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NeoGAF Creative Writing Challenge #162 - "No Man's Land"
- Thread starter Cyan
- Start date
- Status
Ack! The grace period ended? Well, I'm gonna toss this one in, in case it's still okay!
"World Ten, Episode Three"
"World Ten, Episode Three"
Apologies in advance if someone takes religious offense to this story. In my defense, I mean for it all to be 100% fictional, of course!"
*High five* I'm ignoring your spoiler!
All you slackers better hope I don't win anytime soon, because I have a doozy of a theme in mind to whip you all into shape : P
Crunched - Pro Multis
ISWThunder - This Augmented Life
More_Badass - A Dead Place
Rock And Roll - Mercy Kill
Aaron - The World Sleeps
Neeener - Red
Mike M - Three Apples
FlowersisBritish - The First Week
Sethista - Search for Beauty
Sober - Picking Up The Pieces
Cyan - Open Source Magic
Ashes - Sailing at the weekend
izunadono - You Weren't Supposed to Find Us
Nezumi - Waste
Charade - Mirrors
Tangent - World Ten, Episode Three
Crunched - Pro Multis
ISWThunder - This Augmented Life
More_Badass - A Dead Place
Rock And Roll - Mercy Kill
Aaron - The World Sleeps
Neeener - Red
Mike M - Three Apples
FlowersisBritish - The First Week
Sethista - Search for Beauty
Sober - Picking Up The Pieces
Cyan - Open Source Magic
Ashes - Sailing at the weekend
izunadono - You Weren't Supposed to Find Us
Nezumi - Waste
Charade - Mirrors
Tangent - World Ten, Episode Three
More_Badass
Member
Not all, just from Aaron down
"Hey, why don't I just save time by changing the post count number on the URL rather than copying and pasting each post link!"
"Great idea, Mike! Nothing can go wrong with that plan!"
When will people learn that I can't be trusted to make up the entry list! Or tabulate the winners! Or be left alone with the silver!
"Great idea, Mike! Nothing can go wrong with that plan!"
When will people learn that I can't be trusted to make up the entry list! Or tabulate the winners! Or be left alone with the silver!
Sweet. This one is totally in the bag.
I louddly laughed at this, then realized that it totally was.
Your writing style is really versatile, Aaron!
1. Aaron, 2. Aaron, 3. Aaaron. hm. Aaron.
That's a good point. Perhaps it's unfair to submit after the grace period. Does anyone have any thoughts? I'm willing to bow out if it makes most sense. My feelings won't be hurt.
1. Aaron, 2. Aaron, 3. Aaaron. hm. Aaron.
That's a good point. Perhaps it's unfair to submit after the grace period. Does anyone have any thoughts? I'm willing to bow out if it makes most sense. My feelings won't be hurt.
ISWThunder
Member
My picks are:
Pro Multis (1)
Picking Up The Pieces (2)
World Ten, Episode Three (3)
You Weren't Supposed to Find Us (4, depending on the grace period rules for #3)
Pro Multis (1)
Picking Up The Pieces (2)
World Ten, Episode Three (3)
You Weren't Supposed to Find Us (4, depending on the grace period rules for #3)
I'd definitely like to prevent the deadline creep that happened before. The grace period is meant to help with that problem by giving plenty of room after the initial deadline... On the other hand, the story list wasn't up by the time those two were submitted, and it's kind of already done.
I would've put them in the list and marked them "ineligible," but Mike is nicer than me.
Eh, as long as I've been participating, anything that made it before the list went up has been eligible to my recollection (and even a few after).
Whether or not that should be the case is a separate discussion : P I think a lot of it could be solved just by being quicker on the draw with getting a list together, but we seem to have kind of a bystander effect going on where we kind of mill about since no one is actually responsible for doing it.
Whether or not that should be the case is a separate discussion : P I think a lot of it could be solved just by being quicker on the draw with getting a list together, but we seem to have kind of a bystander effect going on where we kind of mill about since no one is actually responsible for doing it.
Whey!
However, I think leaving it up to Mike is better. I was just kidding about the grace period thing... kinda. It wouldn't have affected my entry anyway, I should have given myself more time as it is.
2000 word cap is so difficult for me haha
Right, yeah, which is why I'm sorta saying no big deal on this one. I'm happy to leave as is.
I feel like we do pretty well on this! At least, the list is always magically up by the time I'm awake.
My feeling is generally that anyone who notices that the deadline has passed should feel free to make the appropriate post, and that it's the ultimate responsibility of the OP to make sure that the appropriate post happens if no one else has done it.
Hmmm... not the usual password, and no password in the quote?
So I'm not the only one.
ISWThunder - This Augmented Life
Creative concept. Seems like the start of a longer piece. It is a little difficult to follow all the scene changes (transitions? cuts?), but the dreaminess may be intended. Krystina reacts abruptly (after being betrayed a single time, asking "how can I trust anyone?"). The technology you've imagined opens a lot of possibilities, and I can imagine many stories springing out of it, exploring and explaining it.
More_Badass - A Dead Place
You portray a strong, driven character. What is his motivation? You provide some great detail about your setting, and emphasize the stout determination of your MC, but we never get to see why he's struggling, or what he's trying to attain. Motivation is the missing puzzle piece, and could do a lot to flesh out the context and make the story less cryptic. If we are meant to root for this guy, it is best to show us more of who he is, and what's at stake.
Rock And Roll - Mercy Kill
Creative ending. May be stronger without the first letter. I would like to see more internal conflict from Patrick, and less or maybe less immediate crying from Ryan. Patrick is a good guy and performs a noble act, but taking a life is still a heavy job. Without that internal conflict the external conflict does not resonate as it could. You've set up a powerful event, and it only needs a little more oomph to really hit us.
Aaron - The World Sleeps
Well, you've put a lot at stake here. "The end of the world" is about as big as it gets. I don't grasp the full context of Liana's dowsing or the transition to the city. Is she dying? ("... finally released her selfish need for survival....") Is this a dream world? History? Is it the underground "buried far below"? I am not sold on her criticism of Fovil (good name, by the way): she chastises him for "ruining" her plan (again, not sure what this is), by exposing her as being different, when just moments before she was behaving as conspicuously as possible. I'm curious about why she says, "you ruined this for me," as if she has some personal stake in the act or outcome, higher or more important than saving the world.
Neeener - Red
I appreciate this being more experimental than the typical story. Italics clearly distinguish dream state from reality. I am not sure what is going on, or why it would aid in achieving a peak state, but the name of the machine seems somehow important, like it is the last piece that needs snapped in for us to finish the jigsaw and understand. If I am understanding correctly, Sam is wearing some kind of device in which she is able to quantify her meditation, and is satisfied when she reaches peace. I am not sure who the voice is, or why Sam keeps getting sucked into a dialogue with Tom. When she says, "I can't stay here," is she speaking literally? I did not know if this was a conversation that had previously happened, or if it was imagined, or if it was a realization by Sam that happened to coincide with her attempt to meditate.
Mike M - Three Apples
Enjoyable read. Great dialogue, strongly drawn characters. Solid setting. Clear action. Easy to picture it all. It's a very low-key, simple story, but uses this to focus on its strongest aspect, the relationship between Peter and Jacob.
FlowersisBritish - The First Week
Autobiographical? Seems personal. I would like to see more conflict. There is some, with the broken arm, but the inconveniences seem slight, and it doesn't quite get resolved. Where is Iago? What is at risk by having a broken arm? What is there to lose? An antagonizing force or moment of realization would make the story feel more complete. The detail about the MC's body odor is great—keep that.
