Winter Writing Contest 2013: Winners

This year's annual Winter Writing Contest has reached the end and the winners have been decided by both the judges and community!

Congratulations goes to FGRaptor for winning the Judge's Choice award with his most favored submission of Regret. Your work was similar to a masterpiece, as if a Renaissance painting had come to life. The magnificent perspectives gave the piece a unique tale and one that is both complex and mature. Though this had no holding on our judging, I would like to personally thank you for your dedication to aiding the fellow entrants in peer review and improving their writing. I hope you stick around to and continue to grace us with your presence and writings. We also wanted to honor d(^_^)(^_^)d as the Runner-up for the unique tale of Potato Chips and Machine Guns. I felt as if watching a screenplay while reading. The diverse perspectives and complex issues, such as the morally-questionable lack of value for human life—along with the calm of just-another-day-at-the-office—made this a wonderful piece. Thank you for gracing us with your story.

Congratulations also goes to xninebreaker for winning the Reader's Choice award with his exceedingly favored submission of Lost Warmth as the Writing and Fanfiction community determined it to be the top entry in the final poll. It was simply a matter of time before this community deemed you to be worthy of achieving such a proud feat. These incredible characters show more amazement every time I see them.

You may have noticed that the winner of the Judge's Choice was also the Runner-up in the Reader's Choice final poll. What does this mean? Well, as explained in the contest thread, he will with the Judge's Choice and the next in line will move up to be the Runner-up. However, there are two Runners-up! That's right! This means that they will both be receiving Runner-up awards. Therefore, I am happy to wish a job well done by mibuchiha for his submission of An Exposition of the Mind and leonard267 for his submission An Analysis, as they are deemed the Runners-up by default. Don't take this lightly, you each had very spectacular entries, from a look into the cold, blunt mind of a special man to the Dictionary Devil of Satire that is our very own leonard. Superbly done, you two.

With some details about the prizes, the winners of the Reader's Choice and Judge's Choice awards, FGRaptor and xninebreaker, will each win a $25 gift certificate to J-List. The Runners-up d(^_^)(^_^)d, mibuchiha, and leonard267 will receive $15 gift certificates.

Additionally, FGRaptor and xninebreaker have won a 3 stanza poem each dedicated to their honor. d(^_^)(^_^)d, mibuchiha, and leonard267 each be regaled with a limerick. You may find these in the next post.

Although, the forum rank title of "[color=#9D0A0A]FAKKU Writer[/color]" was never confirmed for this contest, I will let someone among the higher ups know of the winners just in case it could be granted to them for their most deserving entries. No promises, but I hope they'll grant it.

Lastly, special thanks goes out to all the submissions and authors who participated in this year's contest and I hope it was as rewarding for you as it was for us, on behalf of the judges: Jericho Antares, GroverCleaveland, and myself. Thank you, it was an honor to arrange and judge this contest for you all. I will now provide my specific corrections and comments on entries to those of you who desire it. Please post here or message me if you would like and I will post it publicly, or privately if you wish.

This was also the first contest is which the judges themselves also participated! If you haven't seen them yet, feel free to take a look and try not to get depressed or cry.

Judges' Contributions:

GroverCleaveland posted Antidote

Jericho Antares posted The All-Encompassing Mind

Xenon posted She's an Angel Now

May next year hold even greater things for us all.

Poems

FGRaptor:


xninebreaker:


Limericks

d(^_^)(^_^)d:


mibuchiha:


leonard267:

Hello all. I'll also contribute a few brief notes on my personal top 3 stories from the contest.

1: Regret
When I read short stories, I generally want to finish it wanting more. Regret gave the impression that what we were seeing was only a small peek into something much larger. It didn’t overexplain itself. It didn’t build the world through lengthy description; it built the world through implication and let the reader’s imagination fill in the gaps. In my opinion, this is how such short stories must function. When you only have 2000 words to work with you need to spend them carefully, and this is what I felt Regret did just a bit better than the other entries in my top 3. Could it be improved? Certainly. But overall it did its job, and won itself the top spot.

2: Potato Chips and Machine Guns
This entry was another favorite. I feel that if it had been limited to 3-4 total characters it would have been the winner. My only gripe with it was the confusion caused by the large cast of characters in such a short story. The characters who were developed were funny and interesting, with distinct personalities, but there were simply too many to develop well, and the use of too many names, especially with the temporary switch to chatroom interface, led to a feeling of confusion and messiness, which was my only problem with the story. It did many of the same things Regret did well, such as worldbuilding through implication, and leaving me wanting more, and had a big heap of personality that made it a contender for the top spot.

3: Blood and Absinthe
I really liked the style and punch this story brought to the table. From the very first sentence I was drawn in. And it did that job better than any other entry, in my opinion. The distinctive voice is what set this entry apart for me, and although at points it was trying too hard to keep up the voice it had already established. It could have been equally blunt and brutal without quite as many fucks and goddamns, but every story can be improved, so it's hardly a crime. It was well paced, and action packed, and stood out in my mind throughout the entire contest.

