Fanstory.com Horror Writing Contest - The Mark of Cain

Back like a stubborn ghost, I felt the call to write another Horror piece.  My aim this time, was to not be just scary and dark.  I wanted to maintain some elements of reality, spirituality, and even light. Essentially I challenged myself to see if horror could have hope.

While I didn't win the contest, I think I achieved my goal.  Again, this one of the reasons I write competitions, to experiment and hone my writing abilities.

Story is here: The Mark of Cain

Year End Review 2012

I had a lot of fun this year entering various competitions and I know I grew a lot as a writer. To recap:

• I came up just short of 52 contest entries (counting over half from the Writer's Digest Poetic Asides Poem A Day Challenge)
• Just over half of my prose entries were flash fiction.
• I tried eleven different contest sponsors: Midway Literary Journal, The First Line, Switchback, Creative Competitor, Fan Story, Writer's Digest, 100 Words or Fewer, On the Premises, Writer's Weekly,  Kazka Press, and finally I'm submitting to Writer's Village and the Society of Actuaries Speculative Fiction contest.
• I haven't won any major contests, just a minor headline contest.  My prize was a nice resource for writers. However...
• I had a couple journals accept my work for publication: The Binnacle accepted The Butler's Waltz, Marco Polo accepted The Open Box, From The Depths accepted a 13 word horror story, and Underwater New York accepted a handful of flashes.
• Finally I wrote a bunch of articles I'm very proud of and I hope you find them useful.

My favorite contest sponsor this year is Writer's Weekly.  They offer a seasonal contest where writers have 24 hours to bang out a short story.  They limit the number of entries to 500 writers.  Lastly, there are tons of prizes.

My favorite piece of writing this year was: The Intricacies of Cherry Cola.  And while it might not be a winner (yet), I've revised it once and I look forward to revising it again for future competitions.

On top of the work on the blog an with contest entries, I've finished the first draft of my first novel and that feels good from a personal perspective.

Hopefully you had just as fruitful of a year and will have an even better one in 2013.  I know I'm looking forward to it.  On New Year's I'll be posting my goals for writing competitions and we'll see how it all shakes out.

FanStory.com - Flash Fiction Contest - Lost Love

The winner of this writing contest had a very humorous piece about a ghost detective.  Although, he didn't really display any detective prowess.  And the humor, while good, was a bit distracting.  Judges liked it though, probably because it stood out being a lighter piece in a potentially sad theme of "lost love".

Here's my entry.  My story is a take on someone caught in love with two others and having to make a choice.  What's interesting to me is that some of the other pieces earning recognition ended up with "found" loves, whereas I ended with a lost love.

By the way - I haven't posted other entries from April yet because I am still waiting to hear on results.

FanStory The Sentence Starts The Story - "The Intricacies of Cherry Cola"

I hammered this beast out in just a couple days and had a lot of fun with it.  If you don't win a writing contest, the next best thing is to have fun in the competitive process. 

The writing prompt was "The room was empty."  Now, I almost didn't compete just based on the principle that I'd never write an opening sentence as weak as that.  "The street was busy" or "The man was standing" are equally drab descriptive passages that don't really accomplish much.  After further consideration, I decided that as a competitor I should try to overcome the poor start and see what I could make with it.

The story i wrote for this competition is about a lovestruck college kid who's school project in time travel doesn't go exactly as planned.

Find it here.

Winner is here. The story is a good one, but I have to admit that I thought it is a bit of a cop out to immediately contradict the opening sentence.  If the room wasn't actually empty why would anybody say it was?

FanStory - Valentines Story Contest

This is a classic case of concept failing to meet expectations.  I readily admit that the piece doesn't deserve to win.  There just isn't enough story.  That said, I still love the concept. 

I want to show to simultaneous scenes.  A parallel story if you will.  

I will revisit this one, I'm sure.  I also have to tighten up some of the technical details (thanks to a certain friend for the consult).

Anyway, here's my entry.

I'll post the winner soon.

