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Message: <blockquote data-quote="orchid blossom" data-source="post: 3397000" data-attributes="member: 12815">PC, it would be nice if I could sound all fancy like I remembered stuff from my creative writing class, but alas, I can't give you the formal names for all these techniques.  I honestly never learned them.  Getting a BA in English is like getting a BA in BS.  You just make it all up and keep talking.  Eventually you figure out what's going on, but not in any way that you can easily discuss with anyone else.  But I can do some describing.The first real example I can think of when you have the past and future villian going through the supermarket.  Interposed with his story is his very normal shopping list.  The list lead to the hamburger, but it also does something else.  There's an effective juxtaposition there.  This mundane shopping list grounds the villian in the same world we live in, where you have to drive to the market, push the cart with the crappy wheel, and pick up overpriced groceries and a few things your doctor wouldn't approve of.  In between is the exotic; the life of a criminal.  A super-powered criminal at that.  It's a technique that grounds the story while letting it go believeably into a fantasy.  And it makes the talking package of hamburger even stranger.The next scene is the get to know the characters and get some exposition in without it feeling like exposition scene.  I don't know if I would have picked it up as that, except since I'm judging, I'm looking.  Exposition is always hard to get in naturally, so a conversation about what the readers need to know often crops up in short stories.There were also plenty of examples of foreshadowing, which is very important.  The flesh molding is surprising but believable because we saw something with the hamburger.And you must have been trying to play to the judge with the Green Bay Packers thing.  I mean, come on.  I used to live where I could hear the crowd noise from Lambeau field!  And they really did used to be the Acme Meat Packers...  I'm sure you already knew that.</blockquote>

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