Feedback from the Judges

I received some feedback on my first flash fiction from the NYC Flash Fiction contest. This is a pretty nice thing since you don’t always get the judges feedback on contests.

My story placed in the top 15. I had originally thought I had placed in the top five which was really exciting to me, but looking closer at their judging and scores I realized that it wasn’t 5 as in fifth place, but it was 5 as in 5 points. So if you got 14th “place,” well… you know.

I have to wait another month before finding if I made the next round. I’m going to guess that I probably will not make the cut on the next one. The second challenge just didn’t come to me and I just never felt that good about the story. And, now that I know my last story didn’t do as well as I had originally thought, I’m pretty certain my most recent entry is going to probably bomb. Hell, at least I’m writing. It’s hilarious that the only way I can now get myself to write is to pay someone else to challenge me to write. Seems to work. I grow broke, but I grow broke anyway.

So here’s the positive:

WHAT THE JUDGE(S) LIKED ABOUT YOUR STORY – ………………I enjoyed the fact you included action from the opening sentence, instead of building up to it. I think it created a stronger sense of suspense and engagement. This was an excellent premise, too!…Good suspense in this story — great pacing. The first person narrative works well, and I like the writing. ……………This is a very interesting take on biological warfare and some of the various things that could happen. There is a real sense of suspense. I like how you drop the reader into the action after it has already started. I always knew where I was and what was going on, which is a real achievement.

I think that’s some nice positives. I have to say the whole including the action from the opening sentence is proof that those writing classes I took in college paid off. So many times teachers told me I took to much time to get to the meat of the story. I really thought about that when writing this piece.

Now the negative or better put- the “still needs” work.

WHAT THE JUDGES FEEL NEEDS WORK – ………………I would have liked to know more about “the Doctor”, and how he had formed a relationship with Max, Steve and Clair – just a little bit of background here could really round out the narrative….Watch some of your descriptions and try to make them carry more weight. Here, for example: where they left Clair’s stiff, but living body… Why is it stiff, but still living? Be more specific with your descriptions. ……………This story needs another edit for spelling and grammar. In some cases you have used the wrong word, e.g., effect instead of affect. Pay attention to these details and it will make your writing stronger. ………………………………

Oh my god, so much of this is the bane of my writing existence. The reasons I often don’t bother sharing my work.
I’ll begin with the non bane part. I’d like to know more about the doctor too. In all honesty the story wasn’t fleshed out at all. I was in China at the time I wrote it and got completely confused about the time difference and at how much time I actually had. I ended up writing the story and sending it in within eight hours of getting the assignment. There wasn’t any real editing or back story- na-da. It wasn’t until after I hit the submit button that I realized I had a whole 24 hours left to work on it. I was bummed, but I still got some points so I’m doing something half right.
The descriptions carry more weight comment is so important. I know this. I get this. But, I have trouble with this. I’ve always dreamt of being a poet and poets are the masters of using the less words to have the most impact. Hemingway was amazing at this. It’s because I am not a master of my own language. I’m not even an apprentice. I’m behind. And speaking of behind, let me get to the bane part.
Oh my spelling and grammar. Will I ever improve? I’m not lazy about it I’m really not. I try to improve, but obviously something is wrong with me. The affect vs effect- I’ve seen the aardvark example so many times- but the skull is thick with this one. I could say, in my defense I wrote and sent the story in with only eight hours worth of work time, but why bother. I’m not a strong writer. If I had done at least one slow edit maybe it would have been a little better, but I’m not sure.

Anyway, I’m glad to get the feedback. I think it’s helpful. Unfortunately, I sent in my second story before seeing my weaknesses so I’m sure I repeated some of them.

If you want to read the draft you can read it here.

The Doctor’s Orders

(I’ve once again entered the NYC writing challenge. It is amusing that I write “once again” which implies I have done this many times, and that is simply not true. It is only my second time playing this game. Posted below is my first entry. I was given the genre of Action/Adventure, the setting; A Train Yard, and I had to use the word Peach in my story. I had 48 hours to write 1,000 words. I received five points which put me in the top ten in my heat. I think that’s pretty cool.)

The Doctor’s Order

The whistle from a train woke Steve with a jolt. He winced from the pain in his side caused by the bullet. It had gone clean through him, but missed his vital organs. He pressed his hand to the wound and leaned up against the trunk of a tree. Flood lights from the train yard poured between the shrubs and bushes where he had been hiding. The last thing he remembered before passing out was Max yelling, “I’ll get the shit! Stay awake!”

