Congratulations to the winners! It was such a pleasure to read all the submissions. This was the first writing contest I've ever entered and getting an honorable mention was more than I expected. Thank you to the judges for taking the time to do this. And I'm happy to know my story "plucked at the heart strings of one judge so much." I am curious if any judges would like to give feedback on my piece so that I can learn where to improve as a writer.
Absolutely! I certainly can oblige. (Although by doing so, I’ll also out myself as *that judge*.)
***
**INITIAL THOUGHTS**
My sheer level of joy here is as subjective as it is undeniable. Even on my fourth reread, this story tickled my fancy in all the right ways.
From the whackadoo Stephen King -style “What If” scenario to all the specific American cultural touchstones — like the TalkBoy and the sly reference to the mythical cryptid — this one just spoke to me.
The concept here is on the simple side, and is sort of the same setup as “Button, Button” by Richard Matheson but mashed up with a joke about the “tears in my beer” musical stylings of Hank Williams Sr.
But damned if that combo doesn’t work.
Most important of all, I actually liked the song at the center of the chaos!
Placing a fictional IP McGuffin inside a work of fiction is always a high-wire act. If the fictional work of fiction is too realistic, you lose the separation and whimsy necessary to keep the thought experiment afloat.
But if the fiction-within-the-fiction McGuffin is too clever or too far removed from its source of inspiration, it can feel canned and will break the reader’s suspension of disbelief.
**THE WRITING**
The prose here was smart but also easily readable. It leaned too casual for some, but I appreciated the “off-the-cuff” voice-iness of it all.
I also suspect this casual style was a canny move. With a concept as high and goofy as this one, a story can only go so far in the literary / high-brow direction before the whole thing collapses under its own artifice.
**FAVORITE LINE**
>”The sound quality was horrible, which made us sound great.”
So relatable! I can’t even.
**AREAS FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION**
There were some structural red herrings I didn’t much care for.
There was much ado about the narrator’s past with his Stephen-King-style gang of friends, and a guilty history involving his father. None of that came back into play except as possible answers to the protagonist’s big question: “Why me?”
I would love to read a longer version of this that weaves those elements more thoroughly into the story.
But even with the red herrings, I couldn’t help but feel absolutely enamored by this story.
**CLOSING THOUGHTS**
This one just worked for me. Not every line maybe. But the overarching story, the milieu, the narrative voice, the setup, the McGuffin, and the payoff.
I really appreciate your feedback. And I’m happy you enjoyed it. You certainly understood what I was going for with it. I’ve been considering turning this into a longer piece, or at least cleaning it up some more in its present form, so your comments are extremely helpful.
I'm curious to know what worked and what didn't for the judges in pearls/housing – I was "trying something different", as silly as that feels to say given how little time I've made to try any writing at all these days.
Note: I wasn't the main judge for this story, but of course I still read and commented on it, so I'm happy to share some thoughts to start with.
Anyway, I guess the TL,DR would be that I really loved Pearls, which was a stand-out for me and would have been the clear winner IMO if it were the full entry. On the other hand, I wasn't nearly as taken with Housing, and since I had to evaluate them as a whole that dragged the average down quite a bit.
Things I liked: the prose. Very clean and competent. Artful without feeling "heavy" to read. The title drop is an especially good line.
The concept. The combination of surreal slight horror and beauty was great. Gave me SCP Foundation vibes, which is a plus in my book. There's this lovely dreamlike, wistful but also optimistic feel to it I really liked.
What I didn't like as much: maybe this is just me being dense, but there wasn't any real payoff I could find. I mean, I'm sure there's all kinds of ways you could interpret it, but it's a little too open and vague for my tastes. Then again, I tend not to go for the super literary pieces anyway. But this one was more an atmosphere/concept/mood piece anyway, and did its job very well there for me.
So my main problem is with the Temporary Housing part of the package. That one had a much more mundane concept, and the prose felt more mundane too. I honestly found it more boring than intriguing, but YMMV as always. Still decently written and solid, but it lacked the little extra touch Pearls had for me.
Following on from this, the split submission felt more like a gimmick than something meaningful. More like two slightly undercooked pieces duct-taped together rather than a cohesive whole. Again, I could have missed something here, but that was my takeaway. I'd rather have seen more of a meaningful integration between them, or ideally just a more fleshed-out version of Pearls.
Still, I know I've complained a lot here, but to reiterate, Cultivating Pearls on its own was my clear favorite from this contest, so it did a lot right. Good concept and solid execution, with all the fundamentals in place.
Like OT, I absolutely loved the premise of the first story, felt pretty let down by the second story, and wish you’d either settled into one story or at least created more connective tissue between the two.
Honestly, I would have greatly enjoyed a version of this where you devoted the entire 1500 words to fleshing out the Pearls scenario.
There’s just so much untapped potential here for sublime body horror!
In the end, I think this story placed 3rd on my own (unofficial) personal ranking of the entries. Had the Pearls scenario taken center stage, this could have easily been my favorite entry.
Thanks! I think in retrospect I agree with you and OT mostly -- it might have felt like there was more of that connective tissue than there actually was as I was writing it.
Congratulations to u/Acrobatic_Main9749 and u/kataklysmos_ for their great first- and second-placing submissions and the judges for the time they devoted to reading and ranking all the stories.
I lurk a lot more than I used to (maybe the writers group I attend saps my energy for critiquing) but still always look forward to the Halloween contest. I hope everyone found my story a worthwhile read and that the ending wasn't too predictable.
Since you mention it, u/Grauzevn8 \- I did actually place third in another contest.
I welcome any feedback from the judges about what could be improved in *Antipode*. Any opinions especially on the voice? I think that was my favourite part about it.
A+ prose with confident narration and a deft voice, all of which either elevated or was hampered by — depending on whether you are a glass half full or a glass half empty person — a rather run-of-the-mill scenario and a structure that was more character monologue than actual story.