Sethista - Search for Beauty
Neat ending. Gives us a good reason to appreciate this character, and the description of her. It provides good context for what we're hearing. Why was Selene so against putting in the luxury resort? I know there was a park placed there instead, but mightn't it have helped this village to have the steady income a resort might have provided? The builders even seem intent on giving back to the community. I am unclear why she fights against them so staunchly. A nice bonus of your POV: it gives us a good picture of the speaker without ever needing to describe him directly.
Sober - Picking Up The Pieces
A screenplay, nice. Is this the complete story? Seems to be just picking up. Prompts a lot of questions in the second half. I can imagine the intrigue translating well to screen. "Half-creature, half-man" does not work for me. What kind of creature do you intend this to be? "Creature" as a vague response might work in a normal short, but it doesn't pop in a screenplay. I'm glad you submitted a screenplay, and was hoping to see one since I started reading the writing challenge entries a few weeks ago.
Cyan - Open Source Magic
Great setting and characters. Impressive how quickly you set the stage. There is a lot we need to know for this to work: magic exists, there are conflicting wizarding factions, runes can impart inanimate objects with magical properties, the strength of a wand depends on what materials it is made from, etc. You don't dwell on anything for too long, which keeps us swept up in the action. An exciting short, for sure. Seems like it begs for more, however. It wants to be longer than it is and asks for subsequent chapters. I especially liked the distinction between open sourced and licensed magic, and I'd love to see that idea explored.
Ashes - Sailing at the weekend
I like these types of personal confessionals. Even when the story is ostensibly about someone else (the mother), we are getting just as much if not more about the speaker (the daughter). Your ending is great. Those last two lines tie it all together. I want more detail about the mom's choice to keep her daughter. I almost always feel let down by a narrator who says "I won't go into detail," especially when what's being discussed is so interesting. "So I shan’t even try to describe in detail here. She didn’t go into much detail either." This seemed like the most crucial point in the story. We've been inflating this rooftop gorilla balloon and it seems just about there, just about upright, we see the whites of his teeth about to bare... and then the air gets let out. Your relationship between the two characters is still strong, but the abortion seems like the best opportunity to give us more detail and to escalate the stakes within the conflict. Don't look away. Don't be too kind to these people.
izunadono - You Weren't Supposed to Find Us
Your introduction grabbed me enough I wanted to see how we got there. I want to see more of Merissa's sense of humor. Pompous knows she's funny, and we see her be funny in a couple of small ways, but humor seems important enough to her personality that it should come through more often, or more predominantly. She's a nice character for sure, agreeable, kind, and selfless. Might be good to show more of her history, or her perspective on things. Right now we seem closest to Pompous, and outside of the beginning and end are too detached from Merissa to get fully in her head. Allow the ending to breathe a little longer. This piece requires some set up and is tough to get going within 2000 words. The idea is solid, could maybe use a little more explanation on why Merissa specifically is chosen for this mission, interesting enough to go on a while longer and show us more of the opposition. We know the stakes are high, and that something must be done. Why does Nic say he'd rather no one go? These little exchanges could be fleshed out to give us a clearer view of the world. The relationship between Nic and Pompous is a great foundation, but if you strain it (ie put one or the other at some kind of risk), it could become even greater.
Nezumi - Waste
How oppressive. Within three paragraphs I'm nodding, that's no man's land alright. Your ending gives us paradise and then slugs us, and it can be no other way. Well-drawn characters, with a reason to fight. Stakes are clear, conflict is well resolved. This is a nice self-contained story, feels complete. The first couple of pages might even be cut shorter without losing much. You push down on Mani and let us know how hard the world is, but we get that over time. It comes through all the way to the end and the front-loaded detail slows us from getting to the action. Paru's rebuke covers a lot of the same ground as your set-up, and is also more involving than dry exposition. I thought the ending was great, and the silence gives us a sense of finality and peace, at the same time as it warns us man is not welcome on this earth any longer.
Charade - Mirrors
Unique setting and situation. I am not totally clear on what is going in this harem, as it seems to double as some kind of school. The Emperor's horrific supernatural power seals him as a despot by the end, but until he unveils it he doesn't seem like such a bad guy. Maybe sprinkling some tyrannical crumbs earlier would make his act ring more truly. It's not that I don't believe it (this is a harem, after all; I wouldn't expect it kept by someone of upstanding moral fiber), but that I am not suspicious enough of him or made uneasy enough that I totally appreciate the sudden mercilessness of the killing. I want him to creep me out more. Master Artak seems nice, anyway, and gives no hint as to the Emperor's intentions. You do a good job showing Dehzi's relationship with the guard. It might even be amplified if kept more subtle. I am curious about Artak's delineation between gods and demons, and take it this is the introduction to something longer.
Tangent - World Ten, Episode Three
Hilarious concept. Beckettian and wry. I enjoyed it a lot, and wish only Ebenezer had less restraint. I want to see some frustration here as the purgatorial middleman (he is, after all, stuck there himself as long as these folks don't comply). I wasn't sure what significance the discordant sounds have. Eb creates them to catch the souls' attention, but they keep resurfacing in a way that seems to indicate something else. I love how casual God is, sounds like he's on the phone with a beer in his left hand, burping between sentences and watching the big game. The souls are background noise, not differentiated or even significant, but that seems intentional. I'd like to see Eb suffer more. He is the most interesting character here but doesn't go through much of a change.
It's been a long time since I sat down and wrote more than a few notes. I've been meaning to for almost a year now. I'm going to try sticking with these threads, seems a good source of accountability. Now for some organizing...
Creative concept. Seems like the start of a longer piece. It is a little difficult to follow all the scene changes (transitions? cuts?), but the dreaminess may be intended. Krystina reacts abruptly (after being betrayed a single time, asking "how can I trust anyone?"). The technology you've imagined opens a lot of possibilities, and I can imagine many stories springing out of it, exploring and explaining it.
More_Badass - A Dead Place
You portray a strong, driven character. What is his motivation? You provide some great detail about your setting, and emphasize the stout determination of your MC, but we never get to see why he's struggling, or what he's trying to attain. Motivation is the missing puzzle piece, and could do a lot to flesh out the context and make the story less cryptic. If we are meant to root for this guy, it is best to show us more of who he is, and what's at stake.
Rock And Roll - Mercy Kill
Creative ending. May be stronger without the first letter. I would like to see more internal conflict from Patrick, and less or maybe less immediate crying from Ryan. Patrick is a good guy and performs a noble act, but taking a life is still a heavy job. Without that internal conflict the external conflict does not resonate as it could. You've set up a powerful event, and it only needs a little more oomph to really hit us.
Aaron - The World Sleeps
Well, you've put a lot at stake here. "The end of the world" is about as big as it gets. I don't grasp the full context of Liana's dowsing or the transition to the city. Is she dying? ("... finally released her selfish need for survival....") Is this a dream world? History? Is it the underground "buried far below"? I am not sold on her criticism of Fovil (good name, by the way): she chastises him for "ruining" her plan (again, not sure what this is), by exposing her as being different, when just moments before she was behaving as conspicuously as possible. I'm curious about why she says, "you ruined this for me," as if she has some personal stake in the act or outcome, higher or more important than saving the world.
