Challenge #12 - Winners
Wow, I must say that I was stunned this week! Every entry got votes and believe me when I say voting was hard! All the drabbles were amazing and you should be proud of yourself. :-)
1st place:
lady_razzle with Big Damn Hero
Came first in the poll.
The whole very personal feel of this was almost poetic...“I dare you to live, this time, despite yourself” was so powerful to me and damn inspiring. Fantastic! - eatmywords09
2nd place:
toestastegood with Forgetting To Fly
Two out of three mods chose this as their favourites.
This piece has what I call "beautiful simplicity", you've characterised Alice and her dad so well in only a few words and I really feel for the characters you've created. I love the image of her father making her fly when she was young and that twenty years later she can no longer fly. It's beautifully written and a lovely idea, well done! - vands88
I loved this piece, and when I heard the prompt for heroes my mind went to places similar to this. It was short with it's description, but the description conveyed what it needed to to make the story detailed and simple at the same time, and convey a nice powerful feeling with the last couple of paragraphs. - _gentlycollapse
3rd place:
dove_cry with Purple And Grey
Did well in the poll as well as getting good reviews from the mods.
...the last couple of lines of this one just stole my soul and ran away with it. The detailed description you give adds to the atmosphere, yet at the same time it keeps moving forward and keeps the reader's attention...Absolutely beautiful, good job! - vands88
Originality Award:
uptosummat with What She Needs
I don’t think I’d have the nerve to write something like this and you make it frighteningly believable and full of dark colours. - eatmywords09
This one needs a mention just for the sheer uniqueness of it! A very creative idea but it doesn't distract too much from the story too, which can be very easily done. Another thing I like about this is there's no capital letters (apart from the bolded ones) and plenty of full stops which keeps in tone with the piece. It's heartbreaking and I think you did very well tackling such a tough issue, good job! - vands88
Best Use Of Prompt:
cupati with Life By Chocolate
Wow, this is beautifully concise. Very very funny. I was worried you were going to lurch into the first-story-pit-of-doom notion of “Mum called upstairs to me, ‘Julie, tidy your room!’” but not at all. Yay for chocolate heroes! The pathos in this is excellent and it makes me want to eat chocolate. I like the “It hadn’t been a good day”- I instantly liked that character just for phrasing it that way. Thanks for a very different perspective on the title, you realised it wonderfully. - eatmywords09
Mod's Choice:
uptosummat with Melting
I fell in love with this one the first time I read it, yet this must be about my third read and I still love it! I don't care how cliché suicide fics are and how people have written them over and over again (including myself) and they loose their touch, because it's so not true in this case. From the very first sentence you've captured my attention and you haven't mentioned the dreading 's' word once, instead it's beautifully implied and some of the description you use, like "melting into the gray" works so well and is almost poetic. The short sentences in a list style also work well (even though I'm not a fan of either style to be honest) and the questioning at the end is so real. Oh, and your last line? Amazing and a great way to end it! Loved the entire piece. :-) - vands88
THE LAST HERO:
Great piece Ailsa! I love how when you start reading it you think it's some sort of superhero and then it turns out to be a normal person, it works well. "Just two stamps please", is so incredibly normal and a perfect way to end the drabble. I liked it a lot, well done! ~ vands88
MY SUPERMAN:
While suicide and the like is a common theme with drabbles, I really loved the set up for this and the characters that were created in such few words, and it stood out among the rest for me. The contrast from beginning to end of the two quotes in this story really make it a great story, and incredibly heartbreaking. ~ _gentlycollapse
ALLY'S FULL REVIEW (favourites bolded):
MY HERO: I’m not so au fait with all the characters but I thought this scene was a really good integration of their skills and a nice action sequence- I could easily picture that dramatic explosion of people at the beginning. I would advise further development of your characters, just a little, because it’s hard enough to empathise with superheroes! But I did think it was a nice last line, especially with Rogue’s “mah”, which really appealed to me.
