April 2018 Flash Contest (Part 2) - The Voting

[Lipinski]

I noticed instantly the difference in stories submitted for this challenge.

Each author took the premise into a particular direction unlike anyone else. This made for a variety of style and,this made it interesting to read and interesting to vote for a favorite.

Not bad and good to see variety of thought.

Now, to cast my vote which is easy for me to see.

Good job for those who took the time to write a story.

[Lipinski]

It was a fun contest and as I stated before, so nice to see the complete diversity of stories.

Great to see the hard work of Jim starting to pay off as more writers/readers/voters, get involved.

Aphelion is a jewel in the web world of creativity.

As for the story I submitted, I 'borrowed' the concept from, "If it weren't for bad luck I'd have no luck at all." I think it was a country western song or a quot from some politician that lost an election.

Congrats to all who participated.

[Lester Curtis]

First, my apologies for having missed the voting. I'll blame it on the full moon, how's that?

Just a couple of quick comments ...

First ... Stuart Cormie put himself ahead of the pack with an emotive and powerful piece of work that didn't feel artificially compressed the way flash often does. He earned the win.

Something I noticed though, was a device that I've more often seen in song lyrics, of naming significant places and connecting the story's emotional impact to those names. This trick seems to work a lot better than one might expect, seeing that a lot of readers may never have been to any of these places and may not even recognize the names. What makes it work is the attachment of a bit of the tragedy to each name; otherwise, it might as well be Tanagra*--the reader lacks motivation to care.

Oddly, sometimes this trick works when it really shouldn't, and in those instances it seems that the reader gets the significance because the writer felt it. I suspect something subconscious at work in those cases.

Fine job.
* a town in Greece

Second comment ... I thought I noticed a concentric layering going on in Sergio's story: the character had the expected 'breathless moment' when the station's alarms went off, but then ended up quite literally running out of breath. Such a waste, too; the character was rightly pleased with how well he'd responded to the situation. Just goes to show: not everything can be anticipated.

Anyway, this was a good contest.