Neeener - Red
I appreciate this being more experimental than the typical story. Italics clearly distinguish dream state from reality. I am not sure what is going on, or why it would aid in achieving a peak state, but the name of the machine seems somehow important, like it is the last piece that needs snapped in for us to finish the jigsaw and understand. If I am understanding correctly, Sam is wearing some kind of device in which she is able to quantify her meditation, and is satisfied when she reaches peace. I am not sure who the voice is, or why Sam keeps getting sucked into a dialogue with Tom. When she says, "I can't stay here," is she speaking literally? I did not know if this was a conversation that had previously happened, or if it was imagined, or if it was a realization by Sam that happened to coincide with her attempt to meditate.
Mike M - Three Apples
Enjoyable read. Great dialogue, strongly drawn characters. Solid setting. Clear action. Easy to picture it all. It's a very low-key, simple story, but uses this to focus on its strongest aspect, the relationship between Peter and Jacob.
FlowersisBritish - The First Week
Autobiographical? Seems personal. I would like to see more conflict. There is some, with the broken arm, but the inconveniences seem slight, and it doesn't quite get resolved. Where is Iago? What is at risk by having a broken arm? What is there to lose? An antagonizing force or moment of realization would make the story feel more complete. The detail about the MC's body odor is great—keep that.
Sethista - Search for Beauty
Neat ending. Gives us a good reason to appreciate this character, and the description of her. It provides good context for what we're hearing. Why was Selene so against putting in the luxury resort? I know there was a park placed there instead, but mightn't it have helped this village to have the steady income a resort might have provided? The builders even seem intent on giving back to the community. I am unclear why she fights against them so staunchly. A nice bonus of your POV: it gives us a good picture of the speaker without ever needing to describe him directly.
Sober - Picking Up The Pieces
A screenplay, nice. Is this the complete story? Seems to be just picking up. Prompts a lot of questions in the second half. I can imagine the intrigue translating well to screen. "Half-creature, half-man" does not work for me. What kind of creature do you intend this to be? "Creature" as a vague response might work in a normal short, but it doesn't pop in a screenplay. I'm glad you submitted a screenplay, and was hoping to see one since I started reading the writing challenge entries a few weeks ago.
Cyan - Open Source Magic
Great setting and characters. Impressive how quickly you set the stage. There is a lot we need to know for this to work: magic exists, there are conflicting wizarding factions, runes can impart inanimate objects with magical properties, the strength of a wand depends on what materials it is made from, etc. You don't dwell on anything for too long, which keeps us swept up in the action. An exciting short, for sure. Seems like it begs for more, however. It wants to be longer than it is and asks for subsequent chapters. I especially liked the distinction between open sourced and licensed magic, and I'd love to see that idea explored.
Ashes - Sailing at the weekend
I like these types of personal confessionals. Even when the story is ostensibly about someone else (the mother), we are getting just as much if not more about the speaker (the daughter). Your ending is great. Those last two lines tie it all together. I want more detail about the mom's choice to keep her daughter. I almost always feel let down by a narrator who says "I won't go into detail," especially when what's being discussed is so interesting. "So I shan’t even try to describe in detail here. She didn’t go into much detail either." This seemed like the most crucial point in the story. We've been inflating this rooftop gorilla balloon and it seems just about there, just about upright, we see the whites of his teeth about to bare... and then the air gets let out. Your relationship between the two characters is still strong, but the abortion seems like the best opportunity to give us more detail and to escalate the stakes within the conflict. Don't look away. Don't be too kind to these people.
izunadono - You Weren't Supposed to Find Us
Your introduction grabbed me enough I wanted to see how we got there. I want to see more of Merissa's sense of humor. Pompous knows she's funny, and we see her be funny in a couple of small ways, but humor seems important enough to her personality that it should come through more often, or more predominantly. She's a nice character for sure, agreeable, kind, and selfless. Might be good to show more of her history, or her perspective on things. Right now we seem closest to Pompous, and outside of the beginning and end are too detached from Merissa to get fully in her head. Allow the ending to breathe a little longer. This piece requires some set up and is tough to get going within 2000 words. The idea is solid, could maybe use a little more explanation on why Merissa specifically is chosen for this mission, interesting enough to go on a while longer and show us more of the opposition. We know the stakes are high, and that something must be done. Why does Nic say he'd rather no one go? These little exchanges could be fleshed out to give us a clearer view of the world. The relationship between Nic and Pompous is a great foundation, but if you strain it (ie put one or the other at some kind of risk), it could become even greater.
Nezumi - Waste
How oppressive. Within three paragraphs I'm nodding, that's no man's land alright. Your ending gives us paradise and then slugs us, and it can be no other way. Well-drawn characters, with a reason to fight. Stakes are clear, conflict is well resolved. This is a nice self-contained story, feels complete. The first couple of pages might even be cut shorter without losing much. You push down on Mani and let us know how hard the world is, but we get that over time. It comes through all the way to the end and the front-loaded detail slows us from getting to the action. Paru's rebuke covers a lot of the same ground as your set-up, and is also more involving than dry exposition. I thought the ending was great, and the silence gives us a sense of finality and peace, at the same time as it warns us man is not welcome on this earth any longer.
Charade - Mirrors
Unique setting and situation. I am not totally clear on what is going in this harem, as it seems to double as some kind of school. The Emperor's horrific supernatural power seals him as a despot by the end, but until he unveils it he doesn't seem like such a bad guy. Maybe sprinkling some tyrannical crumbs earlier would make his act ring more truly. It's not that I don't believe it (this is a harem, after all; I wouldn't expect it kept by someone of upstanding moral fiber), but that I am not suspicious enough of him or made uneasy enough that I totally appreciate the sudden mercilessness of the killing. I want him to creep me out more. Master Artak seems nice, anyway, and gives no hint as to the Emperor's intentions. You do a good job showing Dehzi's relationship with the guard. It might even be amplified if kept more subtle. I am curious about Artak's delineation between gods and demons, and take it this is the introduction to something longer.
Tangent - World Ten, Episode Three
Hilarious concept. Beckettian and wry. I enjoyed it a lot, and wish only Ebenezer had less restraint. I want to see some frustration here as the purgatorial middleman (he is, after all, stuck there himself as long as these folks don't comply). I wasn't sure what significance the discordant sounds have. Eb creates them to catch the souls' attention, but they keep resurfacing in a way that seems to indicate something else. I love how casual God is, sounds like he's on the phone with a beer in his left hand, burping between sentences and watching the big game. The souls are background noise, not differentiated or even significant, but that seems intentional. I'd like to see Eb suffer more. He is the most interesting character here but doesn't go through much of a change.
It's been a long time since I sat down and wrote more than a few notes. I've been meaning to for almost a year now. I'm going to try sticking with these threads, seems a good source of accountability. Now for some organizing...
I feel like we do pretty well on this! At least, the list is always magically up by the time I'm awake.
My feeling is generally that anyone who notices that the deadline has passed should feel free to make the appropriate post, and that it's the ultimate responsibility of the OP to make sure that the appropriate post happens if no one else has done it.
One problem was that I was doubly rude. Not only did I submit super late, but I also didn't put together the list of submissions. I suppose it could be the OP's ultimate responsibility but it also seems to make sense that the last submitter (which was ME) should at least have the decency to put together a list. Not as an excuse but just as an explanation: I took a nap right after I submitted, and the reason why I didn't submit the night before is that I literally couldn't stay awake at the computer anymore! I know some of you have really young kids so you probably scoff at this excuse though!
I suppose though, in the future, it would be hard for someone to know they are the last submitter. I think in these last two weeks, I've just not had my act together. I'm usually pretty good about submitting before the deadline. I'll make sure I return to that habit.
