The feedback from the judges* on the 1st Round submission for the Flash Fiction Challenge 2026 is below.

Congratulations on receiving an honorable mention in your group! Honorable mentions do not advance to the next round, but it means you were very close. Thanks for participating, and we hope to see you in a future challenge!

''The Little Red Brick'' by Bruce Talmage

*The numbers in parentheses are the unique/anonymous indentifiers for each judge

WHAT THE JUDGES LIKED ABOUT YOUR STORY

{2522} I enjoyed "The Little Red Brick" and thought it was a cute story. I thought the writing was good and the description provided a clear understanding of the action. I thought it was an interesting choice making the brick one of the characters in the story. I liked how the little red brick was able to move around and interact with the sorcerer. I enjoyed the ending when the rocks turned back into people and those the sorcerer had cursed were freed from their captivity as stones.

{1778} Great job creating a unique, expansive ,flat world with a single looming tower. The description of the complicated twisting pipes and lenses watched over by a decrepit sorcerer was great imagery. Wonderful way to establish high stakes by establishing the belief that the sorcerer turned people into stone, and a great reveal that the tower was made of people. The reveal of the tower built of people created the allegory of employees feeling unseen and undervalued by corporate employers. Not sure if that was the goal, but it worked, because it delivered the lesson when the tower fell.

{2560} The little red brick is adorable and an excellent protagonist. Turning people into stones is pure evil and we cheer at the end when the sorcerer receives his comeuppance and everyone is freed because of the actions of the brave little brick. The formatting is excellent with a perfect amount of white space that makes for ease of reading.

WHAT THE JUDGES FEEL NEEDS WORK

{2522} I was not clear if the sorcerer died at the end of the story or not and what exactly broke the curse. Was he killed in the fall from the tower or merely injured? Was this event what broke the curse and allowed the people who got turned into rocks to become people again? I believe that explaining these plot points would strengthen the ending and make the conclusion more concise and clear to the reader.

{1778} For the allegory to hit a little harder, look for ways that the brick could make more specific requests to the sorcerer regarding repairs, caring for the stones, strengthening the foundation. Requests that can translate to caring for people, and when he refuses them all, the gap left causes others to fall, leave their positions, until the tower he built on the shoulders of others collapses around him. The rabbit feels like an important element in the story but doesn't have much of a pay off. It felt like the red brick might be the rabbit, which could be a fun nod to classic rabbit as trickster motif throughout folk and fairy tales.

{2560} When there is too much backstory at the beginning of a narrative, it feels like we are being told about events happening rather than watching them unfold. Rather than telling us that the sorcerer turns people into stones, show it to us. Consider trimming down the backstory and use that space on the page to show us real people being turned into stone. That way, when we see the stones come back to life, we will already be emotionally attached to them.