FINISH THAT THOUGHT #34 - RESULTS!

What a ride! Thanks to everyone for submitting stories this week! If you missed any of them, go check them out here. Otherwise, let's see what the judge had to say:




Thank you to all who participated this week! All of your unique and creative stories made my first time as a judge truly enjoyable.

@DoctorMikeReddy: I appreciated where you went with the special challenge. Your main character was very unreliable and the reader was really along for the ride with him. One line that really stood out to me was: 'Its spinning slowed and showed a blade burdened with blood.' The imagery here was very well done and I loved being able to picture the blood as being this heavy thing. Also, I liked your use of lyrics to carry the story.

@drmagoo: The beginning of the story was set up in a very strong manner. I could empathize with your main character having the need to escape from the many layers that winter brings upon us. This also brought about the same heaviness the character was feeling throughout the story. Your use of details were quite powerful in placing the reader into the scene. One of my favorite was: 'room of statues'. The cold he felt from the people in that room was undeniable. I was left wanting more at the end of the story. I wanted to see where your main character was going with his actions.

@JMMacF: I laughed so hard while reading this story that I had to wipe tears from my eyes several times. What an adventure you took us on! Your main character's voice was spot on. I truly believed a college aged boy was telling me this story. The line 'Cal grabbed the beer out of my hands, smacked the seal, and crawled up behind me on the moose,' just killed me. The imagery going through my head with a boy wrestling a seal and the other wrangling a moose was so engraved in my head that I can still picture it. And while there were a few parts that needed a bit of clarification the story was such a random experience that those small moments were easily overlooked.

@Chelle87Fox: The way you set up the story was amazingly done. 'My sin weighed heavier on my soul than the drenched shirt did on my torso and I just couldn't take it any longer.' I felt like I was instantly set into the scene and the atmosphere of the story settled in around me. And as I kept reading the unreliable narrator really came through. Slowly this disconnect came through where her actions and sentences really weren't lining up with her thoughts. And by the end I felt like she was more or less putting on a show of how she should act than how she felt. This action really twisted together with the ending well. And while I was a little lost on the last line and I craved a little more, your main character really kept the focus on her.

@TechieJ: I felt for your main character instantly. The set up of his situation in the beginning came off very clear and I was instantly able to empathize with him. Your imagery was well executed during the story. ' ... Dribbling the ball came as naturally as flying to an elephant.' That was one line that really not only stuck out to me as a reader but also helped define the boy and his struggle to be like his older brother. The new light and hidden bond that showed between the brothers at the end really added something special to this story - how they connected even through resentment. Very powerful.

@asekingprinces17: The image of a mermaid riding a dragon put a smile on my face. What an interesting collaboration! And even through all of the detail and secondary characters, your main character really showed through. The need to fit in with her friends and the fear of failing came through clearly but so did the excitement that she felt and the elation when she succeeded. The last paragraph was very well written and showed such an excellent glimpse into this world in such a short amount of space. I was left wanting to know more about this world and your main character. I felt like what you had setup here could easily be extended into a short story or novella (longer if you so choose!) and I was left very intrigued!

Now for the tough part!


Special Challenge Runner Up: DoctorMikeReddy. The reader experienced the actions in the story right alongside the MC and that really enhanced how unreliable he was. The bits and pieces you have to the reader as we went along really kept us focused on what happened next.

 
Special Challenge Champion: Michelle. Marian's actions made her a truly unreliable narrator. Were her thoughts truth or were her actions truth? We were really left wondering and the twist of it really stood out.

 
Grand Champion Runner Up: asekingprinces17. So much was able to come across the story in such a short amount of time! Your MC really showed her emotions well and I was so interested in this world at the end. I would really love to see more from this concept. Excellent job bringing such fantastical characters together in a very realistic way.



Grand Champion: JMMacF. How truly entertaining this story was! And even though there was a hilarity to it you really stayed on track and brought the characters to life. I was truly surprised by this story and I loved where you brought it. And I could see your main character at the end so nonchalantly joking about the story before popping open another beer.


