Ghost progress
16 October 2017 11:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeWell, I finally managed the first few hundred words on my 'Annoyance' story yesterday, after days of procrastination in the hopes that I'd get some more concrete ideas... and then about six hours of procrastination on assorted domestic tasks (like ironing handkerchiefs) when I finally had a free day and resolved to make a start!
I'm not particularly convinced that I've actually got enough material here to fill the statutory minimum of a thousand words; the first section is pretty much all recap/backstory for the character as usual, although this is arguably more necessary for a cross-fandom competition anyway. Basically I've only got the one idea, which the reader gradually coming to realise that what Erik is seeing is the ghosts of people he has killed. Short of putting in the backstory of all the assorted deaths, I'm not sure what more I can do with it.
The results of the previous competition -- which I didn't enter -- have now come out: at least the winner this time is technically competent, although yet again the runner-up turns out to be a story that I would have dismissed at sight as one of the worst entries, both on the grounds of laboured prose full of errors and of a handwaving plot :-(
I just don't know what the judges are looking for, given comments like "Not a word out of place, each choice in diction reflects the mood and themes prevalent throughout the story" referring to prose like Judy spotted the tapirs approaching a building. They wore clothing bearing an owl motif. Judy found it strange that no one seems suspicious at the jet that they're currently in. "Why aren't animals afraid?"
I'm not particularly convinced that I've actually got enough material here to fill the statutory minimum of a thousand words; the first section is pretty much all recap/backstory for the character as usual, although this is arguably more necessary for a cross-fandom competition anyway. Basically I've only got the one idea, which the reader gradually coming to realise that what Erik is seeing is the ghosts of people he has killed. Short of putting in the backstory of all the assorted deaths, I'm not sure what more I can do with it.
The results of the previous competition -- which I didn't enter -- have now come out: at least the winner this time is technically competent, although yet again the runner-up turns out to be a story that I would have dismissed at sight as one of the worst entries, both on the grounds of laboured prose full of errors and of a handwaving plot :-(
I just don't know what the judges are looking for, given comments like "Not a word out of place, each choice in diction reflects the mood and themes prevalent throughout the story" referring to prose like Judy spotted the tapirs approaching a building. They wore clothing bearing an owl motif. Judy found it strange that no one seems suspicious at the jet that they're currently in. "Why aren't animals afraid?"