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NeoGAF Creative Writing Challenge #131 - "Tour"

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B

Bagels

You got Moxie, kid!
Sorry - migraine struck and then I kinda hibernated a bit longer than I expected. Story will be up in just a second!
 
N

Nezumi

Member
T

toddhunter

Member
Brief feedback and stuff:

toddhunter - "What comes Next" -
I purchased RPG maker on sale ages ago and figured now would be a good time to try it out. It was fun putting the little game together and was easier than I expected (but way too much work to put together something meaningful).
ThLunarian - "One Summer in Madrid" - I really wanted the ending to be different. Had he just kissed her, it would have turned it into a special little story if only because it had a happy ending! It was still very well done, but damn it, we are a depressing bunch sometimes ;)
Manabanana - "A Token" - I read the last section a few times to try to aid my understanding but I'm not sure I quite got there. The lack of memories and then the memories of home and the location of where the tokens all were confused me. I'd like to understand more about how it all fit together?
The Horror the horror - "Tour of Duty" - I got some starship troopers vibes from the start, then I wanted to sing "paint it black" in my head from the tv show. That probably resulted in the ending being quite effective and well executed against expectations. However, I do feel like the story was mainly there to serve the ending and I'd generally prefer it to be the other way around.
Tangent - "Open House" - On a personal note, starting with Vox Verma Quiroz and Sisu Irfandi isn't the best because my brain is automatically rebelling against trying to pronounce those names and wants to bail out before I even start. I'd just stick with the shorter versions for a short story. Once it got going it was great, but I thought the ending didn't really live up to the amazing build up. It was probably that you needed more space to complete exactly what was happening with the attic. Having the house mirror fears was promising, but also inconsistent given multiple people in the house all experiencing apparently the same thing (or nothing at all at different times).
Mike M - "The Worst of All Possible Things" - I liked "Strange that you never notice birds until they aren’t any in the sky, he thought." as some classy writing. But it didn't really get to where it needed to go and the ending/punchline line seemed out of place.
Ward - "Capital Vice City On-Ramp" - I was a little confused by why the sirens would lock out communications. Seems like a bit of a design flaw! But good on you for incorporating the interactive part. I did enjoy going through it even if it did end with a hole to the head.
Sober - "The Siege of Lassis" - Seemed fair enough. I may have missed something with this one as I didn't pick up any real conflict or resolution in my reading.
ZeroRay - "Red Dead... something" - Bit of a random comment, but I wouldn't think a six-shooter would have crosshairs and that actually threw me for a little bit as I had to pick up the period you were in again (figured it might have a scope on it or something, but then it was a revolver). Otherwise a rollicking good read.
Cyan - "Death Rites" - I hate the name Niall as I never known how to "say" it right, I also don't think a ghost should say "hurrah". Petty comments aside, really enjoyed it and liked the assassin theme mixed with a bit of a light hearted touch.
FillerB - "Trouble" - As you mentioned the ending didn't quite work. It is always tough to execute that given the perspective the story is written from, especially given how many "thoughts" are included. It might serve better to add a note of uncertainty to the conclusion to validate the rest of the tale.
Nezumi - "New Careers" - I remember the old story but I liked this extension (is that right?) much better and the ending made me smile. You could build into something unique from there (unique as far as I know anyway).
Valhelm - "The Ghosts of San Fioricchi" - Was a bit too long for the word limit. It was an interesting setting though and I quite enjoyed the pacing.
Ashes1396 - "Jasper - a tour of woes" - Read quite differently to your other work I have read and I have to say I like the tone and pace of this. I felt it did fall away a little bit towards the last quarter, but you brought it back together for a good ending. Well done.
Bagels - "Cloudplay of Canada" - It read a bit strange for some reason. Almost as if I was listening in on a conversation that didn't involve me so I struggled to get into it. No real problems with it though, just didn't click.

