GotWoot Story Contest - Preliminaries - Round 2

[Sapphire]

Hi all!

GotWoot members have each written their own original short story.

Vote on your top two favorite stories!

If you participated in the contest, you have to vote, but you can't vote for yourself.
Therefore, you have to vote in every voting bracket but your own.
Please read ALL of the stories before you vote!
If you only vote for one story your vote is automatically discarded.
Pick your FAVORITE two (or at least the best two), trolling the other vote screws the other contestants over. If you do this I will know and hate you forever.

Preliminary rounds 1-4 have 4 stories each. The preliminary groups were completely randomly chosen. The top two stories from each bracket of the prelims will move on to semi-finals, then the winners of semi-finals will duke it out in the championships!

Authors will remain anonymous until the final results are declared! If an author wants to respond to a voter, they can do so through me.

Voters should give personal feedback below to our budding or seasoned authors!

The voting period for each round is 72 hours.

ROUND 2 - FIGHT!

-
Pastebin Mirrors
Madness' Door (http://pastebin.com/YDATgUYt)
The Mechanic (http://pastebin.com/1a2tsT4a)
A Live Arm (http://pastebin.com/A2Tnv4d7)
Jack the Green Slider (http://pastebin.com/FhgvuBtz)

Readability Mirrors
Madness' Door (https://www.readability.com/articles/mirnjsoq)
The Mechanic (https://www.readability.com/articles/cxdwwph1)
A Live Arm (https://www.readability.com/articles/sehlhmdq)
Jack the Green Slider (https://www.readability.com/articles/2ir3j0ik)

[Dark_Sage]

Lucky you guys. More opinions from some random asshole.

Madness' door. What the hell? Another shitty fantasy story with poor English? Good gods. No more, please.

The Mechanic is the best structurally. It reads just like a short story from an '80s short stories book, except for the whole latter half, which was probably thought of before the first half even started to be written. I didn't like it because it just felt so familiar, so passe, so done. It's technically sound, though. :/

A Live Arm. Heh. Piss-poor writing intended only to prop up the last sentence. But at least it was a good last sentence. The subject matter and writing style made me sleep, but the final bit left me with something to think about - even if only for a second. That's more than anything else I've read in this contest has managed.

Jack the Green Slider. I had to re-read it just to see if the "amazing" revelation at the end changed my interpretation of the story itself. It didn't. You know what that means? The last bit was entirely irrelevant to the story as a whole. Let me break it down for you - shit sucks. The Mechanic had a build-up to its ending; it felt complete. A Live Arm could have worked with a million differrent scenarios, but the ending itself was the point of the story. This? It's a poorly-built story managed around a generic ending. No thanks.

I see the theme for this round is "OMG twists." I can't wait for what's coming next.

[Dark_Sage]

... I killed it. ;_;

[shinta|hikari]

Don't double post. See the button that says "Edit Post"? Use that.

I voted the Mechanic and Jack the Green Slider.

Stronger entries than round 1.

[Sapphire]

Reminder: Voters need to give feedback!!! *I'll give mine later*

[shinta|hikari]

The Mechanic - Well written, but has a flat ending.

Jack - Needed some foreshadowing to make the twist not seem like a random thought that just came up when the writer was concluding.

Live Arm - I didn't find the theme interesting.

[Janice]

I voted for The Mechanic and Jack the Green Slider.

Madness Door is riddled with errors, making it really tough to read.

A Live Arm was pretty well written, but I don't really like baseball and the whole idea seems kind of cheesy (I guess that's the point, though).

The Mechanic is well written. I think it's the best of the four in this round. I feel that there was too much of a jump between introducing Mechanic Mike and the alien popping in his house, though. It almost seems like two stories stuck together.

I honestly don't understand Green Slider at all, but It's better written and more entertaining than Live Arm IMO, so I voted for it.

[shinta|hikari]

Yeah, The Mechanic would have been better if it was just a midlife crisis story, with some revelation about life at the end.

[Dark_Sage]

Yeah, The Mechanic would have been better if it was just a midlife crisis story, with some revelation about life at the end.

O_0

... elaborate?

[twofacedkitsune]

Madness' Door - It was cliche (fire, blood, chaos, horde, knight, warrior, swords, etc. - rote fantasy jargon), but then again, what fantasy stories these days aren't cliche? The story's biggest weakness is its writing. Two things that come to mind are a) give people names, so they aren't always being referred to as "squire" or "veteran knight," and b) make sure to take the time to clarify what's what. As a reader, I felt the story was leaping ahead without any indication of what the situation was. For example - who's fighting in the beginning? (it jumps from peacefulness to preparations for war/chaos/destruction/blood&gore, etc. without really specifying who the POV characters are, and who they're fighting) I didn't get a clear sense of what each of the characters' motivations were. The last line of dialogue was pretty unexpected and opened up a realm of possibilities- I appreciated that.