ROLE CALL: I think this is a gorgeously original piece (my GOD am I a sucker for mythology) so you instantly got my attention. You were a bit too list orientated, I think, which loses the really powerful last sentence, which does finally reveal the female heroes (I’m a total feminist too, so man were you writing for me!) Which is why perhaps you could have given some ‘walls’ if you like, or some kind of place that all these heroes went to. But I love some of the names you slipped in, without any of it seeming fangirlish or too academic. “Humans ascended” is gorgeous.
THE WRITER’S HEROINE: You should have called it ‘Heroin!’ I would have been so much more shocked and surprised at you. I like the personal edge you’ve given this piece and it might have been nice just to pay lipservice to what you write and how it feels when you do write, rather than focusing solely on the lack of. I think it’s got a beautiful back-story, you can tell a lot about this protagonist from what she thinks and her ambitions are wonderfully big juxtaposed with the simple flashing cursor.
FORGETTING TO FLY: Is it bad that I saw paedophilic undertones in this or was that intended? I kind of like the vagueness of it because it allows such dark possibilities. I really liked the childishness of the whole first paragraph and the solemn atmosphere of the second; they seemed to match so well. Not sure you even needed “You’re a superhero” because your idea of flying seemed to be so much more than that. Very poignant.
PURPLE AND GREY: My grudge with this is that it reads a little too much like undiluted angsty drabble and I’m always dubious of angst constituting as writing or poetry. But I checked below and you commented that you had written more of this. It would have been great if you’d included just some pre/post information to this scene. The imagery is very shocking and you get inside this person’s head very well. And there is such passion in there, especially at the end. I hope the rest of the story gives this poor hero some relief! My favourite phrase was “open scissors”- that kind of detail is wonderful.
BIG DAMN HERO: The opening question hooked me. And the whole very personal feel of this was almost poetic. But you don’t make your protagonist weak at all- they kind of remind me of a comic book hero, very jaded and very hard but still ostensibly good. I really loved this because it just felt like someone stepping out and grabbing me. All those little phrases, ooh, it gave me chills. “I dare you to live, this time, despite yourself” was so powerful to me and damn inspiring. Fantastic!
WHAT SHE NEEDS: God, that’s one sharp note at the end of the line-“alive.” And I like how you kept up the theme of someone living with their experiences, which is exactly what a hero does. In fact, I reckon it would have been nicer if you’d focused a little more not on her need for a hero, but the fact that she is a hero for surviving. I’m not sure if I like or dislike the very cold way this is written, and “she did not deserve it” seems like an unnecessary line that doesn’t fit in with the rest of the drabble. But, hell, I don’t think I’d have the nerve to write something like this and you make it frighteningly believable and full of dark colours.
MY SUPERMAN: I confess, the ending didn’t do it for me. I thought the beginning was wonderful and full of pathos. But I think you used too much melodrama when actually you could have drawn on the tragedy that so few people really do get to be that cape-wearing hero, feeling heroic. I think the ending actually mocked the title, I felt, where Sarah’s suicide proves that he was not her superman. That aside, it was beautifully written, of course. You are a super writer, with a very adept control of words. You articulate yourself beautifully and don’t ramble. You are a queen of drabbles because you pack so much into so few words.
STOLEN: I really like how balanced this piece is between the good and the bad, because that’s what life is like. I know life is often sucky to the point of despair, but there’s always some redeeming factor somewhere, somehow, and I thought the hero (“maybe an angel” is such a touching phrase) represented that nicely. I still think you’re breaking up your sentences just a little too much; they don’t allow you to flow and you’re constricting yourself. I love the juxtaposition of “I was alone. More than ever before” and “I knew I’d never be alone again.” Really strong.
THE LAST HERO: N/A
THE DOWNSIDE: Yes! A piece that parodies but also gives further life to every vampire slayer/hunter/hero that ever walked through Sci-Fi. I liked someone’s description of the girl as “girl of the week”. You really bring out the practicality of this guy and I love the last line. I can’t help liking him despite the unfriendly manner because it’s so real- who would be glad to have that same fawning reaction every time? You write men really well, I think, save perhaps the “sneer”, which might have verged into the villainous. Your drabble shows the fact it’s better to be the rescuer than rescuee perfectly.
