# KCC Short Story Voting Contest- 1st Place



## Raiden (Jul 11, 2019)

​
Hi everyone,

Thank you for waiting! And thank you to all participants for submitting wonderful stories! *This thread is for your first place vote.*

Compliments to our contributors are also encouraged! Feel free to tag someone and give a compliment.

How Voting Works


1st Place Votes- 2 Points
2nd Place Votes- 1 Point
We have to use this voting system because there are too many entries for one thread. Please be sure to vote in both threads.

Please also do not vote for yourself. Polls will close in five days.


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## Krory (Jul 13, 2019)

Fuck compliments only, time for some critiques. 


*Spoiler*: _SASSY_ 



You have some nice description to start, though there's a pretty early typo ("saraficied" I assume is meant to be "sacrificed"?). You could probably trim up some things to make it sound a bit more impactful, though pretty sure this is more personal preference -- ex. "Horror, tragedy, pain, loss, and even failure all swirled within the lines of war." Says basically the same thing but just flows a bit better in my opinion? I'm not sure about the last sentence being a separate sentence in itself. Some other grammatical things which Imma nitpick.



> As (The "as" here is unnecessary with the lines that follow) Athena walked among the field of bloodied knights, soldiers, children and women. Death upon death - (maybe not necessarily a hyphen. You'd have to ask someone a bit better like Box if a comma would work here or even a semicolon, but something needs to segue the lines I think) the air was rolling in it,. (Period. Should be end of the statement. More impactful and doesn't flow right into the follow statement properly) the The minute you breathed in it is was (change of tense) the minute you gagged. She couldn't help but have a stream of tears slowly running down her face, (Maybe a semicolon here? I'm still not super well-versed on how to appropriately use them but comma doesn't feel right here to me, but I could be entirely wrong. I'd suggest asking someone else see what they think.) although a warrior among the greatest she still couldn't help but feel the pain. Her friend beside her spoke softly.





> Athena had many emotions going through her head. Some of the disbelief (comma here? Again absolutely not sure! Sorry) others of pure uncertainty. One thing is was (change of tense) for sure (A hyphen? Semicolon? Something should split these up, I think?) she will get revenge on her comrades on her people or she'll die trying.



Just a few examples. Primarily just saying watch for a change from past to present tense and for where you should add some additional punctuation.

You kind of overused Athena's name as her reference point in some points -- in five lines, four of them used Athena's name directly to reference her (and they also started with her name, but that's a whole different thing). I'm usually pretty guilty of inadvertently doing this but just to put it into perspective, in my story which was ~890 words I apparently only used "Jack" 9 times and "Ambrose" 7. Yours was 402 and used "Athena" 7 times. Try to use some other identifiers to talk about Athena when she does an action or speaks - it'll break up the monotony and can also be used to add some depth to the character.

And laaaa_aaaast_ thing and this is probably entirely personal preference/opinion, but I think the last line would serve better without the ellipsis. A line can be just as impactful without the pause or hesitation, especially considering it's the last line of the work. Just a thought but as I said, that's entirely opinion probably. 





*Spoiler*: _SHAZAM_ 



Just gonna say right off the bat the large blue text is immediately off-putting. I had discussed this with someone else and it was suggested maybe the choice was made to give a "juvenile" or "lightweight" feel to the work but if that's the case it's just artificial. Like Sassy you have good imagery and description but there's some grammatical stuff that kinda puts me off in the beginning. Opening sentence, I'm not sure that comma after the first word does anything at all? The sentence itself doesn't really have a subject that makes it seem awkward as a sentence itself. Also might be mistaken but in the sentence with "our parent's worried voice," I believe it should be _parents'_.



> But, after school, we still had the sand, and the sun, (an Oxford comma makes this sentence look much nicer, though it could probably be just as serviceable without a sentence at all -- "we still had the sand and the sun and the sky" has a nice style to it just the same) and the sky.





> We had watermelons (although the plural "watermelons" is probably right here, as they undoubtedly ate many watermelons over the days, the singular feels like it flows better. The statements feel like the narrator is speaking of each individual day of these experiences the way I read it, so unless they each actually ate more than one whole watermelon maybe that's why it's not setting right with me? Though it's also just as likely I'm entirely off-base here - ask someone more well-versed.), and the cold, salty ocean; just the three of us. And we were still happy for a while.