1. Cyan
2. ThLunarian
3. Ashes1396

HM. ZeroRay, Tangent, Ward, FillerB
 
M

Manabanana

Member
toddhunter said:
Brief feedback and stuff:
Manabanana - "A Token" - I read the last section a few times to try to aid my understanding but I'm not sure I quite got there. The lack of memories and then the memories of home and the location of where the tokens all were confused me. I'd like to understand more about how it all fit together?
Click to expand...

I appreciate the input, but I think you should read it more carefully. You may have misunderstood some things and most of the answers are in there. I can spoiler it if you'd like.

I'll be reading through the stories I haven't gotten to yet and posting comments today.
 
T

toddhunter

Member
Manabanana said:
I appreciate the input, but I think you should read it more carefully. You may have misunderstood some things and most of the answers are in there. I can spoiler it if you'd like.
Click to expand...

I read it carefully and I'm pretty sure I picked up what you were going for. The comment was more in the context of votes as I know the frustrations of the style.
 
The Horror the horror

The Horror the horror

Banned
toddhunter said:
Brief feedback and stuff:

The Horror the horror - "Tour of Duty" - I got some starship troopers vibes from the start, then I wanted to sing "paint it black" in my head from the tv show. That probably resulted in the ending being quite effective and well executed against expectations. However, I do feel like the story was mainly there to serve the ending and I'd generally prefer it to be the other way around.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback. Hopefully my next submission is more accommodating.
 
B

Bagels

You got Moxie, kid!
Going to try to get some critiques up tonight, but they probably won't all be done until tomorrow. I want to make sure I finish reading them all at this point.
 
A

ab.aeterno

Member
In retrospect, being too busy to get the story written before the deadline was probably a blessing. I can't help but feel, given enough proximity from the idea, how truly insipid and bad it likely would have ended up being.

The older I get, the more I come to despise my ideas after letting them cook for a while. Hopefully whatever challenge is next I can come up with something worthy of posting in the company of the rest of you talented rapscallions.
 
A

Ashes

Banned
ab.aeterno said:
In retrospect, being too busy to get the story written before the deadline was probably a blessing. I can't help but feel, given enough proximity from the idea, how truly insipid and bad it likely would have ended up being.

The older I get, the more I come to despise my ideas after letting them cook for a while. Hopefully whatever challenge is next I can come up with something worthy of posting in the company of the rest of you talented rapscallions.
Click to expand...

Poetry thread tends to carry on, but creative writing thread takes a 4 week holiday in November. :)
 
T

ThLunarian

Member
Feedback time!

toddhunter - I'm sorry, I was not able to experience your entry because I don't have RPG Maker.

ThLunarian - In hindsight, I wish I'd made the theme of my story more clear. It's about a guy who becomes so wrapped up in what's going wrong with his trip that he's unable to enjoy (or is oblivious to) the amazing things he's experiencing. That's why I included so many landmarks with descriptions, and why I went to all the trouble doing a play-by-play of the Running of the Bulls. The girl ultimately ends up being a distraction that ruins his trip, but he can't even figure that out. FYI, this is based very closely on something that really happened to me, and I never did get the kiss from the girl, but in real life it was much less important to me than it was to the character in my story. I actually was able to enjoy my trip, once the foot injury wore off :)

ManaBanana: Your story is well-written, but (and this is going off of my gut here) it seems like you get really bogged down in details, when the story is aiming to be more high-concept and metaphorical. If I got that wrong then I apologize. Maybe the details were really important and I was unable to see it, I don't know.

The Horror the Horror: Your story was interesting. I'm not sure if you were going for a surprise reveal at the end by making it apparent that the main character is from the middle east fighting against the Americans, but if you were, you kind of telegraphed it a little bit early on in the story by a line of dialogue that the father says. Not sure if that was intentional or not, but either way it was a nice touch. Kind of a depressing ending, but that's how it goes with war, I guess.

Tangent: I really enjoyed the concept of this story, and except for the character names, it flowed very well and was an enjoyable read. I found myself genuinely invested in what these characters were going to do. I feel like the backstory about California getting sunk into the ocean was probably not necessary, unless you plan on extending this concept into a longer story. Otherwise, it just sort of got in the way. I liked the air of mystery surrounding the attic, and I like the concept that certain technological advances may carry with them unexpected supernatural repercussions.

