DISCUSSION -- January 2017 300-word Writing Challenge (#24)

[Starbeast]

Congratulations Phyrebrat


Have some donuts.

 

[Mr Orange]

congratulations @Phyrebrat, a great entry

thanks to all the istings and many thanks to @Hugh for the vote

and many, many apologies for not voting. i sat down yesterday to try and get through the stories and cast a vote or three, but work and a teething baby got in the way

 

[Dan Jones]

Get in, Chris! Well done mate. A very worthy winner, I'm well pleased for you. Treat yourself to an Alka seltzer.

 

[Wruter]

Congratulations on a resounding victory Phyre!

 

[Phyrebrat]

Just a quick post to say thank you for the votes and congratulations. I'll make a proper post in a bit.

(TDZ I don't think it's a record. Juliana must hold that I think. She got around 20-25!)

pH

 

[Cat's Cradle]

Congratulations, Phyrebrat! It's a stirring, lovely story. Thanks to HareBrain for the photo that inspired such diverse, interesting stories!

(And thanks again to everyone for the listings and votes...and Ashleyne, I noticed your late stealth vote, merci!) Looking forward to the next 300 worder in 1.5 months, CC

 

[The Judge]

Congratulations, Phyrebrat!! I picked the winner straight off!

Thank you so much for the votes. I think it's the most I have ever had in any challenge since I started visiting these warm shores. In fact, it's likely near the number I have had in total over the years.

I thought I'd better wait to reply to this until after voting ended, but someone is going to get a SLAP if he isn't careful. Having a poor memory and worse mathematical skills is one thing, deliberately undervaluing oneself is something very different.

While this is the most votes you've had in a 300 worder (well it is now -- I don't know how many votes you had when you posted the above) your tally over the 5 years you've been entering is as follows:

1, 1, 1, 3; ..... 1, 5, 2, 5; ..... 2, 6, 2, 4; ..... 4, 12, 8, 2; ..... 3, 2​

ie a total of 64 votes in 18 Challenges, which before this quarter put you in 11th place in the overall league table.

​

So the 16 votes this quarter represents a whacking 25% of your total votes prior to this Challenge (and 20% of the total now!), which is tremendous, but nothing like "near the number in total". So stop talking yourself down!! (Or drama queening!)

​

Sixteen! Look at you go! I will defer to the chart-keepers, but I'm pretty sure that's a record.

Nope. An excellent total, but not award-winning -- it puts Phyrebrat equal 5th with Teresa. (Top is 22, then two winners with 21 votes and one with 18.)


By the way, I'm having to relinquish my pink taffeta bridesmaid dress. Although I still hold the record for coming second in the 300s, Cory has the distinction of being the first and only member to have three consecutive second places! I'm not sure whether congratulations or commiserations are due!

 

[Droflet]

Slap the brat. Slap the brat. Go on Your Honor. (kidding)

 

[Luiglin]

Congrats @Phyrebrat, as I said in my vote post, beautifully written, and commiserations @Cory Swanson, always the bridesmaid eh?

I desperately wanted to write a morbid tale this month but failed badly. Cheers for the votes and mentions folks.

 

[ratsy]

Congrats Phyre!!! wooo

And massive thanks to TJ for the last min vote and the kind words of my story. I was seeing a blank until then

 

[johnnyjet]

Congratulations, @Phyrebrat! Awesome story and my personal favorite among many excellent stories. Well deserved win.

Thanks for the listings from The StoryTeller, AlexH, Starbeast, HazelRah, and Cat's Cradle. And a special thank you for the votes from Victoria Silverwolf , Old_Man_Steve2016, Coast, and Ashleyne. B. Watts. Pretty good showing this time.

 

[Cory Swanson]

Congrats, PH. Though I want to win one of these (who doesn't) I have to admit I knew it was over as soon as you posted yours. I sighed in defeat and then admitted to myself that I would probably vote for it because it was definitely good.

Perhaps It should also be offered for the record that my three second place finishes are on my first three tries. All these silver medals are getting heavy. I could choose to be sad that I haven't won, or I could choose to dance a happy dance that I've done so well amongst some great writers. I also want to thank the greater Chrons for encouraging my wild side. I definitely had a moment with my first draft where I said to myself, "This isn't weird enough. I should do this another way that's even weirder. Chrons would expect no less from me."

Congrats to all. I actually found it a hard prompt this time. It begged for a folkloric feel, but every time I got started, I kept thinking, "No, it sounds too much like (insert author name here)." This is the first time I went through several drafts.

But enough about me (my favorite subject.) There were some great stories. I love how you all blow my mind to bits every single time. You all get my creative juices flowing.

 

[Rafellin]

Congrats to Phyrebrat.

A hearty "Thank you!" for my honourable mentions to Vaz, johnnyjet, Phyrebrat, HazelRah, Heijan Xavier and Cats Cradle.

 

[Shyrka]

The second vote was nearly as easy, as I loved Shyrka's tale of desperate flight from the consequences of hubris (and the character's ranks/titles)-- and Shyrka also gets the prize for best title this quarter.

Thank you. You've made me very, very happy - not just a vote but an explanation as to why too. Such things are priceless. I must say I was surprised that no one else went for the 'Iron Horse' angle. It seemed kinda... obvious, but maybe that's just my mind being weird.

