FlowersisBritish
fleurs n'est pas britannique
Do these things happen often? I love writing stuff and I didn't think Gaf had a writing community. Really sad I missed a chance to participate, but alas. Next time.
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NeoGAF Creative Writing Challenge #147 - "The Garden Path"
- Thread starter Cyan
- Start date
- Status
Bleh, kinda pounding away at mine. Should be done soon?
Each of these goes for two weeks, then another one drops. Sub to this thread or something and watch for updates on when the next one comes up.
Himynameischris
Member
Check the FAQ in the OP.
Every two weeks. Stick around in this thread, a link to the next one will be posted Tuesday-ish
Multiversal Marty
2,487 words, usual password
Not the same stories. Not the same content.
(Additional reading for those that are totally lost)
Marty was originally from The Worst of All Possible Things and reapeared in Character Workshop
The stranger in the Mexican restaurant is Nicholas N from Vengeance is a Dish Best Served With a Side of Tortilla Chips
The Watcher's story is Eyes on the Prize
The Witch's story is Hexenjager
Sarah and the Genie are from Wishy Washy
The sinister payphone is from Next Time Maybe Try Calling Collect?
The stranger in the Mexican restaurant is Nicholas N from Vengeance is a Dish Best Served With a Side of Tortilla Chips
The Watcher's story is Eyes on the Prize
The Witch's story is Hexenjager
Sarah and the Genie are from Wishy Washy
The sinister payphone is from Next Time Maybe Try Calling Collect?
Rekindle (2,492 words)
Usual password, quote to see.
Also, here's my related entry from the poetry thread: The Ballad of Johnny Boy. I wouldn't say it's required reading, but it's referenced a decent number of times in my story, so reading it might be helpful.
Usual password, quote to see.
Also, here's my related entry from the poetry thread: The Ballad of Johnny Boy. I wouldn't say it's required reading, but it's referenced a decent number of times in my story, so reading it might be helpful.
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
I've been meaning to exercise the creative-writing part of my brain with you all for a few months now, and finally forced myself to do it. Don't expect anything great out of the below story, though. I was originally working on a very different story, and only began working on the below Thursday night. I wrote the bulk of the story within the last two-and-a-half hours, so haven't had time to revise it (or give it a careful proofreading). Still, I'm content with it as my first entry into this prestigious contest.
The Red Token
Words: 1637
The password is: (quote to view).
The Red Token
Words: 1637
The password is: (quote to view).
Not a long entry this time. Thought I had more to work with, but I guess I didn't.
Second Date (1430 words)
Second Date (1430 words)
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
I've been worse. I've half taken part. I'm just so busy for a large number of things rather than any one small thing. It's hard to find time to sit and think!
I sat down and nearly wrote a few crits last time, don't cha know! but I was dragged away and the challenge had ended by the time I arrived back.
Woh! the password is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. or was it dociousaliexpilisticfragicalirupes? Yes. That's what it was. or is is? is.
itsinmyveins
Gets to pilot the crappy patrol labors
It's funny how these challenges work. For me it's easier to work with a general theme to connect to rather than starting from scratch. Honestly though, in regards to these challenges, my biggest goal is to force myself to write and deliver at all rather than deliver something astounding. I tend to start sort of inspired and then, somewhere around the second and third act I question everything and I start to flounder just to fucking finish the damn thing in the last minute 
Red Queen (incomplete)
On the edge of the wandering wood that lies at the intersection of Order and Chaos, near the beating heart of the world where the angel yet waits with her flaming sword, where the air brims over with life and the water runs warm as a lover's embrace, a woman lives alone.
She lives in a cabin she built with her own hands, of deadfall wood from an oak that was already ancient when the stars were born. Behind the cabin, with its lone door and window, its never-used fireplace, its cot large enough for one, two paths enter the wood.
The paths have been there since before the cabin was built. One is broad, well-trodden, clear of branches and debris, with a sense of age to its dusty lane. The other is narrow, footbare, choked with wild growth and the feel of a game trail.
The woman's eyes smile as she sits out front of her cabin, well away from the paths, and watches the forest live. Wrinkles crease the corners of her eyes, but her hair shines raven.
She is older than she cares to remember.
One day, a day long and bright and restful, with the sun high and shining through the leaves, a stranger arrived at the cabin.
[Edit: if you're moved to give feedback, I'd like to know if the opening felt interesting or just overwrought, and what you would have expected of the rest of the story. Thanks.]
On the edge of the wandering wood that lies at the intersection of Order and Chaos, near the beating heart of the world where the angel yet waits with her flaming sword, where the air brims over with life and the water runs warm as a lover's embrace, a woman lives alone.
She lives in a cabin she built with her own hands, of deadfall wood from an oak that was already ancient when the stars were born. Behind the cabin, with its lone door and window, its never-used fireplace, its cot large enough for one, two paths enter the wood.
The paths have been there since before the cabin was built. One is broad, well-trodden, clear of branches and debris, with a sense of age to its dusty lane. The other is narrow, footbare, choked with wild growth and the feel of a game trail.
The woman's eyes smile as she sits out front of her cabin, well away from the paths, and watches the forest live. Wrinkles crease the corners of her eyes, but her hair shines raven.
She is older than she cares to remember.
One day, a day long and bright and restful, with the sun high and shining through the leaves, a stranger arrived at the cabin.
[Edit: if you're moved to give feedback, I'd like to know if the opening felt interesting or just overwrought, and what you would have expected of the rest of the story. Thanks.]
ThLunarian - Welcome to Paradise Gardens
Aaron - A Harsh Whisper in a Storm
itsinmyveins - The Greenhouse Flower Beds
Azih - Legacy
karenq0506 - The Last Chapter - The Awakening
QuantumBro - Suicide by Mob
chris.trejo - Eternal Garden
Mike M - Multiversal Marty
Charade - Rekindle
Metaphoreus - The Red Token
Sober - Second Date
Ashes - Toi et moi nous sommes amis.
Cyan - Red Queen
Nezumi - The Gardener
Tangent - Racing to the Fall (ineligible)
Aaron - A Harsh Whisper in a Storm
itsinmyveins - The Greenhouse Flower Beds
Azih - Legacy
karenq0506 - The Last Chapter - The Awakening
QuantumBro - Suicide by Mob
chris.trejo - Eternal Garden
Mike M - Multiversal Marty
Charade - Rekindle
Metaphoreus - The Red Token
Sober - Second Date
Ashes - Toi et moi nous sommes amis.
Cyan - Red Queen
Nezumi - The Gardener
Tangent - Racing to the Fall (ineligible)
What!? I thought there was still time. Like at least some hours
Good thing you're not German. Or we'd have wise guys cracking out jokes about punctuality.
Good thing you're not German. Or we'd have wise guys cracking out jokes about punctuality.
Well, since I thought that we have the same grace period as in the last few challenges I thought I would be on time for at least two and a half hours more...
That being said I'm doing my best to finish faster than that.
I'm going to sleep. If I don't add you, cyan will do it. Good luck.
OK, got a little distracted due to my sister in law calling and informing me that I'm going to be an aunt. So I basically skipped everything I had planned for the middle and jumped right to the ending which is still better than not submitting anything for the third challenge in a row I guess.
"The Gardener" (1041 words)
Here is the accompanying poem.
"The Gardener" (1041 words)
Here is the accompanying poem.
FlowersisBritish
fleurs n'est pas britannique
It's funny how these challenges work. For me it's easier to work with a general theme to connect to rather than starting from scratch. Honestly though, in regards to these challenges, my biggest goal is to force myself to write and deliver at all rather than deliver something astounding. I tend to start sort of inspired and then, somewhere around the second and third act I question everything and I start to flounder just to fucking finish the damn thing in the last minute
Personally, I try and not wait for inspiration. In general writing I just try to create an inkling of an idea ( a title, a cool opening line) and roll with that until a I eventually snowball a story. You got the right idea to just write, rather than worry if its good or not. Inspiration's cool, but she is a fickle fuck, that's for sure. I wait till I start editing to decide what's good and not. Good editing is a worthwhile pain...
