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NeoGAF Creative Writing Challenge #125 - "Performance Anxiety"

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N

Nezumi

Member
I just realized that I started writing my story without using one of my characters as focus. Which is kind of what I wanted, but proofs to be a lot harder to write than I imagined.
 
A

Ashes

Banned
Mike M said:
I just get a kick out of being contrarian.
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You should do some thing about that. Otherwise you might end up being something like me.

Anyways, that secondary objective is pretty damn cool. Almost a shame it isn't the main theme. Almost.
 
T

toddhunter

Member
Chainsawkitten said:
I assume an NSFW story will be fine?
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Chainsawkitten said:
My Vulvic Nest (1631 words)
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So yeah.

pushing-the-envelope-dtyop.jpg
 
T

Tangent

Member
"Inevitable Questions" 2037 words

If you have any advice on how to provide the perspective of both MCs, much appreciated. And also advice on how to use correct punctuation to state internal thoughts that are in the form of questions.

Cyan said:
I know the feeling, ronito, but seriously, you can write whatever and I won't be disappoint. :p
P.S. Assuming you're still in the neighborhood, we should hang out with Tangent sometime soon!
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Yes a Ronito-story is always fun! Sorry for getting ahead of myself... how long will you be around in the neighborhood? Same twice a week format for the next few months or is that ending this summer? Congrats on the PM certification stuff btw!
 
H

hey_monkey

Banned
Okay! I've just wrapped up and am gonna try to do this neat linking biz y'all are doing now. I didn't plan on entering, but I kept thinking about the theme and the way I'm stalled out on the project I'm supposed to be working on and decided to write a new scene with the theme in mind. I don't know if it'll make sense as a standalone, but what the hell.
 
T

toddhunter

Member
Tangent said:
And also advice on how to use correct punctuation to state internal thoughts that are in the form of questions.
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I'm not doctor punctuation but personal preference would be not to use italics except for emphasis.

Depends on your perspective from there of course. I'd use quotation marks if they are directly thinking something to themselves:

"What did I just ask?" thought Ashok.
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Would work, but I'm not a fan of that either and I'd probably go with:

Ashok wondered what exactly he had just asked.
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As I understand it all three are ok.
 
H

hey_monkey

Banned
Still (2000 words)

I don't think the password took. I've never protected a file before. If it did, it's the number of the challenge. If it didn't, well, I'll try again next time.

eta: uh, also mine is kinda super sad, I guess, and possibly disturbing. not in a vulvic nest sorta way, either. (not that I have issue with vulvic nests)
 
C

Cyan

Banned
hey_monkey said:
Still (2000 words)

I don't think the password took. I've never protected a file before. If it did, it's the number of the challenge. If it didn't, well, I'll try again next time.
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Don't think it took, it's not asking me for a pw. If you're using PrimoPDF, there's a setting you have to check after hitting print.
 
A

Ashes

Banned
toddhunter said:
Sorry if it has been asked, but what is the go with the --- for dialogue? Haven't seen that before.
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em dash replacing dialogue quotation marks? It's older literature to blame mostly. Idiotic fools like Joyce use it. I use it as a go between for getting rid of quotation marks all together, even though I sometimes prefer avoiding quotation marks altogether - similar to McCarthy. But it confuses people more so.

Sometimes, you do what you like, even if others do not, because you think its right [for the piece of work]. Mostly in this case, it's stylistic. Its more bare to the bone.

edit:... fixed a separate issue with the pdf..
 
C

Chainsawkitten

Member
Ashes1396 said:
Well, don't take my word for it. I've got no sources. I've been humbled many times before, and I don't think that is going to stop any time soon.
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Well, my knowledge of punctuation isn't exactly stellar, so me not hearing about it doesn't have to mean a thing. I use em dashes incorrectly myself (I use them as if they were en dashes).
 
B

British Monsoon

Member
As soon as the sun dropped, the first thing I noticed was how absolute the darkness was. I was driving hard down an empty road, long and ruler-straight that ran right through a sprawling coniferous forest. I was so used to the neon haze of the city, the flickering street lamps, gaudy shop signs and constant procession of vehicles, even in the dead of night, whereas out here, sight extended no further than the twin beams of light spreading out before me and it had been hours since I had last passed anybody on this seemingly endless stretch of asphalt. The silence was starting to get to me.

