Short Story Competition 4 (World Cup) - VOTE HERE!

Also Starring LeVar Burton

Congrats angell and everyone else who took part - haven't gotten a chance to read the entries yet, but hopefully will someday...
My entry was #6 - probably a bit OTT for this competition in regards to subject matter, but I decided to go all in anyway and take the risk...

dawvee

I know I'm too late to vote, but I just had to comment since no one else seems to have taken issue with it. I'm just baffled that people find story number 9 'redemptive' and 'uplifting'. It's about a domestic abuser who turns to drink and drugs, and then... wins her BACK? The only thing I could think after reading that was "The poor woman is doomed."

Assuming it's realistic and not fantasy-land, an abused spouse returning to the relationship after leaving is pretty much guaranteed to be abused again, often much more seriously than she was previously. It happens that way far, far too often for that to be a happy ending by any stretch of the imagination.

angelll

VERSION 6

So you think once you go off the rails there is no way back? Ever?

dawvee

angelll wrote: »

So you think once you go off the rails there is no way back? Ever?

Well, most men manage to never 'go off the rails' and hit their partner. A man who gets to that point once is a pretty high risk of doing it again, especially when she's demonstrated a willingness to forgive such things.

angelll

VERSION 6

Well i presumed three years living on the streets away from his family and friends,numerous aa,ga and na meetings and being a broken man would have been enough penance for him....and I never actually said they got back together. She smiled at him,that's it. Who knows,maybe they just became friends and she allowed him to see his children regularly....

Blush_01

VERSION 9

Ok, feedback. (It's going to be limited, my brain has abandoned me over the past few days and I'm almost totally mentally absent, so I apologise in advance)

#5: I thought this was a really sweet story, I could picture it happening and it was nicely written. I liked the idea that, although it was set far in the future, basic relationships hadn't changed, and joy could still be derived from the small things.

#8: I'm a sucker for a sob story. I wouldn't necessarily call that misery lit - I consider misery lit to be gratuitous over-exposure of harrowing events that happened in a person's life for profit (and not necessarily their profit at that) but I really felt for the characters.

#9: I liked the idea that one unforgivable action can cause a life to spiral out of control but that there's a redemptive path too. I especially liked that things weren't neatly tied up with Johnny and his wife. There's a possibility there that they'll become friends, but it's totally uncertain.


I wrote #4 - thanks for the lovely comments, and sorry for the confusion. The idea I had was a little similar to Lois Lowry's "The Giver", which is possibly my second favourite children's book ever. I thought that there could possibly be a more openly sinister undercurrent in the society, with everything determined by the elders and monitored by the watchers. In "The Giver" at the age of 13 people are allocated their roles in society, but I thought it would be interesting if a foetus's future was decided by a prophecy made by their mother in late pregnancy, which could only be translated by the elders. As a profoundly corrupt group within the society the ability to dictate how an unborn child would be brought up and what their destiny would be just compounded their nasty little ring of power. The "Cup of Worlds", filled with a drug that induces the "prophecy" is the decider of where the unborn child will fit in in the world, as the elders see it. At the end, Cass collapses in a pool of blood, but she's had her prophecy, so everything is ok, her child has to be born alright as a prophecy has been made for its place in the world. I guess I left a few vital bits out, but when I got going (late as ever) I found the 1,500 words very restrictive because I tend to waffle a little - not that you'd have noticed that in the past or anything !

Well done Angelll!

The Mad Hatter

VERSION 5

Well, thankfully none of our stories was as boring as that match.

ToasterSparks

VERSION 9

This can probably be unstickied now.

(hide my zero-vote shame :P)

pickarooney

I knew I'd forgotten something.