FAWC 5: Line, Please!

[patientlee]

I still gotta shit ton of reading to do. To those I haven't read, you'll still be getting my votes and feedback. And anonymity means little as I still shoot honest feedback regardless, there are those that can testify to that.

To Pilot, my darts only landed on one of yours, LORELEI'S CALL. This concept appealed to me right of the bat. I dont know a whole awful lot about the Germanic stuff as you do, but long ago I read RHINEGOLD, a book that was basicallya retelling of ancient Norse legend centered around the Rhine, the swan in the water, and the gold from the river that tempted all and destroyed many with corruption. The elements are very similar and it hooked me. I liked the sort of irresistible pull thing of a sirens call and such. I wanted to see her and feel the temptation a bit more. It wasnt lost on me about the two apprentices both being so gullible as to fall into that trap. It did speak to the "no man is safe, everyman will feel the call." I said as much in the comments. So this worked as a nice tight little tale. Very cool.

To Shea, I wouldn't have pegged you for MESMERIZED. (Like I could have made any good guesses anyway.) I think you set a mood that fit the story, and the atmospherics were awesome. I didn't include anything about the Shawn name thing but it did kinda throw me. But you wrote her character well enough that I didn't have trouble with it except for the first time. (Though when you said "Shawn" and "red curls" I couldn't help picture Dave Mustaine at first.) Jesus that sex scene with the knife stayed with me. I guess I wasnt expecting something so raw, and it really hammered home the control that the objects held over her. Sexy and shocking. Great job with that story, I thought it shoulda finished higher.

To TripleT, congrats again and I commend you on your soap box rant. Your writing is recognizable cuz it's good. I didn't like this one quite as much as your other FAWC winner, but this was still great. Honestly to me? This was like the feel you get watching a movie or something. Like a romantic comedy with out the comedy bit. (Why the fuck did I picture Channing Tatum as the playboy guy he stabbed?) You get done reading it and feel like you've been on a journey with this family. I like what you said here about length. Agreed.

So much to read, so much to say. Sigh.

And Shea- My comment about Sylvie showing up- I couldn't remember Shawn's name, and at the time, I thought the story had a SecondCircle vibe. Sylvie was a character in one of his stories. I used that name to see if he'd notice.

 

[Swilly]

Arranged Marriages- If you haven't read it already, don't.

I wanted to try something different. Something with no romantic love, and not much of any other kind either. I also wanted to try a kink I hadn't written before.

So I got an idea and I really liked where it was going.

And then I had 2 weeks of finals, grading projects, etc. I was still getting phone calls from parents after school ended the last day. ("But just because he failed the final, he won't be on the honor roll. I'm surprised you're ok with that." The kid didn't know any of the grammar from the entire year, making the vocab he did study kinda useless, and when he came to tell me the first time about missing honor roll, he couldn't be bothered to swallow the mouthful of Doritos before talking, thus spraying them all over my desk.)

One day of letting it go, followed by three days of trying to get my story to flow. It didn't. I finished right before the deadline, not knowing if it even made sense.

I'm mostly disappointed because I really liked it before finals week. Just never got my mojo back, and nothing came out the way it looked in my head at the beginning. Effing day job.

Anyway...

I'm scrapping that one and moving on. I thought I'd try a young adult novel this summer, but it turns out that I can't even think about teenagers right now without needing a glass of wine.

I'm sticking with smut.

And wine.

This was a fun FAWC. I loved the variety in the stories. I read a lot of stories by authors that were new to me, both FAWC and their other stories.

I think you're being tougher on yourself than you need to be, pl. The story is better than you make it out to be. We tend to be our own biggest critics.

 

[_Lynn_]

Arranged Marriages- If you haven't read it already, don't.

I wanted to try something different. Something with no romantic love, and not much of any other kind either. I also wanted to try a kink I hadn't written before.

So I got an idea and I really liked where it was going.