I phoned the Deputy Sheriff of the shit-hole I was headed to, just to break the monotony. Duggan was his name. He had been disarmingly helpful. Normally, local law enforcement falls into one of two categories. Pig ignorant or surly and mean, plus, you can be sure that neither type wants you poking your nose about their town.

"Yeah, I seen her 'bout a week back." he said. "Hangin' round with Ricky Finn and his lads."

I was surprised he knew her just from the description, but he said it was a small place. Not a lot went on out there without somebody noticing. He said he'd have Ricky's file waiting for me in my motel room, which he'd already taken the liberty of booking me into.

"That a normal duty of the Sheriff's Department?" I asked.

"Naw, but my Ma' owns the motel. Like I said, small place. There prob'ly won't be anyone up at the front desk by the time you get here, so just head on in. Room 3, she said she'll leave the door unlocked."

I thanked him for his help, he made me promise to buy him a beer and that was that. Back to the road and the darkness and the endless parade of trees. I glanced once more at the picture of the girl, Katie Sellers. It was a family photograph from Universal Studios. All smiles, except for her too-cool-for-school grimace. She had the look of someone who thought the world owed her something. I'd seen her type before. Her parents were sick with worry, but had found the police response to be entirely lacking. That's about where I joined in the story, shepherd looking for a lost little lamb, only the shepherd's got a gun and a drinking habit, while maybe the lamb ain't so much lost as she is running.

Later, as the trees began to thin and signs of human habitation started to appear, the town of Scalton loomed blessedly out of the darkness. It wasn't much of a sight by night, but I guessed it wouldn't look much better by day. The motel was easy enough to find, this was a real 'one road' sort of town. It was well after midnight and, as predicted, everyone was asleep, so I headed to room 3 and slumped onto the bed, falling at once into a black sleep. I dreamt of Sarah and of the dinner we were supposed to have with her parents last night, as it was her father's birthday. Waking up in the dingy motel room, it took me a good few minutes to realise where I was and why my wife wasn't beside me.

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I spent most of the day wandering the town, getting a feel for the place. Other than the main road in an out, a couple of relatively new housing estates and the farms and logging camps littered around the outlying countryside, there wasn't a whole lot to Scalton. The main point of attraction seemed to be the bar at the centre of town, Carrington's. I grabbed a beer and a steak, but the place was pretty empty at this hour, so I headed over to the sheriff's office to make myself known. Even if the law ain't gonna give you a lick of help, it's always wise to let them know you're operating on their turf.

After reading the none-too-slim file on Ricky Finn, I'd got a pretty good picture of the stuff he was involved with. It was all mostly petty shit, vandalism, common assault, a few instances of shoplifting, but no charges were ever pressed. There were, however, a couple of more serious incidents. Finn had been arrested for arson and involuntary manslaughter, but was never charged. Two associates of his were doing long stints in prison for the crime and I wondered if Duggan could get me on the phone with one of them.

"That'd be pretty difficult." he said apprehensively. "One's dead. Hung himself. The other? He's in the psych ward, permanently doped up to the gills just to stop him from tearing at himself."

"Either of them have any family, any friends?" I asked hopefully.

"Yeah, Morgan. The one that's dead. His Ma' lives on an old ranch about two miles out of town. I'll drive you out there, if you're thinking of talking to her?"

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"I told you, that Finn ain't right. And now my boy's dead." the old woman spat, as she dug savagely with her trowel at the hard, cracked soil.

"What are you suggesting Mrs Morgan?" I asked.

"He knows." she said, with a venomous glance towards Deputy Duggan. "Ricky Finn is in league with the devil."

"Now, Maggie..." Duggan began, only to be cut off as the old woman got to her feet and rounded on them.

"You should know better, Frank. But him? He ain't from round here. He's got to be told."

"Told what, Mrs Morgan?" I asked.

"Told to stay the hell away. Ricky Finn is a possessor of souls. He'll get all up inside of your head, make you see things his way, make you do things you wouldn't have done. He's a monster, a gods damned monster!" she yelled, with tears in her eyes and a dread conviction. I had seen a misty-eyed sort of detachment in her gaze at first, but now there was nothing more than a burning intensity that set the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end.

"So, what next?" Duggan asked as we drove back into town. "You wanna try and go find Ricky? He and his boys should be headed to Carrington's in an hour or so."

"Yeah, but I think I'll need to go solo on this one. I don't want Ricky to immediately make me. Let him think I'm just some businessman passing through town."

