Contest October-November 2019 Short Story Contest, Reading Thread

[Paradoxical Pacifism]

@thedarkfourth reviews?

 

[thedarkfourth]

Damn...uh...*ducks behind a wall* I'm not really here! That was a ghost speaking in the last comment. The ghost is sure that thedarkfourth is very busy with important things and definitely not playing minesweeper on windows '97.

 

[Killer Angel]

Damn...uh...*ducks behind a wall* I'm not really here! That was a ghost speaking in the last comment. The ghost is sure that thedarkfourth is very busy with important things and definitely not playing minesweeper on windows '97.

You have successfully spent your bonus.
Don't worry about the pain you have caused, 'cause we are strong and we survived the End Times.
Just know that further absences from reviews will hurt us badly.

 

[Aginor]

playing minesweeper on windows '97.

Surely not, because you have to play Simon Tatham's version, which is fair.

 

[Warden]

Fellow Lizards!



I neglected to do my reviews during this contest. It was a real treat going through these stories, thank you to those of you who were able to conduct their reviews and in so much detail!

The winning piece is "Reunited Once Again" written by @WhenTheSkinksMarch

Congratulations WTSM for a well deserved win.

Thank you to everyone for writing. Every piece was great.

Just because voting is over and I'm unstickying this thread doesn't mean that you guys have to stop with the commentary and constructive criticisms.

Also, you got about two or three weeks to submit an entry for our Start of Winter Poetry Contest.

Congrats to @WhenTheSkinksMarch for winning the contest, pretty happy I made it to number 2 (I think that is my personal best so far!). This contest was a great opportunity for me to finish a story I never completed a long time ago.

My favorite was @Scalenex 's piece (I am a little biased for the western setting I guess ) and I really enjoyed the diverse group of settings we pull from during this contest.

No piece was grimdark enough to win the Scalenex Cup but I liked "In the Grim Darkness" which provided fake grimdaIrk. I was the one person who voted for it.

I am largely surprised that a magenta story didn't win the contest. We've never had a magenta story win. Serpents Brew came close in contest #6. The winner was a Lizardmen transform into Seraphon which has been in the winner's circle a lot, but all of all the stories that covers the transition from Lizardmen to Seraphon, this is by far the best crafted one yet.

In my opinion it was the most interesting take on the theme of Alternate Settings. It actually had two alternate settings in it. Video games and 21st century spoiled Skink teenagers.

I would have liked to see a Kings of War setting piece as an alternate setting, but our KoW fans don't frequent the fluff forum much sadly.

Anywho, this completes our 20th contest, so I thought I give the other contests a quick look. Recent contests have fewer typos and better pacing than early entries on average.

I looked back over past contests. I noticed the Under-Empire Skaven short stories had a recurring thing that the winning piece nearly always involved the protagonist being betrayed artfully. We don't have anything that recurring with our winners but I noticed the winners in 2019 were all generally bittersweet happy endings.

Next contest, I want every piece to have a downer ending!


It's relatively uncommon for a Seraphon based story to win a contest in lieu of a Lizardmen based story, but when Seraphon stories do win, they usually involve the transition from Lizardmen to Seraphon.

I did notice that most contest winners are character driven rather than event driven, but that is such a broad brush that it's not worth saying much. When a winning piece breaks the mold, that piece tends to I'd say the medium of short stories in general supports character driven stories. The major exception was Contest #3, but I think that's because of the theme "Man Versus Nature." Man Versus Nature stories are almost event driven by definition.


Contest #1. "Recovery of Lustrian Artifacts" The winner was a literal professional writer. Go figure. Also, the winning piece involved a Kroxigor protagonist which we don't see a lot of. This a battle piece. In future contests, battle narratives rarely gather lots of votes. Also, this was before we enforced maximum word counts so this piece was long. A lot of pieces ran long.


Contest #2. "Chameleons" The winner involved a lot of unique characters. A Saurus Warrior that thought it was a Skink. A Chameleon Skink that rode a Terradon. Future contests rarely have a Chameleon Skink protagonist but the contest theme was "Chameleons" so there you go...With the exception of my piece, most of the pieces in the contest were succinct.


Contest #3. "Man Versus Nature." "Monsoon" blew me away (PUN!). It was our first, and practically last event driven story to win. It had fantastic pacing and a unique desert setting. This piece was written by a lurker who never posted anything on our site until this contest!. Skink protagonist. Our most common protagonist.

This was the first Age of Sigmar era contest, but we only had one AoS piece.


Contest #4: "Spirit of Horror" (aka the Contest of Bob). This was back when multiple entries were allowed. We had a tie between "Fear" written by Spawning of Bob and "Secrets of the Southlands" written by Spawning of Bob.

In both cases the pieces were pretty short. "Fear" was our first contest winner with a Saurus protagonist. Saurus protagonist stories are not very common but they tend to get high vote talies. "Secrets of the Southlands" was a comic which we eventually disallowed in future contests. It was our first contest winner with a human protagonist. "The Ghosts We Have" almost tied Bob and it also had a human protagonist.

