Fortnightly Writing Competition: PARTIAL (Extended Voting Deadline May 10)

[Baron]

The Fortnightly Writing Competition is a friendly bit of wordsmithing that takes place over a period of two weeks. Write a short story based on the theme, share your thoughts with votes or feedback, and enjoy the creativity that this community can bring to bear when they put their minds to it. This fortnight's theme:

Fragment



Your writing mission, should you choose to accept it, is to write a max 600 word fragment of a bigger story (Title not included in word count). Your fragment should have no beginning and no end, but can certainly imply how these parts of the story pan out. What we want to see is some bit of the middle of a larger story, ideally the juicier or more thought provoking bits. The reader should NOT have a full grasp of exactly what is happening - that is part of the fun. Feel free to start and end mid-sentence!    See if you can suck someone into your story world without so much as an introduction or any serious world building. Be liberated by the fact that your cool story idea that probably wouldn't work can now see the light of day. Have fun, challenge norms, and let your muse run wi-

Contest deadline is April 31, 2025. I know, I know, it doesn't make sense, but neither will the entries, so just go with it. 

Good luck to all entrants!

[Stupot]

Text version, if you have issues with the image.

Spoiler

Little Brother by Stupot
Page 174

...much since the last time she was here. The old grandfather clock still stood proudly in the corner. The same worn-out, cigarette-burn-pocked carpet covered the floor. She was pretty sure the barkeeper was the same, too. The only real difference was the air. Smoking had long since been banned. She recalled Little Brother, running cheekily through the sweaty fog, between the legs of the patrons, receiving pats on the head and smiles from the grown-ups, while she sipped her lemonade miserably, in what she realized was very possibly the same chair she sat in now.

This time, though, she was drinking white wine. Nancy took a sip, opened her backpack and without thinking, she pulled out the small case. So far, everything Mrs Chapman had predicted had come true. Her skepticism had all but vanished. The old woman truly is psychic. There can be no doubt. But that doesn't necessarily mean she always tells the truth. Nancy held the small case in her hand and moved it up and down, as if gauging its weight. If the psychic's fifth prediction proved true, then everything... EVERYTHING... she thought she knew about the world, about life, death, nature, physics, all of it was a lie. She replaced the case in the backpack and took a quick look around to make sure no one was watching her.

Be more careful, Nance, she told herself. She'd come this far and didn't need to be drawing unwanted attention to herself now.

A younger man roughly her age entered through a door behind the bar. Though she had not seen him for more than thirty years, she recognised him immediately as Dan Baxter, the landlord's son. He caught her eye and offered a silent smile and a nod by way of greeting, as he would have with any other customer. He didn't seem to have recognised her.

The clock chimed three o'clock. Nancy took another sip of wine. Only now it was lemonade again, and she was glaring at Little Brother, jealousy raging through her like the lemonade through the straw. She hated him. She knew she shouldn't but she did.

A tap on the shoulder brought her out of her fugue, but when she turned, nobody was there. It's starting, she thought. The fifth...

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379 words

[Mandle]

HOW MY THREE-DAY VACATION TURNED INTO MUCH MORE

Spoiler

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[Stupot]

Anyone else? @Sinitrena?

[Sinitrena]

Oh, two fancy presentations this round.  None from me though. First I had no idea, then I forgot, then I had no time. So I only offer a pro forma entry this round:


Julius and Julia

Spoiler

p. 52

... severed from the body, fell to the ground. Even before the last drops of blood of the last rebel had reached the ground, his knees had given in. He knelt in the hot rain, on the shit, blood and piss stained field.

A few of his men still pushed their swords into the necks and hearts of their enemies, some still jerking from impact or pain, he could not tell, while others had long stopped moving.

Julius did not allow himself a long respite. His men were busy, he had no right to have them work while his exhausted body sank deeper into the mud. ,,Finish them!" he whispered, hoarse from hours of battle-cries, of commands, of mindless fighting.

"Finish them off!" he called triumphantly, heaving himself up on his gladius, the dull edge nearly braking under his weight.


*


Julia sprinted through the villa, past the atrium and the impluvium, quickly kissing the feet of the Lar standing guard over the house. Bone comb and bone needle clicked against each other in her pouch, reminding her of the thread she had nearly forgotten.

She slithered to a halt on the marble ground and sprinted in the other direction. This was no time to anger her mistress, no time to dawdle, no time to be forgetful. Lydia expected guests tonight, her hair needed to be perfect. But if she had forgotten anything else, it was worse. She checked her pouch in front of her mistress' door, then straightened her clothes and her own hair before she entered Lydia's room.