*The Mechanic - I was expecting this to be a crusty mechanic + woman pseudo-romance (the writing was good, and it made me kind of cringe, dreading what was about to happen next), but it pulled a Kubrick/2001: A Space Odyssey halfway through and became a body-invading alien sci-fi or something. This isn't bad per se, but the story (and writing) quickly fell into cliches as well, where everything was so neat and by-the-book (the whole description about the "Elusive," for example, could easily be transposed onto countless existing fantasy/sci-fi characters). I would rewrite the second half - bring back a lot of the "texture"/attention to detail that makes the reader squirm when thinking about a crude mechanic lusting after an attractive client. Personally I liked the first half, but if the intention was to focus on the Elusive's story, I'd de-emphasize the first half. The immense attention to detail kind of detracts from the impact of the second half-- the second half feels kind of like an afterthought or a change of heart.

A Live Arm - I was pretty excited when I read the first paragraph, since it looked like the story was gonna be pretty interesting. Starting from the second half, it felt kind of like...I can't think of a way to describe it--maybe a strobe light or something? E.g. mid-game, after game, two days later, three months later, a few days later, one week later, etc. It felt a bit "and then, and then, and then, and then, and then"-- like a chain of events or descriptions, rather than causalities. The story got increasingly vague as it went along. I had no idea what was going on by the last paragraph, but I kind of liked it nonetheless.

*Jack the Green Slider - Overall, this story probably caught my attention the most. The ending was surprising, yet made a lot of sense. The writing was a bit inconsistent. It was good at the beginning and end - some of the more vivid descriptions: "pitched yesterday's grounds in the trash," "as she tilted the jar, it slid from side to side." The middle section, however, (from around the part where the girl hits the boy with her car, until the twist at the end) fell into a typical "girl meets cute boy" kind of routine, and seemed to rely on conventions to pull the reader along, rather than the close attention-to-detail that the story had started with. I would work on getting the middle section up to par with the beginning- try to replace generic, over-used, or vague words like "fun," "cute," "incredible," "amazing," etc. with short vignettes, ideas, etc. I preferred lines like "pitched yesterday's grounds in the trash" because they tell you the girl isn't a prim type of person who cleans out her coffee-maker right after using it - and lets you imagine what she's like in other areas of her life, as well - without having to explicitly say it.

[shinta|hikari]

O_0

... elaborate?

Remove the alien twist, and continue the story about his lust and life issues. It won't be avant-garde, but at least it won't feel as forced.

[Zati]

The Mechanic - Best out of this group. Very well written. Provocative first half, then a second half twist to something completely and utterly different. The author clearly knows how to tell a story. Concise, effective, and really engaging. I was hooked from the start, and it certainly held my attention until the end. Superb!

A Live Arm - Not as strong. Monotonous, and can be perceived as rather corny, but I thought it was a decent enough read to earn my vote. The author didn't try too hard, and I thought he/she did a solid job. I'm a baseball fan, so I didn't mind the theme one bit.

[DeadlyOats]

I voted for 'Madness' Door'. Yeah, the grammar needed a whole lot of work, it was hard to read, but I liked the story it barely managed to tell. The idea that a brave and noble knight would, in the end, become that which he fought so hard to defeat gave this story an ever sinking feeling of impending doom and despair. A continuation of that story would probably tell of the struggle of that former hero, now himself a Chaos Warrior, to somehow free himself from the grip of chaos and emerge again a hero, albeit a tragic hero with a tragic hero's end. But only the writer knows if there was any hope of redemption for the fallen knight.

I voted for 'The Mechanic', as well. It was well polished. I really liked the story and started to care for "Mike the Mechanic", and yeah that twist came out of nowhere, so it did feel out of place, but the surrealness of the second half was riveting too. However, unless a human has given up on everything, I would think he would resist losing himself to another entity.... People tend to be scrappers. But I guess with a 500 word cap, that's the ending we got.

I din't vote for the others, but I think they were interesting as well.

[Ryllharu]

I have to admit, I didn't particularly care for the "theme" that these four seemed to shared. Twist at the end isn't a great short-story format. It's called forgetting to write a conclusion. It's cheap pulp (which can be a lot of fun), but doesn't rise to the caliber of Tales from the Crypt or even Goosebumps.

