Every year at Toasted Cheese, we run four contests. To avoid overwhelming ourselves, we divide up the judging. Our current contest, Dead of Winter, is judged by me and my good friend Eden
The Dead of Winter and Midsummer Tale contests are themed. The theme for this year’s DOW was “The House at the End of the Road.”
“Dead of Winter” is a contest for stories with supernatural elements or themes. Ideally, stories should be set in autumn or winter. The most original, most haunting stories will be chosen for publication.
Winners are to be announced this weekend, so of course Eden and I had to get reading. Many, many of these stories were frightening, but not in the way they intended. We had a total of 13 entries, which is down a bit from previous years. I received the following email from Eden:
So you do not needlessly suffer as I did, just read #4, #7 and #11.
I used the little judging system and they’re pretty clearly ranked for me. A huge problem was that a lot of stories didn’t use the theme at all! And of those that did, very few had any supernatural element (I’m not sure about the supernatural-ness of #4). It was easy to go “um, no.” *click*
I had indeed begun reading them. And it was easy, in most cases, to go “um, no.” *click*
I replied:
Ok, I’m going to need to go back and look at these again, particularly #7. The ones I had circled (I did read, or at least skim, all of them already) were 2, 4 and 11.
I felt #4 was ambiguous about the supernatural-ness, but I think there’s enough there…
#2, which was one of the ones I liked (well written, but didn’t quite stick to the theme), unfortunately exceeded our word limit. Sigh.
#4 did kind of an ambiguous “is it a ghost or is he *mad*” thing.
Eden:
I guess I could tell you my rankings, since I picked #4 for 3rd. Since it’s light on the supernatural, I’d only be iffy about it winning. And I’m disappointed #2 was too long (although it had 0 supernatural beyond the scary movie — cop out). I thought #11 was better in dialogue and voice than #7 and the plot was more story-like (I thought #7 was a bit anecdotal). Overall, #11 was the most DOW-ish of all our entries. But if you like them in a different order, that’s fine by me. So long as we have rankings in the next couple of days, that’s plenty of time. I need to send the notifications. I’m just going to say “thanks for entering. here’s who won.”
I think some of them were written by 11-yr-olds. Wait. I was a better writer at age 11.
Snerk. this was kind of depressing, because we’ve usually gotten much better quality entries. So we agreed on #11 being the winner, but I lobbied for #4 second. It was just a better story, IMHO.
I replied:
Yes, out of these #11 was my favorite.
I’m still not completely in love with #7…I found #4 a more interesting read. So I would go 11, 4, 7.
(a bit of snark…for #10, I actually wrote down “no-blah!” and for #9, “huh?”)
And Eden’s thoughts:
I put a big line through #10. My comments were “poor structure, good idea, technically bad, tacked-on end.” #9 I put a “0” under theme and big lines out from that on either side. That one is a huge “WTF?” Remember that song “Camel Walk” from circa 1995? “You make me wanna WAWK! Like a CAMEL. WOOO!”
Story-wise, I did like #4 more than #7. It was only on “theme” that it wasn’t comparable. As I put in my writing blog last night, I wouldn’t be upset if we flipflopped #7 & #4. I think #11 was the best as well. I’ll send out notifications this afternoon.
Thankfully, I don’t remember that song… 😉
But in order to help things next time, Eden has come up with a plan! A foolproof formula for crafting a scary story!
Your story is about two or more kids and a spooky house. Kid #1, preferably the narrator, is afraid or has a bad feeling about what Kid #2 wants to do. Kid #2 wants to provoke the ghosts/supernatural/whatever that is/are connected to the house. Kid #2 should taunt Kid #1 until Kid #1 gives in and follows Kid #2. Kid #2 should “pay” for tempting the supernatural. Kid #1 should live to tell the story unless your Shocking Twist is that Kid #1 is dead.
All stories should have a Shocking Twist, about three pps from the end. You can always tack on a “years later…” pp to explain what happened instead of including it in the story. Don’t forget to include all the backstory (in detail) of the haunted house and some backstory about the kids. Make sure it has nothing to do with the actual story.
Be sure to give everyone first and last names. Don’t forget to address the reader directly (ex: “dear reader” or “you may be wondering” or come right out and say that you’re “submitting this story as a contest entry to the Toasted Cheese Literary Journal. Be sure to misspell words and construct your sentences any way you want!
Good advice, no?
(I completely defer to Eden. She’s much funnier than I am.) : )