"Fair enough" Duggan replied, "I'll be in there anyway later this evening. You just holler if you need a hand."

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I stepped into the place just as dusk was settling over Scalton. I nodded to the owner, who I'd met earlier in the day, Thomas was his name, before taking a seat at the bar. I ordered some wings and a beer and settled in. Before long the bar started to fill up. It was a nice scene. Carrington's was the only place in town to get a hot meal and a drink, so it seemed as if half of Scalton turned up. Soon the place was roaring and I found myself drawn into conversation with the locals. Can't say if they believed my story of being a suit from the city out north to handle logging permits, but it seemed dull enough to be true.

Ricky wasn't easy to miss. Sitting in a booth at the far corner with a raucous group of friends, a dumb grin plastered over his face. I could tell people didn't like him, just from the sideways glances they shot in his direction and the sharp eye Thomas kept on the group. No one said anything though and, as the night wore on and the drinks flowed, the spirit began to turn sour. The crowd had thinned out, less families, less diners, the tail end of the evening reserved for party animals and seasoned drinkers alone. I ordered another Old Fashioned and leaned back on the bar, looking again to the booth in the far corner. Ricky's eye caught mine and he made his way over.

"Two shots of Crow, Tom." he ordered, turning to stare at me as Thomas poured the drinks. "Can't say I seen you before." he said, sliding one of the shots over to me.

"I'm looking for someone." I said, before necking the shot.

"Oh yeah? I heard you were some 'suit from the city', ain't that right?" he said, that mean grin returning once more. "You've got the stink of pig about you."

"I ain't no cop."

"But you out here, pokin' around, asking questions. Sounds like a cop to me."

"Let's just say I'm concerned party." I replied, returning to my Old Fashioned. "You seen this girl?" I placed the photograph of her on the bar, pointing her out in the picture.

"Sure did. She rolled through about a month back." It was such a matter of fact statement I could've almost believed he was telling the truth. "Sad girl."

"Why d'you say that?" I asked.

"Seemed like she had her fair share of troubles, is all."

"Know anybody who might've added to those troubles, Ricky?"

"Oh, man." he said with a laugh. "You couldn't sound more like a cop if you tried. What's the matter anyway, she missing?"

"Maybe, but I'd like to know where she was last seen, where she might've been headed..."

"All I know is we talked, had a few drinks and then I walked her to her car and she left. Seemed pretty upset about something, but I don't know what." He lapsed into silence, before downing his unattended shot. I thought about ordering another, but I was already pretty drunk. Sarah would say that I'd had enough. He was looking at me and there was that grin again.

"Well, I sure do hope you find her, mister. Such a pretty girl. She should be in the city, with all the light and the noise, not out here in the darkness." He ordered a couple more shots of Crow.

"Here, friend. One more for the road. Keep the darkness at bay." he said with a laugh, sliding the shot over to me.

I was about to slide it back, but then felt myself pouring the drink down my throat before lurching awkwardly to my feet. God, I hadn't got this drunk in an age. What would Sarah think? I went to pay off my tab, but found that I'd left my wallet back at the motel. Thomas had no problem taking an IOU and made sure I wasn't driving before letting me leave. Ricky had already left and the place was now near empty, but I hadn't noticed. Walking outside, it took a second to remember which way to the motel. It had been a pretty fruitless evening. Ricky was a shit, no doubt, but I was no closer to finding Katie.

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The dream was as real as they come. I'd dreamt the Saturday I would've spent with Sarah, had things been different. We'd gone shopping, done chores and headed out to a restaurant. I often found that the most mundane dreams held the most substance. As such, it was with a fair bit of confusion I awoke, before the hangover well and truly set in. I pawed around for a bottle near the bed, but there was none to be found, so I wandered over to the lobby to get some coffee. Deputy Duggan was just arriving and he rushed on over.

"We found the girl's car." he said abruptly. "Although I don't think you're gonna like it."

He was right. The car was a wreck and of the girl there was no sign. It'd somehow made it near a hundred feet past the treeline, bark sheared from the trunks as it passed, at what must have been some considerable speed. There were no tire marks on the road and only the torn up verge and barkless trunks showed sign of the car's progress. None of the heavy moving equipment could reach this deep in, so a fire crew were using Jaws of Life to sheer the wreck into more manageable pieces, before a forensic team carried them free.