GUILTY CONSCIENCE: Forgive me, I don’t watch Heroes so I may overlook something by mistake. The passion and heat of this moment glows out at you- I really like “this is wrong” because the vehemence of it just kinda makes you say “Yeah, but go for it!” And it’s nice at the bathos of the ending, with one gentle movement. Very human and moving, which is always good.
NAMES: So much in this and I really like how you placed it somewhere so it didn’t just become an angsty note. “How did he find me?” made me squee, that was a nice moment of self-doubt but which already gives us a picture of this perfect man he’s found. A bit too ‘bitty’ in writing style, but otherwise very confident and some nice details like “the television screen is black.” It feels real and the kind of story someone might tell years afterwards, you, “How did you first meet?” type of thing, so it’s a great story set at the time of it really happening. And, of course, a very inspiring and thoroughly happy last line.
LIFE BY CHOCOLATE: Wow, this is beautifully concise. Very very funny. I was worried you were going to lurch into the first-story-pit-of-doom notion of “Mum called upstairs to me, ‘Julie, tidy your room!’” but not at all. Yay for chocolate heroes! The pathos in this is excellent and it makes me want to eat chocolate. I like the “It hadn’t been a good day”- I instantly liked that character just for phrasing it that way. Thanks for a very different perspective on the title, you realised it wonderfully.
MELTING: I like the traditional hero angle. It’s a piece full of gratitude yet balanced with the unsatisfactory ending, which is just like life, and no one is ever quite fulfilled but the hero did still save your protagonist’s life. I think the rhetorical questions don’t fit...hmm, but I can’t offer an alternative. I think just all prose would have been better, and that’s because your prose is very good! Maybe some dialogue. “Melting into grey” was a poetic line I really liked.
OVERALL:
Overall, I would say that the variety of themes is lovely, if save from being from a first person POV. I really think you guys can do such different things with your writing if you manipulate other POV’s. You can get into so many different people’s heads. But I particularly loved how personal all of these felt and there was so much strong feeling behind each story that made them jump out of the screen (shame I can’t say page, lol) Congrats on another set of superb drabbles!
*phew* Now someone hand me some coffee before I faint. Big thanks to everyone that voted and a massively huge thanks to eatmywords09 for taking the time to give every drabble a review. Remember to enter CHALLENGE #13!
1st place:
lady_razzle with Big Damn Hero
Came first in the poll.
The whole very personal feel of this was almost poetic...“I dare you to live, this time, despite yourself” was so powerful to me and damn inspiring. Fantastic! - eatmywords09
2nd place:
toestastegood with Forgetting To Fly
Two out of three mods chose this as their favourites.
This piece has what I call "beautiful simplicity", you've characterised Alice and her dad so well in only a few words and I really feel for the characters you've created. I love the image of her father making her fly when she was young and that twenty years later she can no longer fly. It's beautifully written and a lovely idea, well done! - vands88
I loved this piece, and when I heard the prompt for heroes my mind went to places similar to this. It was short with it's description, but the description conveyed what it needed to to make the story detailed and simple at the same time, and convey a nice powerful feeling with the last couple of paragraphs. - _gentlycollapse
3rd place:
dove_cry with Purple And Grey
Did well in the poll as well as getting good reviews from the mods.
