Raine

Thanks guys, and sorry for my slow reply (I am currently on a canal boat!)

These are all extremely helpful ideas, great brainstorming. I am going to take some time to digest it all and see what speaks to me.

I do like the idea of a fairly “quaint” or “middle class pretty” town which contrasts with the trauma of abduction. Also the theme (which…[Read more]

Nice prompt… Looking forward to getting my teeth stuck into this one.

Thanks, Daeds, a valid point and I appreciate the input.

Thanks John. Mostly I meant that you make us feel what it was like so well, the few places where you just tell us something directly stood out – e.g. ‘but the loss of his attendance bonus would have been intolerable’ – I would have preferred a sense of what intolerable meant to them. But it’s a seriously picky point for such a short word count…[Read more]

Well done Seagreen, fully deserved.
Thanks, Daeds. Yes, I was in SA for the election. What do you mean by “on the nose”?

Absolutely delighted for you Janette -thoroughly deserved of course

Well done, Janette – that’s wonderful news!

The online version of my story is now ready to view. Here is the link if you’d like to take a look:
2018 DG Comp – First Place

Well done, Sea 🙂 A very well deserved win. And thanks Daed for getting the ball rolling. Great monthly comp.

Ah, Daeds, you’re too generous. I didn’t expect that, and have, in fact, been checking the Den frequently today to find out what the theme for this month’s comp would be 🙂

I’m delighted, of course, given the calibre of the entries, but hope no-one expects that same level of insight when it comes to October’s judging.

Off to think of something to set…

Well done, Sea! And thanks for setting us off on a monthly comp journey again here in the Den, Daeds.

I just amended the post to tag people, which I’d forgotten to do before. I hope people get notifications of tags when it’s an edited post? Oh well, we’ll find out

Well done Sea – a breath-stopping piece beautifully (dare I say?) conceived.

Congratulation, Sea, very well deserved. And thank you, Daeds for such kind comments on my own story and for kicking all of this off.

I personally like the idea of the nice middle-class town where once you scratch the varnish you start seeing the cracks and that not is all at it seems and not to trust a book by its cover (so to speak). After that I think it’s a question of describing the environment through the eyes and the emotions of the POVs. For example how would they…[Read more]

Thank you so much to everyone who entered the first Den of Writers monthly competition. We now have a whole new section of the forum just for the monthly comp, so all future versions will be held there. Here’s the link: https://www.denofwriters.com/forums/forum/den-of-writers/monthly-competition/

For those not familiar with the monthly c…[Read more]

Ever so late to this, sorry – only just read it.
My take on it is not to sweat what everyone else could do, but to focus on what *you* can do to protect yourself. To take back the power. You are, after all, the most important person in your world.
A long time ago I lived in a rough area and was mugged and the guy had a knife. This left me…[Read more]