|
Sitting Here posted:woops welcome to the quoteless club
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2016 06:23
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 19, 2024 01:27 |
|
|
Someday, this poo poo may be included in a volume of bad stories.
Chili fucked around with this message at 08:18 on Jan 1, 2017 |
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2016 06:36
|
|
|
Week 215 Submission The Speaker 1066 Words Antonio and Jorge stood on a small finger of beach that jutted out into the ocean. As the sun rose, they made a final attempt. Together, they held a long bamboo pole, the far end carved to a slim key. They stretched it over the water and fitted the taper in the lock, then twisted and shook their makeshift key until the dawn threatened to expose them. The pair held nightly forays, looking for a way past the fine, gilded bars that caged the island. After weeks of cataloging the coastline, they found the door, but no amount of effort could break the hinges, and they were thus far unsuccessful with the lock. The elders claimed the door opened once when they were small children; they remembered fondly the arrival of The Speaker. Antonio held the paunch of middle age, and the story was already as good as legend when he was a tyke. In turn, he told the bedtime story to Jorge. It might have been a child’s exaggerated memories, but Antonio thought he recalled waking up and collecting the seeds and hard loaves of bread that littered the village each morning. If it was more than fanciful imagination bringing tall tales to life, the daily bounty stopped soon after. They cultivated seeds and made bread for themselves and The Speaker now. If there was a god above that once provided, He had forgotten them. Life in the village was simple and quiet. Antonio and his wife lived a happy little life and raised a son. But Jorge was not a simple, quiet boy. After years of questions, Jorge wore his father down. Now, Antonio was just as curious as his son about what was beyond the island. “Jorge, it’s time to call it a night.” “Just one more go, Dad. I have a good feeling about this one.” They gave the bamboo pole a final twist, but the effort was too much and the bamboo key cracked. A long blade sheared off the pole, stuck firmly in the lock. Antonio looked back towards the village. They would be waking soon and their adventure discovered. “We should just leave it and return,” said Antonio. “We’re cutting it close.” But the younger one was undeterred. Against his father’s protests, Jorge took a running start and leapt with all his might from the water’s edge. He caught the bars and pried the splinter of bamboo loose. “See?” he said. “No problem.” Those words sealed Jorge’s fate. He dropped off the bars with a splash. The calm surface hid a riptide created by the sandbar, and Jorge was dragged under. Antonio reached for his son, but it was too late. He could only watch through clear waters as Jorge was pulled down and away, and finally, out of sight. Antonio laid on the sand, one arm outstretched in the water. He heard the stirring of activity from the village. The shard of bamboo popped to the surface, a gently bobbing marker. He didn’t remember returning to the village. He heard only a high-pitched buzz, but he saw his wife drop to her knees, saw her crying. Soon, there was a crowd around them, and before long, the elders hobbled from The Speaker’s hut. Everyone talked at once, it seemed, but Antonio only heard the ringing in his ears. He offered no resistance as the old men lead him to meet The Speaker. He had never been inside the hut before. Only the elders were permitted entry, and The Speaker’s direct wisdom hadn’t been needed in Antonio’s lifetime. The hut was dimly lit, and the thatching smelled of lingering must. Antonio was lead through the antechamber and waited as an elder produced a golden key and unlocked the central room. He was sat beside a wicker judge’s bench and waited as the elders gathered and eased themselves to the packed dirt floor. The High Elder sat behind the pulpit, motionless, his face creased and shriveled. The other elders were withered, but Antonio was unsure the man behind the high desk was even alive, he might have been a grotesque statue propped into position by sycophantic hands. Then one of the old men began with an unexpectedly clear voice: “Oh, how the wise benevolence of The Speaker shines down upon us like the sun, melting away the shadows of ignorance. Long may he grant us his wisdom and guide us through this unjust world. Oh, what a golden beak!” “What a golden beak; what a golden beak.” The elders lifted their shaky heads and hands in reverence as they chanted the mantra, over and over, until the words blended to a low hum. From the shadows behind the High Elder, The Speaker emerged. It appeared wooden and lifeless, perhaps a carved talisman from a seafaring vessel rather than a living bird. But it wobbled forward and perched on the edge of the bench, just above the heads of the kneeling elders. The buzz in Antonio’s ears gave way to the thump of his heart. The elders fell silent and creaked forward on brittle bones to hear The Speaker render judgment. For a hundred heartbeats they waited, grotesque statues all. Then The Speaker raised its right foot, talons outstretched. “Guilty.” The elders chanted the verdict in the same reverent tone, “Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.” As The Speaker turned and slowly wobbled away to disappear in the darkness, the elders broke into their refrain, “What a golden beak; what a golden beak!” Antonio gave no testimony, presented no case. Jorge was gone. The elders gradually got to their feet and filed out of the chamber, chanting all the while. The door closed and the lock clicked. As Antonio’s eyes adjusted, he saw the high elder was still behind the desk. Antonio reached over and prodded the old man. He was most certainly dead. “Hello? Benevolent Speaker?” There was no reply. Then the high elder’s robe quivered, and Antonio thought he might not be dead after all. He gave him a shake, and the worn cloth of the robe fell open. Antonio saw the bones of his ribcage. Inside the cavity of the old man’s chest, The Speaker pecked the last of the desiccated flesh from the pocked and scratched ribs. The Speaker twisted its head around and rolled that black eye to stare at Antonio. The Speaker hadn’t uttered a word in years.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2016 07:00
|
|
|
The Cut of Your Jib posted:Week 215 Submission Prompt: Capricho No. 53: ¡Que pico de oro! (What a golden beak!)
