Finished reading the 225,000+ words of entries, and I’ve narrowed it down to five finalists and five honorable mentions. All will be revealed tomorrow!
In the meantime, here’s your suspense/chase scene Wordle.net word cloud for all the entries:
Nathan Bransford | Writing, Book Editing, Publishing
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Nathan Bransford
Helping authors achieve their dreams
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!!!!!
you are like the BIONIC man!
do you ever sleep??
i envy your energy. 🙁
T-
I definitely sleep! Though tonight Office and 30 Rock reruns nearly derailed the entire contest. I resisted.
I am awed. Honestly. I have to bow down to your rapid reading powers!
WOw…30 Rock reruns are worth staying up for…
You're a maniac…maniac.
Total awe.
I told my mom about you and she was in awe as well! She was like, "Wow," when I told her just how much you did. That must mean you're super-human. Will you share your awesome, secrety-secrets with us so that we may be awesome too?
I wasn't surprised by 'back' being a big one in this contest.
I think "one" is interesting.
Hats off to you, Nathan. How do you stay married?
I was surprised by "back." I want to go back through the entries and see why now. 😉
Also thanks. You are definitely made of awesome. 😀
Or you are part of a secret government experiment that has increase your speed-reading skills tenfold beyond the normal human! Hm…that could potentially have made for a funny entry. Nathan Bransford: saving the world one book at a time.
Ugh! The suspense is killing me!
I can't wait for tomorrow to read the finalist's entries!
"Back"?
I for one am mystified!
I just watched Dr. No, and I have to quote a line, Mr. Bransford:
"When do you sleep, 007?"
Technically it's morning now…
Because I did it last time and it was oh so fun…
A story straight from the Word Cloud:
Three men — eyes red, almost black — trying door. Just looked inside. Next moment, hands open window. Small gun.
See enough. Back away. Run.
Two running behind come close enough. Hear voice, go cold. Hit something. Face onto ground, feet caught. Fingers around throat.
Last breath. Heart stop. Feel nothing.
Back? Why back?
That's odd. Some other important words are missing too: daisies, lollipops, sweet little kitty cats, muffins and beautiful pinky white butterflies. What is up with that???
Are you sure that things working?
Very much looking forward to the winning entries! So fun. 🙂
@Shelley–But of course! It wouldn't be a suspense contest without a little extra suspense, would it? 😉
I guess that rules my story out; I don't see my words in that cloud!
That's awesome. You rock, though you knew that already.
Alright, just how many clones do you have stashed in the office closet?
Twitch…twitch. Suspense is the perfect topic for this contest. Waiting to see the final five is extremely suspensful. And I have a camping trip, so I'm going to have to call someone and have them read the entries to me.
Of course, I probably won't be up there. It's what, five out of five hundred? Then again everyone has a 1/100 chance, not just me.
Amazing job by the way. No way I could have read that much in a day.
Now, a word cloud of the finalists, that would be interesting haha.
The word "back" is curious though. "Like" is pretty understandable (all those similes) and "eyes".
You're kind of amazing.
I give you credit for reading all the entries! The contest was fun!
Another contest! HA! That was great fun both as a writer and a reader.
Nathan, you must have serious stygmatism. You never blink, do you?
Have a well-earned rest tonight. ;D
That word cloud's great. I just ran my novel through it and "back" is the second or third most popular word outside character names.
Maybe I need to work on that…
I was tucked into my cozy little bed when you posted this. Now I feel ashamed.
Simply amazing. Thanks!!
WOW!!!
Exactly how many coffees did you down last night? Or was it shots of espresso? Do you have it on an IV drip? Does caffeine flow from your kitchen faucet?
You are amazing.
You are also amazing for resisting reruns of both The Office and 30 Rock.
Seriously, you MUST be superhuman.
Cool word cloud. "Back" didn't surprise me; there were lots of characters "looking back" and feeling chills run down their backs. For suspense and chase, it makes sense.
I am sincerely impressed, both by your incredible reading speed and your ability to resist the Thursday night line-up. Nicely done!
I dub thee, Nathan Bransford, the Patron Saint of Word Clouds.
Great job on this contest. I look forward to reading the shortlisted entries!
You are insane, but in a good way.
Look forward to seeing what you would pick from that very long list!
Maybe you could give them another turn and sort them into an epic novel 🙂
Can I ask a question? (Besides that one.)
I'm gonna ask anyway, in case the answer is yes. Maybe you'll answer.
Do you read the entire entries when you do this, or do you read it like a slush pile?
When I read for things like this, I read like a slushpile reader. I stop when I lose interest.
