Chorrol TES Fanfiction Competition Results Options

[Burnt Sierra]

Righto, the results of the first Chorrol TES Fanfiction Competition.

First let me give you some understanding of how it's been scored. The public vote counted for 50% and the judges votes counted for 50%. Obviously with only three judges, I had to find a way of balancing out the scoring. I don't want to post specific scores up here, as I'm not sure that every author will neccessarily want that information being made public. Obviously some were very close, and some not so close. If an author wants to know how I decided the scoring system, and how their piece specifically scored that's absolutely fine. Send me a pm and I'll give you that information.

It's been a difficult competition to judge to be honest. Even amongst the judges, we had very different opinions. Resulting in none of us choosing the same story in first place. Which just goes to show that there were some really good stories entered biggrin.gif

Secondly comments. All three of judges have written some comments on the stories, which I'll post up on a story by story basis after the results.

[Burnt Sierra]

BSD-IES

Lady of the Night

This is a particularly ambitious piece. You've tried to tell a story, that would probably normally run 40,000-60,000 words, in only 2,000. I have seen this done successfully before, magical realism stories have been known to use this technique, for example “Dead Man” by Jorge Luis Borges. However, it doesn't quite work here. The major problem that I can see, is that you use primarily dialogue. One old cliché, that's taught to every beginning writer, is show don't tell. Here we have characters summarising the action for us, but we don't get to see any of it. All the action, tension, emotions, fear, confusion, excitement – we're just told it all. I'd love to see this written up as a full length piece, as I think it could be great. But as a short story, I'm afraid it falls short for me. You have my admiration for trying such an ambitious project though.

The Fateful Night

This has a lovely idea behind it. Take an ordinary, working man and throw him into an extraordinary situation. The situation here being the invasion of Kvatch. This suffers from structural problems first and foremost though. There's too much time spent on the details of his personality and social status before the invasion, and far too little spent on how he deals with the invasion itself. Personally I wanted to see more of the latter - after all that's where the major potential for the story lies. How does he cope, when he's presented with circumstances far beyond his experience. I also feel you needed to clarify your use of language, after the invasion particularly. You've used far too many passive words and phrases, which don't really bring to life the feelings of shock and terror he must be feeling. I can see it in my head, but I can't feel it. Bizarrely you are much more effective in your description in the first half, when possibly we don't need it as much. A good idea, done pretty well, but needed balancing better.

A knife in the dark

This story suffers from two main problems. Firstly there's a serious lack of polish. There's too many mistakes and a couple of what seems to me to be glaring plot holes. The overriding impression I'm left with is that it's been rushed, and I'm at a loss as to why that would be the case. It was one of the first entries received, and there were several days left before the closing date. That's several days that could have been spent thoroughly checking and tightening it. I can only assume that the excitement of having finished it got the better of you. There's a lesson to be learned here. In longer fan fictions, which tend to be episodic in nature, you can post quickly and then go back and edit afterwards. With a competition you need to edit carefully before submitting. Secondly a short story, by its very definition, is short. That may sound facetious, but what it means is that every word has to count. Like the previous story, I don't feel you got the balance right. The idea behind the piece is sound, though the ending could be seen a mile away, a further twist would have done wonders for it. I know there was only two thousand words to work with, but that's what I mean about making every word count. You've chosen to use flowing, naturalistic dialogue that perhaps could have been made much less prominent, which in turn would have freed space up for you in other areas. There's clear ability on show here, but I suspect that the author may not be as used to the different challenge presented by the short form. Lots of promise, but doesn't quite achieve what it could have done.

Butterfly

One thing this contest hasn't shown, is a lack of ambition from our authors. I found this by far the most difficult work to judge, both in terms of my personal response to it, and in comparison to other pieces. At times it's dazzling, at times it's bewildering. There's absolutely wonderful dialogue, running at a crisp, fascinating pace, but no sense of where anybody is. I feel it would work much better as a performance piece, rather than as a story to be read on the page. Whilst parts do truly delight though, I wasn't as sure about the ending. It felt almost added on after the fact. Whilst it's well written, and I have no complaints about the content, it seems almost like it belongs to a different piece. The clash in style from what preceded it jarred somewhat. A terrific effort though. Perhaps the constraints of the written word has actually limited it's effectiveness.

This Mind: Now Under New Management

I suspect my opinion isn't going to be well received for this one. Certainly it's provoked the most extreme reactions. It's very clever, no question. It's very well written, no question. It's very, very gimmicky. Yes, I know the capitals spell out Sheogarath Is Always Watching You Fools, but I found them really distracting. When I'm reading a piece of work, and I can't concentrate on the content because of a stylistic decision on the authors behalf, I'm afraid I tend to get annoyed. You created amazing images and ideas which were starting to delight, and then in the next instant pulled me right out of the story, leaving me staring at the screen in exasperation. In fact I found myself impressed and annoyed all the way through reading this. Usually at the exact same instant. Sheogarath indeed. What is indisputable is that there's an enormous amount of talent and vision in evidence. It's just a shame, for me, that I found it very difficult to concentrate fully on that talent.

The Mistake

Very good, very solidly written story with a nice idea behind it. The plot and the pacing were perfect for this format, and were nicely balanced. Both the before and after sections were effective, with a satisfying resolution. Our narrator is well drawn with plenty of defining characteristics - his confusion is dealt with very well – and I especially liked some of his internal dialogue. The action and the setting were described effectively. I never felt that I was especially drawn into the world through the description, but it wasn't so sparse as to pull me out. There was some excellent descriptive moments in there, the golden blur as the Ordinator came closer springs to mind. The pacing of the story was another plus point. Measured enough to detail everything, yet remaining quick enough to keep it exciting.
As with several stories though, this needed proofing more carefully before submitting. Spelling mistakes, the wrong words used - a thorough check would have picked up those.
All together though, this is a very good piece of work, which I enjoyed very much indeed.

Reunion

Another very impressive piece of work. Dark, gritty and full of emotion it really stood out as an attempt to give depth to the events we know happened. It was aided by some extremely good writing, effective description and good dialogue. Again there were a few spelling mistakes that should have been caught, but overall this was of extremely high quality. I had this alternating between first and second for me all week. In the end I decided on second, but it was ridiculously close. A terrific story.

In the Heart of the Alik'r

I loved this piece. More than any of the other stories, this one really pulled me into the world. I thought it was very well written throughout as well. The language, the use of description, the characterisation was all spot on for me, and it got the balance right as a whole. The tension was built up nicely throughout the piece, peaking towards the final confrontation, and culminating in a satisfying ending, Perhaps the major selling point was that it stuck with me. Other stories I've had to re-read during the course of the week, to remind myself what happened and why. This has remained firmly lodged in my memory, and each time I've read it I've enjoyed it a little more. I can't ask for much more from a story.


Afterword:

Obviously my opinions are subjective, and I only hope my comments havent offended anyone. I've enjoyed reading all of the stories - each of them has had plenty of good ideas, well thought out plots - immensely. Having to judge them against the rest wasn't easy. I suspect many people will not agree with my choices. Fair enough, at the end of the day, mine is just one opinion.

Thank you though, to every contestant that entered