stories, those wiser in challenges than i used to remind me that the picture is only an inspiration and the resulting story can bear no relation to it at all. of course it is still something i look for, and my story did start off as having the carving as the only bit of the being that could be seen in our dimension, but that seemed a bit close to one of the other stories so i changed it and lost that connection with the image. it's a good point tho, and i do generally try to have a strong link to the image.

for the stories that have been posted since:

sancho, i liked your story and think its well written but as i said somewhere else, i rushed over voting and it didn't grab me for the same reasons springs mentioned i think. after your explanation and re-reading it, it seems to have some more depth, but i'm still not sure i get what you are trying to put across or the idea behind it, and i don't really see how the title and last line tie in. also, i figured ness went back to save shepherd but then if she had a time ship, couldn't they shoot off back to wherever they came from?

the storyteller, again, this didn't grab me and after reading it again i think there is too much explanation and it starts quite slowly. i think you could have condensed the first two paras into a couple of lines as he was dragged away or caught, and started the action at the burning of the carving. same with the first para of Becky's story, i think this could be condensed into dialogue. then you could use the extra words to pile on the whole senile thing and give it a good twist, with a few short choice lines with the doctor to turn everything on its head.


just my two cents worth of course!

 

[Sancho]

apologies for the delay in responding, for some reason our internet has slowed down to the pace of a snail dragging a moose...

sancho, i liked your story and think its well written but as i said somewhere else, i rushed over voting and it didn't grab me for the same reasons springs mentioned i think. after your explanation and re-reading it, it seems to have some more depth, but i'm still not sure i get what you are trying to put across or the idea behind it, and i don't really see how the title and last line tie in. also, i figured ness went back to save shepherd but then if she had a time ship, couldn't they shoot off back to wherever they came from?

Thanks for the feeback Mr Orange,
You are right Ness did go back and save Shepherd in her Time ship. He mentions that his love died and that is the first tie back to the title. They stayed together in the 1300's and when she died(you only get this on re-reading), he stepped into the stasis field to wait for her. It is not until the last line that you realise that Ness is the innocent mentioned and that along with the millions of innocents that died, the title plays on "The Death of Innocence" which perversely relates to Shepherd 'innocently' thinking that "just following orders" is OK! The reason they couldn't go back is because they both would have been arrested and potentially erased from history.

It was meant to open onto a bigger question of, If you had the technology to do this, would you do it? Would you want to live in a society that was willing to cull their own ancestors, even if it would enhance the present. The original (longer) version had more around how disobeying their strict orders could lead to them and their gene pool being erased. It is a kind of throwback to my own Austrian forbears preoccupation with the ridiculous notion of a superior Aryan race.

I really appreciate your help. The fact that I have had to write such a lot as an explanation means that I have fallen victim to trying to cram too much into 300 words. I also realise from your comments that due to the way I have structured the story, it would only make sense to those who Re-read it. I will work on a more straight forward idea next time I think.
Thanks again

 

[Dan Jones]

People following the April 300-worder may have already realised that, owing to my own stupidity I have been disqualified for being one word over the limit. The mods confirmed that this was because I counted "3.5million" as one word, not two.

So firstly, MAKE SURE CHECK YOUR WORD COUNTS WITH THE MODS, PEOPLE!

Secondly, since I'm out of the running I thought I'd post my story here to see what people thought of it, what worked, what didn't, where I can improve. Might as well make lemonade, as the saying goes. I guess I'm also free discuss any aspects of the story that weren't clear originally to readers. And the other advantage is that the pressure's off in terms of hoping it'll do well!

And lastly, as HB said, what an apt last line.

EDIT: am removing the story (again) until the Challenge is finished. Wot a palaver.

 

[Cat's Cradle]

Oy, forgive me, all. I mentioned to DG that he should publish his story here, since it'd gone over the word count and been withdrawn from the current challenge. But I forgot to mention about posting after the Challenge ended. Is that the rule...that stories pulled for count should be posted after the Challenge is done? If so, apologies to all for my mistake, and the inconvenience it's causing. Sorry all, CC

ps--really good story too, DG.