Cast Your Vote!!! in the Anthology Thread of the SDMB Short Fiction Contest - Holiday Edition!

[Maserschmidt]

@Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela

As for Greyhound - interesting, good effort but there are a couple of plot holes. I’m confused about where everyone is from, where they’re going and where they end up. The colour metaphor is a little overwrought.

My biggest criticism, though, is the dialogue - it’s almost as if the writer has set the story in the narrative past in order to avoid writing out conversation. Don’t tell me the conversation was interesting, show me.

You tell him, Minister! Whoever the author of that was. Oh wait…
I’ve often thought I’d be more willing to offer critiques if it were anonymous, and if I were sure that people wanted critiques. I will say that I voted for “He Knows a Lot of People,” which had a familiar kind of narrative, but which was well written enough to touch me.

[joyfool]

I just wanted to say how much I loved the flow of writing and the imagery in Thaw. It was beautiful. However, my heart belonged to An Unpardonable Crime. Roger almost had me in tears, he was so relatable and believable. Good job everyone!

[Spoons]

@Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela

As for Greyhound - interesting, good effort but there are a couple of plot holes. I’m confused about where everyone is from, where they’re going and where they end up. The colour metaphor is a little overwrought.

My biggest criticism, though, is the dialogue - it’s almost as if the writer has set the story in the narrative past in order to avoid writing out conversation. Don’t tell me the conversation was interesting, show me.

Perhaps, but the end result wasn’t too bad. I was reminded of Simon and Garfulkel’s “America,” which is also about a bus trip, and uses the same kind of narrative past reporting. Yes, as in “Greyhound” there is a bit of dialogue (“Toss me a cigarette; I think there’s one in my raincoat”), but there is also plenty of reportage during which we can only guess in general terms at the conversation taking place during a specific reported incident (“Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike”). To me, this has always demanded that the reader’s imagination contribute a little to the story, which might leave some readers more satisfied than if they had been spoon-fed. The narrative past reporting technique can work, and I think it does in “Greyhound.”

One comment I would offer, however, concerns the locations mentioned. I have a handle on where the places mentioned are, and perhaps most importantly, how far apart they are. Heck, I’ve driven to and through most of them, having a few times followed the route that that bus would take from Toronto to western Canada. But I would suspect that many SDMB readers would have no idea about these places at all; which means that (for example), they would have no idea how long the conversation between Marathon and Winnipeg lasted, or where during it, she fell asleep. For the sake of these SDMB readers, it might have been an idea to mention locations in relation to better-known places (“She got on an hour or two north of Sault Ste. Marie”), or in general terms (“She fell asleep on my shoulder when we were three or four hours out of Winnipeg”).

In the end, though, it may come down to knowing your market. If you were writing this for, say, The Walrus (a Canadian publication offering thought-provoking essays, short fiction, and similar), the locations wouldn’t present a problem. For a similar American publication such as Harper’s, they might.

Just some thoughts, anyway. In spite of my comments, I will say that overall, I did quite like “Greyhound.”

[Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela]

First, I would like to congratulate our authors. In order, they are -

Clockwork Jackal
Savannah
Le Ministre de l’au-delà
DMark
Jules Andre
LVBoPeep
chrisk
Spoons
Elfkin477
GIGObuster

Take a well earned bow, everyone.

And a very special congratulations to Spoons, who wrote the outstanding “He Knows a Lot of People”, and who is the winner, for the second month running, of the “PoeHenryParkerSaki” award. Bravo!

Also, my thanks on behalf of all of our authors to the Mods for their ongoing support, and a special thanks to all of you who have read and voted on the stories. Your input is greatly appreciated.

It’s also not to late to comment on any of the stories that particularly strike you.

I’m hoping to do another of these sometime in February. In the meantime, my best wishes to all of you,

Le Ministre de l’au-delá

[needscoffee]

I read too slowly. I missed the deadline. I tried to vote for “Christmas on the Ranch”; I just thought it was very well written. I thoroughly enjoyed all the stories, though. Great job!

[Spoons]

First of all, big thanks to our readers for their votes. All the stories show a lot of talent, and the choice couldn’t have been easy. I think all us writers can be proud of what we’ve done, especially with the given words and picture and within the time constraint. These are good stories!

And a special thanks to Le Ministre for organizing and running the contest. It was great fun, and I’ll be looking forward to the next one.

Thanks again, all!

[Savannah]

Thanks to everyone for reading, writing and voting, and of course, Le Ministre, for organising.

It is so much fun to see the different takes on the same prompts.

@Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela

Thaw - I loved that the frozen lake was both a metaphor and as a real, tangible place. The image of being exposed while crossing the frozen lake was really strong. The atmosphere of the empty nest and weakening romance was extremely well presented.

Just as a plot point question - I wonder if it might have been stronger to have something specific for Margo and Steve to forgive each other for. What do the rest of you think?

Yes, well, there was supposed to be some infidelity, either of the heart or the body, but I ran out of time to get the backstory in.

I’m looking forward to doing this again!