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2016 07:02
|
|
|
Entries are closed. Owing to his judicial service, SkaAndScreenplays may submit within 24 hours to earn a DQ instead of a failure.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2016 07:04
|
|
|
anime was right posted:welcome to the quoteless club   
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2016 07:08
|
|
|
 Week 215 Results: Reason Wakes Up And Tells You All To Get The gently caress OutLet's start off with some good news this week. Electric Owl is getting a new avatar! Saved from the shrapnel by our incandescent nocturnal friend are our DMs this week: Thranguy, whose format shenanigans did not impress my fellow judge, my cat is norris, who seemed to have forgotten the story on the way to the cliche shop, and llamagucci, who didn't like his protagonists enough to even give them names. Some big jerks decided to write stories that were okay. Let's all laugh at Sitting Here, who wrote about like, what if people didn't age, that would be weird; flerp, who is afraid of owls, and QuoProQuid, who let his demon girlfriend do all the fun parts of the sacrifice. And then some guy named Oxxidation won thanks to a rejected Night Vale episode.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2016 08:15
|
|
|
Week 215 Crits Part 1 Daeres: Bad Dentist This doesn't have quite enough action to stand out to me as a story or quite enough imagery to stand out as a style piece. It's a fine piece of writing, and I like the unpleasantness of her job, but I wished that either there was more going on (as is, she does her job and gets paid and feels weird about it) or that the description was more vivid. my cat is norris: And she ran off to live with monsters This reminded me of a story by D.O.G.O.G.B.Y.N. also about hearing things no one else does, but while his was strange and fascinating and energetic, this one was too vague and too distant from the protagonist for me to really feel for her. It feels like she went through the actions of having an unpleasant childhood, but I didn't feel anything unique or interesting about that. The fact that you tried to squeeze such a big timeframe into the story might have something to do with that--I never had time to really get to know her. This story ends where a more interesting story begins, if you ask me. Squidtentacle: I agree, Berserk is cool for a manga This worked for me, but I don't know how much of it is samebrains stuff where I've been thinking about eating as a way to gain knowledge for so long that when someone else plucks at that I think it's great. There's parts where this medieval legend tone works, and parts where it's a bit weird--isn't a lord a step down from a king? It's also quite short, which both works in its favor, as you avoided wasting my time, but also left me wondering if it might have been better fleshing out this guy's motivations, or just getting a clearer image of what he's becoming. As a quick sketch, I think it works though. Thranguy: gently caress your formats Any one-sided conversation is going to be awkward because people don't naturally talk in a way that reveals all pertinent information. I see the merit to it, in that it lets you avoid a concrete description of the grotesque happenings, but it's also the reason why you fell into a sea of exposition during that last bit. The transition between the first two was jarring enough that I thought it was a different character at first. And there doesn't feel like a lot of character development going on here, because I never actually get at this girl's story, I'm only hearing it through the one-sided conversations. flerp: A superb owl I'd call this magical realism but it's probably not. Even if it isn't, I like it. I like that it's unclear whether this is just a vision or actually something real, and I like the dynamic between son(?) and dead father. The dad is flawed and a bit of a jerk at times, but there's a clear sense of caring between the two of them. I think what sealed it for me is the way that it implies that these multiple afterlives are all real, that even though he doesn't believe in heaven he believes his dad's there. It's a juxtaposition of ideas that seems implausible, but feels human when you see it written out. CaligulaKangaroo: Sancho, my armor I was into the dreamscape thing, but when it turned out to be a hallucination/insane dream/whatever, it got less interesting to me. I think insanity is a really easy way to justify surreal things happening, but because it's easy, it doesn't have a lot of payoff, especially as a reveal near the end. I don't know what I'm meant to take away from this other than that this guy is crazy. bigperm: Death comes also for jerks This is decent as a