Richard Sutton
Flash Club Supremo
March 2015 Flash Competition Results:
By popular vote as well as the vote of our respected jusdge, Brian Clegg, Marc Joan's The Coincidental Zoo!~ Huzzahs all around, the entries were all very engaging. Take you bow, Marc...
Here are Brian's Notes:
A strong group of entries on what could have been a difficult topic - for me the winner was, by a whisker, The Coincidental Zoo.
A few specifics:
The Coincidental Zoo: Kept me interested and entertained. I’ve a suspicion I’ve read a story before in which something like this happened, but that’s not the end of the world.
Crossing the Line: Interesting, but there was too much going on for a good flash story: too many characters, leaving the plot over-condensed. Would have worked better as a longer story.
I am the Walrus: there are two obvious associations with ‘walrus’ - the Beatles song and Lewis Carroll, so in some ways a bit predictable. The psychedelic goings on were entertaining, but generally ‘it was just a dream’ doesn’t give the twist in the ending that often works best for flash.
The Walrus: A nice shock at the end, but I thought the build was a little too leisurely - an element of ‘So what?’ which meant I wasn’t fully engaged. I think it would have been good to have less on the journey, which didn’t grab my attention, and more building a sense of mystery.
A Trip to the ZSL: A very strong concept, probably reflecting the extraction from a longer story, but I don’t think it worked well as flash fiction because it actually felt like an excerpt. It’s being picky (that’s my job!), but it could also have done with a bit of work on grammar and punctuation.
The Brown Satchel: I loved the sense of mystery, it’s something that’s ideal for flash fiction - but it works best with a strong ending, and that wasn’t quite there for me. The most interesting bit was where the messages came from and we didn’t get any help with that.
By popular vote as well as the vote of our respected jusdge, Brian Clegg, Marc Joan's The Coincidental Zoo!~ Huzzahs all around, the entries were all very engaging. Take you bow, Marc...
Here are Brian's Notes:
A strong group of entries on what could have been a difficult topic - for me the winner was, by a whisker, The Coincidental Zoo.
A few specifics:
The Coincidental Zoo: Kept me interested and entertained. I’ve a suspicion I’ve read a story before in which something like this happened, but that’s not the end of the world.
Crossing the Line: Interesting, but there was too much going on for a good flash story: too many characters, leaving the plot over-condensed. Would have worked better as a longer story.
I am the Walrus: there are two obvious associations with ‘walrus’ - the Beatles song and Lewis Carroll, so in some ways a bit predictable. The psychedelic goings on were entertaining, but generally ‘it was just a dream’ doesn’t give the twist in the ending that often works best for flash.
The Walrus: A nice shock at the end, but I thought the build was a little too leisurely - an element of ‘So what?’ which meant I wasn’t fully engaged. I think it would have been good to have less on the journey, which didn’t grab my attention, and more building a sense of mystery.
A Trip to the ZSL: A very strong concept, probably reflecting the extraction from a longer story, but I don’t think it worked well as flash fiction because it actually felt like an excerpt. It’s being picky (that’s my job!), but it could also have done with a bit of work on grammar and punctuation.
The Brown Satchel: I loved the sense of mystery, it’s something that’s ideal for flash fiction - but it works best with a strong ending, and that wasn’t quite there for me. The most interesting bit was where the messages came from and we didn’t get any help with that.