Suddenly, there was a cry of shock and revulsion as a fireman dropped his tool and stumbled hastily backwards. The pneumatic jaws had peeled away the trunk door from the crumpled frame of the car and, contained within, were the crumpled remains of the girl. Her face, or what remained of it, starred out grotesquely, blood spilling free to patter steadily upon the carpet of fallen leaves. I felt a familiar, helpless anguish well up inside of me and fought to contain a wave of nausea.

Deputy Duggan was wild-eyed and pale. He walked over and haltingly explained that I'd have to leave, what with this just becoming a murder investigation. We agreed to meet up at Carrington's later and I suddenly remembered my wallet and the conversation I'd had with Ricky last night. I mentioned to Duggan that Ricky might have been the last person in town to see her alive and he said they'd put out an APB. I hurried away back to the motel, eager to put as much distance between me and Katie's corpse as possible. Searching the small motel room, my wallet was nowhere to be found. It hadn't been handed in at the lobby, or in the Sheriff's Department, so I headed to Carrington's to see if Tom had found it anywhere. The place was deserted, but when I called Tom appeared from out back. I asked about my wallet.

"Funnily enough, Ricky came in this morning and said he'd found it out on the street." he replied, suddenly having my full attention. "He paid off your tab with the money inside and then said if you want the rest, you should come get it."

"Yeah? Where's he likely to be at this hour?"

"On a Sunday? Probably shooting cans with his boys down by the old gold mine. Follow the track up into the hills from the Morgan ranch, you can't miss it."

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The sun was out in full force as I made my way up the track, but soon the trees thickened and I was in the blessed cool of their shade. I could hear nothing but birdsong and the constant chirp of cicadas, providing a soundtrack to what, under different circumstances, would've been a pleasant walk. As it was, my mind was darkened with thoughts of poor Katie. Shit, her parents were going to be devastated. The path grew steeper and I found myself panting for breath as, at last, I rounded a corner and came upon the entrance to the mine. There was Ricky, sitting on a crate of beer with a bottle in hand.

"How's it goin’...'Dean Markham'" Ricky said, reading my name from my wallet. "Slipped this from out of your back pocket last night."

"Thought you told Thomas you found it on the street?"

"Yeah, guess that makes me a liar. But what about you? I knew you had the stink of pig about you."

"I told you, I ain't no cop."

"No, not any more you ain't. Still a pig at heart, though. Mr. P.I, private dick." he spat. "Don't like questions, but since you've been asking so nicely, maybe I do got some answers for you."

"Like what, Ricky."

"Well first, that girl killed herself. Stuck herself in the neck with a switchblade, before someone stuck her in that car."

"How the fuck do you know that?" I said, snarling.

"Because I was watching, Dean. Shit, she was halfway there already. All I had to do was give her a look, tipped her over the edge. Just like I did to Morgan when he was threatening to talk."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Why? Because it don't fuckin' matter, that's why. They might say I was with the girl, but there's no proof of nothing. Just like there's no proof I burned down that house. But, let me tell you Dean, I told that girl to kill herself, just like I told Morgan to burn that fuckin' house down."

"And what about me?"

"What about you, Dean? You don't fuckin' matter. Not to me, not to nobody. Certainly not to your dead whore of a wife. Sarah was her name, wasn't it?"

"Don't you mention her again, Ricky. I'm warning you."

"Or what, you'll shoot me, Dean? Just like she shot herself? Pretty little housewife, all alone, while her hero cop of a husband's out saving lives." At that I drew my gun.

"You're coming with me. Let's go." I said, choking back an involuntary cry of grief.

"Oh, I don't think so, Dean. You ain't going nowhere." Ricky said, fixing me with a cold, disarming stare. "What would Sarah think, to see you now? Washed up, on your knees." I slumped to my knees. "Gun poised, mouth open, ready to pull that trigger." I raised my gun and placed the barrel in my open mouth. "What are you waiting for, Dean?" Ricky spat. "What're you fuckin' waiting for? Can't you see her, pretty little Sarah? Poor, troubled Sarah. She wants to see you, Dean. Just end it and you can be together again. Just end it."

I moaned as tears began to stream down my face, as I felt my finger involuntarily close around the trigger and begin to apply pressure. I thought of Sarah once more and my resolve broke. A gunshot sounded out in forest, echoing as birds took flight, and I fell at last, hard to the floor.

"You OK?" Deputy Duggan asked as he helped me to my feet. I looked up and saw the corpse of Ricky before me, his temple blasted open and a gun in his hand, reminding my to holster my own weapon.

