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Contest July-August 2024 Short Story Voting Contest (voting through September 7th)

Which story did you like best (You only get one vote this time!))

  • Story One: "Jungle's Message"

    Votes: 1 9.1%

  • Story Two: "He Said He Would Come"

    Votes: 1 9.1%

  • Story Three: "A Promise of Hope"

    Votes: 5 45.5%

  • Story Four: "Under the Night's Embrace"

    Votes: 1 9.1%

  • Story Five: "If You Don't Laugh, You Cry"

    Votes: 3 27.3%
  • Total voters
    11
  • Poll closed .
Killer Angel said:
Well, that's great! :)

Every story took at least 1 vote... and i must say that i'm particularly happy for this, as the piece that was stuck with 0 votes was my second fav story (a sad fate to be the 2nd pick when you have only 1 choice :p)
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Oof, yeah. I was looking at that the entire time thinking that it would be a real kick in the author's teeth to be the only one without a single vote. Especially when, like you, it was a high contender for the hypothetical second vote.
 
T'is the eternal problem on these competitions, the standard of writing is often too good that allocating a single (or two or three or four) vote feels that it misrepresents how good the other entries were. So I be glad everyone at least got a vote.
 
J.Logan said:
Oof, yeah. I was looking at that the entire time thinking that it would be a real kick in the author's teeth to be the only one without a single vote. Especially when, like you, it was a high contender for the hypothetical second vote.
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...and in a matter of a few hours, it went from 0 votes to 2nd place :hilarious:
 
I am a little late to the party here. I have wrote my reviews WITHOUT reading the other reviews. If I clash with or agree with the other reviews, it is purely by coincidence.

Story One, "Jungle's Message": We have a lot of stories about doomed human expeditions in these L-O seasonal contests but this was better than most. It had good pacing, good descriptions, and succinct word choices. It was a nice take on a survivor's tale we don't usually see.

Story Two, "He Said he Would Come": Usually "Despair" stories involve the enemies of the Lizardmen/Seraphon it's nice to see both sides. My interpretation is that the Slann willingly sacrificed them or maybe mistimed things. Maybe this was intended as a prelude style short story hinting at a larger story to come, but since we are talking about "Hope and Despair" this had a feeling of ending to it. I really liked the general word choices, especially “assumptions are the spawning pool of all failures" though there were a couple minor typos here and there. I may have to read it again. I'm not sure if the ambiguity is a strength or a weakness.

Story Three, "A Promise of Hope": This one is probably my favorite of the five in terms of duality equally holding hope and despair in the same measure. I certainly identified with and rooted for the protagonist immediately. I wasn't sure what she was carrying until the very end, I just knew it was important to her. I'm not 100% sure on whether the bag being a "mystery box" was good idea or a bad idea, but either way the story was quite good.

Story Four, Under the Night's Embrace: This was emotionally evocative and well-written and I liked the unorthodox letter writing style of storytelling. The flower blooming was a great way to end this piece.

That said, I fear this might have been in the Uncanny Valley. Lizardmen are challenging to write as Point of View characters because ideally one should balance the "human" and "bestial" aspects of Lizardmen and this was very human. It could have used a little more reptilian view point. Also, canonically, Lizardmen asexually reproduce from spawning pools. This is hardly the first short story to break the canon there (breaking canon is done good if done carefully) but I didn't feel the implied romance was as well explained as it could have been.

Story Five, "If You Don't Laugh, You Cry": This story invoked memories of Spawning of Bob in me and that is very high praise indeed. Usually in his pieces, the tomfoolery and slapstick defeats the enemies of the Lizardmen not the Lizardmen themselves but it was an enjoyable and unorthodox piece nonetheless.
 
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J.Logan said:
I think we just take it for granted that every option is one vote higher than actually stated as we would all be voting for our own tales by default with the spare :p
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Most L-O writers here take the opposite route where they hate their own work.
 
Whelp... unless we see a surge of votes in the closing hour, I think we have our winner.

Congrats to Story Three: A Promise of Hope, unless fate decides to make me look silly and in hour before it becomes official. :-P
 
J.Logan said:
Whelp... unless we see a surge of votes in the closing hour, I think we have our winner.

Congrats to Story Three: A Promise of Hope, unless fate decides to make me look silly and in hour before it becomes official. :p
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Those 3 votes in a day for "if you don’t laugh..." were really unexpected, but yeah.
Let's just wait for the official announcement by @Scalenex
 
The winner is Story Three By Killer Angel

Story One, "Jungle's Message" by @J.Logan

Story Two, "He Said He Would Come" by @Imrahil

Story Three, "A Promise of Hope" by @Killer Angel THE WINNER

Story Four, "Under the Night's Embrace" by @Llinyn Tathrenlir

Story Five, "If You Don't Laugh, You Cry" by @thedarkfourth

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this is J.Logan's first contest entry and Llinyn Tathrenlir's second entry. Thedarkfourth, Killer Angel, Imrahil have umpteen entries. Good mix of old and new.
 
Scalenex said:
but I believe this is J.Logan's first contest entry and Llinyn Tathrenlir's second entry.
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Then @J.Logan and @Llinyn Tathrenlir should be made aware that I will automatically vote for any story that makes mention of the Chaos Dwarfs (unless another rival story makes a greater mention of them, in which case they get the vote). Additionally, I'll campaign to have others vote for it as well.

For the record, stories containing a Chaos Dwarfs mention hold a nearly perfect undefeated record.

!!!!!.jpg
 
NIGHTBRINGER said:
Then @J.Logan and @Llinyn Tathrenlir should be made aware that I will automatically vote for any story that makes mention of the Chaos Dwarfs (unless another rival story makes a greater mention of them, in which case they get the vote). Additionally, I'll campaign to have others vote for it as well.

For the record, stories containing a Chaos Dwarfs mention hold a nearly perfect undefeated record.
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Maybe next time then. :-P

Trivia for my entry:

This marks the first time I've ever deliberately written with American-English spelling, ever. And the first used double quotation marks for dialogue since I was a acne-ridden teenager. I figured it would help with anonymity. I probably needn't have bothered, but I figured it would be interesting to test if I can, not whether I should.

I am reminded that I can wattle on when writing. There were at least two scenes that had to be cut for the sake of keeping in the word limit. Nothing was lost for their absence, but it is a reminder that when writing I can waffle on and turn what better writers would manage in 5000 words into a 10000 word chapter. Nice to be confronted with my weaknesses. Now I shall mark those weaknesses down in the book to be remembered until a reckoning shall come.

Wait... that's Dawi, not lizards...
 
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