ThLunarian
Member
It's funny how these challenges work. For me it's easier to work with a general theme to connect to rather than starting from scratch. Honestly though, in regards to these challenges, my biggest goal is to force myself to write and deliver at all rather than deliver something astounding. I tend to start sort of inspired and then, somewhere around the second and third act I question everything and I start to flounder just to fucking finish the damn thing in the last minute
Here's an article about how restrictions actually breed creativity. This is through the lens of a designer of Magic the Gathering cards, but its lessons apply for all types of creative endeavors.
http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr103
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
Here are my rankings. Let me know if I need to spoiler tag some of my comments:
1st: "Multiversal Marty" by Mike M
2d: "Rekindle" by Charade
3d: "Toi et moi nous somme amis" by Ashes
Honorable Mentions:
"The Gardener" by Nezumi
"Red Queen" by Cyan
I enjoyed what was completed of both of the above, but couldn't vote for either since, in the case of Cyan's, it was clearly incomplete; and, in the case of Nezumi's, it seemed to leave a lot out (obviously because she was rushed).
EDIT: Here are my thoughts on the other submissions. I'll keep these brief since I'm going off of memory (I left my handwritten notes at my office). Please note that I'm mostly highlighting the reasons I didn't vote for these, so don't get discouraged if what I say is mostly negative.
"Welcome to Paradise Gardens" by ThLunarian. The final conflict was introduced and resolved too quickly. I think you should have chosen one conflict--either the ambush on the highway or the trickery at the destination--and focused the entire story on its resolution.
"A Harsh Whisper in a Storm" by Aaron. I really liked the first and last sentences. The gardener analogy felt forced, though I did like some of the gardening imagery that you worked in (e.g., "white hot blossom of pain" and the line about letting a tomato ripen on the vine). The combat seemed unrealistic, and, given that the story was told in the first-person perspective, I think the injuries sustained by the protagonist should have affected her narration more.
"The Greenhouse Flowerbeds" by itsinmyveins. I have a hard time understanding Jake's motivation. He's angry about the robbers bringing violence into his "place of peace" and his response is to murder the only one that survived?
"Legacy" by Azih. I liked that the narrator had a natural-sounding voice--like the narrator was talking to a friend. But the narration seemed to drag on with a bunch of unnecessary details. Also, the letter from his friend seemed to be written by the same person who wrote the story itself--it would have been nice if it had sounded like it was written by the other character.
"The Last Chapter - The Awakening" by karenq0506. I thought this was well-written, but was a bit put off by its structure. Narration begins in the first person, but then switches to the third person. And that middle section--the part about the breakfast date--seems out of place. Its purpose seems to be to reveal that Amarilis is crazy, but then the next section begins as though the reader doesn't know that yet. Unless the other two characters are otherwise relevant to your story, I think you'd be better off eliminating the breakfast date entirely.
"Suicide by Mob" by QuantumBro. I felt like I was reading the narration of events in a video game. The guards seemed to act like they were run by the traditionally inept AI we're all familiar with--the guard at the gate is threatened with violence but fails to notify anyone; the guards at the house itself hear a gunshot, but only two go check it out, and when they can't find the killer they know is nearby, they simply return to business as usual. It also really broke the tension caused by the protagonist's expectation of dying when he easily mowed down everyone in sight.
"Eternal Garden" by chris.trejo. I liked this story, but it was difficult to follow the timeline at some points. One minute it's ten 'til midnight, the next it's almost sunset. It was unclear when the events in that paragraph occurred. I also found it odd that the walled garden was not a sign that humans had set foot on the island.
"Second Date" by Sober. I have no idea what happened in this story. Was the main character insane? Were the voices the voices of real past girlfriends, or imaginary past girlfriends? What were they talking about?
1st: "Multiversal Marty" by Mike M
For two reasons, I expected to hate this submission. First, it was the last one I read and one of the longest by word count. Second, it initially appeared that it would require a significant amount of background knowledge that I had no interest in obtaining. But the concept of the story was so imaginative that I was drawn in despite its length. It also helped that the story was broken into dramatically different scenes with different characters, so it didn't feel like it dragged on. And it turned out that the background information was not necessary to enjoy the story, though upon completing the story, I actually became interested in reading the older submissions whose characters appeared in this one. Well done.
2d: "Rekindle" by Charade
I don't have much to say about this submission. It was well written and interesting. I was initially put off by the mysterious character at the end. It seemed to me to unnecessarily introduce a supernatural element where I thought run-of-the-mill insanity was the better treatment. But upon further reflection, I realized that the nature of the character--whether he's real or a figment of Johnny's imagination--is left ambiguous. So it works better than I initially feared.
3d: "Toi et moi nous somme amis" by Ashes
I did not like the formatting on this one, but I can't really knock it just for that. The first-person perspective of the narrator is important to how highly I rank this submission. There were a few things that I'd have done differently, but I excused those because they seemed to be a consistent part of the narrator's voice. But the narrator kept my attention throughout, despite the wonky formatting.
Honorable Mentions:
"The Gardener" by Nezumi
"Red Queen" by Cyan
I enjoyed what was completed of both of the above, but couldn't vote for either since, in the case of Cyan's, it was clearly incomplete; and, in the case of Nezumi's, it seemed to leave a lot out (obviously because she was rushed).
EDIT: Here are my thoughts on the other submissions. I'll keep these brief since I'm going off of memory (I left my handwritten notes at my office). Please note that I'm mostly highlighting the reasons I didn't vote for these, so don't get discouraged if what I say is mostly negative.
"Welcome to Paradise Gardens" by ThLunarian. The final conflict was introduced and resolved too quickly. I think you should have chosen one conflict--either the ambush on the highway or the trickery at the destination--and focused the entire story on its resolution.
"A Harsh Whisper in a Storm" by Aaron. I really liked the first and last sentences. The gardener analogy felt forced, though I did like some of the gardening imagery that you worked in (e.g., "white hot blossom of pain" and the line about letting a tomato ripen on the vine). The combat seemed unrealistic, and, given that the story was told in the first-person perspective, I think the injuries sustained by the protagonist should have affected her narration more.
"The Greenhouse Flowerbeds" by itsinmyveins. I have a hard time understanding Jake's motivation. He's angry about the robbers bringing violence into his "place of peace" and his response is to murder the only one that survived?
"Legacy" by Azih. I liked that the narrator had a natural-sounding voice--like the narrator was talking to a friend. But the narration seemed to drag on with a bunch of unnecessary details. Also, the letter from his friend seemed to be written by the same person who wrote the story itself--it would have been nice if it had sounded like it was written by the other character.
"The Last Chapter - The Awakening" by karenq0506. I thought this was well-written, but was a bit put off by its structure. Narration begins in the first person, but then switches to the third person. And that middle section--the part about the breakfast date--seems out of place. Its purpose seems to be to reveal that Amarilis is crazy, but then the next section begins as though the reader doesn't know that yet. Unless the other two characters are otherwise relevant to your story, I think you'd be better off eliminating the breakfast date entirely.
"Suicide by Mob" by QuantumBro. I felt like I was reading the narration of events in a video game. The guards seemed to act like they were run by the traditionally inept AI we're all familiar with--the guard at the gate is threatened with violence but fails to notify anyone; the guards at the house itself hear a gunshot, but only two go check it out, and when they can't find the killer they know is nearby, they simply return to business as usual. It also really broke the tension caused by the protagonist's expectation of dying when he easily mowed down everyone in sight.
"Eternal Garden" by chris.trejo. I liked this story, but it was difficult to follow the timeline at some points. One minute it's ten 'til midnight, the next it's almost sunset. It was unclear when the events in that paragraph occurred. I also found it odd that the walled garden was not a sign that humans had set foot on the island.
