& 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!
Runner Up Mentions
@nicolewolverton –
Such a powerful story in such few words. Extremely gripping.
@LupusAnthropus –
A simply great narrative with a touch of humour .
Rish Outfield –
Compelling and different, this was a story that took me by surprise and I loved the tragic twist.
Overall Winner
@zombiemechanics –
An exquisite, emotional story with excellent description.
VISIONLESS
She sits on the edge of the bed and puts on her delicate red heels with shaking hands. I am powerless to stop her.
“I don’t know what else to say, Maribel.”
She stands and smooths out her short pink dress, “There’s nothing else to say. You’ve made your choice, and I’ve made mine.”
I try to catch her as she puts on her coal-black coat, but she pulls away from my touch. We stand at the door with burning eyes. Maribel opens the door and tries to speak. Her chin trembling, she manages one word, “Goodbye.”
I watch her leave through the rained pelted glass. The bright yellow of her umbrella, the deep green of the trees outside, the blood red of her shoes; the colors all fade from my vision, as the hope and joy and love walks out of my life.
I am blind without her.
Critique Mentions
Now, as promised, I shall critique those entries that didn’t make it.
Andrew –
A massive improvement on the few punctuation mistakes this week and I did love your piece. However, in a couple of instances you didn’t need to tell the reader as much as you did – it is much more exciting if you simply allude to it. Where you had ‘there’s a storm coming’, you could have stopped the dialogue short before that, commented on some sign (wringing hands, biting nails) that the speaker was nervous whilst having them look up and describe the blacks and purples of the sky. This lets the reader know a storm is coming, but you haven’t said it AND (more importantly) you’ve painted a much better picture in their mind.
As a writer, you are a painter of inner thoughts and your words are your palette – use them to your advantage.
@solimond –
As much as I enjoyed Nellie’s tale, there was a rather clunky tense change at the beginning. This made it a little confusing and unfortunately detracts from the hook of the story. A simple suggestion for this is just to carefully read through after writing. It happens often enough to most writers.
@Charitykountz –
I thoroughly enjoyed the description of this piece; however, I felt that it lacked in overall story. There was no real hook or anything slight dropped in near the beginning to make the reader wonder until the end and keep them there. The thing with such short word counts is that you need to get your hook in early. And by that I mean we need to intrigue our readers enough from the start to keep them until the end.
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 as well as encouraged you to join in again next week!
Click here to read the mentioned entries.
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