In the random order I read them in (again, keeping things constructive):

"The Mechanic" - Started real strong, but kind of lost it in the second half. If it had taken a more gradual or subtle approach, it might have been my first pick. Even with the way it went, what it really needed was a short wrap-up paragraph. Something to really hit home what changes occurred, possibly from a third person party (the woman who dropped off the car perhaps?). It was a close one for second place with this one and "A Live Arm," but this one lacked the bit of personality characterization the other had. edit: I think shinta pegged the issue pretty well.

"Jack the Green Slider" - I did not like this one the first time I read it. But after I read all the others, I went back to read this one again. Despite some serious issues with pacing around the middle, this one was the clear winner for me. It could use a little more clarity, but at least it had a legitimate ending to go along with its "twist," instead of a the surprise filling the place of an actual ending. It was amusing and had some humanity in it.

"Madness' Door" - Frankly, this one is a bit of a mess. It feels like some kind of Warhammer fanfic. It's too dense, lacks clarity, and doesn't provide sufficient setup. If it got thinned out a bit, and like "The Mechanic," added in a little conclusion paragraph instead of finishing with a "twist," it might have worked pretty well. That said, what it lacks in proper narrative, it makes up for in development. It has a good flow overall, has a nice feeling of madness to it, but paragraph per paragraph it needs some considerable patching up.

"A Live Arm" - I went for this as my second pick (alluded to above), because it had a fairly strong characterization of the narrator. It gave a good feeling of motivation for why the condition was accepted, had a good setup and a decent rising action sequence. However, it's lacking in an actual climax and again...a conclusion. It's the last several paragraphs that push it over "The Mechanic," there is a strong feeling of foreshadowing, a bit of a change in character as the narrator dismisses Steve. While I don't really care for the "twist," it has a strong foundation overall.

[RyougaZell]

Madness: Too much information crammed together with unnecessary references to past events, instead of developing the characters only confuses the reader. Not so good grammar.

Mechanic: Perfect characterization. The explanation of the main character's life and thoughts went flawless. The story suffers by adding a supernatural event where it wasn't needed though.

Live Arm: Not sure what to say about this. Writing style is good and progress well... yet the plot... I don't know its... corny? Leaving facts, like what was used, or the outcome of the murder, in the dark weakens it.

Jack: Wait... what? Uh... okay. Non-descriptive while the characters talked made it look like a script instead of a story.


Meh.... I'll get some sleep and then expand my comments. I know which I'm voting though.

[Sapphire]

POLL is supposed to end midnight tonight, but I started it late so it'll end a bit late. Anyway, round three starts tonight! AND HURRY UP AND VOTE GUYZ.

[KitKat]

Thoughts from this round:

Madness' Door - Once again, I'd re-iterate the need for having a proof-reader before submitting a story. There's a lot of switching between present and past tense verbs in a weird jarring way, and the grammar is a little strange. I would recommend also varying some of the sentences. Each sentence follows a very simple format, with little to no subordinate clauses. Rearranging the elements in a sentence makes for more interesting reading. Try adding some passive sentences and prepositional phrases to bring attention to things you want to highlight, or to downplay other things that are less important.

The Mechanic - The writing is sound, and the first half reads very well. The second half falls victim to what I like to term 'delusions of grandeur', making all sorts of wide sweeping profound-seeming statements in the Elusive's dialogue that all together come off as very cliche. I also agree with other readers who have commented on a sharp disconnect between the first and second halves. Overall though, the story is cohesive.

A Live Arm - This one is also technically sound, but I felt that its greatest weakness was character development. It felt like a story about Generic NPC#1 murdering Generic NPC#2. There was no real sense of who these people were besides the fact that they were friends and played baseball. I'd really like to see this author flesh out the characters and events some more, to make the readers believe that these are real events that happened to real people instead of just a story kids might tell around a campfire at night to scare each other.

Jack the Green Slider - I find it hard to pinpoint what I disliked about this story. It has lots of moments of really great writing. I think perhaps the story just felt awkward and disjointed, and made me confused.

[Sapphire]

Author of The Mechanic says, "The way the Elusive speaks is completely intentional and is supposed to showcase its personality, which may be elaborated on later in the story. Also, the way Mike is affected by the Elusive is a plot point. Sort of hard to sell the seemingly random plot twist without first marketing the story as a fantasy or sci-fi, but I tried my best. Thanks to twofacedkitsune for noting the differences in the level of attention to detail, I felt this criticism was very constructive."

Any other authors who care to respond can of course PM me.