Mike M: This story felt like it was all set-up. There was no plot and nothing really happened. It would be a great introduction to a story about the ongoing adventures of this interdimensional tourism company, but as it stands it feels unfinished.

Ward: Very neat and admirable dedication to the concept. I don't think this sort of thing can be done effectively in a short story, though. It's impossible to fully realize any particular path. I also got kind of confused when trying to get to the ending. Basically I'm not really sure how it ended / how it was supposed to end.

Sober: This sounds like either the denouement of a story that already happened, or the introduction to a story that's about to happen. It's all description, and introductions to / resolutions for characters. Enjoyable enough, but I didn't find myself invested at all by the end.

Zero Ray: Well written, but westerns in general really bore me so for me personally it didn't click. That's not an indictment of the story though.

Cyan: Good read and well-written. I feel like there's something missing in the character of the assassin, but I can't really put my finger on it. It's like there isn't really much of a conflict for her, and there's never really much tension. Granted, she is sort of being held hostage, but... eh I don't know. I might just be nitpicking.

FillerB: You do a great job in capturing the voice of that 40's-50's style noir detective trope. I'm personally not a fan of that trope though. It didn't click with me for that reason.

Nezumi: I didn't read the prequel story, and this one was still very enjoyable and delightfully quirky. I enjoyed the lighthearted characterization of these supposedly "evil" characters, and the last line made me smile. Great stuff. I probably should read the earlier story now, all things considered.

Valhelm: I'm sorry, I had password issues with this story and was unable to read it.

Ashes1936: I also had password trouble with this one. I'm not sure what the problem is, but maybe it was on my end, I don't know.

Bagels: Nice story, but it's written in a very personal way, which makes sense given the material. I found it hard to relate to, but that may just be because I'm lucky enough to have never lost such a close friend. He sounds like a great guy, though. I'm sorry for your loss.

Ratings:

1. Nezumi
2. Tangent
3. Cyan
 
C

Cyan

Banned
Votes:
1. Bagels - "Cloudplay of Canada"
2. Ashes1396 - "Jasper - a tour of woes"
3. Tangent - "Open House"

HM: Nezumi
 
M

Mike M

Nick N
Aw, I just can’t help myself, someone besides todd and Lunarian gotta do it. If anyone wants further elaboration, hit me up in a PM, as I really could go on at length about almost all entries every week.

toddhunter – What Comes Next: Could not evaluate because I’m on my work computer since my laptop is on the fritz : ( But the mere fact that you did it as an RPG maker game is a big kudos from me, always going to give props to playing with format.

ThLunarian – One Summer in Madrid: Pacing didn’t seem quite right, I was left with the impression that there were supposed to be a series of failures of Steven failing to follow through, but there wasn’t that many explicit examples.

Manabanana – A Token: While perhaps not obvious from the start, I certainly hazarded a correct guess from the getgo as to what was going on. Knowing the conclusion ahead of time made it a bit of a drudge because dropping that penny was kind of all there was to it.

The Horror the horror – Tour of Duty: I found the part about entering the cave with all the precise measurements to be kind of stilted. I thought the twist at the end was somewhat undermined by the mention of bombing out caves, since I’ve never heard of the Taliban employing such a tactic, but new the US did.

Tangent – Open House: It’s weird to see you do sci-fi, but you still kept the Bay Area/Indian subcontinent thing at the same time. Though the idea of touring houses for open houses seems at odd with the premise that the houses adapt to fit the occupants. Wouldn’t literally almost any house do then?

Mike M – The Worst of All Possible Things: This was bad. You’re a bad person and should feel bad. It’s almost like you went on vacation and devoted all your available creative energies to massive walls of text for Lunarian’s D&D game instead of the challenge.

Ward – Capital Vice City On-Ramp: You actually went and made a choose your own adventure, so bonus points for you as well. Though the fact that it was third person was a bit jarring; I haven’t read a Choose Your Own Adventure book since I was in elementary school, but I was reasonably sure that they were all second person?

