FINISH THAT THOUGHT #9 - RESULTS!

Yay! I'm so glad everyone came out to play! We had FOURTEEN entries!!! (I think that's a record!) I'm glad we didn't overwhelm Rebekah by sheer numbers! She survived! And she had a few things to say! But first, go read all the amazing entries here! Finished? Good. Now let's find out who won! :)

Judge's notes:

It's said a person's character is revealed most clearly under pressure, so with this week's contest I wanted to see what your own characters would reach for in a pinch. And while many of them did wish for magic wands (always handy!), others regretted not having books, truth serum, a flamesword (I want one!) (Me too!), a guitar or--my personal favorite--a vengeful tigress (can't tell you how many times I've wished I'd brought one of those! she might actually put me on a level playing field with my toddler). What a pleasure it was reading your vibrant adventures. Thank you so much for sharing them! 

Note: the only way I could have enjoyed it more is if someone had brought ME apple pie :cries softly:. (Mmmmmmm, apple pie....)

Now on to the winners:

JUDGE'S CHALLENGE:

Your poetry was multi-faceted and marvelous. Shouts out to Margit Sage for some particularly tender verse and to Jessica West whose intertwining wordplay (the one you love, loves the one who dies) was just delicious. 

Runner up: Lady Alainn. Your ogre poem was snappy and sooo funny. I think I'll make my children memorize it, or at least I'll shout it to them every morning at breakfast until they feel like ripping up a few turnips themselves.

Winner: Nick Johns. The poem delivered by the Goth nurse was smooth and haunting, reminding me strongly of the seer's warning to Julius Caesar so many ages ago. And of course, as the narrator ought to have known, in stories a seer is never wrong. This poem serves as the story's hinge--the reader knows the narrator's not going to get away with it--and of course Geraldine's foreboding words are echoed in the story's final lines. Nice job.

GRAND CHAMPION

Shouts out here to stories with totally awesome twists: Melissa's "The Bully," whose heroine demonstrates both spunk and inventiveness, and Jessica West (again) for a sneakily barbed surprise.

Runner up: Nick Johns. Who doesn't love a good Faustian tale? In "Quid Pro Quo," you give us a character doing his darnedest to cheat his devil, but in the end we discover our narrator isn't Daniel Webster--he's the devil himself, trying to have his evil cake and eat it too. It's a marvelous spin on the old conflict, right up until the narrator narrates his own death. Wonderful comeuppance; wonderful storytelling.

Winner: Penname, "The Pharisee." This story grabbed me from first read with its voice, at once clever and jealous, smooth and arrogant. That the DJ wishes for a bishop's staff to teach the upstart nemesis his proper place is hilariously ironic. I love the DJ's anguished cry--He's not moving to my beat! -- and his furious admission that the nemesis knows something more than the DJ himself. And even as the DJ has him thrown to the curb (a betrayal paid for with a Judas-invoking thirty bucks), we are left with the suspicion that the world has tasted something better and may not be satisfied with the hybrid much longer. What a fantastic scene and masterful use of voice and subtext. Congratulations on an artfully crafted and well-written piece.

 

 

Congratulations Lady Alainn, Nick Johns, and PENNAME!!! WooHoo!!!