We know this story is a memory - the second line opens with "I remember." You proceed to use "I remember" six more times throughout the story and it becomes notably repetitive, we know the narrator remembers these things, it started that way. We don't need to be reminded that she remembers. She remembers all of this or else the story wouldn't exist.

Opposite Sassy, there seems to be an awful lot of punctuation used here that I'm not entirely sure are proper or necessary and acted as more of a distraction to me than anything else. Other than that, as mentioned, some great imagery and descriptions. The story itself reminded me of stuff I was forced to read in high school and while extremely topical these days doesn't particularly hold my interest much, but that's not any fault of yours or your writing.

There's also some other little grammatical things, like the use of capitalization.



> "Family and Friends only". (If this is a quotation that was spoken, than "friends" shouldn't be capitalized. If it was a sign or something, then "only" should be capitalized as well.)"





> "Filthy, Rotten, Traitors!" ("Filthy, rotten traitors!" or you could probably even get by without the first comma. Even if you wanted to keep both commas for whatever reason, there's absolutely no reason to capitalize all three words. Unless you wanted to go the route of "Filthy! Rotten! Traitors!" which just sounds weird.)



Also, just another small personal thing, I think it would've been much more interesting if it was left ambiguous as to which of the three the narrator was. It had some intrigue when it kept talking about the "little white boy, little black boy, and the little Hispanic girl" but it kind of went out the window when halfway through it became "me/I, the little Hispanic girl". The natural reveal after telling how the white boy stopped showing up and the black boy got sick would've added more to it than the way it was done.





*Spoiler*: _OWL_ 



Some okay narrative to start, though saying just "Time slowed", as trite as it is, probably better serves than "The time slowed." Also you've already referenced "the blonde woman" just the sentence before so to refer to her again as "the woman" in the next sentence comes across as repetitive - just "she" would be better.



> Two feet away.
> 
> My heart was beating faster than she could reach the book on the top shelf.
> 
> One feet foot (Unless it was meant to be comedic but the tone of the rest of the story doesn't match). I stopped.





> Screw it, I thought,. (Period. Should be the end of that statement.) I kept walking and within half a second, I found myself standing next to her.





> She looked at me with her bubbly (Adjective makes me think of a hilarious goldfish or a stupid Instagram filter. There's bound to be a better word to describe what you were going for.) blue eyes, her wide open mouth wasn’t crescently curved into a smile. (If it wasn't "crescently curved into a smile" what was it then? In some situations using the negative to denote a positive works but there's too many other possibilities)



Mostly just nitpicking of that nature. Grammatical things and disputable phrasings ("Eventually, the inevitable" sounds a bit repetitive to me, for example) but otherwise it's a serviceable story. Not an over-abundance of mistakes but nothing that really draws any interest other than the prospect of finishing it. Very little emotion for what seems to be a story about a relationship, even if it ends in a failure but even that should elicit some kind of emotion, but it all seems approached with mostly a systematic step-by-step description of sequences. Nothing really makes me particularly interested in either character, their relationship, or care that it ended.





*Spoiler*: _TIGER_ 



Pretty interesting story that at the very least gave some insight to the lead character, Frank. Some nitpicking with grammar and the likes.



> Sadie screamed, and Conrad cursed at Frank, who swallowed hard and altered course to avoid the impossibly large vessel. (I think this sentence could be better suited if you dropped the first comma but took out the second and... phrase it something like "Sadie screamed and Conrad cursed at Frank, who swallowed hard, altering course to avoid the impossibly large vessel." Something like that? I'm actually not even certain that comma after Frank needs to be there but at least removing the other "and" helps flow imo.)



Though I note that the character Conrad is never brought back up again so considering he's not even relevant to anything else, could probably drop that part together and just leave it "Sadie screamed as Frank swallowed hard, altering course..." etc. Something like that. It's a nice touch to have input from another character but considering the character isn't even important enough to come back up, it ultimately feels a little empty.