[Sapphire]

Subtract 1 from the "total vote count," 1 vote was discarded. (So as of now the vote count is 16, not 17)

[Sapphire]

Jack the Green Slider - "Slider" in the title made me think of an iphone slider, and the mention of an iphone at the beginning totally made me think of them. The story was good. I'm assuming Jack was a tumor though? That's a HUGE ASS tumor. A tumor the diameter of a fingertip could knock your ass out, and usually they are flesh colored. This story was sort of like friendship in the way that it's sort of about a kindred spirit meeting a friend. When you said "Jack slid in her" was that a sex story? WHY DIDN'T YOU WRITE THE SEX SCENE? Very sentimental story.

A Live Arm - I liked this story. You used a lot of baseball terminology, but not in a way that was confusing. It just seemed like you were very knowledgeable and did your research. I like the fact that the dude is a murderer, AND he's unwillingly typing out what happened. And I liked the fact that he LIKED being a murderer. That is VERY R.L. Stine.

The Mechanic - I can tell that the author is trying to be the next Stephen King, by having a completely normal realistic setting, (a pervert who sexually desires a random woman) and suddenly having an alien come in. The author should read Haruki Murakami, someone who is excellent at merging realism into fantastical realism. Murakami pretty much writes in a way where this really freaky shit happens, and you don't know if its magic or science or WHAT it is. If the supernatural part wasn't added I'm pretty sure The Mechanic would have turned into a serial rapist story, you sick freaks. Also I think Mike was a virgin because who else is that desperate.

Madness Door - Almost like 300 in its massive attention to detailing gore. The way you wrote this story really makes me think a pirate was narrating it. I had Dark_Sage read this to me in a pirate voice on Teamspeak and it was fucking awesome. My recommendation to the author is to perhaps slow the pacing a bit so we can get to know the main character? Also, the world and the setting were very easy to imagine, it made me think of Ascalon (Guild Wars) before the searing, which I like.

[enkoujin]

I was eating while reading these stories, so I really didn't like "Live Arm" and "Jack the Green Slider" that much.

"Madness Door"


This is no place to become a knight. There will be only death and destruction when the day is done.

Beautiful quote; this single quote gives a good example of foreshadowing that gives view to the aftermath of the ending.

Spelling and grammar check is strong needed to improve the story.

There were too many unimportant things in this story. There should have been more focus and build-up leading to the protagonists' progressing anti-heroism for a stronger impact of the revelation of him switching sides.

Lastly, pay attention to the tenses you're using. You switched between past, present and future tenses in one story. It was pretty confusing.

"The Mechanic"


...You are an average man. And that, my friend, is the most powerful being of all.

I think is one story I have truly understood out of all the entries so far. I loved how the symbolism in the story was used as well.

My take is that Michael was born going down a path that he was unhappy from the beginning and ended up being a mechanic. This is greatly emphasized when he changes his mind, when encountering "Elusive", from a choice of a luxurious convertible to a woman.

Since he is already 47 years old, in a traditional time where it was uncommon to wed after the age of 30, the man has become lonely and depressed. It's hard to find a woman who would take you at that age, leaving him with a stained image - exemplified by the oil and grease that's on his hands, clothes and on his handkerchief (which, back then, was white adding more significance to this piece in the story).

What gives away to his insanity is how a single person would want to keep his house neat and clean even though no one will visit him. It's very unexpected because this is a mechanic here and one might not think of mechanics as "neat" or "clean" people who keep things tied together. Here's another quote to strengthen my opinion:


...It was then that Mike realized that some of these memories were not his own, but he was too happy to care.

So in the end, "Elusive" is actually a form of his insanity that has finally manifested in a humanoid form. The most important thing is that "Elusive" is a combination of both Michael's desire of female companionship and his own mother. Because he has been calling himself "average" all the time and has not succeeded with women, the only time where it is mentioned in the story of being praised was when his mother said:


...[Michael was] destined for greatness

Now compare it to "Elusive"'s quote:


I have watched you crawl from the depths of the mud pit and rise upon two legs. And from that I have seen you fight great wars and suffer great sacrifice in the defense of ideals. I have seen you love. I have seen you rage. I have seen you fly to the moon. The message of humanity will echo throughout space for all eternity.

Is it not true that a caring mother can understand the depths of our souls because we are their creations? We have all crawled out of our mothers' "mud pits" to begin walking, to fight internal wars with ourselves and have supported us through our failures. They have seen us get angry and they have seen our successes no matter how insignificant they are to ourselves.

In actuality, "Elusive" is Michael's [dead] mother (implied) that is comforting her son and telling him that it acceptable to be average at his age because he can no longer attain anything greater than he is right now. Michael's mother is the only woman in Michael's life that has ever given sincere love to him and may be asking him to reunite with her in death (or in heaven) because that is Michael's true desire.

