Hello everyone and welcome to the sixty-fifth month of this competition… a bumper month this one. There were 64 entries from 30 authors with a sentence start of ‘Before the shot was fired’. A number of stories were quite similar so some missed out purely for that reason. NB You can all send in three stories for a better chance of being picked.
One was disqualified for only being 98 words. It also had the prompt at the end of a sentence rather than the beginning. One, two max, word/s before it is fine but not at the end (or in the middle). Several stories were disqualified for this reason, including three each from two authors.
‘sentence start’ was mentioned twice on the https://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/100-word-free-monthly-competition page while the competition was running, on the entry form, plus on the countdown right-hand strip until updated on 1st February (and I posted when I realised, not long after announcing December’s results, a post emphasising this). Because there was clearly some ambiguity to me saying the prompt could be used anywhere in the story, I contacted those three authors and invited them to submit another story each.
Another story was disqualified for being 101 words. It started as 100 but two words (‘gunshot’ and ‘then’) were joined incorrectly so when separated totalled 101. Fortunately the author had submitted another story so that went through. Another had ‘smiley faced tablets’ – a lovely image but unfortunately the ‘smiley faced’ should have been hyphenated so it drops the story down to 99 words.
One story lost brownie points for ‘had to looked’ rather than ‘had to look’ (an easy mistake). It wasn’t my favourite story of the three submitted so it wasn’t a problem.
Other observations:
- where the speech has an unrelated dialogue tag, e.g. someone laughing, moving, smiling, waving etc. (with it capitalised: He laughed. She picked up the mug.’ etc.) the punctuation should be a full stop rather than a comma. Had it been related description, it would be a comma.
- like erm, we do say ‘well’ as a dialogue pause but it’s best not to include it in our writing, or at the most have it as a characteristic for one of the characters. Ditto ‘look’. I’m a stickler for repetition and there were two ‘well’s, albeit only one as dialogue, very close together.
- crowd, like money, company, group etc. is a single entity so the verb would also be singular (like he / she) and is therefore ‘was’. That said, it depends on how natural it sounds.
- ‘sir’ is only capitalised when used as a name, e.g. ‘Thank you, Sir Lancelot.’ rather than ‘Thank you, sir.’ Ditto madam – see https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/madam.
- where the speech has an unrelated dialogue tag, e.g. someone laughing, moving, smiling, waving etc. (with it capitalised: He laughed. She picked up the mug.’ etc.) the punctuation should be a full stop rather than a comma. Had it been related description, it would be a comma.
- where an action has ‘starts to’ / ‘started to’ or ‘begins to’ / ‘began to’ before it, most of the time they’re not needed because unless the action is interrupted, the verb alone works better / is stronger. An example would be ‘the phone began to ring’. If it stops without being answered then that’s fine (although it still rang!) but if not then just have ‘the phone rang’.
- when speaking to someone and using a name, nickname or term of endearment (which counts as a name), generalisation (guys, ladies etc.), you’d need a comma before the name, i.e. ‘Do you know John?’ is asking if the person knows someone called John. ‘Do you know, John?’ means that the character is speaking to someone called John but asking them if they know something. A subtle difference but you want to avoid confusing the reader so they jump out of the story.
- I strongly recommend you don’t invert dialogue tags as it’s not how we would naturally speak if talking aloud, e.g. changing ‘said Tony’ to ‘Tony said’. ‘said’s do tend to blur into the background so don’t try too hard to choose something else, e.g. ‘Tony postulated’, even ‘Tony exclaimed’ could be too much if we already have the likes of ‘Get out!’ It’s not so bad when you don’t have a name but having the ‘said’ or equivalent is more natural where you have a character’s name.
- although not grammatically incorrect, I strongly recommend not putting commas between adjectives, and certainly not immediately before the noun / object. It slows the pace… really slows it where there are several.
- I’m very much a fan of showing rather than telling / explaining but sometimes there needs to be more detail. One of the stories was about a particular historic event but even having read the story a couple of times I still hadn’t worked out which!
The winning stories are ones that I reacted most favourably to. They were clever, surprising, eek-making (in a good way), or gave me a warm fuzzy feeling (without being sickly). Sometimes a story beats another because it has a stronger link to the theme so it’s worth writing a story to the theme rather than tweaking a story you already have to loosely fit it. Alternatively there may have been several stories on with same topic so I chose my favourite of those. With any competition, much rests upon the judge’s preference and it’s usually ones than garner a stronger (positive) reaction that do the best.
You may have chosen a different order or indeed not placed one or more of them so if you entered and didn’t find your story / stories here, don’t lose heart. You probably only just missed out so do enter new stories this month*, next month, whenever you like (but not in advance!). It’s an ongoing competition and free, so you could win at any time. There were new and familiar names this month so anyone could win… it’s all dependent upon whether your story grabs me, for whatever reason (whether it be clever, funny, unusual, quirky, or sweet).
Apart from the top three and highly commended, there are some ‘Honourable Mentions’. They don’t win anything but they were so close to being Highly Commended that I wanted them to know how close they came. It’s still something for them to put on their CVs.
*The theme for February is ‘a tall tale’ and you can submit your entries (and do send three) at any time up to midnight (UK time) on Sunday 28th February. Details and entry forms on https://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/100-word-free-monthly-competition. So without further ado, below are the successful entries this month.