Anyway, huge congrats to @Phyrebrat, blasting us all out of the water. Cracking stuff!

 

[Vaz]

A storming win, well done Phyre.

Thank you Cat's and The Judge for the kind mentions.

This month was definitely one of my favourites, chock full of superb stories once more. Looking forward to the next one.

v


Edit: Thank you Perp for the vote.

 

[Heijan Xavier]

Congratulations Phyrebrat. I'm embarrassed now to not even have mentioned you. What was I missing?
My story was one of a handful who achieved the second rarest feat this challenge, receiving no votes at all!

Thanks The Storyteller, Johnny Jet, Glen, Hugh, Peter V, Little Star, HazelRah and Ursa for the mentions.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Thank you for the lovely replies and votes, and mentions, and particularly for the really great words some of you have used to describe my piece.

Funny - I'd not expect a piece about a failed suicide pact to go down very well here, but you're largely more twisted than me, it appears.

My heart-leaping, soul-spinning, smile-cracking, inferiority-complex-breaking, thanks to:
mosaix
Ursa major
ratsy
The Judge
LittleStar
johnnyjet
Luiglin
Cat's Cradle
The Storyteller
DG Jones
Vaz
HazelRah
Wruter
Hugh
Cory Swanson
Coast
and to Cathbad and TDZ for the shortlists.

I'm not going to pretend I didn't watch the polls and thread like a sniper, because I did. There's something powerful seeing that number creep up by your name, a percentage, and Ursa's nicely formatted titles (of our pieces). Whenever I saw I had a vote it changed my outlook on the day as I was invariably traveling to or from a school; putting me in high spirits.

But I can retire from Chrons happy as I have won a 75 and a 300 now, and after receiving the cache of a personal score breakdown from Her Hon., I am in orbit with a sense of achievement. The slap wasn't half-bad, either.

There's not much to say about my story. As soon as I saw the picture I got this image of the Guinness horses that @DG Jones mentioned in his vote, and the pattern of 'White horses, white horses, white horses'. I stuck up the old aerial and downloaded what was more like an ohrwurm than inspiration; that mantra had all the other stuff attached.

Some admissions:

There are no 'Mangroves of Nok' - This was a reference to a 300 I submitted recently with similar theme of unrequited love, set in an alternate London and called 'Dreams of Nok'. IRL Nok is an extinct Nigerian culture.

Anyone who's read or seen The Tempest - Full Fathom Five is obviously nabbed from Aerial's lament in Shakespeare's The Tempest. When I was eighteen I saw/read The Tempest and the lines 'Full fathom five thy father lies' and 'those are pearls that were his eyes' have really stuck in my mind as some of the most evocative words I've ever read, suggesting a depth that is only hinted at by breaking down the words' meanings.

There's a breakbeat jazz track on Madonna's Erotica album called 'Secret Garden'. I always think of a blue pond in a blue tinted world when I listen to it, and it's very watery even without mentioning water. It turned up on one of my playlists and set the entire tone for my piece. If you can forgive the way she pronounces Fontainebleau in the track, it's here.

Finally, not wanting to miss the opportunity of turning a positive into a negative; I have had a few people (on chrons and off) ask me when I'm going to write something like my blogs, or things in that respect. These kind of lyrical offerings are not something that I have much control over or think on. Usually it is like automatic-writing. I'll get a strong image and then the thing writes itself. To have won with something so flowery and lyrical makes me a little down at that I don't think I could write a long-form like this.



pH

ETA, don't know why the remove-formatting won't work on the vote names, sorryl

 

[The Judge]

I got the full fathom five reference!


By the way, if anyone's interested, my inspiration came from the fact that the Greek god Poseidon was not only god of the seas, but also of horses. I don't know if I was channelling a bit of Phyrebrat's magic -- or just trying to piggyback on his excellence! -- but I liked the idea of merging the horse and water theme. My piece really needed another 50 words or so, since it was all set-up and not enough blood and violence at the end, but as ever I'd left it too late to do all the faffing and fine-tuning it needed, so I was mega-pleased it gathered votes.

My story was one of a handful who achieved the second rarest feat this challenge, receiving no votes at all!

Don't be disheartened. Low or no-vote months happen to us all, and you had 8 mentions/shortlistings, which is great! Sometimes a story just doesn't click with the voters, even though it's a perfectly good piece.

If you -- or anyone -- wants specific feedback, though, don't forget we have the Improving thread where a story can be critiqued Improving our 300 Word Stories -- READ FIRST POST!

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Nope. An excellent total, but not award-winning -- it puts Phyrebrat equal 5th with Teresa. (Top is 22, then two winners with 21 votes and one with 18.)

Is that in voting that wasn't for a tiebreaker?

 

[The Judge]

No tie-breaks there, no. We've only had the two tie-breaks in the 300 worders. The first you won back in October 2011 against alchemist, mosaix and The Spurring Platty (with 7 votes apiece in the main round -- I've not got a record of the votes in the tie-break), and the second was in January 2013 when Mouse and I had 12 votes each, and she beat me in the tie-break, damn her (again no idea of the votes in the tie-break without going back and checking).

I've just realised that "two winners with 21 votes" might be ambiguous. They were two separate Challenges -- Hex in July 2012 and Juliana in April 2016.