"Second Date" by Sober. I have no idea what happened in this story. Was the main character insane? Were the voices the voices of real past girlfriends, or imaginary past girlfriends? What were they talking about?
itsinmyveins
Gets to pilot the crappy patrol labors
1. Mike M - Multiversal Marty
2. Metaphoreus - The Red Token
3. Charade - Rekindle
I have no real critique of the above. They're well told and engaging. My biggest issue would really that I don't know how Charades and Mike Ms stories connect to the theme..? I might be missing something in them and I'm not sure how rigid the themes are to be interpreted, but I thought these were the best stories so they get my vote anyhow.
HM:
Nezumi - The Gardener
karenq0506 - The Last Chapter - The Awakening
2. Metaphoreus - The Red Token
3. Charade - Rekindle
I have no real critique of the above. They're well told and engaging. My biggest issue would really that I don't know how Charades and Mike Ms stories connect to the theme..? I might be missing something in them and I'm not sure how rigid the themes are to be interpreted, but I thought these were the best stories so they get my vote anyhow.
HM:
Nezumi - The Gardener
karenq0506 - The Last Chapter - The Awakening
itsinmyveins
Gets to pilot the crappy patrol labors
Heh, I wanted to put in a bit more exposition – a few more hints of his rationale and growing frustration with the situation– but I thought I was about to miss the deadline. So yeah, I see your point. Bottom line is that he got pissed and didn't want to be disturbed there anymore by anyone. Originally I was gonna have him plant sunflowers on their grave, trying to grow something good out of the bad but I forgot to put that in!
1st, 3rd, 4th place?
My story's relation (or lack thereof) to the theme is something I address in my post-mortem comments on it. The short version is that the final story evolved so far from the original concept that there's not much pertaining to the theme left unless you reeeeeeally want to stretch some interpretations. It's probably the most wide of the mark I've ever been.
itsinmyveins
Gets to pilot the crappy patrol labors
Whooops!
The same goes for the 3d place as well. It wasn't until I googled the last word in the 2nd story that I saw how it connected to the theme either, heh. But I don't know how strict you guys are about these things so I didn't take it into account.
It's up to the individual. I personally will never detract points for it, but particularly good interpretations get a bonus in my consideration.
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
Yeah, the given theme ended up being more "inspiration" for me than "theme." The original story I was working on (loosely based on this poem) would have been more on point. And if I had taken more time to write the story I did submit, I probably could have better incorporated the theme without much trouble by treating the three-year infiltration (and especially the preparations seen in the story itself) as part of a metaphorical path to the garden of Gethsemane.
FlowersisBritish
fleurs n'est pas britannique
My votes; tried to offer a piece of praise and criticism with each chosen.
1. Toi et moi nous sommes amis. I liked how sweet this was. There was a real sense the narrator cared for the old man, and I the story made enough of an impact on me to go "Oh :'(" at the end. I didn't get much sense of the narrator though, which is partly fine case he is the narrator, and not the focus of the story, but it would be a lot more impactful if I got a bit more idea of his own feeling and thoughts. I know he cared about the old man, but I'd like to know a little bit more about him. Similarities? Differences? that sort of stuff.
2. Multiversal Marty- I love the concept, and the jumping between worlds. It's cool, it's funny, and it is helped significantly by the creativity in each story Marty visited. I didn't get an idea of his character though. I would probably have a better idea if I read the first story, but I didn't, and still feel some of his character should have shone through more, especially in contrast to all the other great characters you had there. That said, I will probably read those other stories!
3. Legacy- The parallels between the two cousins is good, and I got an appropriate sense of what you were trying to say. Family dynamics have always interested me in that sense. I do think the end letter is a little cliche though, but I did appreciate the ending as a whole. I would have liked to know a little bit of how the cousins got along when they lived with each other. you spent so much time on family lives, I would have loved to see how those translated to them living together, if you get what I mean?
1. Toi et moi nous sommes amis. I liked how sweet this was. There was a real sense the narrator cared for the old man, and I the story made enough of an impact on me to go "Oh :'(" at the end. I didn't get much sense of the narrator though, which is partly fine case he is the narrator, and not the focus of the story, but it would be a lot more impactful if I got a bit more idea of his own feeling and thoughts. I know he cared about the old man, but I'd like to know a little bit more about him. Similarities? Differences? that sort of stuff.
2. Multiversal Marty- I love the concept, and the jumping between worlds. It's cool, it's funny, and it is helped significantly by the creativity in each story Marty visited. I didn't get an idea of his character though. I would probably have a better idea if I read the first story, but I didn't, and still feel some of his character should have shone through more, especially in contrast to all the other great characters you had there. That said, I will probably read those other stories!
3. Legacy- The parallels between the two cousins is good, and I got an appropriate sense of what you were trying to say. Family dynamics have always interested me in that sense. I do think the end letter is a little cliche though, but I did appreciate the ending as a whole. I would have liked to know a little bit of how the cousins got along when they lived with each other. you spent so much time on family lives, I would have loved to see how those translated to them living together, if you get what I mean?
The thing about Marty is that there was never much character there to begin with : P
FlowersisBritish
fleurs n'est pas britannique
No, but that's the thing, if you write a story about a boring character going through their boring life and the story is about the boringness of real life, then you still have a boring story even if it was on purpose! In your case; there is a part where Marty experiences frustration about not finding the author in the phone booth, and it feels so out of character because there was none. Yeah, I get he's purposefully lack of character, but there should still be some character so that his choices matter at the end. If Marty is no character than why should I care about him finding his own story and continuing his foray into other verses!
I tried to fit it idiomatically. So overall, my intention was to lead the reader "down the garden path," so to speak (So, deceiving them. Essentially, what a twist!
). That's why it's more of a comedic piece at the beginning and turns into well... what you get at the end, however you interpret it. I gave it the title "Rekindle" to make it sound like the story was about Jack and Johnny "rekindling" their friendship (I realized later though, that it also fit in terms of Johnny's hobby/obsessions being rekindled by the ending, since he's vindicated, albeit in a twisted way). In the end, I still think it might have been too jarring. Of what I've read so far, I think
Metaphoreus did it better in terms of deceiving the reader (if I'm interpreting the story correctly. I think I placed every character except Andy)
And I guess, going back to "led down the garden path," there's a lot of deception in the story itself: Jack thinks Johnny is being deceived by his wild theories, Johnny thinks Jack is the one being deceived, at the end it turns out Johnny may have been right, but maybe he's still being deceived?
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
Andy's a BS character. It's short for Andrew, which is time- and place-appropriate, and that's why I chose it.
EDIT: Also, now you mention that idiom, that's totally what I was doing. Totally. Everyone should just ignore this post.
Ah ok, that makes sense. Didn't think any of the group he brought with him had names.
And haha. I actually wasn't too familiar with that idiom, but luckily Cyan mentioned it in the OP!
After spending time in the San Juan Islands, Olympic National Park, and Machu Picchu, I realize I am unhealthily attached to the schedule of writing something every two weeks. So, I submit this for my own sense of routine near the end of my journey. It is NOT eligible for votes since it's way past due and don't even feel obliged to read it.
Side note: this is an unrevised draft, so.... yeah. But I'm delighted to say that it was written by hand at first -- on napkins, the backs of maps, and post-it notes.
"Racing to the Fall" (991 words)
Side note: this is an unrevised draft, so.... yeah. But I'm delighted to say that it was written by hand at first -- on napkins, the backs of maps, and post-it notes.