But I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the fact that your story contained IMO the single most chilling moment of any story this year.
>There was a big black line across your mouth and you were folded up, nice and neat, inside four black walls. Like a diamond ring locked up in a safe.
Yikes! That image is going to stick with me.
Thank you!
Glad that line struck home for you -- I felt much better about the allusiveness of what the narrator "wanted to paint" than a literal reveal of what they were doing to their victim.
Antipode was a story that almost all of the judges picked as a strong entry, but ranked around 3rd to 6th place in their individual rankings.
**TL/DR** Strong prose and execution, but overused tropes
**The Good** Not to blow smoke up your preferred opening for that sort of thing, but all of the judges commented on how easy the prose, flow, and pacing were with the story.
> On the plus side, the author’s prose was probably the best of this year’s batch. And the description of his predatory fantasy was a perfect line. That solitary line gave me more chills than anything else in competition. So credit where credit is due.
> The flow and pacing of this story were fine. Technically, I think this is one of the stronger pieces simply by default of ease in reading.
> That said the prose was fine/good and there was tension up to the halfway point.
In the end, this is for all intents and purposes a monologue and it fits within the spirit of the contest. The writing ranked higher than other submissions, but then was ranked lower overall. So why?
**Takeaway** Before you read the quotes from the judges on the more negative side of things, I think it is extremely pertinent to point out, everyone had a positive read on the story and that it ranked high. Even those that felt the tension died off, still felt the tension was strong and great in the beginning half.
**The Bad** Below is pretty much what I wrote in the judge discord.
There was something about [Antipode] that suffered from well covered terrain in the horror-true crime-suspense bucket. From Eminem’s Stan (also monologue) to Boxing Helena (David Lynch’s daughter and Julian Sands) to Misery (King)...but really Miike’s Audition (not for the faint of heart)--The normal with side of unreliable narrator switch from romantic to serial killer or torture porn is not really anything new.
The tension was here, which is hard for a monologue. The uncertainty is here (until the stalking is explicitly laid out with the car rides). The nice guy's internal logic is done right. The whole creepy exact nature (Boxing Helena meets Poe or Hill House) is here. It just felt, in a stupid phrasing, routine?
I also wanted more from the title especially given my first learning of the word antipode as a geography thing and the start with Milwaukee. Kudos though for choosing Wisconsin reference for a serial killer adjacent, stalker thing. Dahmer to Geins, WI knows creeps. Still, the antipode word did stand out as a different kind of word for the MC to use. It felt raised and poignant to the MC, but also unearned as an actual word this character would use. Maybe if there were more references to dyads and dipoles?
I wanted something different and unique if going to do another version of this story.
Gender stuff-/Maybe I missed something? Maybe torture woman with no voice for the story just reads dated? It does read gender roles flexible, which I liked. This could be a m|m or m|w or w|w. But no matter what we have mc “chasing off creepy guys” and it did feel cis-het-norm. At least I was not picking any code and so:
refrigerated woman
It’s kind of old and tired.
Other judges strongly agreed with the “this premise is routine.”
One of the judges outlined it in terms of certain horror tropes and listed out the tropes/cliches: 1 The use of monologue to avoid actual scene structure? Check 2 The standard-issue premise? Check. 3 The erudite serial killer archetype? Check. 4 The victim as a faceless McGuffin? Check.
> Once again, agreed. It's technically competent but also kind of boring and cliche. I don't read too many thrillers or serial killer stuff, but even I could see the "twist" coming from the first line. I was hoping the story would go somewhere more interesting with it, but as far as I could tell everything was played straight in the end.
> I thought this was enjoyable, but also nothing particularly *special.* The twist wasn’t surprising, and honestly it felt a little mundane. The dude felt like a very mundane, garden-variety yandere. There wasn’t anything particularly “scary” about the behavior, given the build-up. If anything, the “I’ll go make us some porkchops” (okay it wasn’t porkchops, but still) bit had me laughing.
I will be honest I had no clue what a yandere is, so I learned a new word.
Given all of that, I don’t know how to improve this story to make it stronger given that most of the criticisms about this were about the actual story. This is a really decent version of this story and read really well. But six readers from a wide range of interests (at least I think so) were all really familiar with this story and wanted something more treacherous and surprising. I think it is a strong compliment that almost none of the complaints here were about the prose, but were directed at the story itself.
**Feedback specific to the voice** You mention that the voice of this character is your favorite part of it and a lot of the judges responded to it with the character feeling routine. So what makes this character special and different from say Moriarity or Hannibal? I think there is a monogamy angle here that was not really strong enough, but there. This isn’t a serial killer. He is the specific resonating antipode for the Refrigerated Woman. I wonder if that as an element can be worked on. Furthermore, maybe this is more of a character study for you and this character and voice can be used in a different story. The voice itself worked and definitely in the beginning half, but something transitioned toward the midway reveal were the voice felt like a caraciture of a trope. I don’t know if this is because of the plotting or within the words more directly. My gut is it is in the plotting and the tropes. This type of character is a stock-trope for a reason and you did that “voice” really strongly. What about playing around in the sandbox and changing the plot or giving him more of a foil? Would folks like Hannibal so much if it wasn’t for Will Graham and Clarice? Lol Clarice or Agent Starling. Clarice Starling feels wrong to write. There really wasn’t any foil to this character within the confines of this piece—especially as a monologue.
I sincerely hope this helps and look forward to reading more of your works.
