5...4...3...2...1...Ding! Time's up! 
CFC's latest Iron Pen Competitors have now finished their stories and are eagerly awaiting your comments and the outcome of the voting!
Please welcome the competitors for this challenge:
Iron Pen Sabotage Phantom
Iron Pen Spiderpig
who have submitted entries incorporating the mystery theme I Need a Vacation!.
Late June/early July are traditionally the time of year when many people start thinking of "getting away from it all." So let us join our two worthy contestants on their own vacations.
Comments/critiques: Please keep in mind that the main objective of Iron Pen is to give the writers constructive feedback on their stories. Please say why you liked or didn't like the stories. What changes would you suggest, if any? If you were writing a story on this theme, would you have done so similarly to the way the two current competitors have, or would you take another approach entirely?
Judging:
When judging, you may wish to consider these criteria, among any other personal preferences you might have:
Length. Did the story meet the minimum required length? Did it exceed the maximum length? This requirement is meant partially as a way to keep the competition fair, as it's harder to judge fairly if one story is (for example) 2000 words and the other only 500 words. Also, if a writer wants to submit stories professionally, there will be length restrictions involved in that. It never hurts to start practicing writing to meet specified requirements.
*Note: Both stories have met the minimum/maximum word counts.
Mechanics. This is a presentation criterion. A story that is good in terms of plot, characters, and theme may have typos, formatting errors, etc. which can distract the reader. No matter if the story is written for recreation or for professional submission, proofreading matters.
Characterization: Do you think the characters are believable? Has the author succeeded in making the reader care what happens to them?
Secret Theme: Do you think the author used the theme effectively?
Entertainment: This is the major criterion. The main goal of any story is to entertain the reader and provide an interesting reading experience. Do you think the author succeeded in doing this?
Voting: The voting/scoring is explained below, after the second story.
And now, on with the stories!
"So why don't you tell me why you're really not at home? Or at least somewhere more pleasant than my office?" Robert said.
Rafael grunted, and his expression turned wry. "You know perfectly well why not! You warned me about it the first night we met."
Robert chuckled. "Every man needing to recoup his family fortunes since the Bank Panic pestering you to invest or to marry his eligible daughter."
"Aye. And many of those daughters aren't even eligible yet. And many of the older ones are flinging themselves at me in person. I still find it difficult to believe that so many of the Lords are so desperate for money."
"You weren't here for the Bank Panic," Robert responded. "The fortunes lost beggar the imagination.
"And here you are, a foreigner, so no messy political entanglements to rivals. Knighted, so socially acceptable. Rich, which trumps all else. And now you even have the favor of the king! I warned you this would happen."
"Aye, you warned me. And my thanks for that! But I don't think I really believed it would get so bad. They send letters, they come to the house, they ambush me at any gathering I go to, or even out in public."
"Didn't you have plans to take a holiday for the summer?" Robert asked.
"Aye. Rented a cottage on the shore at a remote village," Rafael responded. "I was supposed to go last week. But the railroad said they had to repair a bridge. I need a vacation!"
"So go home, get ready for it. And quit pestering me so I can get some work done. You can't do anything about the ships you've invested in except wait on them. You can wait as well at that cottage."
***
Rafael took a cab back to his house. As he paid off the cabbie and climbed the steps to the front door, he was met by his housekeeper, Jessi, who had what he thought of as her 'bad news' expression on.
Sighing to himself, he asked "What news now, Jessi?"
"Sir," Jessi answered, "Lady Deborah is waiting in the parlor for you. Again. The boiler has sprung a leak, and the floor of the cold cellar is covered in water. And the mail has come, with several more invitations to social events of the season."
"The boiler was new just last year!" he exclaimed.
"Yes sir. I've taken the liberty of summoning the installer to fix it."
Rafael nodded at that. "And the girl? I don't see her carriage."
"She came by cab and dismissed it before the maid even opened the door for her."