More_Badass
Member
Thanks for the feedback! I was trying to sublty imply he was an experienced smuggler. Not sure how well that came across. As for context and those aspects, I was going for a simple survival plot. Honestly, i didn't give much thought to motivation; he just wanted to survive.
It's a meta-joke! We're meant to "waste" our time trying to guess the password, only to discover that the story never existed in the first place, and the dropbox file was something no one could access--a virtual no man's land.
Help us out here, Nez.
Sorry!!! I accidentally used my normal standard password instead of the one we use here. I changed it to the usual one now, so everyone should be able to access the story fine now.
More_Badass
Member
1) Pro Multis
2) Waste
3) Mercy Kill
2) Waste
3) Mercy Kill
I'm not a fan of the grace period abuse. So while I read all the stories, I'm not commenting on the ones that missed the deadline.
Votes:
1- Ashes
2- Cyan
3- Neeener
Comments:
Crunched - The voice is a little forced. Not that any bit of it is bad, but there is so much patter it drowns the story. In its place, I would have liked more interaction with the crew. For instance, there's the man on watch that's hung for failing his duty, but that's all I know about him.
ISWThunder - This feels like the wrong starting point for the story. I'm not on board with the character, so it would have been better to start by building up this persona rather than when it collapses.
More_Badass - Without knowing why he's on this journey, it's hard to invest in the experience of it. It needs a hint of purpose.
Rock And Roll - It's a solid story, but needs a little extra something to elevate it. Not neccessarily a twist, but maybe a deeper emotional connection between the characters. Their talk is too brief to form a bond.
Neeener - It's an interesting form of therapy, but you don't explain the character's situation enough to give them some specificity. In a sense, you cheapen the character by acting that her situation doesn't need to be explained because it's so typical.
Mike M - These characters come up really abrasive at the start. It makes it hard for me to be engaged by their dialogue, which needed some connection to something else besides an empty debate. It didn't need a point so much as a reason, no matter how flimsy.
FlowersisBritish - Change in tense is a little confusing. I feel like I need to know more about the main character to sympathize with his situation. He's basically an arm in a sling to me.
Sethista - The explanation is very dry, and not the best way to hook a reader. You should begin with the trip, and backfill the reasons.
Sober - There's a lot of talking post event, but I would have liked instead a build up of fighting leading to the event. Instead of a beginning or end, you have a middle that only hints at interesting things.
Cyan - No surprise you cut a bunch of words. It feels trimmed. Strong premise and good writing to back it up, but I kept wishing there was a third in the narrator's little group to have a bit more conversation instead of a mostly monologue.
Votes:
1- Ashes
2- Cyan
3- Neeener
Comments:
Crunched - The voice is a little forced. Not that any bit of it is bad, but there is so much patter it drowns the story. In its place, I would have liked more interaction with the crew. For instance, there's the man on watch that's hung for failing his duty, but that's all I know about him.
ISWThunder - This feels like the wrong starting point for the story. I'm not on board with the character, so it would have been better to start by building up this persona rather than when it collapses.
More_Badass - Without knowing why he's on this journey, it's hard to invest in the experience of it. It needs a hint of purpose.
Rock And Roll - It's a solid story, but needs a little extra something to elevate it. Not neccessarily a twist, but maybe a deeper emotional connection between the characters. Their talk is too brief to form a bond.
Neeener - It's an interesting form of therapy, but you don't explain the character's situation enough to give them some specificity. In a sense, you cheapen the character by acting that her situation doesn't need to be explained because it's so typical.
Mike M - These characters come up really abrasive at the start. It makes it hard for me to be engaged by their dialogue, which needed some connection to something else besides an empty debate. It didn't need a point so much as a reason, no matter how flimsy.
FlowersisBritish - Change in tense is a little confusing. I feel like I need to know more about the main character to sympathize with his situation. He's basically an arm in a sling to me.
Sethista - The explanation is very dry, and not the best way to hook a reader. You should begin with the trip, and backfill the reasons.
Sober - There's a lot of talking post event, but I would have liked instead a build up of fighting leading to the event. Instead of a beginning or end, you have a middle that only hints at interesting things.
Cyan - No surprise you cut a bunch of words. It feels trimmed. Strong premise and good writing to back it up, but I kept wishing there was a third in the narrator's little group to have a bit more conversation instead of a mostly monologue.
Crunched: Reminded me of The Terror, which I guess is pretty much going to be inevitable with anything on this subject because that is the only book Ive ever read that dealt with it. Overall, I thought this was pretty stellar, though I would pick nits with some of your formatting where sometimes quotations were set aside as centered italics, but on one occasions the carpenter declares that he will not last the night without quotation marks, which makes it look like hes passing pronouncement on the narrator. The notion of italics and centered font in what is supposed to be a journal entry is odd in general. The thing that stuck out the most to me is that the scientist seemed to have a greater understanding of sea squirt biology than I would could believe possible in 1846. This is still in the era of the belief of Spontaneous Generation as scientific fact, the observation that encrusting organisms actually arise from planktonic larvae settling down seems a little advanced. I will confess that my metaknowledge of the history of knowledge of sea squirts is not comprehensive, though, so Im willing to allow the possibility you did your research and their life cycle was known as far back as that.
ISWThunder: Your concept was a good one, but it could have used some refinement and focusing. The diversions out of the main characters perspective into that of the mom trying to round up her family (of only two kids and her husband? Is that really all that difficult?) and the girl that he had a crush on were almost jarring. The narrative was pulled in too close to Michael to easily accommodate such casual switching between back and forth. Something that left a sour taste in my mouth was the paragraph describing his second upgrade where it waxed rhapsodic about how great he was at hacking and went so far as to describe it as one of his many super powers. That framed him as sort of a marysueish wish fulfillment character, which immediately took me out of the story. Writing Excuses did a podcast on this that I find extraordinarily useful, and in their parlance the problem is that Michael has nearly maxed out the mixing board sliders of his character. Hes super competent, the most popular kid in school, and incredibly proactive, which makes him largely uninteresting to me because hes been built up to the point where nothing really poses a challenge. Even after the disaster at the Chuck E. Cheeses of the Future, youve set him up as though this is nothing but a temporary setback until he super hacks his visor again and creates a new identity for himself. If nothing poses a challenge, then theres no satisfying conflict, and then theres no satisfying story.
More_Badass: Really liked the imagery and setting of this one, but I kind of felt that was all there was to it. We have a notion that the protagonist needs to smuggle something and took a stupid risk, but thats all we have to go on. The rest of it was a walking tour of an interesting and hostile setting, and while fun to imagine and picture in my head, there wasnt a lot really going on outside the vagaries of the weather. When the main character finally met their unfortunate end, there wasnt any emotional impact to me because I was never invested in them enough to care. This isnt an attempt by me to dump on you on your first attempt at writing anything after a long hiatus, I just genuinely want everyone who puts something up to get honest feedback so we can all continue to improve. I know I personally prefer heart-breaking honesty that points out where Ive failed rather than pats on the back and empty affirmation that everything I do is great, because I know its the only way Ill ever get better. I try and avoid the gut blow commentary, however : )
Rock and Roll: Putting aside the difficulties I have in believing that losing three limbs and being gutshot is only severely wounded but not mortally so (and I had a great deal of difficulty in believing that, incidentally, but Im no expert on battlefield wounds), I think the ultimate failing of this is that there is absolutely no tension involved. The title itself makes the ending a foregone conclusion, which can be fine in certain works where the journey is the point of the story or in literature where the writing is about making art of the words rather than the plot, but is less applicable to works this short. I did like the letters appended to the end to give a note of conclusion beyond just one guy shooting the other and crawling back to the trench.