...the last couple of lines of this one just stole my soul and ran away with it. The detailed description you give adds to the atmosphere, yet at the same time it keeps moving forward and keeps the reader's attention...Absolutely beautiful, good job! - vands88
Originality Award:
uptosummat with What She Needs
I don’t think I’d have the nerve to write something like this and you make it frighteningly believable and full of dark colours. - eatmywords09
This one needs a mention just for the sheer uniqueness of it! A very creative idea but it doesn't distract too much from the story too, which can be very easily done. Another thing I like about this is there's no capital letters (apart from the bolded ones) and plenty of full stops which keeps in tone with the piece. It's heartbreaking and I think you did very well tackling such a tough issue, good job! - vands88
Best Use Of Prompt:
cupati with Life By Chocolate
Wow, this is beautifully concise. Very very funny. I was worried you were going to lurch into the first-story-pit-of-doom notion of “Mum called upstairs to me, ‘Julie, tidy your room!’” but not at all. Yay for chocolate heroes! The pathos in this is excellent and it makes me want to eat chocolate. I like the “It hadn’t been a good day”- I instantly liked that character just for phrasing it that way. Thanks for a very different perspective on the title, you realised it wonderfully. - eatmywords09
Mod's Choice:
uptosummat with Melting
I fell in love with this one the first time I read it, yet this must be about my third read and I still love it! I don't care how cliché suicide fics are and how people have written them over and over again (including myself) and they loose their touch, because it's so not true in this case. From the very first sentence you've captured my attention and you haven't mentioned the dreading 's' word once, instead it's beautifully implied and some of the description you use, like "melting into the gray" works so well and is almost poetic. The short sentences in a list style also work well (even though I'm not a fan of either style to be honest) and the questioning at the end is so real. Oh, and your last line? Amazing and a great way to end it! Loved the entire piece. :-) - vands88
THE LAST HERO:
Great piece Ailsa! I love how when you start reading it you think it's some sort of superhero and then it turns out to be a normal person, it works well. "Just two stamps please", is so incredibly normal and a perfect way to end the drabble. I liked it a lot, well done! ~ vands88
MY SUPERMAN:
While suicide and the like is a common theme with drabbles, I really loved the set up for this and the characters that were created in such few words, and it stood out among the rest for me. The contrast from beginning to end of the two quotes in this story really make it a great story, and incredibly heartbreaking. ~ _gentlycollapse
ALLY'S FULL REVIEW (favourites bolded):
MY HERO: I’m not so au fait with all the characters but I thought this scene was a really good integration of their skills and a nice action sequence- I could easily picture that dramatic explosion of people at the beginning. I would advise further development of your characters, just a little, because it’s hard enough to empathise with superheroes! But I did think it was a nice last line, especially with Rogue’s “mah”, which really appealed to me.
ROLE CALL: I think this is a gorgeously original piece (my GOD am I a sucker for mythology) so you instantly got my attention. You were a bit too list orientated, I think, which loses the really powerful last sentence, which does finally reveal the female heroes (I’m a total feminist too, so man were you writing for me!) Which is why perhaps you could have given some ‘walls’ if you like, or some kind of place that all these heroes went to. But I love some of the names you slipped in, without any of it seeming fangirlish or too academic. “Humans ascended” is gorgeous.
THE WRITER’S HEROINE: You should have called it ‘Heroin!’ I would have been so much more shocked and surprised at you. I like the personal edge you’ve given this piece and it might have been nice just to pay lipservice to what you write and how it feels when you do write, rather than focusing solely on the lack of. I think it’s got a beautiful back-story, you can tell a lot about this protagonist from what she thinks and her ambitions are wonderfully big juxtaposed with the simple flashing cursor.
FORGETTING TO FLY: Is it bad that I saw paedophilic undertones in this or was that intended? I kind of like the vagueness of it because it allows such dark possibilities. I really liked the childishness of the whole first paragraph and the solemn atmosphere of the second; they seemed to match so well. Not sure you even needed “You’re a superhero” because your idea of flying seemed to be so much more than that. Very poignant.
PURPLE AND GREY: My grudge with this is that it reads a little too much like undiluted angsty drabble and I’m always dubious of angst constituting as writing or poetry. But I checked below and you commented that you had written more of this. It would have been great if you’d included just some pre/post information to this scene. The imagery is very shocking and you get inside this person’s head very well. And there is such passion in there, especially at the end. I hope the rest of the story gives this poor hero some relief! My favourite phrase was “open scissors”- that kind of detail is wonderful.
BIG DAMN HERO: The opening question hooked me. And the whole very personal feel of this was almost poetic. But you don’t make your protagonist weak at all- they kind of remind me of a comic book hero, very jaded and very hard but still ostensibly good. I really loved this because it just felt like someone stepping out and grabbing me. All those little phrases, ooh, it gave me chills. “I dare you to live, this time, despite yourself” was so powerful to me and damn inspiring. Fantastic!
