Fortnightly Writing Competition - Absurdist Pulp Noir - WINNER ANNOUNCED

Started by kconan, Fri 15/08/2014 04:07:14

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Baron

This was tougher than leather gum. :P

Atmosphere - Dadalus: the city as a femme fatale and the bourbon bottle as an old mistress just hung over the whole story like humidity on a hot day, lending the whole chapter this heavy feeling of internal struggle.  Extreme special mentions to monkey424 and PhilStrahl. 
Word Choice/Style - This is so unfair!  There were so many priceless turns of phrase: "...laughter rushing from her mouth like the blood rushing into his cock (Sinitrena);" "[the bottle] didn't need me to talk about nothing and everything, or remember its birthday (Dadalus);" "the rain.... ate away on the rotten limestone façades (PhilStrahl);" "We travel so far over the course of our lives and yet we barely take a single step (Mandle);" "Young tarted-up ladies adorned the streets like unorthodox Christmas decorations...(monkey424);" "Grogginess receded and a cocktail of regret and hunger filled the vacuum it left behind (Eric)?"  I think, in the end, I have to barely give the point to monkey424, just for sheer density of zingers: meandering through the dark streets and laneways like a rodent in a maze, the demented barking dog now confronted by an oncoming freight truck, swallowing the whole car and its helpless captive in one bubbling slurp, and more. ;-D
Character(s) and Pulpiness Level - Man, I reaaally liked PhilStrahl's Leon, and Sinitrena's Muriel, while completely not likeable, was the essence of a pulpy sadistic nymphomaniac.  And for that matter Eric's Mook was the perfect goon.  But I think I have to give this point to monkey424 for Joe and his everyman bad-boy coolness-in-a-pinch mannerisms: "As ugly as you are beautiful, baby."
Noir Level of Background World - I'm going with PhilStrahl on this one: the sheer detail of the run-down nature of Old Screw York/Little Lenningrad was mesmerising: "[the kids] had constructed a shelter out of old plastic EvoMal containers and underneath fiddled around on something that looked awfully similar to a severely scorched RC-45 mech from teh riots in '86."  I don't even know what half those words mean, but I can smell this roughed up distopic slum when I read them. ;)
Best Overall This is painful for me to choose.... but I think I have to go with Eric by a whisker.  It felt like a chapter in a larger piece, it had some great short punchy prose, and I could really root for Havelock in a way that I couldn't quite root for Richard or Sebastian.  Not only was I hanging on every word, but when the chapter was over I really wanted to turn the page and find out what happened next.  Good job Eric!  Close Special Mentions for monkey424 and PhilStrahl, though.  Great round!

Eric

Quote from: Baron link=topic=50859.msg636495793#msg636495793
Word Choice/Style -  "Young tarted-up ladies adorned the streets like unorthodox Christmas decorations...(monkey424);"

This was the exact line that decided my vote in this category too. Good work, Monkey!

monkey424

Sorry I'm a slow reader. I printed out all your stories so I could read them on my tedious commute to work. They're all very good!

Sinitrena â€" You're on the edge of your seat from the get-go with this story. It gets the juices flowing, and you can feel the sexual tension between the characters. The female character in this story is probably the most absurdest of the lot. She has fun playing the sexy bad girl, toying with the helpless male character. And she's a sadistic psychopath to boot!

PhilStrahl â€" The story paints a dark and wretched, dog-eat-dog world. Very noir-ish.

Dadalus â€" The piece is predominantly focused on this inanimate object â€" a bottle. I think this is a key aspect of the noir / detective genre â€" attention to detail.

Mandle â€" I like all things silly so naturally loved the novelty value of this one.

Baron â€" Very entertaining! This was more like a neo-noir Tarantino flick. I'd like to see this story done as a movie (Tarantino as director of course). I especially liked the bumbling blind man and midget duo.

Eric â€" You feel for the underdog who's lost everything and whose problems are only compounded with the arrival of the tormentor. I wanted to keep reading to see if the main character bounces back and starts having a win.


Verdict

Atmosphere â€" Eric
Word Choice/Style â€" Baron
Character(s) and Pulpiness Level â€" Sinitrena
Noir Level of Background World â€" PhilStrahl
Best Overall (Worth 2 Points) â€" Sinitrena
    

Dadalus

Atmosphere - Sinitrena
Word Choice/Style - monkey424
Character(s) and Pulpiness Level - Eric
Noir Level of Background World - PhilStrahl
Best Overall (Worth 2 Points) - Baron
This has been a 'Mouse fetishist' approved message.

