17 July 2010

The First Weekly Drabble Dare - Results!

I must admit sending our Drabble Dare out in the blogosphere was nerve-wracking. We did not know whether it would make it among the big boys and girls (such as blog hops and follower contests). We pictured two extreme scenarios – either our challenge would not get any responses at all, or we would get so many that we wouldn’t be able to handle them. The second was perhaps not very realistic, and I don’t think we should worry about that in the immediate future. The first was more likely, but fortunately we shouldn’t have worried about that either. Instead we ended up with a perfectly manageable (though still flattering) number of entries (I am not telling you how many, though…).


Once the deadline was up, all we needed to do was to pick a favourite.

To say this was difficult is the understatement of the year.

We had entries from lovely authors around the world. The drabbles they wrote were quite different, and yet all of them fit so well with the image. I considered picking one at random, but then that didn’t seem fair...

In the end I sat down and thought through what qualities I am thinking about when writing a drabble to accompany an image.

First of all the drabble needs to be exactly 100 words in order to be a drabble. Check on all entries.

Secondly, the drabble is supposed to be a mini-story. Naturally it is difficult (if not impossible) to include all the elements that normally go into a story, but at the very least I’d like the drabbles I write to hint at a story, even if they might only portray one tiny fraction of it.

Third, I really like the drabbles to be tied to the image, and I love it if they are connected in a surprising way.

Several of our entries still qualified according to these elements, but I was finally able to decide on one favourite (with two very close runners-up).

The drabble I picked is well-tied to the image. It had a (to me, at least) surprising point of view, and it invites several interpretations.

So...

The winner of the Burrow’s First Drabble Dare is… (I bet you all have scrolled down to this part anyway…)

*drumroll*



Erin Baughn

Congratulations! :) Pool party at Tami's to celebrate!






Conversation - Camille Pissarro

Camille Pissarro - ConversationIt was the dividing line between my world and something I couldn’t possibly imagine. If they were one and the same… no, that wasn’t possible.

The only person who had the ability to cross it was my father. My sister called him the ‘dimension traveler’, whatever that meant.

I had never seen anyone besides my family before I saw the girl. She was standing on the gravel road, sniffing the flowers that grew at the edge. She asked for me to come out and play. I shook my head. She stuck her hand and a flower over it.

Time stopped.





Don’t forget to check back in tomorrow – we will have a new picture up to inspire new drabbles from your pens (or keyboards, as the case may be).

7 comments:

RosieC said...

Congratulations, Erin!!

Mary@GigglesandGuns said...

Congratulations, Erin!
So many directions for the mind to go with this drabble depending on the genre. Terrific!
Giggles and Guns

Hart Johnson said...

FABULOUS! Erin, congrats! And Mari, Erin really could come to my house--she is local, and... impressively, wrote this winning drabble at age 15! I didn't know whose was whose when we looked... very impressive!

Unknown said...

Congrats Erin! And thanks to all those who entered. It was a very difficult decision indeed. :D

Erin said...

Golly. :D Thanks!

Ella said...

Congrats~very exciting!!!

Natasha said...

Congratulations, Erin.

The amount you have condensed into 100 words is amazing. You are mega talented, as June babies tend to be *wink*