Sober – The Siege on Lassis: So how is it that no one has ever been able to take Lassis if it’s a planet colonized after interstellar travel was developed? Seems more like a matter of no one ever bothered rather than it being the obstacle that would have somehow thwarted anyone who wanted to.

ZeroRay – Red Dead… Something: Honestly, the pacing would have been better without the summation of events leading up to that night and the surprise revelation at the end. A straight-up tale of failed revenge without everything laid out in detail would have been plenty good on its own right.

Cyan – Death Rites: The tone of this one didn’t click with me. It has the structure of a running gag where the ghost is leading her around to all the important parts of the castle only for none of them to be the correct place, but nothing was particularly funny about it.

FillerB – Trouble: Nice call out to Ace Ventura. I liked the internal monologue bits, felt authentically hard boiled noir (or what I imagine it to be), but it really didn’t need to be in all italics. Took me way too long to figure out they were literal cats and the PI was a koala.

Nezumi – New Careers: Typos leaped right out at me. Beetles capitalized when it shouldn’t be, a question ending in a period, a few other things. I still like these characters and their ongoing saga, though this outing was perhaps played a bit more straight and less for laughs than pervious stories.

Vanhelm – The Ghosts of Fioricchi: What word limit? You did a good job of capturing Edwardian English dialect (well, as far as I can tell), my only gripesis that the revelation that Moraine was abusive of the protagonist was awkward. That’s an important detail to their dynamic that shouldn’t be left unmentioned until half way through.

Ashes1396 – Jasper – a tour of woes: Lots of things going on. You can kind of get a feel for the world, and the dialog is natural, but these characters are complete strangers (or at least they are to me), so there’s nothing to anchor them or make them relatable. They’re just faceless, interchangeable fonts of dialog.

Bagels – Cloudplay of Canada: Well-written, but it makes me feel like an unwilling voyeur. I don’t know if I would have ever been able to articulate it until now, but I think I read fiction exclusively is that I don’t need to think about how terrible things happen in real life.

Votes:
1.) Cyan
2.) Manabanana
3.) Nezumi

HM: Vanhelm (Honestly my favorite this week, but without word count limits there is chaos.)
 
C

Cyan

Banned
Posting for Tangent:

Votes:
1. ThLunarian
2. Bagels
3. Cyan
hm. Nezumi, Ashes

Kinda feeling slightly under the weather so I won't give crits this time around... womp womp.

But.... thank YOU to all the feedback. Noted: names were too clunky. I was trying to go for a hyper-multi-ethnic world (Indonesian, Finnish, Indian, and Hispanic in one!), and trying to speak to global warming with all the talk about California coast. It is actually very mildly pertinent in some parts of the Bay Area in California already, so it'd be interesting to see that the open space of Nevada could become the new hot spot of real estate like Manhattan or something.

And thanks for the feedback about the ending. I'm trying to work on how to make short stories have an ending that counts. What I was trying to go for was targeted advertising at a whole new level. And I didn't have the logic of the situation entirely worked out, but thought, "What the heck." Like I can see how it's weird that the couple saw the toy kitchen that the pregnant lady saw, etc. I'll try to work it out.

Mike M, interesting how you see patterns in my writing. I think I'm flattered by that. Also, I thought everyone thought I only write about floppy-eared cotton-tailed rabbits that talk! (I have NEVER done so.) (And yes, I don't usually do sci-fi, but I don't want to bar myself against it either even if it comes out awkwardly in my experimentation. I like reading sci-fi at least! I should eventually open my own door to poetry one day.)

Vanhelm ---- your story is awesome, but I ran out of time to get through it all.​
 
A

Ashes

Banned
1. Friends & Bands
2. Gods of life & death
3. Backwater battles
Hm. Spanish trists; telepathic houses; & peace time monsters.
 