Almost all of our contests had at least one human protagonist story. This one had lots of them. Probably because since most of the writers are human, it's easier to write horror from a human point of view.


Contest #5: "Continuity and Change" Our first contest winner that involved Seraphon. Even with a contest theme that invited Seraphon stories, old habits die hard. Only 4/11 pieces had Seraphon in them. Not sure what to say. This might qualify as our first contest winner that had a downer ending. Protagonist was a Skink. In general, the plurality of our protagonists in our short stories are Skinks and the plurality of our winners are Skinks.


Contest #6: "Anti-Heroes." This contest had 15 entries. I tied for first place. I will risk narcissism and talk about myself. I haven't entered every contest but I have entered most of them because the L-O Short Story Contest is sort of my baby and I want to encourage it and pad the numbers. Sometimes I crank a piece out at the last minute. When I win or almost win, I don't rush my pieces. I didn't rush this one. I also notice that the pieces I write that get the most votes are the ones that tug on heart strings and make me choke up while writing my own piece.

This contest was great. With 15 pieces we had a huge variety of different pieces. We had five first time writers. Protagonists included Slann, human, Sauri, Skinks, and even a Dwarf. In fact "The Coward" was my favorite piece of this contest and one of the few short stories that continues to stick in my mind years later. Well done @Killer Angel. This is also our first contest with alternate setting stories in it.

We still don't have a lot of Age of Sigmar stories, but a pattern is emerging. Most of the AoS pieces either cover some aspect of the transition from Lizardmen to Seraphon or they involve Lizardmen beaming down to save some hapless village full of of humans.

This was our second contest with a tie. Also, this was our second contest where the winning piece (or one of them anyway) had a human protagonist.


Contest #7 "Conjunction and/or Choices." Mildly odd in that this contest had zero Age of Sigmar pieces in it. This contest had our first landslide victory with @thedarkfourth steamrolling the competition. Also:

From this point on, llamas became a recurring thing in many writer's fluff pieces, including mine. Protagonist was a Saurus. In general Saurus protagonists are rare but they are disproportionately represented in the winner's circle. In fact, another writer wrote a sequel to Myol's adventure in story ten.

I don't know if this is the first Short Story piece to identify a female Saurus and the protagonist did have a maternal feel.


Contest #8 "Freedom and Slavery" Another contest ends with a landslide victory for @Y'ttar Scaletail . "Slave to the Sword" was amazing because it had a sympathetic demon as the protagonist. This piece had a wide variety of takes on the theme and a wide variety of protagonists. This contest had three alternate setting stories.


Contest #9 "Hope and/or Vengeance" 16 pieces, a record we have yet to surpass. I credit the broad theme with this. I don't remember if I came up with it or Y'ttar did. Too many pieces to make sweeping generalizations about this contest. The voting spread was very close and this contest generated a huge amount of constructive criticisms and discussion

The winning piece had a well-developed Saurus protagonist. As I said before, Saurus protagonists are disproportionately likely to win. It also had lots of feels in it.


Contest #10 "Man Versus Self or Cold Blooded Honor" I'm 99% sure I came up with the contest theme because it's so erudite and wordy. Once again the winner was a Saurus protagonist. Once again @Y'ttar Scaletail won with a gritty emotional piece. The contest winner had a downer ending which is something we don't see very often.

This was the first contest where zero pieces had a human protagonist. In fact, every protagonist was a lizard.


Contest #11 "Time and/or Fire" The winning piece had a Skink protagonist. Not uncommon. The piece had good characterization but this winning piece was more event driven than we normally see. Reminded me of Jack London's "To Build a Fire." Anothe rarity was the pieces I voted for got the most votes, my first and second choices were the first and second vote getters. "A Song of Rice and Fire," the second place holder. This is the closest a comedy piece made it to winning so far. Funny pieces universally get praise, but they rarely get many votes.

No human protagonists this contest, but we had TWO elf protagonists out of seven pieces making this by far our elfiest contest ever.


Contest #12 "The Rat and the Serpent." It thought this contest theme would be flooded with entries but this was our first five entry contest. The lowest we've ever had. This marks a trend as we would only hit double digits again once, and we would go on to have five contest entries many times. Fortunately the contest quality continues to rise even if the quantity does not.

The winning piece had a Skink protagonist. Not surprising. What surprised me was that nobody wrote a Skaven protagonist and two fifths of the pieces had a human protagonist. I know L-O forumites are not super big on Skaven protagonist. That's what UE fluff section is for. But I expected a few for this contest and got zero. That bugged me a lot and is a large motivator for why I chose to write a Skaven protagonist myself next contest.


Contest #13 "The Power of Music." Very diverse writing style, though this piece had a delicious nihilistic dark streak through almost all the seven pieces. This pleases me! Like most of our 2018 contests, voting was neck and neck.

The winning entry was a Skink which is pretty common. What made this piece memorable was how the piece was elegant in it's simplicity. There were no battle, no life or death struggle. The whole piece covers a frustrated artist.


