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In.
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Mar 23, 2015 19:27
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In.. I'll try not to write this one in three hours
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Mar 23, 2015 19:48
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im in with a 
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Mar 23, 2015 20:16
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in,
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Mar 23, 2015 21:09
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In.
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Mar 23, 2015 21:45
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In, lest I get Snorched.
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Mar 23, 2015 21:59
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In. Beware, I live. I hunger.
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Mar 23, 2015 22:25
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I'm in
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Mar 23, 2015 22:42
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 hi judgeslink the loser in your goddam judgeposts or I will use my forbidden kiwi magic to boil your brains until your skulls pop open like piñatas and your brains trickle down your shirts, staining them irreparably k we good good
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Mar 23, 2015 23:06
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God help me, I'm in.
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Mar 24, 2015 00:34
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since i failed to submit (again) i once again offer 3 line-by-line crits, with a being placed that I will finish them by next sunday. this is for any week, just link me to your story and ill be happy to crit 'em. edit: two taken up by curlingiron and doctor idle, still one left for my super awesome crits edit 2: all gone flerp fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Mar 25, 2015 |
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Mar 24, 2015 00:47
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Broenheim posted:since i failed to submit (again) i once again offer 3 line-by-line crits, with a I'll take one. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3691539&userid=107188#post443084101
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Mar 24, 2015 02:25
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Killer-of-Lawyers posted:God help me, I'm in. We'll do this together. For my next trick, I shall squeeze time from a rock. In.
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Mar 24, 2015 02:48
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newtestleper posted:Sequelbrawl, Part I Crossfire 480 Words Estelle lived in a hut in the forest, as witches are supposed to do. Thomas lived in a cave on the hillside, as wizards have been known to do on occasion. They detested each other. The terrain surrounding their respective abodes was cunningly arranged to discourage visitors, so nobody in the village knew either of them existed until Marcus, who made a point of wandering where he shouldn't, happened to wander into Estelle's garden as she was picking herbs. Estelle was young-looking, and not dirty or pockmarked or wall-eyed like the girls in the village, so Marcus immediately fell in love with her. This annoyed her, as it was exactly the kind of thing she'd been trying to avoid; but perhaps, she thought, there was an opportunity here. "Take this pendant," she said, after an evening of blissful (for Marcus) lovemaking, "as a memento of my regard; but now it is time for you to go home, and you will never see me again. Just remember, whatever you do, don't pester the evil wizard who lives on the hill." Marcus was surprised to learn there was an evil wizard who lived on the hill, but he hid it well. The next time he wandered up that way, he made a special point of going places he hadn't been, and exploring paths that weren't there. Sure enough, he found a cave, smoothly carved and cunningly hidden behind a thicket of gorse. He poked his head in. "Anyone there?" he called. The pendant Estelle had given him beeped. "Two lifeforms detected." Marcus jumped a foot, tore off the necklace and threw it to the ground. "Yeah, I'm here," grumbled Thomas as he came around the corner. He was dressed in suitably impressive clothes. They weren't proper robes, more like a tunic and leggings, but at least they were covered with moons and stars and other mystic symbols. The wizard stared at Marcus. "Who the hell are you? One of the locals?" A series of muffled beeps sounded from just outside the cave, where Marcus' locket had landed. Then a voice. "Voiceprint confirmed. Hello Thomas. I have a present for you." "gently caress," said Thomas, and dived for a nearby shelf. The explosion tore into Marcus, shredding his flesh and killing him. Thomas, after a moment's pause, breathed a heavy sigh and switched off the shield he'd grabbed. * The villagers came to investigate the fire on the hillside. They found the cave, but no sign of occupation, or of the missing youth. * Marcus awoke in a great, white tent, surrounded by baffling contraptions. His vision felt strangely sharp. His head buzzed with a sensation of infinite knowledge not quite grasped. A masked figure dressed in white stood over him. "You'll do very nicely, my boy," said the wizard. "And with your help, maybe I can get rid of that bitch once and for all."
