WRiTE CLUB 2018 - Playoff Bout #1

 

There will soon only be six writers left and you know what that means? It's playoff time in WRiTE CLUB!

Our six writers will again enter the ring, this time against a new opponent, each brandishing a new 500 word writing samples. The bouts will be posted on Mon - Wed - Fri, with the voting remaining open as long as possible.  The voting for Playoff Round #1 closes at noon Sunday,  May27th.

A reminder - voting is still open for Cage Matches 3-6. You can sfind those links HERE.

Here's how everything works. Writing samples from two different writers, identified only by the craftily selected pen names of the respective submitters, are competing against one another today. The writing can be from any genre, any age group, taken either from a larger piece of work or simply a stand-alone flash fiction. The focus is on the writing...not the writer...or its categorization.

The winner of each contest is chosen by you...the reader.  Simply read each entry and leave your vote in the comment section below.

It is customary to leave a brief critique for all the pieces. You see, the comments are where the true value of this contest makes itself known. Not only do the contestants gain valuable insight about their work from those remarks, but everybody can benefit from how each piece is received and what works...and what doesn't. Please remember to remain respectful with your comments. If you see an opportunity for improvement, make it known in the most positive way possible.

How do you choose a winner? What criteria should be used? The method by which you determine who to vote for is entirely up to you.  Which one resonates with you the most? Which one makes you want to read more? Which one demonstrates a total command of the English language and how it can be used to elicit emotion or paint a mental picture you can't stop staring at. There is no hard and fast way rules for determining a winner -- and that's exactly what the publishing world is like. But today you get to decide.

Oh yeah – for every bout that you vote in, your name (see rule #2 below) will be placed into a hat for a chance for a $40 Barnes and Noble Gift card that will be drawn after the contest concludes.

A few rules –

1) One vote per visitor per bout.

2) Although our contestants are anonymous, voters cannot be. Anonymous votes will not count, so if you do not have a Google account and are voting as a guest, be sure to include your name and email address.

3)Using any method (email, social media, text, etc) to solicit votes for a specific contestant will result in that contestant's immediate disqualification. It’s perfectly okay, in fact, it is encouraged to spread the word about the contest to get more people to vote, just not for a specific writer!

What's at stake here? Other than bragging rights, the winner also wins free admission to the 2019 DFW Writers Conference.

Your voting has an added significance because not only will the three winners move onto to the next round, the submission that does not win their bout but tally's the most votes among the losers will move forward as a wildcard selection.

Ready to help an aspiring writer make their mark?  It's time to introduce our contestants and get this party started.

Writer #1 is representing the Sci-Fi Romance genre. Please give a warm welcome to Peter Pen.

I smiled as Ronnie reared back to punch me.

“Stop!” Laurel cried, running across her front lawn and grabbing Ronnie’s twenty inch bicep. “Don’t hurt him.”

I laughed. Hurt me? Didn’t her new boyfriend know he’d shatter his knuckles on my impervious jaw? Had they seen the news reports? Dave Wilks. Twenty-five. Struck by lightning. Flies around the city, stopping crime with superhuman strength and laser vision.

“I wouldn’t do that, friend,” I said, noticing how smooth my voice had become since developing these abilities.

Ronnie dropped his fist a little at Laurel’s intervention, but fire remained in his eyes. I let the lasers burn in mine for a second, not enough to emit a blast, but just enough to let him know I could toast those dragon tattoos off his shoulders. He didn’t back down though, which I thought odd. All the thugs in the city turned tail when I made a show.

“What do you want?” he demanded.

“I just want to talk to Laurel.” I crossed my arms, unsure why I was taking a defensive posture.

“Dave, I told you it’s over between us.” The way she rolled her eyes caused anger to flare in my chest. The same kind of anger that flickered every time I saw someone commit a crime.

“That’s what this is about?” Ronnie shook Laurel’s hand off and stepped toward me. He glared down at me, but his height didn’t bother me. It was the resolve in his features. A confidence I’m not sure I’d ever felt, super strength or not. “I don’t care that you’re invincible,” he said, words solid as steel. “It doesn’t make you a man. She chose me. So you better fly off, jagweed.”

