Responses
Chunky - Call
This is a great scenario to probe as a short-short story. A phone conversation between old friends. Few things are more intimate, more easily dramatized. Mark's anxiety gives us a look at something brewing, something brewed. It's got potential.
I'd like some more specific, concrete detail. We get the idea of outside noises, but they are not particular. We're told of generic children-walking-home sounds, generic construction sounds. These don't do much to conjure a scene. What
precisely does Mark hear? Anything unique? Surprising? These are the types of detail that thread the needle. Right now the yarn is jumbled (not always; we'll get to that).
You have some idiosyncratic similes. "Rings like a drop of water down a glass," "voice like a guitar with a cut string." I don't grasp these images immediately... I am not sure, even with time to reflect, that I grasp them now. But I appreciate their singularity, and I think you can edge them a little closer to something digestible. Be careful not to spend too much time in abstraction. There are a lot of similes here. Pick the ones that are most essential. Keep those, and let the rest give way for physical detail. Let us experience the world as Mark experiences it, through sensation. The inner mind is good, and sometimes necessary, but to connect and empathize with other humans we need physical perceptions. Things we can relate to. Smells, sights, sounds. An over-reliance on comparison muddles the dream world. It gets us too caught up in the ideas of things, and keeps us distant from the things themselves.
The first three paragraphs don't give us much. The story begins when Mark decides to pick up the phone. The detail in your opening is fine, and can be dispersed elsewhere. Let us get to the dramatic action as quickly as possible.
Hayley is a sweetheart! Why is Mark afraid to call her? Why does he hesitate his request? There must be more conflict. Let us see why he is uncertain about the call. Raise the stakes. Let Hayley push back. Amplify Mark's stress. Right now he asks for things, and they are given to him. That's nice and all but it doesn't make for a compelling journey. He receives a catharsis, but we do not. We do not experience any of the tension he is under. Let us live in his skin a while.
Finally, that paragraph describing the photos in his office, the photos
not in his office... that is
excellent detail. Gives us character, history, shows us relationships, setting, motivation. We need more of that. No need for simile when the image is so strong, and so inherently meaningful.
Izuna - Last Call
Your second paragraph is a strong opener. Skip the first. Excise it completely and the story will swing much harder from the get-go. A problem remains: the opening is so stark and gripping that the rest of the story seems line a step down in intensity. Even the ending does not escalate things, but instead resets the scenario and reverses roles. The structure is circular. This is not necessarily bad but it causes a sense of deflation following the initial scene. We relax when our expectation is to tauten. Think of a string pulled tight, given slack, more slack, then suddenly pulled tight again. It's a curious structure.
I suggest providing the chemotherapy line earlier, as a way for us to invest in your narrator. It's a good detail, but isn't used to its potential. Your narrator will benefit from revealing the info earlier. She is currently reprehensible, and the line about her daughter is left adrift. Dwell on that more. If we know she is doing this job for someone else, she becomes more sympathetic. We're brought more into her world, we know her motivation. Motivation establishes risk. Risk establishes stakes. Stakes make the conflict interesting.
We spend a lot of time in the narrator's inner point of view. Think of inner POV as having three R's: reaction, reflection, revelation. As an author, writing a first-person narrator, you must guide her to the imperatives: react, reflect, reveal.
Reaction is active and in the moment. Reflection is a way of weighing options, and functions primarily as a precursor to reaction (the space between stimulus and response). Revelation are the deeper thoughts, which reveal history and personal motivation, beyond the story which we observe.
Your narrator currently spends a lot of time in reflection, and while reflection is necessary, having it weigh so heavily on a story as immediate and poised for tension as this one drags things through the mud. For example, it's fine and even beneficial to the portrayal of character to have your narrator discuss her satisfaction at finding a stocked fridge, but we spend more time discussing her food choices than the scene warrants (although you do a great job with specificity and should not lose that on revision). Try to spend more time in the mode of reaction. The inner mind is interesting, but more interesting are behaviors and interactions between characters.
The hostage/hit is played generic, and it's clear this is intentional, but since we spend so much time with him his act becomes detrimental to the story. It's not that interesting. He doesn't hold up to the narrator (who definitely
is interesting). Flesh him out a little more, let him act independently. Don't force him into a plot device to keep the story moving forward. Let him be more unique.
Good job sticking to a first person POV, with no breaks, and no extraneous information. We get a consistent sense of a world filtered by the eyes of the narrator.