Sighing out loud this time, "Well, I suppose I have no choice but to speak with her then. Gods I need a vacation... " Entering the house, he went to the parlor and smiled, "Lady Deborah, so good to see you again. What brings you out on such a hot day?"
"My father again." she responded, as she stood to greet him. She was a short girl, so Rafael could tell she was wearing quite high heels, as was sometimes the fashion. She also wore the latest in husband hunting clothes for the fashionable set, what they called a pencil skirt, and a neckline so plunging that calling it daring was doing it considerable injustice. "He's becoming more insistent that I seduce and marry you. Or someone of means, at any rate. And you seem to be his best candidate. As the family fortunes fall, he becomes more desperate, and is taking it out on me. This morning his creditors came to the house."
"I do appreciate that you're being honest with me." he replied. "But I can't help wonder why you'd hurt your cause so."
"Father didn't just lose his fortune, but alienated all his political allies as well. So the family misfortune is constantly being printed in the broadsheets. It would take a fool to miss it. And I don't think you a fool. So I would gain what by lying to you?" She said as she approached him and laid a hand on his arm, guiding him to a sofa so that they could sit side by side. "My family will soon be in ruins, and me along with it. Unless I can persuade someone to rescue me?"
"I'm sorry. As I told you before, I have grown children, and no desire to marry again."
"Your mistress left, and you have plans to go away for the summer. Take me, I could be your mistress."
"And that would certainly ruin your chances for a good marriage!"
"My chances for a good marriage are already in ruins. I'm coming to think that my only chances are to break with my family. You needn't love me. Just take me away."
"I'm sorry, my dear. But that wouldn't end as you want it to."
***
After Deborah left, Rafael went through his mail. Just in that day's mail, no less than a dozen invitations to various events. Events where the wealthy and powerful paraded their offspring in search of alliances. "Gods, I need a vacation," he muttered to himself. There were also several letters suggesting various meetings, business ventures, even a few direct marriage proposals, from the fathers, for girls he hadn't even met
Paul chuckled from where he was reading by the window. "You don't have to accept any of them."
"And I won't. But they just keep coming!"
"So pick one and marry her. That'll end it!"
"You aren't helping. If I married one, I'd never hear the end of her father asking me for money!"
"Speaking of which, isn't that Lord Adlescroft's carriage turning into your drive? And I think I see his daughter with him."
Rafael head fell into his hands, "Gods, I need a vacation!"
Disclaimer: I write this with the permission of the author of "How I Spent My (Forced) Vacation"
I wake up to Big Richard forcing air into my lungs, and slapping me desperately with a dead fish?
"C'mon wake up on me batman, you gotta live for me. You have so much potential. Wake up you idiot. Baka "
"I'm awake damnit, stop slapping me with your fish."
I force myself to sit up, and study my surroundings. I'm on a beach, or what seems like a beach, although the sand is composed of unbroken down limestone which digs into my flesh, and the sea is a murky brown color. The strangest part though are the inhabitants. From neck down they wear business suits, but they have the heads of sharks. It is an unnerving and disturbing combination, and I hope to god in this post Twilight YA market, the people dont try to romanticize half human half shark hybrids, cause trust me it isn't sexy. In fact, Im pretty sure I will be using this image to kill boners for the rest of my life.
I make a motion to dust myself off and leave. I prefer the indoors to the great outdoors at the best of times, and this beach is hardly endearing itself to me, but Big Richard grabs my wrist and drags me over to a gathering of a dozen or so shark people. They sit around a deck of cards, playing blackjack. I ask Richard, "Who are these people? Where are we?"
"Theyre the loan sharks. This is their beach."
I raise my eyebrows at that. "Real subtle, Richard, real subtle."
He scowls at that. "Look man, it isnt like this is a deconstruction of American capitalist society here. Im not a postmodernist", he says, spitting out the word postmodernist like it was a filthy word. "This is a whimsical road trip vacation story."
"I thought I was supposed to save the world?"
"Saving the world is a vacation."
Before I can argue, one of the sharks chooses to address us, "Hail strangers, are you creditors or debtors?"
