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NeoGAF Creative Writing Challenge #117 - "In the Shadows"
- Thread starter Cyan
- Start date
- Status
Though I'm saying this late, congrats on the win! Great prompt, but boy, it was hard for me to think of something to write.
"Monster Within" (1106 words)
"Monster Within" (1106 words)
Btw, the pictures at the bottom of the story are not meant to be illustrations but just thoughts that came to my mind. They aren't meant to be part of the story.
John Dunbar
correct about everything
uh oh, cyan. you done goofed.
Oh, I didn't even see that... That might explain why there are stil only 5 entries so far (Yes I'm still working on mine, almost finished now...)
They say that light is made up of tiny particles, millions of miniscule fragments of dancing foaming light that surge and crest and break.
The same is true of shadow. I've seen them with my own eyes, the shadow fragments: little motes of darkness that crawl along the edges, that fill in the blank spaces, that cling to the underneath. They crawl and they hide. And when the time is right, in the long part of the night when the dark flows high, when the sun is a memory and the moon hides its face, when men's minds turn to cold and hidden things--they bite.
The same is true of shadow. I've seen them with my own eyes, the shadow fragments: little motes of darkness that crawl along the edges, that fill in the blank spaces, that cling to the underneath. They crawl and they hide. And when the time is right, in the long part of the night when the dark flows high, when the sun is a memory and the moon hides its face, when men's minds turn to cold and hidden things--they bite.
Wow, I really did.
Um, anyone else who got confused by the fucked-up-ness of the deadline, please post in here and let us know.
Erm... yeah... this excuse is totally why I haven't submitted yet. For sure. Honestly.
SquiddyCracker
Banned
Oh, the 13th?
Wat.
Updated my entry after some Mike-certified feedback.
Wat.
Updated my entry after some Mike-certified feedback.
This sounds plausible!
John Dunbar
correct about everything
so, uh, isn't not reading the op a bannable offense? everyone banned who posted thinking today is the deadline.
SquiddyCracker
Banned
I'm fine with either, will enable me to add another scene and 600 words that I think might come in handy.
That's why I asked. If anyone needs more time, and actually was confused because I screwed up the dates, we can give an extension. Don't want to just extend it another week otherwise.
Chainsawkitten
Member
I assumed that the date in the op was correct since I haven't participated in previous threads and thus didn't know how long the deadline usually is.
Well whatever the deadline is or was here is my entry. Sorry again for being late... or not... I don't know.
"There is always Light" ~2800 words. Usual password.
Hm...maybe we can just allow the people who believed the written deadline to submit their stories as part of the next challenge? This way the ones that finished more or less on time don't have to wait another week and the ones that had the "wrong" date didn't waste their effort.
"There is always Light" ~2800 words. Usual password.
Hm...maybe we can just allow the people who believed the written deadline to submit their stories as part of the next challenge? This way the ones that finished more or less on time don't have to wait another week and the ones that had the "wrong" date didn't waste their effort.
Chainsawkitten
Member
I aim to be done tomorrow anyhow. We'll see how feasible that actually is.
Steriletom
Member
Yeah, I took the deadline at face value. Busy weekend, so count me out.
Done. Deadline extended until Sunday.
SquiddyCracker
Banned
SquiddyCracker
Banned
It's all in the OP.
Chainsawkitten
Member
Good news: despite my initial concerns, 3000 words would seem more than enough. Bad news: I'm really not sure how to end this. (Title's a bitch as well.)
SquiddyCracker
Banned
I'm withholding the extra scene, my entry is done.
Chainsawkitten
Member
Choose the form of the destructor!
Mike M -- Boeing Woes
John Dunbar -- In a Field Where Barley Grows
SquiddyBiscuit -- From Carthage then I left
Ashes1396 -- anonymous donor.
Tangent -- "Monster Within"
Cyan -- Shadow Fragments
Nezumi -- "There is always Light"
Chainsawkitten -- Reflections of a Budding Flower
Mike M -- Boeing Woes
John Dunbar -- In a Field Where Barley Grows
SquiddyBiscuit -- From Carthage then I left
Ashes1396 -- anonymous donor.
Tangent -- "Monster Within"
Cyan -- Shadow Fragments
Nezumi -- "There is always Light"
Chainsawkitten -- Reflections of a Budding Flower
Mike M -- Boeing Woes: I work a couple blocks away from the Boeing plant. Any news about Boeing tends to have an outsized sense of importance in this area, so this probably plays better to a strictly local crowd (surely they would be the only ones to recognize the Herald as the local paper). I had a much more elaborate story in mind, but quickly realized it wasnt going to go anywhere because I really know nothing about aviation and engineering. I still wanted to do something with the general concept of the development of the 787 from the perspective of a gremlin causing delays, so I came up with this and didnt like it. I honestly had the most fun in writing the headline for the filler text : /
John Dunbar -- In a Field Where Barley Grows: The central conceit and execution here were good, like some long lost Grimms tale. And my being the sucker for fairy tales that I am, of course I would dig it. I do think the scarecrows dialog was overwrought and excessively flowery at times, however. That aspect probably could have been scaled back a tad.