I clenched my unbreakable jaw against the hit that he somehow just landed.

Then I punched him.

Laurel screamed as he plowed through the dirt, coming to a stop just in front of the tree swing where Laurel and I used to sit on summer nights.

I’d hit with just a fraction of my power, but it didn’t matter. As soon as my fist had connected with his chest, I’d known it was wrong.

He shot to his feet, wiping grass off his mouth, and stormed back to the pavement, putting himself between me and Laurel. He was a huge jerk, sure, but he was more a hero for her than I’d ever been.

“Ronnie, go inside,” she said. “I have something to say to Dave.”

She reassured him, and with a last venomous glance, Ronnie turned on his heel and disappeared inside the house.

Laurel leveled a hard gaze at me. “You have all of this strength.” She made a sweeping gesture at my body. “But none of it’s in here.” She jabbed a finger straight at my chest.

A thousand responses—apologies, accusations, defenses—all tangled in my brain, but when nothing came out she shook her head and went back into the house.

Then I knew.

I’d become the villain.

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Writer #2 represents the Short Story genre. Please welcome back into the arena Jett Jaguar.

“They’re shutting down SunScreen, Digs. It’s time to pack your shovel and your rake and come home.”

Farren “Digger” Greenwich felt his body collapse lower and lower into the shape-shifting communications chair, as if the artificial gravity on Orbital Greenhouse Alpha One had been tweaked upward by one of his fellow Caretakers. He vaguely remembered office battles over air conditioning thermostats, back when there were such things. Before global warming could no longer be denied. Before super-max hurricanes wiped most of south Florida into the Caribbean and the killer sun baked most of southern Europe into hardpan.

IASA Program Director Tristan Danner spoke again from the holographic display, his voice softer now, as if for a brief instant he’d realized that, even over the lag of Earth-to-station radio transmission, he could still attempt a level of empathy. With his pasty face, white beard, white hair, and white mustache, he looked like an undead Hemingway. Most smart people had avoided tanning for the last fifty years.

“You’ve done your job, Digs. It worked, in no small part because of you and the other believers. Now it’s time to take a well-deserved rest down here where you can enjoy what your labors have wrought.”

“I’m only 80, Tristan, not even full retirement age. I have no skills that translate down there. I’m just supposed to totter into a government village and play pinochle and bocce for the next 40 years?”

The image paused, then reacted with a sharp sniff and a smirk.

“One problem down and a hundred to tackle. There’s plenty for you to take on here.”

“They’ll let it go to hell again, Tristan. You know that. These young ones don’t get it. They’ll repeat the mistakes of our parents. By then SunScreen will have gone fallow and won’t be recoverable. Or it will break its tethers and float away.”

“This will work out, Digger. Trust me on this.”

Trust. It was a four-letter word to him. People didn’t commit to anything until they had to.

After Danner broke the call, Farren left the cramped communication room in the spine tower, took the drop tube to the field level 2.5 miles below, and walked onto one of the spokes headed toward the rim.

SunScreen Station Alpha One was shaped like a roulette wheel, with the outer rim exactly 5 miles in diameter. The flat plain of the wheel level was divided into concentric rings of arc-shaped farm fields from the rim to the tower, the center of rotation. The fields were colored not in the red and black of the casino game, but in greens, beiges, yellows, oranges, and reds, the colors of grains and soy plants, super-algae tanks, and yeast pits. The ag-products had been genetically altered to minimize volatile gas emissions, but the smells were still potent, a wash of vegetable fragrance carried on the spin-driven breeze. All of this was contained and protected by a variable-opacity elliptical dome, rising from the outer edge of the rim.

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Enjoying a pair of talented writers at work is only part of the price of admission, now it’s up to you to decide who moves forward.  Read both pieces, choose the one you feel is superior, then say so in the comments below and provide a mini-critique for each if you haven't already done so.

Please tell all of your friends to stop by and make a selection as well.  Tweet about it, and if you do please use the hashtag #WRiTECLUBDFW.

Remember, this is WRiTE CLUB, where it’s not about the last man/woman standing, but who knocks the audience out!