And then I had 2 weeks of finals, grading projects, etc. I was still getting phone calls from parents after school ended the last day. ("But just because he failed the final, he won't be on the honor roll. I'm surprised you're ok with that." The kid didn't know any of the grammar from the entire year, making the vocab he did study kinda useless, and when he came to tell me the first time about missing honor roll, he couldn't be bothered to swallow the mouthful of Doritos before talking, thus spraying them all over my desk.)

One day of letting it go, followed by three days of trying to get my story to flow. It didn't. I finished right before the deadline, not knowing if it even made sense.

I'm mostly disappointed because I really liked it before finals week. Just never got my mojo back, and nothing came out the way it looked in my head at the beginning. Effing day job.

Anyway...

I'm scrapping that one and moving on. I thought I'd try a young adult novel this summer, but it turns out that I can't even think about teenagers right now without needing a glass of wine.

I'm sticking with smut.

And wine.

This was a fun FAWC. I loved the variety in the stories. I read a lot of stories by authors that were new to me, both FAWC and their other stories.

Ditto on reading mine.

Life decided to smack me in the face at the same time I was trying to write something for this challenge. Always before I've been able to organize my time. Not this year.

The story I started to write stayed in my head. So I started over. Big mistake. I haven't even been home enough to participate in the challenge conversation.

 

[PennLady]

Empires of the Stars

I noticed in the guesses no one guessed I wrote this, so that part of the plan worked.

When I first saw the sentence, a lot of thoughts went through my head, and I imagine many of us had similar ideas. I thought mystery; murder mystery; items to be taken on a quest; items to be found via quest; items to be found via quest and then destroyed; and a few other things. Then I tried to think about it from different angles, taking into consideration slyc's statement that the items could be disposed of if the author so desired. And given the stories, lots of us came up with other ideas for the items.

So basically I wanted to do something different. Different from what I'd done before, different from what others might do, and also to cut loose a bit. So after debating various ideas, I liked one about an author having false starts and getting sillier as it went along with the various stories.

The original draft opened with the line, but then the author's thought that, "Okay, I can work with this." After that, each title was followed by the author's name, but adjusted for the stories to kind of match tone. However, after reading it over, it seemed like that would give away the gimmick too early, so I took out the opening thought and went straight into the first false start, as well as removing the author's names, since I'd taken it off the first one.

I had also considered having the title and then the first line of my text would have been "by so-and-so," and that seemed to go against the rules, so out went the names.

Then I tried various types of stories, trying to poke fun at the whole thing as well as being silly myself.

The first false start was in a way where I got goofiest; many readers figured out that the names of the characters and houses were the names of actors and directors, but backwards. Mota of Nayoge is Atom Egoyan, a Canadian director, for example. And House "Elbag" was Gable, as in Clark, and "Sivad" was Davis as in Bette; in a bio I read of Ms. Davis, she apparently did make a rather scathing remark to Mr. Gable regarding the fact that he was uncircumcised. Ahem. If Sivad is Davis, then of course "Drofwarc" is Crawford. And "Retxab" was Baxter, for Anne, who was the titular Eve in "All About Eve."

For the fantasy, my first draft was a little more casual in tone, but I didn't want all the stories to sound the same, so I tried for a more formal, Tolkein-ish (but only ish) tone in that one, although it deteriorates at the end.

For the next ones, poking a little fun at names and genres was a little easier. I've read a lot of genres, but probably have read more mysteries, romances, etc., more recently, so those elements were fresher in my mind. Names like Alexander and Gabriel, for example, seem to be pretty common in nonhuman stories, so I went for that.

The next-to-last one was meant to be ridiculous. The names are recycled and again in cases spelled backwards. N'nylf of Lorre was Errol Flynn, and Adnilem was "Melinda." For my own little geeky benefit, "L'Rick" was a quick tip of the hat to Elric of Melniboné, a character from Michael Moorcock, and an albino wizard in the grudging service of Chaos.

