2014 SS2 Winners and SS3 Info!

Jul 1, 201415 min read

Deviation Actions

Published: Jul 1, 2014

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Congratulations to our 5 SS3 Entrants!!

A big round of applause to our writers SouthernWriter2, the1dragon1girl, NicolaiGrey, Lugal & YppleJax

Hello fellow members, I have a new poll I would like you all to vote on please, for the future of the contest: comical1.deviantart.com/journa…
Basically, while I don't mind continuing the Quarterly SS, reading and reviewing the stories, and awarding DA Points (because everyone like's having points to spend, amirite??) the prize art is really backlogged and the pressure to get it done is starting to give me anxiety. I don't mean to sell anyone short, that is why I created a poll and I want HONEST feedback, if you really feel like you are competing to win the artwork, then say that regardless of what you think might hurt my feelings, its anonymous anyway

I'm polling to see whether or not the contest will survive on reviews and DA points alone.

Thank you!

The covers this quarter:
:thumb465105872: and :thumb466067440:

RULES

All entries have to follow these rules:
1) No fewer than 1000 word count | No more than 7000 word count, based on the image of the quarter* rule is changing to higher word count max (writers choice of two pre-made covers each quarter).
2) The title of the cover you select needs to appear somewhere in the body of the text for your entry to count toward the contest.
3) Must mention contest its being submitted for in the deviation description.
4) All entries must be submitted to the SS Comp Entries album in the group gallery.

Schedule of Events

Starting Date: July 07, 2014. Deadline: Sept 7, 2014.
Sept 30, 2014 is the day I will compose my reviews of each story
Winners will be announced by Oct 01, and we will begin the 4th quarterly challenge of 2014!!!

(*prizes will be awarded to winners before the end of the following quarter) of note: prizes may be late this quarter due to prize artist computer recently breaking. Prize art may be backed up and awarded a little behind schedule.

Important Information about the timeline
I know most if not all of our contestants are anxious to hear the results, so I felt a little breakdown of how the timing is planned was in order:

-There is a reason why everything is spaced out exactly the way it is. Firstly, each contest last 3 months total, making it possible to have 4 quarters per year.
-The writing and entry portion of the contest last the first 2 months, providing ample time to contestants to get their entries finished
-The judging portion of the contest last 1 month, allowing the judge(s) ample time to read all the entries and make a fair decision for the winners
-The prize art delivery will be awarded between the day the winners are announced and the end of the following quarter
*most of the time prizes will NOT take this long to complete, especially awarding of DA points (which happens right away) Due to the time constraints of in-real-life (irl) demands I have decided all prizes henceforth will be of the photomanip variety

-ALL aspects of the breakdown per quarter provide excess time for irl issues that can and do come up. (Not just for the contestants, but for the host as well)

I want to say thanks to all of our members for being a part of the Writers Guild, submitting and supporting each other, reading and reviewing your peers work, and overall enjoying a good bit of literature. These Short Story contests are a fun way to do all those things as a community of writers, and win some prizes while we're at it. But before we can start awarding anything, first and foremost, we need to post the Short Story Reviews for the previous SS2 contest!!

Gone Too Far, fav.me/d7lrvo7 by WhippedBlueIceCream
First let me just say I LOVED the animal enhancements of each character! The brute force and the wild ambition unhampered by any kind of empathetic humanity was genuinely scary. Anyone that powerful and mentally unhinged is going to be frightening. I think the title repeated much more than was necessary, especially in the first paragraph and it became almost an obnoxious siren once the third victim whispered it again with his dying breath. The punchline at the end made it a little more bearable. I found the dynamic between your team of animalistic teens was really interesting, the love/hate relationships you have going on there really hint at a forced cooperation from some higher authority. The dialogue was kind of hard to follow, there were times when I couldn't tell who was saying what, and at one point I think Volkova's name was changed to Juliana (or so I assume because there wasn't a Juliana there before). Overall excellent story, a really fun and terrifying read. I definitely would not want to get on that teams bad side, that is for sure.

