Short Hiatus

Hey all, this is Mars.

I've recently gotten a job, which accounts for my recent slips in judging CFFC, so I wanted to take a week or two to regroup and find another judge or two (Ronel needs the next month or two off), as well as get the three missing results up (the one from like four months ago, and these last two weeks).

Thank you all for your continuing support of CFFC :)

<3 Mars

Cracked Flash: Year 3, Week 4

Have some rules c:

Judge This Week: TBD

Word Count: 300 max

How: Submit your stories as a comment to this post, along with your name, word count, and title (and Twitter handle or blog if you've got 'em!). One entry per person.

Deadline: Sunday 8/20 at 4 AM PDT

Results announced: Next Wednesday afternoon.

Remember: Your entry must begin with the prompt! The prompt can be mutilated, but not beyond recognition. (Pictures do not need to be incorporated into your stories; they're for inspiration (and amusement).)

Prompt 

I dropped my shield.

Cracked Flash Y3W3: Results!

I enjoyed this week’s stories and even the spam had me LOL. Though the last can be attributed to spring being here ;-)

Without further ado, here’s this week’s winner:

Y3W3 Winner

Carin Marais 

with “A Crown of Grey and Red”

This dark tale had me from the moment the woman was described and had me shivering since the sentence where the girl’s fate was made clear until the end.

The only advice I have is to leave spaces between paragraphs to make it easier for readers to read.

Great work!


A Crown of Grey and Red

“If you could even begin to comprehend where I’ve come from, you would be terrified of me.”
I took in the grey-haired woman in front of me. All in greens and browns she was dressed, but wore a cloak of ox blood red. Her hair was entwined with holly berries; a crown of red above a wrinkled face. 
“You should go back to town,” she said to me. 
“They sent me to gather the water this year.”
“You?” she laughed. “You are too young.”
I drew myself up to my full height. But even so I was noticeably short for my sixteen years. 
“They said she would be here to lead me into the woods to the water. The last girl.”
“And what makes you think that I am not she?”
“Because that was five years ago and you’re too…”
“Old? The woods change you.” She stepped back into the shadows of the trees. “Are you coming or not?”
I looked back at the town for a moment and clenched my jaw before following the woman. 

“They lie when they say it holds the power to give eternal youth, you know,” she said when we reached a spring surrounded by dried and ashen vegetation.
“Then why do we come?”
“Because the years we lose, they gain,” she said with nonchalance as she filled the bucket I had brought with water and started walking away. 
“And you will leave me here, to your fate?”
She looked back. “If it means that I could see my son one more time before I die, yes.”

On the elected day I, too, entwined berries in my greying hair and ambled to the edge of the woods I would at last be permitted to leave. 
A young girl already stood waiting. 

Thank you all for participating.

Until next Saturday...

Cracked Flash: Year 3, Week 3

Welcome to another round of Cracked Flash Fiction Competition!

We have some rules c:

Judge this week: Ronel

Word count: 300 max

How: Submit your stories as a comment to this post, along with your name, word count, and title (and Twitter handle or blog if you've got 'em!). One entry per person.

Deadline: Midnight tonight, PDT.

Results announced: Next Wednesday afternoon.

Remember: Your entry must begin with the prompt! The prompt can be mutilated, but not beyond recognition. (Pictures do not need to be incorporated into your stories: they're for inspiration (and amusement).)

Prompt:

‘If you could even begin to comprehend where I’ve come from, you would be terrified of me.’

Cracked Flash: Year 3, Week 2

Welcome to another round of Cracked Flash Fiction Competition!

I saw nothing was up yet, so here we go!

We have some rules c:

Judge this week: To-be-determined.

Word count: 300 max

How: Submit your stories as a comment to this post, along with your name, word count, and title (and Twitter handle or blog if you've got 'em!). One entry per person.

Deadline: Midnight tonight, PDT.

Results announced: Next Wednesday afternoon.

