2018 RHP Prose Competition -

Originally posted by @ponderable
In fact some People spotted my error:

Place 3: Last Diary [not Lady Rancible's desparation as I erroneously posted]

Sorry!

Thank you Ponderable.

Great results!
Thus proving that RHP has an abundance of creative talent.

However, I am surprised that "I Hate School" didn't place higher.
I appreciated the concept. The author deftly slid into the skin of an American High School kid. A timely reflection.

Reminiscent of J.D. Salinger.

Thank you Ponderable for organising it all, and I agree some brilliant work.

I am proud to say that I wrote 'The Last Diary' (3rd) and 'Memories' (equal 4th) - I know that Sci-Fi isn't everyones cup of tea, but I'm a fan.


The Last Diary - This is a much contracted novella concept that I had a few years ago, which I was going to put into a book of 4 novellas on Humankind's unintentional self-destructive ways of being. We all see the obvious, war, famine, plundering the planet of raw materials etc., but I wanted a less intentional way of killing us all off! One of the other novellas has extended to a full novel length (which is with the wife for editorial assistance!), so the other 3 novellas are in my catalogue for future development; including the fuller version of The Last Diary, which would have significantly more of the 'science' element, almost all of which I had to cut from the short story.

The emotions of this story were loneliness, despair.


Memories: now this one was completely different, it came from a conversation I had with my 9 year old, while she was brushing her teeth (anything to delay bedtime), but she asked why she couldn't forget that her Granny had died (it is coming up to a year ago now, so still very raw), and I did the normal parental thing of stressing the importance of remembering the good times, and not dwell on the fact that she is no longer with us. But then the story came to me of removing memories that hurt us, that cause us pain - I wrote it one evening, proofread it once (sorry for any errors, my wife is an English teacher and looks through most things I send out, but that one just flowed - and I was already asking her to proof The Last Diary and my novel 'Evolution' - so I just plugged it in and sent it to Ponderable.

I'm not sure if some of it is too close to Total Recall (though that is implanting false memories), and there were a few bits that I had to cut out to keep the word count down, but I enjoyed the concept and development of the story - so there we are.

Emotions: Sadness, despair (I go for the happy ones), but then joy and happiness.


Sorry to blither on, but I am inherently wordy by nature, hence the 800 words was awkward for me.

Thanks for reading and voting all.
Paul

Originally posted by @drewnogal
How many points did Last Diary get?
Don’t we usually get told the authors of first, second and third?

Thanks for organising it all Ponderable.

Originally posted by @ponderable
Last Diary got 16 Points and is third. I just confused the titles when posting earlier...

The authors are free to identify themselves.

I wrote The Secret Service Man

Originally posted by @torunn
I'm impressed with all the entries. I can write short pieces but never a whole story. My thanks to all.

Originally posted by @ghost-of-a-duke
I wrote Cat's Eyes and An Empty Paper Cup, so am a little embarrassed (but appreciative) to take first and second place.

I was honestly impressed with the standard of entries across the board and there would have been no complaints by me had I been outvoted. (Rusty won't believe that).

For anyone interested, my two entries were actually conne ...[text shortened]... ery ticket).

Thanks to everyone who voted, submitted, and to Ponderable for running things.

Great entries all and congrats to the winners.

Originally posted by @ghost-of-a-duke
I wrote Cat's Eyes and An Empty Paper Cup, so am a little embarrassed (but appreciative) to take first and second place.

I was honestly impressed with the standard of entries across the board and there would have been no complaints by me had I been outvoted. (Rusty won't believe that).

For anyone interested, my two entries were actually conne ...[text shortened]... ery ticket).

Thanks to everyone who voted, submitted, and to Ponderable for running things.

Well done, Ghost.

Originally posted by @wolfe63
Thank you Ponderable.

Great results!
Thus proving that RHP has an abundance of creative talent.

However, I am surprised that "I Hate School" didn't place higher.
I appreciated the concept. The author deftly slid into the skin of an American High School kid. A timely reflection.

Reminiscent of J.D. Salinger.

Originally posted by @moonbus
Thank you so much for mentioning Salinger. I own up to “I Hate School” and often think of myself as Holden Caulfield 40 years on, older and very little wiser.

I also penned “Lady Rancible.”

Originally posted by @moonbus
Well done, Ghost.

Very well done to the first three and to everyone who entered, including myself 😉
for First Impressions and Love of a Friend, for which I set myself the most difficult task
of trying to write about men.

I guessed right about you Ghost, with your Cats entry which was so jolly and carefree. I thought
there were some brilliant ideas behind some of the entries and some were written so professionally,
such as Lady Rancible.

Originally posted by @drewnogal
Very well done to the first three and to everyone who entered, including myself 😉
for First Impressions and Love of a Friend, for which I set myself the most difficult task
of trying to write about men.

I guessed right about you Ghost, with your Cats entry which was so jolly and carefree. I thought
there were some brilliant ideas behind some of the entries and some were written so professionally,
such as Lady Rancible.