vignette. Not a whole lot happens so I can't really call it a story. The woman's attitude is endearing at points, but I think it lingers on the bad/good thing a bit too much, and since it's unclear what her morality is exactly, it comes off as more that she thinks people she likes are good and people she doesn't like are bad. The appearance of death isn't that striking, but the way you describe her life kind of boiling over at the very end is a cool iteration on life flashing before your eyes. Electric Owl: A bunch of stuff that Djeser hates I'll put this up front: the first part of your story was all right. The dreaminess of it was pleasant to read, even if the bit at the end with the kid in the cart felt a little stock horror. And then it becomes a story about a fat slob. A fat slob who has a crush on a camgirl, then dies in a cigarette fire while jerking off because that's what he's become accustomed to. You built up some good will with a nice dream sequence, and then it got unpleasant. And not even fascinatingly unpleasant. Here's a gross guy, the cool thing he wanted was actually kind of crummy, and now he dies because he's so stuck in a rut. I'm not sympathetic to your main character because there's nothing to be sympathetic to. This isn't even a full story, either, because what does he actually do? He sends someone an IM and then lights a cigarette and dies. You even practically said it yourself: he doesn't make a choice. He does nothing, he just exists as this static trope until he dies. This isn't even getting into the fact that you tried to set up this parallel construction in the end but the sentence structure was so messy and meandering that I couldn't actually figure out what had happened until I went back and read it again. This made me angrier, because it made me spend more time with your story. Thunderdome has a litany of Goony Goons Being Gross stories. Exactly one of them has ever been worth reading, and that's because it ends with a scheme to escape a Saw-esque scenario by mixing Pop Rocks and Mountain Dew in a shitbucket. Yours did not. Based on your skill, I think you could write some good stories if you chose subject matter that wasn't boring, poo poo, and unpleasant to read. gently caress you and come back again soon. QuidProQuid: Meet the parents You know what, until I read the next story, this was totally my candidate for the winner. My only reluctance there was that the conflict and motivation for the character was kinda weak, and I got the point after the first time you compared meeting his parents to meeting her parents. As I was reading this, I was quoting lines to one of my friends because I thought the comedic juxtaposition was on point. There's a chemistry to their relationship that makes them a cute couple, and that helped sell me on the premise here. I got the feeling that they liked and trusted each other. I think you could have taken this a bit further, let the mother's weird demon-ness come out a bit more and made it a little more engaging with the weirdness.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2016 08:21
|
|
|
Thanks for the crits! Sorry to see myself on the DM list, though I guess it's not surprising, given my status as Complete Amateur. I'm not sure the Thunderdome format is for me. I'll probably try for one more before going back to just reading for awhile. Edit: Not that you've all scared me off or anything, I'm just thinking I need more practice. 
my cat is norris fucked around with this message at 14:13 on Sep 19, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2016 12:40
|
|
|
Good judging
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2016 14:14
|
|
|
Indeed. Good fastness.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2016 14:26
|
|
|
Doing up to three crits this week, give me a holler if you want.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2016 14:28
|
|
|
Schneider Heim posted:Doing up to three crits this week, give me a holler if you want. k
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2016 15:05
|
|
|
Schneider Heim posted:Doing up to three crits this week, give me a holler if you want. I would dig it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2016 15:50
|
|
|
Schneider Heim posted:Doing up to three crits this week, give me a holler if you want. sure Also, same. I'll give 3 ppl crits Woops, posted from my alt. I'm actually Electric Owl. Anywho, I would appreciate some input on my story from this week. s7indicate3 fucked around with this message at 16:00 on Sep 19, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2016 15:58
|
|
|
Thank you for the fast crits and judging.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2016 16:24
|
|
|
s7indicate3 posted:sure Me, please? 
