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NeoGAF Creative Writing Challenge #189 - "Neighbors"

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N

Nezumi

Member
Mike M said:
50/50 shot of placing at least third!
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I think that's one of the lowest entry numbers if not the lowest since I'm doing the challenges. I wonder if it was the strange deadline that confused people.

The good thing is I'm already done reading but don't want to write up comments on mobile, so I'll wait with my votes as well :)
 
C

Cyan

Banned
Nezumi said:
I think that's one of the lowest entry numbers if not the lowest since I'm doing the challenges. I wonder if it was the strange deadline that confused people.
Click to expand...

Or we were all burned out after being forced to collaborate. ;)
 
R

Red

Member
Nezumi said:
I think that's one of the lowest entry numbers if not the lowest since I'm doing the challenges. I wonder if it was the strange deadline that confused people.

The good thing is I'm already done reading but don't want to write up comments on mobile, so I'll wait with my votes as well :)
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I had trouble sticking to a single story this round, and after I finally settled on one decided to spend some extra time with my family (and myself—I dove three years deep into my gaming backlog to finish Tomb Raider 2013).

I expect next round to have some extra competition, since everyone seems to have rested up.
 
M

Mike M

Nick N
Cyan said:
Speaking of people being gone, Mike, where are the foxy ladies at? I've missed them.
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Working on their long term projects, mostly.

The extra week we took for collab knocked our meetings and challenge schedules out of sync, too.
 
A

Ashes

Banned
Reading the stories is proving harder than I imagined.
I've read half the stories. We really need to rein in our word count.
Less words; larger font.
 
C

Cyan

Banned
I'm liking the chance to stretch a little with the word counts, though. I know it means more reading time, but it's nice to get to play around a bit more and not cut everything to the bone.
 
N

Nezumi

Member
Ashes said:
Reading the stories is proving harder than I imagined.
I've read half the stories. We really need to rein in our word count.
Less words; larger font.
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Damn, I actually wanted to use a larger font this time since you mentioned your eye troubles but then I forgot :( Sorry

I usually prefer word counts in the 2000-2500 area, though. Like Cyan said it gives you a bit more room to breath. Develope characters, establish settings, these kind of things.

And yes, whatever did happen to poetry challenges?
 
M

mu cephei

Member
I enjoyed all the entries a lot. votes:

1. Cyan. Those Georgette Heyers paid off lol. This was hilarious and all round fab.
2. Tangent. Thoroughly enjoyed this. Loved her obsession with the chalk.
3. Ashes. I just found this very interesting. Characters real as always.

I was away on holiday so couldn't submit anything but am back in time to vote.

re. the discussion about word count, I like the longer ones because several people are working on getting stories published, and I think the longer lengths are better for this. Working at perfecting storycraft for 1500 words has limited use apart from concision imo. But I don't see why we can't vary it. eg. I was thinking it would be fun to sometime do a sprint challenge of 500-1000 words with only the Tuesday to the Friday (with the bonus of getting things back on track for Mike M.)
 
N

Nezumi

Member
mu cephei said:
re. the discussion about word count, I like the longer ones because several people are working on getting stories published, and I think the longer lengths are better for this. Working at perfecting storycraft for 1500 words has limited use apart from concision imo. But I don't see why we can't vary it. eg. I was thinking it would be fun to sometime do a sprint challenge of 500-1000 words with only the Tuesday to the Friday (with the bonus of getting things back on track for Mike M.)
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I had the same idea (and then forgot it again) so I'd be in favour.
 
F

FlowersisBritish

fleurs n'est pas britannique
1) Tangent
2) MIke M
3) Cyan

Gonna have feedback... later. My head is literally killing me and I am in a bad mood from some wife beating piece of shit calling me a redneck. I'm classy as shit asshole.
 
C

Cyan

Banned
Votes:
1. Nezumi - "The Bathhouse" - I loved the weird dreamlike quality of the whole thing. I think I understand what happened in the end, but I like that it was left a bit vague.
2. Tangent - "My Family, My Home" - I dunno how you always capture these weird little tics of childhood, like the chalk, but it works really well. Also I like the use of period slang.
3. Mike M - "Dictates of Formalities" - Nice to see these characters again! Funny enough, I think this story could've really benefited from more words. The main conflict with the dragon felt a bit rushed.
 
T

Tangent

Member
Blasian Persuasion: you avatar is hilarious. Looks like the auntie of Arthur the Aardvark or something.
Sidenote, did you know that Arthur's nose changed tremendously over the years?!

Feedback:

FlowerisBritish - The Old Man and the Leak: I really liked the tone of this story. Gale and the old man were immediately made into characters with a lot of depth. On one hand, Gale seemed oppressed by a landlord taking advantage of him. On the other, Gale seemed like a complete a-hole for the way he treated the old man. I was interested in learning a bit more about Gale's parents since they seemed to be so influential on Gale's decisions. I thought that when he walked upstairs, something completely different would happen. It seemed like a big shift when it turned into a Poseidon themed story! However, after the initial portal that seemed "sudden," I was rolling with it and enjoyed the adventure. The end felt a little abrupt, but funny.