SquiddyBiscuit -- From Carthage then I left: Loved the concept of a functional atheist dwelling among the followers of a transcendent being functionally indistinguishable from a god. I think you did a bang up job conveying the nature of the god and how their society operates, as well as give us an intriguing glimpse of the culture that the old man came from. Still no idea what a Po is. Whats a Po? I want to know what the Po is.
Ashes1396 -- Anonymous donor.: I think Id have liked to have seen this go whole hog on the mixed presentation, the first thing I thought when I got to part where it shifted from transcript of a message board to a script was that I really wanted that part to BE a script. Formatting, stage directions, the works. Turn the forum posts into a table format mimicking how message boards are laid out. Like a mixed media scrapbook chronicling what is fundamentally a pretty tragic story. Taken as is, I think if the forum poster names were bolded, itd be an easier read as you wouldnt need to be filtering names from the content theyre saying. I also found it a bit odd that Anna considered her sex life with her husband to be on the skids, yet performed oral sex on him in a theater during a movie? To me, that kind of thrill seeking public sex act doesnt seem like something that would happen between people who werent very much enjoying an active sex life.
Tangent -- Monster Within: Having all the dialog in haiku was an interesting technique, though it took a second for me to catch when it stopped being alternating lines of dialog and started being exchanges of entire haikus. I have to confess though, I am utterly confused as to what the sand monster was supposed to be. At first I thought the kid throwing the rocks was the monster from the perspective of the rock, but then the kid saves Rock from the monster. Is it supposed to be the kids shadow? Was the sea monster supposed to be some other shadow? The rock seemed to have been around for awhile, so Im not sure why he wouldnt know what a shadow was. Overall really cute and an interesting technique, but I think a little more detail into describing the nature of the monster to help clear the air would have been helpful. Or maybe Im just too dense to get it.
Cyan -- Shadow Fragments: Promising start to something... er... promising... Coming back with something before the modified deadline? No? OK.
Nezumi -- There is always Light: First thing that leaps out to me is using really too much. Save it for dialog, if you want to actually make use of the word, its just one of those words that have lost all impact and detracts from a sentence despite supposedly being a word signifying emphasis. For a piece that depended so heavily on the animosity between two groups and the rules governing their magic, I dont think either were fleshed out enough to my satisfaction, especially since weve no idea what sort of things would be possible with Heliomancy outside of apparently sealing a door and casting a light that only the caster can see. I get the whole duality/interdependency thing, and I can get why you need light to cast a shadow, but Im not clear on how exactly Heliomancy would be dependent on having darkness present to do their thing. This is the sort of stuff that has need of world building, which probably could have been done in lieu of the dream sequence.
Chainsawkitten -- Reflections of a Budding Flower: So are the margins and page numbering alternating formats every other page a stylistic choice, or a formatting hiccup? Irrespective of that, nice debut performance. There were a few instances where I questioned the word choice in the first chapter/segment, but that ship largely righted itself by the time chapter II rolled around. Really, really creepy, amplified a thousand times by the implications of that ending. Bravo.
Alright, my votes:
1. Chainsawkitten
2. John Dunbar
3. SquiddyBiscuit
John Dunbar -- In a Field Where Barley Grows: The central conceit and execution here were good, like some long lost Grimms tale. And my being the sucker for fairy tales that I am, of course I would dig it. I do think the scarecrows dialog was overwrought and excessively flowery at times, however. That aspect probably could have been scaled back a tad.
SquiddyBiscuit -- From Carthage then I left: Loved the concept of a functional atheist dwelling among the followers of a transcendent being functionally indistinguishable from a god. I think you did a bang up job conveying the nature of the god and how their society operates, as well as give us an intriguing glimpse of the culture that the old man came from. Still no idea what a Po is. Whats a Po? I want to know what the Po is.
Ashes1396 -- Anonymous donor.: I think Id have liked to have seen this go whole hog on the mixed presentation, the first thing I thought when I got to part where it shifted from transcript of a message board to a script was that I really wanted that part to BE a script. Formatting, stage directions, the works. Turn the forum posts into a table format mimicking how message boards are laid out. Like a mixed media scrapbook chronicling what is fundamentally a pretty tragic story. Taken as is, I think if the forum poster names were bolded, itd be an easier read as you wouldnt need to be filtering names from the content theyre saying. I also found it a bit odd that Anna considered her sex life with her husband to be on the skids, yet performed oral sex on him in a theater during a movie? To me, that kind of thrill seeking public sex act doesnt seem like something that would happen between people who werent very much enjoying an active sex life.