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Mar 24, 2015 02:55
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Thanks, DocK, for the TMBG crit! Also, in!
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Mar 24, 2015 02:57
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In it to bin it.
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Mar 24, 2015 03:28
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Thanks DocK and newtestleper for judging and crits in your respective weeks! Pretty happy to move from dead last to HM in 5 weeks of domin'. I'll win one day drat it.
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Mar 24, 2015 03:29
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Broenheim posted:since i failed to submit (again) i once again offer 3 line-by-line crits, with a May I take one?
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Mar 24, 2015 03:59
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In for this week with a .
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Mar 24, 2015 04:16
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In, the last one had a bad aftertaste.
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Mar 24, 2015 05:13
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In is good.
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Mar 24, 2015 06:49
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Jitzu has stepped up as one of your co-judges this week. Also, I'll have some crits up for Famous Last Words week tomorrow. Meant to have them up earlier but I've been sick as hell all week.
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Mar 24, 2015 07:57
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Djeser fucked around with this message at 09:48 on Mar 24, 2015 |
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Mar 24, 2015 09:45
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Also I'll be third judge.
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Mar 24, 2015 10:12
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Djeser posted:Also I'll be third judge. djeser gimme a flash rule but deliver it in gif form please
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Mar 25, 2015 01:21
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A Classy Ghost posted:djeser gimme a flash rule but deliver it in gif form please flash rule
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Mar 25, 2015 02:21
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Famous Last Words Crits, Part 1 If you'd like me to go into more detail / want a line crit, let me know! Screaming Idiot - Death of a Tyrant Not gonna lie, I laughed. This is totally over the top and on the nose, which is the point, so mission accomplished. You've got some nice pacing and the action is brisk enough that it keeps the reader engaged all the way through. You just keep ramping it up, and I was afraid going into the final stretch that you'd blown your momentum, but nope! The actual story is paper-thin, of course, and there's zero character development, which is almost always going to tank your chances of snagging a win or HM, but all of the judges actually enjoyed it; it's a story that grows on you. Your prose is fairly solid, with some awkward constructions here and there that interrupt the rhythm, but overall your writing keeps improving, so keep it up! Not a bad way to start the week. SurreptitiousMuffin - Reformation 2: Revelations Harder This is good for what it is, and what it is is a Dragon Ball Z fever dream. Your prose is strong, kinetic, and surprisingly economical for how outrageous the action is; it's an action-packed vignette that hits all the right marks, but there isn't a whole lot of meat on its bones. The idea of Luther hesitating when he realizes he's looking at another "true" servant of God is interesting, but it gets tossed to the wayside. Obviously exploring that would have taken the story down a completely different road, but as it is the ending feels very abrupt and kind of unearned. Pretty prose, and the action is great, but I'm not invested in what's happening. Entenzahn - Incompleteness Theorem Your first line is a little awkward, though cutting it might interfere with the way you are framing the story. There are some great moments here, and the detached narrative voice was the right choice, imo. This is one of those stories where it ends up caught in a sort of limbo - the time jumps are necessary to tell the story, and you're about as concise as you could be, but as a consequence the scenes don't really get enough time to breathe. You still do quite a lot with the word count constraint, but the scope of this piece is very ambitious and as a result it reads a bit too much like a laundry list of facts about his life. Noah - The Act of Disappearing This was probably the most divisive story of the week, oddly enough. One judge had it toward the bottom of the list, one