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flerp posted:also write Close thread
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Jun 13, 2017 21:08
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In the spirit of punk week I put off doing the crits for, like, ever, and I'm not even all the way done So yeah enjoy. Four R's - Tweezer Reprise Ehhh. You had me until halfway through the opening paragraph. quote:It’s one in the morning. There is darkness in constant flow, washing over the streets, and around the buildings. There is the dim, icy glow of the cyan light-tubes embedded in the sidewalks, set to fade away gradually in a matter of hours, to show their deference to the all-encompassing rays of the Sun. 'Deference to the sun' really makes no sense. I like the flowery bits about the night 'flowing' outside their windows, that evokes a real sense of the wind and the movement in the dark outside as they try to stay up, but after that you take flowery too far and end up with a sentence that simply doesn't parse. You spend twenty two words on the fact that streelights turn off when it's light out. You should've quit while you were ahead. So that was weird enough to make me start taking things from a distance, and from there I'm never pulled back in. There's something funny and bombastic in describe teenage tryhards in densely overwritten prose, but that joke dies when you use that seem excess of words on every action, no matter how small. The story feels longer than it is. Again, you need to rein back. In the end, is this is a story about robots? Or kids who were raised by robots? It doesn't come off as either. The actual robo-parents and their attempts to raise a bunch of fleshy idiots are shoved into a brief retrospective paragraph, before the conflict is resolved by a leet hacker wiz popping up and fixing everything. It feels disjointed, never going far enough to let the absurd setup be funny, or pulling into the characters' perspectives enough to let us see how this situation has become an everyday thing for them. Salt the Earth - Obliterati This is good, concise story. I liked how you used the first person to weave the exposition in. Felt longer than it was, in the good way, and it held up well to a second reading. Don't really have any major criticisms to qualify that with. Hunger - QPQ I like it. I like from the moment the voice on the radio all-but shouts, this is gonna be some Twilight Zone poo poo. The description of 'huge, grey pain' is really good, welding the character's pain to evokation of the overwhelmingly uncomfortable mood, but better yet, its a metaphor that could only really be done in text. We talked in IRC and you know this story flubbed the ending, so I'm gonna focus on something else that bothered me. For the first half of this story, your description is on point and you weave a world of gray pains and people who smell like wet leaves underneath sweat and Juicy Fruit. This is great. What's not is when you switch, halfway, to talking about the 'hard twinkle' in someone's eye or their 'wet smile' glimmering the dark. These descriptions are essentially borrowing cinematic cliche. They take away from the weirdness and replace it with a familiarity that's one of the major problems with the latter half. Like An Arrow - Thranguy There's something to be said for the fact you introduce a version of time travel I've never seen posited, explain it to me without confusion, and without leaving me full of quibbly little questions. Um, I don't really love anything else about this story. Its competent, but written from a PoV that crushes the life out of the story for me. I never really get the sense that this is a showdown between the son, who has been waiting years for this confrontation, and a father, from who's perspective the son was a child just a few days ago. It feels, funnily enough, like you showed us an interesting concept for a world at a not particularly interesting moment in time. As a final note, yeah, okay, you got a laugh from the dead babies line coming back around.
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Jun 14, 2017 02:32
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"Oh man, I kinda wanna do this week but I'm so busy. I'm gonna go to work now." On the way to work:    Oh. Well, In. Flash me.
