2011 Short Story Competition Final

[Maximilianus]

I'll read them and vote as soon as I finish my classes. They all seem to deserve a prize.

[Varenne Rodin]

They are all fantastic. The decision is clear to me, but I cannot pity any of them.

[Sancho]

We've got a real pressure-cooker going here...

[AuntShecky]

To be honest, there have been years in which I didn't vote, mainly because of the quality of the entries. This time around, however, every single one of these stories has considerable merit. I never thought I'd see a LitNet competition in which I wanted to vote for all of them! This time,
I'm happily surprised. Every writer who made it to these finals should be
proud.

So, now I'm going to do the difficult task. . .

[hillwalker]

What's just as interesting is spotting who voted for which story. Most of us who have white-water rafted through this literary backwater long enough know a good story when we read one, yet personal taste overrides all. And with such a varied and astute readership anyone whose story gets even a single vote must be doing something right. A shame there has to be only one winner.

H

[Jack of Hearts]

There can only be one.







J

[CarpeNixta]

All of them are very nice, good luck for all the participants

[Scheherazade]

I would like to remind that votes cast by members with fewer than 100 posts will be disregarded at the end of the competition.

Would be great if we can manage to get more than 50 votes this year.

[Sancho]

Si bueno,

So vote now and vote often. And get your posting numbers up. This year's competition truly has some gems.

[Bar22do]

I'm most impressed with all the stories I must say. It will take me another few days and an additional reading before I can even dream of voting, for how can I vote for only one, here. Gosh.

Kudos to you all,

Bar

[Haunted]

I hope this time around the votes won't be skewed by people voting for their own stories and look like they have more votes than others.... In fact that shouldn't be allowed.

[hillwalker]

I hope this time around the votes won't be skewed by people voting for their own stories and look like they have more votes than others.... In fact that shouldn't be allowed.

Agreed agreed agreed.

H

[Virgil]

The end of the year is always the best. I enjoyed reading them all.

[MarkBastable]

I would like to remind that votes cast by members with fewer than 100 posts will be disregarded at the end of the competition.

Is that 100 posts when they voted, or a 100 posts when voting closes?

[SilentMute]

I hope this time around the votes won't be skewed by people voting for their own stories and look like they have more votes than others.... In fact that shouldn't be allowed.

I used to share this sentiment...until I lost the fifth grade class presidency. It was between me and another girl. She won by one vote. Now, I didn't actually want to be class president, so I didn't really care. However, I appreciated the fact that if you really want to win something, you should probably vote for yourself. So if I ever run for President of the United States, you can be sure I'll remember this lesson from fifth grade, and vote for myself.

The only thing I would mind is if a person had several identities on LitNet, and they were using them to vote for their story. It is one thing to vote for yourself once, but that would be dishonest. Ditto, telling your friends that you've submitted a story--or writing a story about something you've told your friends so they could correctly guess it is your story, would be dishonest...and against the rules.

Of course, the problem is, I suppose, is that if your friends are familiar with your writing style, they can probably correctly guess even if you haven't said anything. I know zoolane's style, so I guessed correctly what stories were hers. She abided by the rules. I don't know how easy it is to change your style or if it is possible, since your writing is an extension of yourself.

However, I choose to believe in everyone's integrity here. These were all great stories. I voted for many of them in the past, and even if I didn't vote for them--I still thought they were good, but something appealed to my interests more.