Myth, fav.me/d7lanhz by SouthernWriter2
Sean is a committed writer who never seems to run out of inspiration or intelligence. So much knowledge and research goes into each bit of literature he does, that he really blows my mind. Myth was no exception. Right away he throws us into the twisted world of politics and confronts a modern day fear that has been the topic of lots of recent news articles. Given the touchy subject a lot of readers might want to know upfront which side Sean supports before even investing in the story - and I would tell them not to worry about it. He wrote this short with as much equal coverage left and right as could be expected. As someone who has worked for the government myself this story was curious to me, since it gave me a refreshing look through the eyes of a well informed citizen looking in and analyzing the work of its representative bodies. (I laughed when I read about the Panera bread in Tyson's, I used to live right down the road and would eat there too). The story isn't all politics though, as there is an element of mystery (the sort no one in the office wants to encounter on due-day) and it lifts the readers out of data-download crisis mode when the titles and agencies becomes too much to digest; and drops them into a nice tight nitch of concentrated characters with a linear mission. The merger Sean gives us in the climax is worthy of a standing ovation in my mind, and I think it shows a true level of independence, critical thinking, and problem solving that I personally would love to see more of in our general public.

Catrina and Death, fav.me/d7l1gk7 by Lugal
Ringing in at 1353 words, Andrew delivers a tidy little prequel to the legend of Catrina de la Muerte and how she became a deliverer of death. The story reminded me a bit of the Greek tale of Orpheus and his attempt to retrieve his wife, Eurydice, from the underworld. I'm a little fuzzy on the details there (been a while since I heard the tale) but Andrew's Catrina and Death had some charming parallels to it. I don't know if Orfeo is an original character or if this is a retelling of a folk legend, but his story has the makings of one. I was excited by the notion of Catrina's origins the moment Lugal mentions that Orfeo's wife is Catrina and that death has come for her. I must admit though I felt the story was given only half its measure, for whatever reason, and that perhaps the writer either ran out of time, was multitasking, or simply didn't have the reference material to flesh out the richer details. Still I think that Andrew is onto something good here and with a bit more attention it could transform into something great.

the Monsters Inside, fav.me/d7k6ofp by DobbysCookieSock
The Monsters Inside was well constructed, though I read with a bit of trepidation at first, thinking it would be another "neglected rich kids" cop-out for bad behavior (and yeah, it still was) but the story grew with good pacing and good depth and I found I didn't mind. I like to believe you can be raised with hard working parents who spend all their time earning a paycheck to pay for your livelihoods and still manage to somehow not turn into a self-destructive little puke. That excuse for bad behavior is tired and old, but in this story it still works! You can almost feel the plummet as these kids sabotage their futures and put everyone around them in danger. Dobby doesn't magically rescue anybody either from their destructiveness and gives readers a good look at the harsh realities that follow this kind of reckless behavior. I genuinely felt for the victims in the story. Dobby didn't have to give names or faces to any of them, or even painstakingly wrench the empathy out of readers in multiple sentences to make us see how tragic it all was. This story is crisp and narrow, and I feel well balanced. The writer stays on topic, flows well at transition points, and wraps the beginning back into the ending neatly before delivering the conclusion.

This round has put me in a difficult position as someone who evaluates and awards prizes, because there are only 4 entries and 3 prizes. It is never fun to single someone out and be the decision maker when it comes down to who doesn't make it into the ranking. When there are more entrants its less of a stigma because the unawarded writers are in good company with each other. As such, I hope no one is too stung by my decision and understands that as the only one evaluating, the winners are picked based on my opinion alone and does not devalue the talents of anyone not ranked. that being said, I'm happy to present this quarters winners:

The SS2 of 2014 contest winners!

- 1st place:

with fav.me/d7lanhz
- 2nd place:

with fav.me/d7lrvo7
- 3rd place:

with fav.me/d7k6ofp

About Prizes:
For the new winners of 2014SS1, message me with descriptions of what you would like your artwork to be!!

The prizes for each of our three winners goes as follows:
FIRST PLACE:
1) A Photomanipulation of your request from me
2) 60 DA Points
3) Featured in Perry-Pictures and the Writers-Guild-DA journals

SECOND PLACE:
1) A Photomanipulation of your request from me
2) 30 DA Points
3) Featured in Perry-Pictures and the Writers-Guild-DA journals

THIRD PLACE
1) A Photomanipulation of your request from me
2) 10 DA Points
3) Featured in Perry-Pictures and the Writers-Guild-DA journals