Creative short story writing contest—prize for winner! (2025-02-07)
Welcome back to Tildes’s now officially monthly creative writing contest! Last month’s entries were a joy to read, and I’m excited to see what literary magic you all conjure this time around.
Your goal: Write a creative short story based on the prompt provided and post it in this thread.
Deadline: 2025-02-21T23:59:59-05:00.
Prize: Your choice of a $20 gift code for either Proton or Tuta! I added the other major encrypted provider as a choice this time around, so you’ll need to choose if I select your entry as the winner. If anyone wants to suggest or donate future prizes, send a DM my way.
Your prompt: Write a story that begins and ends with the same sentence, but the meaning of that sentence has completely changed by the story’s conclusion.
Rules (Streamlined and Improved!):
- Creative Writing Only: It must be creative writing. Creative fiction, creative non-fiction, and fanfiction are all welcome! If you go the fanfic route, keep in mind that I might not be familiar with the source material. Also, your submission should be in English, unless you’re particularly confident in Google Translate’s artistic sensibilities.
- Length: While there’s no hard limit, “short story” generally implies somewhere in the ballpark of 1,000–7,500 words. Aim for that range, give or take, or it may mildly count against you. Only one submission per person, please!
- Judging: The winner will be chosen by my entirely subjective judgment, not by comment votes. Don’t worry, though—I have impeccable taste. Also, infallible.
- Originality: Your story should be written specifically for this contest based on new material.
- Formatting: Please use collapsible formatting if posting your full story in the comments to keep the thread tidy. You are allowed/encouraged to host it somewhere else and link to it from here as well.
- Licensing: New requirement this time around! Include a clear license declaration with your submission (e.g. “All Rights Reserved,” your choice of Creative Commons license, or perhaps even the JWCL (coughcough)). This helps me know whether I can compile the stories for the community later.
- Shameless Self-Promotion: In case the self-promotion in the last rule was a tad too subtle for your tastes, you can also always check out my own creative writing.
And everyone, whether you’re submitting a story or not, please leave feedback on the entries! It means the world to writers when their work is appreciated (or even just constructively criticized).
Hey, glad this is becoming a regular thing! Thank you for making this a recurring contest! And thanks to everyone that read and commented on the stories last time and to all those who offered to help with the prizes. You're all great.
I was the person who wrote the kids’ story Hal the GIANT last month. This time I went with something less picture-book-y.
Submission: Was it Abbat I saw? is a story about a mysterious intruder. It's hard to talk about it without spoiling the whole thing, so I'll drop some comments in a spoilerbox below.
Do not click on this unless you've already read the story.
I loved this prompt! Tried to have fun with it by turning it into a whole constrained writing palindrome sort of exercise. The story is exactly the same whether you read it top-to-bottom or bottom-to-top. One big palindrome of sorts. Turns out writing backwards and forwards is pretty damn hard, but I gave it my best shot. Sentences had to make sense within different contexts and in a different order. Tough for sure but satisfying. Even the title is a palindrome!I know there's still tons of time left in the contest, I've just been working on it for a few hours and the more I look at it the more I want to tweak it. So to save me another week or two of second-guessing my sentence structures, I'll just submit it now. Put it in a PDF to make sure the line spacing was right, but I can paste it here if anyone wants.
P.S. the font for the notes is called DejaVu Sans, which felt right given the topic.
As for the license, I'm not really sure what to do there. I've never really thought much about it, since I've never written much outside of some creative writing classes back in high school and early college. Do I just state that it's under the JWCL ala Michael Scott declaring bankruptcy? Feel free to use it in any sort of compilation site or book about this contest, as long as any proceeds from that go back to Tildes, the site that provided the environment for this competition to exist.(Both of the above works (Hal the GIANT and Was it Abbat I saw?) are licensed under the JWCL. See below conversation.)
You're inspiring me to start up my own blog, OP, one creative writing contest at a time, lol.
As someone with who's had Alzheimers in the family, your story touched me more than I anticipated.
