The Alot of Books Writing Contest results

You guyz outdid yourselves this week! I started reading the entries and the list of finalists was somewhere around 20! I had to start over and rigorously pare down.

One thing I did notice was that this week there were at least five entries I didn't get. Either they were too subtle, or they required background I didn't have (gaming I think was one of them) or there were typos that changed the meaning of sentences.   If you wonder why your brilliant work didn't make the list, my guess is your entry was one I didn't get.

Herewith the results:

This sentence is so magnificent I had to pause and re-read it just for the sheer joy of it

Steve Forti 9:00am

The sound was piercing, like a litter of kittens trapped in a bean bag tumbling down an up escalator.

And this sentence just took my breath away

Scott G 9:52pm

I am the devil, and I am God, with one flip of the switch.

Not quite a story, but what a great start for a novel:  
abnormalalien (Jamie A. Elias) 12:04pm

This isn't a story but the writing is just gorgeous

C.L.McCollum 3:31pm

The devil has 100 words for ‘sin’ or so they say. “They” are dead wrong; the big bad never had near that much originality. The seven deadlies are for chumps. So dry, so explicitly sinful. No art at all. No creativity.

Now me? Oh my yes. Sinning slips behind me like a black dress dangling out a closed car door, like a chicken bone in a bag torn open, like saying you love him while leaving your loyal someone else at home. Such sins are mine alone.

Want simple? See old Lucifer. Want extraordinary? Let Mama Lilith sin you free.

this phrase from LeahB just cracked me up:

>>>WARNING LOW SANITY<<<

This might just be the creepiest entry ever. In fact, I may never recover. (in other words, damn good writing)

Steph Ellis 5:56pm

Iced

His reflexes had slowed, every impulse succumbing to the cold. Slaughtered carcasses kept him company, blood congealing on bone.

“You’ll go to Hell in a handcart,” his mum had said.

It had taken her 100 minutes to die; he’d counted every one. The police thought she’d slipped on the stairs. How long would he take?

Beaten and imprisoned all for a stupid debt.

“And she was right you know,” said a voice, “although the Devil’s discarded the handcart, preferring something a bit more … compact.”

Luke stared at the ice box. Behind him an electric saw whirred into life.

This isn't a story, but I love it with a passion

John Davis Frain 1:48am

She started in Vaudeville. “Disappearing nightly,” she’d say. Cinema arrived, and absent the talent of Mae West or Groucho Marx, she departed.

A Red Cross nurse, she was ribboned for saving thirty-two Yanks one night in Nazi-occupied France. “They were soldiers, and young.”

She returned home after the 91st Evacuation Hospital. Raised four successful daughters. “My most delightful chore.”

Making ends meet proved slippery until she invented bottle caps that preserved beverages. “Pepsi purchased the patent.”

Today, her 100th birthday, her youngest, Elizabeth, said, “Mama … you must write your memoir.”

“Oh, dear.” She blushed. “I’d have nothing to say.”

This isn't quite a story but something from the POV of an iPhone just makes me happy!

LynnRodz 8:54am

I may be little, but I see things: good, evil, sex...everything. I prefer the happy times when everyone's smiling, dancing, laughing, but I'm there for the tears and the crying as well.


I may be little, but she trust me. Yesterday in bed, today bones and toys for her beloved dog, 100s of memories I keep locked inside me.


I may be little and she trust me, but I can only see so much with my one eye, but don't worry — I see things. Well...I see things until she slips me back into her bag.

These are the entries that made the long list.

Cynthia Mc 9:10am

Peggy Rothschild 11:57am

Rkeelan 10:05pm

Julie 10:25am
CarolynnWith2Ns 3:31pm

Steven D 11:34pm

Sara Halle 11:50pm

Robert Ceres 11:56pm

Nate Wilson 12:35am

AJ Blythe 4:18am

Mark Thurber 8:24am

Rhen Wilson 8:25am

These are the finalists.

Clinton Greaves 9:11am

    “The bone will need time to heal.”

    The doctor looked at me, kept his face from slipping into a tight smile. My husband sighed. “100 dollars?”

    “Sign by the X.” Uninsured, dysfunctional—the doctor’s disdain for us was palpable. I could see in his eyes that though he didn’t typically deal with cases of abuse, he knew multiple injuries at different stages of healing were a hallmark. His chart likely mentioned the black eye just now turning bumblebee-yellow.

    “I’m sorry,” my husband told me.

    Devil I am, I let him apologize.

    He swallowed and shifted his arm in its sling.

By now of course you know I'm a sucker for a good twist in a short piece. This one has that. We've come to expect that domestic violence is perpetrated by husbands on wives. The last sentence turns those assumptions upside down.

What makes this brilliant though is the penultimate sentence: Devil I am, I let him apologize.  It casts the whole story in a new light, a much more sinister light.

This is wonderfully subtle writing.

Curt David 9:15am

“Losing today, my dangling participle will be the only thing Scotty-too-haughty remembers.”

The crowd went wild. Grammar-offs in the streets can be vicious. And Scotty’s rival Big Diction just scored some major examplar-innuendo points.

“Shall we call you ‘Evil Big Diction’? Or maybe ‘Libido Evicting’? Or how about ‘Iconit Big Devil’?”

The crowd groaned. Scotty’s one-letter mistake cost him the anagram points he was counting on.

“Gazabo? Nemertean? Which art thou?”