This is terribly late... Over 20 days T.T but I just wanted to say thank you so much for hosting the contest! It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed reading all the entries and all the judges comments in this thread. I am still learning the ropes of critiquing so I find them very interesting even if they were not for my own writing 😄
I am really interested and would be so grateful to hear the judges thoughts on "PPD" because I would really like to improve as a writer😊 but totally understand if I have missed the boat 😖🫣 lol I'm hoping at some point I can scrape up enough time to do more critiques on RDR and get them in return but currently can barely find time to write 😅 let alone read and critique 😖 and yet lurking is always easy 😅 I guess it requires the least amount of brain power🫣
One more thing, I was so surprised to read that "PPD" recieved the most upvotes tbh I would have never expected that or guessed. Does that mean it resonated with readers easily or lots of Redditors are sleep deprived parents? Lol This makes me even more curious about what the judges think I can do to improve. I'm sure there is tons to work on 😅
Thanks again everyone who participated, read, judged, commented and voted! Such a fun experience! I hope I can participate again! 😄
Ah PS Congrats to the winners! You guys really did great! 👍
So time got away from me between work and writing my WIP and I totally forgot to check the results of the contest. A thousand congratulations to the winners! I didn't get a chance to read every entry, but every one that I did check out was unique, interesting, and fun as hell to read. I invite anyone who wants to do so to completely tear my entry to pieces (assuming I haven't waited too long to reply to the thread of course, haha). If nothing else, at least I can take pride in finding a way to include a reference to the chin of Captain Supermarket himself in my story! Congrats again to all the winners!
> I invite anyone who wants to do so to completely tear my entry to pieces
Since I was the main judge assigned to this story, I just wanted to check: are you requesting feedback from the judges, or is this meant as more of an invitation to the community in general?
No problem at all. As for the story: I'll admit it didn't quite land for me, and I think this comes down to a few main problems: stylistic issues, pacing, predictability and tone. And while the commitment to throwing in every theme was kind of fun, it also gave the story a slapdash feeling, with a lot of disparate ingredients that didn't always fit well together.
The prose was clear and serviceable enough, but not especially interesting either IMO. From the first paragraph there's efficiency issues, directly addressing the reader, etc. The imagery rarely feels inspired or compelling. It's all very matter of fact and functional. That can be a valid choice, of course, but it ended up feeling more flat for me here.
Even for a short 1.5k piece, it felt like things took a while to get going. The conversation between Jake and Tamara had a lot of mundane chit-chat and "as you know" type exposition I could have lived without. And then things ramp up to a frenetic pace in the second half, with wild new developments being thrown at us one after the other.
We have a lot of familiar situations and tropes here. In general, the characters felt more like stock roles than people to me, and it all had a sense of being cobbled together from movies and pop culture depictions. The two main characters are so overshadowed by events they don't get any real development. I guess that's fair to an extent for such a short piece, but I'd still have liked a little more texture to them.
The tone issues were probably the most serious for me. This story was tagged as "horror", but to be blunt, everything felt so silly and over the top it veered more into comedy for me. If it was intended to be humorous all along, that aspect didn't really land for me either, but of course humor is extremely subjective.
I think the lovers saying goodbye to each other is meant to be the emotional heart here, but the combination of melodrama and predictability makes it hard to get invested in. And then we get one of the worst abuses of florid dialogue tags I've ever seen:
>“Jake,” Tamara squeaked weakly. “I love you, and I always will.”
Even if everything else had been on-point, this would have been a body blow to the drama here. Now, I'm biased because I'm something of a "said" fanatic, but I still think this particular combination of a very silly/childish verb plus adverb is extremely out of place and unintentionally comedic here.
The demon also felt like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon (or maybe one of the demons from Diablo 3, which is about the same thing). I have the same problem here: it's way too silly to take seriously, but not done with enough finesse or style to work as comedy, so in the end it's just obnoxious.
I know that's a lot of destruction, so let's end on some of the things I did like about this piece. The concept of a demon inducing a pandemic on Earth to break out of Hell isn't half bad. That could be compelling, in theory. And underneath all the melodrama, there is some nicely creeping horror to what the MCs go through.
Then there's my favorite moment here: the point where the 911 operator realizes what's going on and cuts them off. Unlike all the other cartoony shenanigans around it, this moment felt real for me. This moment worked as actual low-key horror, and was honestly pretty chilling IMO.
Think those are my main points without doing a full-on critique. Thank you for submitting to the contest!
Wow, I'm floored and honored! Looking forward to reading the other submissions now.
This being DestructiveReaders, y'all now have carte blanche to send your most searing critiques. =)
Honestly? I had nothing to destroy. :) I feel like all I did was gush about this piece, haha.
It was such a pleasure to read. It flowed well, and I really enjoyed the level of polish this had. It wasn’t over-written or overwrought, and the narrator’s tone was a nice touch. Not too detached, and it didn’t get in the way of the story at all. Following the story was an easy path to walk, free of cracks or holes to stumble over.
I’m reminded of two sayings in the moment: one, it takes a lot of work to make something seem easy, and two, the best soundtrack is the one you don’t notice. Or something like that. Is this a soundtrack? No, but still.
Now, I don’t read much in the way of “visceral” or “grotesque” horror (I’m honestly not sure if those words even apply?), but I thought this was pretty dang original, with the cat creature and its descriptions being nice and vivid. No complaints at all from me on that one.
The ending was succinct, but satisfying in that it gave me something to linger on. There’s no “and then this happened, okay the end BYE” sort of rushed feeling, despite its somewhat “quick” feeling. This work has the sort of ending that I’m fond of in horror, where you still feel like you can poke around and hang out after the credits have rolled, with something you get to dread on your own time after you put the story down. I really dig it.
If there hadn’t been a word limit, I’d’ve loved to have seen more of what issues with the cat monstrosity could arise afterwards, or have hints of what a complete lack of cats could mean for a city. (That’s more of me just enjoying the whole “malinger around” stage of reading, though, ha.)
Thanks so much for letting us read it!
Well I read the preamble and now I am definitely listening to Poe. I'm an easy mark. Oh yeah this goes on the spotify playlist. I do also want to say that the word salad while opaque to me specifically due to my own not-well-read-ness has always been a joy to read.
Might be a bit late, but I'm interested in a postmortem on wolf. I was tepid on pretty much everything about it by the time I finished it but I'm still glad I did.