had it has a potential HM candidate, and one had it smack dab in the middle of the pack. This was a fun story that plays with history in a way that feels natural. It's got this kind-of-steampunk-but-not vibe and you balance the action with the rest of the piece pretty well. The prose is kind of overwrought, though, and the dialogue feels stilted. I'm guessing it was a stylistic choice to help establish the tone of the writing, but it doesn't quite stick the landing for me. The ending is also kind of confusing - it seems like Pruss is implying that Houdini might have lived, though the way you wrote it sounded pretty clearly like he got fried / exploded to death. Not a bad story, all in all, but the stylistic choices lead to some clunky prose that muddies the story a bit. Broenheim - Self Portrait The first quarter or so of your story has a really choppy rhythm to it. You use a lot of terse, declarative sentences that don't really give the reader anything to chew on. You've also got some strong lines; as already noted by T-Rex, this: "He just wanted to see things like he did before. The stars burning bright, lighting up the dark sky into swirls of blue and white. The spires of mountains and churches climbing up towards the glowing moon. A sleeping town, with the only sign of life being a couple windows shining, but never as strong as the stars. Those images were forever burned in the canvas of his mind." is a really nice bit of prose that pulls double duty by providing some characterization and establishing a conflict of sorts. The problem is that the rest of the story just kind of meanders around. It's mostly a man sitting around, drinking, and talking, which is almost always going to make for a boring story. This was another ending that felt out of place; I think the suicide needed to either be left out completely or become the focus of the piece, instead of a throwaway bookend. DXH - José Martí "It was Angel, short for Angel de La Guardia. A fitting name for the boy, thought Pepe. It’s almost poetic that my orderly’s name is literally “Guardian Angel.” - This pulled me right out of the story. It's one of those wink-nudge moments that come from an author not trusting the reader. You end up using inner monologue as a way to establish the conflict / background of the story, which is also something you should strive to avoid. Nobody thinks thoughts like that, so reading it just feels immediately unnatural. You could weave those plot points into the narration, or, ideally, establish context through actions and dialogue. Your dialogue ends up being mostly expository as well - the conversation with the general is really just disguising an info dump beneath some "as you know..." banter. That said, your prose is pretty solid, and you did a nice job of establishing the setting and atmosphere of the piece. I think you got a bit too bogged down in trying to explain the background of what was happening instead of show it to us, and as a result the most interesting part - the actual battle - is over as soon as it begins. Jitzu_the_Monk - Everything He Owes As soon as I saw Tupac, I was waiting for Biggie to show up, and I wasn't disappointed. I like the dystopian setting you've created here, and you did it in broad strokes instead of giving us a history lesson, which is always appreciated. The concept behind the exoskeletons and the beat unlocking was pretty neat and just ridiculous enough to run with. Prose is a little inconsistent - some rough patches, but some nice lines as well. The verses were probably the weakest point, but I wouldn't feel too bad because that's difficult enough without asking the reader to believe that it's Tupac. The plot is pretty much just window dressing and there's only the barest hint of characterization, but that's been kind of a running theme so far this week. Paladinus - Cognac and Pastry There's the seed of an interesting story here, but you were really only using it as a way to outsmart the prompt. The intro and outro paragraphs are too meta and come off as kind of glib. The orderlies are basically props instead of characters, and their dialogue feels really out of place, to the point where I have no idea what time period this is supposed to be set in. Would a mental ward even let a patient have a harpsichord alone in their room? I kind of doubt it. The whole story is a bait-and-switch that shows its hand too early and then does nothing with the twist, which is why it took the loss. I didn't absolutely hate it, but it had more issues than any of the other stories this week. Crits Part 2 Incoming
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Mar 25, 2015 07:53