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2016 17:28
|
|
|
my cat is norris posted:Thanks for the crits! Sorry to see myself on the DM list, though I guess it's not surprising, given my status as Complete Amateur. uh TD is just for practice, it's a big writing dojo where we hand out mentions to add stakes (because any good plot needs stakes). Skilled writers writers get DMs/losses here and imo a loss in TD is way less painful than submitting your actual soul to the magazine/agent of your dreams and getting a form rejection after 6 months. Anyway, I'm doing a crit for another story this week, but if you want, I'll do yours too. Plus, we always break down the DMs/loser in our audio recaps for each week, if you can stand listening to goons bullshit with each other in poor audio quality. writing is pain, norris, anyone who says otherwise is selling something
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2016 17:51
|
|
|
no listen you'll actually get better by quiting and not writing because
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2016 17:57
|
|
|
I've been sitting on this idea for a while. Thunderdome Week 216: Historical Redemption (or: Sin, Lizzie)  quote:Lizzie Borden took an axe On August 4, 1892, property developer Andrew Borden and his wife Abby were found murdered in their home, executed by numerous hatchet blows. Their daughter Lizzie was arrested as a major suspect in the crime, owing chiefly to the testimony of apparent sole witness, the housemaid Bridget Sullivan. After a contentious and publicized trial, Lizzie was acquitted of her crime, but as the quoted ditty above suggests, her perceived guilt followed her anyway, and she lived a pariah before passing away more than 30 years later. To this day, no one's certain if she really killed her parents - both Lizzie and the maid's testimony was confusing and contradictory, the evidence on the scene was constantly being tampered with either by the witnesses or investigators, and Andrew Borden was by all accounts a nasty S.O.B. with no shortage of enemies - but her guilt became so memetic that as far as pop culture's concerned it probably makes no difference. In the foreword to his short story "Hitler Painted Roses," prolific author and legendary crank Harlan Ellison suggested that, depending on how cosmic justice actually functions, there's a good chance Lizzie Borden is burning in Hell for a crime she didn't commit. And that just ain't cricket. Which brings me to the prompt: in 1200 words or less, write a story that absolves Lizzie Borden of her crimes. I'm being as broad as possible here - there are no constraints on genre, the story doesn't have to take place in the 1800's, it doesn't even need to feature the Bordens. Just so long as you find some way to pull Lizzie's feet a little further away from the fire, just about anything goes with content. I'll view more ambitious interpretations favorably so long as they stick the landing, but my one stipulation is no time travel. What happens in history, stays in history. Likewise I won't be too picky about research, but a quick glance as the relevant Wikipedia article would no doubt benefit many of you. Entries close at: 12 a.m. Saturday EST Submissions close at: 12 a.m. Monday EST Judges: Oxxidation Chili crabrock Witnesses: flerp Thranguy lite frisk  Entenzahn Carl Killer Miller llamaguccii Benny Profane SurreptitiousMuffin Boaz Jachim SkaAndScreenplays Jonked The Cut of Your Jib Toaster Beef I look forward to you all disappointing me in new ways. Oxxidation fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Sep 24, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2016 19:35
|
|
|
huh alright in
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2016 19:42
|
|
|
Daeres - Tooth Fairy I saw you mention in the IRC this would have been your third DM had you got one this week (although you avoided that this week, congrats!). Off the back of that, I was thinking of doing a line crit of your story, but figured it'd be a little more helpful if I talked a little more generally. Something I thought about while reading your piece is that things are very direct, and that you did not dwell on things for very long. This can be a good thing, and I think your choice of first-person present tense goes a fair way to establishing that tone, but I think here it left everything feeling a little flat. I'm going to talk a lot about change over the course of this, please bear with me! Your story is about the first time that someone is doing something horrible, something that they anticipate doing for a while. That's interesting! That's a point of change. It's something that's worth talking about, so talk about that change, and how your characters are impacted by that change. What does it mean? Question it. For example, let's take your character's circumstances. She says, "We both know I’m desperate for money, otherwise I wouldn’t be here." So, she does not have money, present-tense. Why is that the case? Did she ever have money? If she did, does she not any more? Why not? If she didn't, what is the pressing need for it now? She has made the some-might-say severe decision to pull teeth from human skulls, but why only just now? What is it about now that makes this story happen? Looking at the description of the act itself: She is moving from "having never done a thing", to "having done a thing, once". What does that change mean? Bearing in mind that it is your character's first time sticking her hand into a corpse's mouth, what stands out to her? What sort of expectations did she have? What surprises her? If she's a little jaded, maybe what does not surprise her at all? More narrowly: There are two teeth missing, so she gets "four less coins", but that's abstract. Again, this can tie back into her circumstances. What does "four less coins" actually mean to her? In a very short amount of time, she has essentially lost four coins that she thought she had, but what is she really losing, and how does that discovery feel? Even on a very small scale, taking a single action as an example: "I set the pliers around a molar. I pull, and I pull, and I pull. Out the tooth comes, the blood around its roots dark." Resistance, and a struggle. Then, a release. But what changed? A crack in the skull? A slip of the hands? Did she stumble? I think what I'm trying to say is: What questions can you ask yourself about what's going on, what's changing, at any given point in your story? And then, from that, which answers do you think are interesting? I'm not suggesting that you need to make all of these explicit in your writing (You yourself may not necessarily want to go into the grisly details of breaking off pieces of a dude's skull, for example!), but I don't think it can hurt to have these sorts of details available to you as you think about your piece, to give it a little more texture if you think it needs it. One last thing: I mentioned near the top that you picked an interesting time to write about. The decision to stop having never done a thing. That's a good one, for sure, but I want to suggest that you maybe brushed against a slightly more interesting one with the line, "It still takes all my strength not to smash his skull in with my pliers." 