The air was filled with smoke from the fire and blotted out the stars. He sniffed the warm night air. Chemicals. They were burning. Who knew what kind of shit was frying in that institution of horror. It needed to burn, the papers, the experiments, the workers, and especially the doctor.

Steve felt dehydrated. He remembered the peach that he grabbed from the ground from one of the doctor’s orchards where they left Clair’s stiff, but living body. He pulled it from his coat pocket and took a desperate bite nearly choking on the sweet juice. It was overripe and slightly bruised leaving a rotten aftertaste. He didn’t care he was thirsty, and in need of something to satiate his thirst. He threw the pit into the darkness and wiped his fingers over his pants. They were sticky. Sticky from peach and blood. He ignored this like he ignored the bruised fruit.

He heard yells and frenzied footsteps. Where was Max, he wondered. Their time was running out. He dragged himself through the dirt and shrubs till he could get to a spot where he could see and remain hidden. Through a space in some prickly bushes he could see men running around the train yard and jumping the tracks. He scanned the cargo cars for something, anything, that gave him a clue to where Max could be. They were dying all three of them.

Steve could hardly acknowledge the last thirty-eight hours as being real. The night before last they were having dinner with the doctor. Having conversations with his overtly charming wife and and his towheaded twins. Clair had leaned into Steven’s ear and whispered, “Don’t the children seem a little Step-fordy to you?” Clair had instinct. She always had had instinct. For years’ the doctor’s strange behavior had been chalked up to quirkiness and eccentricity. Clair had always suspected that there was something a little off with the doctor, but Steve had brushed her suspicions aside as being hypersensitive and judgmental, and now because of him, the muscles in her body were slowly turning into a cemented state, an agonizing metamorphous, till the last muscle, her heart would freeze.

A wonderful experiment in biological warfare. That’s what the doctor called it. Top-secret and military bound if his viruses worked, but he needed to test on people. After, secretly injecting the three of them in various ways, through food, or wine, or even a drink of water, the doctor took them on a stroll through his garden. I have something very special to share with the three of you, he had said.

His backyard was an animal graveyard. Horrible sounds of pain from the creatures that were still alive filled the yard like an opera of death. Dying had to be slow and painful, the doctor had said, in case they want to get some information out of a prisoner. There are of course antidotes, he said, somewhere in the train yard.

Real Dean R. Koontz kind of shit, Max had said after the three of them had watched the hospital explode. That’s when Clair began screaming. Her virus was beginning to take effect. It had all been a game for the doctor.

There was a terrifying yell from the train yard. It was Max. Steve shifted his body to look in the direction the scream. On the top of a train car he could see the silhouette of a man bent forward and clawing at his stomach. It was the disease. What the doctor gave to Max. A virus that effected the brain like a kind of schizophrenia causing the person to tear open their own stomach and remove their guts with their bare hands.

It’s Here!” Max managed to screamed.

Steve’s mind quickly jumped to Clair. He wondered if she was still alive and would they be able to save her. Shots fired through the air. Max’s body shuddered violently then collapsed onto the train car.

“We got him!” Someone yelled.

“Max.” Steve whispered. What could he do? He was injured, shot and loosing blood. His virus hadn’t taken hold yet, and the doctor never told him what it was that would happen to him. It seemed lost. He had to move. Steve prepared to haul himself up and braced himself to absorb the pain, but as he rose to his feet he felt nothing. He stood there for a minute waiting to see if he would pass out again or if the pain would return, but it didn’t, in fact he felt stronger, even somewhat energized. He lifted the blood soaked shirt to look at his wound. Nothing. His skin was crusted with dried blood but there wasn’t a hole just a red blemish where the hole had been. Self healing. Biological warfare. Something for the soldiers, he thought. A rage surged inside him burning his lungs and overwhelming his muscles. He felt Hulkish. It wasn’t too late the mission had not yet been accomplished. There was still a chance to get the antidotes and save Clair. The fools in the train yard were nothing to him. He lunged in the direction of Max’s limp hanging body. The antidote was there. He felt giant like a tank. He stormed into the floodlights as the barrels of multiple guns swung toward him, but he wasn’t afraid he was the monster now. He would leave his antidote in the train yard. He didn’t need it.