November 2011 theme and competition entries

[Ron Blanco 10]

November theme & competition: Plot

Set by De Batz

 

November's theme is 'plot', in the sense of gunpowder, treason and plot. Perhaps you might have an idea about a traitor at work or at home, or you may have a character who is an incessant schemer. I want to be intrigued, in all its possible senses!

 

Happy writing!

 

TO ENTER: Competition entries of 500 words or less should be posted on this thread. If you prefer to write a longer story, outside of the competition, then please post it in a new thread with both the title and 'November 2011' in the heading.

 

JUDGING: De Batz will judge the entries, and will announce the winner in early December.

 

THE PRIZE: The prestige of becoming the SFWG Competition Winner AND the opportunity to choose the writing theme for January 2012.

 

COMPETITION PROTOCOL: All writers enjoy receiving feedback, be it high praise or constructive criticism, but in the interests of competition decorum, please could we ask you not to post your comments on individual entries until after the winner has been announced. After that, please feel free to let rip with as much feedback as you like!

 

Any problems posting/uploading your piece, please consult the guidance 'stickies' at the top of the Forum page. If you still have problems, please contact either Tallyman or Ron Blanco.

 

Have fun!

 

Ron

[Lady Agatha 10]

The Enemy

“WITCH!”

 

The young woman pointed a trembling finger. The accused, who looked no different from her accuser, stood on the village green and spread her hands in denial. Everyone knew that she wasn’t a witch, but a victim of malicious circumstance. But they all knew that she would burn too. You see, a lot of them had seen the film before. When anyone complained about the flea pit showing the same film again, they were asked “Don’t you know there’s a war on?” and given a curled lip.

 

May Henderson didn’t mind how many times she saw this film though, she was partial to a historical melodrama. It was an antidote to the dreadful present. May’s mother had done nothing but sob since their Bill had joined up as she was convinced that she had seen the last of her only son. She remembered the last war all too well. He father didn’t do anything to jolly things up – he was either at work or asleep. But all that was nothing compared to May’s own personal tragedy. That was the loss of Arthur Bradley to Maria Esposito. May and Arthur had been walking out since school – until Maria stuck her big Italian oar in. With her long, dark glossy hair and waggling backside she had lured Arthur away. Away down the alley at the back of the chippy to be precise. May wasn’t sure exactly what Maria had done to Arthur down that alley but he hadn’t so much as looked at her since. She took to walking past Esposito’s café on her way to and from work until she finally saw him in there. Leaning on the counter in some sort of trance he was, while Maria waved her arms around and flicked back her hair.

 

May thought about the look on Arthur’s face as she walked home after the film. She walked through the blackout resentfully alone and with a weak torchlight. Her shoes crunched as she made her way through a smattering of broken glass. She shone her torch around to get her bearings – she was stood outside Schwartz’s shop and the plate window was completely put through. She picked her way forward carefully and thought about the conversation between her Father and her Uncle Jack the night before. All the Germans and Italians were having trouble. Uncle Jack had said that they were sending a lot of them away for the duration, somewhere the authorities could keep their eye on them. They didn’t seem to have got round to the Espositos yet. About time they did. Perhaps the authorities needed a nudge. The police station should be just round the next corner. The desk sergeant looked interested as May told him about her suspicions. She pointed a finger in the direction of Esposito’s Café. The sergeant nodded and made a note.

[mr_blue_owl 10]

Top of the Heap

 

He had made his way to the top of the heap, but that was not going to last for very long.

Soon Eddie and Robbie would be giving him some heat and that would be the end of his career.

It was true they had made him what he was, but he now was well and truly stuffed.

He had a right to feel somewhat embittered; it was he who had been attracting all the equity for the PFTG project, he who everyone had looked to before investing their money, he who was the centre of attention in the fund raising campaign.

It was also true that he was nothing before Eddie and Robbie had shaped him into the quiet but impressive kind of guy that was needed for the job.

Well that’s life I suppose, one day flavour of the month, the next day it all goes up in smoke. At least Eddie and Robbie had made no pretence about extending his time in their company.

And there he sat all through the night, his face a mask, knowing that tomorrow he would get fired.

 

Eddie said to Robbie

‘Shame really, he was one hell of a guy’

Robbie agreed

‘He certainly was’

Before striking the match and lighting the bonfire underneath the forlorn figure of their realistic Guy Fawkes.

Edited November 22, 2011 by mr_blue_owl
typo

[greg2 10]

THE AFRICAN QUEEN

 

Deep within Police Headquarters the surveillance room displayed a map of the south of Sheffield on which six red dots were visible. A second display showed the progress of the Prime Minister unter Fuhrer’s train on its journey from London. The train had reached Derby.

 

No army of agents fed in information to update these displays. Surveillance of occupied populations had been greatly facilitated by the National Socialist Satellite System and its global positioning capabilities. The occupied had proved only too willing to rent mobile phones from National Socialist Telecommunications (other operators had been eliminated), ensuring that their conversations and their whereabouts could be monitored twenty four hours a day.

