Drinking game, start!
Player Asshole. Begin.
A Ballad for a King: the good news is I was thinking this was Cowlick's for a while, so I was wondering how he's suddenly jumped in level so much (considering he just entered two times). The bad news is that there was the glaring 'like' in the first sentence, which is basically the sign of lack of confidence in the ability to get it right (which is why it's every teenager's favourite word). It reveals the writer head-on and stops any reader dead. Having a stop or semicolon after 'silence' might have been preferable, while removing that 'like' appeal to metaphor. Something similar happens at the end of that paragraph when she's looking to get out of the wind, but she's on a hill (which is odd, because wind typically doesn't come down a hill), and it's supposedly empty yet I can see a lot of ways to get away from this mystery wind. I feel you could probably delete the entire first paragraph and start with 'this must be it' to increase pacing and avoid telling things we don't need to know about, because it becomes obvious later anyway.
Also, I'm assuming you meant 'she struck a few awkward c
hords', not Metallica going from "I cannot live! I cannot die! Trapped in myself!" to "Donald had a fucking faaaaaaa-aaarm, yeah! * pling! Pling! PLING!* ". If 'cord' is what you wanted, you needed a more deliberate, thoughtful action than 'strike', mostly due to 'strike a chord' being its own phrase already. I'm going to ignore whether or not the song actually feels musical due to the short length of these challenges, but I could not imagine a tune to it (yet).
An Untold Story: is ‘stolen over me’ a common English expression? I mean, it sounds familiar, but I haven’t heard it anywhere recently. Not bitching, just asking. Bitching would be about the word ‘fey’. And that Desiderius Erasmus incorrectly translated Pandora’s vase into Pandora’s box, which is just something I happen to know. And that the answer is fuck no. Good for exercise, but I did not really care for this one.
Green Drazi for life! *jumps *
Architect: hey, this is pretty goo- “like Inception”. Goddammit. Ok, on the use of external / real-world references: that is world-building only, never a character’s desire, since we know those desires when the character is human as ‘universal’ to ourselves. Strike that ‘like namedrop’ bit, it’s not needed (unless you want to write meta commentary or something awful like Ready Player One. Ha! Meta-META!). Other than that the ending, as you said, is a bit sudden, I really liked this one. There is one thing that could use refinement though, and that is character voice. What I mean is that Sarah never sounds British to the reader, and while you might find it cliché to write, her voice “should” give away that quality to the reader when she speaks. Cyan’s favorite book by Orson Scott Card might be all you need to get there.
Beyond The Gates: ‘light peaked down’… ‘Lara gave the person beside her’. Ok, so I’m an asshole and verified idiot, but: Who is the narrator here? Because I feel the first quote doesn’t gel with the second. I don’t know the correct naming for it, but the first seems an involved third person (peaked), where the second is passive third person (X action referent). And if we add writer- and character voice into it, the word ‘person’ isn’t a good fit either way (afaik). Writer voice: “Lara gave the woman beside her a firm if not squinted look”. Character voice: “Lara gave the
idiot beside her a firm if not squinted look”. Or whatever would be most likely for her character to think in those conditions.
The following conversation happens completely natural (and with world-building into it, neat), so I suspect the start is written afterwards or without a planned outline (which would be kind of silly considering the length of these). The shift in tone at the end comes a little sudden (or early, by length). I realize I’m using my male disposition here, but there is no distinctive reason for the reader to assume that women who have lived under those conditions for life would suddenly hold similar values to our current real-life ones. This would have been avoided by ending on “she felt happy”, since the sudden shift in tone is mostly the last sentence and the other two are not ending sentences for the conversation / events. I know what you’re focusing on, but in the context of this story that needs more motivation. ‘My parents are deaaaad!’ is more a brooding billionaire sitting in a dank cave thing anyway. And lastly: kudos for the use of semicolons.
By David Gepet: oh hey, password is back. Missed it with the last two. *file pops up* Oh dear lord the difference in formatting. I feel Nick N’s pain from the previous challenge. Also, the combination of prose and British has put me in Helen Mirren reading voice mode. Please tell me there is a rectal infusion in here somewhere. (for reference:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmeF2rzsZSU, at six minutes).
“clean white printed pages it’s muscle and flesh”. Its? For the other people reading these comments (does anyone actually do that?), it is worth pointing out that this is both consistent in narration and doesn’t change character perspective during one scene (which is how it should be). The general ‘Jane Austen’ feel is another thing entirely, but that’s where the rectal infusion comes in. I did imagine the daughter to be much younger based on her dialogue though. She sounded girlish, maybe teenager, not the young adult she was meant to be seen as, looking at the third scene. Yes, it’s nitpicking, and it’s what I do. Good story though. Should probably get a decent response from real agents.
