Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Readers' Choice Voting ("Silhouette")

Have you seen the movie Scarface?

Near the end, Al Pacino is duking it out with about 25 guys in a gun battle. Solo. He takes a bullet or two, then opens his arms and taunts the lot of them as he takes hit after hit. "Is that all you got? Is that all you got?" The guys can't believe he's still standing.

That's how I feel, except I've got entries instead of bullets! (Of course, Pacino drops dead about 30 seconds later.)

Seriously, Holy Moses!! Not only did this contest break records, it took those records, steamrolled them, backed up, rolled over them again, and then dropped a hand grenade down their pants. You all RRRRRROCK!!

Whew. Okay. (Deep breath.) Back to business.

**The "Silhouette" Short Fiction Contest is now closed.**

But we have WAY more fun in store!

READERS' CHOICE AWARD
Voting for the Readers' Choice Award is now open!

This portion of the contest is open to everyone who submitted an entry. Here are the rules:

  1. Contest participants are invited to vote on their top 10 favorite entries by emailing me their votes to jevanswriter at yahoo dot com.
  2. Please vote by entry number and list your votes from 1 to 10 with 1 being your top vote.
  3. I will award 10 points for your 1st vote, 9 points for your 2nd vote, 8 points for your 3rd, 7 points for your 4th, and so on.
  4. You may not vote for your own entry. Please specify your entry number at the beginning of your email.
  5. At the close of Readers' Choice Award voting, I will tally the points. The winner will be the entry with the most points.
  6. I am going to award three Readers' Choice Awards. The 2nd and 3rd awards will have $15 and $10 prizes, respectively.

As you read, please keep the comments coming. Feedback and appreciation is the fuel along the lonely road of writing. If you find folks whose writing moves you, please visit their blogs or ask where you can find more. Make friends! Enjoy your own judging, and above all, have fun!

Cast your votes before Tuesday, January 19th, at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time (U.S.). At that time, I will let you know when the winners will be announced.

AND THERE'S MORE!!

Finally, in the tradition of the Clarity of Night contests, I will share my own vision of the "Silhouette" photo tomorrow.

Have a great night!

26 comments:

Anthony Rapino said...

Great contest! Good luck to everyone. I have a heck of a lot of reading left to do. :-) Can't wait.

Anonymous said...

An excellent contest. I too have a lot of reading!

Look forward to seeing yout rntry, Jason. :)

~ Corra

from the desk of a writer

Laurel said...

Every time I thought it was the last batch another one came rolling in. "Scarface" is a good analogy. Either that or the guy in Monty Python who keeps going after both his arms are gone and says, "I fart in your general direction!"

Thanks, Jason! And good luck!

Terri said...

LoL! Jason, take my hat off to you... 237 entries??!!!
Yes, I still have a lot of reading to do, too.
Great contest and some wonderful writing here.
Good luck on the judging..!

Anonymous said...

With this many quality entries, selecting and ranking ten stories will be quite difficult. Good luck everyone! I'm looking forward to our host's story as well. Thanks Jason! --JR

Meghan said...

I'm still wading through the myriad of entries. I can't believe how many talented people came out of the woodwork for this contest. Awesome job, Jason! Good luck to everyone!

McKoala said...

Great fun, thanks Jason! (Less than a third of the way through with my reading, must speed up!)

catvibe said...

Seriously! OMG! Considering how webs and exponents work, you may have to hire a team for the next contest which will likely have over 500!

Gia's Spot said...

I wanted to take a moment to thank you ,Jason, for hosting this, my first try at a contest online! Best of luck everyone, I too have a lot of reading to finish. I just hope I can pick ten!!
Teri (or AKA # 154 !!)

Anonymous said...

Onipar, Corra, Laurel, Terri, JR, Meghan, McKoala, Catvibe, Gia,

Thank you!!

It has been an honor to be your host.