Once again, thank you to all who participated this week! I loved seeing so many different stories and worlds come out of this week's sentence prompt. And one more final congratulations to JMMacF for earning the spot of Grand Champion. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go drink some beer and find a moose to ride...

FINISH THAT THOUGHT #34

Have fun today with the prompt! I'm glad you came by to check it out. I hope it inspires greatness in each of you. Go write, then share your brilliance with the rest of us! :)



If you need to read the full version of the rules, go here. Otherwise, here's the short version:

Rules:
1. Up to 500 words
2. Keep it clean (nothing rated R or above)
3. Start with the given first sentence.
4. Optional Special Challenge
5. Include Twitter/email, word count, Special Challenge accepted
6. The challenge is open for 24 hours on Tuesday EST



Oh, and feel free to change pronouns, punctuation, tense, and anything in brackets to fit the story/pov/tone. I'm not going to be TOO picky... Our judge however...

Our Judge today is Caitlin Siem also known as @CaitlinStatus. Check out her blog here. Read her winning tale from last week here!



 Your first sentence for FINISH THAT THOUGHT #34 is:


The gust stole my breath as it pressed the damp shirt against my chest.



 Your SPECIAL CHALLENGE from the judge is:


Your narrator must be unreliable.


 AAAAAAAND WE'RE OFF!!!

Heat-Bringer

Here's my entry into Christian Flash Weekly #3 over at Charles W. Short's blog. This week we had up to 500 words (499 for me, oh yeah!) and the following verse to start us:


I Kings 19:14 (NIV).

He replied, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”

For those of you who aren't familiar with the story, go read the entire chapter; I pulled heavily from the whole thing. Also, just a note, this story (of Elijah) is very near and dear to me because my Daddy wrote a song about it. It's been playing in my head all weekend - and that's a blessing because I miss him dearly. I wish I could share it with you all, but I have no idea how to put a song on my blog. :) Anyway, you came here to read my story (probably), so I should let you get to it!

Heat-Bringer

 

Xavier ran, boots slipping precariously on the ice before he reached down to extend the spikes. Sure, he could just melt the ice, like he had back on the mountain, but that would leave an obvious trail to follow.

And he didn’t want to be followed, not when they were out to kill him.

The squeak and crunch of the spikes hitting the ice sent shivers down his spine. The sound reminded him just how much control they had over everything. Ice fields spread as far as the eye could see, forcing the population under their control. They killed every heat-bringer they’d ever found – and he just made a target of himself.

It felt so good to do it though, melting the bodylength thickness of ice covering Mt Maximus right in their own backyard – showing them, and everyone, that the cold is not forever. His feet slipped in the slush that appeared around him – radiating heat unexpectedly. He fell.

Normally, he’d be covered head to toe when walking the ice sheets, but he’d taken off his gloves to touch the soft grass and delicate flowers uncovered on the mountainside. In his race to get ahead of the assassins, he’d forgotten them.

Now his hand was sitting in quickly re-freezing slush. He aimed a heat blast so he didn’t get frostbite and found himself sitting in a circle of summer. His fingers brushed the tips of the grasses longingly. This is how the world should look, he thought.

He sighed and stood, lamenting the signpost this hole would be to those chasing him.

He climbed out of the hole, slipping and squeaking as the spikes sought purchase on the now softer surface. He had to get as far from here as possible. He ran all day and into the night, stumbling into a cave sometime after first moonset.

He crawled deeper into the cave and risked another heat blast. He stopped shivering immediately. He lay sprawled on the floor, breathing erratically and wishing for death – lost in despairing thoughts of ‘it’s no use’ and ‘I can’t make a difference’ and ‘they’re going to kill me anyway.’

His heart stirred with an odd warmth.

“What am I doing here?” he said out loud, words echoing into the earth. This cave system must run deep, he thought. Perhaps he could hide better further on. He peeled himself off the rock and started into the dark.

Deeper.

Warmer.

He shucked his protective outerwear, rounded a bend, and saw a thick, glowing red, bubbling liquid giving off unimaginable heat. A bubble rose up and grew tall then formed itself into the shape of a person and spoke, “We have waited for you, Xavier. The heat has been trapped inside for too long. You must release it into the world safely before it destroys everything.”

“How? I am the last.”