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Perfect Action Hero 500 words Jack Magnum was rattling the ice cubes in his second sloe gin of the night when the bomb went off. It slapped him off his barstool and onto his leather-clad rear end with a percussive, almost soundless thump and showered him in tiny cubes of safety glass from the ceiling lights. Jack took five long, befuddled seconds wondering how the intricate tessellations of the floor tiles managed to stay lined up while spinning around like that before the screams and the gunfire started. He craned his neck, saw three blurry figures with balaclavas, and automatic rifles, and the hunched, feverish stances of zealots in a hurry. Jack lay back down, and sighed. Typical. What would it be like, he thought in a distant, concussed way, to have a few drinks in a passably exotic location and not have it gatecrashed by fanatics, or robbers, bent cops? Just have a few drinks, with the boys, or the girls, and have them be nice. Normal. Jack reached into his Vicuna sports coat, curled his hand around the rough metal butt of his Sig Sauer P226, warm from body heat in its deadly cocoon next to his chest, pulled it out. “Over there! He has a gun!” The heavy thump of an AK47 echoed round the bar, accompanied by a fresh crop of screams. Jack hunkered down behind the red couch as 7.62mm bullets tore into the upholstery. He scanned for cover in an eyeblink, then dove for a wide tiled column, flicking off a trio of snapshots as he landed. A gurgling scream told him his shots had flown true. “Wait - Jack Magnum! Hold your fire!” Jack knew that voice. Brad Thorn? His irascible Section chief? What the hell was he doing here? Brad kept shouting, voice hoarse and raw: “Jack, this is a code zero alpha override! Exfiltrate to location --” His words were cut short by a fusillade of submachinegun fire. Jack risked a peek round the side of the pillar. Standing over Brad’s body, amidst a smoking litter of bodies and obliterated furniture, was a beautiful Chinese woman in a business suit, a smoking Uzi cradled in her arms; Jack remembered seeing her on the way in. “This ends now!” she barked, in mid-Atlantic tones, then repeated it in flawless Farsi. The other two men, exchanged glances, then dropped their rifles with a clatter. “Mr Magnum, I apologise. My name is Wei, local representative of the Wu Shei Tong. We needed to conduct this charade to root out a mole. That task has now been - “ A full load of shot caught her in the shoulder and she collapsed. Jack winced as the hollow boom of a Spas-12 echoed around the bar. The bartender, Harry Ho, worked the lever and popped the shell as the other two men raised their hands. “So, it was her all along. Sorry for the bother, Mr Magnum, but we like to take advantage of your visits to clear the air. Can I get you another gin?”
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Mar 25, 2015 08:00
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Sequelbrawl Part I results Maugrim I liked this story- a cool weird techno-fantasy-superhero origin thing. The fairytale tone of the start reminded me a little of your (underrated) first dome entry. I do have an issue in that you didn't commit to it enough (which I feel was the opposite of my main issue with your fairytale thingy, where that cutesy stuff was pushed too hard). That said I felt that you took too long to get into the action. I don't think you get the luxury of even two small paragraphs of scene setting when you have 500 words, and I was already possibly asking too much with the prompt. Also there was a bit of moral ambiguity here which DID add interest, but wasn't really what I asked for. You definitely hit the prompt in terms of leaving room for a sequel, though I feel like the unwritten sequel seems more interesting than what you have here. Sebmojo You had me hook line and sinker with the first two words: "Jack Magnum". This was obviously the right kind of thing, the question is will it be good enough? The action was very crisp and clean, and you characterization of Jack was hilarious. The line "His irascible section chief?" cracked me up irl. There were a lot of gun names, and that made stylistic sense, but I think there is risk that this would not work for someone who had not played a lot of counterstrike. On balance I think there was enough contextual clues for them to work just fine. This was a nice parody, but there was quite a bit less meat to the story than Maugrim's. The winner is sebmojo. The main reason is he made the very smart decision to start right in the thick of the action. Maugrim's takes a while to hit its stride, and I think with such a small word limit that is key. Which brings us to... Sequelbrawl Part II: The Enswitchening.  sebmojo will write a sequel to Crossfire by Maugrim cancercakes will write a sequel to Perfect Action Hero by sebmojo Same rules: Simple stories, no funny business. 500 words max, due 11:59 pdt Saturday 28 March.
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Mar 25, 2015 08:38
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This is a cool brawl. Grats on the win seb, I promise never again to bow out of a week like a useless baby after being first to enter.