Fanstory - Horror Competition - Say Ah

So, I said I was going to try to write more upbeat, positive, warm, fuzzy, blah blah blah...but Fanstory had a horror competition and I just had to go there.  I've always wanted to write a horror story about a dentist.  This is what came out, it is a bit grisly, reader beware.


Here's the winner - a confrontation between a priest and a troubled youth in a confessional.

FanStory - FlashFiction Contest - The Missing Ingredient

The theme this time is "Missing." 

Here is my entry

Here is the winner. A Sherlock Holmes inspiration.  Not much else to say, just clever, although in my opinion not a very creative take on the prompt.  "The case of the missing (fill in the blank)" seems too easy to me.

This is my second attempt at this particular theme.  Apparently FanStory will use the same prompts over again.  My first attempt was about a guy who was missing the birth of his first child.  I also wanted to explore diffent connotations of the idea "stuck."

My second attempt as noted in the title takes a cooking angle.  I feel that this theme has been done before - emotional cooks who find comfort in their creations - (Waitress, Simply Irresistable, Like Water for Chocolate) - so I wanted to take another slant at it. 

I went a little darker. I'm beginning to wonder if the tone of a piece affects how it is reviewed.  I'll try putting together some lighter comedies or at least warmer works and see how that goes... 

Being able to resonate with the emotions of a reader is a writers number one job, and sometimes clever and witty just isn't enough.

FanStory - Nonfiction Contest-End Heightism

Here is my entry. 

Here is the winner.  A bit longer than mine and on a more emotional note.  I also noticed a few sloppy typos on my entry.  Dang it, gotta tighten up!.


My piece is converted from a humorous speech I did very well with in Toastmasters.  In retrospect, the speech "Smack Talk"  was too complicated and needed to be simplified  (see video below).  Stay tuned - I may start a similar blog, or at least do a couple articles on competitive speaking.

FanStory This Sentence Starts the Story - "A spark"

For this competition I had to write a story where the first sentence was "A light was on in the room."  My story is from the p.o.v of the person who lit the lanterns for Paul Revere.

My entry.  


The winner

Website Review - Fanstory.com

Fanstory is a site built on the concepts of contests and feedback.   $60 gets you a year's subscription, or you can subscribe monthly for $7.  On the surface, the site's mechanics are very simple.   Enter a contest, submit your work, get feedback.  Based on the number of contests, and opportunity to get reviews on your writing, I feel that the price of the site is justified.  However, I'd like to take the opportunity to fully describe what exactly it is you'll get.


CONTESTS-  There are two types, member created (non-cash) and site created (for the $).

Member created contests may be blind (author information hidden) or public.  They involve a writing prompt or challenge, and the entries are voted on by other site members.  Readers can share what they liked about the piece they voted for.  Entry into these contests generally requires member dollars and the prize is often member dollars as well.

5-6 site created contests are announced monthly, and can range from a specific type of poetry (haiku, tanka, nonet, sonnet, free verse, and acrostic seem to be favorites) to various prose contests.  They have contests where they provide the opening sentence, flash fiction contests, and non-fiction/essay contests.  The submissions are sent to judges and winners are announced generally 3-5 days after the contest closes.

FEEDBACK-   This is the bread and butter of the website.  Feedback is all peer review, and there are pros and cons with that.  There are two ways reviews are generated - motivated by member dollars or from your followers.  I've mentioned member dollars a few times now, so let's get into that a little bit.

Member dollars are the currency of fanstory. You need them to enter member contest, and you need them to promote your work.  You earn them by either winning a member created contest, or by reviewing other people's work.  It's a smart site design to make reviewing the primary mechanism by which you can promote your work.  It also has its drawbacks.  The main motivation to provide quality reviews is the monthly reviewing contest.  Majority of reviewers are just reviewing to earn member dollars.  (I started that way myself, but now have moved to more constructive reviews)

Without member dollars, your work will only get two pieces of feedback. You need member dollars to purchase tools that raise the publicity of your piece, or add more of a reward to those who read it.  You can become eligible for special accolades if you get a certain number of reviews.  These accolades boost your ranking as a writer on the website.

