Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Challenge CYGTW? Contest Answers and Winners!

OK, this actually gets very tricky. Determining the winner, that is. Problem is that we had several writers submit guesses, and of course they intentionall "mis-guessed" their own stories in order to avoid giving anything away. So, in effect, we have a winner overall and a winner taking into consideration intentional misguesses. Also, some people, either because of age or principle, did not read the Nfic submission and therefore could not submit a guess for that particular story.

But first, before I say who's who in the winner's circle, here are some stats on the stories - which writers were guessed for each story and in what quantities. The actual writer is in bold type. Take a look and see how you did.


Lois and the Cat – Most Correctly Guessed
CC Aiken – 12 guesses
Hatman Paul – 1 guess
Wendy – 1 guess

Waiting for Superman – Second Most Correctly Guessed
Yvonne Connell – 6 guesses
Wendy Richards – 5 guesses
Lynn M – 1 guess
Hatman Paul – 1 guess
Meredith Knight – 1 guess

Dance with a Stranger (Nfic) – Third Most Correctly Guessed
Meredith Knight – 3 guesses
LabRat – 2 guesses
Wendy Richards – 1 guess
Lynn M – 1 guess
ML Thompson – 1 guess
Yvonne Connell – 1 guess

Still Life with Python – Closest Call
Hatman Paul – 5 guesses
Mary Potts/QotC – 4 guesses
Roger Lo – 2 guesses
Karen – 1 guess
LabRat – 1 guess
Lynn M – 1 guess

The Pet Bet – Most Consistently Mis-guessed story with a surprise Celebrity Writer
Lynn M – 6 guesses
Kathy B – 2 guesses
Wendy – 2 guesses
Laura U – 1 guess
Mary Potts/QotC – 1 guess
LabRat – 1 guess
Kaethel – 1 guess
Erin Klingler – 0 guesses

Between a Rock and a Hard Place – Second Most Consistently Mis-guessed
Shadow/Jen – 6 guesses
Pam Jernigan – 2 guesses
Laura U – 2 guesses
Anna B the Greek – 2 guesses
Hatman Paul – 1 Guess

Clark’s Pet Peeve – Story with the Most Universal Style
Lynn – 2 guesses
All of the authors listed received 1 vote:
Meredith Knight
Roger Lo
Sara/Farneygal
Wendy
Wanda Detroit
Irene D
Qex
Tank
Yvonne Connell
Laura U
Mad Dog Lane/Erica
Hatman Paul – 0 guesses

A Day at the Metropolis Pet Store – Fooled Most Readers
Mad Dog Lane/Erica – 4 guesses
Kitty – 2 guesses
LabRat – 2 guess
Yvonne Connell – 1 guess
Lynn M – 1 guess
Wendy – 1 guess
Mary Potts/QotC – 1 guess
Meredith Knight – 0 guesses

Lois and That Cat – Another Mis-guessed with a Surprise Celebrity Writer
Wanda Detroit – 3 guesses
Anna B the Greek – 2 guesses
Nan – 2 guesses
Meredith Knight – 1 guess
Mary Potts/QotC – 1 guess
Wendy – 1 guess
LabRat – 1 guess
Julie Stars – 1 guess
Kaethel – 1 guess
Sarah “Luddy” Maksim – 0 guesses

That’s All it Takes – Missed by Only One Guess
Wendy Richards – 3 guesses
Kaethel – 2 guesses
Anna B the Greek – 2 guesses
Lynn M – 1 guess
Laura U – 1 guess
Yvonne Connell – 1 guess
CC Aiken – 1 guess
Mary Potts/QotC – 1 guess

So...are you surprised?

And the winners...Well, I'll report the results and you can decide for yourself.

Vicki - 5 correct (includes correct Nfic guess)
Wendy Richards - 4 correct (includes correct Nfic guess)
Hatman Paul - 4 correct (does not include an Nfic guess/2 "correct" guesses because of his own stories)
Meredith Knight - 4 correct (includes 3 "correct" guesses because of her own stories plus one beta reader duty story)
Elena - 3 correct (includes correct Nfic guess)
Shells - 2 correct
Julie S. - 2 correct
Anna B the Greek - 2 correct (includes one "correct" for her own story)
Kaethel - 2 correct
skfolc/Sara - 1 correct
Yvonne Connell - 3 correct (includes one "correct" for her own story plus Nfic guess)
Saskia - 1 correct
CC Aiken - 2 correct (includes one "correct" for her own story)
Tricia W - 1 Correct
Karen - 0 correct


If you ask me, you are all winners! Both the writers for supplying us with such great samples of their work and for the readers for playing the game.

