Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Tie (02/28/13)
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TITLE: Tie Breaker | Previous Challenge Entry
By Ralph Leavers
03/06/13 -
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As far as I was concerned it was pretty much a tie. My friends Nate and Jessica both had some compelling points behind their arguments and besides, at this point, I could really care less either way. Nate and his new found love of God was a little annoying but I had never seen him so focused on anything in the twenty some odd years I had known him. Of course it wasn’t that long ago that his opinions were even more radical than Jessica’s, so it was a little hard to be convinced that he really believed what he was saying himself. Then of course there was Jessica and her crusade of the hour fanaticism saying that it was all an accident we all just happened out of nothing and our ancestors were some globs of scum in a puddle of ooze several billion years ago. Yes at this point it was definitely a tie and neither option really sounded much better than the other.
I decided to do a compare and contrast like they made me do back in the day at college. I would take points from each side and see which of them made more sense. I started at the beginning. Jessica says first there was nothing then a big bang and tada!! we have something and several billion, billion years later here we are debating about were we came from. Nate says there was nothing (except God and where did he come from?) then God spoke and everything came into existence several thousand years ago. Well, I found nothing here that was very convincing they both sound pretty much the same start with nothing and end up with uncountable universes and a planet full of people asking the same question.
I moved on to “evolution verses creation” Jessica again says that we started out as a few single celled ameba in a puddle of scum and then decided to grow legs and become man who knows how many billion years later. The complexity of life kind of makes me wonder about this but science seems to support this view, at least that’s what all my biology professors told me. Nate says that everything was made pretty much just the way it is by God about 8,000 years ago give or take. Why?! is my question, is it that boring being God, “Ahh I think I’m going to make a bunch of universes with a bunch of planets and then put people on one of them so they can spend there lives debating about whether I exist.” I just don’t get the point.
What about the future? What happens when we die? Jessica pretty much says nothing happens we just die cease to exist and become worm food. Yet she tends to never miss an episode of “Ghost Hunters” I think I’ll have to ask her about that. This is where Nate’s option sounds a little better as long as you buy into all of it; otherwise it’s probably better to be worm food. He says that God created us to have fellowship with him, but then we sinned and couldn’t hang out with him anymore till he sent Jesus to make things right again. If we believe in Jesus we go to Heaven with God, if we don’t we go to hell, which I understand is an awful, awful place. I’d definitely rather be worm food.
I had really come no closer to resolving this tie when I received a phone call from Jessica concerning her mother. She had been in a terrible accident and was probably not going to make it. Jessica was frantic and needed to talk to Nate but could not reach him. I was a little confused, she seemed to be quite distraught about her mother, but excited to talk to Nate about God. I guess her mother had asked her to pray, not for her mother, but for herself. She told me that she had prayed and something amazing had changed in her heart. Her mother was dyeing and yet she had peace that she could not understand. She knew she would see her again, and her mother was going to be with God. She needed to tell Nate and wanted him to pray for her and her mother. I told her I would find Nate and that we would meet her at the hospital.That’s when I found the Tie Breaker!
“This is a work of fiction”
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There are some little things like dyeing instead of dying that a good proofreader could help you catch. Also if you used dialog and tried to show your reader instead of tell, you might pull the reader into your story. This is just an example to show you what I mean: I'd been weighing both ideas when suddenly Jessica barged into my office. She grabbed my arm sobbing. "I need Nate's number. Mom has been in an accident and she might not make it. She made me promise to look into this Jesus thing."
I know this is different than what you said but i wanted to show you how dialog can help the reader move along with the characters.
I think you did a great job of laying out the facts of both scenarios. it will make the reader stop and think and that's always a good thing. I also thought your ending was good. It left me with a warm feeling and you didn't tie it up too neatly by having Jessica's mom recover miraculously as soon as she prayed. overall, I think you did a nice job and I hope to read more of your stories. :)