“You are enough. Go, warm the earth.”

Xavier took two deep breaths, nodded, and strode back up to the surface. He had work to do.

 

 

 

FINISH THAT THOUGHT #33 - RESULTS!

What a ride! Thanks so much for each of your stories this week. The judge will be commenting on the threads of the stories not mentioned in the next few days, but wanted to get his decision to us now. Thanks, Karl, for your time and effort! If you missed reading the stories, you can go here to catch up before reading the decisions. Let's see what the judge had to say:

There were some great stories for my first stint as judge at Finish That Thought. Those locked doors kept people in, kept monsters out and kept getting in between our protagonists and whatever they wanted, while the clocks ticked, tocked and generally counted down towards a range of grisly fates.

 

When I picked my prompts, I was expecting a slew of action sequences, but the flash community is so much more varied and imaginative than that, and we had a number of quieter moments too, although I must give a special mention to Emily Karn’s tale Escape From The Purge, which rapidly rattled through it’s word count so intensely that I had to double-check that I hadn’t missed a paragraph or two.

 

Two unique takes on the Judges Challenge stand out:

 

Special Challenge Runner Up: JM MacF. That endless gulf between tick and tock is a beautifully poetic way to show that someone has moved on to a state where time no longer matters.

Special Challenge Champion: Stella Kate T. Stella’s characters are such grounded, domestic Machiavellis, and her treatment of the challenge here shows why; With her subconsciously scheming protagonist in a seemingly life threatening situation, Stella uses the countdown to defuse the tension and get her back to planning tea with the delivery man.


Grand Champion Runner Up: Angelique Rider. Zombies are the last great unreconstructed monster, too rotten and repulsive for a Twilight style romantic lead makeover. In the half century since Night Of The Living Dead, their only real development has been learning to run, but in this untitled piece, Angelique takes them to a new level. All of the old hallmarks are there – the familiar faces turned strange, the herd instinct and above all the desire for human flesh – but by putting such a civilised spin on their unholy appetites, the walking, chatty dead become a whole new kind of scary.

Grand Champion: Caitlin. Putting the brakes on the first line’s momentum, Caitlin pulls us back in to a tense domestic scene which is clearly not as idyllic as the title would suggest. Questions abound as we are repeatedly wrong footed and made to wonder if our narrator is frightened of her new husband, sneaking off to another man or just regretting her choice of partners. In the end, the tale pulls back to reveal a much bigger world, in which the narrator is in complete control. She refers to her husband as Thomas, but after that pivotal phone call, he becomes The Target, dehumanized and disposable, making the false intimacy of that final line all the more chilling.  


Well done to all of the winners, and I’ll be back at some point in the next day or two with my thoughts on the rest of the stories. Thanks again for letting me judge, and good luck for next week Caitlin!

FINISH THAT THOUGHT #33

I'm so excited you're back for another week of fun and exciting writing! I can't wait to read what you all dream up for this prompt. I love how each of us take the same sentence in SO MANY different directions! Let me see those brains work! WooHoo! Go write!



If you need to read the full version of the rules, go here. Otherwise, here's the short version:

Rules:
1. Up to 500 words
2. Keep it clean (nothing rated R or above)
3. Start with the given first sentence.
4. Optional Special Challenge
5. Include Twitter/email, word count, Special Challenge accepted
6. The challenge is open for 24 hours on Tuesday EST



Oh, and feel free to change pronouns, punctuation, tense, and anything in brackets to fit the story/pov/tone. I'm not going to be TOO picky... Our judge however...

Our Judge today is Karl A Russell also known as @Karl_A_Russell. Read his winning tale from last week here!



 Your first sentence for FINISH THAT THOUGHT #33 is:


I ran for the door, but someone had taken the keys.



 Your SPECIAL CHALLENGE from the judge is:


Include a countdown and/or a ticking clock.


 AAAAAAAND WE'RE OFF!!!

FINISH THAT THOUGHT #32 - RESULTS!

And the judge has spoken!!!! Thanks for participating, everyone! If you missed the stories, you can check them out here. Otherwise, let's see what the judge had to say!