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2016 20:14
|
|
|
Oxxidation posted:
Just sayin'. No, wait. Just sayin'
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2016 20:16
|
|
|
whoopsee daisee
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2016 20:26
|
|
|
In. (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2016 21:22
|
|
|
Won't be able to submit this week. If you'd like, I could help judge. I'm available for a late night on Sunday and can FJGJ if that's how you want to do things.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2016 21:26
|
|
|
what a weird prompt in
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2016 22:58
|
|
|
Ironic Twist posted:Moving this to Monday, September 19th at 8 PM EST to accommodate different schedules. I'll be in IRC all night, probably. Thundertome is currently happening, for those not in-the-know
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2016 00:58
|
|
|
my cat is norris posted:Me, please? https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uXsQ5KGMM95yW8S_3ass66DkFoeWuPJsYO9gjR8ksNw/edit?usp=sharing I'm still willing to take on 2 other crits.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2016 01:20
|
|
|
Back in this week.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2016 01:56
|
|
|
In! Thanks for the fast judging and quick prompt upload. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2016 04:15
|
|
|
I'm calling out Djeser for being mean to me and hurting my feelings. Can we get a bookie for this brawl?
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2016 06:19
|
|
|
Electric Owl posted:I'm calling out Djeser for being mean to me and hurting my feelings. Artist's depiction of Electric Owl after this brawl:  Someone judge thsi poo poo
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2016 06:33
|
|
|
I gotcha guys. You've got one week to write a story using no more than 1500 words. Your prompt? Write a story about con artists. They don't necessarily need to be pulling off a grift in the story, but that's who at least two of your characters are. Due by noon est, 9/26. Toxx it up and fight dirty.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2016 06:49
|
|
|
Djeser posted:Artist's depiction of Electric Owl after this brawl: You see what i have to deal with ? 
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2016 07:03
|
|
|
QuoProQuid - Dinner With the Parents This was a light and enjoyable read. The protagonist's struggle was absolutely relatable and it was funny all throughout. My quibble is that the protagonist doesn't do much, and his thoughts do the heavy lifting for him. Making him act more would've made the story pop so much more and increase the dramatic tension (as Astrid's mom doesn't seem to be a mind-reader). Chili - A Cold Night In Basque Country I liked this, it had sort of a The Monkey's Paw vibe to it. The weak point, I think, is how Amaia met Kisin, it lacked oomph and felt a bit forced, though their interaction was pretty solid. The twist was rather predictable, but it wasn't bad. Ends well. Electric Owl - And the House is On Fire You wrote a Goon Story. You know, that story where a goon does gross things, and that's pretty much the point. I haven't found anything good to read, and this doesn't change that. In your story, a person is shown to be gross, then he dies, the end. That is not enjoyable. I urge you to break down your story idea into a plot and think whether people could enjoy reading it. This shouldn't have made it past that test. You have good prose, I'd give you that, but I wish you used it on a better story.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2016 10:14
|
|
|
Electric Owl posted:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uXsQ5KGMM95yW8S_3ass66DkFoeWuPJsYO9gjR8ksNw/edit?usp=sharing Thank you! Sitting Here posted:uh TD is just for practice, it's a big writing dojo where we hand out mentions to add stakes (because any good plot needs stakes). I just meant "practice" as in writing for myself more than writing for an audience or for critique. It's not something I do much of at all. v  v
my cat is norris fucked around with this message at 12:27 on Sep 20, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2016 12:24
|
|
|
my cat is norris posted:
that sounds pretty lame tbh so are you in or what
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2016 13:06
|
|
|
Chili posted:I gotcha guys. You've got one week to write a story using no more than 1500 words.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2016 13:09
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 19, 2024 01:27 |
|
|
Electric Owl posted:You see what i have to deal with ? I do, and I hope to see you toxx and jump into the fight you've started.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2016 13:27
|
|