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Jun 14, 2017 05:48
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:"Oh man, I kinda wanna do this week but I'm so busy. I'm gonna go to work now." http://www.akc.org/dog-breeds/poodle/
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Jun 14, 2017 06:24
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In http://www.akc.org/dog-breeds/rottweiler/
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Jun 14, 2017 07:31
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In. http://www.akc.org/dog-breeds/catahoula-leopard-dog/
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Jun 15, 2017 18:42
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Week 253 crits pt. 1 to have the rest before I go to bed Friday night (might technically be Saturday morning in some time zones). I have notes on all of them, but they aren't fit for human consumption.matter cannot be destroyed The metaphor and point of the story are relatively clear and consistent throughout. Nitpick with the description of the order of events; on a first read, i thought Margaret had called off the wedding with some dude, then got engaged to Margaret and called THAT off...the reason is because you talk about margaret getting cancer, then she thinks about how she doesn’t regret calling off the wedding. It’s obvious if you think about it for two seconds, but my point is, i had to stop and think about it for two seconds. Overall I think this piece is pretty good, though. The last line is one that could flop badly if you don’t draw the reader into your premise, but I was totally on board with this idea that even if shapes are destroyed, memory isn’t. Another minor nitpick, I think literally everything comes from materials created by stars, so I'm not sure how Margaret could NOT have some star stuff inside her. Bioluminescence I feel like you took my Warheads candy metaphor and distilled it into exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. I felt sadness, anger at people for treating the world so carelessly, and wonder at the brief touch of something extraordinary. This story doesn’t linger overlong on any of its points, which is good considering how economical you were with your words. I would say my only critique is that you could make the last line less direct or overtly pessimistic. I say that because I think the story does a good enough job making me feel how I am supposed to feel, and the final line feels a bit heavy and redundant. Satellite of Love This is a fun, whimsical set up to what is essentially a big, surreal punchline. It’s like a magical realist joke. It’s not as introspective as the two flash stories I’ve read so far, but it’s fun and breezy and was a nice read. I dunno if this will do as well as some of the more “serious” flash stories, but as a lighthearted entry, it succeeds. Collapse Sonata The descriptions here are very visceral, and the whole piece has a compelling tension that made me want to slog along with the nameless man on his journey into some terrible, divine pit. I’ll admit that I didn’t fully grasp the implications of the situation, but at the same time, it was still a nice portrait of a human being giving themselves over to an unknowable, possibly lovecraftian fate. This story lacks the thematic throughline of some of the previous stories so far, but has strong imagery. I kind of wish there had been more of a central riff or “point”, and I feel like it’s verging on having that, but I missed it on two reads so it could be developed a bit more. (side note, I am p sure other readers "got" it better than I did, so take my crit with a grain of salt. stakes Wow, I didn’t think I’d say it this week, and especially not with you, Thrangles, but I wish you’d used more words. Like, I think you honed in really well on the conflict, and you really held to my edict that the short story format needs to contain 3 escalations. I think you could’ve added to this a bit more by creating more of an emotional bond with the ghosts, and by showing more of the immediate fallout of winning the card game (ie, how did the ghosts react to the win? What happened to their souls?). I admit, I found myself skimming over some of the details of the card game, though I think you did set up the stakes pretty well in a short amount of time. All in all, i think you used all your words well, to the extent that i think you could’ve used more for the sake of helping me relate to the various characters. But I’m grateful for a short story that doesn’t overstay its welcome and delivers a full plot. Uncle Matthew I am not sure that the one-sided dialog was the way to tell this story. It took me a while to ground myself. I wasn’t entirely sure who the primary speaker was; initially, it wasn’t clear that there was only one speaker, because of all the paragraph breaks. On the other hand, now that I know it was one person talking most of the time, I’m grateful that you didn’t write huge blocks of text. I kind of wish you’d challenged yourself to write this in flash format with a much smaller word count. I think you could’ve been more economical with words and turned this into an effective vignette; there are good themes here. call down the storm This is interesting, though I don’t know if it’s fully developed. I like the basic idea of the story, if I’m understanding it