I'm not going to go through and nitpick every instance I think a comma could be eliminated or moved, just it doesn't necessarily need to be used every time a conjunction is used.

Like I mentioned with Sassy, there's an abundance of using the character name to reference him - 22 times in the 900 words. In such a long work with plenty of other description about what's going on and details about the world it's really not too noticeable just in a handful of spots like this:



> Frank looked at his co-pilot, Sadie, who was quiet but terrified and he nodded to her. She closed her eyes and sat back into her seat. Frank looked to the pair of seats behind his, and his wife Maria fixed him with a weak smile. Frank’s display signalled signaled his attention and informed him the bull was one-minute-thirty seconds (Now it's just strictly personal but I think considering it's a part of the narrative prose that saying, say, "a minute and a half" would flow better with the tone. If it were someone reading the screen directly aloud, I would say stick with what have tho. But, again, that's all personal and not inherently wrong.) away. For a few maddening moments, there was nothing for Frank to do except hope he was faster than his pursuers. (Four times you use "Frank" as a reference in this section. Five sentences, and three of them start with "Frank." Meanwhile you only used "he" once.)



Overall really liked this one and although the ending was to be expected, it was sold really well because you put a lot of the focus on the danger of the "riding the bull" maneuver, so much so that I had forgotten about the fact that the whole reason he was doing it was to escape pursuers. Definitely in my top 3 of the bunch.





*Spoiler*: _BOX_ 



Man, I can't even say all that much about this. Very interesting and very engaging story and I know you're more experienced than I so I can't even imagine there's much I can nitpick about grammatical bullshit. As someone who's extremely uneducated and stupid, though, it turns me off a bit when there's a word I don't understand and the context isn't quite enough for me to piece it together - in this case:



> I’m immediately embraced. Forcefully enough to make me maladroitly (I had to look up what this meant even though I recognized it from the title of a Weezer album, lel) correct myself before tumbling over.



But, again, that's just a side-effect of me being stupid. So, alas...

Only other thing I'd say is about this:



> I give them happiness and then remember that happiness.
> 
> Because no one else will.
> 
> And because it is the only reason I can continue.



I'm sure you were going for trying to humanize the narrator with the final line but having the three lines separated lessened in the impact for me, especially with the double "because." I know it'll work with plenty of people because of the stylistic choices but that's just personal opinion - you're the expert afterall. 

Kind of feel bad can't really say much else but man, I'm just a peon in comparison. 





Part 1 of 2

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## Krory (Jul 13, 2019)

*Spoiler*: _NATALY_ 



I'm honestly not even sure how to approach this one. It feels like half of it reads like a high school essay talking about how great America is with just listing things off. I understand it's supposed to be someone from a more disenfranchised home that sees the US as some idyllic place but the way it's presented is very clinical and not very interesting. One of the biggest contributing factors to this is that you overwhelmingly just refer to it plainly as "America" or "USA" or use "American". We know you're talking about America, you should be able to use some other identifiers. This paired with just listing off factoids like "low level of unemployment" and "well-developed social security system" just comes across as a report. It doesn't really make any kind of _feeling_. This is a really good example of where "show, don't tell" is helpful.

The shifting tenses make things a bit confusing, particularly since it starts with a present-tense of living in Russia but then past tense to reference the trip to America but then it kind of shifts back and forth there. That whole segment involving the trip itself is a little problematic as it's essentially a massive wall of text - almost 400 words alone (that's nearly as long as Sassy's entry!). Try to find some places to add natural breaks to the paragraphs.



> In conclusion, (This beginning to the final paragraph just feels like it drives home my previous analogy of the whole thing feeling like some kind of essay. You don't need to emphasize a conclusion like that, even from a first person narration. It just detracts from any kind of artistic value of things) my choice to leave my home country and to settle in the United States of America has brought me to a new world and has changed my way of thinking.



It's a nice premise, even if a bit utopian. A curious topic considering the state of current affairs and all. But it's presentation is just too mechanical for most of it. The previous mentioned wall of text was a bit more refreshing and the details of placed visited were better and it would've been better split up in several paragraphs.





*Spoiler*: _ANONYMOUS_ 



Okay, this is going to be an adventure...



