WIP
1. Mikeroth - A Diet of Rhythm
I loved the languorous mood you created in the first part of the story. I really identify with that feeling of being trapped in your own head, of pulling your world inward. The emphasis on details like the mud on your feet collapses the world down so nicely.
A few specific lines:
“The juxtaposition of the lively concerts just down the hill and the quiet gym made for a surreal effect on the night” - I think this is a good example of show, don’t tell. The contrast was already there. Trust the reader to get that feeling.
“It seemed as if all the attendees along with myself had suddenly materialized there and had somehow been cut off from the rest of the planet to fend for ourselves, only I was the sole outcast, quiet and confused, not really having any idea what I was doing or why I was there, while all the others began to band together.” - I really like this passage. I’d cut “along with myself,” full stop between “ourselves, only I”?
“The water was overwhelming, so vast and expansive.” Vast
and expansive?
“I tapped along quietly before noticing a barefoot young girl enter through the doors at the far end of the gym, maybe two or three years older than myself.” This struck me as very odd. I would never call someone older than myself young, even if we both were young.
“All of the light particles in the gym vanished but the ones that reached her feet and she began to spin a glowing ball of yarn that the greatest poets on Earth could only dream of using to weave their lyrical quilts together.” You lost me here. Honestly, this is where I fail as a writer. It is so damn hard to describe these kind of feelings. I like the contrast you’re going for - the first part of the story is more matter of fact, more direct. Then, in the end , you try to spin off to these wild metaphorical heights. It just did not succeed for me.
“The credits rolled and I was happily buried.” Nice ending!
2. Toddhunter - The Love Letter
I think this suffers from a lack of direction. Is it a parody of sci-fi/police procedurals? Is it supposed to be read as straight noir/hardboiled fiction? Is it a send up of the subject matter or is it trying to say something profound? It seems to start as one thing, then end as another.
Three ”fucks” in the first two sentences? Much as my own speech is filled with casual profanity, it often rings false to me in written dialogue. It’s really off-putting here, although it seems to fit better in the rest of the story.
“World weary pair” - once again, show, don’t tell. The dialogue makes this clear. Saying it directly feels like a shortcut for writers without the skill to bring it out. You see this in bad writing all the time. You have the skill to make it clear - trust yourself, and trust your readers.
You use the word “rickety” to describe both the car and the android’s cage, and it was jarring both times. That could just be me.
“whilst the song it blared...,” “whilst also” - I know whilst is more of a UK thing, but it always sounds pretentious to my ears. Why not use while? I guess there is a subtle distinction that you can make use of, but I rarely see it employed for effect. “Whilst also” is a strange construction, too. Ditch the extra “also.”
“You couldn’t have missed her sitting there in one of the many red leather booths. She was a stunning girl, long blonde hair, perky breasts and the kind of eyes that a guy could lose himself in to quickly end up going mad.” - why have we slipped into noir? There’s a disconnect in tone from the rest of the story. The girls having a tail struck me as a completely unnecessary detail, too.
I really like the ending, but it doesn’t fit the rest of the story. Here, I’m left scratching my head. It makes me think that there has been some bigger message here, but it honestly feels more like an exercise in aping a particular style. Me being too dumb to pick it up is also a very real possibility.
3. ThLunarian - Mirrored
I love the core of the story - being trapped in this strange double life and this question of how aware each side is of the doubling.
“What am I doing here?” - I love the opening. You’ve got the tone down from the first line.
Is there a reason they are dancing to Lady GaGa? I don’t know her music to know if the song choice means something here. Unless the song title is super meaningful (and “Bad Romance” is a suggestive title, but does it really tell us more about the Will/Bill-Olivia relationship than we already know?), we’ll need some lyrics to know what you’re talking about. Unless it really, really matters, I’d ditch it and let your story exist in some indeterminate time and place.
I was a bit confused by the setting. You call it both a ballroom and a dance studio. Unless this is Versailles, the ballroom presumably will not have a big wall of mirrors, like a dance studio. But I don’t think of performing for a crowd in a dance studio, so I couldn’t decide which one it was.