"Racing to the Fall" (991 words)
ThLunarian : It's only overcast 9 months of the year here : P Well actually, where I live it's actually worse than Seattle proper, but whatever... The fact that you started so specifically in stating what building they were standing on top of made some of the subsequent details feel a little overly broad. Okay, they found a highway. Which one, though? There aren't a lot of options directly out of the heart of downtown Seattle. Small details like that go a long way toward enhancing the flavor of a story by firmly establishing a sense of setting. I especially liked the clarification that the guy didn't literally materialize out of the air since such a thing was actually possible now, nice contrast of how turns of phrase do or don't work when divorced from every day context. The entire premise was a bit comic booky for me, and almost wonder if it wouldn't be better *as* a comic book since this is the kind of stuff that I feel is invariably better presented visually than descriptively. Liked it a lot though, especially the ending that I didn't see coming. Probably would have benefited from a higher word count that would allow some more flexibility and creativity in descriptions ("she could zoom her vision in and out on demand," for instance, is an incredibly dry way of stating that fact.). Really good effort for a one and done first draft, mine usually aren't in this good a shape until at least my first revision pass.
Aaron: How do you sit down in a seat at the opera wearing a sheathed katana? In the broad strokes, I thought this was a pretty solid yarn, the highlight of which was your depiction of the action (something I have a lot of trouble with, personally). Probably needed a bit of work before it garnered my seal of approval (Not that it's worth anything). The future time frame is not obvious until the reveal towards the end, but I think it was probably a necessary element to include at the beginning to help clarify why the geopolitical concerns don't reflect anything that would be within the realm of possibility in the foreseeable future where France allies with Russia and the US sides with China over Japan. Also, the gardening references eventually felt overbearing. Drawing the comparison between tending a garden and tending the course of world events? That's fine. But by the time you got to describing breaking a nose as being like snapping a flower stem and in the very next sentence state that he's been weeded out, it was just sounding forced. Spotted a couple typos ("this killers" instead of "these killers," "is brought the US" instead of "is what brought the US" for instance) as well. But again, the action sequence was really well done, I want to emphasize how much I liked that part (Which was a pretty sizeable part!)
itsinmyveins: The description of weeds trying to grow above grass as "reaching for higher ground" struck me as a bit odd because weeds literally do seek out ground, but they won't find it above the grass : P To be brutally honest (and I'm not coming from a place of spite with this. I only ever want to give useful advice, and I recognize that not everyone has a pathological hatred of their writing and seek the catharsis of having it torn down and their flaws exposed like I do.), this one needed some more work to the point that it almost drove me to distraction. Missing commas and hyphens. "Carrier" instead of "career." Describing a greenhouse as that it consisted of a greenhouse. The greenhouse itself being built a mile from the house in the woods in and of itself is baffling, both in that is not a trivial distance to walk, and that I would have difficulty believing that Jake's father's property line extended at least a mile into the woods. Jake's questioning of the moral character of the two men was rendered entirely moot because he turned out to be more vile than either of them. They had killed at least one person in a bank robbing attempt. Jake killed a helpless man who was dying for daring to desecrate his greenhouse with violence. And presumably he kept the money, because turning it in to the police would lead to the discovery that he killed one of the bank robbers and buried both of them. Maybe if the one guy had died despite Jake's efforts to save him regardless of Jake's opinion on the matter, it would have had an emotional impact besides isolating his from the reader. Kinda left a bad taste in my mouth.
Azih: The opening line set up certain expectations that were not met : ( This was a heartfelt tale. It didn't really gain anything from the flashback format, though, which gave the impression that the opening and closing about the shed were perhaps bolted on as an afterthought to meet the objective. But everything in between was good character building and a snapshot of how families and their interactions really are out there in the real world as opposed to the idealized models that seemingly most people seem to gravitate towards in writing. Not a lot seemed to be happening though; we got all this insight into the main character's family dynamics and interactions between various members, but not a lot came of it. But that may just be my bias towards event-driven stories over character-driven stories showing : )
karenq0506: So I'm curious; you say that this is the ending for the novel you've been working on. I'm guessing that the actual copy included in the novel would be edited down a little bit from this one? Seems like it would be weird to drop in the final chapter that the narrator was from Costa Rica unless amnesia plays strongly into the plot : ) I get that the main character had largely been isolated from society for much if not all of her life, but it seemed a bit weird that she would be thinking that she once read about doors in a book once, yet be able to identify the smell of rubbing alcohol and be able to distinguish a florescent light from an incandescent one. I think the parts that were inside Amarilis's head were better than those that weren't, in particular I felt that the conversation between Fran and Wilmer was notably bereft of much actions or descriptions. It was mostly just a large block of dialogue by way of explanation that almost seemed apart from the story, as though we were reading someone's summation of the story that had come before this point rather than the story itself. Also, am I reading this right in that Amarilis's previous nurses had killed themselves or were in prison for trying to kill her? That's an unusual detail that calls attention to itself, fitting for a story that would try and leave it ambiguous as to whether she was actually insane or not, but the final paragraph seemed pretty definitive that it was just in her head.
QuantumBro: Ooooooooh, suicide by the mob. I was wondering when this was going to get to him goading an angry crowd of people. I liked the main character's inability to quit cigarettes, even as he's planning to die that day. I did notice you had a habit of doing dialogue by saying who was speaking, ending that clause with a comma, then doing a carriage return for the actual dialogue. That was a bit distracting, not sure if it was just an honest mistake, or if it was a stylistic choice. If it was the latter, not sure what effect it was trying to achieve. Things got a little over the top once the action started, though. The same tropes from video games and action movies where the hero wades through wave after wave of chumps that make us shake our heads and note how things don't work like that in the real world still make us shake our heads and note how things don't work like that when it happens in written form as well : ) Though I suppose it's entirely possible that he mob has only hired some particularly bumbling and incompetent security as well (the boss didn't seem to be a particularly smart guy either, honestly, turning his back on a guy who has a gun pointed at him), but then it begs the question of how they ever became a threat in the criminal underworld as well. Oddly enough, I really liked the touch that the boss had a thing for all things Japanese that carried its way all the way through the story to the end where the guy had samurai swords. It did seem odd that if he was such an aficionado that he would display them in such a manner, I was always under the impression that one of these numbers was the way most were done.
chris.trejo: So if this jungle is on an island in the middle of the Pacific ocean, inaccessible due to it's towering cliffs, and shows no signs of humans having ever been there (presumably aside from the garden, naturally), that all begs the question: How did he ever find it in the first place? I want to say that I found this to be a little on the schmaltzy side, but you did kind of hit me in the gut with it since losing my wife at an early age like my dad did is one of my biggest irrational fears. I don't think the flashback was at all necessary. James's motivation is already well established, and the details of the accident that killed Josie aren't relevant to the rest of the story that plays out. I would also point out that stating that a jungle island has no signs of life is to ignore the fact that the trees that compose the jungle are in fact alive : P There were a few technical errors, mostly toward the end with dialogue where commas were outside quotation marks, both characters speaking in the same paragraph, new paragraphs not being indented. Also, "purist" is not the same thing as "purest" : )
Mike M: Not quite sure how this one relates to the theme... Originally this was going to be a story about Marty already being on a hero quest and washing up on a scene from an unfinished story that takes place in a garden and trying to convince the lone character he finds there to fight him so he could chalk up a heroic accomplishment toward the completion of his goal. That metamorphosed to him traveling to preexisting stories and recruiting a team of characters, which eventually led to this concept in the end where he is hoping through stories on his own. I guess you could say that the concept of the story went down some kind of path? Or maybe that I, as the Author, "led him down the garden path" in that I deceived him about what it would take to have a new story? It's all a stretch of an application of the theme, and I wouldn't hold it against anyone who penalized me for it : P That said, I actually enjoyed writing this one, but I will say that the word count limit murdered me on this one. I really wanted to stay as true to my premise as possible and leave the text from the other stories as close to the original as possible, but I had to refine it repeatedly to get that word count in under the limit.
