Marvelous and vivid, this story of yours contains everything a flash tale should have, including crisp memorable language. I particularly liked the mystery of the large dark mass, and the duh sound reflecting how stupid the car's occupants have been. There are no holes in the logic of the story. I hope you sell this somewhere.
This is a good poll except that it if you've been around a while and met lots of people it confirms what we already know. As a new member I would like to have known this just for curiosity's sake.
If I were in Mexico, which is most often considered part of North America, it would be hard to tell which choice to make since you seem to define North America to exclude it. America- Central and South is a less obvious choice that I imagine some Mexicans would choose that while others choose North America anyway. Since the US and Canada are mostly English speaking, perhaps you're right but you should specifically say that you meant for Mexico to be part of the Central America choice.
The Why should I tell you? choice, while funny, is the same choice as people who read and bypass the poll, so you don't need that one. That frees up one of the nine options. What you really do need is to separate UK from Continental Europe because you should see a strong split there based on what I know about who is on WDC.
If I were to tell you what is right with this article, I would pretty much be repeating all of your words back to you (I hate when people do that; it makes me wonder if they are trying to get their character count up). Instead, I will say that all of the commentary and advice you give here is marvelous, generous, insightful, and obviously well-informed from personal experience, EXCEPT I must take issue with two things:
1. Where did you get the idea that you're NOT a great writer? I only had to read one of your works to know that you are; and
2. I disagree with point number three. You say the prompt does not drive the storyline. I say it CAN drive the storyline, and at the very least MUST figure into the plot some significant way. Otherwise, the contest does not produce a comparable set of entries, all produced under the same constraints. If some people are thinking it must be a plot point and some not, the rules should warn you off that with no need to call it a tip. You may as well be flexible on the word count too.
Moreover, that portion of your work becomes a child's exercise of limited creativity similar to MadLibs (TM). [Add interchangeable adverb, noun, or exclamation here] It need not be boring like spending the day picking out a fishbowl. If you want to say you always deal with it in this way and often win the contest in question, I don't doubt that is the case (you're just passing along something that has worked), but with that approach you wouldn't win one of mine.
If she got a fishbowl stuck on her head as a kid, then she had better be an astronaut now, or use that fright to justify not becoming an astronaut, or use that moment to discover that she wanted to be a glassblower rather than the astronaut she thought she would be. Something related. Part of the reason for the prompt is to force you to write a NEW story. If you could take your same exact story and find a contest where the prompt is "tongue," and then substitute that she wanted to be a lineman as a kid, and got her tongue stuck to a pole, having nothing to do with the story, then you have defeated the purpose of the prompt. Just a friendly disagreement on that one point.
Or it's possible you didn't even mean it the way you said it.
This flash fiction piece is just beautiful in every way. I'm leaking oil from my eyes just thinking about it. In this robust use of space, you do everything flash should, with powerful emotions, a plot that telescopes time, and even a surprise.
At the opening, I thought it was a murder with a rigor mortis body. I was so sure of that, I actually read it as "police department" instead of service department. Talking about blowing away misconceptions!
The ending I understood immediately. I run a science group on myspace (as well as my science center in real life) where we already discussed that possibility. That made it no less entertaining when I read it in your story, especially in the expert way you revealed it.
Sadly, if I live to see it, I myself will be getting the earliest and least luxurious model, and she will be getting my generous belly at the start.
I like English teachers because they often make the most earnest students. I'm sure you can handle a strict review but it's hard to put that to the test here since there is not much wrong.
Many of the conventions of short story telling are relaxed for autobiographical work. Otherwise I would tell you not to start outside of the story but instead work that material in somewhere.
What's best about this piece is that there are nice observations throughout, and the ending is marvelous.
However, you do make a subtle error in the logic thread that weakens the tale, including the ending I liked so much. The problem is in the lesson plan/ lessons learned.
To illuminate the flaw, let's outline the critical points:
1. "[Pecking order] wasn’t merely confined to chickens. But . . . it took a dog to teach me that lesson."
2. You hit the dog.
3. He bit you.
4. "His bite proved quite insightful"...You realize there is a family biting order.
Now then, the set-up at point #1 promises that the lesson is that pecking order is not confined to chickens, and that seems to be the entire lesson plan.
At point # 2, we could have concluded that the pecking order occurs in other species, including humans, and crosses species lines. AND it seems apparent that the family dog is at the bottom of this particular pecking order.
