Quote: "Wow disagree with the scores completely. Shadowfire had good structure and kept you intrigued.
Kravenwolfs story doesn't even have a middle to it, but he sure did make good use of a thesaurus. Not to slam you but it's not exactly fair to call this a complete short story as it's not at all."
I never used a thesaurus.
Now, I don't know how much of a writing history you have, but if you want to get technical, none of the entries in this competition would be classified as a short story by publishing standards. Based on word counts, a short story usually falls between 1,500-7,000 words in the eyes of real-world publishers. Obviously, this varies, and there is more to look at than just the number of words, as I'm sure you would agree. The entries here would fit better in the catagory of "flash fiction" (a short writing of around 1,000 words or less). But I don't think darimc was trying to be that accurate with this contest
Whatever the length, all stories should include the key elements of a story (introduction, conflict, etc) which, if you look carefully in my entry, you should find them all. But I can assure you, the story does have a middle and a climax. At the time I wrote it, I was using the first 300 word limit that was originally posted for the contest; so maybe that's where you were having a little confusion. It's harder to pinpoint all of those elements when a story is very short. Even still, check it over again; those elements should all be there. Just Google 'elements of a story' to see what I'm talking about if you're not familiar with them.
Quote: "This is coming from someone who has won a laptop from a writing contest, with well over 1000 entries. "
I've been writing for over ten years, and my dad is a published author that has taught me a lot over those years. And though I'll agree that it wasn't a story worth submitting to a publisher, it does follow those elements
EDIT: Would you mind posting a link to your entry in the contest you won a computer? I wouldn't mind reading it.
Kravenwolf
