39th #SatSunTails Winners

And maybe next week I’ll get to make this post on better time (I am so sorry for the lateness).

& so we have our #SatSunTails winner!

You can help by promoting next week’s #SatSunTails on your blogs, twitter, G+, facebook, tumblr etc, that would be great. Also, if you’re on twitter and you’d like an @reply every weekend in order to remind you that the competition is open then please leave a note regarding this along with your twitter handle in the comments of this post so I can set that up for you.

But for now, let’s get to the winners!

The Written Prompt

doubting dementia

Runner Up Mentions

@LupusAnthropos

Always a pleasure to read. Loved it.

@klingorengi

A great tale with a historical nod that really fit the prompts.

@DavidALudwig

An intriguing, dialogue heavy story.

Overall Winner

@jezri1

This piece really grabbed me, drawing me into the story without hesitation and holding on.

Come Play With Us

“Come play with us.”

Behind her, mama was hanging clothes on the line and talking to someone on the phone. Giggling, Abby followed the two strange girls into the woods. Their heads were tilted funny.

“What are we going to play?”

The one girl turned her head and looked at her while they walked. Abby laughed, she thought only owls could do that.

“Abby!” Mama’s voice called.

Hesitating, she turned… mama would be angry if she didn’t answer.

“Come play with us.” The girl whose head was backwards held out her hand, her feet swinging above the ground where she and her sister hung from a tree.

“I only turned my back for just a moment,” Janice sobbed, hanging onto her neighbor for support.

The police searched the woods, but they doubted little Abby would be found. She wasn’t the first to enter the grove, victims of the Dementia Sisters.

Critique Mentions

Now, as promised, I shall critique those entries that didn’t make it. Sometimes it can literally come down to the smallest things.

Whittling the results down to find critiques this week was incredibly hard and hopefully you can see why with the excellent entries that were received.

@oswelela

One major point is dialogue punctuation. If the character stops talking then, by all means, go ahead and put a full stop at the end of the sentence they’ve said UNLESS you intend to put ‘said such and such’. Then all you need is a comma BEFORE the closing speech mark. I’m not sure where you were going with this piece as you seemed  to cram in more information than was needed about a drink and used long names which only serves to confuse the reader. In such a short word count you need to be succinct with description to get all the necessary plot information in.

@SarahAisling

I really liked this but petty things held it back, unfortunately. With ‘setting in, and he’ there didn’t need to be a comma before the ‘and’. You only need a comma before and if it’s the end of a sub-clause or the word after ‘and’ is in a list of more than two. Also, I really disliked the use of ‘plopping’ in the following ‘bits of rotting flesh plopping against the leaves below’. A different adjective such as ‘smacking’ might have worked better because it resonates with the idea of something wet hitting dry leaves whereas ‘plopping’ creates the image of something wet falling into another liquid.

So thank you to all of those who entered.  The criticism is never meant to harm. It is there to help you better your writing and someday win overall. I’m sure it will also benefit those who were not criticised. I hope this has helped you in your writing as well as encouraged you to join in again next week!

Click here to read the mentioned entries.

| [Did you enjoy this post?] |
| [Why not leave a comment or check out my books?] |

1112 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11