Aaron: This was a neat concept, but I found myself wanting to know more about how and why the remaining population of people left on the surface had stopped aging/needing to sleep and eat/reproduce rather than dallying with the main character doing Whatever it was that she did. Seems like if she meditates hard enough she can connect to the communal dreams of the portion of humanity that is being maintained in stasis somewhere underground? And that she does this only to mess with them? There is this great big box of back story and motivation that would seem to explain what has happened and why she is doing this, but we never get to look inside the box. Instead, we get kind of a glimpse of some of the rules that govern the world and the main characters interaction with the people in stasis that explains some of the hows, but none of the whys. Its like reading the instructions to a game without having a frame of reference to make sense of it.
Neeener: I dont think the fusion of first person and third person narrative structure worked as well as picking one or the other would have, but Im not sure which side I would fall on if asked which way I would prefer to read this story. Third person would have lost the random stream of consciousness thing you had going on, which was instrumental in the demonstration of the difficulties of actually stilling ones mind and clearing it of thoughts. First person would have meant the events that she was reliving/remembering probably would being less literary and symbolic and whatnot. Either way, its far from an easy fix to maintain consistency. Im also not entirely clear on what was going on. I mean, I got that she was attempting to meditate, and that there was some sort of device that was recording her meditative state, but I guess my question is what the heck was this device? Was it an EEG reader or something? Because those are hardly consumer-level machines, and you dont just slap a headband with electrodes on your forehead to use them or anything. And as a completely irrelevant nitpick, with the color red playing so heavily into everything, I was surprised that the desired color was actually blue rather than green (green being the opposite of red).
Mike M: People who read this story (and the previous one where they go on about Peppa Pig) tend to ask me which one of the characters is me by proxy. Jacob is probably more me than Peter, but theyre both the voices in my head when Im arguing with myself like a crazy person.
FlowersisBritish: Not that I dont sympathize with the pain and suffering of breaking a limb (broken bones are agonizing), but the miseries of the narrator started bordering into whining and overstayed its welcome for me. Im also completely baffled by the start of the last page where on his first day back at work, hes still wearing his work shirt. As in he never took it off from the moment he broke his arm until that point? How is that even possible with a hospital stay where they put you in a gown? Theyre not going to put a cast on him without first removing the shirt/ensuring that he can remove the shirt, and its not as though bathing with a broken limb is impossible. The whole garbage bag over the cast thing is a thing for that very reason. Im also unclear as to how the bus ride lifted his spirits so much when all he did was recycle a joke that was leveled at him in maliciousness a few moments earlier to get a small chuckle while simultaneously worrying that he was offending everyone with his stench. Overall Im more confused than anything by most of this stuff. I dont understand how the title relates to anything (is it his first week on the job?), theres not really any conflict, and theres not really any resolution. Its mostly just heres this shitty thing that happened to me, which works as an anecdote or vignette, but not a particularly compelling story for me.
Sethista: The fact that this was a personified narrator wasnt at all clear until nearly half way through or so where it just kind of drops out of the blue. I found a lot of the details about the village and its history to be rather contradictory, however. This village is so inaccessible that apparently soldiers attempting to claim it in just gave up? Why on earth were they wanting it in the first place if its so unimportant that they can just quit? Why couldnt they reach it? Who were they fighting against if all the men had been shipped off to the military elsewhere? How would only some of them get up there and find the people amenable to letting enemy soldiers just stay among them? Why wouldnt their militaries come after them for desertion? How can tourism be a source of any significant revenue when its so hard to get there? I got that it was trying to be a eulogy, but it spent too much time dwelling on the history of the village itself and less about Selenes relationship with the village for me to be completely sold on the premise.
Sober: Trigger warning? Is this Tumblr speak? Anyone who is triggered by needing to read a screenplay over straight narrative has issues for which they need to seek professional help. Obviously, I have no problem with reading a screenplay, and you have a central conflict (the survivors of an attack need to find a way out of the warzone and get back to their front lines) and a resolution (they highjack an enemy aircraft), so theres that. But you know the saying that youre not supposed to put the gun on the table in writing unless you plan to use the gun? I was tripping over metaphorical guns left and right on this one so much that even though the central problem was resolved, I was left completely unsatisfied because of the ridiculous number of questions that I had left. What was the white flash? What was the egg device that they found? Who was the hooded character that seemed to be in command of the enemy forces? Why did they only seem about as surprised to find that it was inhuman as someone might be to find out that Lenny Kravitz is half-Jewish? How do they know how to fly an enemy aircraft? You had all this interesting stuff going on, but no answers were forthcoming
Cyan: Lava tubes seeming claustrophobic seems kind of a given rather than something that would seem unusual or out of place about them : P I mostly thought this one was a good premise and construction, though knowing that you had to cut a thousand words out, I can kind of maybe see where you had to strip out everything but the most basic and important details in order to get everything in. I also think that maybe I need to be more of a Reddit reader or open source software aficionado to get the full experience of the struggle between open source advocates and those who would lock it down or whatever. It definitely did not read like the first chapter of something else, if thats something you were still concerned about, though I can definitely see how this could be an introduction to something longer and more involved. Im guessing you probably kept the longer version around for more work?
Ashes: There doesnt seem to be much of a story here. We get some insight into a relatively robust and realistic background information on a pair of characters (with some ancillary information about a couple others), but thats all it really is. Background information. Someone wrestling with the knowledge that their mother considered having an abortion while they were still in gestation seems fertile ground for some conflict of some sort, but it wasnt explored much in this instance. And honestly, even if it was explored, thats not really the sort of central conflict that will grab me for a story. Im more of an event-driven plot kind of person (says the man whos last entry was nothing but two characters talking about Smurfs over a game of pool).
izunadono: If you were hurting for words, you could have totally jettisoned the opening since it essentially just repeated itself a little bit later down the line. It probably would have been to your immense benefit to do so, anything that would have allowed you the space to address the discovery at the end that there are people inside this zone. That was a huge matzah ball to just leave hanging out there with no explanation or development. I liked the description of the weapon and its effects, I thought that was imaginative and well described. What I couldnt buy was that the army would send in a techs grandmother to go disarm the bomb. Just Really, that makes no sense to me. I get that the effects of the device seem to be that it reverses the aging process, and as such someone whos older would last longer in the zone, but that seems rather meaningless since she falls into a ditch and knocks herself out for an extended period of time. It seems granted that the mission would be better served by dropping someone who is more physically capable and trained in there who wouldnt need two days to get to the source. Or, you know, drop them in by parachute. The unrequited romance didnt seem to really matter for much either, as it was all about his grandma going into the weapons radius. You just had all these fragments of something that could have been super interesting, but it didnt come together for me.
Nezumi: I am really confused by the scale of things here. The hunter is pulling spears from a satchel? How big is the satchel? How short are the spears? The tinbugs have jaws big enough to take off a limb, but main character is holding them in his hands after theyre dead? I did like how the moral of this story seemed to be a grimdark version of that of the Goose That Laid Golden Eggs where they dont even get to have the fruit that the trees produced, but ultimately I wonder if it doesnt actually undermine the main characters goals? If the fruit is poisonous, theres no point in harvesting it now or later or ever, which means he died for nothing. But somehow that seems less tragic to me than if he died and everyone else suffered because his wisdom went unheeded? I dont know why that is. Maybe I just find it more awful to have the promise of something better and have it taken away because they were too greedy than to never actually have it at all.
