“Thundercats, ho!”

Well, here we go again! Another Writing Battle, and this time, it’s 500 words in 48 hours with well over 1,800 participants from around the globe, all vying for first place in 4 genres. Each finalist wins $2,000; runners-up win something like $1,000.

Writing Battle is a fun contest that gets my writing group all twitterpated. You never know what you’ll get; you don’t even know the genres until 15 minutes before the battle starts.

This year, the four genres were There’s Only One Bed, Disaster, Medical Drama, and Witchcraft. I liked them all and landed under Medical Drama.

Based on the T&Cs, I can’t reveal my subject, setting, or any more details about my story, but let’s just say my first card draws were phenomenal and I stuck with Medical Drama.

I look forward to a good contest! We’ll see what happens! Stay tuned!

Debrief

Well, it’s Thursday, May 30, and the peer-based judging is done. Our stories are sharable. I drew the following cards as prompts.

Stats for this contest:

• There were 1903 writers with 1410 stories.

• 292 Medical Drama Stories were entered. This is my cohort.

The setting card — Hospital — was, well, perfect, but my character card, Psychopath … I was tempted to redraw it. Instead, I ran with it and wrote my story. And honestly, I’ve regretted it from the day I uploaded it.

Under the Knife is a Medical Drama set in a Hospital and features a Psychopath. I played the hand I was dealt and wrote a good story. You might have guessed it’s a psychological suspense that doesn’t end well, and that’s its problem: it’s very predictable.

Aside from that, it’s not a feel-good story. The takeaway is dark. And compared with other Medical Dramas, I’m willing to bet my story’s been dueling against happy-go-lucky-fun-things that leave a better taste in someone’s mouth. Therefore, I’m not sure how it’ll perform.

I think the story’s likely to be voted down in a duel because it doesn’t feel as good as a happy-ending competitor. Keeping with my cat analogy, it’s like a deranged-looking Calico with matted hair. How long do you want to keep that in your lap?

I’ve made my peace with it, I suppose, and accept that it’s good for what it is, although I fear it’s exceedingly unlikely to do well if it makes it beyond the peer review.

Medical Dramas explore the lives and challenges of healthcare professionals and patients and the situations they face. Aside from a murder, I included a section in the piece where I point out the challenges women practitioners face from male patients.

David, an older male patient, is given medical information by Dr. Patel, a female cardiologist. Distrusting a woman's word, David turns to her assistant, Dr. Michael Thompson, hoping he’ll sort it all out.

I know this might come as a shock to you but women get slack in professional fields, especially from older men who want confirmation from another man that women know what they’re talking about.

As if it takes a man to convey real facts.

Be it equal pay for equal work or just being trusted, I’m hoping enough readers have either experienced this or recognized it and had a chuckle. It’s a challenge professional women face every day.

Also, I submitted the story on May 4th, so the piece has a Star Wars Easter Egg. It’s not difficult to spot.

See? See!! I tried to liven it up a bit—it’s not all scary and gloomy!

I deliberately wanted to trick the reader and keep them guessing where the “jump-scare” would be. I kept to a recognizable, comfortable script where people may have gone “Under the Knife” themselves. Maybe they recognized the pattern and were surprised when the “attack” came. If not, it may instill a new horror element when they go “Under the Knife” and recognize the patterns. Who can say? :)

The peer judging results will be released next week. We’ll then see if the story advances to the next round.

All the best and good luck to everyone in the contest!

June 7 — the results are out, and so am I!

Right out of the gate, the story under-performed against its Round 1 competitors, losing to a story ranked 5 at the close of the contest. Worst-opener ever for one of my stories.

I could have lived with that if I’d managed to pick up every single contest from thereon out, but the death knell came in Round 3, with a loss to Pathogen, a story ultimately ranked 4 at the close of the contest.

As Pathogen lost most of its battles, I should have beaten it, but no, some emotional response to my psychopath prevented the win. That one snubbed me out of the running, and I lost my tie-breakers at the end.

In all, the story didn’t do that bad and received an Honorable Mention:

Still, I’m disappointed in its performance in Round 3.

That’s the thing with Writing Battle. You never know what you’re going to get. I opened so poorly — the worst-performing story on the platform I’d ever written, losing both of its battles in the first round — I can only assume because of its aggressive unpleasantness compared to its competitors.

The story would be in the finals if I’d beat Pathogen — and there was no rational reason why I shouldn’t have.

Lessons learned, though … note to self: don’t write a mangy, drooling Calico :) Make the reader want to bring the cat into your lap!

Re-select the prompts to write a more compelling story!

Onward and upward!

R