"Nice shot."

"Thanks, he’d left me no choice."
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Disclaimer;
I'm pretty sure this is entirely full of plot holes, as I changed a lot while I was writing. Also, I know the ending fucking sucks and it carries none of the impact I had originally intended, but fuck it, too late to change anything now
. I did try a new way of preparing to write the piece, this time around, where I wrote the scenes that were most vivid to me first, regardless of their order, and then filled in the blanks afterwards. I found it easier than just hammering out the story chronologically, but it probably didn't much help something like this where I needed to keep the plot more coherent in my mind.

Ah, and I just realised it might not be so obvious how it ties into the theme; story spoilers -
the prompt initially gave me the idea of someone who has the power of compulsion over others, but can only compel them to do something they are already thinking about. This was why Ricky was able to convince the girl and the protagonist to kill themselves, as suicide was already on their mind. I didn't have the space to flesh this out though. The secondary was meant to be fulfilled by Ricky mentioning the protagonists wife, but, again, I don't think it was anywhere near as impactful as I had intended because I got carried away while writing. Again
. Finally, I would be grateful for some tips on the genre. I've never written much detective/police sort of stuff and am worried I may have fallen into some lazy cliché I failed noticed. Or that the whole thing might just be some lazy cliché.
 
M

Mike M

Nick N
Chose the form of your destroyer:

ElectricBlanketFire: Dating Tips For The Nervous Nelly
ronito: Cursor
toddhunter: The Rising Saga
kaepernickehs: Performance Anxiety -- Anxious Performance
SquiddyCracker: First day
Chainsawkitten: My Vulvic Nest
mu cephi: Upside Downside
multivac: The Butcher of Stormeer
Aaron: Sodom's Secret
Tangent: Inevitable Questions
Cyan: By the Book
hey_monkey: Still
Mike M: The Process
Nezumi: The Fox and the Kettle
Ashes1396: blighted candle
Bootaaay: No Choice in the Matter
Ward: Neon Nights Look Larger As Approached
 
H

hey_monkey

Banned
Dashes are life, man. Em and en. I love the dash.

Ashes, I've been rendering dialogue in some of my pieces in italics. Feels right, man. I write such internal stuff that emphasizing the dialogue like that changes the story dynamic. I support your choices.
 
S

SquiddyCracker

Banned
Mike M said:
Chose the form of your destroyer:

ElectricBlanketFire: Dating Tips For The Nervous Nelly
ronito: Cursor
toddhunter: The Rising Saga
kaepernickehs: Performance Anxiety -- Anxious Performance
Chainsawkitten: My Vulvic Nest
mu cephi: Upside Downside
multivac: The Butcher of Stormeer
Aaron: Sodom's Secret
Tangent: Inevitable Questions
Cyan: By the Book
hey_monkey: Still
Mike M: The Process
Nezumi: The Fox and the Kettle
Ashes1396: blighted candle
Bootaaay: No Choice in the Matter
Click to expand...

You forgot me, Mike!
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=73101011&postcount=106
 
O

oatmeal

Banned
His palms are sweaty.
Knees weak, arms are heavy.
There's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti.
He's nervous, but on the surface he looks mom's spaghetti
To drop bombs be he keeps mom's spaghetti
What he wrote down, the whole crowd goes so loud,
he opens his mouth but the words words won't come out
He choking now, mom's spaghetti.
 
M

Mike M

Nick N
Had I known we were going to get so many entries, I’d have pared the word count a bit... Live and learn.

ElectricBlanketFire -- Dating Tips For The Nervous Nelly: This may have been a pisstake entry, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t love it. The bizarre examples of success like the bit about the waiter were dialed in to that sort of absurdism that appeals to my sense of humor. The whole thing was reminiscent of something, but I can’t put my finger on it. I want to say Be a Perfect Person in Just Three Days, but that’s more just because the premise is so similar. Not knowing is going to drive me nuts.

ronito -- Cursor: I get the distinct impression that not having the benefit of being a part of Creative Writing GAF for the past five years, I’m missing out. Yes, I’ve picked up the metajokes about Al Roker and donkeys via participating in the threads, but I never actually read those stories. Reading this is what I imagine people who heard great things about Arrested Development and watched season 4 on Netflix without watching the first three seasons must feel like. Started sweating a bit when I read this, since my own offering was something in a similar vein.