Charade: I feel like crucial information is missing. Is the implication that Lilah is also sleeping around on the Emperor and running the risk of being caught? Otherwise it seems like we just have a setup where the emperor has a harem of girls that look alike, one of them is sleeping with the guard, and then he decapitates her. The main character doesnt actually do anything but observe events that are happening around her largely without her participation, so why is she even the main character? The meat of the story is Dehzis betrayal, most of which happens off page.
Tangent: I dont get what the Bum bum ba dum bum! thing is. Is it Shave and a Haircut? Absent any other context, I wasnt sure if it was that or the McDonalds jingle It was cute and moderately clever. I feel like weve seen a lot of Heaven toiling against the problems of modern technologies and conveniences stories in the past, but the farce of this one was enough to make me crack a smile.
Votes
1.) Crunched
2.) Cyan
3.) Tangent
ISWThunder: Your concept was a good one, but it could have used some refinement and focusing. The diversions out of the main characters perspective into that of the mom trying to round up her family (of only two kids and her husband? Is that really all that difficult?) and the girl that he had a crush on were almost jarring. The narrative was pulled in too close to Michael to easily accommodate such casual switching between back and forth. Something that left a sour taste in my mouth was the paragraph describing his second upgrade where it waxed rhapsodic about how great he was at hacking and went so far as to describe it as one of his many super powers. That framed him as sort of a marysueish wish fulfillment character, which immediately took me out of the story. Writing Excuses did a podcast on this that I find extraordinarily useful, and in their parlance the problem is that Michael has nearly maxed out the mixing board sliders of his character. Hes super competent, the most popular kid in school, and incredibly proactive, which makes him largely uninteresting to me because hes been built up to the point where nothing really poses a challenge. Even after the disaster at the Chuck E. Cheeses of the Future, youve set him up as though this is nothing but a temporary setback until he super hacks his visor again and creates a new identity for himself. If nothing poses a challenge, then theres no satisfying conflict, and then theres no satisfying story.
More_Badass: Really liked the imagery and setting of this one, but I kind of felt that was all there was to it. We have a notion that the protagonist needs to smuggle something and took a stupid risk, but thats all we have to go on. The rest of it was a walking tour of an interesting and hostile setting, and while fun to imagine and picture in my head, there wasnt a lot really going on outside the vagaries of the weather. When the main character finally met their unfortunate end, there wasnt any emotional impact to me because I was never invested in them enough to care. This isnt an attempt by me to dump on you on your first attempt at writing anything after a long hiatus, I just genuinely want everyone who puts something up to get honest feedback so we can all continue to improve. I know I personally prefer heart-breaking honesty that points out where Ive failed rather than pats on the back and empty affirmation that everything I do is great, because I know its the only way Ill ever get better. I try and avoid the gut blow commentary, however : )
Rock and Roll: Putting aside the difficulties I have in believing that losing three limbs and being gutshot is only severely wounded but not mortally so (and I had a great deal of difficulty in believing that, incidentally, but Im no expert on battlefield wounds), I think the ultimate failing of this is that there is absolutely no tension involved. The title itself makes the ending a foregone conclusion, which can be fine in certain works where the journey is the point of the story or in literature where the writing is about making art of the words rather than the plot, but is less applicable to works this short. I did like the letters appended to the end to give a note of conclusion beyond just one guy shooting the other and crawling back to the trench.
Aaron: This was a neat concept, but I found myself wanting to know more about how and why the remaining population of people left on the surface had stopped aging/needing to sleep and eat/reproduce rather than dallying with the main character doing Whatever it was that she did. Seems like if she meditates hard enough she can connect to the communal dreams of the portion of humanity that is being maintained in stasis somewhere underground? And that she does this only to mess with them? There is this great big box of back story and motivation that would seem to explain what has happened and why she is doing this, but we never get to look inside the box. Instead, we get kind of a glimpse of some of the rules that govern the world and the main characters interaction with the people in stasis that explains some of the hows, but none of the whys. Its like reading the instructions to a game without having a frame of reference to make sense of it.
Neeener: I dont think the fusion of first person and third person narrative structure worked as well as picking one or the other would have, but Im not sure which side I would fall on if asked which way I would prefer to read this story. Third person would have lost the random stream of consciousness thing you had going on, which was instrumental in the demonstration of the difficulties of actually stilling ones mind and clearing it of thoughts. First person would have meant the events that she was reliving/remembering probably would being less literary and symbolic and whatnot. Either way, its far from an easy fix to maintain consistency. Im also not entirely clear on what was going on. I mean, I got that she was attempting to meditate, and that there was some sort of device that was recording her meditative state, but I guess my question is what the heck was this device? Was it an EEG reader or something? Because those are hardly consumer-level machines, and you dont just slap a headband with electrodes on your forehead to use them or anything. And as a completely irrelevant nitpick, with the color red playing so heavily into everything, I was surprised that the desired color was actually blue rather than green (green being the opposite of red).
Mike M: People who read this story (and the previous one where they go on about Peppa Pig) tend to ask me which one of the characters is me by proxy. Jacob is probably more me than Peter, but theyre both the voices in my head when Im arguing with myself like a crazy person.
FlowersisBritish: Not that I dont sympathize with the pain and suffering of breaking a limb (broken bones are agonizing), but the miseries of the narrator started bordering into whining and overstayed its welcome for me. Im also completely baffled by the start of the last page where on his first day back at work, hes still wearing his work shirt. As in he never took it off from the moment he broke his arm until that point? How is that even possible with a hospital stay where they put you in a gown? Theyre not going to put a cast on him without first removing the shirt/ensuring that he can remove the shirt, and its not as though bathing with a broken limb is impossible. The whole garbage bag over the cast thing is a thing for that very reason. Im also unclear as to how the bus ride lifted his spirits so much when all he did was recycle a joke that was leveled at him in maliciousness a few moments earlier to get a small chuckle while simultaneously worrying that he was offending everyone with his stench. Overall Im more confused than anything by most of this stuff. I dont understand how the title relates to anything (is it his first week on the job?), theres not really any conflict, and theres not really any resolution. Its mostly just heres this shitty thing that happened to me, which works as an anecdote or vignette, but not a particularly compelling story for me.
Sethista: The fact that this was a personified narrator wasnt at all clear until nearly half way through or so where it just kind of drops out of the blue. I found a lot of the details about the village and its history to be rather contradictory, however. This village is so inaccessible that apparently soldiers attempting to claim it in just gave up? Why on earth were they wanting it in the first place if its so unimportant that they can just quit? Why couldnt they reach it? Who were they fighting against if all the men had been shipped off to the military elsewhere? How would only some of them get up there and find the people amenable to letting enemy soldiers just stay among them? Why wouldnt their militaries come after them for desertion? How can tourism be a source of any significant revenue when its so hard to get there? I got that it was trying to be a eulogy, but it spent too much time dwelling on the history of the village itself and less about Selenes relationship with the village for me to be completely sold on the premise.
