Challenges

Note to Judges: sorry if I've made any mistakes. Compiling all this data was surprisingly overwhelming. That and my netbook is freaking out at the size of this! So sorry if all your hard work in formatting it all nicely has gone out the window guys!

Okay, here we have the results of the Baby Shoes LM challenge. Sorry for the delay in getting these out, but as some of you are probably aware, real life snuck up on the administrators with a blackjack. A huge number of entries this time so a big thanks to our judges bazz cargo, Gamer_2k4, and Bruno Spatola. Quite an effort you all put in... That'll do pigs.

But I can't help but tell the entrants off for posting such good quality work which made the judging process all the harder! shame on you all!! Seriously though, good job everyone.

Now, the scores:
(Please let me know if I’ve made any mistakes.)

Garza; Baby Shoes: 16.5 + 15 + 15 + 19 = 16.38
Terry D; The Price: 19 + 18 + 17 + 17 = 17.75
KyleColorado; Tall as the Sky: 19 +17 + 14 + 18 = 17
LoneWolf; A Small Moment: 16 + 15 + 12 + 15 = 14.5
John M; Still: 18.5 + 16.5 + 15 + 16 = 16.5
Tiamat10; The Night Inside, Not Quite Forgotten: 17.5 + 15 + 13 + 17 = 15.63
Bilston Blue; Through French Windows: 19.5 + 16 + 15 + 19 = 17.38
BabaYaga; If the Shoe Won't Fit: 18 + 17 + 16 + 17 = 17
Chris Miller; A Long Look at an Apocryphal Short: 11.5 + 0 + 13 + 19 = 10.88
Euripides; Procrastination: 15.5 + 15 + 11 + 16 = 14.38
Forceflow; Brush of Insanity: 17 + 17 + 15 + 18 = 16.75
lcg; Final Goodbye: 16.5 + 10 + 12 + 15 = 13.38
rubisco; Leather and Grace: 16 + 14 + 13 + 17 = 15
Chaeronia; Untitled Entry: 16.5 + 17.5 + 11 + 17 = 15.5
Nikevious; Left Behind: 16.5 + 15 + 17 + 17 = 16.38
bazz cargo; Life in the Small Ads: Unscored.
candid petunia; Sold: 16.5 + 14 + 15 + 17 = 15.63
Fire525; For Sale, Baby Shoes, Unused: 17 + 12 + 12 + 16 = 14.25
helium; For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn: 13.5 + 9 + 8 + 14 = 11.13

And now, our winners. So please help me in congratulating:

Terry D In first place with "The Price"
Bilston Blue in second with "Through French Windows"
And a tie for third place between KyleColorado with "Tall as the Sky" and BabaYaga with "If the Shoe Won't Fit"

Good work, everyone!

Judges Comments:

Bruno Spatola's Comments

Baby Shoes by Garza

How very YouTube. I could easily picture these southern kids via cam-corder footage putting baby shoes on their dog, laughing hysterically in the background and getting a million hits. The immaturity of it all made me smile.

The actual writing I felt was rather uneventful. The words are in all the right places; the dialogue's clean and authentic; grammar and punctuation are solid; the formatting is neat and tidy. Everything's well-oiled, but there's not a substantial voice beaming these images into my head. They sort of unveil gradually and without incident, like negatives developing in a dark-room as opposed to Polaroids being shaken and summoned to life with energy.

I wouldn't go as far as saying it's boring, but I didn't feel absorbed in all honesty. It has a bullet-point structure: this happened, then this, then this, almost as if written in a newspaper article – clear and to-the-point, but without colour. If that's your style then I'll shut up. I had difficulty latching onto any firm images, that's all.

Nits:

“A quarter hour later the two ten year olds. . .” – I've been indoctrinated to hyphenate age. Damn my programming!

“keep him still', said J.J. He lifted Bonzo's right paw and slipped on a baby shoe, set that that paw down. . .”

“Jason, have you been messing with your sister's baby shower gifts?” – This seems like a bizarre thing for her to blurt out having just gotten home; it sounds unnatural to me, unless there's something amiss to make her suspicious that isn't mentioned. A mother's intuition isn't that specific, though. You'd think if she knew what her son was like she'd have just hidden the baby's gifts in the first place.

She sees grass stains on them afterwards. I'd put that scene before; it'd make more sense to me.

“ . . . and the right shoe on the left food.”

”I'll take the picture and we can puit the shoes back.”

Needed a little more time to brew, I think, but what do I know?

Thanks for the read.

15/20

The Price by Terry D

Intriguing entry, this. I love how you merged the “Pawn Shop” and “Baby Shoes” ideas together. It made for an interesting mixture, I think, because they both imply loss of some kind, emotionally and physically.

I'm still wondering why his first port of call was a pawn shop – why not the one he bought the shoes from in the first place? I get that it might be too painful for him to go back there, surrounded by new life and growth, but a pawn shop? Seems bizarre to me. I'd rather chuck them in a skip than make a few bucks out of 'em, no matter how desperate. It had me thinking hard,