If you are reading through all of these in entirety, I am impressed. (I am impressed either way, to be honest, but that would be above and beyond)
becca-
I read probably 90% of them through in their entirety – it's tough to make a call on them without reading all. Every now and then I'll read one where I know it's not a finalist within a couple of paragraphs and so I'll move on to the next one.
now i feel guilty about complaining about going to work this morning!
Nathan:
Thank you for giving everyone the opportunity to have some fun, even though it makes you work fiendishly to bring it to fruition. Tell your wife we appreciate her too.
This contest was absolutely fun! I enjoyed reading everyone's entries. And, I did read them all. So much talent out there!! Congrats to all future writers of the world. Amazing stories!! A few people had a definite writing voice. Hats off to Nathan. Cheer, cheer!
This contest reinforced your earlier series of posts themed on "Being an Agent For a Day," to me. By the time I made it through half I noticed the difference in my approach to each entry. And my eyes, I just kept blinking to clear them. Further in they burned. I have to wonder if you are loving eye-drops.
Being an agent requires an attitude and determination similar to a writer's. But I think maybe it's a love of people, and therefore the variety in works of art, that drives agents through all this. Competition, survival, and everything else aside…
To keep going it would have to be love. Love of the written word, yes, and for humanity. True no matter how many queries from the Devil you get that begin with rhetorical questions.
Anyway, that's how it seemed to me.
Disturbing to see one of my nemeses, "just," so prominently in the cloud. More disturbing to know my entry probably contributed. I JUST can't help myself.
Damn…that word cloud is more exciting than my entry.
*cries* 😀
Thanks, Nathan, for having such a wonderful blog. Not only do I learn things here, but I have fun too.
As repeated many times before, I don't know how you do it. Being a literary agent seems like a great job, then you show us how much work it really is.
How does one even become an agent, a slush pile reader, or someone who works for a literary agency if there are none in your city?
It is an area I would love to become involved in.
Wow, the word "back" is really large. I know a lot of us probably used that word, I know I did, but I'd really like to know whose "back" stood out.
I'm sort of surprised the word "wolf" is not in the bubble since so many used it.
Mentioned your blog on my own today. Hope you don't mind.
http://withapenatmycommand.blogspot.com/
Thanks for answering my question 🙂 I think that's really awesome of you!
thats a lot, i agree with everyone.
I love the word cloud!!! I actually was thinking something along the lines of, I wonder how many entries used the word blood. A lot.
So, we won't know until tomorrow? Oh, the suspense! 🙂
Is it bad that I find myself compulsively refreshing every few minutes?
Haha, I'm not the most paitient person in the world. ;P
CV
It seems like there should be some sort of "honorable honorable mention" for @Regan Leigh's brilliant story constructed from the word cloud! I want to read THAT book! Lyrical mystery!
Too funny! This week, our collective blog discussed using Wordle to eliminate lazy words in our manuscripts (with a shout out to you, Nathan! http://yaknow.blogspot.com). We all have "back" problems, so our weekly Your Turn exercise challenged readers to revise a sentence that used "back."
I agree that you are Superman, Nathan. Thanks for the cool contests!
Now you, Nathan, are the master of suspense.
I'm not surprised to see "back" in such bold print.
East coast living is definitely a disadvantage today.
You should post a link to Starbucks on your blog so you can get your coffee for free.
I am sure you guys could work something out, given the amount of the black nectar you must have imbibed to make it through all those entries!
Well done, Nathan!
I'm thinking you could compile all of these entries, pick one name for the main character and change all of them to that, and have a real action-packed novel. And a sequel.
Nathan,
If you could have entered this post in the contest, you would have won hands down, in 38 words (not including the cloud)!
The suspense is killing me . . .
Does reading 225,000 words, and other contest work, take time away from reading queries, partials, and regular old working for your clients?
Or do these contests replace the usual query method (ie., you'll find your next clients from the contest)?
Just wonderin' how you find time to do it all, or if something slips.
Superman indeed!
anon-
Definitely keeping up with everything. I'm up on queries and if one of my clients e-mails me a manuscript during a contest week that comes first. Contests are all in free time.
Well, blast it all. I have to get off the computer now. It won't be until the afternoon before I can get back here.
The suspense will kill ME!
PROUD to be part of the CLOUD
Wordle.net is so cool. I just ran my novel through it and love it.
"Just". One of my personal over-used words. I wonder if other contest entrants have that same problem? On another note, I am totally intrigued by the wordle idea. I think I need to make wordles of everything I've written now… just for the fun of it.