WHAT SHE NEEDS: God, that’s one sharp note at the end of the line-“alive.” And I like how you kept up the theme of someone living with their experiences, which is exactly what a hero does. In fact, I reckon it would have been nicer if you’d focused a little more not on her need for a hero, but the fact that she is a hero for surviving. I’m not sure if I like or dislike the very cold way this is written, and “she did not deserve it” seems like an unnecessary line that doesn’t fit in with the rest of the drabble. But, hell, I don’t think I’d have the nerve to write something like this and you make it frighteningly believable and full of dark colours.
MY SUPERMAN: I confess, the ending didn’t do it for me. I thought the beginning was wonderful and full of pathos. But I think you used too much melodrama when actually you could have drawn on the tragedy that so few people really do get to be that cape-wearing hero, feeling heroic. I think the ending actually mocked the title, I felt, where Sarah’s suicide proves that he was not her superman. That aside, it was beautifully written, of course. You are a super writer, with a very adept control of words. You articulate yourself beautifully and don’t ramble. You are a queen of drabbles because you pack so much into so few words.
STOLEN: I really like how balanced this piece is between the good and the bad, because that’s what life is like. I know life is often sucky to the point of despair, but there’s always some redeeming factor somewhere, somehow, and I thought the hero (“maybe an angel” is such a touching phrase) represented that nicely. I still think you’re breaking up your sentences just a little too much; they don’t allow you to flow and you’re constricting yourself. I love the juxtaposition of “I was alone. More than ever before” and “I knew I’d never be alone again.” Really strong.
THE LAST HERO: N/A
THE DOWNSIDE: Yes! A piece that parodies but also gives further life to every vampire slayer/hunter/hero that ever walked through Sci-Fi. I liked someone’s description of the girl as “girl of the week”. You really bring out the practicality of this guy and I love the last line. I can’t help liking him despite the unfriendly manner because it’s so real- who would be glad to have that same fawning reaction every time? You write men really well, I think, save perhaps the “sneer”, which might have verged into the villainous. Your drabble shows the fact it’s better to be the rescuer than rescuee perfectly.
GUILTY CONSCIENCE: Forgive me, I don’t watch Heroes so I may overlook something by mistake. The passion and heat of this moment glows out at you- I really like “this is wrong” because the vehemence of it just kinda makes you say “Yeah, but go for it!” And it’s nice at the bathos of the ending, with one gentle movement. Very human and moving, which is always good.
NAMES: So much in this and I really like how you placed it somewhere so it didn’t just become an angsty note. “How did he find me?” made me squee, that was a nice moment of self-doubt but which already gives us a picture of this perfect man he’s found. A bit too ‘bitty’ in writing style, but otherwise very confident and some nice details like “the television screen is black.” It feels real and the kind of story someone might tell years afterwards, you, “How did you first meet?” type of thing, so it’s a great story set at the time of it really happening. And, of course, a very inspiring and thoroughly happy last line.
LIFE BY CHOCOLATE: Wow, this is beautifully concise. Very very funny. I was worried you were going to lurch into the first-story-pit-of-doom notion of “Mum called upstairs to me, ‘Julie, tidy your room!’” but not at all. Yay for chocolate heroes! The pathos in this is excellent and it makes me want to eat chocolate. I like the “It hadn’t been a good day”- I instantly liked that character just for phrasing it that way. Thanks for a very different perspective on the title, you realised it wonderfully.
MELTING: I like the traditional hero angle. It’s a piece full of gratitude yet balanced with the unsatisfactory ending, which is just like life, and no one is ever quite fulfilled but the hero did still save your protagonist’s life. I think the rhetorical questions don’t fit...hmm, but I can’t offer an alternative. I think just all prose would have been better, and that’s because your prose is very good! Maybe some dialogue. “Melting into grey” was a poetic line I really liked.
OVERALL:
Overall, I would say that the variety of themes is lovely, if save from being from a first person POV. I really think you guys can do such different things with your writing if you manipulate other POV’s. You can get into so many different people’s heads. But I particularly loved how personal all of these felt and there was so much strong feeling behind each story that made them jump out of the screen (shame I can’t say page, lol) Congrats on another set of superb drabbles!
*phew* Now someone hand me some coffee before I faint. Big thanks to everyone that voted and a massively huge thanks to eatmywords09 for taking the time to give every drabble a review. Remember to enter CHALLENGE #13!