correctly: people live long enough that their emotions grow too big to be contained in their bodies, so they become ambient forces of nature. The brothers are trying to get back home, but they have to navigate the storms of regret to do so. If that’s the case, I enjoy the concept, but i feel that you could’ve refined the story to focus more on that. the prompt Hmmm. i am not sure that I’m fond of this one. While I don’t require likeable characters to enjoy stories, I found that i was frustrated while reading this because neither character exhibits any qualities outside of their spite for each other. I got no satisfaction from the events of the story or the resolution. The narrator is kind of an rear end in a top hat, sure, but I didn’t really enjoy reading about his acquiescence to a potential false assault accusation. I think you could’ve spun it to make that outcome fit, though. I think if you’d fleshed out the student a bit more, maybe given her a reason to think the teacher was *actually* lusting after her (ie, “you’re not passing me because I’m not putting out), that would be a more satisfying and tragic. If the point of the story IS that the teacher has been acting inappropriately, you could’ve made that more clear. But as it is, it reads like a vignette where an rear end in a top hat student is an rear end in a top hat to an rear end in a top hat teacher, which wasn’t terribly satisfying. some nights i wake i wake and realise i am still meat it-- gently caress yeah this is my personal jam. Great beings walk among us, trapped in flesh but still wondrous, making ordinary people insane with visions of greater things. I think you could’ve spent more time with Hastur? Maybe one more paragraph with some vivid description of these beings’ effect on him and his subsequent effect on other humans. Hastur is kind of the object lesson in how the fantastical “other” can break human minds, so I think you could’ve added some immediacy to the piece by giving him a little more airtime. i wanna blow a smoke ring at the moon so it can feel what it’s like to be stuck in a circle, too I want to jump straight to my feelings on the final line of the story. I like it the more i think about it. You kind of handed my flash rule right back to me, almost verbatim, but I think the story earned it. You give us an interesting lens through to view the prompt through; this person is fundamentally harming themselves with their addiction, but they do so with a very cosmic perspective, which I liked. That said, this is maybe a little low-key and ruminative for some readers’ tastes. I don’t mind that nothing really happens--It is, true to my request, primarily musings and imagery--but the cosmic perspective of your protagonist isn’t quiiite distinct enough to make the story stand out from other, similarly introspective stories. In a TD context it’s above average, but if you were going to send this out for publication, I think you’d need a stronger angle.
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Jun 16, 2017 01:36
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First batch of crits I promised, more to come.... flerp - Matter Cannot be Destroyed There's a lot in here I like. I would quibble with your use of the word "sheen" to describe a star in the sky — a sheen to me is a more diffuse reflection, not a pinpoint of light like a star. But it make me think of Charlie Sheen so I guess that's cool and good in its own way. Drawing the connection between the atoms and molecules that make up Diana and Margaret and their celestial origins was nicely woven throughout the story. You take some liberties with the science (we are all progeny of the death of stars, can't not have stars in our lineage) but it doesn't detract from the sense of wonder and magic that pervades this piece. Got a little confused with the death of Diana — wasn't it Margaret that got the cancer? If you re-read the middle section the continued use of "she" makes it seems like you're talking about Margaret, not Diana...it's confusing. Later it is clear that Diana dies before Margaret, but her death is given no explanation, which seems odd. Then Margaret kicks it three years later, presumably from the cancer (suffocating on her own blood), but before that roams around Europe taking pictures for her then (dead?) girlfriend? I'd go back and clean up the middle to eradicate the ambiguity a bit. Ending hits nicely and wraps the whole story in a clever and poetic bow. Although I would quibble that the law of conservation of matter does in fact state that matter cannot be destroyed. Overall a really nice piece and deserving of the win. Overall: high sparksbloom - Bioluminescense Loved the melancholy in this story. Your descriptions are spot on — there's an economy of words here that still paints vivid pictures. Your theme of the world as a dark and ruined place, and the the past cannot be repeated, pervades throughout. So much so that I was hoping for a redemptive moment at the end, a glimmer of how things were, and so when you pulled that away and left me with that last line it landed hard. I think there is some room in here for a bit more on the relationship between the father and the son. When he just kinda dumps the ashes without looking it feels like there's a disconnect between them and I'm curious what the source of that is. Also I didn't like the phrase "miffed urgency" to describe how the lights rose from the depths. Instead of miffed, which connotes irritation or anger, there might be more of a desperation in their rise, a last glimpse of the magic that the lake used to have before we all turned it into a fetid swamp. Overall: high Chairchucker - Satellite of Love This story is breezy and light, and certainly hits the flash rule squarely (at least the watchful sky part anyways). The conceit of the moon as a irritating presence in Ben's life is kind of funny and it's handled decently. I didn't really get the motive behind the moon's incessant chatting with Ben. The reveal at the end that the moon and Cecilia have a past was pretty good - maybe if the moon was deliberately trying to sabotage their date throughout the story or had some other intention other than just being generally annoying I'd have liked this one better. And Ben could use some fleshing out. Why did he not remember the date? That seemed like a throwaway line, and a lot of his dialogue seemed a little blah so it didn't really tell us much about him at all. The last line is very ho-hum 'okay gotta end this story now' and doesn't tie a bow around the story like it should. Of course most of my stories have been dinged for lovely endings so that may be personal taste. Overall: middle Solitair - Collapse Sonata The short word count makes the proofreading errors particularly egregious. Goddamn there's a lot of adjectives in this story. I like description, I like the author to paint a picture in my mind with clever or unexpected adjective/noun combinations, but this is just too much. Much like the protagonist, the story is buried under the weight of all the words you throw at the reader to describe...what? What is happening? Your story starts out with great promise — This guy has been chosen as a sacrifice to the sinking god of the pit. I'm totally on board, looking forward to what sort of crazy poo poo is going to go down as he descends into this infernal hellhole in the sand. But then everything gets way too wordy. Let's unwrap one paragraph as an example: quote:The phlegmy sound of a blister popping through drum-tight skin. This is cool and gross and vivid He turned his head to see doubt pooling on the outstretched, calcified hand of an ancient supplicant here we go off the rails. I think you're trying to show how others have come before him and died, but what do you mean by doubt pooling on a hand? It's a confusing image. It sizzled what sizzled? The doubt? in the haze of a sun that dripped stolen heat stolen? the sun stole the heat? what does that mean? It sounds cool but I don't get itonto the pit. The man watched with indifference wait what? He doesn't give a poo poo? Kind of a big moment in his life, sacrficing himself and all, might he not have a stronger emotional response to the aforementioned sizzling doubt?. They could have their village. they, I assume, are his co-villagers who silently selected him for this sacrifice. I guess this is self pity, then? I thought maybe this guy would be a badass but he seems petulant He need only find the crack to mortar himself into.kind of a cool image but it's not paid off later in the story when he just kind of falls into the void and dies without accomplishing anything The next paragraph is even more egregiously overbearing. I can see that you were really trying hard to write fancy here, but excessive use of flowery language and imagery overwhelm the reader and obscures the meaning of the story. Although you did make me google 'monad' so now I know a new word, thanks for that! Overall: low but premise has some promise with a rewrite. Thranguy - Stakes Great opening paragraph, a clever foreshadowing of the events of the story. I'm a poker player so my interest is piqued right off the bat. There's a few capitalization errors that a proofread should have caught. Why does the Rev tell Devon to "take the money" if he's trying to give it back? Confusing. Cool poker action, and then all of a sudden we are inside the Rev's head as he wrestles with the decision to kill himself or not — a jarring shift in perspective. If you're doing third person close, stay inside your main character...you can't suddenly jump into someone else's head and read their thoughts. When our protag steps out of the shadows and challenges the devil the story gets good, although I think his inside straight draw should have been the winner (or maybe win on a jack high, just to tie it back to earlier in the story). I thought the last paragraph was weak, like a tacked-on exposition of several years of his life. I'd rather read about how the devil reacted to his loss, the rescue of the seven ghosts and the Rev's soul from the devil's clutches. Keep it within the frame of the story, don't zoom out so much at the end. Him wanting to become a reverend himself is okay, but leaving out a word in the last sentence isn't. Overall: middle Hawklad fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Jun 16, 2017 |
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Jun 16, 2017 02:04
