SS1 Reviews and Winners! SS2 - Last Day!!!

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Last quarters winners, and this quarters contest (last day for submissions!!!)



A big round of applause :clap: to our writers brodskales, KT-Munson, NicolaiGrey, Lugal, CalicoNorth, modji-33 and PeaceKeeperd for their entries to the Short-Story 1st quarter of 2015 contest!


Their stories are located> writers-guild-da.deviantart.co…
Below in this order: SS2 Reviews: SS2 Winners Announcement: SS3 Contest Rules and Deadlines

“5 Fairy Tales to Fancy” fav.me/d8ei7vm by brodskales Having read Aleš Brodský’s previous entry to this contest, now I can start to see a signature style emerging from Brodský’s work.  His narrative ‘voice’ comes across very ‘street’ though it could use some help with past, present and future tense.  I would recommend working on tense in future writings, since the timeline as written confuses whether something was done prior to the previous thing written, or is getting done now, or will be done in the near future.  Brodský’s returns with a penchant for rhyme schemes and political debate.  His personal views are gleaned from his writing based on what is praised as positive, and what is denounced as negative through how it’s worded in his work.  Of the five fairy-tales mentioned in the title of the short story, the first four could be interpreted as pages read from the fifth by the gentle old man in the rocking chair. The language and tone of the story when you reach the fifth changes so drastically that it stands apart from the rest.  I find that kind of a transition to be very effective and, in the case of Brodský’s ending to this story, a lot more soothing than its precursors.  

“Bear King” fav.me/d8jwytw by KT-Munson It begins with the 9-year old protagonist Kayla.  Right from the start KT sets the mood and provides a very descriptive narrative that you can see clearly in your mind.  Little details like the runny nose, the environment, and the child’s and grandmother’s descriptions bring the readers closer to the story.  I had to look up Denali National Park afterwards to see where they were in the dream/fairy tale sequence, and the photos found on google beautifully matched the descriptions that KT wrote.  The transition from grandma’s story about her past and the little girls insertion of herself into the story as it morphed into her dream was tricky to pinpoint.  Otherwise, the story itself was fascinating and the moral to the story was heartwarming not to mention validated by the conclusion.  The animal personalities in the “Bear King” were believably fitted to each animal based on species and behavior, but were also unique to the individual characters too.  It was a sweet story that left me wishing I could follow Kayla into the kitchen at the end and ask grandma how much of her story matched her dream and if any of it was real.

“To be the Hero of your own Fairy Tale” fav.me/d8k8fyf by NicolaiGrey  Kicks off with a girl mourning in a wheel chair after three days in a temporary room, followed by a summary of her family members and what they meant to her… before they died.  I would be remiss if I didn't mention the word confusions peppered throughout the story.  While it’s perfectly comprehensible, some common errors could be scrubbed out by an editor or second revision by the author; to catch things like despite instead of dispute, through instead of threw, slim instead of slime, surreal instead of serial, and the infamous there, their and they’re.  Nicolai gently reveals the setting to us, hinting first at their location through the use of the word mum instead of mom – before casually mentioning the English country side.  A little further in we are eased into the notion that magic is common place in this environment with a simple enchantment on the staircase.  Now that he’s got our attention, the subtleties end there and the story abruptly takes off.  Now we’re introduced to the other (wealthy but standoffish) members of the cast (while performing magic), who are in the business of fighting ghouls and Cuthrids - which tickled my memory a bit and made me realize this was a new chapter to an older entry from the past.  I highly recommend reading the first installment (fav.me/d72xq4k) before coming to this one.  Then it will all make sense!  I liked the two chapters separately, but I loved them together and can see great potential for the story as it continues to grow.  I look forward to the continuation of Alleiya and Alex’s story.

“A Pennsilfaanisch Fairytale” fav.me/d8kbgya by Lugal Andrew is back with an original PA German fairytale.  The body of the text is dialogue intensive with smaller sections of narrative details, which makes it a light read for anyone who finds walls of text daunting.  This story reminded me of the classic knight-in-shining-armor-slays-the-dragon-to-rescue-the-princess type, but with its own set of twists.  (Don’t worry, no dragons were slain in the making of this tale)  I enjoyed the bit about the copper penny being the only treasure he could safely remove from the cave.  Of the characters, I thought the Distelfink was the MVP of the story, while the girl Lisbeth’s clever antics and the devils stupidity were the comedic relief.  The ambiguity of the punishment Old Mr. Heichlar suffers at the end is rightly chilling and I think Andrew’s decision to keep it that way was a smart choice. The simplicity of the narration was very similar to the way classic fairy tales are told and helped Andrew’s story to fit the genre it was written for.  

