xeris: The depiction of the game seems fairly well described (I wouldnt really know, sportsball is the bane of my existence and small-town life where it revolves around it at a high school level sounds like my own personal hell), but the story overall seemed to lack a clear focus. By turns we jumped from Smithey to Jimmy to his girlfriends heads. The central conflict was presumably the game itself, but the stakes werent high enough for me to really care about the outcome. Despite being inside the head of three different characters at various points, only Jimmy really had anything even remotely important riding on the outcome. Even then, he might not get a scholarship offer if they lose this game is weak conflict lock because it leaves the possibility that he could still get it regardless. The ending was something of a cheat to me, it took an already low-stakes conflict and negated it completely. I like the twist in concept, but in execution it just came out of the blue. There wasnt anything in the story preceding it that would directly countermand such an ending, but there wasnt anything really hinting at it either.
FlowersisBritish: Putting aside the fact that I find it strange that Arnie would have never met his Uncle Leo before, Im conflicted in regards to the fact that his mom never sent word that his father had died. Her rationale is kinda understandable, I guess, but I dont know if that justifies her actions. And honestly, the more I think about it, the more I think that grappling with his mothers action would have been a stronger conflict for Arnie instead of the melancholy yearning for something unknown. At the very least, it seems like it should have been addressed in greater depth than what we got. That was a heavy, heavy thing she did, and we just kind of breeze right past it.
Mike M: This was a very deliberate and purposeful exercise for me. In finally getting around to re-reading my NaNo book from last year with an eye toward editing, I noted that I didnt like how close the perspective was, and that there was a whole shitload of telling instead of showing--particularly in regards to sense and emotions--which made everything read as YA when that was absolutely not what I was going for. So I set out to write this without getting into the heads of either character and wind having it be from one characters perspective (or worse, head jumping), without explicitly mentioning how the characters were feeling or thinking. Also, wanted to do an action sequence because I always have trouble with those. I think Ive inadvertently started something of a serial with these characters without intending to, but Harold had a moment of speaking for the author when he was questioning the why/who/how of Walter being killed. I have absolutely no idea, but its a story hook if there ever were one. Maybe this is an exercise in pantsing for me as well if I were to do more installments for the mystery. Incidentally I have detailed answers to Flowerss questions, but it can mostly be summarized as Harold has a raging superiority complex and would speak poorly of anyones ability, and that he hasnt actually known Walter for very long.
Hop: The two are obviously a couple, you know. <- Im not sure if this is part of the narration, or if its a summation of what Jamess mother was telling him. If its the latter, its ambiguous without a dialogue tag and could easily be read as the former, and third person narratives should not be addressing the reader. Im not sure if the reveal that the man lost was Jamess brother was intended to be a twist, but the mention of the fireplace mantle being a shrine combined with his conspicuous absence from the Thanksgiving dinner led me to assume that he had already died on a fishing expedition before we even got to the end, so it didnt have a lot of impact with me. Which is a shame, because taken as a whole it seems like this whole thing was set up in service of what was intended to be a crushing reveal, and without it its just kind of there. Theres no central conflict to speak of, and theres no real resolution to anything. There are some good turns of phrase (I especially liked the lines about how you learned to deal with the cold immediately followed by the one about James having forgotten) and descriptions, but theres not a strong narrative frame to hang them on.
Tangent: So, given the color photo, they were all polar bears? Even though one of them was named Mr. Grizzly? That threw me a little bit, since it didnt seem consistent with the other named characters all having normal, non-ursine names that started with P. I guess its possible a grizzly could run a camp for polar bears
Cute little story, and the central conceit of bears in the wild having canoes, paperwork, and igloo camps didnt run into any major hurtles that I could see (since, you know, I get really nitpicky about the consistency of the world building of animals behaving like people : P). I felt like it was building to something a bit bigger, but then it was just they figured out to freeze seals for Pablo to crunch on. I was expecting a punchline, but it was played straight until the end. Add some illustrations and dispense with/reword mentions of oral stimulation and selective mutism, and its essentially a ready-baked childrens book.
Dandy Crocodile: Probably could have used a spell check/copy edit pass (Trek not treck, trach, and Kindle would be capitalized). If this isnt an actual anecdote, you did an amazing job of having it come across as the real deal. The nature of anecdotes, though, is that real life doesnt typically conform to story structure with acts and conflicts and story beats etc. Technically I guess you could classify it as non-fiction, but even then I think it needs to be framed in the terms of a strong protagonist/antagonist conflict to be compelling. The conflict in this one was, I guess, one of person versus fate or nature, but the impersonal antagonism never really rose above anything but inconvenience. The fact that the part about the ticket not printing out in Madrid ultimately didnt amount to anything since it was just printed in Philly was a disappointment, because I was expecting far worse things than a gate change and being bumped to the next flight. Its a story that I would listen to a friend relate back to me, but if presented in any other context (CWC aside, obviously), I probably would have moved on before I got to the end. But Im a genre fiction kind of guy, so make of that what you will.
Ashes: Ive never been to Ireland and dont know how widespread the use of me instead of my is (or whether its actually spelled mam or if thats just the Irish inflection of mom.), but it sounds weird to my ear to have someone using nonstandard phrasing and generally speak in the commonest of vernacular say I feel a sense of catharsis writing this. Theres some good, multi-layered conflicts running through the course of this one, even if theyre not obviously resolved by the end of things. I guess a case could also be made for the fact that the narrators turnaround from irredeemable scoundrel to considering the possibility of being a responsible adult and thinking of someone other than himself was a bit of a whiplash. Theres enough potential here for a full novel, cramming it into a story this short is doing it a disservice.
Cyan: The scientist in me cringes as they just barge into the experimental chamber to see whats in the box without checking their instruments to see if theres, like, something hugely radioactive or something. This seemed simultaneously reminiscent of that episode of TNG where Dr. Crusher is stuck in the warp bubble where people are disappearing and that one short film making the rounds a few months back where there was a time travel loop where things got worse and worse with each iteration. Everything is mysterious, nothing is explained, which is what makes it such a horrifying fate to think about. Great premise, solid everything else with no real flaws to speak of (outside of wondering how the notebook got started if the artifact kept eating their memories of observations of it.).
Nezumi: Kind of weird cross between Cyans entry this week and that one I wrote about the memetic plague worm this past summer. I think for maximum effect, though, the words that the grub is eating would need to be typed to match the rest of the entry? Unless that was the picture as you found it, I guess?
DumbNameD: The sudden jump to what Josiah was thinking was a little odd, if only because the detail that he had wished that he hadnt dropped the rabbit was so inconsequential to anything else. I liked the dialogue and the history between the characters told through their interaction, but the characterizations seemed off to me. I had a hard time believing that as a white man Jim would be relatively reasonable and accepting of the changing of the social order during the Reconstruction, especially as a member of the law enforcement apparatus. I suppose its entirely possible that a deputy in the post-Civil War south could potentially not be a white supremacist, but I dont think we had enough time in the space allotted to fully unpack that concept, hence the disconnect to me. On a similar note, I didnt ever get the impression that Uriah was ever that much of a bad man. He may have done all manner of terrible things since his escape, but the only things we know about are what he did during that episode, which were arguably justifiable.
The Votening:
1. Cyan
2. Ashes
3. DumbNameD