 

It had been inevitable that as soon as plans for the Prime Minister’s visit began to be known, there would be attempts by local resistance groups to disrupt the visit. Each red dot on the display showed the location of a person suspected of involvement in activity to undermine the visit. They appeared to be forming a group - the red dots were converging on a single point in Millhouses Park. The only event authorised in the Park that afternoon was the monthly meeting of the Boat Boys of Millhouses, during which they would be exhibiting their radio controlled model boats on the boating pond. Soon the six red dots could be seen to move off together, slowly making their way north out of the Park along the Sheaf valley towards the station.

 

The Prime Minister’s train was approaching Chesterfield. It was time to eliminate any possible threats, and two fast top security teams with portable gps were dispatched to the Little London Road area to deal with the subversives. Sure enough, about 5 minutes later the red dots stopped moving.

 

On the ground the security teams moved swiftly and silently across waste ground – the result of one of the last bombing raids – towards the river and the subversives’ route. Their location was pinpointed as a darkened bend in the river, still dotted with fallen masonry. Two long burst of fire from automatic weapons into the shadows left little scope for anyone to remain alive, but the area was thoroughly searched nonetheless.

“No bodies sir, but look at this.”

This was an old car tyre, still dripping from the river and now with a number of bullet holes. Six mobile phones had been taped inside the rim of the tyre.

 

Prime Minister Goering’s train was emerging from the Totley Tunnel. The Boat Boys of Millhouses had been joined by an additional member, who had no mobile phone but did have a radio control set with which he was controlling a model of the African Queen. The control set had three buttons, one for forward, one for reverse, and one which he pressed as the front of the Prime Minister’s train burst into view under the Abbey Lane bridge. Explosions began to topple tons of earth and whole trees down from Hutcliffe Wood towards the track.

[Tallyman 10]

Thank you to those who took part in the November competition. De Batz will be announcing the winner in this thread in due course.

[De Batz 10]

Right then...

 

I'm really pleased that there are three complete pieces of writing entered this month. I suppose - and I was conscious of this when setting the theme - that developing a story of this sort in the 500 words we work to is difficult, but all three entries are self-contained in this sense.

 

So on to specifics:

Lady Agatha's The Enemy

This is an elegant piece of narrative writing that carries a lot of story in three paragraphs. It seems to me that it references the Crucible in both the film that May goes to see, and the story of the piece itself.

It has a tersely spare voice that reads as though it is written with that consciously in mind. What I think is done very cleverly is that May's thoughts and feelings are left unspecified in the text but are clear throughout to the reader, which I think shows a great deal of skill in the writing - at this length, it's what you can say without saying it that presents a big challenge.

 

Mr Blue Owl's Top of the Heap

Very much in the spirit of the theme, this, and a series of witty tricks in the writing. I think this again shows off some pretty neat skills. Because of your way of arranging the sentences, it reads like a set of Milton Jones or Jimmy Carr one-liners, an effect that is particularly noticeable once you re-read after taking in the punchline. On the first pass, I think the reveal is great, but the precision of the thoughts before is only really clear on that second read. This isn't a criticism - some very good bits of writing, such as 'Life of Pi' - rely on this.

 

greg2's The African Queen

Lots of local detail adds colour to this alternate history piece. I like the way that the train makes its progress through the story, which gives it a sense of movement as we read. You've captured the same sort of feel as someone like Robert Harris - in his thrillers - gets, and despite the relative compression of the narrative you have got the point across clearly.

 

Picking a winner is very difficult. All three pieces have several things in their favour, and my original set of criteria, prime among which was this idea I mentioned earlier of completeness, is no real help because it doesn't generate a winner. So I have to come up with an alternative way of choosing, which is to say that I think all three could have won on artistic merit alone.

 

So how to choose? Well, my choice for winner is mr blue owl's Top of the Heap, and the reason behind this is simply that it's very different from what we normally see in the competitions, and that it's done very well.

 

Well done to all the entrants. The standard was as always very high and rest assured that I shall be stealing some of the techniques showcased in these pieces!

 

Andy

[Ron Blanco 10]

Congratulations, Mr Blue Owl, on your well-executed piece of mischief. I also enjoyed the wickedness of Lady A's story and the suspense generated in greg's. Thanks also to De Batz for taking the trouble to give some feedback on each story; I'm sure it's appreciated.

[mr_blue_owl 10]

Congratulations, Mr Blue Owl, on your well-executed piece of mischief. I also enjoyed the wickedness of Lady A's story and the suspense generated in greg's. Thanks also to De Batz for taking the trouble to give some feedback on each story; I'm sure it's appreciated.

 

Thanks very much for choosing my humble effort against such strong competition

Most appreciated

MBO