Nitpicks aside, I enjoyed this a lot, and really liked the ending (have I said that in every critique? I don’t always like how things end, I promise). It’s all the better for fitting into about half the word limit.
4. Bagels - Spinner
Bagels, that was shit.
5. Nezumi - Lift Up
This all felt too clichéd to me. Grannie imparting some deathbed wisdom, elevator as metaphor, music as heaven/communication from beyond this world.
I’d like that last one if it were developed a bit more here. It just did not feel genuine to me.
This could be entirely my hangup, so take it for what it’s worth, but I found this jarring as a deathbed scene. Granny is “frail,” and “weak,” and then she just kind of launches into this long soliloquy. I honestly thought, “Isn’t Grannie supposed to be dying?” I don’t know how to approach it without popping out of the dialogue for Grannie to cough or whatever which, again, has been done. So...I’m not helping.
The phrase “tears of sadness” is usually going to feel unnecessary. I get what you’re going for, but I’d set that up in a single line - “they were tears of both sadness and anger; sadness at x, but also anger at y...” but, you know, better.
It’s a sweet little story but wasn’t for me. It would be interesting to hear what happens to Cookie now, though.
6. Aguila - Locket
Look at the number of adjectives you use. The prose comes off as stilted because every noun is getting modified two or three times. “They passed clean, orderly, award-winning gardens” - An award-winning garden will presumably be clean and orderly. The first part of this is way overwritten. Some things need to be described in detail (e.g. the dress) to paint a particular scene, but some of the detail seemed excessive in a short piece like this.
This feels like a chapter from a larger work, rather than a short story. As a self-contained work, I’m not sure what the point is, if any, other than to tell a nice story. I was waiting for a big reveal when she gave the locket back, and...nothing?! Was it cut? I expected
someone to turn into something else.
It’s written with a great deal of skill. Even the make-out scene is handled well, which is beyond anything I can pull off. I was just waiting for a payoff that never came!
7. Aaron - The Lord High Executioner's Lament (An Opera)
I struggle with this one. I really like the overall “feel” - it’s very much like an adapted fairy tale or folk tale. The rhymes are playful and unexpected. You have to love the executioner’s trick and the final reveal.
Despite all that, this annoyed the crap out of me to read. Maybe this is me being stupid and not knowing anything about opera (I asked my composer friend if this is just me being an idiot and not knowing the conventions of the form. I guess if you sing the whole thing, it’s an opera. Simple as that); maybe this works as lyrics set to music. But, as written, the rhythm is all over the place, and it’s totally off-putting. I can’t hear the music in your head (or can I...?
) so I can’t make it work!
You have lines like
“The axe is heavy, lord, when wielded every hour. I
ask only for assistants. It is within your power!” (syllables: 12/13 (ev-ry/ev-er-y), 15)
which totally works for me, and I pick up the cadence in my head. But then there are passages like
“Working day and night, I have ended all your
enemies. Now I come before you to plead for your clemency. Do
not think me soft, but I need the week off!” (syllables: 14, 13, 5, 6)
The first two lines tend to be a long pair, but the next pair break the rhythm. I’d think that was a deliberate choice, but it’s not totally consistent throughout.
And a line like
“King: This guy must die!”
Is going to be Don King/Roadblock from GI Joe in my head. I imagine the choices are very deliberate here, but unless you play me the music, I just cannot get this to read in my head. It totally pisses me off, because when I did find the cadence, I was totally digging it and smiling at the rhymes.
8. John Dunbar - People With Music in their Lives
It’s a tad on the nose, innit? I smiled, but I have a lot of sympathy for a story about a conspiracy to keep our pop culture completely mediocre. Recast the judges as forces of truth and beauty and you’ll sell a zillion more copies of this thing, though.
9. Mike M - Ecomotors
You and John Dunbar make a good pair here with your slightly more...er...pointed takes on contemporary topics. This was a lot of fun to read.
“Another moth drawn to the flames of wisdom” got me. That was just a nice move from the opening into the tone for the rest of the piece.
“Immaculate and shining, they were a beacon of enlightenment in a sea of unending ignorance, the only dealer on auto row with the presence of mind to look forward to the future” needs a “he was” or something, or else the cars, collectively, are somehow the dealer.