I like to see that someone who's clearly ill has people to take care of him, and that he's loved. Despite them not being present directly, they are still present through those notes.
I love it.
Thank you for the kind words. I didn't even think of that when writing it (the part about him having a loving family to take care of him), but I'm glad he does too.
Just read it, and that was an interesting read!
Spoilers
The palindrome format is really fun! It got me to reread the story a little closer. I've seen it used before on cryptic creepy stories and always admired it, but always thought it would be too tricky to attempt myself, so major respect for that! My main critique is that the passage of time feels a bit hard to track, since some lines imply that it's not all in a single night/hour with the line "notes kept appearing in ... the most mysterious of times".
The story overall feels sad to me since his confusion never clears up. It feels like Abbat is trapped in a tragic cycle due to the very notes meant to reassure him. Also, very fitting font choice for the notes! Makes them stand out a bit from the rest of the text, which adds to the sense of how jarring they would be for poor Abbat.
Thanks for the feedback!
It was definitely a challenge writing in that format. It was meant to take place over a single night, but with the implication that the notes had been appearing for a while. So like the night starts, he hears something, sees the light in the bathroom, goes to investigate, is confused, then finds a note (like ones he had found before), so goes to sit down to write to his son about it, but then discovers the main note already in his journal (which is the midpoint of the story) explaining that he had been writing them to himself. But before he has time to process it he has already forgotten everything, becomes confused again, then encounters that first note which he's already forgotten, sees the light in the bathroom on so goes to investigate, then notices someone in the mirror but does not recognize that it's his own reflection.
It really is a sad story. I wanted to put some sort of content warning at the start, but I wasn't sure how to do that without giving away the whole twist. So apologies if anyone is bummed out by the topic. But I'm glad that the overall themes of the story conveyed properly!
It really was a fun exercise! I had never tried to write anything like that before, and the main challenge was that the longer I made it, the harder it was to remain somewhat coherent. Each new sentence had to make sense in two different places of the story!
Thanks so much for the submission! Your entries are always a delight. 😸 (More feedback after the deadline passes.)
Do it! I find it rewarding, and more people need to read your writing. 💖
I'm sorry for making people think about this, but choosing no license is the same as not granting any rights.
Thanks for the confidence boost! Your blog looks like the exact thing that I'd want to emulate. It's hard to find the motivation to write for writing's sake, but these prompts are fun and make it easier to come up with different ideas that I otherwise wouldn't have thought to try out.
Understood. Would it be alright to simply edit my original comment with a statement at the bottom that reads "The above work is licensed under the JWCL" or is there more to it?
That's perfectly fine. :) Let me know if you'd like any help starting your own writing blog!
Ooooof. That's painful to read--as painful as it is impressive!
Spoilers.
Palindromic writing is brutally difficult to pull off, if you're not just using that trick that splits sentences by action points. Not only did you pull off the technical achievement beautifully, but it's also heart-wrenching as all hell. I got the same Alzheimer's impression as others reading it, and with personal family experience, that just... really, really hits. I am glad he seems to have a great family, but the inherent terror of identity loss is hard to soften in any meaningful way.
Like a lot of people, it's one of my greatest fears; I feel like your execution of writing a piece around that idea was pitch perfect, and I am honestly honoured it came from my thread. I can't wait for you to get your writing blog started!
Didn’t even know that trick existed! Would have definitely helped had I thought of that. But I had fun writing it so I’m happy to have had the challenge. Thanks again for the extremely kind words. And yeah the subject was a tough one to write about for sure :-(
Been struggling a bit, trying to get back into writing stories. Your prompt (plus some recent other threads on Tildes) inspired me though. Wrote this today in a new app I'm trying out on my tablet, which doesn't seem to have any kind of spell check built in so apologies if I messed anything up.
I'm calling it "One Time," and let's say the license is the WTFPL.
Full story text below.