Tangent -- Monster Within: Having all the dialog in haiku was an interesting technique, though it took a second for me to catch when it stopped being alternating lines of dialog and started being exchanges of entire haikus. I have to confess though, I am utterly confused as to what the sand monster was supposed to be. At first I thought the kid throwing the rocks was the monster from the perspective of the rock, but then the kid saves Rock from the monster. Is it supposed to be the kids shadow? Was the sea monster supposed to be some other shadow? The rock seemed to have been around for awhile, so Im not sure why he wouldnt know what a shadow was. Overall really cute and an interesting technique, but I think a little more detail into describing the nature of the monster to help clear the air would have been helpful. Or maybe Im just too dense to get it.
Cyan -- Shadow Fragments: Promising start to something... er... promising... Coming back with something before the modified deadline? No? OK.
Nezumi -- There is always Light: First thing that leaps out to me is using really too much. Save it for dialog, if you want to actually make use of the word, its just one of those words that have lost all impact and detracts from a sentence despite supposedly being a word signifying emphasis. For a piece that depended so heavily on the animosity between two groups and the rules governing their magic, I dont think either were fleshed out enough to my satisfaction, especially since weve no idea what sort of things would be possible with Heliomancy outside of apparently sealing a door and casting a light that only the caster can see. I get the whole duality/interdependency thing, and I can get why you need light to cast a shadow, but Im not clear on how exactly Heliomancy would be dependent on having darkness present to do their thing. This is the sort of stuff that has need of world building, which probably could have been done in lieu of the dream sequence.
Chainsawkitten -- Reflections of a Budding Flower: So are the margins and page numbering alternating formats every other page a stylistic choice, or a formatting hiccup? Irrespective of that, nice debut performance. There were a few instances where I questioned the word choice in the first chapter/segment, but that ship largely righted itself by the time chapter II rolled around. Really, really creepy, amplified a thousand times by the implications of that ending. Bravo.
Alright, my votes:
1. Chainsawkitten
2. John Dunbar
3. SquiddyBiscuit
Chainsawkitten
Member
I used the book documentclass because I wanted chapters (may want to make some collection of stories later) but now I saw I could just use report instead. It's been bothering me too but didn't have time to research different documentclasses (which in hindsight apparently only took a minute). book is intended for actual printed books so that's why. Even so, the margin seems weird to me. If anything, it should be the other way around so that left pages have more margin on the right side so the text doesn't disappear into the middle. But I've never printed any book so what do I know?
I updated it to using report instead (fixed margins, I didn't make any other changes). If you think it's unfair to change layout after the deadline, here's the old version to get for judging purposes.
Regarding formatting I also had problems with the schedule, which looks terribly unorganized. I used \emph{} for times but the font is a little bit silly, but maybe that's okay since it is, after all, a 6th grader schedule.
Well, in a room which is already totally lid it is hard to cast further light... nah you caught me red handed. I didn't even think about the whole Heliomancy stuff untill I started writing and it did feel wrong to me throughout the whole story. I actually planned on describing it more in the dream but got caught up with trying to make it weird too much. I just wanted a counterpart for my shadow magic and light seemed like the obvious choice, but I should've definitly thought it through a bit more.
SquiddyCracker
Banned
I should have made it a bit clearer, but it's short for post-human. Basically used to refer to any being that is "post" humanity.
Basically the equivalent of a Mind in the Culture series (only they can be organic as well), or an Archailect if you read Orion's Arm.
User 100115
Banned
I missed the changed deadline 
Oh well. Next time! Good luck guys, I'll vote tomorrow hopefully.
Oh well. Next time! Good luck guys, I'll vote tomorrow hopefully.I missed the changed deadline
Sorry.
Still can't believe I blew that.SquiddyCracker
Banned
Yep, thank god it went through.
Feedback and Voting Time!
Mike M -- Boeing Woes:
I think the problem I had was that the whole punchline with the one writing the letter being a gremlin doesn't come across very well. I honestly didn't catch it the first time I read it because the part before that had me lulled in a bit. After I read your own critic of your piece I went like."Wow! What? Gremlin?" I read it again this time reading more carefully. I think the first time I thought that the gremlin in the short description box was just a name for low workers or something like that... that being said it is hard for me to tell if that part should have been written a bit more obvious or if it is entirely my fault for being an unobservant reader. The idea however isreally neat and I like the effort you put into that layout
John Dunbar -- In a Field Where Barley Grows:
I nice and dark fairytail. I was a bit confused though as to what happend to Gwendoline. Did the Scarecrow kill her in a former life? Though after what happend with MikeM's story it might just be that it is the official "Nezumi can't read week". Was kind of sad the cat did not return to life. I love cats.