And at last, the author gives up. Because we've all been there. Again, my original draft had a bit more there, but on rereading, I decided to scale it back. I thought the original bit was funny, but to go from such involved plots to this last one, I thought the contrast of just skipping to the end was needed.

I think after this, I may take it down and put some of my original thoughts back in, because once the story is out of the FAWC context, a little bit is lost. And I had not thought, as Pilot pointed out in a comment, that perhaps if I had had my virtual author make use of the items somehow, it might have tied things together more.

Thanks again to everyone who read, voted, commented. I'm glad that it made people smile and/or laugh, as that was the goal.

 

[AMoveableBeast]

I'm curious to know where you did your research, cuz the story comes across as imagined NOT experienced. I've never met hookers such as you describe. I like your writing style, tho. You could write hard boiled crime stories. Freya did a great job of talking shit, and if she knew her subject she'd float to the top, ditto you.

I suppose you have me there, as I have never been a prostitute. (It's not from lack of trying, I assure you.) I did work at a drug rehab center for a couple years, however. In my experience, hookers are just like other people except they sleep with people for money. People are people. Most of what seemingly separates is merely an illusion. Perhaps your experiences are different.

TX, this is why I love you, man. Earlier in this thread, I said I had a theory about the votes; my theory was that it was your story, you have a well-deserved cult following, and you know how to affect people. Nobody on this site walks that line between accessibility and artistry like you do. Nobody. And you can say what you want, but if there is a clear-cut better writer than you in this contest, I don't know them.

You're right, this wasn't your best story, and I didn't think it was the best of the competition--I give that honor to "An Account of a Bullet". If "Of Roses and Thorns" would have been a little tighter, a little more together, I'd give it to that one. But you won walking away, because you affect people. You affect me. Have been for years. Put that ability down on the card table and nine times out of ten you're going to walk away with the pot regardless of what hand you're holding.

You are a fucking class act. Damn national treasure.

 

[sr71plt]

Empires of the Stars

I think after this, I may take it down and put some of my original thoughts back in, because once the story is out of the FAWC context, a little bit is lost. And I had not thought, as Pilot pointed out in a comment, that perhaps if I had had my virtual author make use of the items somehow, it might have tied things together more.

I wouldn't have guessed in a million years it was yours. Just because it was so loose and playful.

I do think it would have been terrific if the elements had been playing in an overarching story as well.

 

[sr71plt]

I suppose you have me there, as I have never been a prostitute.

I've taken money for it a few times and did it for the government more than a few times. Not the same flavor of prostitution, of course, but if you should ever need help for that . . .

 

[SecondCircle]

I think unless someone has been with every prostitute in the world, I doubt we could honestly say what a "plausible" hooker really is. I mean that's kinda the best prostitute I've ever read. Still really really seemed to fit the mind set of someone like that.

 

[patientlee]

Empires of the Stars

I noticed in the guesses no one guessed I wrote this, so that part of the plan worked.

When I first saw the sentence, a lot of thoughts went through my head, and I imagine many of us had similar ideas. I thought mystery; murder mystery; items to be taken on a quest; items to be found via quest; items to be found via quest and then destroyed; and a few other things. Then I tried to think about it from different angles, taking into consideration slyc's statement that the items could be disposed of if the author so desired. And given the stories, lots of us came up with other ideas for the items.

So basically I wanted to do something different. Different from what I'd done before, different from what others might do, and also to cut loose a bit. So after debating various ideas, I liked one about an author having false starts and getting sillier as it went along with the various stories.

The original draft opened with the line, but then the author's thought that, "Okay, I can work with this." After that, each title was followed by the author's name, but adjusted for the stories to kind of match tone. However, after reading it over, it seemed like that would give away the gimmick too early, so I took out the opening thought and went straight into the first false start, as well as removing the author's names, since I'd taken it off the first one.

I had also considered having the title and then the first line of my text would have been "by so-and-so," and that seemed to go against the rules, so out went the names.

Then I tried various types of stories, trying to poke fun at the whole thing as well as being silly myself.