> _Excellent. Just nice too _(Awkward phrasing)_, main event should be starting in 5 five_ _minutes_, I thought.





> What was only a person or two barely 2 two hours ago had now swelled into a massive crowd.





> Its only visible occupants being 2 two thrones as well as flags and banners of every known region adorning its far sides.



(In all three of these examples, spelling out the number is aesthetically and stylistically more attractive. I actually consulted with a few other people on this just out of curiosity and apparently the convention is that up to 10 you should write the number out _however_ it is not an actual rule... but this is my personal opinion that it'll just make it look nicer.)



> What was only a person or two barely 2 hours ago had now swelled into a massive crowd._* The *_atmosphere itself was electric. Almost carnival-like. *The* din of sound both from the music being played from the speakers or of people futilely attempting to make themselves heard. _*The*_ lampposts which were earlier switched off now emanating bright lights and illuminating its surrounding areas. (Three sentences in a row you started a sentence with "the" in a paragraph of only four sentences. It comes across as repetitive. Try to experiment with different starts of sentences. Something a teacher once told me, that isn't really an actual rule, is to try and never start two sentences in the same paragraph with the same word.)





> At the centre of attention was the centrally placed and immense (immensely) raised platform. Its only visible occupants being was (Unless you want to make this as an actual continuation of the first sentence, by changing the period to a comma [which can be done, but the sentence would still require some changes], using "being" here isn't correct.) 2 thrones as well as with (goes in turn with the other change - due to making this its own sentence, this wording doesn't work - again, you could try to hybrid it but still...) flags and banners of every known region adorning its far sides. Even TD.A. could be seen hovering near the raised platform. (What is TD.A.? Who? I'm guessing this is about the member since you reference NF sections later but not everyone is going to know who he is so this sentence is meaningless.) No doubt, taking down notes and covering this event for one of his future segments.





> _Or maybe, which powers should I unlock if I do win points. Still, it’s only essentially borrowing for a month._"*Arrr*!!!" (Don't use exclamations like this in dialogue. Just saying you exclaimed is enough to give an indication of the noise you made, unless you want to say something like you exclaimed an actual word like a swear) I exclaimed as a sudden wind blew through my long hair.





> “And why did the announcement ceremony have to take place on another stormy day? Gah!!!” (Don't do this. It comes across like comic book or manga writing which if you're doing that is fine but this is prose. Aside from that, also don't over-abundantly use punctuation like this. Believe it or not, using three exclamation points doesn't actually make something look like it's a stronger exclamation, it just looks obnoxious. Use your _words_ to explain how someone is feeling or the noises they're making... not exclamations like this.) If the mass of dark clouds and faint rumblings of thunder were any indication, a storm was indeed brewing. There were rumours that the organizer, alluding to his name, has an affinity with the elements of thunder and lightning. Or, maybe simply for theatrics.





> “BOOM!” “BUZZ!”
> 
> “BOOM!!” “BUZZ!!”
> 
> ...





> "*KERBOOM*!!!!!" (REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE)





> “*Noooo*!!!!!” (Please)





> "YES! About time too…wait say what!?" (No)





> "Er???" (Why are you doing this)





> "Eeh!!!" (Oh my God...)





> “Grandpa, is that it???” (I give up)



You need to stop with the onomatopoeia. It's not helping anything. And the downright abuse of punctuation isn't helping to make things more dramatic or interesting. Overall it all just kind of detracted from the story which already was kind of messy because I'm still not entirely sure what was the point of anything.





*Spoiler*: _IMI_ 



As usual you have some great imagery and descriptions but the fractured sentences kind of turned me off a bit. The first few lines also kind of feel more like a poem in the way it's spaced, but that's just a personal thing I guess? But yeah mostly, especially there, it's the sentence structure.



> He opens the cell. He (Using "he" twice in a row to start a sentence especially in a paragraph this short with sentences so short seems a bit repetitive) examines her matted hair and the dirt on her skin and the bruises all over her legs and arms, passionless. She is a skeleton.



Those two basically some up my only real complaints albeit they're a bit consistent throughout the work. A lot of "she", especially, starting sentences and although in some places it seems stylistic and passable other times it's a little distracting, such as...