I woke up when the alarm went off at exactly 6:05 AM; I turned it off, then rolled over to give Carol a kiss. She wasn't there. It didn't make sense. It was Monday. On Mondays the alarm wakes me up at 6:05 AM, I give Carol a kiss, she takes a shower while I start the coffee, then at 6:20 AM I take a shower while she makes scrambled eggs, then at 6:35 AM we eat together before leaving the house at 6:55 AM to head to our jobs.Could I have been mistaken? Was it not Monday? I turned back to my side table and checked my phone. Monday. It didn't make sense even if it wasn't. Every day is the same, except for Fridays and Saturdays when the alarm goes off at 6:30 AM instead. There was simply no possible justification for Carol to be gone. I looked again to make sure I hadn't imagined her absence. I definitely hadn't.
Was she ill? The thought made me shiver. Nothing throws a wrench into routine worse than being sick. If I had to make both the coffee and the eggs I might even be late to work, and then my whole day would be off schedule. I leapt out of bed, put my slippers on, then headed out into the hall and looked toward the living room. I could see Carol sitting on the couch in her underwear, holding what looked like a tub of ice cream. It took me a second to recognize her, on account of her baldness.
"C... Carol? Are you sick?" I stammered. "Why are you up? What happened to your... your hair?"
Carol casually waved her ice cream spoon at me, causing droplets of melted chocolate to spatter on the couch and floor.
"I'm not ill. Hair's annoying and makes my neck sweat so I cut it off," Carol said before eating a spoonfull of ice cream. "And before you ask, I'm not bothering with clothes and I'm eating ice cream because it's hot and I'm taking a day off. Duck."
"Huh?" I asked.
"Duck," she repeated through a mouthful of ice cream.
My mind was blank. I couldn't think of anything else to do, so I slowly started crouching down in the hallway outside our bedroom door. The sound of shattering glass startled me from behind, and I fell onto my hands and knees. Something small, white, and moving extremely fast whizzed over my head and embedded itself into the hallway wall with a loud thock.
"What the hell was that?" I screamed, still on the ground.
"Golf ball," Carol replied coolly. "Don't worry about it though. You're good now for a few minutes."
I turned to look back into our bedroom at the now shattered window on the opposite wall. I stood up and stared at the small hole that the golf ball had made in the drywall, which was situated at precisely the same height as my head. I could feel fingers of anxiety tickling the inside of my skull.
"Carol, what's going on? You're scaring me," I said, fighting off a wave of panic as I cautiously started making my way towards her.
"I told you," Carol sighed through a mouthful of ice cream that dripped down her chin. "I'm taking a day off. I don't want to explain everything again; I just want to sit here and relax and eat my ice cream. Just follow my instructions and we'll be fine. If you stay home from work we can probably make it all the way to noon at least."
More of the living room came into view as I cautiously made my way down the hall from our bedroom. The table in front of Carol was a wasteland of melted multicolor pools spreading out from a pile of empty cardboard tubs. "Did you... eat all of that?" I asked.
Carol snorted. "I discovered a new way to lose weight," she said. "Eat all you want and never gain a pound." She frowned and peered into the tub she was holding, then tossed it onto the pile with the others, knocking several of them onto the floor. "Be a dear and get me another one from the freezer, would you?"
I couldn't move.
Carol sighed heavily. "What time is it?" she asked.
I couldn't take my eyes off her shaved head. "But... Your hair..."
Carol grabbed her phone, which had been next to her on the couch, and checked the time on its screen. "Time to get away from that hallway."
"I... I didn't make the coffee yet," I stammered. My head was swimming. Was this a bad dream? "You should... it's almost time for..."
"Don't you dare talk to me about time," said Carol. "Move away from the hallway."
"But... the eggs..."
Carol jumped up from the couch, dashed toward me, and yanked my arm. I stumbled forward just as a loud explosion rang out behind me. I caught my balance and looked back. The hallway had completely caved in. "What the hell was that!?" I yelled.
"Furnace exploded," Carol explained as she walked towards the kitchen. My legs felt weak. I fell to my knees, then rocked back and sat down on the floor. A flood of water spread out from the destroyed hallway, soaking my legs. I heard Carol open and shut the freezer. "Don't sit there," she said. "Come over here to the kitchen."