Charade: I really like the premise of this one, the concept of a "cursed song" isn't exactly one that I've seen in fiction a lot. The most notable example I can think of is "Lullaby" by Palahniuk, which is a personal favorite of mine. This one was kind of split down the middle for me. Like I said, I loved the premise, and I liked the little details like Jack noting the rules for dealing with Johnny and noticing the number of locks on the door. On the other side of the equation, I think there were some oversights. The room was dark, Jack turned on the light, then Johnny went back to working on the computer. Wouldn't there be light from the computer monitor at least be a notable detail? I also think that Johnny could have probably presented a stronger case for the nature of the song by citing other examples of people named Johnny, but I also liked the bit about the crossroads and dates. The twist was telegraphed a million miles away though. The biggest misstep, though, I would say was the conversation with the Devil at the end (I will disagree with Metamorpheus and go on record that I don't think there's really any other viable way to read it other than as literal given that everything else Johnny feared would happen did). It strips what little ambiguity there was out of it, pulls back the curtains, shines a spotlight on it, reveals all the magician's tricks, etc. If Johnny had lived and been left wondering why he was alive and questioning the validity of his own theory, allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions, I think the story would have been stronger for it overall.
Metaphoreus: On a technical level, pretty much flawless by my ability to discern. I wouldn't have been able to discern what was going on without skimmed over some of the other comments going on, which makes me feel like kind of an idiot. I'm just not very biblically knowledgeable, I guess : ( You did a truly excellent job of concealing the true nature of the whole piece until the very end with the revelation that makes the reader reevaluate the entire piece that came before it (presuming they're savvy enough to catch it/remember someone saying they googled the last word), my inability to get it unassisted is no one's fault but my own. The only real quibble I might have with this one is that I wonder if the preface of the text of the laws/regulation/what have you was period accurate or not. I'm no historian or legal scholar either, but that kind of firmly entrenched the notion that the following story took place in the Modern era in my head. Again, may just be talking from a position of ignorance again. I'm really only good for vetting whether or not details about animals are correct : P
Sober: I felt super lost while reading this one. In the beginning, we establish that this is his usual booth and that he considers it something of a lucky charm. Cassie is obviously super into him, he's there all the time, but there's no explanation for why he doesn't dare ask her out, which is only more baffling because within a few sentences we're treated an explanation about how he doesn't have much luck with women. So how is the booth a lucky charm? Why doesn't he dare ask Cassie out when she's practically throwing herself at him? Then before I can wonder too much about it, we're thrown into what appears to be a dialogue with Nicole immediately after establishing that she's not there. Presumably this is a text message conversation, but there's nothing to note that. It's not difficult to figure out, but it's yet another stumbling block in the pacing as I'm still trying to reconcile the lucky charm/no dates/not asking Cassie out thing. Then in the second half, I was able to follow the dream to wakefulness, but then you launch back into a conversation that takes place in a dream with absolutely no transition, and I had to reread it several times to figure out that he wasn't speaking to Cassie and had in fact fallen back asleep. Then an ex-girlfriend comes out of nowhere and joins the conversation. And maybe it's just a daydream? So wait, was the conversation with Nicole earlier even a text conversation, or was it all just in his head? None of the text specify who is speaking. Everything just thoroughly unraveled for me and I couldn't even find an end of a thread to start following it back through what I had just read : (
Ashes: That... is some large font... I honestly come to the table each challenge and struggle to come up with something to tell you about your entry that I haven't already told you before. Naturalistic sounding dialogue, excellent sense of character study, not a lot actually happening, oddball formatting choices. It's your thing, and you do it well : )
Cyan: Very particular criteria for a feedback request. I did feel that it was probably a smidgen into the overwrought side of things, though not by too terribly much. I think if anything it was mostly the first sentence that tweaked me and colored my perception of the rest. It was quite long, and by the time I got past he clause about the angel and the flaming sword, I was having a distinct thought of "get on with it," especially since saying that air brims over with life and the water is warm is nowhere near as dramatic or impactful as the previous two landmarks, so it just comes out as feeling like word bloat to me. Everything else that followed was more trim. As for what I would have expected for the rest of the story, I have absolutely no idea. My gut is that this is some sort of metaphor/depiction of the afterlife and the woman is the gatekeeper who sets the deceased down the path of the righteous or the path of the damned or something? No clue.
Nezumi: Ooooh, you made me think this wasn't going to be about a garden that had faeries living in it. Fake out! I was going to say that was highly unlike you, fairy tale stuff is usually your turf. Also, I just noticed that your cat avatar is drinking from a mug with the German flag painted on it. Was it always like that, or is it just a World Cup thing?
Tangent: Echolocation is the act of making noise and determining position from the echos, not listing to noise and trying to figure out where it's coming from : ) Also, wouldn't call twigs a "land creature" on account that they're not creatures. I enjoyed the larger than life depictions of the things that the twigs encountered as though from their perspective ("dragons" and "goblins" and such), and was honestly expecting it to all be a setup for a contrast for when they realized that going over the falls was not such a big deal on account that they were sticks that would float and not have enough force of impact to suffer any real harm. But then the kid comes back and "saves" them, kinda validating the threat in their eyes, I suppose. Whatever floats your boat, kid. Personally, I would have sent a whole armada over the edge of the water fall because that would seem much cooler to watch : P
Votes:
1. Metamorpheus
2. ThLunarian
3. Aaron
Aaron: How do you sit down in a seat at the opera wearing a sheathed katana? In the broad strokes, I thought this was a pretty solid yarn, the highlight of which was your depiction of the action (something I have a lot of trouble with, personally). Probably needed a bit of work before it garnered my seal of approval (Not that it's worth anything). The future time frame is not obvious until the reveal towards the end, but I think it was probably a necessary element to include at the beginning to help clarify why the geopolitical concerns don't reflect anything that would be within the realm of possibility in the foreseeable future where France allies with Russia and the US sides with China over Japan. Also, the gardening references eventually felt overbearing. Drawing the comparison between tending a garden and tending the course of world events? That's fine. But by the time you got to describing breaking a nose as being like snapping a flower stem and in the very next sentence state that he's been weeded out, it was just sounding forced. Spotted a couple typos ("this killers" instead of "these killers," "is brought the US" instead of "is what brought the US" for instance) as well. But again, the action sequence was really well done, I want to emphasize how much I liked that part (Which was a pretty sizeable part!)
itsinmyveins: The description of weeds trying to grow above grass as "reaching for higher ground" struck me as a bit odd because weeds literally do seek out ground, but they won't find it above the grass : P To be brutally honest (and I'm not coming from a place of spite with this. I only ever want to give useful advice, and I recognize that not everyone has a pathological hatred of their writing and seek the catharsis of having it torn down and their flaws exposed like I do.), this one needed some more work to the point that it almost drove me to distraction. Missing commas and hyphens. "Carrier" instead of "career." Describing a greenhouse as that it consisted of a greenhouse. The greenhouse itself being built a mile from the house in the woods in and of itself is baffling, both in that is not a trivial distance to walk, and that I would have difficulty believing that Jake's father's property line extended at least a mile into the woods. Jake's questioning of the moral character of the two men was rendered entirely moot because he turned out to be more vile than either of them. They had killed at least one person in a bank robbing attempt. Jake killed a helpless man who was dying for daring to desecrate his greenhouse with violence. And presumably he kept the money, because turning it in to the police would lead to the discovery that he killed one of the bank robbers and buried both of them. Maybe if the one guy had died despite Jake's efforts to save him regardless of Jake's opinion on the matter, it would have had an emotional impact besides isolating his from the reader. Kinda left a bad taste in my mouth.