Before I can curb my tongue I say, "Between student loans and my mortgage, I can safely say Im a debtor."
A murmur passes through the gathering and they all look at each other questioningly, before quieting down in some kind of unspoken consensus. The shark who spoke to us motions for us to sit down.
"Thats fine. Debtors are friends not food."
"So what are you gentlemen doing here? I assume you didnt come to play blackjack?"
One of the loan sharks answers, "Hell no, were just waiting while some recalcitrant debtors are shaken down."
He points to a bonfire in the distance. Above it is a cauldron with the words "legal hot water" inscribed in big bold strokes. Above that is a cage filled with terrified creatures who were neck down humans with the faces of Marlin and Dori from Finding Nemo? I think I can safely say this is more disturbing than the sharks.
"Im pretty sure this is illegal," I say in a shaky voice. I think I've been dealing pretty well so far all things considered, but this is too much.
"I know what youre thinking, another shark in the gathering tells me, "But it isnt like were going to kill them or anything. Were just scaring them until they pay."
"And what if they cant pay?" I ask softly.
Then cardboard with 1,000,000,000 scrawled on it falls out of my pocket. Its a debt I wrote to my seven year old niece when I couldnt find the time to visit because I moved to a new place. To mollify her I wrote her an IOU. Since then weve come to the agreement that no, I didnt actually mean I would pay her a billion dollars, but that wouldnt stop her from using it to pester me to buy her toys.
The debt however, causes a change in sharks. They sit up ramrod straight, then get up to circle me. I can hear the jaws music play in my head. They say nothing, instead sizing me up, then sizing each other up.
"Congratulations, Richard tells me, "Youve got their debt senses tingling. Now theyll go into a feeding frenzy."
"Its not even legally binding!"
"Try telling that to them."
I give him the middle finger before I cut and run. It isn't until I hit the shore and a wave knocks me down that I realize I should've run the other way. The sharks are gaining on me, the front runners no more than fifteen feet, then ten, then five
The adrenaline coursing through my veins ensures I don't stay down for long, and I pull out the cardboard and wave it in their faces, yelling, "You want this beeeps? Then go get it" and I throw it into the water. I nearly get trampled by the sharks as they dive into the water, snapping and snarling at each other. Once one of them bites a chunk of flesh from another, all rules seem to be scrapped, and I'm sure at least one person will be walking out of that mess with a removed testicle.
It doesn't take long for bad to go to worse. A tentacle shoots out of the water punching a shark into the horizon like they were doing a reenactment of Team Rocket's exits. Then another shark, then another, then a tentacle curls up and drags a bunch of loan sharks to the bottom of the ocean.
Big Richard is next to me huffing from exertion. I turn to him questioningly.
"Oh, it's a recession, it happens when there are bad debts floating around, like the fake debt you had on you."
"I don't think that's how the economy works."
"It's as reasonable an explanation as any."
I shrug. I suppose I can't argue with that.
"So what now?" I ask, "After freeing those poor fish things of course."
"Now?" Richard repeats. "No road trip is complete without a trip to Vegas."
Voting:
How this works: This is an anonymous, multiple-choice poll. Please vote for one choice for each contestant. That's 2 votes in all. VBulletin isn't set up for multiple questions within the same poll, so this is the only way to do this without having separate threads for each story.
The poll choices represent scores from 1-5 points, on a scale of how well you think the story met the judging guidelines outlined above.
A = 5 points
B = 4 points
C = 3 points
D = 2 points
F = 1 point
How the scoring works is that the totals for each grade will be added up and used to arrive at an overall score. It is possible for a tie to happen, and if it does, I will not be casting a tie-breaking vote.
Please do not vote more than twice, as that would result in unbalanced (and unfair) votes.
Please take the time to offer comments and constructive feedback, as well as voting. The people who compete in these contests work hard on their stories, and appreciate knowing what readers think of them. The poll will be open for 10 days.
CFC's latest Iron Pen Competitors have now finished their stories and are eagerly awaiting your comments and the outcome of the voting!