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Mar 25, 2015 10:32
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Painting Crits Part One I'll go reverse order. Now I still owe some crits from spaceship week. Please let me know if you were missed and still want to have one done. I am very happy to revisit them but I also have lots of other stuff on. Grizzled Patriarch - Upon the Shore This was an extremely weird but at the same time sharply written story. The characterization was good, the quality of the writing was flawless, and the pacing was spot on. This piece had an extremely open meaning, which I think contrasted in a really interesting and unexpected way with the very particular setting and the expectations that you created when you set Webb up as a 'fraud' at the start. This openness and unexpectedness left us wanting more, but on reflection I think it is the right length as any further explanation could only disappoint. I would like to give you some constructive criticism on this piece but I'm not sure I'm qualified. It must be said that it wasn't the unanimous favourite among the judges, however everyone recognized it as deserving of a win. Comrade Question - A Bigger Splash by David Hockney So I know I said that the prompt was very loose, but this piece was the closest to not fulfilling it out of all the entries. My favourite prompt uses were ones that were thematic more than aesthetic, but you abandoned even that to go with the barest reference to the title of the piece. On top of this I thought that painting was one of the best prompts I gave out. Your story was a lot more competently written than the others in the DM category. But for an action/adventure piece it was pretty boring, plodding along with nothing much of interest happening. The characterization of Nilak was so dull and expected that it might have been bordering on racist if you had actually pushed it at all, but it was too bleh for me to get up in arms about. I suspect one of the other judges may have more to say on this. As it was it was just this happened, then this happened, then this happened. You need to think outside the box to make a character interesting. What can you tell us about them that hints of the life they live outside of this story, outside of the tiny sliver of their existence that you are putting on the page? How can you convince us that we should car he died? I definitely did not care one jot. Djeser - The Future as told by Larry Page We all liked your story. I was a little puzzled by the way this system of appliances paying each other back worked, I think there was possibly room for that concept to be communicated better. It definitely intrigued me, though, and it got the idea of a benign, mildly infuriating kafkaesque technohell across quite well. I liked the relationship between the train and Larry, and it had a lovely happy ending that made me smile. Possibly you took a little too long to get into the story? I think if it were tightened up at the start and the ideas were distilled a little more it would pop better. Sitting Here - You Don't Think About What's in Your Couch Until You're Desperate This story was in the bottom half according to our very scientific ranking system. I think there is something here- the theme links in to the skin anxiety stuff I saw in your story a few weeks ago, and maybe takes it to a more interesting place, but the story here meandered around way too much, and not enough happened for the wordcount. Basically this needed to be a lot tighter and a lot clearer. The hallucinations are too weird not to write in a starkly clear manner. I DID like the ending. Finally something happens that isn't just boring anxious faffing in the flat. It hints at her nervous breakdown taking a much darker and less inward turn, and I think it finishes at just the right point, giving us a nice open ending to chew on. Capntastic - His Mirror Neither of the other judges hated this close to as much as me, but as I look at it again I am even more certain that they didn't know what the gently caress they were on about. One thing is that I struggle to find a sentence that isn't clunky. It just reads very very poorly to me, with bad flow and strange word choice. It becomes a little clearer at the end why this is, and I will talk more about that soon. You really need to read this aloud, make a mark every time a sentence makes your eyebrow twitch, and then rewrite those sentences. Some of your word choice is bad because you do not understand what some of the words you are using mean, or at least how they can reasonably be used. The first sentence is a good example of this. The word ricocheted does not belong in there. You need to dial back your vocab, stretching it to the limit will not help you get better. Besides, using less obvious words is generally going to be the worse choice. I think this is also one of those things that are helped by reading more. Finally I hate stupid fake twists where you were lying to us the whole time. The more stories like this I read the more I realize they are purely masturbatory. Clever is worse than good, and good is more clever than clever. It also forces you into these tortured word choices to preserve the charade. Look at the sentence "He held his breath and didn't break eye contact with his mirror." Do you think people enjoy reading that the first time? Do you think when people find out his mirror means his dead twin that they go back and re-examine the quality of the sentence in light of this new development? No and no. I would have happily given your story the loss if the others had been behind it, because I find this crap insulting to my intelligence as a reader. (kind of similar to a story I hated a lot in spaceship week). Tyrannosaurus - Teyron Foley and the Thousand-Yard Stare So, we unanimously loved almost everything about this story. You scored the highest total among all the stories across the three judges, though it wasn't any individual judges favourite. It was well told, topical without being preachy, convincingly voiced, and above all touchingly human vignette. The tension in both paragraphs was palpable but also different enough that they contrasted with each other so well. We all agreed that we could not bring ourselves to give it the win because of your opening paragraph. It was inaccurate, trite, and out of place. I think the aim of the paragraph was a good one, but it needed to be woven seamlessly in with the rest of the piece, not hung on the front like a fake hood ornament. more coming, including linecrits for newbies.
