Flash fiction contest preliminary FINAL results

Despite some caterwauling about the prompt words on Twitter, you guyz really embraced the challenge this week!  I thought I'd really stymie you but you just sneered at my paltry challenge and whipped up some really great stuff.

Herewith the results:

Special recognition for Excellence in Prompt Words (the Steve Forti award)

Steve Forti 9:16am

Dellcartoons 9:17am

Utterly strangely wonderful. A veritable word circus

Kerry Bernard 9:45am

A sentence that just cracked me up

Mike Hays 9:55am

"Hopefully, the Bat was away chasing other fools in tights."

E.M. Goldsmtih 8:08am

A succubus’ job is never done.

Kathy Joyce 10:32am

"Equal partners, us, fifty-fifty-fifty."

Special recognition for excellence in an unappreciated art form: the pun

Dena Pawling 10:19am

Not quite a story but terrific writing

Chelsea Owens 10:55am

J. Corpas 2:08pm

A phrase that is pure gold

Craig F

"A phone zombie"

Not quite a story but a perfect example of what to leave unsaid, and what details to include.

roadkills-r-us

Waiting for my Whopper I heard, "Excuse me. Have we met?"
I turned to look. Twenty years faded away. "You were hitchhiking. To Nyack."
"You gave me a ride in your Mick Truck."
"You mean Mack, but it was a Peterbuilt."
"You were very kind."
"You weren't. You nicked the bills stashed in the console."
She blushed. "I'm sorry. I was young, desperate, and stupid. I can repay you." She seemed sincere, but who knows?
I spent twenty years in Rikers for that truck theft. She looked well off. I smiled. "Water under the bridge. Want to share a table?"

Here's the long list

S.D. King

“In a story we first reported Monday, thousands of men across the country are reporting mysterious blindness, followed by sudden clarity of vision. In stony silence, victims refuse to tell details, but many mimicked that they were alone with a woman and remember a bright flash.”

“And now to Wall Street: a team of women programmers developing phone apps specifically aimed at female users. With an IPO set for this week, these soon-to-be billionaire engineers are solving a host of problems specific to women. We will attempt to learn more about beta-testing on the top-secret app nicknamed ‘HARVEY.’”

This just cracked me up completely. I want it to be non-fiction SO MUCH!

The Noise In Space

    Passing into the light didn’t hurt nearly as much as she’d thought. Soft, cottony clouds billowed underfoot, and harp music filled the air. Not a bad way to spend eternity. She nodded to a man, who she took for St. Peter, and passed through the gates. Perhaps Nana would be waiting for her, or her cat Mickey.

    But wait. That man—she’d seen him before. The other driver. At his feet, a car seat. “Baby on board.”

    This wasn’t right. She heard someone snicker. Her face felt flush—if only she had a fan, she was so hot, and—

    Oh.

I love the twisty ending, and how much is left unsaid here. What's left unsaid is a good way to measure of how much tension is in a story. (Tension in a story is a good thing!)  Here I'm left wanting to know more, which is EXACTLY what you want at the start of a novel.

Nate Wilson

Tony: Award-winning author William Shakes is talking with us today about his new children's book, titled...

Peter: Cottontail. It's the story of a most unexpected friendship. It begins...

Nick: At night, with a tiger's stomach growling. Yet, when...

Tony: The tiger goes in search of a meal and finds a...

Peter: Rabbit, he doesn't eat him. William, you've said you wrote this to educate children.

Bill: Of rights and wrongs, yes. Though truly, it's more gimmick than actual story. And the end is rather...

Tony: Stark. Agreed. Unfortunately, listeners, it seems we've run...

Peter: Out...

Nick: Of time. Until tomorrow...

I'm a sucker for writers playing with form, and this is a terrific example. (No suprise, it's Nate Wilson's; he's known for this kind of word dexterity.)

Like all great short form work it's a whole lot harder than it looks, and when it looks this easy, I know bullets got sweated writing it.

Rio

I saw you playing in the park,
the little boy with the broken heart,
and your father who would practice catch with you.
Each day you came out with new hope,
terrible and stupid hope,
that you could bear the role he put on you.

He knew your dreams were far from there.
He smiled at you as if he cared,
but your dreams weren’t worth a nickel in his eyes.
Still hope, it billowed out from you,
in your Mickey shirts and your light-up shoes.
I had no choice but to save you from that life.

The twist at the end is a literal body blow. I was left gasping, and then re-reading. Packing that kind of wallop into 100 words or fewer is not easy.

E. Berg

“Tony.” Mickie spoke so softly only I heard her.

The name caused tiny nicks to tingle on my skin.

Beside us, Jamie whispered, “Peter.”

We all looked at each other.

The bitchy girl in front of us whipped around. I braced for her quip.

“Billy,” she said.

We sat in silence. Outside were high calls and low grunts of boys lacrosse. Inside, the sun illuminated dust particles people pretended not to see.

My heart rumbled. I walked to the chalkboard and wrote #MeToo.

