DISCUSSION -- July 2016 300-word Writing Challenge (#22)

Here's the result of the Ursa jury's deliberations, with the stories in posting order within the categories:


Honourable Mentions:
  • An Ode to Italo by Cory Swanson
  • Life's easter egg by Luiglin
  • Homecoming by chrispenycate
Runners Up:
  • Amber Waves by Victoria Silverwolf
  • The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by ratsy
  • The Bulrush Child by The Judge
Winners:
  • A Cup of Moonshine by Wruter
  • Small Steps by Shyrka
  • An Offer They Can't Refuse... by mosaix
​
 
minions-despicable-me-excited-applause.gif

Congrats, @Wruter ! :)
​
 
Congrats to Wruter. He is the Michael Phelps to my Ryan Lochte. The Katie Ledecky to my whoever it was that got silver in that race. (11 seconds, people)

In seriousness, a heartfelt thanks to my eight voters. I never expected to do that well. It is good that no one counted how many times I refreshed the vote page. It would be embarrassing.
 
Thanks for the mentions / short lists Cory, Coast, Fitzchiv, Starbeast, Johnnyjet, Wruter, Nixie, Denise, ThomasG and TJ.

And a special thanks to Dzara, Perp, Cascade and UM for the votes. :)
 
Well done Wruter, much deserved too - and also to Cory Swanson for 2nd place.

Finally to StillLearning for tying up 3rd with me. I'm sure you're as made up as I am to have produced something worthy of that many votes this month, it represents a step forward for me and I'm sure you too.

I raise a cyber champagne glass to all three of you!
 
Congrats Wruter!

Moon thanks for the shortlisting, Ursa!


As I mentioned when I posted my story, I thought the bulrushes made the image, and while I was faffing around trying to find a story for them I looked up the etymology to see if that gave anything useful such as bulls eating them, but sources are divided, though one raised the possibility of the "bull" coming from the meaning of large or coarse cf the bullfrog (though another source says the amphibian gets its name from its bull-like voice, so who knows). Since that was no help, I thought about bulls in a rush for a bit, but then the child in the flower story came to me so it was transmuted into "the bully fisherman, rushing to the lake" which also gives a hint that the child is indeed his father's son. (As to which, out of interest did anyone notice what I'd done there?)


Oh, I've just seen I've got a stealth vote from ratsy -- mega rushing bull thanks!
 
Congratulations Wruter! Yours was a deceptively simple tale, but I think it's very skilful thing to be able to write in such simple, almost child-like terms and convey a fable that contains plot, resolution, and above all, meaning. Really brilliant effort, and something that clearly was able to be interpreted universally by the readers.

Super moon-pie shaped thanks for the votes Judge, ratsy, and Coast! Special thanks to Jane for the very kind words, which I'm taking as vindication for my story; I was very pleased with my entry this time round, but it's extra nice when somebody else "gets it", too. So thanks muchly!

And of course, readers can interpret things how they want. As Umberto Eco might have said, "that's postmodernism, folks!"
 
Congratulations Wruter​



And huge WELL DONE to: @Cory Swanson, @StilLearning and @Fitzchiv


The Judge said:
A good crop of stories this quarter, and what's more I understood most of them, which is some achievement!

Some mythic swimming-moon thanks for the mentions, long- and short-listings and runners-up-ships Victoria, Vaz, Starbeast, johhnyjet, LittleStar, nixie and Denise, and a great many fabulous small but immensely powerful bulrush thanks for the wondrous votes Shyrka (and many thanks for the wonderful words), Cascade and Dan!
Click to expand...

You're mighty welcome Judge. You understood most of the stories...that's funny. Heh heh.

mosaix said:
Thanks for the mentions / short lists Cory, Coast, Fitzchiv, Starbeast, Johnnyjet, Wruter, Nixie, Denise, ThomasG and TJ.
Click to expand...

You're immensely welcome Mosiax.


@Mad Alice - Thank you for the Stealth Vote. I was stunned and amazed. You made my day shine bright.




My Story: Well...I stared at that Moon for a while and thought at first to do a horror tale about a night monster. Then I thought, "Nah". A little later, the idea of doing a Detective story came to light. I've wanted to do one for a while and thought now is a good time. Rather than the usual gritty 1940's style, I went for a comical fantasy/futuristic approach. I thought about all of the detective movies and stories I remembered, then went over all of the lingo I could think up. Oy's Moon, was the perfect item to use in the second part of my tale, for a romantic setting.

A Detective's Tale, has become one of my own personal favorites. In my mind I imagined a "Blade Runner" styled atmosphere, with a man who is average looking, fails half of the time, but, has a good heart, a quick wit, and lady who is crazy about him. The only problem I had with my character, was thinking up a name for him. But that was ok, because that would have been an extra word(s) taking up precious space in the 300 word limit.
 
Congratulations to @Wruter, a worthy winner despite losing out in the "Children's Parable" category to @The Judge's Bulrush Child in my own shortlist!

Thank you to everyone that voted for my own story - I knew I'd struggle to match my entry in the last 300-worder but netting five votes is still very satisfying.

For those that are interested, I've gone into some more detail on the process behind my entry this month on my blog (because I have a tendency to ramble) and also included a couple of alternate entries that I nearly went with.
 
Congratulations to Wruter, who luckily sidestepped the curse of being voted for by me, which is normally a sure fire way of not winning.

My own entry was an attempt to write a mythological style story, and although I drew on a number of sources the somewhat obvious main influence was Native American. The coyote is a worthy trickster god and this became his story.

The original story was a lot longer and had to be cut back. I went into a lot more detail about the young warrior and his love for the fair maiden, and how he was tricked by the coyote.

Thanks to Denise, MB, Drof and HazelRah for the votes they are very greatly appreciated, and a smaller but no less sincere thanks to those mentions for my tale.
 
Wow, what a nice surprise, thanks so much everyone.

As is often the way, 'A Cup of Moonshine' arrived unplanned and with barely any thought. I'd worked on a couple of failed attempts at other pieces then given up, thinking I wouldn't enter. Then one afternoon I was reading an essay online about the tradition of oral storytelling in pagan Britain, which talked about how folk/fairy tales were once for everyone, not just children. The word 'moonshine' wandered across my brain toward the challenge image, I opened notepad and probably less than ten minutes later the story was written. I worried it might seem too childish or wouldn't work since it's ideally meant to be spoken aloud but I'm glad you folks saw the heart of it.

So again thank you to everyone who mentioned or voted, to Victoria Silverwolf for the wonderful reviews, and to all of you for keeping me in such good company really. I've learned so much about writing by hanging out with you here and, more importantly, votes or no votes, I'm having fun and I hope you are too.

Thank you.
 
Congratulations Wruter.

Thanks to all who liked or commented on my story and particularly Dzara, Denise and Jo Zebedee who voted for it.

This month, I thought the moon was so all pervasive in the photo I wanted to choose an element that was less in your face. So I chose the water.

I am often inspired by songs when I come to do these challenges and this month was no exception. The place, the brother, the narrator being where she is not meant to be and therefore unlikely to tell anyone what she saw, the tragedy of the girls death (which in my own mind will pass unnoticed and largely unmourned), all seek to mirror Bobby Gentry's 'Ode to Billie Joe', which ends each verse with some version of the refrain 'Billie Joe McAllister jumped off the Talahatchi Bridge'.

I sought to achieve a similar effect with the repetition of the watching motif at the end of each of my 'verses'.
 
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