“The Tale of Temecula the Pure” fav.me/d8kku0t by CalicoNorth I’m not sure if this was written by Kylie or Eli (as both names are listed on the DA profile page) so when I mention the author, I’ll simply refer to them as K.E.  Their story is a tale of rags to riches, but instead of a princess we are witnessing the rise of a king.  His name is Temecula, and he began his life unwanted and indentured into servitude from the moment he could walk.  Not a man of many words, he was extra analytical inwardly and once offered any gift of his choosing from his then-king, came to his desire for purity.  Naturally the king could not offer any material prize to satisfy that wish and so Temecula goes on a journey to discover it for himself.  Like many folk tales across cultures, what he seeks and the state he inevitably achieves (or else he would not be the legend of the story, would he?) are rare commodities.  K.E. did a fabulous job building up to the arc of the story and concluding it in a way that aligns with traditional folk tales.  It sounded so legitimate that I wanted to do a google search and see if they based it off of a preexisting legend but I didn't find one (not that I dug very far into the internet to check).  I could’t help but wonder at the end though, if Temecula’s new existence in the kingdom of purity is a lonely one.  I also wondered if he would even mind being alone, given the nature of the character they made him out to be.

“The Cat’s Paw” fav.me/d8han00 by modji-33 is a Skyrim fanfiction.  Although I've never played the game, I've watched it played by others and I understood a few of the references, though I suspect there were many gems in there that I missed.  Matthew is an incredibly talented writer, and I lost myself in “The Cat’s Paw” and let it carry me away in the main characters wake.  Her dilemma to commit to the Emperors mission and abstain from her own wants to share her time with the hunter on the mountain carried real emotion and was a quick way to make me as a reader feel invested in where this was going.  There is a nice balance of dialogue and narrative, and while I understand the setting was already fabricated in-game Matthew still artfully captured it in words within his story.  Here’s just one example of what I mean:
All the colours seemed to drain out of the world here; the grey slush of the road, the glimmering white snowdrifts stretching out forever and populated by shaggy grey ghostpine sentinels. Sky blue was the only colour for miles until the orange speck of the Talos Shrine fire fluttered in the east, and grew larger. To her left, the hills fell away and revealed Ulfric's frozen hold in all it's majesty; a full league of stone bridge ending in a forty feet high battlement, and behind it the Palace of the Kings, rearing up into the sky like some bear's head howling at Secunda.
I was so invested in the story that by the time I reached the end, I didn't see it coming and it caught me off guard. I can’t wait for more.  After checking the deviation notes, I spotted a link to the first chapter – which I’ll have to go back and read once I've completed all my reviews.  “The Cat’s Paw” has incredible pacing, rich details, and stimulating characters.  It was a pleasure reading Matthew’s entry for this quarter and I hope he continues to compete in future contests.

“Origins of Association” fav.me/d8kv178 by PeaceKeeperd is another continuation of a previous quarter’s entry (fav.me/d6vixii), only this one is a prequel instead of the next chapter.  Really quickly I want to share a few notes: I recommend checking for redundancy in your sentences.  For example: “the figure fell face first forward into the snow.  It grunted as it landed, covering its face in snow”, “the loudest scream he ever had screamed”, “trying to keep going forward towards what he was looking forward to.” Etc.  A way to avoid this is to switch out words, so instead of the loudest scream her ever screamed – try something like “he belted out the loudest scream he ever bellowed”.  Also, the phrases “without hesitation/without question” are repeated a lot and aren’t always necessary.  The story picks back up right where it left off in 2013SS3.  Charlotte Green, the girl with amnesia, is bleeding to death from the fatal gunshot to her chest in the Chinese prison she had almost escaped before her cellmate double crossed her.    The flashback gives us a nice, action packed peek at her forgotten identity, and my only critique here is the initial plan to detour to the hotel and ‘pack up’ on a five-minute deadline to reach the airport extraction point.  Tactically speaking, the VIP would have been driven directly to the extraction point, and anything vital that had to be recovered from the hotel would have been retrieved by someone else on her detail team – but I digress.  The rest of the story runs as swiftly as its predecessor, and I noticed the tips from the last review were used in this installment, especially regarding dialect and word selection for different cultures and languages.  Major kudos to the author for improving upon that, it really grounds the characters.  Now that we know who Charlotte is, the question we’re left with now is: Who’s Vladimir Kazakov, really?


