Fucked Up Fairytales - Finally, THE FINALISTS! (Community Voting Activated)
Your help needed to pick a winner!
First, to get a little bumpf out of the way. If you missed it, here is the challenge:
I recently did an update, which you can see here:
Community Voting
Caroline, Hannah and I have whittled it down to five stories, each from a different author. Now I'm asking you to choose your favourites and score them like this:
- Your favourite - 3 points
- Your second favourite - 2 points
- Your third favourite - 1 point
Please do choose a 1st, 2nd and 3rd, and make it really clear in your comment which is which! (If you only choose a favourite, it won't be counted.)
Editing to add: Finalists may vote if they would like to, but may not score their own stories 😁 I will check in with CJ and HM whether we should count those or not. (I should have thought of that. Apologies!)
I'll close community voting 11:59 (GMT) Sunday night (23rd June) using the super high tech solution of screenshotting. I'll do the counting and post a winner on Monday.
Reading these five pieces should be about 10-15 minutes of your time, possibly less! Vocal estimates each story at about 3 minutes, which I think is quite generous. All the same, I'd like to give you all a good few days to join in if you want to. Each piece will be linked below, and I will leave off any commentary from us for now.
Please consider:
- How much did I enjoy the story?
- Did every word do a lot work? This is an important thing about writing microfiction. How well did the author nail it? Was there extraneous language in there?
- The twist! The twist was an integral part of the brief, so what did you think of it? Was it original, was it clever? Did you see it coming?
Feel free to include in your comment WHY you chose that piece on your list. What made it stand out? What was your favourite thing about it? I'll quote a few of these when I open the gold envelope next week.
I recommend reading the finalists in a block, rather than reading one or two and circling back to read some later. This way each one is fresh in your mind. I think it makes for fairer comparison. (Note: not a good approach when you have 50+ to read! But better for a small, fixed number, in my opinion.)
Thank You
So many thanks are necessary here! Firstly, a huge thank you to everyone who crafted a Fucked Up Fairytale. I honestly expected there to be a handful of entries, five or six maybe. I thought maybe if more people entered, I might need a hand with judging, but even then I was imagining twenty or so.
There were FIFTY entries to this unofficial challenge 😮 I never expected so many. It was wonderful and humbling. I was wildly unprepared for it, which is why this is all happening a few weeks later than I'd anticipated. I thought there "might be more than five", maybe.
Thank you, as well, to everyone to offered support by reading and engaging with those pieces. Thank you for reading this one and (hopefully) joining in with voting. I think (hope) it'll be fun!
Biggest thanks go to Hannah Moore and Caroline Jane who were so generous with their time, effort and expertise to help me read and judge the entries. Please go and show them some love if you haven't already! They are both excellent writers and an absolute delight to be subscribed to.
Reflections
Reading through and giving each one a fair shake was a bigger task than I had time for, due to the sheer number of entries. To my mind, a delay was better than not doing it properly. Each story, and the person who wrote it, deserved proper attention and care.
I would love to do another unofficial challenge in future, but I will be much better prepared for it. Here is what I would do differently:
- Get a team together early on, rather than dithering over accepting the help
- Limit to two or three entries per person
- Beg Vocal to NOT award the piece Top Story, pretty please and thanks
- Be prepared for the possibility Vocal might "decline to acquiesce to my request", and the challenge might get some legs. I need time allotted and helpers press-ganged to assist me in managing it within a reasonable timeframe, and I need those things lined up from the outset, just in case.
- Keep up with reading them as they come in
The Finalists
Here they are, in alphabetical order:
+
Thank you again!
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Comments (14)
Ah man, coolest! The whole shebang is already wildly successful. Well done to all the finalists! Keeping my pom-poms out and at the ready L.C!
Royal Misfortune = 3 pts Rap Unzel = 2 pts Jack and the Beanstalk = 1 pt
First off, they were all great choices for the short list. All written well with solid content. For me it boils down to the most memorable, and for that reason I have to go with: 1) Royal Misfortune. (3pts) Talk about alternate realities, this was 'fucked up' at its best. Out of all the frogs she could have encountered, she found the prince. There'll be no 'Happily ever after', in the world Rebekah created. Well done. 2) Rap' Unzel.(2pts) A playful story that still maintained its coherence throughout. I laughed out loud at the "Rap, Unzel" line. 3) Goldilicks (1pt) How can you not like this story? A woman's got needs. Who cares if it's coming from the magic wand. (which was a brilliant vehicle to convey the meaning.) Best of luck to all the finalists. 💯🍻🥇
Congrats to the finalists!
50 entries wow! Awesome!
This one I missed, but great responses and I will check when I have time
Wooohooooo Congratulations to all the finalists! 🎉💖🎊🎉💖🎊 Here are my favourites: First: Twisted Tale - Jack and The Beanstalk Second: Goldilicks Third: Pierce And the Blue Fairy
Wow! I'm so honored to have been chosen as a finalist from so many entries! I love the variety in tone and interpretation of the "fucked up" theme among the entries. Feel free to disregard my "vote" as a finalist, but I'd love to share thoughts on the others. My #1 pick is Pierce and the Blue Fairy. I actually forgot I was reading a variation on a familiar tale because I was immediately hooked! It's got some layers and packs a lot of detail into the small word count. My #2 pick has to be Rap, Unzel. I can FEEL the "so, I thought of this hilarious title and now I'm gonna have some fun figuring out what to do with it" energy. It's so silly, and that works because they really committed to the tone. #3, Goldilocks. Bold. Irreverent. I laughed out loud. That was definitely "fucked up". And I certainly loved the spin on Jack and the Beanstalk! I think every kid who has heard the story has some feelings about Jack's demanding mother. How satisfying to see Jack get a little revenge! I didn't fully see it coming, either. Congrats to all!
Oh, yay! I made it into the finals! I'm going to read all of them but can I vote?
Excellent challenge and excellent entries! All good, but my favorites: 1.) Royal Misfortune 2.) Rap, Unzel 3.) Goldilicks
I feel like I should not vote since I have an entry here. But I am a fan of a few. Should I still throw in my two cents?
3rd fav Goldilocks is definitely the raunchiest of all the tales and worthy of special consideration for that alone. That, and if your into it, beastiality. Thanks for hosting the challenge LC. It’s a hoot!
2nd fav, Pierce and the Blue Angel. Who knew Karma was such a babe! ‘Nough said right there!
Easy peasy! Favorite - Rap, Unzel. This one had everything a fucked up fairytale should - idiot dad, a witch with a garden and a tower, a hip hop would be rescuer, lots of puns (some were even funny), and an unexpected twist at the end.