SKELETON KEY Ghost story contest: Final Showdown!  

Now talk about a tough one!

I went with Family Secrets as that story just sticks with me.

The prose just got me, despite my quibbles with the story. Pink, for me.

Damn, 24 hr turnaround on 11 stories, while we had days to perouse previous batches. I hadn't even gotten through all of them in one of the batches, yet (sorry, batch one).

wow...i thought we would have more time...i didnt vote on any of those last ones.

I know, it was a whirlwind 24 hour turnaround after all of the other rounds were up and open for voting for many days. Sour grapes aside (I had a story in the final round, pt. 1 -- a round in which only 8 votes were tallied), it doesn't seem quite right. The voting period seems especially short when you consider that readers had the smallest window of time to digest and vote on 11 stories in the final wave. Odd that each round solicited readers to sign up for the message boards, yet my co-author and a couple other folks I know signed up during the early days of the contest, and still haven't been granted voting/posting privileges. Could have made a difference in Round 2, where three people I know liked "Popeye" best (without taking anything away from the also-excellent "Why We Sleep"). Oh well. If it wasn't somewhat arbitrary and capricious, it wouldn't be the internet. Good luck to all the finalists, and great work on all the stories submitted.

unique and scarrrry...

My favorite story is Why We Sleep.

I love ghost stories and truly I have never come across a ghost story this unique. It's not only ghost-scary but intelligently relates to the reality by giving a great perspective on our drug dominated world. It shows how destructive the outcome of combining the will of humans to oppose the nature, in order to get material gains, with the highly advanced technology can be. It's a gripping story.Top scores for originality and good language.

All the stories are great and a pleasure to read! Thanks guys!

And thanks to the administrator for arranging all of this!!! You made it all possible, what would we do without you :-)

Positive response

Doing a quick scan of the posts to the skeleton key threads, I see a remarkable number of very positive responses to this contest. Given the high stakes on this one, I'm a little surprised at how well it turned out (although I still wish more people would have voted). Sure, there's a little whining here and there, but that's probably par for the course.

In all, this was my favorite contest I've seen on CHUD, and I hope they do more like this in the future. Good fun!

Tough, tough choice. All these guys did a great job but in the end Why We Sleep stuck with me the most.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - great job to everyone who entered. If nothing else you had your work published on a pretty major website - that in itself is pretty damn cool.

And Dev - I'll say again (cause it wasn't said enough) - great job putting all this together.

Whoops, wrong post.

Devin:

The response to the contest has been overwhelmingly positive. With one exception, my own posts have been positive, including an early post thanking you for running the contest, and posts throughout remarking upon the solid quality of the entries. I think this was an inspired contest and the best one I've seen on an internet site. My only negative reaction was a minor quibble, and I fully acknowledged my bias in the post.

I can't help but notice that for the most part you've only posted responses to the handful of critical posts. This is something you rightfully scolded the "Browncoats" for when they singled out your box office editorial and neglected your positive review of Serenity. I didn't mean any personal offense to you, and certainly didn't think you of all people would be thin-skinned to faint criticism. I pointed out something that I perceived as being unusual in the handling of the last batch, and at the end of the post I fully accepted the outcome, wished luck to the finalists and again thanked everyone for submitting great entries. No cries of entitlement or demands for recount. Just commentary.

To clarify a point, I assume you meant that I submitted my story during the latter part of the contest, and not late. Your comment suggests that I violated the rules. A friend and I worked pretty hard to finish up before the deadline, and I submitted the story on time.

I think this was a great contest. I don't think my submission was the best of the bunch, and I'm not one bit miffed about not winning. Hopefully the prize will go to the most deserving entry. I just said what was on my mind. Because it's probably not said nearly enough, thanks to you and everyone at CHUD for the service you provide to us free of charge. I can't speak for everyone, but I'm here for the quality content and good community. I'd hate it if my critical comment (which was in the vast minority, as most comments, including the bulk of my own, were overwhelmingly positive) discouraged you.

--MR

I'm here for the interviews and reviews. The contests are gravy. Sorry if I contributed to your headache, that wasn't my intent. Thanks for running the contests and your contributions to the site. In addition to the disheartening effect of the negative correspondence you receive, I hope you find some encouragement in the positive feedback you get both in regards to this contest specifically, and your work here overall.

Devin, when DON'T you get negative response to something? You could say that water is wet, and someone, somewhere, would think that you're baiting them, and someone else would argue just to argue.

Do you pull down a salary at all for any of this? Or do all the ads just barely generate enough to pay for bandwidth and hosting?

CHUD tends to have kickass contests that stand apart from others, and draw new people into the site. Maybe someone's masochistic enough to volunteer to be JUST in charge of contests?

Hell, maybe we should all just do the parts of our respective jobs that we find personally rewarding and self-empowering. Fuck the public. People are the worst.

Nearly thirty people put a whole lot more into this contest than Devin did or will. Their investment and energy contribute to the community that allows Devin the opportunity to indulge his self-esteem by interviewing whatever demi-gods are hovering around the altar of American celebrity. He should be grateful.

Also, I went with floater.

Arguments aside, this is a great contest and a great opportunity for CHUD readers. To anyone and everyone involved in creating it, I say thanks.

And I still dig "Jenny of Midnight". : - )

Entitlement sucks.

Devin - thanks for putting this opportunity to read heretofore unknown fiction up. Sorry about the whiners, but... it's the Internet.

The finalists are a range of interesting stuff. It's _The Floater_, though, that's the best-written.

--congratulations to all the finalists,
carbonbased

I actually came to CHUD because I heard about this contest from a friend of mine who read one of the stories and forwarded it to me.

I don't have a ton of free time, but what I've seen of the site I like and visit when I can so good job even if people whine about it.

With that, I liked Floater. I guess mostly because we've all seen those little spots in our eye sometimes and it kinda creeps me out. I can't image having the b**ls to cut my own eyes out like that. Eeekkk...

Why we sleep was good too, but the semi reality possibility kinda wigged me more.

Thanks to everyone who liked and is voting for Floater.

-- Chuck

Grateful

Hey, I didn't win, matter of fact, when I came back from vacation and saw the contest, it was written rather quickly (and poorly I might add; I left too many details out like him actually being escaped from hell, oh well). I did appreciate the chance to submit, be part of a contest and have my story read by many. I admit I haven't created an account till recently just because I am not much for putting up posts but I have been coming to the site for about three years and its one of the few sites I read daily.

Sorry to hear that people gave you cr@p but I just wanted to let you know I am grateful.

Oh, by the way

I voted for Why We Sleep. I liked the concept.

Give Trevor his Pay-day.

Thanks...

Thanks for the kind words about Why We Sleep. I was actually pretty surprised that my story garnered more votes than Jeremy Slater's Popeye, since I thought it was quite good (as an aside, he wrote my all time favorite Chudstory, 'The Memorial Cards'.) Regardless of the outcome of the contest, I've had a lot of fun, so I'm satisfied as it is.

Pink!!!

Pink does it for me too!

Nice short story.. I was terrified.. Or confused, or something.

"Nearly thirty people put a whole lot more into this contest than Devin did or will. Their investment and energy contribute to the community..."

Devin, while I sympathize with you, he was talking about the folks who read THE MAIN PAGE and submitted the stories...many of which were apparently not board members at the time.

On the flip side, if Devin read the stories before posting them...as an editor type, trust me, there was work involved.