DISCUSSION -- October 2014 300-word Writing Challenge (#15)

[Teresa Edgerton]

OK, I'm in, before I spend the rest of the day fussing with semicolons.

 

[Starbeast]

I just posted mine a little bit ago. Glad I made it. I had two ideas, and I went with Plan B.

Pardon me folks, I must work on my costume for work tomorrow. I'm going as a Steampunk Scientist.

 

[HareBrain]

I'm afraid we've had to remove an entry for being over 300 words, which we never like doing. This is a good time to remind everyone to be careful with automatic word-count functions, and to check by hand if you're anywhere near the limit. In particular, two words joined with an ellipsis (with no spaces) will come up on most automatic counts as one, rather than two words. Also take care with hyphenations, contractions and combined words, which have to be commonly used and standard usage for us to accept them at the lower word-count. If you're in doubt, please ask one of the moderators before posting.

 

[mosaix]

*mosaix quickly checks his own, recent, entry is still there.*

Whoever it was, commiserations.

 

[HareBrain]

*mosaix quickly checks his own, recent, entry is still there.*

You had so many left over you could have put in an acknowledgements section.

 

[mosaix]

You had so many left over you could have put in an acknowledgements section.

I may have to go out soon, HB and so panicked a bit. Normally I would have polished it and got closer to the limit, but I thought I'd post it while I could.

 

[Ursa major]

I'm not in (what's new?), but as I have the rare good fortune to have a story written before the deadline -- there's something odd going on this October -- I have time to look at it again before I post. (And I've already been moving some semicolons about, which won't stop me doing it again before midnight.)

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

chrispenycate -- An open-ended, epic tale of High Fantasy is related in an unusually introspective manner.

Teresa Edgerton -- The author creates an original legend by creating romantic, poetic images in the reader's mind.

Starbeast -- Nostalgic memories of flickering old black-and-white movies are brought back by this merry tribute to the classics.

mosaix -- Indirect narration is used in this moody tale to take the reader's imagination into dark places.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Thank you, Victoria, for the review!
________
For those who have not submitted, time is running out! Midnight is but a few hours away.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

For those who have not submitted, time is running out! Midnight is but a few hours away.

You mean to say I might actually turn into a pumpkin on Halloween night?

 

[Ursa major]

Alternatively, you may be forced to drink some orange squash.



(I'm drinking some now. Mmmm.)

​

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Alternatively, you may be forced to drink some orange squash.

​

Which hardly seems like a horrid fate.

 

[Ursa major]

Unless one is an orange.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

But the orange is squashed to make the syrup, long before it's made into orange squash, isn't it? The spirit of the orange might be said to rise anew ... especially if there are actual spirits (alcoholic ones) involved.

 

[The Judge]

I'm in. Apologies for the *'d words, but they added to the character nicely. Or, rather, not nicely. And I did tone it down from the original which had another couple of them in there (and that piece of good manners cost me two whole words which caused some consternation for a while.)

I love the Nordmark Tale, Teresa!

 

[Ursa major]

But the orange is squashed to make the syrup, long before it's made into orange squash, isn't it?

I was thinking more of an orange having to drink orange squash. (Obviously this isn't an issue for run-of-the-mill oranges.)

 

[Darkchrome]

Phew, that was close - but I'm done, and the clock hasn't quite struck 13!
It's an idea that I scribbled the outline of when I was on holiday earlier this month, believing I would get some others as I had a whole 300 words to play with. However, work has a wonderful way of bleaching the brain of anything inspirational, so I've just written around what I had originally.

 

[holland]

I pretty much already know two of my votes, just have to figure out the thrid one..

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

The Judge -- A realistic near-future setting and psychological depth combine to make a powerful story.

Darkchrome -- By taking an unexpected viewpoint, the author reminds us that morality is in the conscience of the bethinker.

 

[Ursa major]

The challenge is now closed to new entries, and the voting is now open. To cast your votes, use the link below.

Please vote for your top three choices; note that all three votes must be cast at the same time to count.​