Here’s what the judges said …
Dave Obee
A flawless short story. Good writing sets the scene and pulls the reader into the story without drawing attention to the writing itself. The writer has captured the images, the feelings, the sounds and the smells of the location, while setting up the plot. The climax is powerful, surprising, somehow contriving to be frightening and peaceful at the same time. My greatest concern has to do with the ribbon: It seems to have a great significance, but I am missing it.
Yvonne Blomer
Wow to the title and the first sentence. It hooked me with beautiful language, it set me in a place and it showed the character in action — leaping out of the boat. In fact, this piece is at the top of my list because as a reader I am fully located in it, I know what is going on and I’m dazzled by metaphors. There is a great punish literary allusion in the name of the weaver — Beatrice Leda — recalling Leda from Greek mythology and Yeats’ poem Leda and the Swan. Fabulous work.
Sometimes, the writer gets a little carried away or the metaphor puzzles. As in, “Her black eyes glittered like plastic…” Hmm that stopped me.
Also, some sentences go adjective- and-descriptive heavy. As in: “I snapped a picture, then followed Scapino into a SHABBY house, through a FADED curtain and up a RICKETY set of stairs until we reached a SCUMMY room that overhung the canal.” Sometimes, less is more.
That said, this narrator is exuberant, so I give half points for that!
Love some of the metaphors: “a crooked bell tower leaned like a curious gossip.” YES.
Dave Wilson
Suffers from the word “miasma.” Never use this word. Some cliché: “like a cat’s cradle,” “childlike abandon,” “like a black widow;” some weakness in its description: “rickety set of stairs,” “scummy room,” “heavy sockets.”
Beautiful attention to specific nouns and verbs, excellent description. Does it go overboard? I would never say that. But an editor, who is not me, might say that. I appreciate the use of Italian and I appreciate this line: “We demand a sunset before we end.”
Suffers from not having anything at stake, even through there is so much at stake. The tendency is to think that we need a reveal, a big moment — such as when Beatrice leaps to her death, sure — but in reality, the best stories are stories that immediately reveal their emotional core, and then spend x-thousand words wrestling with that.
Why are we in the dark as to where she is going, and why? It’s first person, and retrospective, and this should be made clear to us at the start. Something like: “Before Beatrice Leda leapt to her death, she told me, We demand a sunset at our end.” That would give the piece direction and structure and drama.