Please welcome the competitors for this challenge:
Iron Pen Sabotage Phantom
Iron Pen Spiderpig
who have submitted entries incorporating the mystery theme I Need a Vacation!.
Late June/early July are traditionally the time of year when many people start thinking of "getting away from it all." So let us join our two worthy contestants on their own vacations.
Comments/critiques: Please keep in mind that the main objective of Iron Pen is to give the writers constructive feedback on their stories. Please say why you liked or didn't like the stories. What changes would you suggest, if any? If you were writing a story on this theme, would you have done so similarly to the way the two current competitors have, or would you take another approach entirely?
Judging:
When judging, you may wish to consider these criteria, among any other personal preferences you might have:
Length. Did the story meet the minimum required length? Did it exceed the maximum length? This requirement is meant partially as a way to keep the competition fair, as it's harder to judge fairly if one story is (for example) 2000 words and the other only 500 words. Also, if a writer wants to submit stories professionally, there will be length restrictions involved in that. It never hurts to start practicing writing to meet specified requirements.
*Note: Both stories have met the minimum/maximum word counts.
Mechanics. This is a presentation criterion. A story that is good in terms of plot, characters, and theme may have typos, formatting errors, etc. which can distract the reader. No matter if the story is written for recreation or for professional submission, proofreading matters.
Characterization: Do you think the characters are believable? Has the author succeeded in making the reader care what happens to them?
Secret Theme: Do you think the author used the theme effectively?
Entertainment: This is the major criterion. The main goal of any story is to entertain the reader and provide an interesting reading experience. Do you think the author succeeded in doing this?
Voting: The voting/scoring is explained below, after the second story.
And now, on with the stories!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He Really, Really, Needs To Get Away.
by Iron Pen Sabotage Phantom
"So why don't you tell me why you're really not at home? Or at least somewhere more pleasant than my office?" Robert said.
Rafael grunted, and his expression turned wry. "You know perfectly well why not! You warned me about it the first night we met."
Robert chuckled. "Every man needing to recoup his family fortunes since the Bank Panic pestering you to invest or to marry his eligible daughter."
"Aye. And many of those daughters aren't even eligible yet. And many of the older ones are flinging themselves at me in person. I still find it difficult to believe that so many of the Lords are so desperate for money."
"You weren't here for the Bank Panic," Robert responded. "The fortunes lost beggar the imagination.
"And here you are, a foreigner, so no messy political entanglements to rivals. Knighted, so socially acceptable. Rich, which trumps all else. And now you even have the favor of the king! I warned you this would happen."
"Aye, you warned me. And my thanks for that! But I don't think I really believed it would get so bad. They send letters, they come to the house, they ambush me at any gathering I go to, or even out in public."
"Didn't you have plans to take a holiday for the summer?" Robert asked.
"Aye. Rented a cottage on the shore at a remote village," Rafael responded. "I was supposed to go last week. But the railroad said they had to repair a bridge. I need a vacation!"
"So go home, get ready for it. And quit pestering me so I can get some work done. You can't do anything about the ships you've invested in except wait on them. You can wait as well at that cottage."
***
Rafael took a cab back to his house. As he paid off the cabbie and climbed the steps to the front door, he was met by his housekeeper, Jessi, who had what he thought of as her 'bad news' expression on.
Sighing to himself, he asked "What news now, Jessi?"
"Sir," Jessi answered, "Lady Deborah is waiting in the parlor for you. Again. The boiler has sprung a leak, and the floor of the cold cellar is covered in water. And the mail has come, with several more invitations to social events of the season."
"The boiler was new just last year!" he exclaimed.
"Yes sir. I've taken the liberty of summoning the installer to fix it."
Rafael nodded at that. "And the girl? I don't see her carriage."
"She came by cab and dismissed it before the maid even opened the door for her."
Sighing out loud this time, "Well, I suppose I have no choice but to speak with her then. Gods I need a vacation... " Entering the house, he went to the parlor and smiled, "Lady Deborah, so good to see you again. What brings you out on such a hot day?"