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Here's some more Jay W. Friks - Uncle Matthew I'm confused about who is speaking right off the bat. Is there more than one person speaking? After a while it becomes clear this is a deathbed monologue, but maybe give us just a whiff of a setting to ground the reader before diving right into the names and situations you start referencing. Your use of quotation marks is incorrect if it is only one speaker. The proper way to break up speech into multiple paragraphs is to leave out the quotation marks at the end of each block of text. When you put quotation marks at the end of a paragraph it is a cue to the reader that someone else is speaking in the next paragraph. I think this story needs a serious pruning — there's just too much here, so it ends up seeming very scattershot. Some of the vignettes have solid imagery, perhaps focus on one or two of them and flesh them out more, rather than what feels like a big information dump. Pare it down and I think you'll find the story has more room to breathe and you can still explore the same themes, but with greater depth. Overall: middle-low steeltoedsneakers - Call Down the Storm The idea of emotions outgrowing their hosts and metastasizing into menacing clouds of smoke is pretty cool and has a ton of potential. I'm not really feeling Ren and Jeff's story, however. They left the farm and for some unexplained reason now Jeff is bringing Ren back. I wish there was more explanation of why the left the farm, and why now they are choosing to return — this would get me more invested in these two brothers and care a bit more about their journey. It's cool that they have to navigate a literal cloud of regret to get back home, though. The emotion-smoke seems to get inside you and concentrate your emotions (in this case, regret and guilt), but why does Jeff feel so much regret? I just feel like that part of the story is left out or not emphasized enough, so when he ends up in the fetal position on the deck at the end it comes out of nowhere and is ungrounded from the rest of the story. Overall: middle Hawklad - The Prompt (self-crit) Well this DM'ed, not totally shocking because I have a hard time writing stories that try to focus on human relationships (in this case, who hold the power and how it can abruptly shift). Upon reflection the ending is poo poo, because nothing changes. Both characters are unlikeable and nobody gets redeemed. I'm sure there's other problems as well, looking forward to seeing the judgecrits. SurreptitiousMuffin - some nights i wake and realise i am still meat it-- If I understand this correctly we have timeless immortal souls that became trapped on Earth inside fleshy bodies. These beings, which people worship as gods, have knowledge and insights so far beyond what we can comprehend that even a taste of it would drive is mad. This piece is well written despite one tiny typo (They = The) and the language flows well and holds my interest, even though nothing really happens outside of the mini-story of what happened to Hastur. Why was he chosen to be uplifted? Might be interesting to know a bit more about that. To mean this reads more as a prologue to a longer story than a stand-alone piece, most likely due to the lack of plot. Overall - middle-high dmboogie - wanna blow a smoke ring at the moon so it can feel what it's like to be stuck in a circle, too This is some grade-A navel gazing. I like it though, the character's frustration at the futility of his existence is nicely expressed. There's some good imagery and the voice is strong. I didn't understand the drowned stars reference, and the sentence about looking the guy in the beard took time to unpack (I think you're referring to a therapist?). Overall pretty good I'd like to know more about this main character though. Maybe a vignette or interaction with someone else would help flesh out some of these themes. Overall - middle Meinberg - Restless The acid-trip haze that this story views the world through is okay, but I don't think the writing is strong enough to carry this type of story. It becomes tiresome reading about how his mind reacts to all the little things going on around him. I don't really understand what's wrong with him, if it's a side-effect of the insomnia or if he's really on drugs or something, but either way it's just too self-indulgent for my tastes. The two places where you use the unusual paragraph breaks are cool and effective, but stand out oddly amongst the general wordiness of the rest of the piece. Overall - middle-low Boaz-Jachim - The Child of the Great Sky speaks to the Child of the Valley This one is much better on second read once I understood who/what the protagonist actually is. The first time through I'm working too hard to understand what is metaphor and what isn't, and some of the description is tough to parse ("I am made of the red stone and the high wind. You are mud and fire and spittle."). Once I understand we have a protector wolf-god and human companion things make more sense. The wolf-god is struck by an arrow but who fires it is vague — you refer to "them" and their whispers, but is it other gods or humans? I like to think it is other gods, who feel like the wolf-god has gotten too chummy with the people and threatens to uplift them to god-like status, so they slay the wolf-god in a failed attempt to prevent this. But it's like the monolith and once that door has been opened it can't be closed and the wolf-god's actions are irreversible. But what this horizon represents exactly is rather vague — self-awareness? intelligence? The soul? Perhaps this in intentional and it is up to the reader to fill in the blanks. Overall - high