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Mar 25, 2015 10:47
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In and I need a flash rule.
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Mar 25, 2015 12:41
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Paladinus posted:In and I need a flash rule. flash gif
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Mar 25, 2015 13:07
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Alright, let's do this. In.
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Mar 25, 2015 19:00
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DID SOMEONE SAY CRITS?!?! Week 136: Famous Last Words Crits Screaming Idiot - Death of a Tyrant So, my initial reaction to this was to actually picture the  emoticon in my head. But then later, when I started reading it aloud to my boyfriend, something strange started to happen: I began to like it. A lot. I wonder if this is what Stockholm Syndrome feels like. Since yours was submitted so early, and because I was traveling last weekend to an event with long periods of downtime, I actually did a red pen line-by-line for your story, which I will post later as a pdf. Hooray, something good came of submitting early for once! Surreptitious Muffin - Reformations 2: Revelations Harder You know, it’s weird: the prose in this story was much, much better than the previous one, but I actually liked it less. I tried reading it out loud and doing voices for it, to see if that was maybe the key, but it didn't work. Technically, this story is well-done; your words are all good, and I liked what you were going for, even though I thought that it started to flag as it went on. But this story wasn’t as satisfying as I had hoped it would be when I started reading it. The fighting was difficult to follow, and smacked very faintly of DBZ fanfic. I think TRex hit the nail on the head when he said it felt like you were describing a movie. I absolutely do not need or want to see every kick and throw that your character executes. The ending felt a little pat, as well. Entenzahn - Incompleteness Theorem Ooh, crazy mathematicians. Who told you my fetish? I liked this a lot. Probably the only thing I would immediately complain about it your opening sentence; I like the symmetry you were going for, but it wasn’t well-phrased, inasmuch as it didn’t parse easily or flow well. I’d probably tell you to break it into two sentences, or possibly replace the commas on the asides with dashes, although that option would be a little harder to make work. Noah - The Act of Disappearing Man, I’m going to spend half my time judging this week looking things up on Wikipedia, aren’t I? I knew who Houdini and Tesla were, obviously, but Max Pruss was a little harder to place. As far as the writing goes, this was a little clumsy. The fighting scenes were hard to follow; actually, the whole thing was a little hard to follow. Your ending was also trying a little too hard to be poignant, and it just ended up seeming out of place and confusing. Broenheim - Self Portrait Eh, this was pretty mediocre. I didn’t hate it enough to get angry about it or anything, but it was pretty meandering and boring. Sorry. Okay, I originally left my crit at that, but I felt like a real rear end in a top hat doing so, so here is some actual advice: most of what happens in your story is neither meaningful nor interesting. You’re telling us a lot of things about Vincent, but other than maybe his alcohol consumption, there’s not a lot that’s shown to us. I liked the idea of the field, or seeing the world in the style of his paintings, but the bartender and a ton of the description seemed wholly superfluous. Intentionality and economy of words are the two areas that I think you should focus on the most going into the future. DXH - Jose Marti So, I have Judgemode on, so I’m not sure who wrote this, but the opening made me immediately think Benny the Snake, just because Pepe sounds like a character name he would gravitate to. Did he even enter this week? I don’t know. Why did you use Pepe as a name, anyway? You put the guy’s name as your title and then called him something else the whole time. Why? Oh, good, a rape reference. Was this necessary? Seriously, just take a minute and think about what it added to the story for you to have it there. This is a really great instance of a detail that I’m sure seemed really clever and amusing when you were writing it, but should have been cut out during editing. It’s important that you be intentional about your language; if there isn’t a reason to say something, why are you saying it? You have a perspective switch