I couldn't move.
"Come here," Carol said, more forcefully this time.
I still couldn't move.
"Now!" Carol shouted.
I turned to look at her, standing there in her underwear, head shaved, holding a tub of ice cream. This shouldn't be happening, I thought. Right around now I should be taking my shower. The smell of scrambled eggs and coffee should be filling the apartment. That was the routine. That was how it was supposed to be.
Carol's expression softened when she saw my face. "Look," she said. "Walk over here to the kitchen and I'll explain everything. You can have the CliffsNotes version."
I managed to stand up and started trudging through the water flooding my living room. I reached the kitchen and stepped out of the puddle just as a loud pop and a shower of sparks burst from the power bar under the TV near where I had been sitting. I stared at Carol with my mouth open. She rubbed her forehead and sighed.
"Okay, here we go again. So I've been reliving this same day over and over," she said, while retrieving our heaviest cast iron pan from under the stove. "It's probably been... shit... I don't even know how long anymore, I lost count. Just today. Just like this. Over and over." Still holding the pan, she grabbed the towel hanging off the handle of the dishwasher and balled it up in her other hand. "Again and again. The golf ball, the furnace, the electrocution, the spiders..."
"Spiders?" I asked.
Just then one of the tiles along the back wall of the kitchen popped off and fell to the ground. I caught the briefest glimpse of a torrent of black spiders with red hourglass patterns on their backs spreading out from the hole it left behind before Carol smashed the cast iron pan against the wall. She slammed the pan three times, then stuffed the hole in the wall with the balled up towel.
"Black widow nest," said Carol, panting slightly and dropping the pan to the ground. "The point is, I'm sick of it."
"Of the... time loop?"
"Yeah," said Carol. She slumped to the ground.
It turns out that when presented with a barrage of back-to-back near death experiences and inexplicable phenomena, my mind is surprisingly willing to accept what I would otherwise have considered to be a ridiculously irrational premise.
"So, what... Like that Tom Cruise movie? The day resets when you die?"
"No, moron," said Carol, looking up at me with tears welling up in her eyes. "It resets when you die."
My eyes widened. I looked at my wife. In all the time we'd been together, I thought I'd seen every expression her face was capable of making. I've seen her joy, her sadness, her worry, her anger. But the face I saw now was completely alien. It was laden with a weariness unlike anything I'd ever have imagined possible for a person to bear. An overwhelming sense of defeat that permeated all of her features, her eyes, the depths of her being.
"What do you need me to do?" I asked.
"Stay alive," she said. "Just until I finish the ice cream."
7:00 AM
As I finished putting the kitchen knives safely under the sink, an explosion sounded in the distance and the dishes in the cupboards rattled. I glanced at Carol, who was now seated at the kitchen table.
"Small meteor," she said, while opening a new tub of ice cream. "That gets you if you leave for work on time."
"You mean I manage to get out on time, even after..." I waved my hand around at our blown up, flooded, spider-gut covered surroundings, "all of this?"
"I don't know if you're aware," said Carol, "but my husband is very particular about following his schedule."
I shrugged.
8:00 AM
"The bear attack was a bit much," I said, breathing heavily.
"Since he comes in through the window I usually just block that off with the microwave. I don't think it's ever crossed my mind to trap him in the bathroom."
"You could have told me," I said.
Carol shook her head. "I want to see how far you can make it without me. You have no idea how long it's been since I've had this much fun."
12:00 PM
The earthquake finally subsided. I looked down. All limbs accounted for--it seems I had successfully dodged the barrage of broken glassware that had been hurled at me from the violently shaking cupboards.
Carol clapped her hands and squealed with delight. "Grab me another ice cream, would you?" she said.
I moved across the remains of our rubble-strewn kitchen toward the fridge and slid out the freezer drawer. "Where did all this ice cream come from, anyway?" I asked.
"I always wake up around 5," said Carol. "More than enough time to hit Walmart and get back before the alarm."