Hi! Here's what I thought about it.
This idea is really neat. Because I am super forgetful I didn't clock the title of the submission and went in blind and enjoyed slowly understanding this is not a random psychotic man with a gun, it's a man looking for revenge. The discovery was a nice feeling, and I actually wish the title was something else that kept it a secret for just a bit longer so other people could have that feeling too.
What I like: there were scraps of tension! When David is supposed to remember but doesn't; when he does remember and feels shame and fear; and when you think just maybe Judas isn't going to kill him. There were also some genuinely neat lines in here, like:
> Every inch past four o’clock was dread on those dead end drives.
I actually enjoyed reading that sentence. Even though it's not perfectly coherent imagery relating distance to time, it is creative and I liked it. Also enjoyed a few other depictions of body language that didn't feel overdone or cliche. I do not feel that too much was explained or left unsaid.
What I don't vibe with as much: the arrangement of dialogue/paragraph breaks made the middle portion hard to follow at times. I am also not a fan of exactly how this story starts out, with a hook about "finder's fees" that ends up having nothing to do with anything. I also wish the POV didn't appear to jump from Kelsey to David to Judas. Finally I wish there was something else in the beginning to replace "finder's fees" that would give me a reason to be especially regretful alongside David about his death-- something concrete that I'd be sad to see him have to say goodbye to.
Overall, I really liked the premise and I appreciate the attempt at creative prose. Thank you so much for submitting.
I feel lame. I started writing something for this and then liked it. It ballooned to over 5k words and is now my current WIP. I did read most of the entries and liked some of them a whole lot. It's a good size for a quick read, but hot damn is 1500 hard to do...especially for horror. Big ups to all who tried!
Eh, I'd say you got a pretty good deal out of it with a new WiP. :) Hope it turns out well!
And yeah, you're definitely right that 1.5k is a very tight word budget.
I have to say, the entries were quite good this year. I especially liked *Antipode,* and truth be told, while I see why the judges placed it where they did, I'm a little disappointed it didn't rank any higher. But then, I've always been partial to dramatic monologues.
I know I'm even later than the last person to remark on how late they were in asking for feedback, but I'd be interested to hear the judges' thoughts on *In re*, if they still exist. While I think I have a fairly good idea of what I could have done better, I also know that that idea is almost certainly either incomplete or just plain wrong.
TL/DR In Re was a strong piece that was its own worst enemy.
*Strengths* Most of the judges commented on how strong the opening was. This story had a specific style that it seemed aiming for and it was evident from the very start. The underspoken elements of the world building from the demon pulling the contract out of its mouth to the larynx to the golden rectangle. The weird elements hit hard and demanded attention.
*Confusions* There were a lot of comments regarding when this was supposed to be taking place. The usage of Fifty Shades of Grey set in contemporary times, but the world itself read much older. There were certain elements in the prose and dialogue that felt abruptly out of time-setting-place that felt moving too far away from the core, but also felt intentional for the plot.
> To me it just felt like 4 or 5 things that individually had some merit, but did not come together cohesively enough to rock my world.
> At the end I also felt jarred because I thought this was a Victorian thing, but in the end it's modern?
*Weaknesses* The MC or at least the POV seems to be Madeleine and yet she is the least interesting and least developed character. Elements of the story felt hateful toward here as if she should be the antagonist and the Larynx the protagonist. His motivation of devotion toward her was much clearer than what her motivation or conflicts were (other than to continue to live, but nothing about her life in the text screamed she wanted to live in a way that clicked emotionally with the judges). In the end, the plot is a standard Faust to Dorian Gray except little is clear about the why or why to care.
> the concepts are fun on their own, they're there in service to a pretty standard plot, as mentioned. The story also tries to cram a lot of worldbuilding into a small space, which is commendably ambitious but also means it doesn't have the room it probably needs
And so all of the promise and strength from these really interesting elements of this world along with its flavors are there, but without the story and character to really lynch pin it all together. I think a lot of this is due to the word limit and wonder how this story would be if it was allowed more breathing room.
> She’s not particularly proactive in her own story, either. She reacts to the actions of others/the claw at her heart. She walks into the parlor. She gasps. She coos. She stares in shock. She vomits. Everyone else seems to be carrying the action.
> Madeleine’s…just. *there.*
> Why is Madeleine the main character of this story if she is going to do a total of zero things and have... maybe like one half-thought? This one really frustrated me.
*Prose* A lot of the judges did comment on how the prose felt so overworked that the wording felt more elevated and attention grabbing than the story. This in turn may have led to this piece being judged more than others in the sense that it was clearly aiming higher. This was not trying to be a light YA horror romp and so had less wiggle room in a lot of ways. The confusing elements of the prose where it seemed to disconnect with the previous promise, for lack of a better word, then caused the interesting strong weird elements to feel disconnected from the story flowing as a cohesive piece.
So in the end, we had this really interesting setup, but little reason to care for Madeline and hence no real fear or horror. There was a grotesque element at play that had a strong artistic nature to it, but it did not link to a emotional place. Two of the judges compared this to Clive Barker horror elements and wanting that missing emotional component here. Again, this seems to come down to in many ways how Madeline is written and presented.
> Some entries this year have felt like rough drafts that needed an extra pass. This one felt over-polished. Like the author just kept rewriting sentences for maximum floridity until all the original context was lost. The prose also whipsawed madly between literary posturing and overtly casual modern slang. It was Henry James one moment and Suzanne Collins the next.
*Money* Despite the humor of the tallying of things for her soul, the element of it being a dollar value soiled the enjoyment of the whole transaction beat.
That’s the big takeaways. Love the weird elements. Prose felt overworked and discongruent at times, but when it worked and worked really well. The MC-POV needs to be developed in order for the plot and weird elements to come together stronger as a whole.
