Thank you so much to everyone who participated in and supported the #fiftywords short story contest I posted last week with the prompt of “bark.” The entries were all remarkable and I am so impressed with the beauty, emotion, humor and irony conveyed in so many of these stories. I received a total of 44 entries, and every single one had merit!

(Image credit: Original image by pixel2013, Pixabay)

This was the first official contest I have organized. I’ve always wondered how contest judges managed to choose among multiple excellent entries, and it is even harder than I thought. I will forevermore be mindful of their challenges.

I’ll start by sharing a little about the review and judging process. (Even though I know you’re skipping to the end right now, you cheater! Ha ha.)

The contest judging process

1. First, I put all of the entries in a spreadsheet and checked each of them for the contest rules. Did the entrant resteem, and upvote to support the contest? Did the entrant have the rights to the image and credit it properly? Almost all entrants followed all rules! (But yes, I was able to weed out a few. Hey, I had to start somewhere!)

2. Next, I looked at all the entries with the “extra credit” items in mind. Did the story have an attention-grabbing title? Was the writing high quality and grammatically correct? Did the writer read and comment on other contest entries? (Whew! I was able to weed out a few more.)

3. Now it was time to choose a winner. I was down to 30 entries, all of which were beautifully done, had followed all the rules, and taken the additional steps in the extra credit. Choosing a winner is, of course, the most challenging part of the judging process, because it is unfortunately subjective! In choosing a winner, I looked for an entry that was truly sublime -- a piece of writing that made every word count in a beautiful and poignant way, that made me want to read the story more than once to truly savor it, and that gave me that feeling that this little 50-word vignette is part of a complete world, like the best-told full-length stories.

Read on!

Honorable mentions

There were so many great entries, that I just had to choose a few from the final round to mention here, as they are so interesting, suspenseful, poignant (sometime heart-wrenching) or thought-provoking. We had stories of dog rescues, dogs in heaven, and beautiful and sad carvings in trees. The genres spanned the gamut from humor writing to fantasy, science fiction, historic fiction, literary writing and love stories. There were stories with morals, puns, and irony. In other words, it was all phenomenal reading.

The following are just a few of the most awesome posts that survived the cuts, grabbed my attention, and made me want to see more work from that writer. (But there were so many more!)

For each one, I’ve listed one of its salient qualities:

• Clever: Stumps, by @ilt-yodith

• Poetic: A Lonely Sound, by @negativer

• Funny: The Postman’s Rebuttal, by @brandonsadventur

• Suspenseful: Freedom, by @marie-jay and BARK: The Escape, by @wilfredn

• Poignant: A Bark Was not Enough, by @agmoore

• Eerie: Walmart at 3 AM, by @caleblailmusik

• Thought-provoking: The Lunar Fall, by @prydefoltz, and The Hive, by @naquoya

• Best sci fi: Automaton Oligarchy, by @aksounder

• Best historic fiction: For Science, by @damianjayclay

• Best love story: B + B, by @cizzo

• Best horror: Griff, by @felt.buzz

• Best poem: Curse of the Bark, by @momzillanc

• Most powerful message: Forever, by @adigitalife

• Best hug-a-tree story: The Magic of Nature, by @therosepatch

• Unique use of “bark”: A Prehistoric Walk In the Park, by @creatr

• Intriguing: Dogs Still Bark In Heaven, by @ldacey-laforge

At last -- the winning story!

Congratulations to @alheath for the winning entry, Benji's Bark!

This beautiful little piece of micro-fiction has it all. It sets a mood. It puts the reader solidly in a place. It has rich imagery that makes us see and feel that something really intense is going on. And it leaves us wanting more. All in 50 words. Nice job, @alheath!

Thank you again, everyone! This has been an amazing journey.

Will I run this contest again? Yes! I will put up a new contest post, so stay tuned! @miniature-tiger, please let me know when you want to take back #fiftywords. I am just keeping some kindling on the fire you started!