at the end there, which bothered me. Actually, the whole ending was pretty bad. Still, this piece overall was irritating at best. Dude died, didn’t really overcome anything or have to try that hard to do it. The whole thing was very anticlimactic and boring. I’ll admit that I wanted you to lose this week, just because your story annoyed me the most, but it wasn’t really bad enough for me to push it when the other judges disagreed. Jitzu the Monk - Everything He Owes Okay, so I enjoyed this one on an intellectual level, but… Goddamnit, it’s like my humor sensors got blown out early in the week, and nothing is quite bringing me the same twisted pleasure/pain. Oh god, what is happening to me. Anyway, your concept was cool, and I had really, really high hopes when I started reading this story, but I feel like the execution, especially in the ending, was shaky. Leaving things ambiguous was annoying. I would have loved to see a more powerful ending from you, but it would probably take quite a bit of expansion word-wise to make this feel as epic as I think you hoped that it would. The other judges mentioned this, but your raps do not scan. At all. Not to mention that most raps have aa/bb rhyme schemes, or rarely ab/ab stanzas, not… whatever you have going on here. I even looked up some of Tupac’s actual lyrics, since I’m not as immediately familiar with his style as I am with others, but nope, he follows exactly the format I expected, with some inline rhyming schemes thrown in. Your flow, it reeks; try harder next week. I ain’t lying, this ain’t flying, Spend more time on your rhymes. Paladinus - Cognac and Pastry Your entry didn’t annoy me as much as some of the entries this week, but given that you tried to dance around the rules in your boring and stilted story, I was on board with your loss once it was put forward. I was also pretty irritated that I spent so much time researching Dmitry Petrovich, just to find that you made up the character. Your opening is super awkward to read, and your dialogue and descriptions are pretty ham-fisted. I cared about nothing and no one from this story. It was kind of a gruel and gelatin diet story. BTW, the plural of a Scottish person would be “Scots,” not “Scotch.” Scotch is what reading that made me want to drink. Bompacho - Forever This story was pretty alright. You had some good words and motivations, but I felt like the story didn’t go anywhere. There wasn’t any character development, and although the death of the Emperor was implied by the ending (and our modern understanding of chemistry), it didn’t feel meaningful. The Emperor wasn’t doing anything to make his dream a reality, he was just ordering people around. I would have enjoyed maybe seeing more of his immortality regimen and the effect that it had on him; as he was gradually poisoning his body, did it become more difficult for him to keep drinking the medicine? Did he think that the eventual hallucinations and madness were signs that it was working? That would have made for a more compelling narrative, and given you room for more meaningful character development. Benny Profane - The Flying Tailor I thought that this was pretty cute. I don’t know why a man jumping to his death from the Eiffel Tower struck me as “cute” exactly, but I think we’ve already established that I’m pretty hosed up over the course of these crits. Anyway, good motivation and character development. I thought your ending was great; very poignant. It didn’t strike me on quite the same emotional level as some of the stories this week, but overall it was well-done. Ancient Blades - The Petalsong You know, I really, really liked this story. I think it was maybe my second favorite this week, to be honest with you, but that may just be because I spent most of my adolescence in an anime fever dream. I think that you handled the action in your story the best out of anyone who tried to do a fighting story this week. It’s definitely an anime story, but I’m okay with that; I’ve also read a lot of classic poetry form that era, and I think that you captured that feel fairly well. tl;dr: Good unintentional judge pandering, A- crabrock - I Don’t Feel All Turned On and Starry Eyed Okay, THIS was my favorite story this week. I had no idea who this person was (I’m semi-illiterate, culturally), but after I looked it up I enjoyed the nods towards both her actual and rumored cause of death, which were done with appropriate subtlety. I guess you could have had some more character development, and I’ll admit that the love intrest boy seemed a little flimsy. Maybe do more with that? Idk. Pete Zah - Touching the Heavens I thought