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Jun 16, 2017 18:13
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Week 253 Crits: Part I Matter Cannot be Destroyed - 5/10 What is this story about? A woman falls in love with someone who is not her spouse. The two run away together and enjoy a few years of bliss before dying. After her body decays and forms into new things, it remembers the few years she had with Margaret. What do I think about it? I like the concept of someone loving someone so intensely that that memory leaves marks on all future iterations of that person. However, you spend too much time dwelling on the atomic contents of Margaret than the relationship itself. Counting the opening, Diana is not introduced until five paragraphs in. Their relationship is described only in the broadest terms because of an overly long introduction and a refusal to use the full 750 words. The reader is deprived of anything more substantive than a few fragments and poeticisms. I think you tried a bit too hard to conjure feeling. Most of the descriptions come off as overwrought and shmaltzy. With the exception of the line highlighted below, I most like the descriptions that are understated and don’t rely on an overuse of clauses (e.g. “She had Diana, even though she died three years before her.”). I like my prose taut and terse and, unfortunately, this isn’t my cup of tea. As the results indicate, I was very much in the minority on this piece. It isn’t all bad though. While I find the first three paragraphs exaggerated and tiresome, the piece becomes an easier read after Diana is introduced. She seems to keep the piece grounded and focused. The ending is also nice. What lines did I like? “Margaret’s atoms were scattered about the universe but they didn’t forget Diana or the star... Warmth. Cherry perfume. Black lipstick. Cold nights in the park, pointing at the stars. Small fragments of Margaret that couldn’t die.” - Bioluminescence - 6/10 What is this story about? A girl spreads the ashes of her father on a ruined beach that they had fond memories of. The act of spilling ashes causes something to happen, but she is unable to get a picture and the memory disappears from her mind. What do I think about it? There is some strong imagery strewn about this piece. I like the Bud Light cans and cigarette butts, the memento on the fridge, and the “eerie, glowing blue when he’s tossed me in the water.” What I like less are the occasional spelling errors (e.g. “dyer instead of drier) and how every sentence seems to spiral out into extraneous clauses. There are many overly long sentences that would have benefited in being split apart. There are a few places where I think you are trying too hard to be poetic (e.g. “some ephemeral past” and “a peek of that ethereal shadow of my dad”), but overall this piece fills me with a strong feeling of nostalgia and regret. It is well-done in that regard. I wanted to know more about the father, but I suppose the piece is sufficient as is. As one last note, I’m not really sure how to feel about this piece’s ending. There seems to be some symbolism at work with her being unable to capture a photograph and the memory eventually fading, but it is one hell of a downer. It might be intentional, given the “memento on the fridge” reminding her of the blue she saw as a youth, but I really wish you had gone in a different direction. What lines did I like? “When I came back home that humid August evening, Lake Ensam smelled like sewage, and its beaches were covered in Bud Light cans and cigarette butts.” Satellite of Love - 4/10 What is this story about? A guy is harangued by the Moon. He tries to ignore it as he goes through life. At the conclusion of his date, his girlfriend tosses the moon away (somehow). What do I think about it? The best part of this story, by far, is this goofy, vaguely menacing moon. None of its threats are particularly unique or creative, but the flat way it states the obvious (e.g. “You know I control the tides, right?”) makes me imagine the moon from A Trip to the Moon leering down at some schmuck. It’s a little thing (and kind of onenote), but it made me giggle. Unfortunately, the rest of the entry does not really jive with me. Phrases come off as mechanical. Descriptions scan poorly. There are a lot of unnecessary transition phrases. I spotted a few grammatical errors. More forceful language and a second round of edits would really have elevated this piece. As is, it doesn’t leave me with any strong feelings. I forgot it quickly after reading. What lines did I like? “You’d better treat her right, Ben. If you break her heart, I will destroy your house. You know I control the tides, right?” - Collapse Sonata - 3.5/10 What is this story about? A man walks into a pit that causes excruciating pain for all those beings that venture near it. What do I think about it? I had to read this story more than once to understand what was going on in it, which is not a great sign. While there is some interesting language scattered throughout the piece, it often gets in the way of comprehension. Despite you introducing Luso Ngai as a city earlier, for example, I had to reread “Luso Ngai ran out soon after the man's spine began to scream” to understand that you meant “The man reached the outskirts of the town.” It