The Winner of Show Off: Winter Solstice

This month, we had forty-four entries to our writ­ing con­test. How do you choose the best story out of forty-four well-written and even pow­er­ful pieces of writing?

Thank you so much, all of you who sub­mit­ted some­thing to this con­test, espe­cially to the many of you who told me this was your first ever sub­mis­sion. You've made a huge step in your writ­ing life, and I hope you will con­tinue to share your work with the world. As I told one reader, The Write Practice is a place to not only prac­tice your writ­ing, but to prac­tice courage. A writer with­out courage is a writer who will never be read. You have proven you have courage.

Photo by Duane Tate

Another huge thanks goes to Patricia W. Hunter who helped judge this con­test. Patricia's story, The Worst Christmas Ever, won our writ­ing con­test last month, and she was kind enough to join me as a judge for this, and poten­tially, future con­tests. If you haven't vis­ited her beau­ti­ful blog, Pollywog Creek, you need to.

The Runner Up and Honorable Mentions

This month's con­test was par­tic­u­larly dif­fi­cult to judge. I ini­tially had twelve sto­ries on my short list, and every time I took one off, my skin tin­gled with pain. Below are a few that par­tic­u­larly stood out. I only wish I could men­tion more.

BB Scott's "Winter Solstice

What a shock­ing story! Fans of detec­tive sto­ries will love this one. It com­pletely sur­prised me. Mr. Scott, I hope you are turn­ing this into a novel. It will be excellent.

Steph's Story which begins, "Marielle's Snow Shoes.…"

The first thing that cap­tured my atten­tion was the onomon­apia "fwump fwump" of her snow shoes. This piece is beau­ti­fully writ­ten, incred­i­bly vivid, and has one of the best motif's in the con­test (the seeds/eggs/pups). Wonderfully done, Steph.

Karra Barron's "Winter's End"

Karra's story is full of inten­sity, action, and dystopian fan­tasy. I loved how she incor­po­rated the Mayan "prophecy" of the end of the world in such a sim­ple but imag­i­na­tive way. Karra's story was also by far the most pop­u­lar, get­ting over 60 "likes." It was cer­tainly dif­fi­cult to not choose this story with all the clam­or­ing fans!

Fragmented

Tasamoah's story was the most redemp­tive story of the con­test. Snappy, vivid, and brim­ming with emo­tion, this was hard to not choose.

The Runner Up: Angelo Dalpiaz's "Winter Solstice"

Like Mr. Scott's, this story needs to be writ­ten as a full length novel. If you haven't read this yet, you need to. Angelo tells the story of a woman in Northern Italy dur­ing World War II who nearly loses her chil­dren to a fire and then loses them again when her neigh­bors com­mit her to an insane asy­lum. It is painful and beau­ti­ful at once.

I'd also like to men­tion Clint Archer's story, which was the fun­ni­est and most clever story of the lot, and Douglas H's dialogue-story, which was a blast to read and so per­fect for the theme. Great job, Gentlemen.

The Winner

The win­ner of this con­test will work with me to edit their piece for pub­li­ca­tion on The Write Practice at the end of the month. So make sure to stay tuned or even sub­scribe. It will also be included in a planned anthol­ogy at the end of the year. Very exciting!

So with­out fur­ther ado, the win­ner of Show Off: Winter Solstice is…

Lisa Burge's "The Driver"

Lisa's end­ing had my jaw on the ground and my eye­brows up above my hair­line, but the best part of the story is Lisa's deep char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of the pro­tag­o­nist and her excel­lent use of the theme, Winter Solstice.

The thing that most sur­prised me about Lisa's story was not the dra­matic end­ing but this sec­tion below, which hap­pens right after the pro­tag­o­nist con­fesses she inten­tion­ally ter­ror­izes her husband:

“Do you want to get away for a while,” she asked, eye­brows raised with sincerity.

He looked up at her, sur­prised. “Where?”

“I don’t know. Florida maybe? Or Vegas?"

He shrugged. “I don’t know if we can afford it right now.”

This sur­prised me as much as the end­ing. We receive no warn­ing for her momen­tary change of heart, but for some rea­son she wants to bridge the per­pet­ual Winter Solstice in their mar­riage by going to a warmer get­away, a place where cold­ness and dark­ness don't exist, as if warmth could some­how melt the cold­ness of their hearts.

However, her ter­ror­ized hus­band can't get his head out of the cold, dark night, the longest of the year, as she is able to for just a moment. His rejec­tion becomes rejec­tion of warmth for­ever. It's beau­ti­ful, tragic stuff.

Congratulations, Lisa! And thank you again to every­one who sub­mit­ted a piece. I hope you remem­ber that just because you didn't win this con­test doesn't mean you're story was not good or that you are not a writer. It was an honor to read your story.

What was your favorite story in the con­test? Why did you like it?