Contes #14 "Beast and Master" As is not uncommon, the winning piece was a heartfelt piece with a Saurus protagonist. My own piece "The Huagerdon" was sort of a trolling piece. I almost won this contest. As I mentioned before, I didn't rush this one. I had the basic concept for over a year and I very carefully tended this story. I didn't deserve to win though. "Cold" was great.

One thing I noticed that was universal with this piece is that all five pieces were fairly succinct. That is pretty rare but it is becoming less rare.


Contest #15 "Food and Drink" Another blowout story. @Infinity Turtle frequently gets a lot of votes, but she really smoked the competition this time. An emotional Saurus protagonist won. See a pattern!

Two other things stand out here. This piece had a lot of very lighthearted and very dark pieces. This is arguably the first unequivocal light piece that won a contest. Also, this piece had zero Age of Sigmar stories which is odd given how long AoS has been out, but that sort of makes sense because Seraphon don't have to eat or drink...probably.


Contest #16 "It Came From Above." This was our last contest to hit double digit entries. I think in general our Fall contests have above average turnouts. The winner was a protagonist who died in a noble sacrifice....my favorite kind of ending. It was a Skink protagonist like many stories do.

This piece had a darker tone overall which contrasted with the last contest which leaned towards the light (with a few major cannibal based exceptions!). As is often the case, my favorite pieces got few votes. I was really impressed with "Fallen Leaf" and "Starlight in the Shadows," especially the latter. Infinity Turtle tends to favor lighter pieces, but this piece showed she has range and is perfectly capable of going dark and angsty.

I was surprised that this piece didn't have many Age of Sigmar stories. "It Came from Above" seems really obvious for what Seraphon do. I guess this shows that L-O writers don't like to be obvious.

Not only was this piece a high water mark for lots of entries. This piece had a lot of first time entrants which was fantastic. Only the first contest had proportionately more first time entries entries.


Contest #17 "Glyph Forty-Three on Plaque Twelve of the Third Chamber of the Sacred Archives of Oyxl" or "Interpretations of Prophecy." I was extremely reluctant to create a contest with a theme that tongue in cheek. That's why I slapped on "Interpretations of Prophecy." I probably shouldn't have been so worried. Seven entries is not bad at all.

Given that the theme involves interpreting a sacred plaque, I'm not surprised every piece had a reptilian protagonist. As is often the case, the protagonist of the winning piece was a Skink. As is often the case, the winning entry was written by @Y'ttar Scaletail.


Contest #18 "Doom and/or Destruction" I won! I won! I won! I didn't lose! I won! I didn't even tie...In your face everyone who isn't me!

Guess what, I didn't rush this piece. It had a Saurus protagonist and it had a lot of heart. With all lack of modesty, I believe I actually deserved this win. However, I wish "The Doom of Vanir Rockfist" and "The Extermination of the Fimir" got more votes. Those pieces were great. Especially the latter. @Warden took a big risk writing about that subject in that format and I thought it was spectacular. As for @Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl , he's right. He writes dwarves very well.

This piece had a lot of great variety and of the recent pieces, had a great variety of styles, tones, and point of view characters.


Contest #19 "Magic and the Mundane." I don't know if @Killer Angel 's piece was the first or second submission I got but as soon as I finished reading the first draft I knew the piece was going to win. This was an unsurprisingly blow out victory with a lot of heart. Skink protagonist, Kroxigor deuteragonist, so you don't have to write emotional Saurus characters to win.

That's not to say the other pieces were bad. Half these pieces, if you had a time machine and could send them back to 2016, they'd probably win. Apart from "Monsoon Season" in contest #3 which won on it's debut, @CalebTheNomad had what was probably one of the strongest first-time entries we ever had.

I also liked "The Coward's Weapon" a lot. I don't think TD4 ever wrote something I didn't like. As a parental figure on Lustria-Online, I shouldn't have favorites, but I do. Sorry, not sorry. My favorites are consistently @thedarkfourth , @discomute , and @Infinity Turtle .

@Y'ttar Scaletail and @Killer Angel both write a lot of awesome pieces, but you guys both write a lot of adequate pieces too.

@Warden, you might be my favorite if you wrote more often. @spawning of Bob , you will always be my favorite frenemy. @All the Rest of You. Don't stop writing. You too can win my affection if you keep at it.



Anyway, here we are at the conclusion of our fifth straight year of contests! I hope to see at least five more years of unbroken seasonal contests. Lets start 2020's January-Februrary contest with a bang! And it's all up for @WhenTheSkinksMarch picking a good contest theme. No pressure though.

This is a glorious list

Well done to this forum for making it through so many (continuous) short story contests!

 

[WhenTheSkinksMarch]

Oh god I get bogged down and forget to come back here and this happens?!
I must first of all say a massive congrats to everyone who wrote the other stories, I'm sorry I couldn't make reviews but there were some great ones that had me laughing and almost crying.
Second, thanks to those who voted for me! I am honestly surprised so many of you did, because now that I am here I have no idea what to do with this honour.......... uuuuhhhh...... Yeah.
Special shout out to @thedarkfourth and @Paradoxical Pacifism for their amazing works, great work guys!