 I am always grateful for the effort the Writers-Guild-DA community puts into this competition.  It is because of you all that this contest thrives.  YOU GUYS! The writers, you're the ones who are coming together as a community, submitting entries, reading each others work, and interacting, and it's those things about you that make this whole thing as rewarding as it has been.  A lot of writing goes into the gallery that may never reach its audience because the ratio of submissions compared to readers appears to be unbalanced.  By joining this contest, you are contributing to the community as both a reader and a writer, and that interaction is what's so gratifying! Under those circumstances, if you really think about it, everyone has already won!  But let's throw some tangible prizes at you on top of that anyway!!

The SS1 of 2015 contest winners!


- 1st place: :iconmodji-33: with fav.me/d8han00
- 2nd place: :iconkt-munson: with fav.me/d8jwytw
- 3rd place: :iconpeacekeeperd: with fav.me/d8kv178


Prizes Awarded for this Quarter:
FIRST PLACE:
1) 60 DA Points
2) Featured in the Writers-Guild-DA journals
3) Special 1st Quarter of 2015  "Book Trailer"

*The 1st place prize video for this quarter will be digitally awarded via web link outside of DA to the finished product (of which the winner may download and share at his/her will), and it will be awarded between the day the winners are announced and the end of the following quarter

SECOND PLACE:
1) 30 DA Points
2) Featured in the Writers-Guild-DA journals

THIRD PLACE
1) 10 DA Points
2) Featured in the Writers-Guild-DA journals
:iconblackdivider1plz::iconblackdivider2plz::iconblackdivider3plz::iconblackdivider4plz::iconblackdivider5plz::iconblackdivider5plz::iconblackdivider5plz::iconblackdivider5plz::iconblackdivider5plz::iconblackdivider5plz:

2015 SS2 - Schedule of Events:  

*UPDATE: Because covers are posted on the 5th, the deadline is extended by 1 week to allot for that time
Submission Starting Date: Apr 01, 2015. Submission Deadline: *Jun 05, 2015.
Review and Award Reveal Date: Winners will be announced by June 30, and we will begin the 3rd quarterly challenge of 2015!!!

2015 SS2 COVERS OF THE QUARTER:


&

RULES


All entries have to follow these rules:
1) No fewer than 1,000 word count | No more than 10,000 word count, based on the image of the quarter
   (writers choice of two pre-made covers each quarter).
2) The title of the cover you select needs to appear somewhere in the body of the text for your entry to count toward the contest.
3) Must mention contest its being submitted for in the deviation description.
4) All entries must be submitted to the SS Comp Entries album in the group gallery.
You choose one of the two covers and write a short story around it that meets the 4 rules (the 4th rule tells you where to submit it).  If you win, you are awarded the prizes listed for your placement (1st, 2nd, or 3rd).  No covers are awarded. We award short story reviews, DA points, and free publicity via journal announcements about your work.

The prizes for this quarter are as follows:
FIRST PLACE:
1) 60 DA Points
2) Featured in the Writers-Guild-DA journals
3) Featured on the Writers-Guild-DA wall under winners hall of fame

SECOND PLACE:
1) 30 DA Points
2) Featured in the Writers-Guild-DA journals
3) Featured on the Writers-Guild-DA wall under winners hall of fame

THIRD PLACE
1) 10 DA Points
2) Featured in the Writers-Guild-DA journals
3) Featured on the Writers-Guild-DA wall under winners hall of fame

Important Information about the timeline
I know most if not all of our contestants are always anxious to hear the results, so I felt a little breakdown of how the timing is planned was in order:

-There is a reason why everything is spaced out exactly the way it is. Firstly, each contest last 3 months total, making it possible to have 4 quarters per year.
-The writing and entry portion of the contest last the first 2 months, providing ample time to contestants to get their entries finished
-The judging portion of the contest last 1 month, allowing the judge(s) time to read all the entries and make a fair decision for the winners
-Prizes other than DA Points are awarded between the day the winners are announced and the end of the following quarter *DA Points are awarded immediately

-ALL aspects of the breakdown per quarter provide excess time for irl issues that can and do come up. (Not just for the contestants, but for the host as well)

HAVE FUN AND GOOD LUCK!!!
:winner: :winner: :winner: :winner: :winner: :winner: :winner: :winner: :winner: :winner: :winner: :winner: :winner: :winner:
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PeaceKeeperd's avatar
CANNOT WAIT FOR RESULTS! :D