Every now and then, you will get quality feedback where someone actually calls out typos, identifies issues with the content of the piece as well as provide their emotional reaction.  Make sure you express your appreciation.

One important thing to note is that all reviews are public.

I also mentioned followers.   Fanstory members can follow writers they like.   They will be notified of any new piece you submit, and they are more likely to give you constructive reviews.

OTHER FEATURES -  The website also allows you the opportunity to submit your work to a critical panel which will assess the level of quality of any piece you write.  There are classes offered on a multitude of writing topics (for additional fee) and there's a discussion forum as well.

Likes:

• Offers several competitions for cash prizes every month
• Guaranteed peer feedback on every piece
• Offers tons of other non cash contests
• Easy to access winning writers' stories via their profile
• Opportunity to build a platform 

Dislikes:

• Have to constantly build up "member dollars" to promote your work
• Peer reviews not always that good quality
• Can only post 2 pieces a day

FanStory FlashFiction - "Stuck"

My entry

The topic for this writing competition was "missing".  I thought about a poor guy who was missing the birth of hirst kid because he was stuck in traffic.  Turns out the guy is stuck in a lot more than just rush hour.

Here's the winner.

FanStory 5-7-5 Poetry -"Pheasant Conspiracy"

I love pheasant hunting.  The rush of the wings flapping, the  magic of not being able to shoot the things, the beauty of a dog working the field, all are wonderful things to behold.  I also ended up writing a toastmaster's speech for their "Tall Tales" competition based on a similar idea.

My entry


Winner

FanStory Haiku -"Jagged Silhouette"

Another haiku entry. This time, for my competition entry I went with a bit of a Halloween theme.

Here.

Winning entry

FanStory Acrostic Poem - "Bedtime"

I think all parents can relate to the lack of sleep that occasionally come with the territory of being a parent.  In this acrostic poem competition, I tried to capture one of those hellish nights.

My entry

The winner

FanStory Member Contest Rewrite Red Riding Hood - "Desire and Demise"

This was my first attempt at a member created contest on FanStory.  I had a very enjoyable time with it, and look forward to building up my member dollars to compete in another.  This particular contest was a retelling of Red Riding Hood.  I wonder if the contest creator had any insight that this fall's major tv shows would be on the concept of a modern day fairy tale - Grimm and Once Upon a Time.

Anyway I wanted to do two things with my version 1- focus on the fashion and 2- interpret the wolf dressing up as grandma as a delusional cross dresser.

Here's my entry
Here's the winner

FanStory ABC Poem -"On the Edge"

The first four lines follow the order of the alphabet. Last line begins with any letter.

For this writing competition, I tried to take on something that had a Q in it.  Click the links below and see what puts the poet on the edge.

My entry

The winner

FanStory Free Verse Poem -"Unborn"

My entry 

The winner

Just a note about my competitive poems. Often, I've written these poems before even knowing about a contest.  I keep a poetry journal which houses most of my verses and if a contest comes up that my poem would fit in, I submit an entry.

Occasionally, I will write a poem just for a writing competition.  Often these are just short poems without a lot of structure (haiku, 5-7-5, acrostic, etc.)

FanStory Sonnet - "Sonnet 192.168.0.1"

My attempt at a modern-era sonnet.  Sonnets are very rules driven with respect to meter and rhyme, and I may have strayed a little from the structure, but I hope the spirit is appreciated for this writing competition.

Here's the winner.

FanStory FlashFiction - "The Fence Guy"

Here's my story.  The theme was white picket fence.  I wanted to add an element of the supernatural to an ordinary thing. I may dust this one off and polish it up to try and submit it to another writing competition somewhere, because I really like the concept.

Here's the winner.

FanStory Haiku -"Silent Fortresses"

Having spent my high school years in Alaska, it is hard not to be inspired by the mountains.   They were the source for this competition.

My entry


The second place entry.  Winner's piece no longer available.

A man I knew from scouting in Alaska has a collection of books and poetry about is hikes along the mountains of Alaska.   Check out Frank Baker!