Azih: The opening line set up certain expectations that were not met : ( This was a heartfelt tale. It didn't really gain anything from the flashback format, though, which gave the impression that the opening and closing about the shed were perhaps bolted on as an afterthought to meet the objective. But everything in between was good character building and a snapshot of how families and their interactions really are out there in the real world as opposed to the idealized models that seemingly most people seem to gravitate towards in writing. Not a lot seemed to be happening though; we got all this insight into the main character's family dynamics and interactions between various members, but not a lot came of it. But that may just be my bias towards event-driven stories over character-driven stories showing : )
karenq0506: So I'm curious; you say that this is the ending for the novel you've been working on. I'm guessing that the actual copy included in the novel would be edited down a little bit from this one? Seems like it would be weird to drop in the final chapter that the narrator was from Costa Rica unless amnesia plays strongly into the plot : ) I get that the main character had largely been isolated from society for much if not all of her life, but it seemed a bit weird that she would be thinking that she once read about doors in a book once, yet be able to identify the smell of rubbing alcohol and be able to distinguish a florescent light from an incandescent one. I think the parts that were inside Amarilis's head were better than those that weren't, in particular I felt that the conversation between Fran and Wilmer was notably bereft of much actions or descriptions. It was mostly just a large block of dialogue by way of explanation that almost seemed apart from the story, as though we were reading someone's summation of the story that had come before this point rather than the story itself. Also, am I reading this right in that Amarilis's previous nurses had killed themselves or were in prison for trying to kill her? That's an unusual detail that calls attention to itself, fitting for a story that would try and leave it ambiguous as to whether she was actually insane or not, but the final paragraph seemed pretty definitive that it was just in her head.
QuantumBro: Ooooooooh, suicide by the mob. I was wondering when this was going to get to him goading an angry crowd of people. I liked the main character's inability to quit cigarettes, even as he's planning to die that day. I did notice you had a habit of doing dialogue by saying who was speaking, ending that clause with a comma, then doing a carriage return for the actual dialogue. That was a bit distracting, not sure if it was just an honest mistake, or if it was a stylistic choice. If it was the latter, not sure what effect it was trying to achieve. Things got a little over the top once the action started, though. The same tropes from video games and action movies where the hero wades through wave after wave of chumps that make us shake our heads and note how things don't work like that in the real world still make us shake our heads and note how things don't work like that when it happens in written form as well : ) Though I suppose it's entirely possible that he mob has only hired some particularly bumbling and incompetent security as well (the boss didn't seem to be a particularly smart guy either, honestly, turning his back on a guy who has a gun pointed at him), but then it begs the question of how they ever became a threat in the criminal underworld as well. Oddly enough, I really liked the touch that the boss had a thing for all things Japanese that carried its way all the way through the story to the end where the guy had samurai swords. It did seem odd that if he was such an aficionado that he would display them in such a manner, I was always under the impression that one of these numbers was the way most were done.
chris.trejo: So if this jungle is on an island in the middle of the Pacific ocean, inaccessible due to it's towering cliffs, and shows no signs of humans having ever been there (presumably aside from the garden, naturally), that all begs the question: How did he ever find it in the first place? I want to say that I found this to be a little on the schmaltzy side, but you did kind of hit me in the gut with it since losing my wife at an early age like my dad did is one of my biggest irrational fears. I don't think the flashback was at all necessary. James's motivation is already well established, and the details of the accident that killed Josie aren't relevant to the rest of the story that plays out. I would also point out that stating that a jungle island has no signs of life is to ignore the fact that the trees that compose the jungle are in fact alive : P There were a few technical errors, mostly toward the end with dialogue where commas were outside quotation marks, both characters speaking in the same paragraph, new paragraphs not being indented. Also, "purist" is not the same thing as "purest" : )
Mike M: Not quite sure how this one relates to the theme... Originally this was going to be a story about Marty already being on a hero quest and washing up on a scene from an unfinished story that takes place in a garden and trying to convince the lone character he finds there to fight him so he could chalk up a heroic accomplishment toward the completion of his goal. That metamorphosed to him traveling to preexisting stories and recruiting a team of characters, which eventually led to this concept in the end where he is hoping through stories on his own. I guess you could say that the concept of the story went down some kind of path? Or maybe that I, as the Author, "led him down the garden path" in that I deceived him about what it would take to have a new story? It's all a stretch of an application of the theme, and I wouldn't hold it against anyone who penalized me for it : P That said, I actually enjoyed writing this one, but I will say that the word count limit murdered me on this one. I really wanted to stay as true to my premise as possible and leave the text from the other stories as close to the original as possible, but I had to refine it repeatedly to get that word count in under the limit.
Charade: I really like the premise of this one, the concept of a "cursed song" isn't exactly one that I've seen in fiction a lot. The most notable example I can think of is "Lullaby" by Palahniuk, which is a personal favorite of mine. This one was kind of split down the middle for me. Like I said, I loved the premise, and I liked the little details like Jack noting the rules for dealing with Johnny and noticing the number of locks on the door. On the other side of the equation, I think there were some oversights. The room was dark, Jack turned on the light, then Johnny went back to working on the computer. Wouldn't there be light from the computer monitor at least be a notable detail? I also think that Johnny could have probably presented a stronger case for the nature of the song by citing other examples of people named Johnny, but I also liked the bit about the crossroads and dates. The twist was telegraphed a million miles away though. The biggest misstep, though, I would say was the conversation with the Devil at the end (I will disagree with Metamorpheus and go on record that I don't think there's really any other viable way to read it other than as literal given that everything else Johnny feared would happen did). It strips what little ambiguity there was out of it, pulls back the curtains, shines a spotlight on it, reveals all the magician's tricks, etc. If Johnny had lived and been left wondering why he was alive and questioning the validity of his own theory, allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions, I think the story would have been stronger for it overall.
Metaphoreus: On a technical level, pretty much flawless by my ability to discern. I wouldn't have been able to discern what was going on without skimmed over some of the other comments going on, which makes me feel like kind of an idiot. I'm just not very biblically knowledgeable, I guess : ( You did a truly excellent job of concealing the true nature of the whole piece until the very end with the revelation that makes the reader reevaluate the entire piece that came before it (presuming they're savvy enough to catch it/remember someone saying they googled the last word), my inability to get it unassisted is no one's fault but my own. The only real quibble I might have with this one is that I wonder if the preface of the text of the laws/regulation/what have you was period accurate or not. I'm no historian or legal scholar either, but that kind of firmly entrenched the notion that the following story took place in the Modern era in my head. Again, may just be talking from a position of ignorance again. I'm really only good for vetting whether or not details about animals are correct : P
Sober: I felt super lost while reading this one. In the beginning, we establish that this is his usual booth and that he considers it something of a lucky charm. Cassie is obviously super into him, he's there all the time, but there's no explanation for why he doesn't dare ask her out, which is only more baffling because within a few sentences we're treated an explanation about how he doesn't have much luck with women. So how is the booth a lucky charm? Why doesn't he dare ask Cassie out when she's practically throwing herself at him? Then before I can wonder too much about it, we're thrown into what appears to be a dialogue with Nicole immediately after establishing that she's not there. Presumably this is a text message conversation, but there's nothing to note that. It's not difficult to figure out, but it's yet another stumbling block in the pacing as I'm still trying to reconcile the lucky charm/no dates/not asking Cassie out thing. Then in the second half, I was able to follow the dream to wakefulness, but then you launch back into a conversation that takes place in a dream with absolutely no transition, and I had to reread it several times to figure out that he wasn't speaking to Cassie and had in fact fallen back asleep. Then an ex-girlfriend comes out of nowhere and joins the conversation. And maybe it's just a daydream? So wait, was the conversation with Nicole earlier even a text conversation, or was it all just in his head? None of the text specify who is speaking. Everything just thoroughly unraveled for me and I couldn't even find an end of a thread to start following it back through what I had just read : (
Ashes: That... is some large font... I honestly come to the table each challenge and struggle to come up with something to tell you about your entry that I haven't already told you before. Naturalistic sounding dialogue, excellent sense of character study, not a lot actually happening, oddball formatting choices. It's your thing, and you do it well : )
Cyan: Very particular criteria for a feedback request. I did feel that it was probably a smidgen into the overwrought side of things, though not by too terribly much. I think if anything it was mostly the first sentence that tweaked me and colored my perception of the rest. It was quite long, and by the time I got past he clause about the angel and the flaming sword, I was having a distinct thought of "get on with it," especially since saying that air brims over with life and the water is warm is nowhere near as dramatic or impactful as the previous two landmarks, so it just comes out as feeling like word bloat to me. Everything else that followed was more trim. As for what I would have expected for the rest of the story, I have absolutely no idea. My gut is that this is some sort of metaphor/depiction of the afterlife and the woman is the gatekeeper who sets the deceased down the path of the righteous or the path of the damned or something? No clue.