SquiddyBiscuit -- From Carthage then I left:
I always have some trouble giving feedback on SciFi stuff because it I'm just not a fan of the genre in general. I do think that you did a good job building your world though and the writing was good aswell. At first I was a bit put off by all the Es and the eirs. I thought that was confusing though probably appropriate for a race so different from humans.
Ashes1396 -- Anonymous donor:
You do like your unconventional formats, don't you? I have to agree with MikeM though that highlighting the names in a way might have helped the readability of the piece. Other than that I enjoyed it, though I thought that Anna was behaving somewhat odd. I mean really, what would have been so bad about telling the husband that she had been of the pill for a year if he was the one who wanted children in the first place? I also wasn't sure who picked up the child in the end.
Tangent -- Monster Within:
Going from the title of the piece I guess that there were no monsters and they are just part of the stones imagination? That made me wonder if his whole conversation with the seagull was actually just a fiction he invinted himself to overcome the loneliness of, well, being a stone. I'm not sure about that though so. If not I think that I would have liked it better if only the seagull or only the stone would have talked in Haiku to further emphasize the difference between the two unlikely friends.
Cyan -- Shadow Fragments:
I have to hand it to you I'm normally not a fan of super short fiction but I really liked this. It was like a poem without the "poemness". And even though it was that short, the few lines that were actually there managed to captivate me.
Chainsawkitten -- Reflections of a Budding Flower
Uh, creppy! Very well written even though it did take me a while to get into it. But since I already established the "Nezumi can't read week" I'm pretty sure that was all me. Great first entry and intersting interpretation of the theme. looking forward to read more from you.
Votes:
Hm... I really have trouble deciding. I fell like I have three second places since I can't find anything that places one story over or under the others...
1.)John Dunbar
2.) Chainsawkitten
3.)Cyan
Mike M -- Boeing Woes:
I think the problem I had was that the whole punchline with the one writing the letter being a gremlin doesn't come across very well. I honestly didn't catch it the first time I read it because the part before that had me lulled in a bit. After I read your own critic of your piece I went like."Wow! What? Gremlin?" I read it again this time reading more carefully. I think the first time I thought that the gremlin in the short description box was just a name for low workers or something like that... that being said it is hard for me to tell if that part should have been written a bit more obvious or if it is entirely my fault for being an unobservant reader. The idea however is
neat and I like the effort you put into that layout John Dunbar -- In a Field Where Barley Grows:
I nice and dark fairytail. I was a bit confused though as to what happend to Gwendoline. Did the Scarecrow kill her in a former life? Though after what happend with MikeM's story it might just be that it is the official "Nezumi can't read week". Was kind of sad the cat did not return to life. I love cats.
SquiddyBiscuit -- From Carthage then I left:
I always have some trouble giving feedback on SciFi stuff because it I'm just not a fan of the genre in general. I do think that you did a good job building your world though and the writing was good aswell. At first I was a bit put off by all the Es and the eirs. I thought that was confusing though probably appropriate for a race so different from humans.
Ashes1396 -- Anonymous donor:
You do like your unconventional formats, don't you?
I have to agree with MikeM though that highlighting the names in a way might have helped the readability of the piece. Other than that I enjoyed it, though I thought that Anna was behaving somewhat odd. I mean really, what would have been so bad about telling the husband that she had been of the pill for a year if he was the one who wanted children in the first place? I also wasn't sure who picked up the child in the end. Tangent -- Monster Within:
Going from the title of the piece I guess that there were no monsters and they are just part of the stones imagination? That made me wonder if his whole conversation with the seagull was actually just a fiction he invinted himself to overcome the loneliness of, well, being a stone. I'm not sure about that though so. If not I think that I would have liked it better if only the seagull or only the stone would have talked in Haiku to further emphasize the difference between the two unlikely friends.
Cyan -- Shadow Fragments:
I have to hand it to you I'm normally not a fan of super short fiction but I really liked this. It was like a poem without the "poemness". And even though it was that short, the few lines that were actually there managed to captivate me.
Chainsawkitten -- Reflections of a Budding Flower
Uh, creppy! Very well written even though it did take me a while to get into it. But since I already established the "Nezumi can't read week" I'm pretty sure that was all me. Great first entry and intersting interpretation of the theme. looking forward to read more from you.
Votes:
Hm... I really have trouble deciding. I fell like I have three second places since I can't find anything that places one story over or under the others...
1.)John Dunbar
2.) Chainsawkitten
3.)Cyan
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