MilkBeard - A Lapse of Judgment
My two primary criticisms of your last piece, flat dialogue and an overabundance of incidental detail, were almost totally addressed here. Your dialogue in this piece is sharp and interesting. All characters have distinct voices. No one is bogged down with small actions, which allows us to fill those things in for ourselves. You describe the actions we otherwise could not imagine. That's the important stuff. By doing this, you pop your scenes to life in vivid detail. Not every scene is equally successful, but, for instance, the two paragraphs which follow "Horses winnied...." are whip-cracks. You do a good job choosing what is important for us to know, and that allows us to imagine the world more completely.
There is some disconnected information occasionally. "It's been this way ever since Rhadam let us pass into Alia" doesn't tell us much about the characters, and we don't have enough context to understand what this means. It's clear you have a broad setting here, and there is a lot of thought all around the body of the story which we only get glimpses of, but sometimes those glimpses do less to build the world than they keep us from getting to the meat of the story. I like having some background with the names of gods and worlds, but a few references are too abstruse to move things forward.
You might experiment with introducing the conflict a little earlier, see if you're able to shorten the piece while retaining the distinguishing characteristics of your protagonists.
Keep an eye out for telegraphing (i.e. "ominously"). You do a good enough job establishing the images here that we don't need to be told how to feel about them. This isn't something that should be strictly avoided, but if you believe you've successfully conjured a scene, you probably don't need to signal the reader how the scene is supposed to feel.
Try staying a little more in the external world. Describe the inner life through the behavior and actions of your characters. When you do this, you do it well. Rabbi's fidelity is clear by the way he relates to Callie. That kind of thing speaks louder than simply telling us he is loyal to her.
Your enthusiasm is refreshing, and I look forward to seeing more from you.
Mike M - Calling Upon the Master
You always pick such great names.
Easy to identify Malliant's motivation. This makes the plot easy to follow and interesting to discover.
Various incarnations of Vendrix are wonderfully realized. Impeccable details. Brings a dead guy to life more admirably than most of us do with live folks.
A few unnecessary words. You can get the same meaning across while saying less, much of the time.
Malliant is a great character. He has a tragic flaw, pride, which brings about his demise. Nice awareness on his part at the end of the story. It's on the nose but absolutely believable and in character. In his fury, he cannot let go. There will always be someone to remember the Master. A fool's errand, doomed from the start. Great drama.
This works well as a short story. It feels complete. One of my favorite Mike M stories yet.
felon - Mole Men
The idea here is great. The premise kept me going.
Crop your dialogue to essentials. You can imitate one or two false starts or interjected conversation sounds (erm, uh, ah, haha, etc), but any more than that and it gives the impression that the dialogue is loose, unraveled. Even the shorter version can be cut further. But don't get me wrong: there is plenty of material to mine here, and it could just as easily go in the other direction and become much longer. Even if it expands, try to cut through things a little faster. The conversation with the Brainpower CS guy goes on a long time but little vital information gets revealed. Clover has a defect, and they want to expedite her return. That's all we need to know to keep the plot moving forward.
Doesn't really end. Escalate that conflict. How can you make the situation worse? How can it reach a tipping point, and how will that point be resolved? So far you have a hint that something might happen, but nothing materializes. I was disappointed that the Brainpower warnings did not amount to anything. The promise was there.
The relationship between Harvey and Clover is all potential. These are interesting characters we want to know more about. Reveal them by testing their limits.
Ward - They Yearn for the Cup
This feels less like a story than a character sketch. Some good material, but not in a compelling configuration. Maybe the biggest roadblock: Aika is content with his station, so there can be no drama, no conflict. He must
want something. If he has no desire, there is no reason for anything to change, and so we don't have a story. We end where we begin.
Be aware of revealing too much exposition through dialogue. Novelist Elizabeth Bowen said it well: "Speech is what characters do to each other.” It should not exist only to reveal information. Instead, think of each instance as its own conflict, with all participants desiring some particular outcome. Don't be afraid to give us the expository writing on its own, without the frame of dialogue. It will feel more natural hearing it from the narrator, and not from a character saying something everyone else in the story already knows.
Find a flaw in Aika. Something to push him out of his comfort zone. Something internal. He needs to struggle in some way. Then use your well-developed backstory and externalize that conflict. Take us on a journey.
Tangent - Vigilantism Contract Work
Enjoyed this. Great word choices. Itsy's infatuation with doilies is an awesome little quirk. She is a fun character. Can we get to her quicker? Much of the info we're given up-front comes across elsewhere, and might be better dispersed more evenly throughout, especially if it means we get close to Itsy from the very start.
I am not sure what the ending signifies. That her work is not over? Maybe I'm the only one who doesn't get it. It seems like it should be a significant reveal but I don't know what Itsy plans to do with her discovery.
Sober - Over the Top
The camaraderie of your characters could not be more clear. We understand them immediately.