toddhunter -- The Rising Saga: The fact that one of the characters declared something to be “awesome” and that they would “hit that” kinda took me out of the experience, as everything up until that point hadn’t really painted a world where I’d expect the characters to start talking like American teenagers. I’d have like to have known a little more detail about the subjugation under the Stalkers and why they had to dig holes, but since the story was really about three guys lusting after the same girl and sabotaging Peter’s attempts, it didn’t matter in the end. Could use a bit of copy editing, but it was mostly solid.

kaepernikehs -- Performance Anxiety -- Anxious Performance: First, WTF happened to your username? Man, what a pain in the ass to type correctly. The concept of writing while others watch is an interesting one, though I’m not entirely sure how well it would work out with the numbers that CWGAF pulls. Any larger a pool of participants though, and we’d never get through all the entries. Yet another story about writing a story, bizarre that we’ve got three people so far that have come up with the same idea for this theme. I do hope yours isn’t as autobiographical as ronito’s or my own though. Heh.

SquiddyCracker -- First day: I really enjoyed this one. It gave me shades of A Dirty Job at first, but quickly differentiated itself. I liked a lot of the concepts about how a race of extradimensional deaths would operate, and how the narrator struggled to try and convey incomprehensible concepts to an audience that could not have any frame of reference. It seemed a wee bit inconsistent (The protagonist born from two deaths, yet later it’s implied that they don’t have sex with no further explanation on how their reproduction is accomplished.). Copy editing was a little on the rough side too.

Chainsawkitten -- My Vulvic Nest: Dat title. I’ve never done anything stronger than weed in my life, but I’d wager you’ve about as perfectly nailed the verbal depiction of being on a bad drug trip as possible. Really nice bit of horror short fiction, and while still tangentially related to your usual taboo of choice, it was a large enough departure that it was nice to see you stretch your wings a bit. More stuff like this, less eloquent pedophile stalkers, please.

mu cephi -- Upside Downside: While the whole dystopian future where the well-to-do live literally and metaphorically above their lessers is a well trod path, I still enjoyed this one. Especially since the world of Upside really didn’t seem that great to begin with, and was only a desirable place to be because it’s the only alternative to the abject hell of Downside. It was suitably self contained with enough details for the reader to fill in the blanks as needed, with the exception of the couple mentions of The Wheel. I got absolutely no idea what that was supposed to be the about, and it was the only loose thread for me.

multivac -- The Butcher of Stormeer: The central premise here of an orphan wanting to be a butcher’s apprentice being picked up off the street by the king’s executioner and learning the trade is compelling enough to be a full-fledged novel. But in the service of making it a sub 3K word story, it kind of got... er... well, butchered. I was incredulous that the butcher would just narrate his plan aloud in full view of everyone in the market, nor could I believe that the protagonist would forget something so rudimentary and basic as to place the basket below the chopping block. The excursion back into the outer circle of the castle town just to set up the later appearance of Grennon seemed out of place, and the protagonist got out of being killed by the mob entirely too easy. I think you just came up with more story than you could fit in here without noticeable compromises, which is a shame because the I loved the idea the second it showed where it was going.

Aaron -- Sodom’s Secret: I felt a little bit adrift at the end. Silas made a literal deal with the devil, and he’s supposed to use the power he gained as a result in the service of helping people repent. There are myriad ways to interpret this, but the relationship between the devil and God doesn’t appear to be anything but the bog standard devil working in direct opposition to God. And then he goes and burns the town down. I’m left wondering if there’s an actual mandate to try and help people attain heaven in a doing-the-wrong-thing-for-the-right-reasons sort of way, or if Satan is just trolling the world. I did like the dialog, sounded about as natural as I can picture for having never lived in that time period. The explanation to the priest on how he can see everyone’s secrets weighed in a bit on the hamfisted side of things, but it was necessary knowledge to impart.

Tangent -- Inevitable Questions: “Do you know about algebraic topology?” Wow, that’s a hell of a pick up line... I had mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand, it’s an interesting window into a culture I don’t know much about (I had a general ed class in anthropology that turned out to be about nothing but India, but that’s it), but on the other hand it’s a pair of super nerds talking about math. The whole time. I work in a scientific field and would gnaw my arm off at the shoulder to escape such a conversation. Glad it worked out for them, but it strikes me as fortunate to the point of straining credulity that they would both be blindsided that the other has a graduate degree in mathematics. Seems like that would be the basis for the match and that such information would be imparted to them before they ever met.