The first false start was in a way where I got goofiest; many readers figured out that the names of the characters and houses were the names of actors and directors, but backwards. Mota of Nayoge is Atom Egoyan, a Canadian director, for example. And House "Elbag" was Gable, as in Clark, and "Sivad" was Davis as in Bette; in a bio I read of Ms. Davis, she apparently did make a rather scathing remark to Mr. Gable regarding the fact that he was uncircumcised. Ahem. If Sivad is Davis, then of course "Drofwarc" is Crawford. And "Retxab" was Baxter, for Anne, who was the titular Eve in "All About Eve."

For the fantasy, my first draft was a little more casual in tone, but I didn't want all the stories to sound the same, so I tried for a more formal, Tolkein-ish (but only ish) tone in that one, although it deteriorates at the end.

For the next ones, poking a little fun at names and genres was a little easier. I've read a lot of genres, but probably have read more mysteries, romances, etc., more recently, so those elements were fresher in my mind. Names like Alexander and Gabriel, for example, seem to be pretty common in nonhuman stories, so I went for that.

The next-to-last one was meant to be ridiculous. The names are recycled and again in cases spelled backwards. N'nylf of Lorre was Errol Flynn, and Adnilem was "Melinda." For my own little geeky benefit, "L'Rick" was a quick tip of the hat to Elric of Melniboné, a character from Michael Moorcock, and an albino wizard in the grudging service of Chaos.

And at last, the author gives up. Because we've all been there. Again, my original draft had a bit more there, but on rereading, I decided to scale it back. I thought the original bit was funny, but to go from such involved plots to this last one, I thought the contrast of just skipping to the end was needed.

I think after this, I may take it down and put some of my original thoughts back in, because once the story is out of the FAWC context, a little bit is lost. And I had not thought, as Pilot pointed out in a comment, that perhaps if I had had my virtual author make use of the items somehow, it might have tied things together more.

Thanks again to everyone who read, voted, commented. I'm glad that it made people smile and/or laugh, as that was the goal.

I loved that story. I didn't catch where the backwards names came from, but I got Yelnats right away. Stanley Yelnats from Holes. Love it.

What I was looking for in the end was just one more comment from the writer. I thought perhaps he would break down and have that drink, just to tie it together.

Although if the stories told a bigger story too, that would have put the cherry on top, and you would have had the best story by far.

I did not think for one second that a woman wrote that story. You are very skilled, PL!

 

[SecondCircle]

To PennLady, I wouldn't have thought that was you.

I actually didn't notice that the three elements from the line weren't there all the way through. I guess because it was such a blast to read. You pretty much accomplished everything you wanted to I thought. Great as it is. I thought it actually flowed a lot better in this contest without that "written by" part you just discussed, but you may be right in reposting it with that, as out of the context of FAWC it may seem unclear. Either way it was a breath of fresh air to realize I was kind of reading a parody of the contest and the writing process as it is. Everyone can relate to that. I especially, like slyc and others, enjoyed the ridiculous names you chose to incorporate. To me it's kind of tongue in cheek to all the eyebrow raising name choices that float around in fiction all the time. Yours was pretty brilliant. I'll have to watch for that cleverness from you....

 

[patientlee]

Ditto on reading mine.

Life decided to smack me in the face at the same time I was trying to write something for this challenge. Always before I've been able to organize my time. Not this year.

The story I started to write stayed in my head. So I started over. Big mistake. I haven't even been home enough to participate in the challenge conversation.

You know what, Lynn? Maybe our problem was being stuck under a freaking house. It's hard to think when you're concerned about whether or not there's asbestos or lead paint parked on top of you. Even harder when you're worried that some bitch in a pinafore is going to steal your favorite shoes. And don't get me started on the munchkins. They are almost as freaky as oompa loompas.

 

[TamLin01]

Chances are people have met more prostitutes than they know. Sex workers tend not to advertise their night job to a lot of acquaintances, and the gig is more prevalent than you might think.