Nezumi: Ooooh, you made me think this wasn't going to be about a garden that had faeries living in it. Fake out! I was going to say that was highly unlike you, fairy tale stuff is usually your turf. Also, I just noticed that your cat avatar is drinking from a mug with the German flag painted on it. Was it always like that, or is it just a World Cup thing?
Tangent: Echolocation is the act of making noise and determining position from the echos, not listing to noise and trying to figure out where it's coming from : ) Also, wouldn't call twigs a "land creature" on account that they're not creatures. I enjoyed the larger than life depictions of the things that the twigs encountered as though from their perspective ("dragons" and "goblins" and such), and was honestly expecting it to all be a setup for a contrast for when they realized that going over the falls was not such a big deal on account that they were sticks that would float and not have enough force of impact to suffer any real harm. But then the kid comes back and "saves" them, kinda validating the threat in their eyes, I suppose. Whatever floats your boat, kid. Personally, I would have sent a whole armada over the edge of the water fall because that would seem much cooler to watch : P
Votes:
1. Metamorpheus
2. ThLunarian
3. Aaron
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
There's no way around it: that's an anachronism. The Bible doesn't say one way or the other, but I guarantee Judas didn't have a written contract with the Sanhedrin.
Himynameischris
Member
Thanks for the feedback
this story was inspired by a personal tragedy and a classical music piece that I love about spirits that awake during Halloween in a cemetery , so some stuff just came out that maybe I shouldn't have put it there. Sometimes it's hard to think about those real life experiences and keep your head straight. I was trying to come up with a way to make the garden as inaccessible as possible and jungle island in the pacific was the best I could come up with without tying more supernatural elements to the story. You're right about the jungle being alive, I didn't think of that. I wanted the island and the garden especially to be completely supernatural and I guess that didn't come across. The story I had outlined involved a little bit more of the search on his part, in fact in the ending he wasn't even going to find her but as I started writing that's just where my mind took me, hidden desires on my part I suppose. I know I didn't format it properly, sorry about that
. I've been doing nothing but research papers for over a year so writing a story was a little weird. I wrote it in under two hours and did a quick edit before I submitted it, work has been crazy but I'll try to do better editing next time. I loved your story btw, I still have a few more to read before I vote but yours is definitely up there. You're a great writer so I appreciate your feedback EDIT: Here are my thoughts on the other submissions. I'll keep these brief since I'm going off of memory (I left my handwritten notes at my office). Please note that I'm mostly highlighting the reasons I didn't vote for these, so don't get discouraged if what I say is mostly negative.
"Eternal Garden" by chris.trejo. I liked this story, but it was difficult to follow the timeline at some points. One minute it's ten 'til midnight, the next it's almost sunset. It was unclear when the events in that paragraph occurred. I also found it odd that the walled garden was not a sign that humans had set foot on the island.
Didn't see your edit earlier, the timeline doesn't really jump around so I'm not sure how you got confused, the only time I mention another time period is when I describe the accident. Maybe I wasn't as clear as I thought I'll read it again to see if maybe I made a mistake. As far as the island not being touched by humans, I mentioned that as a way to show how it was all supernatural and not part of our world but I guess I wasn't clear since Mike mentioned something similar, I'll keep that in mind, I really appreciate the feedback
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
Didn't see your edit earlier, the timeline doesn't really jump around so I'm not sure how you got confused, the only time I mention another time period is when I describe the accident. Maybe I wasn't as clear as I thought I'll read it again to see if maybe I made a mistake. As far as the island not being touched by humans, I mentioned that as a way to show how it was all supernatural and not part of our world but I guess I wasn't clear since Mike mentioned something similar, I'll keep that in mind, I really appreciate the feedback
Here's the paragraph I'm talking about. The bolded sentences are what threw me off:
Eternal Garden said:
There's not a clear transition from nine 'til midnight ("[h]e didn't see an entrance" to the garden) to sunset ("James abandoned his boat") and then back again ("[h]e thought he could jump" the eight-foot walls around the garden). It's all the more confusing because of that first bolded sentence. If I'm reading it right, "when he first got there" is referring to his arrival at the garden itself, but "when he arrived" refers to his arrival at the island. Yet the reader is going to try to read those phrases as referring to the exact same time, especially since they appear in the same sentence. When I read that "[h]e needed to get to the garden before midnight," I wondered how that could be a challenge, seeing as he was just at the top of a hill above the garden and with nine minutes to spare. But that sentence really seems to belong to the time at which he arrived at the island, not the time at which he arrived at the garden. Ideally, that middle section of the above paragraph should have been its own paragraph; but, failing that, there should have been clear transitional phrases to mark when you shifted between sunset and midnight.
Oh, and re-reading this reminded me of another thing: you shouldn't use the word "you" in the narration unless the reader exists in the world of the story. For instance, you write that "not a single sound could be heard once you got there." But I didn't get there. There are about four other instances where I butt into the story unannounced. Probably the best way to rewrite those would be to replace "you" with a character in the story. So: "James couldn't hear a single sound once he got there." Or later, "the music . . . had become so loud and so fast that James couldn't keep track of it anymore." Another option is to remove anyone at all from the description, as in, "Over the horizon, the sky became lighter." Or later, "It was bright enough that the entire island was illuminated" (or, for instance, "that every pebble and blade of grass was clearly visible"). The bottom line is that the reader should not be referred to unless he or she exists in the world of the story.
Himynameischris
Member
Oh you're totally right and I remember why that paragraph is like that, originally it was much shorter and didn't include the details about the island and his first arrival there. I added it in there and forgot to format and edit it so it made sense.
That's a good point about not adding you, I always try to avoid using "you" "I" "me" and I must have missed that. I'll keep that it mind going forward
thanks!
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
Oh you're totally right and I remember why that paragraph is like that, originally it was much shorter and didn't include the details about the island and his first arrival there. I added it in there and forgot to format and edit it so it made sense.
That's a good point about not adding you, I always try to avoid using "you" "I" "me" and I must have missed that. I'll keep that it mind going forward
Keep in mind that it won't always be improper for the narrator to refer to the reader or to himself, even when neither the narrator or reader are characters in the story. The first chapter of Don Quixote is a good example of this, as the narrator refers to both himself ("In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind") and to the reader ("You must know, then, that the above-named gentleman . . . gave himself up to reading books"). So whether you'll use those terms will depend on the narrative style you adopt in any given story.
Himynameischris
Member
Oh I tried to avoid it because teachers will mark you on that when doing research papers, but you're right I guess it depends. I have so much to learn
itsinmyveins
Gets to pilot the crappy patrol labors
Weeds do grow high unless I'm confusing the term, which isn't entirely unlikely! And walking a mile doesn't take more than maybe 15 minutes, does it? To me, such distances aren't that odd if you're talking about rural areas, but I've always lived in the city so I really don't know
That being said, Jake wasn't really meant to be seen as a good man. They guy is really a bit fucked in the head considering what he did. I did, however, write that he buried the money along with them.As far as hyphens go, that bit always confuses me. In swedish we rarely ever use them to connect words, unless it's a swedish word connected to a english word, for instance. Same thing goes for commas, which are used a bit differently and not as frequently. I'll work on that though, so thanks for bringing it to my attention. Sloppy on my part.
Oh, they do, I just found it a somewhat peculiar turn of phrase to state that they're metaphorically seeking the high "ground" in trying to grow taller than the grass when they are literally rooted in the ground at the same level. It wasn't any sort of error or anything.