Thanks!! This was so much fun

Lynn

That was fun! Thanks, Lynn, and everyone else who participated!

Some real surprises here, both in authors and guesses. Sarah and Erin... wow! Meantime, Mere told me she'd thought of writing something like "Metropolis Pet Store," but wasn't going to... and then changed her mind after I left. Darn. <g>

What really surprised me, though, is that there was only one correct guess where I was concerned. My name kept popping up in all these places, but no one except Vicki put it in the right place!

Of course, we were all guessing wildly, and everyone guessed wrong on more than half the stories. Impressive, and unexpected. Also kind of cool.

Now, for my own purposes, I'm putting the stories with their answers in the order in which we guessed. I want to better compare my own guesses with the answers. Since I'm doing it anyway, I figured I'd do that here, in case anyone else wants to do the same.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place by... Paul aka HatMan
Clark's Pet Peeve by... Paul aka HatMan
A Day at the Metroplis Pet Store by... Meredith Knight
Lois and That Cat by... Sarah Luddy aka Sarah Maksim aka Meercat
Lois and the Cat by... CC Aiken
The Pet Bet by... Erin Klingler
That's All it Takes by... Anna B the Greek
Waiting for Superman by... Yvonne Connell
Still Life with Python by... Mary Potts aka Queen of the Capes

Dance with a Stranger (Nfic) by... Meredith Knight

Now, where do we put FDK for these wonderful stories?

Paul, who really meant to be in bed half an hour ago...

Thanks, Paul, for supplying the list in that format. It is much clearer and easier to read - I should have thought of that myself.

What I'll do before the end of the weekend is go back to the original story posts and add in the writer's names. Or, if all of you writers want, take your story and post it on the regular Fanfic thread - get the credit you most definitely deserve!!

Lynn

Thanks Lynn for your work on this. Great fun and so hard!

And I can finally go to bed secure in the knowledge that the reason I couldn't pick yours out of the crowd was...really pretty simple!

Also, couldn't help but notice that I didn't exactly fool anyone with mine. Hm. Haven't decided if that's good or bad!

CC

edit: Tricia does get a point. She picked mine. Kind of nice of me to be the easy get, now that I think about it. Going to sell it to myself that way...

ME?????

Hey Lynn!

I did get one right.
Thanks for organising this. It was a lot of fun.

Tricia

Bad, Lynn!! Bad! Bad! Bad!!

Sorry, Tricia. All fixed.

Lynn

Two thumbs up to everyone who wrote! This was a great idea! I never had a good idea of who to pick...I'm pretty style-deaf when it comes to reading. But apparently I seem to have a style! Thanks for thinking of me during all the wild guesses.

JD

That was really fun!

What shocked me was that, as Quill, I tried to change my style but I didn't fool anybody. But here, I pretty much gave up on the idea of trying to disguise myself, and everyone thought I was Paul or somebody else!

BTW, Paul:
I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay,
I sleep at night and I work all day.

Recount! I demand a recount!

OK - I realize most of these correct answers were actually stabs in the dark, but I got 5 right! (/me does little celebratory dance )

- Vicki

Dang!!! Now I really am going to be fired! Especially since that bumps her up to the top of the list.

So sorry, Vicki!!!!!

You did have all of those right - I just forgot to highlight them on my tally sheet.

<sigh>

All fixed, and my apologies to anyone else who I might have goofed. My excuse is that I'm a bit bleary tonight...Guess I'd better give up that career dream of being a game show host. I'd be messing up the scores and giving away answers.

Dang!

Lynn

Oh wow, look how horrible I did! Good thing I was already expecting bad results. At least I have one good guess!

So thanks to all the writers for the creative stories and all the fun. Even though I misguessed most of the authors, I did enjoy all of them! I'll have to go reread them all, now that I know who wrote them.

And thanks to you, Lynn, for the absolute great challenge. Maybe we can do it again some time in the future?

And Sarah, please post the next part soon!

