The Last Stand
And the Third Challenge of the Gibberish Writing Competition
Welcome Back to the Gibberish Writing Competition! These stories just keep getting better, and your intrepid competitors are clearly learning and growing a lot. The quality of the stories is fantastic! There’s just one challenge left—finish strong!
The Second Challenge Results
of wrote “The Ride”
Just three passengers driving around in an armored car—or, that’s how it seems! This drama unfolds with Vincent’s characteristic long-fuse tension and with an incredibly clever twist. My comments to Vincent focused on enhancing Characterization, especially in a bottle-episode where characterization is front and center. Vincent’s score for this challenge is 13/27.
A police interview takes a supernatural turn in this gripping tale. Christina takes the bottle episode concept and cleverly subverts it using her ability to transition a story with chameleon like seamlessness. This was a very strong entry and a lot of fun to read! My comments to Christina focused on minutiae, because this was such a strong entry. Christina’s score for this challenge is 22/27
Leveraging Derek’s own experience in a newsroom, Derek brings us this dramatic tale of a news producers last day of work. My comments to Derek focused on managing the number of characters and making sure they all served some role in the story. While—all of his Characters had a purpose, I found myself struggling to remember who was where and doing what. Derek’s score for this challenge is 19/27
Cork’s creativity and versatility is really on display here. Cork took us to a fictional courtroom procedural drama where one Mr. Shadoo is on trial for a crime he didn’t commit! Cleverly seeding hints about this tale in between court sessions, my comments to Cork focused on making sure all the details carried their maximum potential to heat up the suspense. Cork’s score for this challenge is 15/27
This was an absolute blast to read, and I had very little I could criticize about it. Sara made her bottle really feel like a bottle, and the pressure was palpable. My comments to Sara focused on perhaps giving us a little more of what was going on in Jude’s mind so his decisions didn’t feel quite so jarring—but it’s hard to say Jude was otherwise done poorly. Sara’s score for this challenge is 24/27.
This puts the standings as follows, after two challenges:
Christina Nicole is in first place, with 40 points (18 + 22)
Sara Dietz is tied for second place, with 38 points (14 + 24)
Derek Petty is tied for second place, with 38 points (19 + 19)
Vincent Marshall is in fourth place, with 27 points (14 + 13)
Cork Hutson is in fifth place, with 26 points (11 + 15)
You guys are just getting better and better. And it is still anyone’s game, with just 14 points separating the number one spot from the number five spot. One more challenge remains, the longest one yet, with more time to write. It has been an absolute pleasure to read and judge your writing! THANK YOU competitors!
How will everyone do in the next challenge? Let’s find out!
The Third Challenge
Competitors, you have tackled not one but TWO challenges, and only one challenge remains between you and the end of this challenge. You have a lot to be proud of—but don’t pause to celebrate just yet.
In the first challenge, you explored intensity and suspense. In the second challenge, you explored characters and setting. In the last challenge, we’re going to take our characters on a Grand Adventure (hero’s journey felt too cheesy).
The Grand Adventure involves exploring multiple settings, sending your character on arcs that leads to them changing. Leverage what you’ve learned in the previous challenges—set up conflict with tension, and resolve it with release. Give your characters life, and make your settings really shine. You’re going to have to really think through the whole story, start to finish, to make sure your characters learn that lesson and can spend time using that lesson.
Your Challenge This Week: Take no less than one character on a Grand Adventure. They should visit no less than three unique settings, and should show development and a character arc as the story progresses. Whatever lesson(s) your character learns, give them time enough to use it. In any fiction genre, take your character on this Grand Adventure!
Your Rules: You have no less than 2,500 words and no more than 4,000 words to tell this story. You must complete the story and publish it any time before 11:59pm American Eastern Time on Saturday, July 29th. Publish it to your own Substack and tag
.My Judging: I will read and assess all five stories between the 29th and the August 5th, and the final announcements will be made on August 5th! I will be using my six criteria found here.
Grammar, Syntax, Spelling - Make your words correct, clear, and intentional.
Craftsmanship - There’s a structure to the story, even artfulness to how it is set up and delivered
Characterization - Make your characters believable, relatable people, with voices of their own!
Storytelling & Prose - Show more than you tell, unless it serves your story not to!
Pacing - Keep the story moving, and keep it moving on purpose!
Je ne sais quoi - If you pour love and attention into your writing, it will have that special something!
There are 5 points possible for each category except for JNSQ which is only 2 points. The maximum possible overall score is 27 points for each story. You will receive detailed feedback privately over email, including a breakdown of your scores. In the post announcing the next challenge, I will publish each competitors overall scores (up to 27 for each story).
Ladies and gentlemen…
Put on your authors hats! Because your time starts NOW!
Good luck!
See yall in a week! ✨Happy Writing✨ everyone!
This has been such a challenge and SUCH a joy! Glad I don’t have your job Scoot. I’m extremely excited to see where these adventures take us.