this was pretty clumsy. There were times where your prose really tripped over itself, and I found that I really didn’t care much for your character (although I find Tesla himself to be p. badass, so that kind of says something). This storyline seems almost cliche at this point: the brilliant inventor who blows the big showcase, and is then killed tragically while trying to fix his machine. You should work on giving characters a little more depth, and maybe showing how they work to overcome obstacles. newtestleper - The Death of Marat I, too, have taken an Art History class. I will say that I didn’t know about Marat’s skin condition before this, so that was cool to learn about (also gross). There were parts of this that seemed a little rambling and unnecessary (bath farts immediately spring to mind). I thought that you handled the perspective change nicely; certainly the fact that you paid attention to such a thing puts you ahead of a non-insignificant number of ‘domers. contagionist - Todesengel I didn’t think that this was bad. It wasn’t great, either, and it seemed a little meandering at times. I would have liked to see at least one character’s motivation or actual efforts; it didn’t have to be Rindon’s. You’ve told this from his perspective, but he doesn’t really seem to want anything in particular (except maybe to hang out with pretty girls), and he certainly didn’t make a noticeable effort to get what he wanted. Of the two, Claire was the more interesting character, but you kept all of her efforts and desires hidden from the reader in an effort to conceal the twist at the end (which, really, only barely qualifies as a twist). You might take a note from newtestleper’s story on how to provide perspective from the side of the assassin. I would really have liked to know more about Claire, and I think that you could have had an interesting story if you hadn’t been married to the idea of telling it solely from Rindon’s perspective. sebmojo - Hunter S Thompson needed a poo poo like you wouldn’t believe. Great style and voice, although I felt like this was a little more of a vignette than a story. You got the tone dead-on, though, and I really enjoyed it for that. The overarching metaphor with the typewriter was p. great, too. I didn’t care for the Yeats poem, but I think it fit with the overall mood, and the juxtaposition with the otherwise stream-of-conscious narrative was nice. That’s all I got. Sorry! v  vCapntastic - HeLa Your prose strikes me immediately as being incredibly overwrought. You also need commas like you wouldn’t believe. So this is a really interesting take on the actual story of Henrietta Lacks. I wish that the entire thing weren’t just telling rather than showing. This reads more like a documentary or a news article than it does a story. You’ve got some great ideas, but this lacks any real emotion or urgency. It would be cool to see this developed into something longer and more dynamic.
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Mar 25, 2015 19:12
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monsters INc.
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Mar 25, 2015 19:31
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Monster's INk is made using ground up monsters for sequel brawl
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Mar 25, 2015 19:54
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Broenheim posted:since i failed to submit (again) i once again offer 3 line-by-line crits, with a By the way, there's still a line-by-line crit for one lucky domer. Sign up today! edit: sorry, but they're all gone not actually sorry flerp fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Mar 25, 2015 |
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Mar 25, 2015 20:01
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Broenheim posted:By the way, there's still a line-by-line crit for one lucky domer. Sign up today! I was about to grab this because crts r gd when I remembered that I had his last one too, so I won't. Newbies always take these offers: it's why we're here. Relatedly I still owe crits for tmbg, so here's a to have them done (judgeburps and a smattering of line by lines) by subs close this week.
sebmojo fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Mar 25, 2015 |
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Mar 25, 2015 20:45
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rescinded
Jagermonster fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Mar 27, 2015 |
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Mar 25, 2015 20:58
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