AprilSkies

Atmosphere - Eric
Word Choice/Style - Mandle
Character(s) and Pulpiness Level - Baron
Noir Level of Background World - PhilStrahl
Best Overall - Mandle

www.apemarina.altervista.org

kconan

  PhilStrahl and Baron are tied for first place with 8 points, and monkey424 and Eric are tied for second place with 5 points.

  I'll leave it open another night for tie breaking votes.  If nobody else chimes in, then I'll enact rule number 6537, section 3, clause 2A.7 of the FWC charter and break the ties tomorrow morning.

Eric

Would be nice if we could get some more voters, or at least some more readers! It seemed like everyone put a lot of work into their stories for this competition (which made voting pretty hard).

PhilStrahl

Took me a while to read them all and it was really a joy to see the different approaches, so here are my personal favorites:

Atmosphere: Eric
Word Choice / Style: Mandle
Characters & Pulpiness Level: Sinitrena
Noir Level of Background World: Dadalus
Best Overall: Baron, with Eric close on his heels

Ponch

Atmosphere: Eric
Word Choice/Style: Baron
Characters + Pulp: Eric
Noir Level: PhilStrahl
Best Overall: Sinitrena

monkey424

Some photos from the night shift work last week (I should have presented these with my story!)

      

Nothing too exciting. Just some heavy fog that came through the site just before 'smoko'. It was a bit unusual.
    

kconan

  Noir construction, cool!  So PhilStrahl not only burst onto the writing comp scene with a great story, but he unselfishly pushed Baron ahead for the victory.  Kudos to him and Dadalus for injecting fresh writing blood into the competition (not sure if Mandle had competed before), and great turnout and stories overall really.


  Baron - 1st 

  PhilStrahl - 2nd

  Eric - 3rd


  This feels like deja vu, but over to Baron!

Eric

Congratulations, Baron! Well deserved! Phil was my choice for second place as well, just a smidge behind Baron!

PhilStrahl

First: Congrats to Baron & Eric, well deserved!

Second: Wow, my first competition and I already won a trophy -- thanks to everyone who read and voted! I had fun both writing and reading (and learning), so this won't be my last competition I participate in ;)

And a little side note: Couldn't find a guide on how to put the trophy in my signature. Could anybody point me in the right direction?

Mandle

Quote from: kconan on Fri 05/09/2014 14:29:53
  Noir construction, cool!  So PhilStrahl not only burst onto the writing comp scene with a great story, but he unselfishly pushed Baron ahead for the victory.  Kudos to him and Dadalus for injecting fresh writing blood into the competition (not sure if Mandle had competed before), and great turnout and stories overall really.


  Baron - 1st 

  PhilStrahl - 2nd

  Eric - 3rd


  This feels like deja vu, but over to Baron!

Congratulations to the winners! Sorry for not voting but I had no time this week to read through the pieces and give them the attention they deserve. I'm saving them for when the bar's red neon sign across from my fire-escape starts buzzing and flickering through the window blinds again (damn, that should've been in my story...just pretend that it was).

And yes, this was my first outing in this contest. I did enter the 55 words writing contest before.

Apart from playing the paper and dice RPG "Pulp Fiction" back in the day, I'm not much of a noir genre guy.

But give me a horror theme (next month is October...hint...hint) and I'm your guy!

monkey424

Congrats to everyone! I enjoyed reading your stories and I had fun writing mine. I surprised myself. I thought I was only capable of writing dull engineering reports and half-baked adventure game dialog. And I even got thrown a few votes! Cheers guys!
    

Baron

I think we're all thinking the same thing after seeing Monkey424's pictures: where's the base of the lift shaft, exactly? ;)

Congratulations to all entrants: this was one of the best writing competitions I've been involved with in terms of effort, creativity, and sheer awesomeness of output!  All the stories were clever, intense, moody, and had me on the edge of my seat.  It's been a genuine honour barely outdoing you all (;)).  I hope you all participate again next time around (and don't be afraid to bring a friend!).

Thanks everyone for voting for me.  Rereading my work, as I often do when reading through everyone else's for voting, I did notice a few instances where the links between different narratives were not entirely obvious; I'm glad you chose to overlook that and vote for me anyway.  ;-D

As for the much coveted hallowe'en horror theme, that's usually set by the winner who starts the comp in late September or early October, which will probably be the next winner, so consider that extra incentive to win next time around!

I'll be sure to start the next comp up promptly, so stay tuned for the next exciting installment of....

The Fortnightly Writing Competition! :=

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