I closed the freezer and dived out of the way just in time to avoid being crushed by the toppling fridge.
"My ice cream!" cried Carol.
"This was the last one anyway," I said, tossing the tub of vanilla to her.
"Oh well, we gotta leave here before the drone strike hits anyways," Carol said. "Would you mind climbing into our bedroom and get me some clothes?" She grinned.
3:00 PM
"I truly can't believe you've made it this long," Carol said as I swerved the car to avoid a brick tossed by some kid above us on an overpass.
A truck pulling a large tank wobbled in front of us, skidded sideways and tipped over. I jolted the steering wheel to the left and drove across the median into oncoming traffic as the tank exploded beside us. Blinded by oncoming headlights, I swerved again, then drove along the ditch between the highway and some woods until the engine finally cut out.
"You okay?" I asked.
"Uh huh," said Carol.
"I wonder why everything's out to kill me," I mused as we both exited the car.
"Look, let's walk to McDonald's!" said Carol excitedly, pointing to the golden arches sitting atop a tall pole in the distance beyond the woods.
Wolves howled from somewhere nearby.
8:00 PM
Carol and I leaned against a garage door, both of us panting heavily. I glanced both ways down the alley, looking for any sign of movement in the darkness.
"I think we lost them," I said.
"This is exhilarating," said Carol. "I can't even remember the last time I experienced something... new."
I looked at her in the dim light of the moon, still trying to catch my breath. "How long exactly have you been reliving today?" I asked.
Carol shook her head. "How old am I?" she asked.
"Hmm? You're thirty three, two years younger than me," I answered.
"No," said Carol. "I think I remember how long thirty three years felt. That was nothing. A blip. A single grain of sand in a universe of beaches."
"I can't even imagine..." I said quietly.
"No, you can't," said Carol. "In the beginning I thought it was a puzzle I could solve. That I could learn to lead you safely through the day and escape this... this Hell. But each path ends the same. The puzzle has no solution. I can't stop a meteor. I can't prevent an earthquake. I can't predict every lightning strike. And so for a long time now I gave up. At first I just stayed in bed. Closed my eyes while you got up and headed out to make the coffee. But it's hard to relax when that means hearing the head of the man you love caved in by a golf ball over and over and over."
"Jeez," I said.
"Yeah," Carol said. She looked up at the night sky. "You know, I forgot the moon and stars even existed."
A sound came from the roof of one of the garages facing the alley. I looked up and saw a pack of raccoons staring back at me, white froth glinting around their mouths.
"You good for another run?" I asked.
"I shouldn't have eaten all that ice cream," moaned Carol.
11:58 PM
We stood at the precipice of the cliffs at the outskirts of the city and gazed out at the lights on the horizon.
"Just two more minutes," I said. "I think we made it."
"Yeah..." said Carol. She rubbed her hand over her scalp.
"Don't worry about that," I said. "It'll grow back."
"I know," said Carol. She rubbed her hand over her stomach.
"I can't believe how much you ate today," I laughed. "Even after all that running it'll probably take a year for you to burn off all those ice cream and McDonald's calories."
"Yeah..." said Carol.
"What do you think will happen?" I asked. "Will the new day just start?"
"Probably," said Carol.
There was a pause. Carol sighed and took a step back from the cliff. "I'm not sure I want this day to end," she said.
"Well you're not the one who the whole world seemed hell bent on killing!" I said. "I'm ready. I think I could sleep for a year."
"You've shown me now that it's possible," said Carol. She was standing behind me.
"What do you mean? Possible to sleep for a year?"
"No," replied Carol. "For the day to end. I just need..."
She paused. I felt her hands rest on my shoulders. I reached up and held one of them, stroking it gently.
"I just need to do a few things different next time," she said.
I remember falling. I remember... I...
I woke up when the alarm went off at exactly 6:05 AM; I turned it off, then rolled over to give Carol a kiss.
edit: fixed spelling noticed on re-read
I can't tell if the wife is evil or if she still hasn't let go of the idea that this is a puzzle that needs to be solved somehow.