The lady of the house sat on her bed and didn't bother to look up when Julia entered.

"About time," she sighed, standing up and going over to the chair in her usual lethargic fashion. Her long hair hung half over her eyes, not yet combed or ordered in any way.

For a moment, the uncharitable thought entered Julia's mind that she didn't even know how to comb her own hair, but she knew that this wasn't fair. Lydia was still a child after all, thrown into the responsibilities of a domina far too young. With her father at war, her adoptive father no less, she had no-one but her ancilla, who...


gladius – sword
impluvium – basin for catching rain water
lar – household god
domina – mistress
ancilla – maid, slave

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[CaptainD]

It's been a long, long time since I entered one of these, but I thought I'd give this one a go:

[Sinitrena]

So, when do you guys think 31st April actually is? 

Baron, you have a job to do!

[Baron]

Hey, I set an alarm on my phone to go off on April 31st to remind me! 

Nice turnout this time around. We've got a slew, nay, a bevy of entries to tantalize the intellect. In order of submission:

Little Brother by Stupot
How My Three Day Vacation Turned Into Much More by Mandle
Julius and Julia by Sinitrena
Experimental Piece by CaptainD

We'll do ranked voting this time around. Three points for your favourite, two points for your second favourite, and one point for your third. I will assign points if you just rank your preferences first through third. In the event of a tie I will split points proportionately (e.g. two first places and a second would be translated as 2.5 points for each first place - [3+2]/2=2.5 -and 1 point for third, with a hypothetical third place vote receiving no points for actually being in forth). If you just say that all of the entries equally deserve to win then that's not very helpful for voting purposes, but I will diligently split the possible six votes four ways ([3+2+1]/4=1.5). 

As always, in the event of a tie the handsome and enlightened contest administrator has the deciding vote.

Voting deadline is Wednesday May 7 at midnight Hawaii Time, with results to be announced the following day, or sometime thereafter as the hockey playoff schedule allows. 

Good luck to all entrants!

[Stupot]

I don't think I'll be able to get to these until at least the 8th. Could you perhaps extend the deadline a tad?

[Sinitrena]

Stupot:

Spoiler

There's a whole lot hinted at here, that gives us the impression of a longer story. This really feels like a fragment, as if the reader had just randomly opned a book at this specific page. Well done. I think you give slightly too much information, there are things mentioned that I would assumed were experienced by Nancy (and therefore the reader) before this point in the book and there shouldn't be a reason to repeat them in this specific place. Also, we reached the 5th profecy in this story, apparently, which would mean 4 other have already happened - page 174 seems early. But as it is just a fragment and feels like just a fragment, these things could make sense in context (which we obviously do not have). I'm intriuged. If I had picked up this book and randomly read this page, I would at least check out the plot summary on the back.

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Mandle:

Spoiler

I don't think this story follows the rules set out for this round. This story is complete, it is not a fragment in and of itself. Even the letter seen seperate is a fragment - the letter is completed. The writer couldn't write more because of lack of paper, but they were aware of this and finished it, put it in the bottle, apparently threw it in the ocean. It is not a fragment. Also, did you follow the 600 words rule? It seems more to me, but due to the choosen format, it's difficult to check.
You might have noticed, that I refered to the letter writer as "they" - that is because something gave me the impression it was written by a man, not a woman, though I cannot tell you what.
I was not able to read the last parts of the letter (about 8 lines). Fancy formatting is fancy, but not exactly great on the readability (there's an in-story reason given why it cannot be better, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating).
Good story, and I enjoyed it and it has a good mystery. But it is a complete story and I have doubts when it comes to the word count.

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CaptainD:

Spoiler

Welcome back.
This is the most fragment-like entry. There are absolutely no explanations given, half (probably over half) of the article is missing, you don't even offer us a title or give us the lines we do have completely (well, there are just parts of letters missing, but it still feels cut off). There are tiny parts of the text that seem intentionally evasive, moreso than a newspaper article would ever be (unless we are in the beginning of a click-bait article, that never wants to reach its point). For example: "[...]into what has been dubbed "The Krakow Incident"[...]" Who dubbed it that? When? Usually, news do so, not officials, so did the newspaper call it that and doesn't want to admit to it? Or: "[...]have [not] yet been verified by our news agency." What news agency doesn't name itself?
The mystery is intrguing, there's strong hints at a lot of story we're not told here. Interesting.