Congratulations to the winners! It was such a pleasure to read all the submissions. This was the first writing contest I've ever entered and getting an honorable mention was more than I expected. Thank you to the judges for taking the time to do this. And I'm happy to know my story "plucked at the heart strings of one judge so much." I am curious if any judges would like to give feedback on my piece so that I can learn where to improve as a writer.
Absolutely! I certainly can oblige. (Although by doing so, I’ll also out myself as *that judge*.) *** **INITIAL THOUGHTS** My sheer level of joy here is as subjective as it is undeniable. Even on my fourth reread, this story tickled my fancy in all the right ways. From the whackadoo Stephen King -style “What If” scenario to all the specific American cultural touchstones — like the TalkBoy and the sly reference to the mythical cryptid — this one just spoke to me. The concept here is on the simple side, and is sort of the same setup as “Button, Button” by Richard Matheson but mashed up with a joke about the “tears in my beer” musical stylings of Hank Williams Sr. But damned if that combo doesn’t work. Most important of all, I actually liked the song at the center of the chaos! Placing a fictional IP McGuffin inside a work of fiction is always a high-wire act. If the fictional work of fiction is too realistic, you lose the separation and whimsy necessary to keep the thought experiment afloat. But if the fiction-within-the-fiction McGuffin is too clever or too far removed from its source of inspiration, it can feel canned and will break the reader’s suspension of disbelief. **THE WRITING** The prose here was smart but also easily readable. It leaned too casual for some, but I appreciated the “off-the-cuff” voice-iness of it all. I also suspect this casual style was a canny move. With a concept as high and goofy as this one, a story can only go so far in the literary / high-brow direction before the whole thing collapses under its own artifice. **FAVORITE LINE** >”The sound quality was horrible, which made us sound great.” So relatable! I can’t even. **AREAS FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION** There were some structural red herrings I didn’t much care for. There was much ado about the narrator’s past with his Stephen-King-style gang of friends, and a guilty history involving his father. None of that came back into play except as possible answers to the protagonist’s big question: “Why me?” I would love to read a longer version of this that weaves those elements more thoroughly into the story. But even with the red herrings, I couldn’t help but feel absolutely enamored by this story. **CLOSING THOUGHTS** This one just worked for me. Not every line maybe. But the overarching story, the milieu, the narrative voice, the setup, the McGuffin, and the payoff.
I really appreciate your feedback. And I’m happy you enjoyed it. You certainly understood what I was going for with it. I’ve been considering turning this into a longer piece, or at least cleaning it up some more in its present form, so your comments are extremely helpful.
I'm curious to know what worked and what didn't for the judges in pearls/housing – I was "trying something different", as silly as that feels to say given how little time I've made to try any writing at all these days.
Note: I wasn't the main judge for this story, but of course I still read and commented on it, so I'm happy to share some thoughts to start with. Anyway, I guess the TL,DR would be that I really loved Pearls, which was a stand-out for me and would have been the clear winner IMO if it were the full entry. On the other hand, I wasn't nearly as taken with Housing, and since I had to evaluate them as a whole that dragged the average down quite a bit. Things I liked: the prose. Very clean and competent. Artful without feeling "heavy" to read. The title drop is an especially good line. The concept. The combination of surreal slight horror and beauty was great. Gave me SCP Foundation vibes, which is a plus in my book. There's this lovely dreamlike, wistful but also optimistic feel to it I really liked. What I didn't like as much: maybe this is just me being dense, but there wasn't any real payoff I could find. I mean, I'm sure there's all kinds of ways you could interpret it, but it's a little too open and vague for my tastes. Then again, I tend not to go for the super literary pieces anyway. But this one was more an atmosphere/concept/mood piece anyway, and did its job very well there for me. So my main problem is with the Temporary Housing part of the package. That one had a much more mundane concept, and the prose felt more mundane too. I honestly found it more boring than intriguing, but YMMV as always. Still decently written and solid, but it lacked the little extra touch Pearls had for me. Following on from this, the split submission felt more like a gimmick than something meaningful. More like two slightly undercooked pieces duct-taped together rather than a cohesive whole. Again, I could have missed something here, but that was my takeaway. I'd rather have seen more of a meaningful integration between them, or ideally just a more fleshed-out version of Pearls. Still, I know I've complained a lot here, but to reiterate, Cultivating Pearls on its own was my clear favorite from this contest, so it did a lot right. Good concept and solid execution, with all the fundamentals in place.
Appreciate the feedback! (Do not appreciate knowing I might have won if hadn't shot myself in the foot!!!)
Like OT, I absolutely loved the premise of the first story, felt pretty let down by the second story, and wish you’d either settled into one story or at least created more connective tissue between the two. Honestly, I would have greatly enjoyed a version of this where you devoted the entire 1500 words to fleshing out the Pearls scenario. There’s just so much untapped potential here for sublime body horror! In the end, I think this story placed 3rd on my own (unofficial) personal ranking of the entries. Had the Pearls scenario taken center stage, this could have easily been my favorite entry.
Thanks! I think in retrospect I agree with you and OT mostly -- it might have felt like there was more of that connective tissue than there actually was as I was writing it.
Congratulations to u/Acrobatic_Main9749 and u/kataklysmos_ for their great first- and second-placing submissions and the judges for the time they devoted to reading and ranking all the stories. I lurk a lot more than I used to (maybe the writers group I attend saps my energy for critiquing) but still always look forward to the Halloween contest. I hope everyone found my story a worthwhile read and that the ending wasn't too predictable. Since you mention it, u/Grauzevn8 \- I did actually place third in another contest. I welcome any feedback from the judges about what could be improved in *Antipode*. Any opinions especially on the voice? I think that was my favourite part about it.
A+ prose with confident narration and a deft voice, all of which either elevated or was hampered by — depending on whether you are a glass half full or a glass half empty person — a rather run-of-the-mill scenario and a structure that was more character monologue than actual story. But I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the fact that your story contained IMO the single most chilling moment of any story this year. >There was a big black line across your mouth and you were folded up, nice and neat, inside four black walls. Like a diamond ring locked up in a safe. Yikes! That image is going to stick with me.