Sober: Trigger warning? Is this Tumblr speak? Anyone who is triggered by needing to read a screenplay over straight narrative has issues for which they need to seek professional help. Obviously, I have no problem with reading a screenplay, and you have a central conflict (the survivors of an attack need to find a way out of the warzone and get back to their front lines) and a resolution (they highjack an enemy aircraft), so theres that. But you know the saying that youre not supposed to put the gun on the table in writing unless you plan to use the gun? I was tripping over metaphorical guns left and right on this one so much that even though the central problem was resolved, I was left completely unsatisfied because of the ridiculous number of questions that I had left. What was the white flash? What was the egg device that they found? Who was the hooded character that seemed to be in command of the enemy forces? Why did they only seem about as surprised to find that it was inhuman as someone might be to find out that Lenny Kravitz is half-Jewish? How do they know how to fly an enemy aircraft? You had all this interesting stuff going on, but no answers were forthcoming
Cyan: Lava tubes seeming claustrophobic seems kind of a given rather than something that would seem unusual or out of place about them : P I mostly thought this one was a good premise and construction, though knowing that you had to cut a thousand words out, I can kind of maybe see where you had to strip out everything but the most basic and important details in order to get everything in. I also think that maybe I need to be more of a Reddit reader or open source software aficionado to get the full experience of the struggle between open source advocates and those who would lock it down or whatever. It definitely did not read like the first chapter of something else, if thats something you were still concerned about, though I can definitely see how this could be an introduction to something longer and more involved. Im guessing you probably kept the longer version around for more work?
Ashes: There doesnt seem to be much of a story here. We get some insight into a relatively robust and realistic background information on a pair of characters (with some ancillary information about a couple others), but thats all it really is. Background information. Someone wrestling with the knowledge that their mother considered having an abortion while they were still in gestation seems fertile ground for some conflict of some sort, but it wasnt explored much in this instance. And honestly, even if it was explored, thats not really the sort of central conflict that will grab me for a story. Im more of an event-driven plot kind of person (says the man whos last entry was nothing but two characters talking about Smurfs over a game of pool).
izunadono: If you were hurting for words, you could have totally jettisoned the opening since it essentially just repeated itself a little bit later down the line. It probably would have been to your immense benefit to do so, anything that would have allowed you the space to address the discovery at the end that there are people inside this zone. That was a huge matzah ball to just leave hanging out there with no explanation or development. I liked the description of the weapon and its effects, I thought that was imaginative and well described. What I couldnt buy was that the army would send in a techs grandmother to go disarm the bomb. Just Really, that makes no sense to me. I get that the effects of the device seem to be that it reverses the aging process, and as such someone whos older would last longer in the zone, but that seems rather meaningless since she falls into a ditch and knocks herself out for an extended period of time. It seems granted that the mission would be better served by dropping someone who is more physically capable and trained in there who wouldnt need two days to get to the source. Or, you know, drop them in by parachute. The unrequited romance didnt seem to really matter for much either, as it was all about his grandma going into the weapons radius. You just had all these fragments of something that could have been super interesting, but it didnt come together for me.
Nezumi: I am really confused by the scale of things here. The hunter is pulling spears from a satchel? How big is the satchel? How short are the spears? The tinbugs have jaws big enough to take off a limb, but main character is holding them in his hands after theyre dead? I did like how the moral of this story seemed to be a grimdark version of that of the Goose That Laid Golden Eggs where they dont even get to have the fruit that the trees produced, but ultimately I wonder if it doesnt actually undermine the main characters goals? If the fruit is poisonous, theres no point in harvesting it now or later or ever, which means he died for nothing. But somehow that seems less tragic to me than if he died and everyone else suffered because his wisdom went unheeded? I dont know why that is. Maybe I just find it more awful to have the promise of something better and have it taken away because they were too greedy than to never actually have it at all.
Charade: I feel like crucial information is missing. Is the implication that Lilah is also sleeping around on the Emperor and running the risk of being caught? Otherwise it seems like we just have a setup where the emperor has a harem of girls that look alike, one of them is sleeping with the guard, and then he decapitates her. The main character doesnt actually do anything but observe events that are happening around her largely without her participation, so why is she even the main character? The meat of the story is Dehzis betrayal, most of which happens off page.
Tangent: I dont get what the Bum bum ba dum bum! thing is. Is it Shave and a Haircut? Absent any other context, I wasnt sure if it was that or the McDonalds jingle It was cute and moderately clever. I feel like weve seen a lot of Heaven toiling against the problems of modern technologies and conveniences stories in the past, but the farce of this one was enough to make me crack a smile.
Votes
1.) Crunched
2.) Cyan
3.) Tangent
More_Badass
Member
Thanks for the feedback, Mike. I appreciate it. Yeah, character and dialogue have always been my weakest elements; I'm a lot more comfortable with setting, descriptions, and action. I really want to work on my weaker points. For this, I kind of just wanted to do something easy and focus on what I knew I was good at, hence no dialogue, minimal character details, and making it about the world
MikeM, you leave good, thoughtful feedback and you would be an asset to any workshop. You should not feel the need to curb your criticism or explain you don't mean to offend. Your intent comes through in what you say and how you say it. It goes without saying that no one is the spokesman for truth. We can only offer our opinions as they are at this moment in time.
Everyone who enters these contests should keep writing, regardless of the quality of his first, second, or hundredth entry, regardless if he ever enters again. If you want to write, write. That's the long and short of it. Filter the criticisms and see what you might use. Forget the rest.
Fwiw I don't think it's unfair to a writer, no matter his experience or level of skill, to temper criticisms toward him with some positive aspects of his work (or even his aspiration). Because criticism hurts no matter the intention, because we all want validation and even the most meager story is a little piece of our souls on display for the world to see. You bare yourself naked by putting your work on show. No matter the reception, you deserve applause for that.
Everyone who enters these contests should keep writing, regardless of the quality of his first, second, or hundredth entry, regardless if he ever enters again. If you want to write, write. That's the long and short of it. Filter the criticisms and see what you might use. Forget the rest.
Fwiw I don't think it's unfair to a writer, no matter his experience or level of skill, to temper criticisms toward him with some positive aspects of his work (or even his aspiration). Because criticism hurts no matter the intention, because we all want validation and even the most meager story is a little piece of our souls on display for the world to see. You bare yourself naked by putting your work on show. No matter the reception, you deserve applause for that.
I maaaaaaaaay have included such statements to pad out a comment I felt was coming up short relative to others : P
Rock And Roll
Member
Thanks for the comments everyone! Unfortunately, I've been insanely busy and will continue to be for about the next month and a half. As such, I was unable to get through all of the entries for this contest and won't be able to vote/give feedback.
I welcome all feedback as well, and want to continue to be a part of this cycle of positive criticism. Will give mine soon and vote.
As for my story, in my head I can answer all questions that came up, but the story itself should be able to leave no doubts, so I will take that to heart on the next challenge. For that I see already how important this is for me to get better.
As for my story, in my head I can answer all questions that came up, but the story itself should be able to leave no doubts, so I will take that to heart on the next challenge. For that I see already how important this is for me to get better.
FlowersisBritish
fleurs n'est pas britannique
So I broke my arm a week ago. Shit sucks. Also makes typing a bunch somewhere between strenuous and hell. So I won't be doing critiques this time. Sorry because there were a lot of really great stories this round.
1. Crunched
2. Tangent
3. Aaron
Thanks for all the feedback. It was really helpful. I agree that it would have been good to go through the struggle and angst that Eb was feeling in the story.
Great stories, everyone. I think these stories were most diverse in content with the given prompt.
