May 2018 Flash Contest (Part 2) - The Voting

[Megawatts]

The Hook Up by Varad Lert

I like this one. Good dialogue, good characterization and good word choices. The story was easy to follow which is always a plus for me. I love the smile: They stumbled into the room like a weird eight-limbed creature. That was a good one! I going to remember how the author combined the two into a single entity. Nice technique! Good twist at the end.

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Just a Moment by Robin B. Lipinski

I always love the fairy-tell beginnings! Grabs my attention with expectation because it’s taking on the form of a fable! Nice one. Life through the eyes of a child are unfiltered! Children often see things that adults don’t because the mind of a child isn’t contaminated with education.




The Seventh Bones by Stuart Cormie

Love English ghost stories. Dickens wrote a few and of course Doyle and many other great English writers. This story was presented in narration almost entirely. I like that approach for variety in reading is a must. Often too many use just dialogue. Good one. Good use of the language for I could easily understand the story as it unfolded. Good job!!

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Too Much Time On My Hands by Jim Statton

Nice story one with a moral: We might become what we hate! Almost a fable set in the aftermath of a nuclear war. I like how brackets were used to give additional information. I’m not sure what that technique is called, but I think I did read about it’s use once. I love experimental writing!! The man was about seventy in the story, but by the use of silhouette and the suggestion that they struggled as the moon can out, shows the Edley wasn’t too strong! Nice.

Good job.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------RV Paradise by Jolene Wilkerson

Love those out-of-time stories! Good beginning. Reading the story and enjoying every minute of my read, this reminded’s me of how I love ‘Kid’s stories in which the kid’s get themselves in weird or eerie situation!’ This story is a find example and an excellent one that fits into the 1000 word frame of Flash Fiction. I must say that I really did love every word! And the end? Great Twist!!

Very good job!!!



Black Thumb by Sergio Palumbo

An invasion from aliens who want to extinguish life on earth. An interesting way of accomplishing that feat for the plants were nurtured by us humans! I like the telling of this and find it hard to see how dialogue alone could have been used successfully to make this story happen.

Good job!!
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All good stories and once again it was hard to judge. Last time I couldn’t decide, but this time one story jumped out at me, and that’s the one I voted for.

Again, they were all above average stories!

Great Job to everyone!!

[Lester Curtis]

Comments:

* Varad Lert - The Hook Up

The reveal in this one threw me. I found the transition between these characters' 'occupied' lives and their normal lives to be abrupt and disorienting. When you're going to do a thing like this in a story, it's good to prime the reader for it with some kind of hints.

Your story is of a 'setup and payoff' sort, but you've failed to give the setup, so hitting the payoff cold was like tripping over something.

Foreshadowing of some sort would help this a lot, but aside from that, I liked it.
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* Just a Moment by Robin B. Lipinski

I like the way Robin seems to find the unexplored sides of things. This store is just wonderful; I knew a number of places with some of its features when I was a kid. Drugstores all had counters with stools and soda fountains, and the Kresge dime-stores sold hot food as well.

So here we are in this magical place where everything is possible and nothing can go wrong, but the little boy is inconsolable ... until he looks up from the floor and sees what, to everyone else, is invisible, the hidden treasure.

To be fair, I thought it was kinda gross that he ate the thing, but maybe that's an adult judgement.

Try to find time to proofread ...

The shop keepers son behind the counter, the one with a huge smile, was the shopkeepers son.

Nice story.
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* The Seventh Bones by Stuart Cormie

This one has potential, but it seemed flat to me because I don't find much of a character arc in it.
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* Too Much Time On My Hands by Jim Statton

I can't understand the use of brackets in this story. Style conventions can be successfully broken, but I didn't see a reason to do it here.
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* RV Paradise by Jolene Wilkerson

I liked this one best and voted for it. Nearly the whole thing is an extended flashback of a rash childhood decision and its frightening result. The characters are well-rendered, as are dialog and setting details, and the PoV character has a nice character arc. Plot is good, and the ends are tied together nicely with the RV and the pickup truck.

One thing seems lacking to me, though; the character's brother seems to have nearly no involvement between the past events and the present. I'd like a little "where is he now?" to round this story out to perfection.
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* Black Thumb by Sergio Palumbo

Oh, those nasty aliens ... "What? Occupied world? Gee, that's too bad, but they would have blown themselves up anyway."

As always, terrific plotting, with a little foreshadowing so we can get an idea of what's on the way.
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* The Family Business by Megawatts

Who'd have thought the Sasquatches would be just as corrupt as we are?

This one was a fun read, but very thin on character arc, so it lacks staying power.

[Lester Curtis]

Lester is a professional at finding underdeveloped areas in stories. He could make a living as a proof reader.

Thanks. I learned it by nitpicking my own work to death, lol!

[Lester Curtis]

Congrats, Jim; good job (except for the unconventional punctuation, haha).

Given all of flash's difficulties, this was really a pretty good collection of work, especially with a tighter time constraint.

I don't favor posting comments before the vote--I don't like the possibility of influence--and I don't read them until I've voted, but we're getting a steady flow of feedback, and that's what we're here for. Since this seems to be working, let's keep it up.

[Megawatts]

Congrads to Jim. All stories I though excellent!

[Lester Curtis]

Hi Lester,

snip

Why is it that no matter how long you look at a story before you submit it, after you submit it...it looks totally different? Does anyone else share this perception?

snip

HA! Yeah, write anything, stick it in a drawer for a month--or even a week--look at it again and the first thing you want to do is give yourself a dope-slap!

That's good, though; if you can't be critical of your own work, you're not going to improve. But you also have to know when to tell your inner critic to shut up, or you'll never get anything DONE!