The other and last parts seems a little bit confusing, so the ending is very ambiguous (but intentional, I'm sure). It is possible that he became insane and was content with that fate because he's in a "better place", killed himself and achieved "nirvana" status (with his life flashing before him) or that "Elusive" was actually real and he is being pulled through space-time continuum.

A little bit of extras to note as well - the reason why he didn't achieve greatness was because he was born during the wrong time and probably had many failures that were out of his control. A 1957 Ford convertible indicates that it may have been around that period of time and assuming the setting takes place in the US, during Michael's life, he would have been in his 20's when the Great Depression hit along with the recessions during the 1940's and 1950's. If this thinking is correct, that adds more to the author's credibility.

I'd say nothing much to improve on. A lot of personal preferences here and there, but the author delivered and I was very satisfied. I have my money bet on this one out of all the stories so far.

"A Live Arm"


Something wonderful.

Something bad.

That's what I felt about this story.

Maybe I have biased tendencies towards grotesque and horror stories, but I didn't feel anything out of this. It started off pretty good, but I just didn't like what happened to the protagonist.

The author clearly wanted a big impact with the horror shock that the author himself had an arm that had a mind of itself.

However, as Ryllharu has said, it lacked a climax. Nothing was resolved and there was no closure reached. Maybe if there was a continuation or sequel to this story, this would have worked, but as a short story one-shot, the impact was less powerful.

I also agree with KitKat in that it is basically a story of one person killing another with no deep meaning behind it. It certainly catches a person's attention, but it feels as shallow as reading a college student's submission to their college's newspaper. It was interesting to read, but it lacked details and emotion which was its downfall.

In conclusion, character build-up would be essential to improving your story.

"Jack the Green Slider"


Her jaw dropped.

My jaw dropped and I believe I have a pretty good idea of the author's identity on this story judging by their writing style.

I can't say much about this story because it's about romance and I haven't read many romance stories at all, so I don't know what to say about it except that the story was forced. Absolutely forced, unreal and tragic.

For the author, I'd say improve your grammar and I know you were trying to be creative with your unique writing style, which added flair, but I didn't feel that this was the appropriate story to synchronize with that writing style.

[Sapphire]

WTF? A TIE AGAIN????

[Yukimura]

Oh wonderful another tie. I suggest the ties from this round and last round be pitted against each other in a round 2.5 with one vote per person and the two best be treated like the runners up from rounds 1 and 2 to save on confusion and clutter later in the contest. I'd say both runners up from this round are hands down better than runners up from the last round but that's just me.

[shinta|hikari]

I think that's fair. Since people have already read the stories, a quick sudden death voting of 24-48 hours should suffice, and it should also be held simultaneously with the other rounds. It's just voting anyway.

[SeanW]

A Live Arm: reasonably well written, with an entertaining twist. But it was far too bogged down in baseball technicalities and particularly pitching jargon. The author obviously has a deep love for the game, and for the story to really grab you, you'd better, too.

The last line is cute, but problematic. The thing is, we're never told whether the guy is right- or left-handed. D'oh! This largely demolishes the significance of that line.

Jack the Green Slider: cute. Maybe too cute. I'm pretty sure I get the idea, but it could do with a little foreshadowing in part 1, so the twist wouldn't seem to come quite so much out of the blue. If it weren't for what tiny threads there are tying the two parts together (the color green, sliding), it would be a completely lame "and then she woke up" ending; with those threads, the twist isn't quite as clichéd as that.

Decently well written. I felt the dating montage was a bit of a cheat, but only a bit. Good amount of human interest. I was amused by the Americanized twist on the old anime cliché of the high school girl running out of the house with toast in her mouth and colliding with the cute guy; it's done subtly enough that it's not an in-your-face nod to otaku. Otherwise, it keeps clear of any deep niches like Live Arm's baseball.

Close call, but I'd definitely have to give the nod to Jack.

[SeanW]

Instead of tie-breakers, I suggest we just move both tied stories on. So we have three stories each from rounds 1 and 2.

[Sapphire]

Yuki wants to move the tied stories on, but have the lower two have their own special bonus round bracket (as well as runner-ups).

[XanBcoo]

I'm happy that The Mechanic did so well in this bracket. It was clearly the best of this group.

I agree with criticisms that have already been said about it. The first page or so contains rich imagery and a clearly intentioned main character. It kind of falls apart after that and the writing style seems to shift dramatically. Not really sure what happened, but the first page is good enough that I can forgive it.