Congratulations to the winner, and I'm sorry I didn't have the opportunity to comment on more stories. (There were an awful lot of them, and many were quite long, after all.) "The Midnight Ball" is part of a longstanding project full of erotic horror-themed fairy tale stories. I never planned to have a Cinderella in the collection because it's just not my favorite folktale, but one day I was tinkering with an unrelated plot about a woman back from the dead and realized that the scene where the spell is broken at midnight suggested the Cinderella plot pretty handily. I made a few notes about a "voodoo Cinderella story" and let it sit. The specificity of the items in the prompt put me in mind of magic (as it did for a lot of people), and this story came back to me. Honestly, I only had a few days to work on it, so I'm surprised it turned out to be popular. We all get lucky sometimes, I guess.

In hindsight, I really, really should have had it be the handkerchief he found, rather than the traditional shoe, just to tie the prompt items into the story more. Honestly, it just didn't occur to me. Fun with names: Zezolla is simply the name of an Italian Cinderella heroine and I liked the sound of it (nobody's yet been able to tell me what it means); Madriana is the Italian word for grandmother; Raj means "prince" or something close to it and was conveniently commonplace; I picked Joseph's name at random meaning to change it later, but I read an essay suggesting the Biblical Joseph as a kind of early male Cinderella figure and I liked the coincidence. The San Francisco Ballet "Cinderella" production referenced in the story was the centerpiece of their last two seasons.

One comment noted that it's a little weird that Zezolla is tied to a tree at the end. This is an image from a "Tales From the Crypt" story that I always liked (there it's a post rather than a live tree) and wanted to work into a zombie tale. In one Cinderella variant, a tree that grows out of her dead mother's grave is a critical element, and I couldn't resist mixing the two images. Unfortunately there was really no room in here to explain the presence of the tree and it admittedly doesn't make much sense at face value, so I suppose I should have done away with it. Live and learn.

Thanks to everyone who read. Hope there's another one soon. Cheers.

 

[AMoveableBeast]

PL, I think you accomplished everything you set out to and more. It was such a different, fun story, and it altered my opinion of you, which was already very high. I've long considered you perhaps the most technically skilled and polished writer among the gang, as it were, but now you're not only an incredibly crisp writer with impeccable skills, but a really funny, clever woman with great comedic ability in her back pocket.

 

[sheablue]

Empires of the Stars

I noticed in the guesses no one guessed I wrote this, so that part of the plan worked.

When I first saw the sentence, a lot of thoughts went through my head, and I imagine many of us had similar ideas. I thought mystery; murder mystery; items to be taken on a quest; items to be found via quest; items to be found via quest and then destroyed; and a few other things. Then I tried to think about it from different angles, taking into consideration slyc's statement that the items could be disposed of if the author so desired. And given the stories, lots of us came up with other ideas for the items.

So basically I wanted to do something different. Different from what I'd done before, different from what others might do, and also to cut loose a bit. So after debating various ideas, I liked one about an author having false starts and getting sillier as it went along with the various stories.

The original draft opened with the line, but then the author's thought that, "Okay, I can work with this." After that, each title was followed by the author's name, but adjusted for the stories to kind of match tone. However, after reading it over, it seemed like that would give away the gimmick too early, so I took out the opening thought and went straight into the first false start, as well as removing the author's names, since I'd taken it off the first one.

I had also considered having the title and then the first line of my text would have been "by so-and-so," and that seemed to go against the rules, so out went the names.

Then I tried various types of stories, trying to poke fun at the whole thing as well as being silly myself.

The first false start was in a way where I got goofiest; many readers figured out that the names of the characters and houses were the names of actors and directors, but backwards. Mota of Nayoge is Atom Egoyan, a Canadian director, for example. And House "Elbag" was Gable, as in Clark, and "Sivad" was Davis as in Bette; in a bio I read of Ms. Davis, she apparently did make a rather scathing remark to Mr. Gable regarding the fact that he was uncircumcised. Ahem. If Sivad is Davis, then of course "Drofwarc" is Crawford. And "Retxab" was Baxter, for Anne, who was the titular Eve in "All About Eve."