B

Bagels

You got Moxie, kid!
Mike M said:
Bagels – Cloudplay of Canada: Well-written, but it makes me feel like an unwilling voyeur. I don’t know if I would have ever been able to articulate it until now, but I think I read fiction exclusively is that I don’t need to think about how terrible things happen in real life.
Click to expand...

Well now I feel all bad - "unwilling voyeur!" I sort of knew, going in, what people would say - FillerB had already told me that it was going to be hard for people to read because it is so intensely personal.

My two entries so far have both been very, very personal pieces. My last piece I at least made into something of an extended metaphor. This is just nonfiction. It was highly emotional to write, and I gather it's a *bit* of a bummer to read.

I hope I can strike a better balance between telling a story with more universal appeal, or something to say to more people, with my efforts to work through my own issues in future challenges. For now, stretching my creative legs has proven to be this unbelievably cathartic, therapeutic process. I use my notebook as some kind of external processor, where I can get this stuff out of my head and work on it, and understand it, in ways that are not possible when everything stays inside my head. This piece was draining to write, but it has also given me a new sense of peace about Eben's place in my life. I have to thank Pau for listening to some of my first draft and helping me shape it into something that both gave me new perspective and hopefully gave my readers something to think about. Writing for this challenge has just...meant a great deal to me.

I'm really, really enjoying participating in this group - you all could not be more helpful, kind, and supportive, and I'm loving reading what you guys come up with for the challenges. Every part of it is a blast, and being in a group with so much talent, it really makes me want to work harder and keep bringing my chops up to you guys' level.

Anyway, for whatever reason, I always read "Cloudplay of Canada" out loud as I worked on each draft, which is completely unusual for me. I ended up making a recording of me reading the final piece, which you can listen to here (9 min) if you need to be further bummed out. I've never felt the need to record me reading something I've written before, so this whole thing was a complete doozy for me.
 
A

Ashes

Banned
And so we go out with cyanster win. Congratsmalation amigo. rest easy now before...

Nezumi said:


Will the hiatus for NaNo start already? We might be able to squeeze in a fast micro challenge with super low word count... I don't know...
Click to expand...


I don't know. I could do with a respite.
 
A

Ashes

Banned
Nezumi said:
Yeah, I actually think so as well, just thought I suggest it to see what everyone thinks. Will give me some time to focus on outlining my NaNo-novel.
Click to expand...

The poetry thread carries on this week, and beyond. All are welcome in the sister thread. :)

Good thing the red wizard is in charge of the next thread, he can time it so they remain on alternative weeks still.
 
N

Nezumi

Member
Ashes1396 said:
The poetry thread carries on this week, and beyond. All are welcome in the sister thread. :)

Good thing the red wizard is in charge of the next thread, he can time it so they remain on alternative weeks still.
Click to expand...

I'm not even good with poetry in German. Somehow i don't think I can pull it of in English. I'm not really good with symbolism and all that mumbo jumbo.
 
C

Cyan

Banned
Thanks, dudes!

We could squeeze another challenge in... but it'd be tight. We'd have to go short or overlap with the start of NaNo.

I think it's probably better to start the hiatus now, and come back with a bang in December.
 
A

ab.aeterno

Member
Ashes1396 said:
Poetry thread tends to carry on, but creative writing thread takes a 4 week holiday in November. :)
Click to expand...
Noooooooooo

However bad I think my fiction writing, or hell, my nonfiction writing is, my poetry is far worse. It may in fact be on the level of Vogon.

Guess I may have to try NaNoWriMo
 
S

Sober

Member
Cyan said:
Thanks, dudes!

We could squeeze another challenge in... but it'd be tight. We'd have to go short or overlap with the start of NaNo.

I think it's probably better to start the hiatus now, and come back with a bang in December.
Click to expand...
Clearly we should have a titles-only challenge. Max word count: 6.
 
T

toddhunter

Member
Cyan said:
Thanks, dudes!

We could squeeze another challenge in... but it'd be tight. We'd have to go short or overlap with the start of NaNo.

I think it's probably better to start the hiatus now, and come back with a bang in December.
Click to expand...

Well done Cyan.

See everybody after Nano.
 
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