Congrats to the winners.

But really? D got runner up? Derp.

I'm a little surprised too to be honest, but I'm not gonna complain. I'm not saying I think I wrote a bad piece that doesn't deserve anything. After the general reception I got for it though, I wasn't expecting the judges to like it much better if at all. Thank you, judges!

Yeah, I'm thinking the exact same thing as you. Lol.

Darn it, it just ain’t fair!

Rofl. Didn't expect I'd win anything this time. Guess that work was somewhat cold.

Congrats you guys it was fun competing I can't wait for the next one.

Good. This means I have to do readings and parodies of your entry!

To make things even worse, I have to read my own bloody parody of my own entry! It is hard work getting back at those contest winners and runners-up, never mind that I am one of them!

That said, I gladly welcome reviews from the judges for my entry. I may begin remarking on what the judges have come up with but they will find me droning on and on again about the same peeve of mine when it comes to reading.

Told ya you would win Raptor. xD

Edit: Also gz to all who won, was a nice year of stories!

congratz to all the Winners and to all the participants, you have all done your best this time =)

I did not expect it myself, but thanks. I'm glad there were more people who liked my story. I will try and stick around more frequently now, though I haven't had time to read and review any stories lately. No need to thank me for giving feedback though - I feel it's only natural, since I would like feedback as well. Especially in the form of a contest it only seems fair to read everyone's entry and give feedback on it if you are in the same boat as everyone else. I just hope that my feedback will prove useful.

Thanks a lot, I will put the gift card to good use I hope. Thanks to the judges and everyone who participated, I hope to compete with you again. I'd be happy to have you post your feedback on my story as well.



Nice poem, thanks a lot Xenon. It had me smiling throughout. It's Misaki from Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo, one of my favourite anime of all time. Officially there is no way for you to see her pears, but you can probably find something. She is quite open though.

Misaki's Pears?



You indeed have to be careful if a word limit is involved, but I'm glad it worked for me and you liked it. Feel free to leave a comment on my story about what you feel I could improve, that would be most appreciated.

This is humorous beyond many levels. You show leonard how to make a great parody, leonard!



Look, he's humble, too. Ladies and gentlemen, this is what I like to call a proper participant's mentality. Fortunately a lot of you did a great job of emulating this, I was very proud of a lot of the thorough responses the entries were gathering.



Excellent, I have never heard of that anime before; I will have to check it out. Also, I'm pleased you enjoyed the poem.

I didn't read any comments on any of the stories, but after going back to read the comments you got I can expand further so that the judgment is more understandable, cause I don't want you to feel that your story was undeserving. The only time I was thrown or 'confused' was at the transition to the text chat, and that was only for a tiny bit.

That seemed to be the main complaint you were receiving, and maybe because we have to read entries multiple times anyway we ended up not being lost and having a better understanding of the plot.

When the judges originally compared notes. your entry was in 2 of our "Top 3" lists, and was an 'honorable mention' for the other judge. After prolonged discussion we could not give you the grand prize because there were flaws with your entry to do with the overall messiness, but not enough to detract from the fact that it was a good short story.

Congrats to all the winners. It was a great contest.

In the future, I will try to come here as often as I can.

I would also like to have the judges' comments and feedback on my story. I want to go back and edit the original uncut version of the story based on the feedback I receives, so I will be grateful if the judges post their comments in my thread.

Have fun with that.



He was my pick too. I voted for him in both the polls he was in.

[quote="GroverCleaveland]I didn't read any comments on any of the stories, but after going back to read the comments you got I can expand further so that the judgment is more understandable, cause I don't want you to feel that your story was undeserving. The only time I was thrown or 'confused' was at the transition to the text chat, and that was only for a tiny bit. [/quote]

I don't know what to say except thank you for saying so, thank you for taking the time to go through the comments and read my entry, and thank you for being a judge.

I'm still rather stunned that I won the poll. Like with d, with all the comments and criticism on the thread, I figured my hopes were rather low. I'll do my best to live up to the title.

Also, congrats to FGRaptor for winning the Judges Choice. I concede, as new as you might be, the caliber of your writing is impressive. Hopefully you decide to stick around, it would be a shame to lose you!

And congrats to Leonard, d, and mibu! Well deserved. I'm glad the judges enjoyed d's piece, I definitely thought it was good. And thanks to everyone else as well for participating. Hopefully we can all duke it out again next winter.



Ehehe, that just made my day; absolutely lovely poem Xenon. No promises on their happy ending!



Sorry mibu, I'm totally guilty. I'll catch up I promise. I'm at part 10, so I'm not too far. I'll comment once I catch up just to affirm that d is not your only reader!

Ugh, would two kind souls +rep this post? I hurried to +rep this faster than a gerbil on caffeine and missed my beat.

Additionally, I received confirmation of the certificates being sent. If any of you don't receive it in a couple days, please please please let me know ASAP and I'll notify their support staff. Enjoy!