For the fantasy, my first draft was a little more casual in tone, but I didn't want all the stories to sound the same, so I tried for a more formal, Tolkein-ish (but only ish) tone in that one, although it deteriorates at the end.

For the next ones, poking a little fun at names and genres was a little easier. I've read a lot of genres, but probably have read more mysteries, romances, etc., more recently, so those elements were fresher in my mind. Names like Alexander and Gabriel, for example, seem to be pretty common in nonhuman stories, so I went for that.

The next-to-last one was meant to be ridiculous. The names are recycled and again in cases spelled backwards. N'nylf of Lorre was Errol Flynn, and Adnilem was "Melinda." For my own little geeky benefit, "L'Rick" was a quick tip of the hat to Elric of Melniboné, a character from Michael Moorcock, and an albino wizard in the grudging service of Chaos.

And at last, the author gives up. Because we've all been there. Again, my original draft had a bit more there, but on rereading, I decided to scale it back. I thought the original bit was funny, but to go from such involved plots to this last one, I thought the contrast of just skipping to the end was needed.

I think after this, I may take it down and put some of my original thoughts back in, because once the story is out of the FAWC context, a little bit is lost. And I had not thought, as Pilot pointed out in a comment, that perhaps if I had had my virtual author make use of the items somehow, it might have tied things together more.

Thanks again to everyone who read, voted, commented. I'm glad that it made people smile and/or laugh, as that was the goal.

I loved this story! And while I had a very strong feeling that a woman wrote it, I would not have guessed you, PennLady, not that I can say why. I honestly thought pl wrote it, but she was so down on her own story that I didn't think this could be it. It was laugh out loud funny and really brilliant. I'd love to read a new version of it.

 

[patientlee]

I think you're being tougher on yourself than you need to be, pl. The story is better than you make it out to be. We tend to be our own biggest critics.

I'm looking at it this way. Better to try something new and fuck it up than to stick with what I always do. I've tried a couple of new things recently. Some worked, this one didn't. I'm comfortable with that.

I'm disappointed that I lost that spark I had at the beginning though. It was exciting.

 

[_Lynn_]

You know what, Lynn? Maybe our problem was being stuck under a freaking house. It's hard to think when you're concerned about whether or not there's asbestos or lead paint parked on top of you. Even harder when you're worried that some bitch in a pinafore is going to steal your favorite shoes. And don't get me started on the munchkins. They are almost as freaky as oompa loompas.

The oompa loompas used to be kinky, you know.

 

[patientlee]

Chances are people have met more prostitutes than they know. Sex workers tend not to advertise their night job to a lot of acquaintances, and the gig is more prevalent than you might think.

Congratulations to the winner, and I'm sorry I didn't have the opportunity to comment on more stories. (There were an awful lot of them, and many were quite long, after all.) "The Midnight Ball" is part of a longstanding project full of erotic horror-themed fairy tale stories. I never planned to have a Cinderella in the collection because it's just not my favorite folktale, but one day I was tinkering with an unrelated plot about a woman back from the dead and realized that the scene where the spell is broken at midnight suggested the Cinderella plot pretty handily. I made a few notes about a "voodoo Cinderella story" and let it sit. The specificity of the items in the prompt put me in mind of magic (as it did for a lot of people), and this story came back to me. Honestly, I only had a few days to work on it, so I'm surprised it turned out to be popular. We all get lucky sometimes, I guess.

In hindsight, I really, really should have had it be the handkerchief he found, rather than the traditional shoe, just to tie the prompt items into the story more. Honestly, it just didn't occur to me. Fun with names: Zezolla is simply the name of an Italian Cinderella heroine and I liked the sound of it (nobody's yet been able to tell me what it means); Madriana is the Italian word for grandmother; Raj means "prince" or something close to it and was conveniently commonplace; I picked Joseph's name at random meaning to change it later, but I read an essay suggesting the Biblical Joseph as a kind of early male Cinderella figure and I liked the coincidence. The San Francisco Ballet "Cinderella" production referenced in the story was the centerpiece of their last two seasons.