Remember: Your entry must begin with the prompt! The prompt can be mutilated, but not beyond recognition. (Pictures do not need to be incorporated into your stories: they're for inspiration (and amusement).)

Prompt:

To say the wedding wasn’t going as planned was the understatement of the century.

Year 3, Week 1: Results!

Runner Up
 
Bill Engleson's Lock Step

“Screw tradition. // I want stuff.” I appreciate this attitude from a main character (though perhaps not the whole “stealing from the neighbors and the destitute” part), especially in a world where people are shouting for less thief and scumbag books (they've obviously never read Locke Lamora). The thing that lost me with this story was that there was a lack of conflict; all the action relevant to the story had already happened by the time it started. Good job!

Y3W1 Winner!

Dave Mikulas

with Picks & Rakes

Carrying an entire story through dialogue can be a tough challenge. It certainly worked well for this story, though, as describing the little thieves could have given away the big reveal at the end! I do like the foreshadowing with the “That's not my pick set. They're too small,” line. (I also have “Big Fun” from Heathers' running through my head at the “I need a hit” line, so thanks haha.) This is a cute little piece after the reveal, though I was caught for a moment in thinking the police were onto them. Good job!

Picks & Rakes

“I taught you how to pick locks and this, this is the extent of your skills Jimmy?”

“Shut up Charlie.”

“You’re fumbling like a teenager in the back seat of mom’s Chevy.”

“And what would you know about that?”

“I know enough Jimmy! Now hurry up!”

“Here, you take the rake and do it yourself.”

“That’s not my pick set. They’re too small.”

“Then please, let me be.”

“Hurry up. They’re comin’ back any second.”

“I know.”

“You’ve got to hurry.”

“I know.”

“Any second she could come back and we’re busted.”

“Then be. Quiet. And keep a lookout.”

“You should be done already! What’s the problem?”

“You’re not helping Charlie. Hold the light steady. I can’t see a damn thing.”

“Oh, come on! I need a hit Jimmy!”

“I told you before; you’re welcome to take over.”

“Don’t stop you’ve almost got it! Keep going! Keep going!”

“I’m working as fast as I can but I’ve got someone squawking at me every. Three. Seconds. Now zip it and let me work.”

“Are you in yet?”

“Wow. You lasted exactly two seconds. A personal record Charlie. Let me work.”

“Okay. Okay.”

“There.”

“About time. Grab ‘em and go! Go! Go! Go!”

“YOU TWO! HANDS UP!”

“Crap. Busted.”

“TURN AROUND! “EMPTY YOUR POCKETS!”

“It was all Jimmy’s idea!”

“My idea?!? My idea! You’re the one that knew where she kept the goods!”

“CHARLES! JAMES! HERE! NOW!!”

“Yes mom.”

“Yes mom.”

“Drop the candy. All of it Charles.”

“Yes mom.”

“I teach you two how to pick locks and this is how you use that skill?

“Bravo boys. But next time…wait until I go to bed.”

Cracked Flash: Year 3, Week 1

HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY I'm back from college! I oughtta be around for a long stretch this time. 

JSYK Ronel and Kelly are amazing. CFFC probably would have gone on hiatus for three or so months if they hadn't stepped up to the judging plate. Thank them when you next see them, please! 

ALSO we forgot to celebrate CFFC's second anniversary last month! We're onto Year Three as of June 27th!! I can't express how amazing y'all are to have stuck around this long!

So I'm back in the judging rotation, and I'll be judging this round :D

Have some rules c:

Judge This Week: Mars

Word Count: 300 max

How: Submit your stories as a comment to this post, along with your name, word count, and title (and Twitter handle or blog if you've got 'em!). One entry per person.

Deadline: Midnight tonight, PDT! 

Results announced: Next Wednesday afternoon.

Remember: Your entry must begin with the prompt! The prompt can be mutilated, but not beyond recognition. (Pictures do not need to be incorporated into your stories; they're for inspiration (and amusement).)

Prompt 

"I taught you to pick locks and this is how you use that skill?"