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My votes:

Spoiler

Stupot - 3 points
CaptainD - 2 points
Mandle: 1 point

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[Mandle]

My votes, for now, feedback later:

Spoiler

CaptainD: 3pts
Stupot: 2pts
Sinitrena: 1pt

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[Baron]

Voting extended, as per request. Now closing the 10th.

[CaptainD]

Spoiler

Mandle's I felt was an interesting idea and clever implementation, although not entirely sure it fit the criteria so I was inclined to judge more based on the letter itself than the context around it. Either way, the mystery itself was interesting, although I suspect Mandle may have had his game developer hat on here as I felt it would have worked really well as a segment of a game - finding the bottle on the beach, reading the message, researching it - but maybe not quite as well in the context of this competition. I also had difficulty reading much of the letter itself, which may have been intentional / part of the point, I'm not sure. (I'd be interested to see this basic idea turned into a game one day!)

Sinitrena's entry was absolutely believable as a page from a historical novel. It was impressive how much characterisation was packed into such a short space, and a great quest / purpose was clearly hinted at, without being fully revealed. I really got a sense of the dynamics between the the characters even in such a short sense of time.

Stupot's again was very believable as a page from a novel. The air of mystery was incredibly strong and ending on "the fifth" was a masterstroke - the fifth WHAT?!?! I have to know!

Stupot - 3
Sinitrena - 2
Mandle - 1

All good entries, Mandle's I would like to see as part of a game sometime, Sinitrena's I would absolutely read that novel, Stupot's got my top vote because I really felt like I wanted to know what happened next.

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[Stupot]

Mandle

Spoiler

I love that at first glance, this is a tragic love story implied through the letter, web article and "your" blog posts. And disappearances like this are the kind of thing that can happen and do happen in Japan.

Then, to add to the mystery, there is the reveal that Jojo was known for some pretty weird views about the nature of the cosmos. What was the nature of this treasure he was trying to find? Closer inspection of the hard-to-read smallprint reveals a few clues. Ancient Aliens perhaps?

I've no guesses about why Beth/Kerry has two names. Maybe they are they two different people. Is Jojo himself an alien, or working for them, bringing them girls to feed on? Beth and Kerry were two different victims and only Kerry thought to write a message in a bottle.

There's a lot going on and I like it. Unfortunately it does break the rules on a number of counts, being considerably over 600 words and not really being a fragment. Unless the twisted genius is that perhaps you missed the guidelines because you only saw a fragment of Baron's original post.

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Sinitrena

Spoiler

I like that your fragment crosses a scene break, so that we get a bit more story for our buck. We join the action right at the end of a nasty, bloody battle. Of the three, this is the one that most makes me really want to read the rest, if only to be able to go back and read the full gory battle details. Very vivid stuff.

In the second part, a lot can be inferred about the relationship between Julia and Julius. I'm guessing it's a forbidden one - possibly even Julia is Lydia's real mother but it can never be known? Perhaps I'm reading too much into it, but it feels like there are some of those dynamics going on.

The title is doing a lot of the heavy lifting in that regard. You read the page completely differently knowing from the title that the relationship between the two characters must be central to the whole story. I wonder what a reader would take away from the page if they didn't know the title.

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CaptainD

Spoiler

I like the mystery. I definitely want to know more about these strange experiments and the apparently not-too-distant future world in which they take place.

I'm curious too about why certain places seem to be spared while others suffer. This seems to imply a certain level of deliberateness about these events. My suspicion is AI gone awry somehow.

I like the idea of a "Holo-cast" but you might want to consider a different name, especially as it shares a paragraph with mentions of "events in Poland".

No real nit-pick, to be honest. If I found this scrap on the floor in real life I would definitely be on Google trying to find out what it's all about.

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Votes

Spoiler

I'm struggling to choose a favourite here. Sinitrena's is the one that most made me want to read the rest, so I'll give Sinitrena 3 points. Both Mandle's and CaptainD's create compelling but very different mysteries, both with interesting sci-fi elements. However, as Mandle's wasn't within the guidelines, I'll give CaptainD 2 points and Mandle 1 point.

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[CaptainD]

Oh man I hadn't thought of that word connection! 

Spoiler

Which is even more stupid as I had seen there is an Oskar Schindler Museum in Krakow, which I decided not to specifically mention. "Holo-cast" was simply a mechanism to give an impression of this being somewhat in the future. I chose Krakow arbitrarily - I wanted to avoid the standard Washington / New York / London scenarios, so I chose somewhere a little less obvious. Having never been there, a 20 second search of its main tourist attractions was my only guide!

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