Saskia

My apologies and highest compliments to CC!!

All right...I'm done ranting now!



Sara (who is still a bit miffed at how she got one right)

This was a fascinating exercise and a brilliant idea, Lynn. Thanks for organising it!

CC, you have everything to be pleased for that yours is a distinctive style and absolutely nothing to feel displeased about, IMHO.

Me, I'm just curious to know *why* people figured me out. Was it a style thing or a content thing?

Yvonne

Wow. I'm really surprised by some of the authors. I'm still shocked that Mere wrote the Pet Store.

I checked in last night, just to see the answers, but didn't really post much due to the late hour. So, here I am again with more comments on this contest.

First, thanks to Lynn for coming up with such a neat idea. It really was lots of fun!

Paul said, Actually, Paul, I was a bit surprised by that, too! (not that I got it right, but that others didn't). As Lois said to Clark in the swapping-bodies episode, "I'd know you anywhere." (Well, actually, not. I did not recognize you in Clark's Pet Peeve. I do have a bit of an excuse, in that I had assumed each writer had only entered one story. However, honestly, one look at the title should have told me it was you.)

Two other styles which I found fairly easy to recognize were Mary's and CC's. (Although, I do confess to erroneously attributing The Pet Bet to Mary. That was a tough one, though, in that I hadn't read a story by Erin in awhile, making it more difficult to recognize her. Note to Erin: Post more often. I love your stories!)

Yvonne wrote As I mentioned when making my guesses, what gave it away for me was the use of "quite" as an adjective. Plus the style of writing fit with you as an author.

Now that I see the answers, I'm a bit ashamed that I did not recognize Anna BtG in That's All it Takes. I was distracted by the subject matter, but looking at it objectively, I can definitely see that this was Anna all the way.

For me, the hardest one of all to guess was Mededith's A Day at the Metroplis Pet Store . I honestly had no clue who this could be, but it was one of my favorite stories in the bunch. (Which is saying a lot, since I loved them all!) There were so many gems in this short piece, but the one I liked the most, I think, is when the narrator informs us that the storekeeper has fallen in love with Lois' chocolate brown eyes, and, as if she were reading the story along with us, Lois sweetly growls

All of the authors deserve a round a applause. You all did a great job. Thanks again, Lynn, for this fun contest!

- Vicki

So... it worked, then.

Seriously - thanks for the appreciation, Vicki, and to others who enjoyed the humour. I suspect many people read a sentence or two and hurriedly gave up before their brains exploded. It was... uh... interesting to write, and much harder than I expected! I sincerely hope nobody got upset about being guessed as the author for this, though... that potential minefield only occurred to me after I'd submitted the entry.

CC - I adored your comments on the other thread (as can no doubt be guessed from my shiny new .sig!)

I'm saving my comments on the other stories in the hope that they'll be reposted and get their own comment folders.

I had enormous fun with this challenge - writing, reading and guessing, and watching everyone's guesses. Thanks and kudos to Lynn for organising it!

Mere

Well, I'm stunned. Erin wrote something?!?! ERIN!!! Where have you been? We miss you!! Come back here and write more fic!!

Incidentally, do Lynn and I share the award for most frequently-guessed author who didn't actually write any of these?

Great idea, Lynn, and thank you so much for organising it.


Wendy

Hi, FoLCs!

First of all, thanks again to Lynn for organizing this wonderful challenge. I, for one, had lots of fun!

I did find one author, huh? (other than me) Funny how you can be fooled so easily.

I was wondering the same thing about me, especially after I read Vicki's post:

You think? I think my style is... some kind of non-style: nothing in particular. (Btw, Vicki, congrats on your five (!) correct guesses! Wow!)

Oh, and, in case you were wondering: It wasn't some kind of evil master plan, the story itself kinda 'drove' me into using TOGOM and a cat. It was only after I finished it that I wondered if it looked like a Wendy recipe. (Although its Wendiness was only in the ingredients, and not in the making.)

I think that would be a good idea. These stories need a lot of applaud and feedback!!

Oh, I almost forgot! Kudos to Lynn too, for making reading the results so much fun!

My favourite

See ya,
AnnaBtG.

Hey, I wonder who the most mis-guessed writer was. You know, the one whose name was incorrectly placed the most times. I'm betting it's Wendy, but I'd be curious to see the total.

