week 31 winners

Here are Sherbert20111's answers to my judgey questions.

1. What's the best piece of writing advice you've been given?

Start, then carry on.  Sometimes the hardest thing you do is actually knuckle down and get on with it.  There are an infinite number of tasks, all of them just as important as writing - or are they - for ten minutes?  You will write longer than ten minutes once you sit down, promise.

2. First and last books you fell in love with?

The first was Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter, such a simple tale with naughtiness, adventure and escape all starting with something innocuous like blackberry picking.  The last was Nation by Terry Pratchett, I think because of the growth of the characters thoughout the story, but also because a clash of cultures is always good story fodder.

3. What's happening outside the nearest window?

Outside the front, the hiss of a road under the morning rush hour, blocked from view by an enormous hedge; at the back, a stretch of green lawn getting wetter and wetter.

4. There is a rubber stamp mark on your hand. What does it say?

Reserved

5. Suppose you can travel to any time and place in history. When and where are you going?

1920's London.  It is very recent history and already I think we have lost the detail in some of it.  I'd like to see the stories I was told growing up played out for real!

@Deebelle1 - I like the way she provokes him, almost like a dare.  The landscape turns up in the conversation which is a neat trick and right after you get the impression of wet sand and him tearing off to be first in, probably so he can splash her seconds later.  I want there to be a barbeque later and for their parents to be on holiday...

@AnnaLund2011 - Enjoyed the chattiness of this, I mean by that it feels like the writer is talking rather than just reading the written word.  I stumbled over the technical stuff until I got to the ham radio bit and went, Aha! Ok, let’s go  it’s plain sailing from there.  The last line should almost read “Life is rarely simple” after the lines above, a second language, a whole continent, different customs, but communication makes it work.  It is a universal truth.

@sparklymeg - I wonder what age your characters were in your head when you wrote it.  I measured (the story characters) against the photo and decided it could go either way.  Peer group pressure is a hard yoke to slip, he knows it, she has some decisions to make.  I’d like to see it continued, even if it’s just to the end of the night.

@QuinnSkylark -

Really like the opening paragraph, how you get scent onto a page - it speaks about closeness.  A little later also, the suggestion that he feels the ‘thing’ they have is illicit.  What is the story behind the shirt drying at her house - did she borrow it or did he stop over?  

This made me grin, this bit: “fine, then let’s not.”  Bluff vs double bluff.  Relationships are push and pull and the good ones are win:win.

@MadiMerek - All the way down I was going why? why? why?  We don’t find out until the last line - the narrator has moved on.  We don’t get to know if it is because they have a new love (the implication is this - the power of love), or it is simply self preservation not to re-open old wounds.  I like stuff written this way, it is raw and open.

@Mylisssa - Very atmospheric, from the “crowded” to the “smoothie”.  You just know there is slurping and some unruly kid behind them throwing french fries at their sibling.  I’m almost cringing for the poor guy, it doesn’t last long though, he can’t believe his luck!

@PinkCookie - Perfect interpretation of quote and pic in that the heads are largely cut off and fun, because we have all been there, squashed into one of those pesky things with too many elbows and shoulders too big for the space.  Before digital cameras, everyone had a pic like this or with a thumbprint obscuring a lump of the intended scenery.

@TiramiSue - I read this two ways.  In the way that the first ‘ifs’ are a certainty, a known response because these things have happened in the past and nothing has happened to suggest that they would not re-occur.  The other way was as a dreamer, in that the writer supposes these outcomes because they are desired and the boy is what s/he would like for themselves given half a chance and a little more backbone.  The last line is the page-turner - what? why?

@bigblueboat - Busted, in the worst way, there is no hiding - almost to the extent that I wondered if the couple wanted to get caught.  Right around the word “silhouette” I started to get a bad feeling and on re-reading wondered was his quest for chocolate the same a girl with a thirst for a pint of ice-cream.  I like the bubble created for the couple in their personal oblivion and the thorny word that bursts it.

@bebeginja - I’m a sucker for a pretty turn of phrase: “embrace reserved for lovers” everyone has an idea of what this looks like, from the outside, if not the inside.  I have a worry for the Summer, partly because the clip is timeless and distance is both the quote about absence as well of out of sight, but I like the light way the scene ends, with hope.

@ChocoMG2112 - I like a Femme Fatale.  It’s not clear if the vows are quest, marriage or of a religious bent, and you make it not matter.  It is clear there will be consequences and he is prepared to take them.  For her, for what she offers.

@adriftinmyhead - I nicknamed this the carnival mirror in my head.  It walked around with me for the best part of today, partly because naivete demands that there is always a choice and of course practicality dictates that it is not, through culture or expectation, personal or otherwise.  The content is well put and awfully, awfully sad.

@moonlit__girl - This surprised me a great deal and a really good use of the text prompt.  There is a calm acceptance around the character Kate and an overall feeling that she is ok, could be better sure, but ok, in her own head.  The blink line is very telling, she doesn’t raise her hand to wipe the drop of water away.

HONOURABLE MENTION - @adriftinmyhead

RUNNER UP - @QuinnSkylark

WINNER - PINKCOOKIE.

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Congratulations PinkCookie! 
(Please email me at fanficflashfic@gmail.com)

Thank you to Sherbert20111 for judging, and to everyone who participated.

See you next week.