Damn iambic pentameter. The crowd roared. Scotty’s lips quivered. He would need at least 100 points on his last round. Impossible. Unless.

“Youay endyay entencessay inyay epositionspray, itchbay.” 

 You had me at "grammar-offs in the streets." This entry just cracked me up. It's hilarious and fresh and new.

Lennon Faris 9:49am

Patient: Scarlet, 3-year-old female Labrador
Appointment: limping, ‘smells bad’
Days since first noticed: several, client very busy
Exam: fractured limb, metatarsal bone exposed, maggots
Veterinarian’s optimism that people are basically good, just uneducated: slipping
Prognosis: good with amputation
Client comments: expensive, euthanize
Client vehicle: Lamborghini
Estimated evilness of client: 95%
Discussion involving responsibility, rehoming, inappropriate situation to euthanize: >1 hour
Client’s displeasure: expected
Client’s concealed weapon: unexpected
Defense using oxygen tank to club client: reasonable
Fracture of client’s leg in skirmish: ironic
Accidental nature of sustained fracture: undetermined
Police notified: after appointments, full schedule, staff very busy
Scarlet’s recovery: 100%

I'm also a sucker for unusual form, and this of course with the terse list is just that.
The story is revealed in jabs; punches to the gut.
And it's a GREAT story. Revenge! Dogs! Justice!
In other words, everything anyone could want.

Megan V 9:03pm

Codename: 100
Mission: Rescue 99 from Hell Hall.
Strategy: Slip in, hit the henchmen, track the target, and free the friendlies.
Target: De Vil, the murderess and mistress of camouflage.

Cool, crisp night. The dilapidated mansion bathes in moonlight. I slink through the shambles of a parlor, while my partner 101 plays decoy. 101 lures the men the way she once lured me—perfectly.
I corner De Vil.
The target crosses her arms.
HQ says we should throw the bitch a bone, but I’m not here to fetch her for a bobby. This time, X marks the spots.
I lunge.

And 101 Dalmations is one of the iconic movies of my misspent youth, lounging in darkened cinemas when I should have been doing physics homework.

What elevates this is "The target crosses her arms" and then "X marks the spots." A lovely layered piece of writing that makes me happy.

Plus of course, henchmen!

SiSi 12:34am

“X-Women, assemble.” She wears pink bunny slippers with her pajamas, a blue towel tied around her neck.

“Not now, honey. Aunt Dana needs to rest.”

“But mom, we have to assemble to chase away the bad evil people. Say ‘Begone and stay gone for fear of the X-Women’ 100 times.”

“Let’s just say it 10 times, okay?”

A dramatic sigh. “Okay.”

They chant the line. She grabs me in a bone-crushing hug, careful to avoid my broken arm.

“You’re safe now, Aunt Dana.”

My swollen mouth hurts, but I smile anyway. “I feel safe now.”

I don’t think I’m lying.

It's that last line that twists this story from good to wonderful. "I don't think I'm lying" is so much more subtle and evocative than the certainty of either "I'm not lying" or "I'm lying."

Brigid 2:39am

EUPHEMISMS & IDIOMS

1. Domestic disturbance
2. Spontaneous abortion
3. Last straw
4. Last meal
5. Just desserts
6. Devil in the details
7. Accidental death: anaphylaxis
8. Cool as a cucumber
9. Slip of the tongue
10. 0800 Police inquiry
11. Dog on a bone
12. Inconclusive evidence
13. Case closed
14. Award-winning recipe
15. Happily ever after

It's always interesting how an unusual form can appear in different entries. It's akin to two scientists reaching the same conclusion on a new theory or invention when they're working separately.  (It's called simultaneous invention)

The beauty of this is the story revealed in just quick little phrases.
Very elegant spare story telling.

Jeffrey Schaefer 8:58am

“You’re doing it wrong,” E said slipping ahead. 

X gritted his teeth. He hated vowels down to his cross-legged bones. “Tyrant.”

“What was that?” Of course, Alpha had heard him.

That was the problem. Vowels were everywhere. They knew all X’s plans to expel them from power. If Orwell had wanted to study a police-state he only needed to have glanced at his typewriter.

Double-U, H and Wye had served a 100 years for their unauthorized get together.

“Psst.”

X glanced over his shoulder.

Q held out a piece of paper.

Unfolding it, X cracked a devilish smile.

Mandarin.

This is hilarious all the way from concept to execution. This line If Orwell had wanted to study a police-state he only needed to have glanced at his typewriter is just brilliant.

And the ending was the perfect note.

french sojourn 8:42am

“Boilermaker,” he said, sitting down next to me.

“Sure thing, don’t mind that fella next to you, he just lost his wife.”

“Fuck you Ned,” I said.

Ned bit his lip, and served the fella his boilermaker.

“I tell yah, the devils never dealt me a square hand since before I was a kid. Worked my fingers to the bone,” I said, draining the last of my Springbank 100 proof Scotch. I nodded for another.

“Let me get that, you lost your wife.”

“Thanks.”

“How’d ya lose her?”

“Fucker showed a pair of sixes, and I had a full boat.”

This reminds me of the wonderful title I Still Miss My Man ... but my aim is getting better by Sarah Shankman. (It's also a terrific book)

Now, what makes this entry interesting is that a full boat outranks a pair of sixes, so we're left wondering about the rest of the cards in the hand.

I had to read these several times and really think about the entries, but in the end I just had to go with Curt David 9:15am

Thanks to all of you who entered. It was a truly amazing display of story telling this week!