Mike M - Dictates of Formalities: I liked how the fairy tale style and use of magic felt so natural in this story. The owl sort of reminded me of Dobby the house elf from JK Rowling's books. I liked how the Statutes of Civility were so powerful in dictating behavior. I wonder if there could be some knowledge the reader could have been given to know why the dragon followed this code so closely. She seemed to be of integrity so that makes sense. But I could see her being loyal to other dragons, more so than humans. Perhaps a little vignette side-story of sorts? IDK. Overall, I liked the character of the prince, princess, owl, and dragon (and I think I remember them from before?). The end felt a little abrupt.

Cyan - The Whitnel Reputation or Pilasters and Candlesticks: I liked how you set up the scene, describing the house and the butler. I could picture them well. The house reminded me of the suburban version of a McMansion. I'm embarrassed to say: I was confused why the men were so feminine... apologies if I'm displaying denseness. I liked how the butler brought back pilasters at the end. I liked the transition to pigeon hunting. Though I thought it was going ot be a fake escape, haha! I liked the fuss over the picnic -- it reminded me of people getting all huffy over big events like showers or weddings. Great word choice throughout.

Ashes - Hush: I liked how you were able to portray the tension of so many characters, and provide a bit of background without that background slowing down the advancement of the story. Also, I used to know two sisters: Zara and Zainab! Your style of writing in sections worked well for this piece.

Nezumi - The Bathhouse: Beautiful descriptions, especially the idea of sweating out your essential being, and then the coldness being so shocking. I liked how the bird people were described too. But... was it answered? Who was he and where did he come from? I think I'm supposed to understand this at the end, but I think I missed it a little. I think it's just me, so not necessarily anything to change!

Votes:
1. Flowers
2. Nez
3. MikeM
 
N

Nezumi

Member
Do my eyes deceive me or has Mike just missed a deadline o_O. Never thought I'd see the day.

Anyway, votes. (Will write up comments once I'm home)

1.) Tangent
2.) Ashes
3.) Mike M
 
M

Mike M

Nick N
Nezumi said:
Do my eyes deceive me or has Mike just missed a deadline o_O. Never thought I'd see the day.

Anyway, votes. (Will write up comments once I'm home)

1.) Tangent
2.) Ashes
3.) Mike M
Click to expand...

Three day weekend in the US threw off my groove. I've been late on the voting part before : P

Votes now, comments later.

1. Tangent
2. Ashes
3. Nezumi
 
F

FlowersisBritish

fleurs n'est pas britannique
Mike M: When that owl showed up i got genuinely excited at the recognition. I said it when I first read it, and will say it again, i think you got something here. The world works on rules that make it a good mix of clever and funny, and you prove that outside of the trio. The dragon being pained at bad pronunciation, the the rules of hospitality, there is a lot of good stuff here to make reading this pretty fun. As a short story, it was good though I wonder if I would be following along as well if I didn't remember so much of the first? Also, ending was a little too neatly resolved for me to really like. For real question though, are you doing something with them?

Tangent: Strong beginning, especially that "nobody even said happy birthday." I kind of teared up a little at the end. It just did a good job of making what should be a horribly depressing place rather likable. I especially loved the interaction between Richy and Ethel. That was probably the strongest party, and made me really like Richy. Glad to hear other kids existed there too, but Richy felt like the stand out here, and kind of wished we got more development on him.

Cyan: There was a certain pompousness to the way this was written that reminded me a lot of Victorian writings. At least in terms of setting. Pretty sure it’s not, since a lot of the problems feel like they're about being out of time and out of touch. Anyway, with that style there is a real heaviness in descriptions that this lacked. Normally, I don’t really pay much attention to that sort of stuff, but I felt the big party at the end was rather underdescribed, and overall a lot of this felt sparse. Hmmm, wonder if any of that has to do with the word count? Edit: Also if we had to chose the titles, I'd go with the Whitnell Reputation.

Ashes: Its always weird when you break out of the fourth wall to address the reader. It was useful, and I really liked learning about the various bits of wedding culture, but it was weird and though interesting to read, the jump back into traditional narrative is a little jarring. I know you were talking about word count, but I would have liked a bit more words in here to help flesh out some things. Mostly, the various family connections. I tended to get lost as to who was related to who, though that could very much be because I’m not used to the names.

Nezumi: This was weird, but in a lot of ways I liked! The mix of unusual and dreamlike elements really gave it a fairly unique feel. It was the wealth of descriptions within this that worked the most, mostly everything revolving around the bathhouse. Story in general was pretty odd(in a good way), but I mostly liked how apathetic some of the bird people felt about the whole thing.
 