Here's some feedback... at least, for the ones voted for:
Votes:
I liked the layout and the word choice to set the mood, and the mc’s feelings towards the doctor. The end was fantastic! Chilling! I wish I had understood more about the relationship between the captain and the scientist.
1. Crunched - Pro Multis: I liked the layout and the word choice to set the mood, and the MC’s feelings towards the doctor. The chilling ending was fantastic; it was certainly my favorite part. I wish I had understood more about the relationship between the captain and the scientist.
2. Neener - Red: It was fun to read what the character was going through and the struggle of meditation. However, I wish I knew more about all the self-help the character was seeking and what the actual concerns were. I guess there were general life concerns in a lot of areas, but I still wonder if there was something specific going on.
3. MikeM - Three Apples: I guess what I'm most impressed by is that you somehow seemed to combine all conversation topics from the write-in from last Sunday... at least, from when I joined. You just needed to add a bit about the Brazilian-German soccer game and you'd be golden. Anyway though, I think what I liked most was the seamless shift of events between the game of pool and the conversation about the 80s. (You really are crazy about the 80s!) The dialog was clean and fun to read, and very natural. In some ways, this was a simple Seinfeld-sorta-story in its premise and dialog, but fun.
hm. Ashes - Sailing at the Weekend: I know you like writing stories in segments, but this was one that I really wish were more integrated. But I also like how each section is unique, and they all reflect on each other, e.g., the reading of diaries. (Sheesh, what nosy characters!) Also, this reminded me of a podcast I once heard where a 20 year old daughter was interviewed. She was a crack baby, and her adoptive mother raised her and the 20-yr-old went to college, etc. The adoptive mother also adopted who she learned were this daughter's siblings, also impacted by crack in utero. The adoptive mother, although continuing to adopt kids, also felt like it was unfair to these kids. Anyway, the most striking part was when the 20-yr-old said something like, "I agree with my (adoptive) mom. I got lucky, but most don't. I think it was a gamble that I was born and I think it would have been better that I wasn't. Not because I don't like myself, but because I might not have liked myself -- or perhaps society might not have been burdened by me." Or something like that. Also... jealousy is really powerful. I think it might have been neat to explore how the mc felt towards her mom a little more without so much immediate acceptance.
Great stories, everyone. I think these stories were most diverse in content with the given prompt.
Here's some feedback... at least, for the ones voted for:
Votes:
I liked the layout and the word choice to set the mood, and the mc’s feelings towards the doctor. The end was fantastic! Chilling! I wish I had understood more about the relationship between the captain and the scientist.
1. Crunched - Pro Multis: I liked the layout and the word choice to set the mood, and the MC’s feelings towards the doctor. The chilling ending was fantastic; it was certainly my favorite part. I wish I had understood more about the relationship between the captain and the scientist.
2. Neener - Red: It was fun to read what the character was going through and the struggle of meditation. However, I wish I knew more about all the self-help the character was seeking and what the actual concerns were. I guess there were general life concerns in a lot of areas, but I still wonder if there was something specific going on.
3. MikeM - Three Apples: I guess what I'm most impressed by is that you somehow seemed to combine all conversation topics from the write-in from last Sunday... at least, from when I joined. You just needed to add a bit about the Brazilian-German soccer game and you'd be golden. Anyway though, I think what I liked most was the seamless shift of events between the game of pool and the conversation about the 80s. (You really are crazy about the 80s!) The dialog was clean and fun to read, and very natural. In some ways, this was a simple Seinfeld-sorta-story in its premise and dialog, but fun.
hm. Ashes - Sailing at the Weekend: I know you like writing stories in segments, but this was one that I really wish were more integrated. But I also like how each section is unique, and they all reflect on each other, e.g., the reading of diaries. (Sheesh, what nosy characters!) Also, this reminded me of a podcast I once heard where a 20 year old daughter was interviewed. She was a crack baby, and her adoptive mother raised her and the 20-yr-old went to college, etc. The adoptive mother also adopted who she learned were this daughter's siblings, also impacted by crack in utero. The adoptive mother, although continuing to adopt kids, also felt like it was unfair to these kids. Anyway, the most striking part was when the 20-yr-old said something like, "I agree with my (adoptive) mom. I got lucky, but most don't. I think it was a gamble that I was born and I think it would have been better that I wasn't. Not because I don't like myself, but because I might not have liked myself -- or perhaps society might not have been burdened by me." Or something like that. Also... jealousy is really powerful. I think it might have been neat to explore how the mc felt towards her mom a little more without so much immediate acceptance.
Okay, that is some MAJOR dedication. I'm really impressed with all your effort towards reading all the stories and voting. And man, I hope your arm feels better. So was your story autobiographical? (Btw, amazingly awesome depiction of pain and what it's like to break a limb.)
Votes:
1. Crunched - "Pro Multis"
2. Aaron - "The World Sleeps"
3. Ashes - "Sailing at the weekend"
Charade - "Mirrors" - Just want to note this one particularly because you totally had me at the end of the first part. And then... I dunno, the rest of the story didn't carry as much of a punch. I guess it was examining the other aspects, human love and demonic lack of love, but it didn't live up to the promise of the first part.
1. Crunched - "Pro Multis"
2. Aaron - "The World Sleeps"
3. Ashes - "Sailing at the weekend"
Charade - "Mirrors" - Just want to note this one particularly because you totally had me at the end of the first part. And then... I dunno, the rest of the story didn't carry as much of a punch. I guess it was examining the other aspects, human love and demonic lack of love, but it didn't live up to the promise of the first part.
Pretty much, all of it was deleted. Pompous being gay was what got him kicked out of ANW and he was a defector, which allowed him to be the only one who had any real idea how the blue bomb worked. Merissa also made a bunch of jokes about that with Nick but in this version they don't even speak, oops!
As for sending Merissa, no one really believed that the plan would work, so it was supposed to be a simple suicide as far as Nick was concerned. That was what the "romance" scene was supposed to tackle; and also, Merissa's cells being in "sync" with whatever the blue bomb was pouring out was supposed to come off as a lousy excuse, hinting that Pompous really had no reason to recommend her, which would make it seem like he just didn't want to die.
Finally, the whole meat I cut was the final interaction with Merissa and the people inside. What I cut was that they had AMW uniforms on (which explained a few things), and Merissa failing to answer a "are you pure" test, which apparently would have been the only way to explain why she was accepted by " the divine". Since she knew it was only the implant that was slowly going to stop working (last minute I changed how often it would beep -- and she originally had more like a week, since hours of walking isn't very hidden) -- she tried to both steer their attention away from her leg and both look out for where the bomb could be.
😆
Having to reread it after my edit and cuts I completely agree that it kinda makes no sense and sucks.
1. Cyan
2. Tangent
Thanks so much for the feedback guys, it reeeeally helps! seems the biggest issue was simply not being clear enough on what was happening and motivation.
I was reading about how now fMRI machines have shown what happens in the brain when meditating, basically it shuts down the "chattery" parts of your brain (the default mode network) and turns on the prefrontal lobe. So I was playing with the idea of how you might use this to see if you are meditating effectively!
The machine is total fantasy, as Mike M pointed out... it's just not something that exists yet.
I was reading about how now fMRI machines have shown what happens in the brain when meditating, basically it shuts down the "chattery" parts of your brain (the default mode network) and turns on the prefrontal lobe. So I was playing with the idea of how you might use this to see if you are meditating effectively!
The machine is total fantasy, as Mike M pointed out... it's just not something that exists yet.
Awww... that's awesome! Congrats (on baby AND win!)
- Status