2022 March MOFA Contest Results, and April Contest Theme · 10:43pm Apr 3rd, 2022
A Round of Difficult Choices
When I announced the MOFA (Mockingbirb's Opinionated Flashfic Award) as a sort of annex side event to Loganberry's Flashfic 150, I said, "[Who] doesn't like telling people what to think sharing their opinions with others complimenting other people? "
The March 2022 round is a very special round. As I said in March, shortly after the deadline for entries:
I sure don't envy Loganberry his job of having to pick ONE favorite this month. I think you people are making it very hard. You meanies!
I, however, can pick my top X favorites, or say that multiple stories are my favorite in different ways, or whatever, so my job is easy by comparison.
I've started on my own secret MOFA judging, but the results of that won't come out until after Loganberry's rather higher-stakes award.
Accordingly, here are my results!
Honorable Mention for Extremely Good Opening
SparklingTwilight's "Expanded Fan-Fiction Universe of Myths"
I think this starts off with a GREAT beginning. But before the end, the author follows their conception of the story to, I think, ungracefully squeeze too many ideas into too few words, with results that I don't think quite justify the various incursions into T-rated territory with multiple red tags.
MOFA First Place: a Three-Way Tie
EileenSaysHi's "Video Games are Too Realistic These Days"
I thought Eileen's entry showed the best relationship between title and story. (They're both good, btw.) Eileen takes a commonplace remark or complaint, and gives it a new meaning.
I laughed at this, but if I think about it, I guess it's a seriously AU story. Still good, though. It turns out I really like well-done AU stories.
hamster wizard's "The Snail Might be a Metaphor"
Is my judging for this story fair? Or am I biased by my interest in old medieval manuscripts? I encourage hamster wizard to protest my selection of hamster's story for first place as biased.
I still think this story is good in itself, though, and well-titled.
Anyway, contest judging inevitably has an arbitrary or subjective element to it, so I guess I should congratulate all the writers whose stories were good in ways that I didn't optimally appreciate to understand that I should have given them MOFA awards too.
Entering For the April 2022 MOFA
In April 2022, the Flashfic 150 contest that happens to also provide a key part of the MOFA contest's mechanics has a new theme chosen by Flashfic 150 winner EileenSaysHi: "The Haunting!"
As usual, to enter for the MOFA, simply enter the Flashfic 150.
Glad you enjoyed my entry! I would also like to formally say that I do not believe Mockingbirb is in any way biased in this judging.