M

Mike M

Nick N
  • FlowersisBritish: The lewd left turn about the objectives of the old man was so absurd and out of the blue it got an audible guffaw out of me. Poseidon pretending to be the protagonist’s conscience was a funny quirk too, struck me as almost a Douglas Adams sort of thing. Only with, you know, intent to rape a deity. Bizarrely, what it was that took me out of the story was the protagonist’s handling of the fact that there was a leak in his ceiling. That’s not the sort of thing where you go upstairs and bang on the neighbor’s door like they’ve got the stereo too loud, that’s the sort of thing where you call the superintendent of the building and they get it fixed ASAP, unless they happen to be a slum lord. You probably could have danced around it somehow, but the fact that it wasn’t addressed at all jumped out at me.
  • Mike M: As most everyone has noticed, this one was starved for words. I probably could have done a 2500 word story on just the cat and mouse game over etiquette at dinner alone, but there were elements in the setup (not the least of which was giving the princess a name) that I didn’t think I could sacrifice. It is a most abrupt and un-clever ending, but at least the sword got some lines. And in answer to Flowers’s question, I don’t have any immediate plans for these characters, but I agree that the potential is there. I’ve liked them from the moment I came up with them, and I’ve got some head canon going on for them, but no real story to hang it on just yet. In the meantime, their quest for the Starbright Sea seems an adequate McGuffin to keep them going in episodic installments.
  • Tangent: This was running through my head the whole time. It also gave me some shades of Maus, bizarrely enough; there’s a couple pages (if that) in the book where Art discusses his older brother who died before he was born and what it was like to have a sibling rivalry with a picture on the wall. He didn’t spend much time on the subject at all, but I always found it to be deeply affecting. Of course, Maus is a deeply affecting work, so that’s to be expected.
  • Cyan: Is there a specific title for the sort of comedy that revolves around the pratfalls of the aristocracy getting hung up on trivialities that cause them social embarrassment but are otherwise of no actual consequence? “British Comedy” seems entirely too expansive since that would include the likes of, say, Benny Hill and Absolutely Fabulous, which isn’t exactly what I’m getting at. This probably would have been more effective for me as some sort of visual production, as there’s something intrinsically amusing about the fussiness on display here, but it’s difficult to convey in writing. I’m pretty sure we had a post mortem discussion in a thread a while back where the difficulties of writing comedy were discussed, I think most of that is applicable here; None of it was bad, but seeing it played out would have driven it home for me.
  • Ashes: Stuff like this is difficult for me to read sometimes, because I can never help but put myself in other people’s shoes, and the embarrassment of what transpired between the couple in the story would cause me unspeakable distress.
  • Nezumi: I’m not sure where I picked up what was going on, but I’m pretty sure it was prior to the appearance of the crow bird man (which kind of sealed the deal for me, what with crows being a psychopomps and all). And I’m pretty sure that it was not your intent, but this evoked a strange hybrid of familiarity from American Gods and Dark Souls of all things. American Gods I don’t think really had much to do with it outside of the general concept of a trip through the afterlife talking to birds (and even then, that was a minor thing in the book), and Dark Souls because of things like the harpies in DS1/Ornifex the Weaponsmith in DS2 and the whole thing with a giant crow that flies around and scoops people up/drops off a giant murder machine. I don’t remember where I was going with this... Um... The Cleric Beast is vulnerable to fire, so lock on to its head use your Molotov cocktails? P.S.: The weekend’s over!
 
N

Nezumi

Member
^^ Clerical Beast is already down (4th try) and so is father Gascoigne (or whatever his name was; way more tries than four though...).
Had unexpected guests over the weekend but got in a good start and finally know what's going to happen. Besides Axel and Azih haven't finished their ending either :p

Edit: I don't remember that part from American Gods at all :D I mostly wanted to write a story set at a sauna because I love saunas. I looked up some Finnish myths in preparation and stumbled about some pretty strong bird motives and decided to roll with that.
 
M

Mike M

Nick N
Nezumi said:
^^ Clerical Beast is already down (4th try) and so is father Gascoigne (or whatever his name was; way more tries than four though...).
Had unexpected guests over the weekend but got in a good start and finally know what's going to happen. Besides Axel and Azih haven't finished their ending either :p

Edit: I don't remember that part from American Gods at all :D I mostly wanted to write a story set at a sauna because I love saunas. I looked up some Finnish myths in preparation and stumbled about some pretty strong bird motives and decided to roll with that.
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Well I haven't beaten Father Whatshisbucket on account I only play an hour every other week, so you're on you're own, now.!

And the part I was talking about in AG was relatively brief where Shadow talks to Mr. Ibis in his actual form. There wasn't any bathhouse, but I think he got cleaned up anyway or something? Don't remember in that much detail. Which is odd, because it's one of the few books I've re-read.
 
C

Cyan

Banned
Ashes, were you planning to vote? I think we've got a clear winner at this point, but just wanted to check.

Red said:
Cyan, channeling your inner Wodehouse?
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Something like that. I had a blast writing it, anyway. I wrote the first few paragraphs and fizzled out a bit, then came up with the ending and then the whole thing was fun as hell to write.

Also, if anyone's curious, I was aiming for mid to late Regency here with all the architecture and style stuff. (I also had a specific time period in mind for Whitnel's manor, though I don't have my notes with me.) Technically I was a teensy bit anachronistic with Harlaxton Manor, but it fits the style and is neat in crazy over the top way.

AboutSlideshow9.jpg
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T

Tangent

Member
Wow!!! Thank you guys! This is amazing!

And Mike M, I'm honored to hear that my story invoked Maus out of all books! (And Weird Al.)

The new thread is up!
 
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