h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm going to write mine backwards.

Mine's going to be about a man that heals the blind and feeds the poor. Oh, he has a beard and he dies at the end. It's never been done before!

Did you read it?

I'd rather lose marks 'cos it's not funny than because I recycled a line or two from the Book of Common Prayer - quoting from other sources can be a valid technique, and it's not as if I'm trying to pass if off as my own work. Having said that, I reckon the serious pieces seem to do better on the whole in the 100 word comp. Not sure why, but maybe it's because they give the chance to write more 'powerful' prose than something intended purely to raise a smile. I think the highest scoring piece I ever did was fairly moody.

You obviously missed the irony in my comment - such is the peril of internet communication. Saying that'd lose you marks was merely a joke from an agnostic cos you mentioned a prayer

As for serious vs humour, as I said, humour is subjective. Your humour pieces rarely score well with me cos they don't amuse me, they aren't to my tastes. A couple of PenJen's haven't scored well with me for the same reasons. I mean, if the piece is based on humour and you don't like the humour, how can you give it a high score?

As I said, it's the risk you take. I've done my fair share of humorous pieces and they usually get inconsistent scores - some high, some average.

And yes, I did read it.

Fair enough on the 'irony' - I've occasionally had the same problem with the way some of my posts have been interpreted. Maybe I had doubts of my own about using so much of some other work, be it out of copyright or not and was hoping for a little unsolicited feedback on the subject.

As for marking, I always at least try to be a little less subjective, although I suppose there's no real need to be. Everyone seems to have their own system, it's enough to make you wonder exactly what sort of conclusion you can draw from it all.

Turning the Page
Tombstones and Trinkets
Eggshells
Sticky Fingers

MrsLooRoll - A3566883
Incatatus101 - A3571472
Weaver - A3559863

I suggest we all copy and paste the links, adding our own, to save scrolling. Plus it saves me actually writing anything yet.

Everyone has different tastes and this is 90% female, too. There's a reason why women are more likely to see romantic comedies and such while men may see action movies, cos there are innate differences between sexes. It's probably got a bit to do with it. There does seem to be a bit of a consensus between "them" on the best story.

Female conspiracy

Hints of irony aside, I think it's got a lot to do with it, the fact that it's mostly female in this challenge.

Well, there's a lot of women on this site in general, so should we start aiming our material at them? (know your audience) It would be good to think that everyone judges a work from the viewpoint of a reader first, a writer second and a member of whichever gender third, but that's probably impractical wishful thinking on my part.

All sorts of strories have scored well in this comp, not just romance, in fact the sci fi/mystery ones do best. The thing about comedy is that it is immediate, but is never as funny second time round, only speaking for myself, but I may review a story when it goes up, but I don't score until everybody's are in. I then re read and score them all. At that stage the comedy may seem a little flat.

But that is only my opinion

Like I said before - attempts at humour, whether successful or not - never do as well when it comes to scoring time. I might scratch this entry and come up with a romantic scifi mystery instead.

Well, it certainly is a case of knowing your audience. They say that with any competition you should research previous winners and see what the trends are with judge choices. I couldn't be arsed to do that for this challenge, being it's a bit of fun and all, but if it helps prepare for proper comps I don't see why someone couldn't employ the stratagem with this challenge.

I don't think it's a coincidence that mainly men like my more graphic stories/poems; the sexes share different interests on the whole and this is reflected in their tastes in general. Football is mainly watched and played by men, while shoe shops sure as hell don't get most of their business from blokes - it's women all the way. It'd take a fool to think these trends are the rule, but it's certainly worth considering what appeals to different people and, in general, different sexes.

As a newcomer to this challenge I see there is an edge of seriouness to getting high scores .

For what its worth, I don't think anyone needs to concentrate first on how others read their work or wether they're male and female etc. Its much more important I feel to get the best out of yourself. At least its easier to live with low scores that way

That works for me!

Truth is I get the impulse to write the story and 15 mins later it's done usually. I don't put much forethought into it, I just write what I like. I think above all else it's important to write about what you know and enjoy. That Harry Potter bird says the very same, and she knows about selling a few books (to pre-teens and unabashed grown-ups who don't think twice about reading children's books in public)

Again speaking for myself, I would never lift a romance novel to read for pleasure.

The stories I can recall that I really liked in this comp were Clipped Wings by Fat Gardener and the sci fi one Asnofm won with a while back (sorry Mark, can't remember the tittle of hand)

Interesting p.o.v Enig, especially considering it took me hours to write those 100 words. Perhaps writing comes more naturally to some though, it certainly doesn't come easily to me.

I remember it - I did scifi myself that round, but was unfortunatley eclipsed by SmallNum

I always write mine at 2am in here, usually on a friday night and in between carrying on with Penjen.

The last one I wrote, I had to read it myself the next morning to find out what it was about (hangs her head in shame)