> She (1) does not make a sound as she listens to the car drag across the gravel. It seems like an eternity in there until the car abruptly stops.
> 
> She (2) hears footsteps she is all too familiar with, and the trunk pops open revealing the egg yolk sun and radiant blue sky. She (3) squints. It is the prettiest thing she has seen in a long time.
> 
> She (4) is face to face with him now. She (5) blinks, bewildered. His eyes taunt her.



It was pretty distracting but the wording you used and the actual story is really great was enough that it wasn't _too_ much of a take away that I couldn't enjoy this overall and I'm really glad you decided to enter. 





*Spoiler*: _MSAL_ 





> You wake up to a loud crash coming from downstairs. (No I don't.)



But I jest...



> Complete darkness awaits you. After taking one last look back at the sanctity of your room and the upstairs, you begin your slow descent. _Badump_! (I just want to point out this little tidbit because _this_ is a more acceptable way of using onomatopoeia. Anonymous, if you're reading, look to stuff like this.)





> Your heart beats heavier than usual, a number of times quicker; _Badump! Badump! Badump! Badump! _(A bit excessive but this still works and is less obnoxious than doing it as individual quotations and dizzying amount of punctuation. It makes sense contextually and just works.)



Overall I really don't have many complaints with this. It's an entertaining little story and you tell a good narrative without over-describing or using purple prose. However, a little qualm with the very end...



> You shut the door and begin to lock it. Then… (I don't think the ellipsis here helps sell anything. Like I mentioned with Sassy's story, the line is just as impactful without the pause, especially considering this is the end.) you hear footsteps behind you. You live alone. (I think proffering this information earlier in the story, like in the very beginning, but in a much more natural way would be significantly better and more impactful) The only question that runs through your mind is what do you do next?



Also this story shows one potential drawback of a second-person narrative. ~500 words and around 70 of them are "you" or "your." 20 of them are to start sentences, with ~40 sentences. So half of your sentences start with "you" and "your." while they make up almost a fifth of the vocabulary in the work. It is somewhat noticeable, but it is a sort of double-edged sword that is hard to avoid when you take this kind of narrative approach. Thankfully, your work is also engaging and interesting enough that it doesn't really take away from it, but maybe give some thought to see if you could organically reword some things to cut down on it.

Even with that, it was a very good read and I'd put it in the top 3 right below Box and Tiger and tie you with Trin/Imi/Demetrius' work.




Part 2 of 2

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## A Optimistic (Jul 13, 2019)

Very impressive critiques, Krory.

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## Krory (Jul 13, 2019)

A Optimistic said:


> Very impressive critiques, Krory.



I feel like you're being facetious, but I'll take it.


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## MSAL (Jul 13, 2019)

@Kate Bishop



Kate Bishop said:


> *Spoiler*: _MSAL_
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Hahaha. What a hook though eh xD

That's always the interesting thing about short pieces, trying to get the story off to the best possible start the genre requires, or to attune people to the story.

The idea behind that, was to get people's senses immediately heightened (the fear of the unknown, of what was happening, of just waking up but not having all your senses immediately at 100%, after a sleep/nap. So inn essence it exaggerated the start, or was meant too.







> Overall I really don't have many complaints with this. It's an entertaining little story and you tell a good narrative without over-describing or using purple prose. However, a little qualm with the very end.



Thanks very much. It's a tough skill to get used to, when writing a short story, let alone micro fiction, and takes a certain amount of skill and knowledge of words, which is why anyone who enters these things is as brave as hell, imo, and deserves a lot of credit for trying. 

It's certainly hard to avoid the excessive purple prose, if not used to that kind of thing, but I tried my best here to paint that picture and that build up of dread without getting too ornate (descriptive writing is a major part of my style).

As for the ellipsis, yeah, perhaps it was a bit forced there and didn't need the pause. The reason I left the part about the door until the end, was because I wanted to build the sense of dread, without giving the reason why. I felt that if I exposed that near the beginning, it would've alluded people to a narrow viewpoint, whereas I wanted people to try ad keep there mind a bit open; was it a pet? was it an intruder? was the person still half asleep? Etc. Though I do admit, playing with it near the front, I could've perhaps still pulled that off with a bit of thought.