Great story! I think you did a good job of keeping the momentum going while introducing escalating odds of a world hell-bent on killing a single guy.
Spoilers.
This is a really strong entry. For all of its strengths, I feel like the most powerful thing you did is remind us that Carol actually does love her husband, grounding the sci-fi premise in a real tragedy--and horror, by the end of the piece. Unlike Grzmot, I don't think I read evil at all; merely the exact kind of madness that would come from watching your loved one die on loop for a millennium.
I enjoyed this one a lot. Like all good horror, the negative space implied in the ending will be on my mind for days.
My one critique is that the escalation of threats (bears, meteors, earthquakes) feels... a bit over-the-top, compared to the more grounded emotional core and haunting ending. A sprinkling of comedy can spice up most stories, but it may have overstayed its welcome just a touch.
Thank you for reading my story and the thoughtful feedback, I'm super appreciative.
I think that if I had more time to spend with it I likely would have toned it down a bit, which would have been more in line with my original plan. I hit a wall trying to come up with interesting threats though, and decided to just plop down the silliest stuff that came to mind in an attempt to break through it. I guess it worked a little too well, because once I started doing that the words just kept flowing and it was so fun to write that I stuck with it to the end.
Thank you for running this contest, it's just what I needed to help kick start me back into writing again.
Thanks for running this! I really appreciate the effort and it's been great to have something to push me to write more frequently.
The story is a fantasy/alt-history set of diegetic excerpts carrying forward the titular phrase through time.
Length: A little over 1000 words
CW: death, state violence, single sentence reference to sex work
License: All rights reserved but feel free to leave a comment/direct message me if you'd like to use it for something and I'll consider updating to a CC style license
Onward peasants, to judgement and death
"Onward peasants, to judgement and death," said King Grelhord, Ruler of all the land on Heaven and Earth. As they commanded, it was done - of the petitioners for life, not a one would be granted. Judge Leweng read them their sins and the red cloaked executioners swung the long blades through each neck. They measured the process in the number of executioners needed, one replacing the next. The long thick red cloak dyed with death taken off and passed to the next as arms and blades became worn down. When the cloak became stiff with blood, the King's Prestige supplied a light rain to soften it. By such mercy did the act progress quickly, so it was with great surprise that a peasant protested before their allotted time to petition. A peasant shouted, hands and feet bound but mouth unsilenced, "Please, I've got family to see. Pass your judgment quickly so I can get out of the rain." It was Judge Leweng who stalked through the rows of crouched petitioners and pronounced, "Your petition is denied. But lo, you have been judged worthy of the King's mercy," before plunging their dagger into the neck of the protestor. As the peasant gasped and died, there was a great ruckus as many clamored for a similar mercy and were granted it.~ Extract from the Histories of the House Grelhord referring to the punishment given to 300 peasants for failure to pay taxes.
#
"Onward peasants, to judgement and death
Onward soldiers, don't save your breath
The King killed three hundred I hear
Now it's off to war within the year
Onward peasants, to judgement and death
Onward pensioners, they steal our wealth
The King's tax wasn't paid
Now it's our funds they raid
Onward peasants, to judgement and death
Onward workers, sapped of your strength
The King worked them to the end
Now the owner's only pretend
Onward, onward, onward
Soldiers, pensioners, and workers
Onward, onward, onward
Soldiers, pensioners, and workers"
~ Work song which spread among the non-prestigious class in the year 477 leading to work stoppages. Due to the war, this was suppressed with vigor by the Royal Executioners Brigade led by the Prestigious Captain Crey who was awarded the Silver Grel for their actions. The cost to marshal the Brigade was graciously paid for by the owner of the Wool Rock Company, Ist Corrat, who was granted the Prestigious class for their contribution.