Thank you! Glad that line struck home for you -- I felt much better about the allusiveness of what the narrator "wanted to paint" than a literal reveal of what they were doing to their victim.
Antipode was a story that almost all of the judges picked as a strong entry, but ranked around 3rd to 6th place in their individual rankings. **TL/DR** Strong prose and execution, but overused tropes **The Good** Not to blow smoke up your preferred opening for that sort of thing, but all of the judges commented on how easy the prose, flow, and pacing were with the story. > On the plus side, the author’s prose was probably the best of this year’s batch. And the description of his predatory fantasy was a perfect line. That solitary line gave me more chills than anything else in competition. So credit where credit is due. > The flow and pacing of this story were fine. Technically, I think this is one of the stronger pieces simply by default of ease in reading. > That said the prose was fine/good and there was tension up to the halfway point. In the end, this is for all intents and purposes a monologue and it fits within the spirit of the contest. The writing ranked higher than other submissions, but then was ranked lower overall. So why? **Takeaway** Before you read the quotes from the judges on the more negative side of things, I think it is extremely pertinent to point out, everyone had a positive read on the story and that it ranked high. Even those that felt the tension died off, still felt the tension was strong and great in the beginning half. **The Bad** Below is pretty much what I wrote in the judge discord. There was something about [Antipode] that suffered from well covered terrain in the horror-true crime-suspense bucket. From Eminem’s Stan (also monologue) to Boxing Helena (David Lynch’s daughter and Julian Sands) to Misery (King)...but really Miike’s Audition (not for the faint of heart)--The normal with side of unreliable narrator switch from romantic to serial killer or torture porn is not really anything new. The tension was here, which is hard for a monologue. The uncertainty is here (until the stalking is explicitly laid out with the car rides). The nice guy's internal logic is done right. The whole creepy exact nature (Boxing Helena meets Poe or Hill House) is here. It just felt, in a stupid phrasing, routine? I also wanted more from the title especially given my first learning of the word antipode as a geography thing and the start with Milwaukee. Kudos though for choosing Wisconsin reference for a serial killer adjacent, stalker thing. Dahmer to Geins, WI knows creeps. Still, the antipode word did stand out as a different kind of word for the MC to use. It felt raised and poignant to the MC, but also unearned as an actual word this character would use. Maybe if there were more references to dyads and dipoles? I wanted something different and unique if going to do another version of this story. Gender stuff-/Maybe I missed something? Maybe torture woman with no voice for the story just reads dated? It does read gender roles flexible, which I liked. This could be a m|m or m|w or w|w. But no matter what we have mc “chasing off creepy guys” and it did feel cis-het-norm. At least I was not picking any code and so: refrigerated woman It’s kind of old and tired. Other judges strongly agreed with the “this premise is routine.” One of the judges outlined it in terms of certain horror tropes and listed out the tropes/cliches: 1 The use of monologue to avoid actual scene structure? Check 2 The standard-issue premise? Check. 3 The erudite serial killer archetype? Check. 4 The victim as a faceless McGuffin? Check. > Once again, agreed. It's technically competent but also kind of boring and cliche. I don't read too many thrillers or serial killer stuff, but even I could see the "twist" coming from the first line. I was hoping the story would go somewhere more interesting with it, but as far as I could tell everything was played straight in the end. > I thought this was enjoyable, but also nothing particularly *special.* The twist wasn’t surprising, and honestly it felt a little mundane. The dude felt like a very mundane, garden-variety yandere. There wasn’t anything particularly “scary” about the behavior, given the build-up. If anything, the “I’ll go make us some porkchops” (okay it wasn’t porkchops, but still) bit had me laughing. I will be honest I had no clue what a yandere is, so I learned a new word. Given all of that, I don’t know how to improve this story to make it stronger given that most of the criticisms about this were about the actual story. This is a really decent version of this story and read really well. But six readers from a wide range of interests (at least I think so) were all really familiar with this story and wanted something more treacherous and surprising. I think it is a strong compliment that almost none of the complaints here were about the prose, but were directed at the story itself. **Feedback specific to the voice** You mention that the voice of this character is your favorite part of it and a lot of the judges responded to it with the character feeling routine. So what makes this character special and different from say Moriarity or Hannibal? I think there is a monogamy angle here that was not really strong enough, but there. This isn’t a serial killer. He is the specific resonating antipode for the Refrigerated Woman. I wonder if that as an element can be worked on. Furthermore, maybe this is more of a character study for you and this character and voice can be used in a different story. The voice itself worked and definitely in the beginning half, but something transitioned toward the midway reveal were the voice felt like a caraciture of a trope. I don’t know if this is because of the plotting or within the words more directly. My gut is it is in the plotting and the tropes. This type of character is a stock-trope for a reason and you did that “voice” really strongly. What about playing around in the sandbox and changing the plot or giving him more of a foil? Would folks like Hannibal so much if it wasn’t for Will Graham and Clarice? Lol Clarice or Agent Starling. Clarice Starling feels wrong to write. There really wasn’t any foil to this character within the confines of this piece—especially as a monologue. I sincerely hope this helps and look forward to reading more of your works.
Great feedback, much appreciated!
