Sometimes external validation is a wonderful thing.
One of the writing sites I belong to has contests every few months. The latest one is the Extreme Makeover Contest, in which you retell a famous story in under 3000 words. That leaves a lot of room for creativity, as well as scratching your head at the open-endedness of it all.
I contemplated retelling “The Little Mermaid” in a modern setting, where instead of a sea witch there’s either prostitution or the mafia involved (and I might still write that), but then, during a strategic zombie apocalypse planning discussion, it hit me: Noah’s Ark, with zombies. And thus “Noah’s RV” was born.
Today I received some of the best feedback I’ve gotten in awhile, and it’s from a guy who doesn’t lavish praise often or lightly:
Seein’s how I’m from the very buckle of the Bible belt, I couldn’t pass up reading this one.
Unbelievably brilliant. I’d write a critique but all I found to pick at was a sprinkling of capitalization/punctuation nits that I’m confident somebody who needs karma will point out, or you’ll clean ’em yourself on your final read-through.
My hat’s off to you! This is the best damned short story I’ve read in a while – fun, imaginative, creative, well-plotted, well-written, outside the box and definitely a cut above. I hope you already know that.
Great job!
Yay me!