Cyan -- By the Book: In a world where everything is entirely mundane and they’re so low-tech that they’re still keeping files in file cabinets, the AI constructs thing seemed really out of place, even though it eventually wound up being the central focus point of the entire plot. The whole thing was a hard sell; human agents being phased out in favor of AI programs who are explicitly described as being sub-human in intelligence? Pairing them with agents so they can learn the protocols that they should logically already be programmed with, but not to learn improvisation skills that lead to success when things don’t go to plan? It never occurred to Greyson that her pet AI is still under the full control of the Agency and is theoretically recording/logging every highly illegal thing she’s doing? Plus these agents are walking around the Agency with birds on their shoulders like they’re pirates or something? It was a ridiculous mental image that set the tone for the rest of the piece, as every step of the way I was asking why everyone wasn’t being smarter about everything.

hey_monkey -- Still: Hits pretty close to home on multiple fronts here. That made it an incredibly depressing read to get through, so congrats on turning the optional secondary objective up to 11, I guess? Heh. Unpretentious prose, but the subject matter made this one long, agonizing full rotation of the knife it jabs into every parent’s heart. Solid construction and tasteful handling of a delicate matter, though.

Mike M -- The Process: I briefly entertained the notion of entitling this “NeoGAF Creative Writing Challenge #125” just to up the meta-ness of it all. This entire concept centered around writing the gag about the ridiculous description about the clouds (which I managed to make even more ridiculous than I had initially envisioned), spurred in no small part about a few weeks in a row of being raked over the coals for being excessively verbose. Instead of trying to find a way to twist the story idea to the given theme, I had the luxury of winning the previous contest and working a theme around the story I wanted to write : ) It turned out okay, I guess. Bizarrely we had two other stories about writing stories, so that sapped whatever uniqueness it may have had. Honestly I feel it was all downhill after the bit about clouds.

Nezumi -- The Fox and the Kettle: My conception of fox spirits is heavily informed by Muramasa: The Demon Blade, so I initially have a hard time wondering why the guy in the beginning is running away screaming like that. The tanuki was suitably vulgar, though the reference to “balls” outside of dialog was a little strange since the narration for the rest of the piece is rather dispassionate and devoid of colloquialisms like that. Kind of surprised it just ended like that, seems like it was missing another couple of paragraphs where the fox has some sort of epiphany or something and realizes that the tanuki is right or something.

Ashes1396 -- blighted candle: The third chapter was so radically different in tone and pacing from the rest of the piece that I spent the entire time marveling at how Nasima had managed to pull herself together so well when we last left her, she was precariously close to the edge of self-destruction. Then when we start off chapter four, we’re reminded “oh yeah, her husband was totally going to murder those guys, wasn’t he?” The fact that it ultimately turned out to be a piece about the therapeutic power of revenge gave it a dark edge, but maybe at the expense of kinda trivializing the subject matter?

Bootaaay -- No Choice in the Matter: I’ve not read a lot of detective fiction, so I can’t really offer up any tips on the genre. I do like the supernatural/paranormal twist (I will almost always prefer that over depictions of mundane reality), though it kind of all just unspooled at once at the end. We at least had a brief hint about it earlier on so it was an expected revelation and not just something out of left field to blindside the reader. Even though it maxed out the word count, it’s one of those stories what would probably benefit from a larger word count to allow the information to dole out at a slower pace instead of trying to cram everything into a headlong rush to the conclusion.

Ward -- Neon Nights Look Larger as Approached: The little vignettes at the opening and close really set the tone for the dreamlogic confusion that the protagonist subsequently experiences. Mercifully the story explains somewhat what’s going on instead of just leaving it up to the reader to muddle through. Honestly kind of surprised that they were able to parlay their dream-trips to the future into some moderate success, usually the trope is that stories that revolve around man playing at God end with them being punished for their hubris in some fashion (Flatliners, Primer, 12 Monkeys, etc.)

oatmeal: Dude needs to learn to chew his food. Who the fuck chokes on spaghetti?

Picks:
1.) Chainsawkitten
2.) mu cephi
3.) Aaron

HMs: ElectricBlanketFire, multivac, SquiddyCracker
 
G

GRW810

Member
Holy shit, the entries have been pouring in recently! Glad I didn't have an idea worth submitting if only so I've avoided having to analytically read seventeen short in two days!
 
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