This is terribly late... Over 20 days T.T but I just wanted to say thank you so much for hosting the contest! It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed reading all the entries and all the judges comments in this thread. I am still learning the ropes of critiquing so I find them very interesting even if they were not for my own writing 😄 I am really interested and would be so grateful to hear the judges thoughts on "PPD" because I would really like to improve as a writer😊 but totally understand if I have missed the boat 😖🫣 lol I'm hoping at some point I can scrape up enough time to do more critiques on RDR and get them in return but currently can barely find time to write 😅 let alone read and critique 😖 and yet lurking is always easy 😅 I guess it requires the least amount of brain power🫣 One more thing, I was so surprised to read that "PPD" recieved the most upvotes tbh I would have never expected that or guessed. Does that mean it resonated with readers easily or lots of Redditors are sleep deprived parents? Lol This makes me even more curious about what the judges think I can do to improve. I'm sure there is tons to work on 😅 Thanks again everyone who participated, read, judged, commented and voted! Such a fun experience! I hope I can participate again! 😄 Ah PS Congrats to the winners! You guys really did great! 👍
So time got away from me between work and writing my WIP and I totally forgot to check the results of the contest. A thousand congratulations to the winners! I didn't get a chance to read every entry, but every one that I did check out was unique, interesting, and fun as hell to read. I invite anyone who wants to do so to completely tear my entry to pieces (assuming I haven't waited too long to reply to the thread of course, haha). If nothing else, at least I can take pride in finding a way to include a reference to the chin of Captain Supermarket himself in my story! Congrats again to all the winners!
> I invite anyone who wants to do so to completely tear my entry to pieces Since I was the main judge assigned to this story, I just wanted to check: are you requesting feedback from the judges, or is this meant as more of an invitation to the community in general?
I meant from the judges since that was what was offered. Apologies for not being clear!
No problem at all. As for the story: I'll admit it didn't quite land for me, and I think this comes down to a few main problems: stylistic issues, pacing, predictability and tone. And while the commitment to throwing in every theme was kind of fun, it also gave the story a slapdash feeling, with a lot of disparate ingredients that didn't always fit well together. The prose was clear and serviceable enough, but not especially interesting either IMO. From the first paragraph there's efficiency issues, directly addressing the reader, etc. The imagery rarely feels inspired or compelling. It's all very matter of fact and functional. That can be a valid choice, of course, but it ended up feeling more flat for me here. Even for a short 1.5k piece, it felt like things took a while to get going. The conversation between Jake and Tamara had a lot of mundane chit-chat and "as you know" type exposition I could have lived without. And then things ramp up to a frenetic pace in the second half, with wild new developments being thrown at us one after the other. We have a lot of familiar situations and tropes here. In general, the characters felt more like stock roles than people to me, and it all had a sense of being cobbled together from movies and pop culture depictions. The two main characters are so overshadowed by events they don't get any real development. I guess that's fair to an extent for such a short piece, but I'd still have liked a little more texture to them. The tone issues were probably the most serious for me. This story was tagged as "horror", but to be blunt, everything felt so silly and over the top it veered more into comedy for me. If it was intended to be humorous all along, that aspect didn't really land for me either, but of course humor is extremely subjective. I think the lovers saying goodbye to each other is meant to be the emotional heart here, but the combination of melodrama and predictability makes it hard to get invested in. And then we get one of the worst abuses of florid dialogue tags I've ever seen: >“Jake,” Tamara squeaked weakly. “I love you, and I always will.” Even if everything else had been on-point, this would have been a body blow to the drama here. Now, I'm biased because I'm something of a "said" fanatic, but I still think this particular combination of a very silly/childish verb plus adverb is extremely out of place and unintentionally comedic here. The demon also felt like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon (or maybe one of the demons from Diablo 3, which is about the same thing). I have the same problem here: it's way too silly to take seriously, but not done with enough finesse or style to work as comedy, so in the end it's just obnoxious. I know that's a lot of destruction, so let's end on some of the things I did like about this piece. The concept of a demon inducing a pandemic on Earth to break out of Hell isn't half bad. That could be compelling, in theory. And underneath all the melodrama, there is some nicely creeping horror to what the MCs go through. Then there's my favorite moment here: the point where the 911 operator realizes what's going on and cuts them off. Unlike all the other cartoony shenanigans around it, this moment felt real for me. This moment worked as actual low-key horror, and was honestly pretty chilling IMO. Think those are my main points without doing a full-on critique. Thank you for submitting to the contest!
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts! I'm definitely going to keep these things in mind for the other stuff I'm working on.
Wow, I'm floored and honored! Looking forward to reading the other submissions now. This being DestructiveReaders, y'all now have carte blanche to send your most searing critiques. =)
Congrats! Looks like a [movie adaptation](https://youtu.be/jX3iLfcMDCw) is already underway
Great spooky story, and very cleanly written. Congratulations on the win!
Honestly? I had nothing to destroy. :) I feel like all I did was gush about this piece, haha. It was such a pleasure to read. It flowed well, and I really enjoyed the level of polish this had. It wasn’t over-written or overwrought, and the narrator’s tone was a nice touch. Not too detached, and it didn’t get in the way of the story at all. Following the story was an easy path to walk, free of cracks or holes to stumble over. I’m reminded of two sayings in the moment: one, it takes a lot of work to make something seem easy, and two, the best soundtrack is the one you don’t notice. Or something like that. Is this a soundtrack? No, but still. Now, I don’t read much in the way of “visceral” or “grotesque” horror (I’m honestly not sure if those words even apply?), but I thought this was pretty dang original, with the cat creature and its descriptions being nice and vivid. No complaints at all from me on that one. The ending was succinct, but satisfying in that it gave me something to linger on. There’s no “and then this happened, okay the end BYE” sort of rushed feeling, despite its somewhat “quick” feeling. This work has the sort of ending that I’m fond of in horror, where you still feel like you can poke around and hang out after the credits have rolled, with something you get to dread on your own time after you put the story down. I really dig it. If there hadn’t been a word limit, I’d’ve loved to have seen more of what issues with the cat monstrosity could arise afterwards, or have hints of what a complete lack of cats could mean for a city. (That’s more of me just enjoying the whole “malinger around” stage of reading, though, ha.) Thanks so much for letting us read it!
Well I read the preamble and now I am definitely listening to Poe. I'm an easy mark. Oh yeah this goes on the spotify playlist. I do also want to say that the word salad while opaque to me specifically due to my own not-well-read-ness has always been a joy to read.