SzélsőFa said...

omg, 200+ great pieces, I hardly seem to be able to follow up all of them. choosing ten will be even more difficult.
I enjoy it anyway.
thank you Jason, for this is a tremendous job on your part as well.

Aimee Laine said...

Thanks Jason! This was so much fun! I was keeping up right to 100 and have more than double that to read! :) Great job everyone!

Megs - Scattered Bits said...

This, of course, means I have to read the rest of them. :head in hands: I'll NEVER get them ALL read. :sighs, lifts head: Well, time to get to it.

Anonymous said...

Thanks again, everyone. :)

Megs, you've got lots of time. Make a party out of it! First round is on me.

Anonymous said...

So, just to be clear. No minions to the winner?

Oh, and thanks Jason for the contest.

Paul

kashers said...

Great contest, Jason. Great contest entrants too!

Have read them all through again and despite loving many left outside, have nevertheless managed to get a top 25. But Lord knows how I can get these ones down to 10. Just glad we've got until Tuesday to decide.

laughingwolf said...

my 4th entry, and more fun each time out!

but holy crow, jason, how does one pick a mere 10 from so many great entries? :O lol

no matter, y're da boss!

Aniket Thakkar said...

Each time I think I'll keep aside the ones I like. And each time I enter into a race to read and comment first and end up losing track.

Again I've read and commented on all of them, and now I shall visit them all again to find my top 10!

The next time race with Laurel or Bernita again, give me slap, okay? ;)

Wavemancali said...

A tip for those who really want to read all 237 entries and give them all a fair shake for your top 10 votes.

If you have never tried a feed reader, Google reader has a great feature that allows you to "star" an article that you've read.

It doesn't move the articles that you have starred but does allow a separate view of just starred items.

I am finding this an invaluable tool as I go through the entries. I have finished 137 of them. As I find one that I feel should be in the readers choice file I "star" it.

When I finish reading all 237, I figure I will have about 20 starred and I can unstar the ones that I am cutting as I make my list.

Hope that helps some people in their selections. Good luck to all

Jared Branch said...

Best of luck to everyone :)

Bernita said...

I didn't realize. Was there a race??

Aniket Thakkar said...

@Bernita: Yes, there was. Laurel and I always race. But you beat us both this time. And to add to our misery, you didn't even realize that you did. *sob sob*

You'll get some good laughs in the comments section, if you re-visited some of the posts. We were so whining about you ;)

Laurel said...

Yes, Bernita, winner's crown goes to you. Not only did you beat us to the punch but with quality and panache!

I do think the most fun in this contest is seeing how people respond to the pieces, the different perspectives and interpretations. The great comments make this a real learning experience. I study what resonates with the commenters, go back and read the piece again, chew on it, and try to apply.

Flash fiction is a fantastic tool in paring down your words to the most important, vital thing. There are some real artists here and I have learned a lot by examining how quickly they evoke a mood or emotion with precise word choices.

Thanks again, Jason. I know you enjoy this but it must be a lot of work. You've built a wonderful community here, an international critique group!

MHPayne said...

And all this time:

I thought "flash fiction" meant that a story somehow used Flash animation! :)

I've had a lovely time reading and writing here--my top 5 choices were pretty easy; it was just squeezing the other 20 that I liked into the next 5 spots that proved challenging. Thank you all for having me!

Mike

Tessa said...

Whew! That has to have been one of the very best marathon reads I've ever had. My eyeballs are spinning! Now for the most difficult part of all...how to choose 10 as the crème de la crème when the standard thoughout is so stellar.

Jason, once again thank you so much for hosting this contest - it has been truly fantastic.

Megs - Scattered Bits said...

I like totally burned out on commenting. It was hard enough to read them all. I usually do my internet reading in spurts, not marathons. :shakes head at self: Well, sometime I'll come back and finish commenting. Until then...at least I voted! And I put my short list (43) up on my blog so other people can read if interested. A good day's work.