Soon the bell rang but we stayed there. We were on our own time now.

There's nothing I can add here. This may be fiction but it's also utterly true.  This is the kind of work I point to when people tell me they only like to read non-fiction.

kdjames

My brother's joint was the kind they'd slip you a mickey sooner than start an honest fistfight.

The regulars played billiards in the back, the snick of balls an accent to rough voices. Couldn't compete with the tony clubs on the north side, but the table felt was immaculate. Priorities.

Conversation petered out as I stepped up to the bar.

"We don't serve cops."

"Good thing I ain't planning to order one."

We traded hard stares, harder memories.

"Cut bait while you still can, Frank."

He sneered.

Priorities.

Goddammit.

I held the door for the Feds on my way out.

That first line is one of the best I've seen in a long time. The importance of a good first line can not be overstated. And the ending is sublime. This is a perfect story.

Brig

Reflowered were once a boy band.

They refused to be considered washed up, but did acknowledge some vigorous wiping with a damp cloth.

Enter: A reality show.

Just them, the elements, 60 crew.

Tony realised he only loved reality TV for the lack of reality. The same reason Bill missed alcohol. The others arrived with identical rhinoplasty so hadn’t spoken.

The fight was gluten related. While Mick and Nick had the size advantage, Peter really knew his way around a kick ball change.

Six weeks later, they hated each other.

Seven weeks later, they hated each other in sold-out arenas.

This cracked me up. I think the line that made laugh out loud was "Peter really knew his way around a kick ball change." For those of you who weren't dragged to dancing class as an innocent child that's a term from dance, not fisticuffs.

And "identical rhinoplasty" is a genius phrase.

This is really terrific.

Karen McCoy

The salesman emitted a gimmicky smile. “This one’s a beaut. Bit rickety, though.”

The chair sighed, missing Mexico, and the girl who painted him stony red. An old woman, now, if she was still alive.

The woman inspected the armrest. “Paint looks cracked.”

Nicks--constant pokes and prods that deepened each year the chair was stuck here, with the store’s soul-killing Muzak.

Unless.

“I’ll take it, along with another coat of paint. Send me the bill.”

“Might peter out on the journey. You certain?”

“I’ll make sure it passes the border,” the woman said. “My grandmother will be thrilled.”

I'm a sucker for odd points of view, and this one, from the POV of a chair really charmed me. It tells a lovely story without overtelling. Notice the choice of a few perfect modifiers: gimmicky, stony, soul-killing." This is great writing.

flashfriday

“Button your shirt,” said Mom, as though a grave hadn’t just appeared in the living room floor, “company’s coming.”

She didn’t mention the grave, not the next day or even the next as the stench grew, though she did—stepping round carefully—spritz the room with lemon.

By Week Two, guests were gagging.

“Waiting on the recarpeter,” Mom said, eyes mimicking steel. “Tea?”

Eventually friends quit coming by. But Mom never panicked, just kept spritzing, once, twice, a billion times.

Bizarre, all those years we lived in that house before she died, how she never mentioned the grave at all.

A few of you mentioned you didn't get this story. That's what makes it so good: there's nothing to get. A grave opens up in the middle of the living room, and no one says a thing. It's like the elephenat in the room with horror overtones. The reader brings all the interpretations to this story; it's a perfect example of letting the reader terrify herself. This is the kind of story you think about for years afterwards.

Richelle Elberg

At Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan, there’s a memorial where the World Trade Center once stood. Two immense square pools have been built into the Twin Towers’ footprint. Water falls thirty feet into the pools along each wall. Flanking the pools are great sheets of bronze built into a protective barrier. Some 3,000 names have been cut into these great bronze sheets, for all to remember.

I remember.

Bill, Tony, Mick. Peter and Nick. There were all there with me.

I trace my finger over another name.

My name.

I turn and leave.

I love this story because it's entirely up to the reader to decide what's happened. Is "I" dead? Or did "I" use the events of 9/11 to walk away from a life and start another.

Look at the very artful use of punctuation in the names: Bill, Tony, Mick. Peter and Nick. They were all there with me (yes, there was a typo, but for this entry I don't care)

Richelle didn't put all the names in one sentence, or make sentences out of each name. This is a textbook mastery of rhythm which you know I yap about a lot. 

Let me know if you have a favorite among the finalists, and who you think should have been a finalist but wasn't.

Final results later today.


Choosing a winner was just brutal. I can hear you all saying "good! Revenge!" when I say that. We should call these contests Writers Revenge on the Agent instead of the tepid Flash Fiction contests.

Each one of these entries is worthy of winning. When I read through them the first time, each time I said "this is the one" so each one did win if only for a couple minutes.  

In the end I came back and read them all again this afternoon, and I picked the one that haunted me. 

Richelle Elberg, you're the winner this week.

Let me know your mailing address. If you live outside the US, you can pick someone to get the books and I'll send you something else.

To all who took the time to write and enter this contest, thank you. It's amazing to see the pool of talent among the readers of this blog.