One comment noted that it's a little weird that Zezolla is tied to a tree at the end. This is an image from a "Tales From the Crypt" story that I always liked (there it's a post rather than a live tree) and wanted to work into a zombie tale. In one Cinderella variant, a tree that grows out of her dead mother's grave is a critical element, and I couldn't resist mixing the two images. Unfortunately there was really no room in here to explain the presence of the tree and it admittedly doesn't make much sense at face value, so I suppose I should have done away with it. Live and learn.

Thanks to everyone who read. Hope there's another one soon. Cheers.

I loved this one too. I will be reading more of your stories. As soon as I find a couple of minutes.

As I said, this is one of the things I enjoyed most about this FAWC. I do read a lot, and with my deal to read something by any author that leaves me a comment, I have a long list. I wrote a LW story this year. I still have LW authors to read. (I hate that freaking category.) FAWC gives me the opportunity to branch out. Do you have a suggestion for what I should read from your list?

 

[AMoveableBeast]

I think you're being tougher on yourself than you need to be, pl. The story is better than you make it out to be. We tend to be our own biggest critics.

I agree. It was ambitious. Personally, I respect an ambitious failure more than a safe success. And this wasn't even close to a failure.

 

[SecondCircle]

To TamLin, what a nice hello in the form of a creepy cool fairy tale twist. And you had to pick my better half's favorite fairy tale ever.

You have my comments and I couldn't say it better. Great friggin idea. Now that you mention the tree at the end, when I saw her tied to that tree, I just assumed it was kinda symbolic of her and Raj and their time at the tree at the ball. Like, here they were reunited in almost the same way but after the magic was sour. In any case, way to flex some muscle. I do wish there was more from Zezolla, but having read the story I realize why there wasn't. You better be back for some more Fawcing.

 

[sheablue]

To TamLin, what a nice hello in the form of a creepy cool fairy tale twist. And you had to pick my better half's favorite fairy tale ever.

You have my comments and I couldn't say it better. Great friggin idea. Now that you mention the tree at the end, when I saw her tied to that tree, I just assumed it was kinda symbolic of her and Raj and their time at the tree at the ball. Like, here they were reunited in almost the same way but after the magic was sour. In any case, way to flex some muscle. I do wish there was more from Zezolla, but having read the story I realize why there wasn't. You better be back for some more Fawcing.

I agree. I really liked Midnight Ball as well. The tree made sense to me because of where she and Raj had sex. I wanted a little bit more from Zezolla, like I said in my comment, but I really adored the dark twist on the Fairy Tale.

 

[Seanathon]

Congrats to TxTallTales and to everyone else who took part in the challenge.

This was my first FAWC and I almost didn't make the deadline (especially when I realized it was midnight CST, not PST). But I enjoyed participating and reading the honest and constructive feedback on all the stories, not just my own.

I was worried when I submitted Escape that readers would see the description and not read it (thinking it was Non/Con). I wonder if in future FAWCs we can add a line at the start of the story to categorize the entry? If so, I would have listed my story as First Time.

I was also worried that setting it in the sixties might confuse readers, so I had a brief introduction before the story started (Slyc wisely removed it as I'd unintentionally broken the only rule of the contest) setting the scene for the era the story took place in.

Thanks to everyone who read and commented on it, if I resubmit the story I'm sure it will be much better with the constructive criticism I received.

I was trying to keep it under four pages (three or less seems to be the magic number to draw readers in) and, as a result, the characters weren't as fully developed as I would have liked.

And my real goal of the story was the one little pl pointed out, to work on character voices. I was trying to write the characters with both southern and midwestern sounding voices, but they all seemed to sound southern. So I gave up and tried to focus only on Tom's voice (leaving the other ones more generic to make him stand out).