At point # 3, we find out that you, not the dog, are at the bottom because he had the last say in the matter.
At point # 4 you ignore the fact that a pecking order is evident at point # 2, and instead credit point # 3, where you acquire the additional information about where exactly you end up in the family pecking order.
Continuing:
5. You realize that point # 3 taught you (if I may paraphrase) that animals sometimes jostle for position in the pecking order instead of just accepting it.
6. You wait for an opportunity to peck back and do so.
7. That backfires.
8. You have your confirmation that you are at the end of the pecking-biting order.
Point # 5 should really be called the second epiphany. The last line may be the third.
By point # 8, you've long since established that there is in fact a household pecking order. I'm not certain why it's a biting order since only one member of the family literally bites. If we go back and compare what ultimately happened to the first statement, it was really the team of the dog and your brother that taught the lesson. So I would change it to, "It took a dog to help teach me that lesson."
But I also have a problem with the concept that there is only one thing you can learn from the dog. I would have thought the moral of the story is that you need to know how and when to pick your fights. You picked a fight to the detriment of a powerful third party, which undid your plan. The question is left open to wonder what might have happened if you had chosen a fight that would not drag your father into it. Alternatively, what you might have drawn from all this is that if you had gone to the extra effort of fixing that box by altering the tilt, drain holes, cover etcetera, you could have left the paper in there for proof of concept, and come out something of a hero with your parents while thwarting your brother at the same time.
In any case, addressing these issues will bring the story closer to perfection. You have to decide if that is worth the trouble since it's a darn good story that will entertain kids no matter what.
What an amazing first story. It's way better than my first story or my first five for that matter. Brilliant idea that you touch the earlier you and become him. I was also very happy that Omina knew you the second time around, and that her advertisements disappeared.
This line is fantastic: "“The name is Oliver. Kevin Oliver. KO. Knocked you out.”
A couple of things. Here's a little error: "She have always had that way with words." Drop out the second word here.
Here's a questionable usage: "Then it went black." Try not to use the word "it" unless you have to. Be specific instead.
This line is a little disconcerting because it sounds like it could be something other than a car accident: "Michelle broke my fall and took most of the beating."
I was very confused about these parts: You seem to say that Naomi somehow has the old letter from Michelle, and then Omina for some reason has the new letter? I don't get that at all. The other way around would have made better sense to me.
Anyway, great work. You really handled a lot of complicated business here.
It's a good exercise in color and structure. Very appealing in that sense. The only thing is that colors in the word power don't seem to mean anything in an of themselves, although I see that the colors in geosynchronous adds to the meaning of the word by breaking it down into meaningful components. Rather than poetry, it would make an excellent teaching tool for middle school text books.
I'm impressed that you covered so much ground so well here. I really didn't expect that.
You did miss two major points, the first of which you really shouldn't do without.
1. Much of what you're saying has to do with stories of any length. You haven't explained enough of how a novel differs from a short story. Yes, you usually wouldn't do all that diagramming for a short story, but you should explicitly state the difference between a novel and a short story. Length should be mentioned of course, and more importantly, the difference in how a novel is developed past the idea stage, and then past the story stage.
2. If I were writing this I would go into the essential difference between traditional publishing houses, with "backing" as you say, and other paths. Acceptance by a traditional house means that a team of professionals in the business were willing to invest money in your potential success. Of course they could make a wrong decision to accept or reject but their committment commands respect in the world of writing because they made an investment.
Yup, I already had some idea of the proportions, based on observation. Good idea to make it a poll.
I don't consider writing.com a chick thing per se. However, I would say this is an example of one of the ways in which women are smarter than men--getting actively involved in a social exercise that improves you. I believe the experts measure that kind of factor in what is called "emotional I.Q." All I know is that everyone involved with this website gets better and better at writing.
Outstanding, rich, wonderful, powerful stuff. I think you take drama to a place no one else goes, and sort of reinvent it.
One of the big problems I often see is when writers toss off the opening like it doesn't matter so they can get on to the rest. You put equal care into your work throughout, and special care into the opening, which is the way all writing should be done.
Favorite line: His humming got louder because he was enjoying his own tuneless song.
Ben
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In this robust use of space, you do everything flash should, with powerful emotions, a plot that telescopes time, and even a surprise.