Rebekah Postupak (SC): I loved the setup of the story, and the concept drew me in immediately. I mean, how fascinating (and terrifying) to be out of sync with the world – to have all the capacity to communicate, but still not be able to. It reminded me of this news story (http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/worlds-loneliest-whale-sings-at-the-wrong-frequency.html). On the other hand, the ending felt rushed, as if it needed another hundred or so words to reveal itself with the same wonder as the rest of the story.

Jessica West: My inner pedant was startled at first, as you changed the tense of the prompt, but it was such a marvelously macabre story that I decided to ignore that. Nicely suspenseful, drawing the reader along with your protagonist to find out what had happened behind that door. It could have been anything, and then we met the monster in a child’s body, only to know no more.

Emily Karn (SC): I could tell right off that you were bringing me along on a journey to see some ancient site destroyed – Pompeii, Atlantis, something like that – and I was definitely captivated as to what kind of journey it would be. Wonderful imagery, and a well-imagined scene. There were a couple of editing mistakes that took me out of the flow of the story, however – that’s the kind of thing my teacher’s eyes fixate on sometimes.

Stella (SC): A lovely little tale of a quite devious young woman who feels trapped in a life she doesn’t like (although whether she’ll fare any better in the arms of a soldier who just killed her mother is a lesson she’ll have to learn on her own). A little on the short side – I think that using the rest of the allotted room would have helped add just a few more touches, like a hint as to why her mom would be in particular danger.

writtenbetweencovers (SC): A wonderful glimpse into history, filled with tiny touches that painted a vivid scene for the reader. Poor, brave Mansika, about to die (and likely painfully) to help Cleopatra survive. I liked this one a lot.

Amy Wood (SC): A short little tale, but filled with the atmosphere of a time and place far from our own. And when the blood’s already being spilled, what’s a little more, for someone with a knife and an inclination to spill his own self. Chilling and effective.

Karl A Russell (SC): Oh, what a wonderful Valentine’s Day tale! (was this a surplus Love Bites story in another guise?) Very nice use of language, drawing the reader into time and place – although apparently, Carol and Padraig don’t live in ordinary everyday Ireland. The lesson, as always: don’t interrupt a woman in the middle of a good book, even if you are Cupid.

JM Mac F (SC): A jaunt back to the Civil War, and the worries of a young woman on her own (well, with a bunch of servants – although given that this was in the south, I wasn’t sure if slaves were the right fit) in a time of war. Not just any young woman, but one that’s more than a little flighty, offering Valentines to men wounded in battle without proper medical care. Nice job.

Special Challenge Runner-up: Amy Wood

 

 

Special Challenge Champion: writtenbetweencovers

Runner-up: Rebekah Postupak

 

 

 

Grand Champion: Karl A Russell

Thanks everyone!

 

 

 

FINISH THAT THOUGHT #32

Welcome back to another round! I considered doing another Festive Challenge, but there are enough people out there who HATE Valentine's Day that I just figured I'd skip it. I wouldn't want to turn anyone away, plus Eric would probably strangle me if he got the chance... (but he doesn't live in my state, so I think I'd be safe even if I went for it...) I'd personally love to see you be creative with the words in brackets - I LOVE variety! Anyway, enough of what I want - I'm not judging! Go find out what the judge's prompts are and go write! :)



If you need to read the full version of the rules, go here. Otherwise, here's the short version:

Rules:
1. Up to 500 words
2. Keep it clean (nothing rated R or above)
3. Start with the given first sentence.
4. Optional Special Challenge
5. Include Twitter/email, word count, Special Challenge accepted
6. The challenge is open for 24 hours on Tuesday EST



Oh, and feel free to change pronouns, punctuation, tense, and anything in brackets to fit the story/pov/tone. I'm not going to be TOO picky... Our judge however...

Our Judge today is Eric Martell also known as @drmagoo. Check out his blog here. Read his winning tale from last week here!



 Your first sentence for FINISH THAT THOUGHT #32 is:


The cat meowed, and stretched, and that was when I first heard [the scream].



 Your SPECIAL CHALLENGE from the judge is:


Set your story before the year 1900CE.


 AAAAAAAND WE'RE OFF!!!