Competition: Variations on a theme 3.5 (Flashfiction)

Blush_01

Can't wait to read them now. Just read my own and am not too keen to be honest, but it was a fun exercise!

ToasterSparks

Should be an interesting read tomorrow. It'll be like we all wrote our entries while drunk!

Say ... drunk writing ... that gives me an idea .......!

Also Starring LeVar Burton

ToasterSparks wrote: »

Should be an interesting read tomorrow. It'll be like we all wrote our entries while drunk!

Say ... drunk writing ... that gives me an idea .......!

I always write everything when I'm drunk... Cracked open a bottle of Captain Morgan at 11 this morning to prepare for the competition...

Antilles

ToasterSparks wrote: »

Say ... drunk writing ... that gives me an idea .......!

When I first started writing, I read up on all my favourite authors, and found that quite a number of them were conneseurs of absinthe and/or whiskey. Armed with this information, I bought a bottle of finest absinthe, placed it on the table beside my laptop, and set out to write my masterpiece.

I woke up the next afternoon with most of the bottle gone, a blinding headache and about six lines of gibberish on the screen.

Drink and drugs do not mix well with writing, at least not for me

Antilles

So, are the entries all to be posted by pickarooney tomorrow morning?

The Sparrow

Wow 11 ppl, well done everyone.

I'm a bit gutted that I couldn't take part. I had planned to but I was procrastinating about an application for a job all day and what to write on it so I couldn't get out of that zone.

I'm looking forward to reading them and hopefully this will be done again sometime soon.

The Mad Hatter

I'll often write with a whiskey by my side, but not at twelve noon. Whether the fact that it was coffee this time makes a difference remains to be seen.

Incidentally, thanks to pickarooney and all who organised this.

pickarooney

Wow, amazing stuff! I fell asleep at 10 o'clock Irish time (the good lady insisted on putting on a Bollywood musical of all things - pre-emptive revenge for a month of football, I guess) and I thought with the site going down it would all fall to bits.

A huge thanks to everyone who rowed in to pass on the story and of course to everyone who entered. I'll post them up a little later this morning.

pickarooney

--amadeus-- wrote: »

And a suitably rushed piece of doggrel was sent to Pickarooney at 23:12...

Have to make a race out of everything, don't you

pickarooney

OK, the stories are up and voting runs until this time on Tuesday.

Best of luck everyone!

I've read them all through once and was quite impressed by how many people managed to make a complete, cohesive story with no typos and even using paragraphs!

Some of you seem to thrive under pressure and there's a real sense of frantic action in many of the pieces.

Please let me know ASAP if there is anything out of place in your story or the thread itself.

The Sparrow

Is the subject just 'Hostage' or was there a sentence or anything else sent to contestants?

Mr E

The outline given to us was:

Five people are being held hostage. One escapes.

Mr E

Damn, the standard is very high for this one. Having read through them all, more than half of them stand out. I'll read them properly tonight and try to whittle them down to the best 3. Good job everyone!

The Mad Hatter

I take it, then, that we're allowed vote as long as we don't vote for our own?

Mr E

Yup, pick up to 3 of your favourites (excluding your own). Its a multiple choice poll.
You must comment on thread to say why you chose them.

pickarooney

Mr E wrote: »

The outline given to us was:

Updated the first post with this.

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

I take it, then, that we're allowed vote as long as we don't vote for our own?

You can vote for your own if you like. The poll is public though.

The Mad Hatter

pickarooney wrote: »

You can vote for your own if you like. The poll is public though.

Gah! Now you tell me.

I wouldn't have anyhow, though. It seems...unsporting...

pickarooney

The polls are being all weird. I can't see ToasterSparks' name on the poll and there are more votes than comments.

Mr E

For your own peace of mind, would it be worth querying it with Conor and Ross? Could be a bug.

pickarooney

Reported it before, to no avail, but will try again. In the meantime, I'm going to ignore the poll and count based on the comments.

The Mad Hatter

pickarooney wrote: »

The polls are being all weird. I can't see ToasterSparks' name on the poll and there are more votes than comments.

There seem to be more votes than voters. Story 9 has five votes according to the poll, but the results only say three. (With ToasterSparks' that's four, so I guess no. 5 didn't post in the thread.)

pickarooney

Reported here.

By the way, if you've voted (on version 9) and not posted on the thread, and are reading this, and are not ToasterSparks, can you let me know?

Also Starring LeVar Burton

I wish I had done a proof read before sending mine in...

Wantobe

CaptainNegative wrote: »

I wish I had done a proof read before sending mine in...

You and me both buddie.:o

The Mad Hatter

pickarooney wrote: »

Reported here.

It seems to be using some very odd maths as well, but that may just be me reading it wrong. It seems to add up to 270%...

Blush_01

Well if everyone votes for three then the total will be 300% because one vote each is 100% and so on. 270% means that not everyone used three votes. Well, I think that's how it works anyway.

--amadeus--

pickarooney wrote: »

Have to make a race out of everything, don't you

There has to be *something* I'm fast at....!

I was just thinking that there are a regular pool of people putting these up now and some of us have quite distinctive writing styles. Maybe in a competition or two it would be interesting to have the pieces posted anon but have a side by side competition where everyone who submitted a piece is named and you have to try and match authors to pieces.

Blush_01

--amadeus-- wrote: »

There has to be *something* I'm fast at....!

I was just thinking that there are a regular pool of people putting these up now and some of us have quite distinctive writing styles. Maybe in a competition or two it would be interesting to have the pieces posted anon but have a side by side competition where everyone who submitted a piece is named and you have to try and match authors to pieces.

Ooh, I like that idea!

pickarooney

--amadeus-- wrote: »

There has to be *something* I'm fast at....!

I was just thinking that there are a regular pool of people putting these up now and some of us have quite distinctive writing styles. Maybe in a competition or two it would be interesting to have the pieces posted anon but have a side by side competition where everyone who submitted a piece is named and you have to try and match authors to pieces.

I tried that myself the last couple of times. There are one or two I recognise instantly but some are really surprising. There have been some that made me wonder if a poster I always assumed was male was actually female and vice versa.

The names of all the entrants are in post #1 of the voting thread so we can play a guessing game on Tuesday before the winner is revealed if you want.

--amadeus--

pickarooney wrote: »

I tried that myself the last couple of times. There are one or two I recognise instantly but some are really surprising. There have been some that made me wonder if a poster I always assumed was male was actually female and vice versa.

The names of all the entrants are in post #1 of the voting thread so we can play a guessing game on Tuesday before the winner is revealed if you want.

I'd be confident on two.

But one of them is my own, so not sure if that counts