Sour grapes

[devi]

The shortlist of winners for a story competition I entered has just come out. It is probably Bad and Wrong of me to be looking over the list of titles and thinking an awful lot of them are trite-sounding rubbish. I mean, "Somebody's Mother"! "The Summer's Day"! "Saturday's Kiss"! What is it with the 's thing? And "The Great Plains of Africa", ew. I really hope that's meant ironically. Though "The Happiest Mosquitoes in Breson" does sound quite interesting.

Fear Me, competition judges! Pass me over and I'll... I'll... mock your shortlist on my blog! Oh noes!

(Mine was called "We Wait In Joyful Hope". I like nicking chunks of prayers.)

Oh well. Insert standard grey-weather/stuckness/eye-strain grump here, then it'll be out of the way.

Comments

[millionreasons.livejournal.com]

'THE WORLD OF TIDES' - ick! Though it was written by Bill Murray, so maybe they had to take celebrity into account.

What about entering this one instead?

http://www.ashamaward.com/news.asp

I wonder if someone's set up an LJ community for lists of literary competitions?

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Oh my! Is that A S Byatt on the list of judges? *starstruck*

There's writerly, but it's mostly American...

[hoshuteki.livejournal.com]

You should have called yours "Wait's in Joyful Hope" and perhaps it would have been selected, as clearly the judges have little discernment.

[ravenblack.livejournal.com]

Not knowing in advance that it's a chunk of prayer, your title sounded terribly akin to the others, to me.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Hmm. It'd be interesting to hear what others who don't know the context think of it. I find it very hard to separate it from the context in my head.

Does it really lead you to think that the story will be straightforwardly about some people waiting joyfully and hopefully for something nice?

[immoline2.livejournal.com]

lol, when I hear "we wait in joyful hope" my little brainwashed catholic mind chants the rest of the mass in my head.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Hurrah for Catholic brainwashing!

[wimble.livejournal.com]

Pascal's Wager

I'm sure Asimov wrote a version of that. Probably about 40 years ago!

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Actually, yeah, I think I've read it...

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

I just read that as "Pascal's Wagner". I wish Asimov had've written that.

[ratmmjess.livejournal.com]

Nothing wrong with complaining about sour grapes, I sez, when they really are sour.

(Not that I know anything about that recently or anything, oh no)

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Of course not!

The funny thing is that before entering I listened to recordings of some past winners on their website and thought they seemed unbrilliant and unintimidating enough that I might actually be in with a chance ;)

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Thanks, but why so? Because it's mainstream, or something else?

[mr-snips.livejournal.com]

Certainly the title of the #1 story, "Night and Fog", doesn't reach out and grab me before dragging me into a dark alley and raising my consciousness in a manner not convenient to describe...

On the other hand, I've spent most of the morning compiling a list of influential survival horror games. While their titles don't have the limp wristed swooning aesthete vibe of some of the ones on your list, it seems to me that they're developing a few problems of their own...

Alone in the Dark
Fatal Frame
Resident Evil
Splatterhouse
FEAR: First Encounter Assault Recon
Condemned: Criminal Origins
Hungry Ghosts
Parasite Eve

and, of course, the evocatively named "The Suffering: Ties that Bind".

Though I think I would award the Best Title Of All Time Prize to Nintendo's classic "Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem". You really know what you're getting with a title like that...

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Oh man, the colons! I fear the colons!

[mollydot.livejournal.com]

I like the sound of Night and Fog. Night of Fog would not interest me.

[kauket.livejournal.com]

'Pirates'

I wonder if that is just a couple of thousand words of 'ahhhhhhhhhhh ahhhhhh ahhh me laddies'

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

I think there are Nanowrimo novels consisting entirely of that :)

[sibyline.livejournal.com]

I like banal titles, personally. When I look at "The Happiest Mosquitoes in Breson," I think the author's trying too hard. But that's just me. I mean, I have titles like "Lunch Time" and "To See" for crying out loud.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Interesting viewpoint. I tend to like quirky titles a lot (the sort you see in things like McSweeney's), so maybe I'm unjustifiably assuming that's the only way to do things.

It's the same in sci-fi short story magazines. You get a lot of stories called things like "When Visiting the Buzboom Hotel, Don't Miss the Mutant Flamingos".

[psi.livejournal.com]

Can we read the story?

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Yeah, quite possibly, though I've just started tinkering with it again :)

[j4.livejournal.com]

Writing! That reminds me. I meant to point you at this ages ago, but it's still (hopefully) not too late if you are interested: I saw this and thought of you.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

I'm late saying it, but that looks very interesting indeed. Thanks.

It's hard to see exactly what they're looking for, but I'm thinking about it.

[lathany.livejournal.com]

There is a definite fashion in titles. As with all fashions, I'd happily ignore it.

I'm also a prayer ignoramus.

[specialknives.livejournal.com]

What the f*** are they doing publishing the shortlisted entrants' full addresses? That is seriously dodgy. No wonder they've picked Saturday's Kiss.

FWIW, sour grapes-wise, I entered The Asham last year. Didn't bother reading the three winning entries after I read their bios and saw that they were all middle aged housewives from villages with names like Little Bookham. Same judges this year.

[gaspode.livejournal.com]

SO post it on the Kennel ;)


www.gaspode.net :)

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