Stay active. Avoid gerunds. I've seen writers defend gerund and participle use in screenplays as a stylistic choice, often unaware these verb forms generally force a passive voice (i.e. "It is raining"). Screenplay must constantly drive action. Things must happen to thrust the action forward. Active voice also tends to dig good words out of the author... it requires more descriptive terms than standbys such as "walk," "lean," "stand."
Try not to place character attributes in action blocks ("naive").
I am not sure what "a long set of beats" means. It sounds musical. A single beat should be enough for a change in the tone or quality of the scene. Your characters take a moment and realize things are not as they seem. The change is obvious in context (it is a good moment). We do not need the extra emphasis.
I don't follow the resolution of the theme. Why does Thomas hope the Germans are thinking of he and his friends? That they might not be enemies? The characters have suggested this previously, but there is nothing in their relationship with the Germans that might back it up. I think it's a good idea, and I like when it comes up in fiction. But here it feels like there is a link missing in the chain that gets us where we end up.
Your action is easy to follow. That's the most important part to get right with a screenplay, so you've done well here.
Flowers - Untitled
SevenEight's gun is a rich detail. Well implemented all the way through, and contributes to a great ending. Giving up the gun is an inspired move. What a way to show character growth.
I like all your characters.
I am not sure what's going on in the memory sequence. Jumps from place to place... I understand it is meant to be dreamlike but it is unclear when action has shifted. Is there any way to ease us into these transitions?
Dialogue could be trimmed. "They feel/we don't" only needs to be said once, and in few words. We get the gist.
Cyan - Three Versions of the End of the World
Really have to nitpick to find anything I disliked. The last couple sentences, "Rebirth/A second chance" probably ain't needed. "Builded" is a typo in there. Maybe instead of "Earth catches breath," it could be "universe catches breath," to remain consistent with the Big Freeze. I don't know, man.
Clever, narrator bringing two opposing ideas together to form a vision of immortality. Perfectly titled.
This might be my favorite of any entry I've read during these challenges. Top notch. Loved it.
mu cephei - Museum Studies
Your setting is vivid and interesting. The characters are imaginative. Your language is clear, and on the whole the story is well written. You have a creative vision which is well-suited for science fiction. You also maintain POV well, and we are given much crucial info through the prism of character. I enjoy that.
Despite the creativity, you take a long time building the world through description of setting. In a longer story that's probably fine, but here it creates a huge block of info we must digest before getting to the real story. There is a full page of text before anything happens. Try to get to the action quicker. Start with a character in the midst of something, performing an action.
There is a lot going on. Many characters to follow in such a short space. None of them are poorly drawn, but it's tough to settle into one perspective when we keep shifting. I don't know if the italics provide the effect you're looking for. The writing can be separated without the stylistic change. But it's not as if the italics get in the way of the writing, so it's really up to your preference. I think the transition between sections and action breaks could be a little clearer, just a sentence or two each time to ease us through.
I read this one over a few times and I'm still not sure I get it. There are a lot of grand ideas. The different perspectives are interesting but there is so much to take in it's a little overwhelming. I don't know that it fits into the word limit without sacrificing clarity. A lot of the backstory occludes what really matters. "She knew she was seen as a failure," something about a rocky planet being studied. I don't need any of that. It's like we're seeing your notes on character when we should be seeing the story. Keep it in mind, but scene these things. Make them active. This is mainly an issue with the first page. Once the characters interact things become more interesting.
Nezumi - Night of Song
I enjoyed the story, but there's not much plot. Things happen, but I don't know the reason why. There was a fight. What about?
Do we need the description of scenery at the beginning, before we get to the Night of Song? Most of it seems irrelevant to Tashpati's concern. It's meandering.
At the end we learn Tashpati hopes he's not the last one left standing there, because he doesn't want to be alone. Why doesn't he seek out the other singer? That sounds way more interesting to me than the tradition that's described here, something that's happened over and over again. What makes this instance interesting? What sets it apart from all the other times he's done this?
Your imagery is often beautiful, and kept me reading. I like the tone of this piece.
Ashes - Form and Substance
Not always 100% clear where we are in space and time, but I get the gist. Enjoyed the characters and the struggles they face. I enjoy your idiosyncrasies. Thought the dialogue was a little heavy on occasion but the tone of your speakers was always on-point. Husband maybe too fanatical. His outbursts are monstrous and I had trouble understanding why Hasina would be with him at all.
We are in the story immediately, and things are always moving. We're swept up. The action is vigorous, perfect for the length. Mostly dialogue but with just the right details revealed outside of speech. It reminds me of a story I read recently,
"Durga Sweets." Not the content but the motion of the dialogue, and a love for old friends that is handled with scrutiny.
phew.