The onomatopoeia was one I just wanted to help build the suspense, and to help trigger people's senses and own hearts, but i did wonder whether I overdid it or not.





> Also this story shows one potential drawback of a second-person narrative. ~500 words and around 70 of them are "you" or "your." 20 of them are to start sentences, with ~40 sentences. So half of your sentences start with "you" and "your." while they make up almost a fifth of the vocabulary in the work. It is somewhat noticeable, but it is a sort of double-edged sword that is hard to avoid when you take this kind of narrative approach. Thankfully, your work is also engaging and interesting enough that it doesn't really take away from it, but maybe give some thought to see if you could organically reword some things to cut down on it.



Yes, I absolutely agree. That is the problem with writing with this perspective. I don't often write in second person narrative, as I prefer first person usually, as I feel it's a more natural. But I would have had to re look at some of the wording here, which I didn't have the time too, unfortunately, so it's a case of, back to the drawing board for this one, I think.



> Even with that, it was a very good read and I'd put it in the top 3 right below Box and Tiger and tie you with Trin/Imi/Demetrius' work.
> 
> Part 2 of 2



Thank you very much the kind words, and for taking the time to critique not just mine, but the other works. It's always nice to hear people's actual opinions and I took what you said on-board about the usage of the pronouns, so thanks.

As an fyi, I wrote this story many years ago, as an experimental piece, and since then I have focused more on the first person perspective. I wanted to submit this piece because; 1. It fit the word count for the stories that come to hand. 2. I was in a rush because of the deadline (didn't see the comp until just before I submitted) and had no time to go through it properly and readjust, unfortunately.

I also didn't think I'd submitted my work early enough for people to read through properly.

But I enjoyed reading your honest critiques, and I'm happy to share more of my works with you, if interested.

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## Krory (Jul 13, 2019)

MSAL said:


> Thanks very much. It's a tough skill to get used to, when writing a short story, let alone micro fiction, and takes a certain amount of skill and knowledge of words, which is why anyone who enters these things is as brave as hell, imo, and deserves a lot of credit for trying.
> 
> It's certainly hard to avoid the excessive purple prose, if not used to that kind of thing, but I tried my best here to paint that picture and that build up of dread without getting too ornate (descriptive writing is a major part of my style).
> 
> ...



Yeah, I can understand why you didn't want to hold on to that card until the very end that the narrator was alone so it makes sense in a way.  And nah, the onomatopoeia was fine, it worked really well with the tone of everything. Helped sell it and it wasn't highlighted in an obnoxious way. Very natural.




> Yes, I absolutely agree. That is the problem with writing with this perspective. I don't often write in second person narrative, as I prefer first person usually, as I feel it's a more natural. But I would have had to re look at some of the wording here, which I didn't have the time too, unfortunately, so it's a case of, back to the drawing board for this one, I think.



Yeah, it's quite an undertaking but you did it well. 




> Thank you very much the kind words, and for taking the time to critique not just mine, but the other works. It's always nice to hear people's actual opinions and I took what you said on-board about the usage of the pronouns, so thanks.
> 
> As an fyi, I wrote this story many years ago, as an experimental piece, and since then I have focused more on the first person perspective. I wanted to submit this piece because; 1. It fit the word count for the stories that come to hand. 2. I was in a rush because of the deadline (didn't see the comp until just before I submitted) and had no time to go through it properly and readjust, unfortunately.
> 
> ...



I'm used to the Flash Fiction contest in the Reader's Corner/Literature Department here that used to be done, so used to having to do some critiques. It's the respectable thing to do, as most people entered looking to improve instead of just being wanked off.

I'd be curious to see what you can do now, looking forward to what the next contest brings if it continues. And it'd be total cuckery if it doesn't continue. Just sayin'.

I really hope people actually read shit properly.  I mean it's already BS that almost half of people that voted for a 1st place entry didn't vote for a 2nd but if people didn't even _read_ entries... then again people not satisfied with the turn-out of votes already claiming that happened so...


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## Raiden (Jul 16, 2019)

Polls will close in less than an hour. Be sure to vote if you haven't already .


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