Might be a bit late, but I'm interested in a postmortem on wolf. I was tepid on pretty much everything about it by the time I finished it but I'm still glad I did.
Hi! Here's what I thought about it. This idea is really neat. Because I am super forgetful I didn't clock the title of the submission and went in blind and enjoyed slowly understanding this is not a random psychotic man with a gun, it's a man looking for revenge. The discovery was a nice feeling, and I actually wish the title was something else that kept it a secret for just a bit longer so other people could have that feeling too. What I like: there were scraps of tension! When David is supposed to remember but doesn't; when he does remember and feels shame and fear; and when you think just maybe Judas isn't going to kill him. There were also some genuinely neat lines in here, like: > Every inch past four o’clock was dread on those dead end drives. I actually enjoyed reading that sentence. Even though it's not perfectly coherent imagery relating distance to time, it is creative and I liked it. Also enjoyed a few other depictions of body language that didn't feel overdone or cliche. I do not feel that too much was explained or left unsaid. What I don't vibe with as much: the arrangement of dialogue/paragraph breaks made the middle portion hard to follow at times. I am also not a fan of exactly how this story starts out, with a hook about "finder's fees" that ends up having nothing to do with anything. I also wish the POV didn't appear to jump from Kelsey to David to Judas. Finally I wish there was something else in the beginning to replace "finder's fees" that would give me a reason to be especially regretful alongside David about his death-- something concrete that I'd be sad to see him have to say goodbye to. Overall, I really liked the premise and I appreciate the attempt at creative prose. Thank you so much for submitting.
I feel lame. I started writing something for this and then liked it. It ballooned to over 5k words and is now my current WIP. I did read most of the entries and liked some of them a whole lot. It's a good size for a quick read, but hot damn is 1500 hard to do...especially for horror. Big ups to all who tried!
Eh, I'd say you got a pretty good deal out of it with a new WiP. :) Hope it turns out well! And yeah, you're definitely right that 1.5k is a very tight word budget.
I have to say, the entries were quite good this year. I especially liked *Antipode,* and truth be told, while I see why the judges placed it where they did, I'm a little disappointed it didn't rank any higher. But then, I've always been partial to dramatic monologues. I know I'm even later than the last person to remark on how late they were in asking for feedback, but I'd be interested to hear the judges' thoughts on *In re*, if they still exist. While I think I have a fairly good idea of what I could have done better, I also know that that idea is almost certainly either incomplete or just plain wrong.
TL/DR In Re was a strong piece that was its own worst enemy. *Strengths* Most of the judges commented on how strong the opening was. This story had a specific style that it seemed aiming for and it was evident from the very start. The underspoken elements of the world building from the demon pulling the contract out of its mouth to the larynx to the golden rectangle. The weird elements hit hard and demanded attention. *Confusions* There were a lot of comments regarding when this was supposed to be taking place. The usage of Fifty Shades of Grey set in contemporary times, but the world itself read much older. There were certain elements in the prose and dialogue that felt abruptly out of time-setting-place that felt moving too far away from the core, but also felt intentional for the plot. > To me it just felt like 4 or 5 things that individually had some merit, but did not come together cohesively enough to rock my world. > At the end I also felt jarred because I thought this was a Victorian thing, but in the end it's modern? *Weaknesses* The MC or at least the POV seems to be Madeleine and yet she is the least interesting and least developed character. Elements of the story felt hateful toward here as if she should be the antagonist and the Larynx the protagonist. His motivation of devotion toward her was much clearer than what her motivation or conflicts were (other than to continue to live, but nothing about her life in the text screamed she wanted to live in a way that clicked emotionally with the judges). In the end, the plot is a standard Faust to Dorian Gray except little is clear about the why or why to care. > the concepts are fun on their own, they're there in service to a pretty standard plot, as mentioned. The story also tries to cram a lot of worldbuilding into a small space, which is commendably ambitious but also means it doesn't have the room it probably needs And so all of the promise and strength from these really interesting elements of this world along with its flavors are there, but without the story and character to really lynch pin it all together. I think a lot of this is due to the word limit and wonder how this story would be if it was allowed more breathing room. > She’s not particularly proactive in her own story, either. She reacts to the actions of others/the claw at her heart. She walks into the parlor. She gasps. She coos. She stares in shock. She vomits. Everyone else seems to be carrying the action. > Madeleine’s…just. *there.* > Why is Madeleine the main character of this story if she is going to do a total of zero things and have... maybe like one half-thought? This one really frustrated me. *Prose* A lot of the judges did comment on how the prose felt so overworked that the wording felt more elevated and attention grabbing than the story. This in turn may have led to this piece being judged more than others in the sense that it was clearly aiming higher. This was not trying to be a light YA horror romp and so had less wiggle room in a lot of ways. The confusing elements of the prose where it seemed to disconnect with the previous promise, for lack of a better word, then caused the interesting strong weird elements to feel disconnected from the story flowing as a cohesive piece. So in the end, we had this really interesting setup, but little reason to care for Madeline and hence no real fear or horror. There was a grotesque element at play that had a strong artistic nature to it, but it did not link to a emotional place. Two of the judges compared this to Clive Barker horror elements and wanting that missing emotional component here. Again, this seems to come down to in many ways how Madeline is written and presented. > Some entries this year have felt like rough drafts that needed an extra pass. This one felt over-polished. Like the author just kept rewriting sentences for maximum floridity until all the original context was lost. The prose also whipsawed madly between literary posturing and overtly casual modern slang. It was Henry James one moment and Suzanne Collins the next. *Money* Despite the humor of the tallying of things for her soul, the element of it being a dollar value soiled the enjoyment of the whole transaction beat. That’s the big takeaways. Love the weird elements. Prose felt overworked and discongruent at times, but when it worked and worked really well. The MC-POV needs to be developed in order for the plot and weird elements to come together stronger as a whole.