When I heard what you had done, my mouth dropped open No wonder you won! I, however, did not come close to picking that up. I know of Gilbert & Sullivan, but cannot remember ever hearing the song referenced. Sorry to have missed your story so badly.
No apologies necessary, Parson! It's always a gamble referencing something, and I was staking everything on people getting the reference and being amused by it, giving me an extra lift on top of the story itself -- I'm astounded (and very grateful!) that elvet voted for it just as a poem without being aware of the original. If you haven't already, have a look at a couple of recordings of it and google the lyrics which are stupendously daft! And next time I sneak G&S into the title, be ready!
To be honest I am quite disappointed with the result because I felt it was possibly my strongest entry to date. I know I should be grateful for getting a couple of votes and some mentions, especially as there have been multiple occasions when I have received neither but it has set me to wondering if a majority of this fine ensemble simply do not enjoy dark stories or unhappy endings? If that is the case it is unfortunate for me because I have depths of darkness to plumb!
Oddly enough I was thinking about this myself, but on a quick look at my own pieces, there's no apparent correlation between humour and votes on the one hand, and dark stories and no votes on the other -- some of my darks have reaped wins, some of my funny pieces have sunk without trace, and vice versa. Partly it will depend on the theme and genre, I imagine. Partly also on the other stories because we don't read one 75 worder in a vacuum -- if everyone is dark and you (ie one, not you personally) are funny, that can be attractive, and if there are lots of brilliant stories, or even one outstanding piece, it will get the vote you might otherwise have picked up in a more mediocre field. We all know how it feels to put up what we think is a vote-catcher which catches no attention at all, and as you say two votes aren't to be sniffed at, but perhaps put the story up in the Improving thread and get specific feedback.
Great photo of the clock! As Ursa says, we used it in the very first 300, so it's given inspiration to many of us!
I have a question. If it has been addressed before and I missed the response, I apologize.
Edited: I might answer my own question and guess that they were not planned that way , never knowing how popular or how many entries might be submitted.
Actually, we guessed that would happen, since writing the longer piece would take more commitment and therefore would attract fewer entrants.
The 75s had been going a year before we introduced the 300s, so we'd had some experience of voting, and we'd already realised we have a problem with getting people to vote. Off the top of my head I don't think we've ever had a month when everyone who took part in a Challenge voted in that Challenge -- people forget, or lose track of the date, or are too busy, or get called away, or they're newbies who don't understand, and some members simply have had no intention of voting. And while we encourage non-participants to vote, and we have a lot of lovely people who have done that, very often we have fewer voters than participants. As a result I for one was worried that with fewer members taking part, we might actually end up with so few votes in the 300s that it wouldn't reflect on the work done. It's dispiriting enough to get no votes in a 75 worder, but it's easier to shrug off -- plenty of other participants are in the same boat, it's only a bit of fun, and there's always another Challenge next month.
The other big difference is that originally the 300 worder carried a prize which Brian was kind enough to provide. With something tangible at stake, it was important to ensure that we had as many votes as possible so the best stories would pull away from the crowd.**
I think we'd already had a 75 worder with more than one vote each by way of a "present" and certainly we were used to getting members clamouring for more votes in the 75s. So we decided to go with 3 votes for the 300s to quieten some clamours, to give more votes and therefore encourage more participants, and also it helped distinguish it from the 75s.
** though ironically in the third 300 worder we had exactly the bunching at the top we'd hoped to avoid, with 4 stories on 7 votes apiece!