Something I forgot to write last night... Where was your story, Lynn? I hadn't thought of it at first, but as soon as people started guessing your name, it seemed obvious. It's your contest. Where was your entry?

Huh?

lol, no problem, Sara. I actually figured that out before you did. I'm just honored to be amongst such good company, and flattered that you thought I'd witten that.

Actually, I'm flattered by a lot of the people and stories I was confused with.

Oh, speaking of which...

I say it's good. I wasn't as confident in my guess because I was so confused about the other stories, but honestly, I read that story and your name popped immediately to mind. My thought went something very much like this, "Okay, this has to be CC. No one else could write prose that flowing, that good, and that funny."

What I've been wondering is what it means that hardly anyone thought to put my name with my stories. The punny titles, the short lengths, the punchline endings, the unorthodox interpretations of the premise... The prose in "Clark's Pet Peeve" felt a lot like "Flying Free" to me as I wrote it, too.

I remember writing both stories (I threw both together in about an hour the night Lynn posted the contest, and was the first to send anything in), and thinking "well, these won't fool anyone. I just can't seem to write in any style but my own. Oh well, at least we'll have a couple extra entries to add to the overall total..." It really surprised me when things didn't happen that way, and I'm still not quite sure what to make of it.

For the record, the reason I wrote two was that I originally interpreted the challenge differently. I thought everyone was going to write as many stories as they felt like, and we'd get a big mass of them and try to guess. So, I started coming up with one idea after another, except that I was having a lot of trouble with the premise. I just didn't know what to do with a pet in the story. I ended up coming up with 3 ideas. A pet peeve, a pet rock, and a pet Cat. I put two stories together, tried for a third, realized I wasn't getting anywhere, and just threw the gag into the title.

Lynn posted that she was only really expecting one entry per author, and it took a while to sink in. By the time that happened, I'd already sent her my two.

I was very surprised to see only a total of 10 when it came to posting time.

So, Vicki, that's why I had two stories.

I'm confused, though... Who guessed "Wendy" on CC's story? The closest I can find is my guess:

By which I meant "I agree with Wendy. I think this is CC's story." I thought that was clear, since you did count that as a right answer for me. Unless you counted my "is it too late to change my guess to Mary?" post as a correct answer...

Yvonne - I don't know your style as well, since tearjerkers aren't to my taste (I have enough problems, and I don't believe in catharsis. I prefer happy fiction.), but your name did come to mind strongly as I was reading your story. There was a lot of UK phrasing and grammar. I thought it might be a decoy, but it was so consistent that I was starting to doubt. The style and flow didn't look like Wendy, Kae, or Mere. So, even without being that familiar with your style, your name was up there in my mind.

What really threw me was your extremely devious plan, in which you told us you had come up with a devious plan to disguise your style... and then faked us out and didn't!

One thing I found really strange, though, was that you kept using my favorite turns of phrase. The little quirks I catch myself using so often that I am now super-sensitive to them and try to edit them back out when I see them. I was reading it, and kept seeing them, and it confused the heck out of me. <g> "Wait a minute... I know I didn't write this. Besides, I don't write this well. This is how I would write if I could... There, that's my favorite transition. What's that doing there? There's my second favorite. And that! That's exactly how I've always wanted to write something like that! Wish I knew how... What's going on? Ack! Stop messing with my head!!"

Anyway, if I'd been even slightly more familiar with your style, I wouldn't have ignored that gut feeling that kept saying it had to be you.

It was a matter of style, UK spelling and grammar, and overall quality.

I think that's all I wanted to add. If not, I'll be back.

So... is everyone going to repost individually?

EDIT

Just totalled up Lynn's author count. Assuming it's right, the number of times each author was incorrectly guessed for a story was:

Wendy: 15
Lynn: 13
Labrat: 7
Paul: 7
Shadow: 6
MDL: 5
Yvonne: 4
LaruaU: 4
QoTC: 4
Kaethel: 4
AnnaB: 4
Wanda: 4
Meredith: 3
Roger: 3
KathyB: 2
Pam: 2
Kitty: 2
Nan: 2
MLT: 1
Karen: 1
Sara: 1
Irene: 1
Qex: 1
Tank: 1
JulieS: 1
CC: 1


Paul