In my earlier drafts I had him dropping all of his g's (i.e. I'm goin' out) but I read somewhere that you aren't supposed to do that. So I put all of his g's back and tried to work on the cadence and rhythm of his speech instead, to obviously mixed results. I did love little pl's suggestion though and will pull out my Of Mice and Men to see how Steinbeck did it.

PS. I did read your story, big PL, and noticed the backward names (I have this weird habit of reading almost every name I see backwards to see if there is some hidden meaning) like Scorsese, Egoyan, etc. It's ironic that I totally missed the Elric reference, as I love Moorcock's work. I even named my main character in my Time Machine story after his protagonist in Behold the Man.

 

[stlgoddessfreya]

One comment noted that it's a little weird that Zezolla is tied to a tree at the end. This is an image from a "Tales From the Crypt" story that I always liked (there it's a post rather than a live tree) and wanted to work into a zombie tale. In one Cinderella variant, a tree that grows out of her dead mother's grave is a critical element, and I couldn't resist mixing the two images. Unfortunately there was really no room in here to explain the presence of the tree and it admittedly doesn't make much sense at face value, so I suppose I should have done away with it. Live and learn.

Cheers.

I assumed the tree in the cellar, like Zezolla and the snakes, showed life where there should be no life, where it didn't make natural sense and so must have been the product of unnatural magic.

 

[sr71plt]

In my earlier drafts I had him dropping all of his g's (i.e. I'm goin' out) but I read somewhere that you aren't supposed to do that.

Scratch that as guidance. You might not want to do it on all words if you have a lot of them, but there's no such restriction against never doing it. I do it on occasion in Lit. stories and no one's mentioned it (and I'd give them the raspberries if they did).

 

[TamLin01]

Crap, here I didn't even think about the tree during the sex scene. I only mentioned that because there really are trees in that courtyard, and if you're going to have sex there (which I don't recommend, honestly) they would be the only cover. But I'm glad people made connections that would never have occurred to me. Happy accidents are part of the pleasure of writing.

 

[SecondCircle]

Congrats to TxTallTales and to everyone else who took part in the challenge.

This was my first FAWC and I almost didn't make the deadline (especially when I realized it was midnight CST, not PST). But I enjoyed participating and reading the honest and constructive feedback on all the stories, not just my own.

I was worried when I submitted Escape that readers would see the description and not read it (thinking it was Non/Con). I wonder if in future FAWCs we can add a line at the start of the story to categorize the entry? If so, I would have listed my story as First Time.

I was also worried that setting it in the sixties might confuse readers, so I had a brief introduction before the story started (Slyc wisely removed it as I'd unintentionally broken the only rule of the contest) setting the scene for the era the story took place in.

Thanks to everyone who read and commented on it, if I resubmit the story I'm sure it will be much better with the constructive criticism I received.

I was trying to keep it under four pages (three or less seems to be the magic number to draw readers in) and, as a result, the characters weren't as fully developed as I would have liked.

And my real goal of the story was the one little pl pointed out, to work on character voices. I was trying to write the characters with both southern and midwestern sounding voices, but they all seemed to sound southern. So I gave up and tried to focus only on Tom's voice (leaving the other ones more generic to make him stand out).

In my earlier drafts I had him dropping all of his g's (i.e. I'm goin' out) but I read somewhere that you aren't supposed to do that. So I put all of his g's back and tried to work on the cadence and rhythm of his speech instead, to obviously mixed results. I did love little pl's suggestion though and will pull out my Of Mice and Men to see how Steinbeck did it.

PS. I did read your story, big PL, and noticed the backward names (I have this weird habit of reading almost every name I see backwards to see if there is some hidden meaning) like Scorsese, Egoyan, etc. It's ironic that I totally missed the Elric reference, as I love Moorcock's work. I even named my main character in my Time Machine story after his protagonist in Behold the Man.

I owe this a read. My apologies. Summer isn't my strong season for reading.