#
"We are the judgement and death". The basement glows under red halogen lights, bathing everyone in a single overpowering color - red, blood red. After the ritual greeting the Fraternal Order of the King's Men comes to order. Sweat trickles down under my mask, tickles at my brow, but removing it would be an unwise risk. The fake, and frankly ahistorical, Judge's mask isn't the only thing protecting my identity, but it is probably the most important. I have no intention of testing whether the executioner blades are as dull as they look. Or whether the assembled know how to wield them. The lithe and pretentious man who takes the stage and dons the ceremonial fibers: the rock wool cloak is one you are likely familiar with from our prior reporting. Three generations separates Mr Corrat from the factory owner who was made Prestigious for paying to bust heads, but the demeanor and bearing remain the same, I'm sure. The same vitriol and disdain persists. Hatred at a status they never actually held being taken away. Heaven and earth I do not wish to convey to you, reader, the words that are uttered at these meetings. Perhaps I should if that would stir your hearts to condemn them? On the other hand, perhaps these folks are just missing something that condemnation would freeze out forever.
~ From an expose by the journalist Fae Leweng covering the Fraternal Order of the King's Men. They would be found murdered later that year.
#
> narbon_plague: onward :peasants:
> narbon_plague: judgement :hammer: :mask: and death :death: :sword:
> iamcat123: :death: :death: :death:
> fartgun: :death:
"Chat, calm yourselves."
> xxX_rCloack_Xxx: ONWARD PEASANT, DO BETTER
> xxX_rCloack_Xxx was warned for all caps
"This game is hard, I'll get it though. Don't lose your heads."
> xxX_rCloack_Xxx: haha
> fartgun: :laughing: :sword: :death:
> anonopus: stupid presty playing as a red cloak
> anonopus: why play this stupid game
> anonopus was timed out for 300 seconds
> xxX_rCloack_Xxx: damn dude its just a game, chillax
"Heaven and earth, chat, that was a joke. No one is coming for your heads. Let me enjoy the game - it's fucking fiction"
> fartgun: :caught:
> iamcat123: enjoy what you want
> narbon_plague super boosted this message: don't let the haters get to you
~ Recording of streamer playing legendary game Carrion Crey which won game of the year despite controversy for its portrayal of the titular character.
#
The immersive art installation "Onward" presents the modern world in stark imagery. From the moment you enter the virtual environment the exhibit presents you with investigations into people both real and imagined and gives you a simple command: "judge". As you explore their lives, you will realize the autonomous art agent is weaving you into their lives, closer and closer. Eventually, before you can realize the transition has happened, the agent has you replacing the person entirely; putting you directly into their position. Swing the pick, lithium miner. Fuck the customer, sex worker. Stir the chemical slurry, electronic waste recycler. In the end you must judge yourself, but only one choice will ever be presented - "death" - and you'll look down to see the red cloak embracing you like a straight jacket. That the exhibit is opened across from the House of Judges is a bold proclamation by the artist.
~ 4/5 star review by anonymous
Fuck this artist
~ 1/5 start review by anonymous
#
On the crumbled plaza celebrating Captain Crey, graffitied with the lyrics which they tried to erase, three hundred thousand are gathered to hear speeches before they march on the House of Judges and to give it their verdict. A wreath hangs for a dead journalist. An art gallery across the street hands out first aid kits. Among the signs and smoke and teargas the final words are spoken in the final speech. The people, rulers of all the land on heaven and earth, begin to chant, "Onward peasants, to judgement and death."
I really like this story, how it shows how a single sentence can remain entirely identical but change through the context it is said in.
Out of the ones here, I think it executes on the prompt the best, in my opinion, because it highlights not just once how the meaning can change, but multiple times.
For as bold a choice as diegetic excerpts is, I am most impressed by your impressive versatility in writing styles; each different "era" written about felt like it had the ideal tone for that particular time period. It's also just a great example of how much you can compress a narrative without losing impact or meaning: not a word here is wasted.
For critique, what I'll say is that, due to the compressed storytelling, it felt a little hard to muster much attachment to the narrative--I felt as though it ended with a blink and before I could process as much as I'd want to. Whilst your diegetic writing and your hypercompressed writing are both executed equally well on a technical level, I do think that you may wish to use only one at a time--give the excerpts more time to breathe, or give a more traditional story to attach to in the limited time it has.
