cracking the code

I've submitted several "continuations" for Evil Editor's "New Beginnings" recently but only one has made it through so far. I knew that one was a winner though, and sure enough, almost immediately after I posted it that entry was removed from the list.

How did I know I had a winner on my hands? Because it involved zombies.

Anyways, it's been interesting trying to crack the code as far as what EE is looking for in a continuation. It's pretty clear that he's looking for ones that are stylistically consistent with what came before. And I don't think just tacking "And then aliens attacked!" onto the end of an opening works either. I've tried that, no luck. Continuations that take the opening and then tweak it in an unexpected direction are obviously preferred, but I like to think I've sent in a few of those.

A little sex seems to sell it a lot of times, the more outrageous the implications the better. Likewise, a little bit of violence never hurt either. If both of those fail, imply that the protagonist of the opening is bat crazy.

I kind of wish we could see the runners-up for the continuations, on not just because I like to see my stuff in print (although there is that). You gotta figure a lot of stuff is submitted, and much like the Guess the Plots, is likely that more than one is funny.