"My father again." she responded, as she stood to greet him. She was a short girl, so Rafael could tell she was wearing quite high heels, as was sometimes the fashion. She also wore the latest in husband hunting clothes for the fashionable set, what they called a pencil skirt, and a neckline so plunging that calling it daring was doing it considerable injustice. "He's becoming more insistent that I seduce and marry you. Or someone of means, at any rate. And you seem to be his best candidate. As the family fortunes fall, he becomes more desperate, and is taking it out on me. This morning his creditors came to the house."
"I do appreciate that you're being honest with me." he replied. "But I can't help wonder why you'd hurt your cause so."
"Father didn't just lose his fortune, but alienated all his political allies as well. So the family misfortune is constantly being printed in the broadsheets. It would take a fool to miss it. And I don't think you a fool. So I would gain what by lying to you?" She said as she approached him and laid a hand on his arm, guiding him to a sofa so that they could sit side by side. "My family will soon be in ruins, and me along with it. Unless I can persuade someone to rescue me?"
"I'm sorry. As I told you before, I have grown children, and no desire to marry again."
"Your mistress left, and you have plans to go away for the summer. Take me, I could be your mistress."
"And that would certainly ruin your chances for a good marriage!"
"My chances for a good marriage are already in ruins. I'm coming to think that my only chances are to break with my family. You needn't love me. Just take me away."
"I'm sorry, my dear. But that wouldn't end as you want it to."
***
After Deborah left, Rafael went through his mail. Just in that day's mail, no less than a dozen invitations to various events. Events where the wealthy and powerful paraded their offspring in search of alliances. "Gods, I need a vacation," he muttered to himself. There were also several letters suggesting various meetings, business ventures, even a few direct marriage proposals, from the fathers, for girls he hadn't even met
Paul chuckled from where he was reading by the window. "You don't have to accept any of them."
"And I won't. But they just keep coming!"
"So pick one and marry her. That'll end it!"
"You aren't helping. If I married one, I'd never hear the end of her father asking me for money!"
"Speaking of which, isn't that Lord Adlescroft's carriage turning into your drive? And I think I see his daughter with him."
Rafael head fell into his hands, "Gods, I need a vacation!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
How I Spent My (Forced) Vacation
Day 2: The Beach
Day 2: The Beach
by Iron Pen Spiderpig
Disclaimer: I write this with the permission of the author of "How I Spent My (Forced) Vacation"
I wake up to Big Richard forcing air into my lungs, and slapping me desperately with a dead fish?
"C'mon wake up on me batman, you gotta live for me. You have so much potential. Wake up you idiot. Baka "
"I'm awake damnit, stop slapping me with your fish."
I force myself to sit up, and study my surroundings. I'm on a beach, or what seems like a beach, although the sand is composed of unbroken down limestone which digs into my flesh, and the sea is a murky brown color. The strangest part though are the inhabitants. From neck down they wear business suits, but they have the heads of sharks. It is an unnerving and disturbing combination, and I hope to god in this post Twilight YA market, the people dont try to romanticize half human half shark hybrids, cause trust me it isn't sexy. In fact, Im pretty sure I will be using this image to kill boners for the rest of my life.
I make a motion to dust myself off and leave. I prefer the indoors to the great outdoors at the best of times, and this beach is hardly endearing itself to me, but Big Richard grabs my wrist and drags me over to a gathering of a dozen or so shark people. They sit around a deck of cards, playing blackjack. I ask Richard, "Who are these people? Where are we?"
"Theyre the loan sharks. This is their beach."
I raise my eyebrows at that. "Real subtle, Richard, real subtle."
He scowls at that. "Look man, it isnt like this is a deconstruction of American capitalist society here. Im not a postmodernist", he says, spitting out the word postmodernist like it was a filthy word. "This is a whimsical road trip vacation story."
"I thought I was supposed to save the world?"
"Saving the world is a vacation."