Nonetheless, super strong work!
Thank you for the kind words and feedback! I really struggle as a writer to let my works breathe and have the reader inhabit the space for a while. Next time this event happens (please add me to the @ call out!) that's something I'll work on :)
Will do!
And I'm done!
The Colors of Fall, clocking in at 2,731 words.
Content warning for brief minor animal violence, some harsh language, and implied death.
I'll license this under the JWCL.
So, fun story time about writing this: When I saw the prompt, I played with a couple sentences before realizing I had an old idea that fit the prompt perfectly, and jotted out a decent start before getting sidetracked by playing Spirittea. Then yesterday I sat down to really get to work on it, until finally today I reached a conclusion: there was no way I could finish it on time and be satisfied. Unlike last time I knew exactly where I wanted the story to go, but I was cutting and pasting and rearranging stuff before even reaching the climax, struggling with practically every line of dialogue to steer the story the direction I wanted, and...
Yeah, there was just no way. I remembered a recent quote I read from Ray Bradbury that writer's block is a warning you're doing the wrong thing, and this story? Lots of it, it fought me at every step. Even if I somehow finished it in time, I knew I wouldn't like it.
So tonight at 6 I decided, screw it, and sat down around and wrote a totally new story based on a different sentence. It's now 10, and... yeah, I'm way happier with this one. This flowed way more naturally, zero block or rearranging whatsoever. Which is funny because I originally passed on this idea because I thought it'd have the harder climax to write. It's a bit rough around the edges because I only gave it one editing pass over, but I like the end result and hope everyone else does too!
And with this submission, entries are now closed! Thanks so much to everyone. 😸💖
Will be looking at all of these and providing detailed feedback/choosing a winner over the next week!
I appreciate you going into detail about the creative process, because it somehow makes me appreciate this work even more. I've also written some of my best work in one contiguous dash where I felt as though I barely blinked. 😸
I love this story a lot. I was hit quite hard by the ending, and despite thinking about it for a while now, I still don't know how I feel about Sora's character (in the best possible way!). I feel as though I want to know so, so much more about Sora--I would read a lot of backstory about her.
In particular, I find something beautiful and seamless about the integration about the almost folkloreish nature of the ending with the present-day modernity of the deuteragonist (protagonist? antagonist?) being a streamer in the midst of cancel culture.
It has everything: incredible technical skill, social commentary, bone-chilling horror, moral ambiguity, cosmic irony and foreshadowing and--god, the impact of the different interpretations for the first and final sentence hit me the hardest of the entries. The meaning feels so rich and nuanced!
Yeah, this story is the winner. After barely missing out last time, I feel confident in saying that The Colors of Fall is my personal favourite entry this time around. Well done, @CannibalisticApple! DM me to let me know if you want a Proton prize or a Tuta prize.
See you all again on the 7th! 💖
We're a week in! One week left. 💖
Final day to submit!
Reminds me of the good ol' days of BUMPing threads to keep them in the front page of certain forums, lol.
That was the entire purpose, yeah. :P
I missed this one 'coz I didn't check properly. Would it be possible to @ me with the next one please?
An @ chain like with the Tildes Book Club might be a good idea. That, and/or extend the deadline beyond two weeks. I only caught this contest when Meerkat posted the "one week left" bump, so I wondered if anyone else had also missed it. This post got buried pretty easily, unfortunately.
Posts get pushed to the top via activity, so I wonder if there's something we can discuss in a reply chain to push visibility besides just entries? Like, maybe people can suggest prompts or prizes for the next round. Or we can talk and joke about some crossover of previous contest entries. Talk out how they can fit into the same, increasingly chaotic "Tildes universe" a la Pixar and other similar theories.
Absolutely!
If anyone else wants to be @’d as well, let me know.
Please add me to the @ list! I don’t plan on writing any stories, but I do love reading them.
Will do!