March 2018 Flash Contest (Part 2) - The Voting

It's nice to see new blood entering the challenges. All the stories were interesting and entertaining.

Entertainment can sometimes be found but not be interesting, and sometimes a story that is interesting is not entertaining.

Now, the hard part. To vote.

Each story had it's merits. Bud's story made me want a cup of tea. Jim's story painted a vivid picture complete with sound effects. Jolene's reminded me of the old detective movies that were in black-and-white. Sergio put a lot into his story, filling out with enough to completely absorb a readers attention. Twilights made the car seem real.

It is nice to see writers rising to the challenge.

Good job.

Sorry I didn't get in, but I will the next time. Been busy.

[Lester Curtis]

Get the votes in, folks. This is going to be close; it took me more than the usual time and consideration to make my choice.

[Lester Curtis]

Congrats to Sergio and Jolene; good work!

This shows why we need more voters, though (or a different scoring system)--too many ties.

[Lester Curtis]

In Sergio's story, "What You Have Done", I was a bit jarred at the protagonist's failure of vigilance:

That Sunday, he grabbed his gun and spent most of the day sitting in an old chair on his front porch, focusing on his driveway with his weapon close at hand.

It was at that moment, as he heard that strange story, that Daxten noticed he had regretfully left his weapon inside the house.

This seems out of character for a person in fear of imminent danger and thus gives me the impression of a less-than-graceful plot device. In fairness, sometimes the short word count drives the use of such things. This one could have been fixed; say the character needed refreshment and went into the house for some coffee or something--and got distracted and left his gun behind. Then when the cop reveals his true nature and role in the story, the protag could reach for his weapon--and instantly remember exactly where it was. The reader would already know this, but that's ok; it's like in all the bad slasher movies, the audience gets to scream at the characters not to go in the basement.

This, to me, is essential to good horror: don't scare the character, scare the reader. Poe and so many others just bored me with so much narration about how frightened the character felt ... well, duh, he's about to be killed. What's my stake in this as a reader? I'm safe in my armchair.

The reason I liked this story most out of all these was that there was no supernatural element in it; the whole thing was set in a mundane real world, and the depth of the plot was terrific.

So, one minor hiccup; otherwise excellent.