Before I can argue, one of the sharks chooses to address us, "Hail strangers, are you creditors or debtors?"
Before I can curb my tongue I say, "Between student loans and my mortgage, I can safely say Im a debtor."
A murmur passes through the gathering and they all look at each other questioningly, before quieting down in some kind of unspoken consensus. The shark who spoke to us motions for us to sit down.
"Thats fine. Debtors are friends not food."
"So what are you gentlemen doing here? I assume you didnt come to play blackjack?"
One of the loan sharks answers, "Hell no, were just waiting while some recalcitrant debtors are shaken down."
He points to a bonfire in the distance. Above it is a cauldron with the words "legal hot water" inscribed in big bold strokes. Above that is a cage filled with terrified creatures who were neck down humans with the faces of Marlin and Dori from Finding Nemo? I think I can safely say this is more disturbing than the sharks.
"Im pretty sure this is illegal," I say in a shaky voice. I think I've been dealing pretty well so far all things considered, but this is too much.
"I know what youre thinking, another shark in the gathering tells me, "But it isnt like were going to kill them or anything. Were just scaring them until they pay."
"And what if they cant pay?" I ask softly.
Then cardboard with 1,000,000,000 scrawled on it falls out of my pocket. Its a debt I wrote to my seven year old niece when I couldnt find the time to visit because I moved to a new place. To mollify her I wrote her an IOU. Since then weve come to the agreement that no, I didnt actually mean I would pay her a billion dollars, but that wouldnt stop her from using it to pester me to buy her toys.
The debt however, causes a change in sharks. They sit up ramrod straight, then get up to circle me. I can hear the jaws music play in my head. They say nothing, instead sizing me up, then sizing each other up.
"Congratulations, Richard tells me, "Youve got their debt senses tingling. Now theyll go into a feeding frenzy."
"Its not even legally binding!"
"Try telling that to them."
I give him the middle finger before I cut and run. It isn't until I hit the shore and a wave knocks me down that I realize I should've run the other way. The sharks are gaining on me, the front runners no more than fifteen feet, then ten, then five
The adrenaline coursing through my veins ensures I don't stay down for long, and I pull out the cardboard and wave it in their faces, yelling, "You want this beeeps? Then go get it" and I throw it into the water. I nearly get trampled by the sharks as they dive into the water, snapping and snarling at each other. Once one of them bites a chunk of flesh from another, all rules seem to be scrapped, and I'm sure at least one person will be walking out of that mess with a removed testicle.
It doesn't take long for bad to go to worse. A tentacle shoots out of the water punching a shark into the horizon like they were doing a reenactment of Team Rocket's exits. Then another shark, then another, then a tentacle curls up and drags a bunch of loan sharks to the bottom of the ocean.
Big Richard is next to me huffing from exertion. I turn to him questioningly.
"Oh, it's a recession, it happens when there are bad debts floating around, like the fake debt you had on you."
"I don't think that's how the economy works."
"It's as reasonable an explanation as any."
I shrug. I suppose I can't argue with that.
"So what now?" I ask, "After freeing those poor fish things of course."
"Now?" Richard repeats. "No road trip is complete without a trip to Vegas."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Voting:
How this works: This is an anonymous, multiple-choice poll. Please vote for one choice for each contestant. That's 2 votes in all. VBulletin isn't set up for multiple questions within the same poll, so this is the only way to do this without having separate threads for each story.
The poll choices represent scores from 1-5 points, on a scale of how well you think the story met the judging guidelines outlined above.
A = 5 points
B = 4 points
C = 3 points
D = 2 points
F = 1 point
How the scoring works is that the totals for each grade will be added up and used to arrive at an overall score. It is possible for a tie to happen, and if it does, I will not be casting a tie-breaking vote.
Please do not vote more than twice, as that would result in unbalanced (and unfair) votes.
Please take the time to offer comments and constructive feedback, as well as voting. The people who compete in these contests work hard on their stories, and appreciate knowing what readers think of them. The poll will be open for 10 days.