And walking a mile doesn't take more than maybe 15 minutes, does it? To me, such distances aren't that odd if you're talking about rural areas, but I've always lived in the city so I really don't know
It's not so much that it's an impossible distance, just that it would be really inconvenient and almost certainly be beyond the boundaries of their property lines. Unless they're some Andrew Ryan type who owns tracts if woodland that he's rather burn than see nationalized : )
Honestly, a single sentence stating that it was secretly and illicitly built in the woods because there wasn't room in their property or how they owned that bit of the woods would have tied it up for me. Just seemed like an odd detail that needed a bit of explanation.
D'oh! My bad for somehow overlooking that detail : (
votes:
1- Metaphoreus
2- Ashes
3- Charade
ThLunarian - The tone is odd. Sounds more like execs going to burning man for a corporate retreat than scavengers at the end of the world. Saying someone can zoom their vision in and out is especially strange when there's zero set up or explanation. I like in media res style. It's immediate, and I don't think you need to explain everything right away, but you have to realize how your words sound to someone with no context. There's also one little problem of having this be in past tense considering the narrator wouldn't be able to frame, or even remember, the beginning of the story.
itsinmyveins - Not sure what the point of phrases like 'of course' and 'depending on a persons view.' They clutter the story without adding to it. The problem by the end is I don't know what Jake wanted. There's very little of his thoughts to explain his actions, and I think including them would help the story bind together. Since right now it feels disconnected.
Azih - Could use a hook somewhere at the start. The shed and the fact that the narrator and cousin are wildly different ages are story elements, but they're nothing like a core. I'd like something to adhere these details to.I think it would have been better to be written in the act of cleaning the shed for some structure, and let the things the narrator sees remind him of the details so they could more naturally float to the surface.
karenq0506 - The storytelling is a little mechanical in the 'this happened, and then this happened' sense. You should try to mix it up more. You end up talking around the story rather than having it be the story. It's a cliche but it's often true. You should show more than you tell. There's a lot of telling in this. The ideas are very good. They deserve a better form.
QuantumBro - Main character comes off as a total dick. That's a little off putting when I don't have any other reason to go along with him. There's not any motive given for his acts, no bloody history of the mob boss that deserves vengeance. It the end it feels thin.
chris.trejo - There's too much backstory. There's no reason why you couldn't tell this as a flashback, or even just narrate events in order leading up to the death and search for the garden. I need a little investment in the characters for their reunion to have a real impact.
Mike M - It's a little too meta since the meta is the only thing it really has going for it. It could have used another element to co-exist with, to take it beyond a cute idea into a more complete story.
Charade - I might be the only one who feels this way, but extended conversation circling the same subject feels like noise after a while. I think you made your point about halfway in, and needed some small event to help the story along, and break up the string of dialogue. By contrast, I don't think you spend enough time brushing off the curse talk for the sudden realization to have enough impact. You need to give the reader a little time to forget.
Metaphoreus - I like the style and tone a lot. Even the little definition at the front. It's a little heavy with the lingo though and explanations. I think you're explaining things ahead of where the reader actually needs to know them. Things better introduced on the job. There's also a little too much talk considering the urgency of the matter, and how eager the assassin wants this over with. Great start still. You should spend more time with it.
Sober - The writing is fine, but there's too much straight dialogue with nothing else, and there's nothing particularly unique about this situation for me to latch onto. It also ends the moment before anything can happen so it lacks a feeling of resolution.
Ashes - There's no flesh on these bones. It's got some muscle and sinew over its organs, but not enough. I don't mind it being stark, but this feels incomplete. Feels like there's a layer missing, though these bones and muscle are very good.
Cyan - It's better if you cut the first sentence. I was once told in writing it's best to go from the small to the large. By starting with order and chaos, you're too grandiose right from the start.
Nezumi - Feels unfinished. It's a little top heavy with denying magic at the start, and the end is over so quickly I'm not entirely sure what happened. There's a good story here, but the current form is too fleeting.
Tangent - While this is already pretty short, I can't help thinking it would have worked better if it had ended almost right after the second warning about the falls. There's a lovely transition between the boy and the twigs, but I feel like you establish their world so well and so quickly that it starts losing some of its magic as the piece goes on.
1- Metaphoreus
2- Ashes
3- Charade
ThLunarian - The tone is odd. Sounds more like execs going to burning man for a corporate retreat than scavengers at the end of the world. Saying someone can zoom their vision in and out is especially strange when there's zero set up or explanation. I like in media res style. It's immediate, and I don't think you need to explain everything right away, but you have to realize how your words sound to someone with no context. There's also one little problem of having this be in past tense considering the narrator wouldn't be able to frame, or even remember, the beginning of the story.
itsinmyveins - Not sure what the point of phrases like 'of course' and 'depending on a persons view.' They clutter the story without adding to it. The problem by the end is I don't know what Jake wanted. There's very little of his thoughts to explain his actions, and I think including them would help the story bind together. Since right now it feels disconnected.
Azih - Could use a hook somewhere at the start. The shed and the fact that the narrator and cousin are wildly different ages are story elements, but they're nothing like a core. I'd like something to adhere these details to.I think it would have been better to be written in the act of cleaning the shed for some structure, and let the things the narrator sees remind him of the details so they could more naturally float to the surface.
karenq0506 - The storytelling is a little mechanical in the 'this happened, and then this happened' sense. You should try to mix it up more. You end up talking around the story rather than having it be the story. It's a cliche but it's often true. You should show more than you tell. There's a lot of telling in this. The ideas are very good. They deserve a better form.
QuantumBro - Main character comes off as a total dick. That's a little off putting when I don't have any other reason to go along with him. There's not any motive given for his acts, no bloody history of the mob boss that deserves vengeance. It the end it feels thin.
chris.trejo - There's too much backstory. There's no reason why you couldn't tell this as a flashback, or even just narrate events in order leading up to the death and search for the garden. I need a little investment in the characters for their reunion to have a real impact.
Mike M - It's a little too meta since the meta is the only thing it really has going for it. It could have used another element to co-exist with, to take it beyond a cute idea into a more complete story.
Charade - I might be the only one who feels this way, but extended conversation circling the same subject feels like noise after a while. I think you made your point about halfway in, and needed some small event to help the story along, and break up the string of dialogue. By contrast, I don't think you spend enough time brushing off the curse talk for the sudden realization to have enough impact. You need to give the reader a little time to forget.
Metaphoreus - I like the style and tone a lot. Even the little definition at the front. It's a little heavy with the lingo though and explanations. I think you're explaining things ahead of where the reader actually needs to know them. Things better introduced on the job. There's also a little too much talk considering the urgency of the matter, and how eager the assassin wants this over with. Great start still. You should spend more time with it.
Sober - The writing is fine, but there's too much straight dialogue with nothing else, and there's nothing particularly unique about this situation for me to latch onto. It also ends the moment before anything can happen so it lacks a feeling of resolution.
Ashes - There's no flesh on these bones. It's got some muscle and sinew over its organs, but not enough. I don't mind it being stark, but this feels incomplete. Feels like there's a layer missing, though these bones and muscle are very good.
Cyan - It's better if you cut the first sentence. I was once told in writing it's best to go from the small to the large. By starting with order and chaos, you're too grandiose right from the start.
Nezumi - Feels unfinished. It's a little top heavy with denying magic at the start, and the end is over so quickly I'm not entirely sure what happened. There's a good story here, but the current form is too fleeting.
Tangent - While this is already pretty short, I can't help thinking it would have worked better if it had ended almost right after the second warning about the falls. There's a lovely transition between the boy and the twigs, but I feel like you establish their world so well and so quickly that it starts losing some of its magic as the piece goes on.
Himynameischris
Member
I'm a little confused, too much backstory about what in specific? Most of the story all takes place from 10 minutes before midnight to right after sunrise at the garden of that same night. I guess my story seems a little confusing with my timeline I'll have to work on making what's going on and when more clearly. I was originally going to include more information about his search but it just changed as I was writing. Maybe I can revisit this under another thread. Thanks for the input
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