The Cursed Heart: sooooooooooo, I take it you write certain fanfiction? I’m not judging!
Jokes aside, I don’t recall your previous entry (Underneath) having distinctive character voice though, or maybe I just couldn’t tell anymore at that point (or that story was the exception). Really well done, even in the face of incoming ‘but cliché’ charges. If I have to point to something, there is the exposition line from ‘Unfortunately’ to ‘demise’ that feels slightly out of character for the one saying it. Like it suddenly dropped the accent, despite having it everywhere else. Maybe I’m just seeing things there though.
Freedom’s Chance: it’s somewhat disorienting to see ‘archer’ pop up in relation to prisons, since those are a very recent institute, so I have taken this as a fantasy world-ish type prison. One other thing is Rane’s shift from ‘riveting’ to ‘poor bastard’. If he didn’t care about that person before, why would he care at that point? That is all.
A Jump In The Desert: That is kind of a long sentence to start with. I think you could remove ‘on loan from the library’ to make it easier to read and get in the story. Also, if someone turns to someone, we need to know where those characters are. Or at least, there has to be a context where mentioning the positioning of characters is worth mentioning. ‘He powered off his ..’ would have been sufficient for the dialogue following it. Though actually, I think having something like “sitting in the passenger seat” in the opening line would have taken care of that too, since it’s kind of just dropped in there. The other thing I would point to is that introducing a character’s name to a protagonist is something that requires a little bit of context as well. Instead of just name-dropping him, something like “who was apparently named Jeff”. Cute ending though.
A Matter Of Taste: “He picked up a knife (…
and Greg swore again. “ Wait, so the guy picked up a knife or did Greg? Probably should have separated those two characters per line. And here geography comes with the lack of Greg pushing the door to the kitchen before going into ‘kitchen mode’. That element of two worlds could probably be shown, despite not being required technically. Rest ist gut, ja. I kept wondering if a chef rat would show up though.
Maybe: ‘hidden within’ , ‘he …’. ‘He was a nervous as a’. Obvious that is as, but still. ‘hopes your well’, oh now you’re doing it on purpose! Yes, I know it’s a draft, but I have to get my shots in somehow. I do feel that ‘rage’ at the end feels too large compared to ‘anger’ before that.
Mosaic: But does insurance cover it?
Part two: it’s for its in the second sentence. Also, you need to choose a tense to write a story in. The first sentence is past tense, and then the subsequent story is present tense, which becomes very odd. ‘just bare with me’ > bear with me. Yeah I know: bear? Roar? ‘we’re hear’ > here. ‘wheel chair’ is one word. ‘mite’ > might.
And I see you making language correction jokes there:
Status Update: ok, that format plus font is a bit too big on fullscreen now. Huh, as it happens I had the same thought as the last sentence last week. Neat story in terms of weaving in real-world stuff.
Toad: good, but the ending is a little ‘so?’ for me. Nothing really predicted that outcome, is what I mean.
Untitled: a bit all over the place in terms of character, but it doesn’t suck.
The Wind That Breaks The Willow: so, ehm, surreal comedy or just general fantasy comedy? But just so you know, I totally saw the CAD comic when I started reading. Don't take 'comedy' to be a bad thing here, by the way. Most drama books have irony, which can be (or confused with) comedy as well.
Coding: I may be very old-fashioned, but I’m going to argue that using abbreviations is probably best avoided when not dialogue. Using them draws attention to the writer, not the character. So “you would think I would be used to it by now.” and “my arm is knocked to the side”. Skateboard is a single word. ‘a dat for sometime’ however, is separate in this context. In that same sentence, the abbreviated ‘will’ is harmless though, since it’s a page in and a very common abbreviation. ‘we both quicken our steps as we went to the building’ > wrong tense on ‘went’. So far your story is present tense, and so it’s ‘walk’ or ‘go’ or something like that. ‘Trevor Walton’, ‘our exec…’ there is a real pause there so it’s comma time. ‘could be worst’, as a Dutch person, this can read ‘could be sausage’. ‘Justine switch’ > switches. Yay, ReBoot fanfic!
Madness Always Lurks Close: first sentence, and my mind goes to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Isy86dpWCDo
‘Donny clicked…Donnie sighed’, there is no real reason to not use ‘he’ on the second sentence. There is no confusion in terms of who is being referenced as ‘he’. Nice ending.
In conclusion: many a first draft. Dammit Cow, you had one job! IMPEACH! IMPEACH!
Actual votes:
1. The Cursed Heart (frekifox7)
2. By David Gepet (FlowersisBritish)
3. Architect (Izunadono)
reasons are character language, charm (or perhaps cynicism but oh well), and 'write what you know'. In that order.
