- CrazzySnipe55
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- Fabled Legendary Member
Posted by: CAVX
Posted by: CrazzySnipe55
Also, I feel like the point of a writing challenge is to pick winners based on their writing abilities and how they demonstrated them. Just as the point of an illustration challenge is to accurately illustrate the prompt or to just demonstrate your drawing abilities better than all the rest.
Picking things because they're funny and not because they fit the bill of what's being asked for is part of the reason I only skim the mailsack now a days.
I'm a little confused by this - are humor and creativity not "legitimate" forms or writing ability to you? There was no specific rule to create a serious story, and there was a flood of equally serious stories that, in my opinion, never caught my attention, likely due to the short length requirements. Writing a punchline can deliver more connection in a short amount of space because I don't have any desire to empathize on a serious level with characters I know nothing about. I mean, it was 5 sentences max.
Point is that I think the use of humor is an apt display of good writing ability in this case, because IMO that was the best choice given the medium and the short length limit, and the other finalists definitely delivered.
And for the record I'm not saying this to gloat or show pride. This would be my opinion even had I not made it to the final 7. I was very humbled to get in and there was a lot of technical talent in many, many submissions. But even if you don't agree with my assertions about humor, the results of this contest - and the nominees - are determined solely by personal preference. There will always be people who dont agree, but everyone is different and everyone's a critic. As long as we stick to the rules, I don't think I'll complain.Please don't think for a second that I'm suggesting in any way that humor is not a valid medium through which one can express a profound level of literacy and competence in the field of writing. The reality of the situation is quite the opposite. I have an incredible amount of respect for people who can craft witty one-liners or any kind of well put together, and sometimes nonlinear joke or comedic passage, as I've tried it in the past and failed quite tremendously.
But, in looking at the quality of a piece of writing, along with that humor and wit that would be displayed in a piece written for comedic or farcical purposes must come a certain level of mastery of the English language so that it doesn't sound like a middle school student wrote it (I.E. avoiding repetition of textbook transitions like "then" and "also").
By this I do not of course mean that every piece of quality prose has to have a high-brow vocabulary and/or mainly be composed of words with a large amount of letters, merely that it should be "put together" well and flow like it was written by somebody who can write well. While there's no specific criteria for the "flow" or "feel" of a piece, it can easily be taken into account subjectively.
Looking at it now, the point I was trying to make earlier was stupid. The part of the challenge I took more of an issue with was the judging of pieces based on their originality rather than the quality of the pieces. I'm not in any way trying to say that those picked were not or are not of high quality. (I may have been trying to make that point in the past about some but the point was stupid and I've nevertheless changed my mind.) I enjoyed all of them.
But, to go back to a point I made in another post on the bottom of page 1, I could've written a story completely unrelated to the obvious tone of the prompt about a teenage girl getting her cellphone taken away and I would've automatically been a finalist if the winners were truly at that point still chosen by originality and creativity alone.
Is my point clear now? I don't mean that in a condescending way at all, I'm honestly wondering if it is. If not, here's a simple summation: I'm not so much taking issue with the pieces picked to be finalists, but the reason for which they were picked.
Also, I'm not legitimately mad at the situation at all. I'm just trying to make clear a way I think the writing challenges in the future could be improved. I apologize if I came off as butthurt in any way. (I can see how my sarcastic "But I wanted to win...." posts may have come across in that manner.)