First place (winning free access to three of my online creative writing courses (currently worth £60 / $60) or a free edit and critique of up to 2,000 words (worth £30 / $42):
Darren York with ‘Pasta la vista’
Boiled alive, Macaroni was the first to succumb to Rigatoni’s takeover. His blanched corpse was found the next day under sheets of lasagne.
Ambushed leaving the colander, Fettuccine was thrown into a steamer and hot sauce poured over him as he begged for his life.
Penne would stop Rigatoni’s abhorrent crimes by shooting him as he exited the cupboard, but Rigatoni had got wind of the plot. Before the shot was fired he was tripped up and chopped into pieces then rested on a plate as a warning to others.
There can only be one pasta dish on the menu!
*
Joint second place (each winning free access to two of my online creative writing courses (currently worth £40 / $40) or a free edit and critique of up to 1,500 words (worth £22.50 / $31.50):
E. E. Rhodes with ‘The Heist’
Before the shot was fired he’d hoped they’d get away clean.
Before that he’d hoped there’d be no trouble from the bank manager about the combination.
Before that he’d hoped everyone would do as they were told and there’d be no reason for Ken to totally lose it.
Before that he’d hoped it was early closing and the bank would be shut.
Before that he’d hoped the car wouldn’t start and Jake would call the whole thing off.
Before that he’d hoped he’d miss his alarm call.
Before that he’d wished he hadn’t needed the money.
Just.
Before. Before. Before.
*
Kyle Barratt with ‘Consequences’
Before the shot was fired, Bob Marley would have not needed an alibi.
JFK could have enjoyed the drive and Oswald may have not been The Patsy.
King would have stayed dreaming, while Lennon would have kept imagining.
Brenda would have ‘still’ disliked Mondays, but maybe ‘The Man’ would have no reason to meet ‘Liberty Valance’.
Gandhi’s protests could have stayed peaceful and Lincoln would have enjoyed the performance.
World War One may not have started, so what would have Franz Ferdinand called their band?
Unfortunately, the ‘before’ is the unknown and the ‘after’ is the history that we know.
*
Joint third place (each winning free access to one of my online creative writing courses (currently worth £20 / $20) or a free edit and critique of up to 1,000 words (worth £15 / $21):
Gary Stark with ‘Mother, We Need To Talk About Father’
Before the shot was fired, Zarcon knew he himself would cease to exist. He had been sent from the future to kill his father who had invented “The Weapon” and that meant his own birth wouldn’t happen. He fired and the man fell. Zarkon waited… and waited, but he still existed. How? Then he realized why people always joked that he looked like Axintel, his father’s best man. It seems his mother had tested that accolade and he was the result. Anyway, back to the future where peace would now reign. But he’d have to have a word with Mum.
*
Linda Hibbin with ‘Lord! Love a Duck!’
Before the shot was fired the ducks prepared themselves.
‘You OK, Cedric?’
‘Bit sore.’ The ducks sniggered. Cedric was in the middle. Not an ideal position but he loved being the centre of attention, not just flipping over, but wildly spinning!
Jefferson sniffed. ‘I’ve a cold coming.’ He was on the end, open to the elements. He fancied Beatrice on the bar below. A sharpshooter would send him swinging down, his head level with the back of hers. He’d blow kisses, flirt, make her giggle.
‘Get a grip, guys. He’s focusing,’ chorused fluffy rabbits dangling above.
BANG!
‘Sweetheart!’ screamed Jefferson.
*
Susi J Smith with ‘Shot Down’
“He’s a big shot.” Gerald pats my arm, my chance of promotion lies bleeding beneath my desk.
Malcolm Bennett. What kind of name is Malcolm Bennett? He blows me a kiss. Scowling, I turn to the desktop.
It’s dark before I find what I’m looking for.
The next morning I wave Malcolm Bennett goodbye as he’s dragged from the building. Printing Mr Hotshot’s mug shot was a cheap shot, but it worked.
Gerald sidles over. “About that job…”
Before the ‘shot’ was fired it was all I wanted, but now…
“Sorry, Gerald.” Patting his arm, I head for my desk.
*
Highly commended (winning my Entering Writing Competitions course worth £20 / $20) or a free edit and critique of up to 1,000 words (worth £15 / $21) – in alphabetical order:
Honourable mentions (not winning anything but only narrowly missing out and still looking good on their CV) – in alphabetical order:
- Bob Cairns with ‘Bugged’
- Dettra Rose with ‘The Love of Generations’
- Kaitlin Woodland with ‘Living the Litter-Tray Life’
- Lesley McLean with ‘Rusty and Rosie Rebel’
- Nicholas Sebastian with ‘Farewell’
- Sue Massey with ‘Why?’
Congratulations, everyone. The entries for this month are already drifting in. Remember, you can send up to three per month so rather than miss out on a chance by sending one story, do submit more.
If you’ve enjoyed these stories and / or just want to leave a comment, please do so below and / or you can email me at morgen@morgenbailey.com., although I won’t (can’t) discuss forthcoming entries unless it’s a general query.
For just £40, Morgen will write a story using your components – see the form below – up to 2,000 words. It will be emailed to you (or someone you nominate – you will also receive a copy) as a pdf file, with its very own suitable picture cover, within two weeks of receipt. Ideal for a birthday (or whenever!) present for yourself or someone you know who would enjoy having something written exclusively for them. *The £40 fee includes two revisions of the story if required. She looks forward to writing your stories!
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Hello. Here are your prompts for this week. As well as these sheets every Friday, the lovely author assistant/editor/lady Friday(!) 
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