also took me some time to realize that the protagonist’s actual emotions were exploding out of him and that you were not being metaphorical, which could speak volumes about me as a reader. Going beyond comprehension, the protagonist’s lack of personality prevents me from caring too much about this piece. You signed up for a flash story, not a short story, but I still need some reason to care about this person’s suffering. I don’t know why he is making this journey toward the Pit. The closest the reader ever get to the protagonist’s personal background is that he is good in construction. I feel bad for not providing more positive content, but my eyes just keep drifting from the page on this story. There’s a lot of words, but I just feel bored by this psychosocial torture porn and overabundance of adjectives. It isn’t exciting to read and it doesn’t make me feel anything. Next time, I would spend much more time editing. When you edit a piece, ask if something is comprehensible to the reader and if they have any reason to care about what you have written. What lines did I like? The phlegmy sound of a blister popping through drum-tight skin. - Stakes - 8/10 What is this story about? This entry was my pick for the win. It’s a strong piece that evokes strong memories of rural town life and the idiosyncrasies of the people who live there. Also, it’s got the literal Devil in it. Call me a sucker, but I love this Devil Went Down to Georgia poo poo. What do I think about it? This entry was my pick for the win. It’s a strong piece that evokes strong feelings of rural town life and the idiosyncrasies of the people who live there. It’s an amusing story with a strong voice in a week full of dreary navel-gazing. Also, it’s got the literal Devil in it. Call me a sucker, but I love this Devil Went Down to Georgia stuff. I don’t have many negative things to say about this story, but I suppose my biggest issue is that this story isn’t longer. I like how you tell this story like many people tell stories in real life: In a twisting way. However, I think you could have done more with that. The opening with the XBox is strong and similar tangents later in the story would have been welcome. The card game with the devil is functional but not terribly exciting. I agree with sittinghere that I would have liked to see you create more of an emotional bond with the ghosts. What lines did I like? The Devil plays mean. Likes to check and raise when he’s got a strong hand. Knowing his style wasn’t enough to beat him, but it did help me slow down the rate at which he kept taking my chips hand by hand. - Uncle Matthew - 3.5/10 What is this story about? An old man in hospice care talks to his relatives What do I think about it? I don’t have issue with one-sided dialogue so long as it is clear, concise, and written with a strong voice. In Dolores Claiborne, for example, Stephen King’s strong grasp of character and language helps elevate a rather conventional story about a woman who murders her husband. I feel like you tried to do something similar here but failed for a variety of reasons. First, and this is a minor fix, the quotes around each paragraph make me think that you are describing a conversation and not a monologue. It took me a few lines to realize what you were doing. On a similar note, the bolding and italics around the narrator’s thoughts and the actions of other characters are distracting. I probably would have tried to find a more conventional way to distinguish it from the dialogue or removed it altogether. All-caps and exclamations like “Hhhg!” and “Mhhg!” are almost always schlocky. Remove. The narrative itself needs serious edits. I find it difficult to read more than a few paragraphs at a time because there’s a lot of exposition and extraneous information. I suppose the idea was to make the narrator and his family seem more real by giving them all these quirks, but the piece itself just comes off as... distracted. I cannot really identify three distinct moments of escalation in the piece. I argued against a DM for this piece because I think the underlying concept has some merit. I like what seems to be a discussion of toxic masculinity. Theme is good. Though most of your descriptions fail to hit the mark, there are a few nice fragments scattered throughout. What lines did I like? There were posters of Jason Statham and President Putin along the walls of Dad’s bedroom and a freshly greased lifting set that came straight out of the dark ages sat at the foot of his bed. When I turned 13 his idea of a present was to give me that set. I didn’t want it but I lugged every weight and cord to the foot of the bunk bed to keep him happy. Dad made me promise to share it with Zeke when he turned 13. It didn’t matter though. - Call down the storm - 7/10 What is this story about? Two brothers, filed with regrets involving their father, sail across an ocean in a world where the “skies and seas are thick” with emotion. As they near their destination, one brother is exposed to guilt, leaving him a blubbering wreck. Faced with the psychological death of his sibling, the other decides to commit suicide. What do I think about it? This is an interesting little story that, conceptually, reminds me a lot of “Collapse Sonata” above. Unlike Collapse Sonata, I like how the conceit is described in broad terms, leaving room to focus on the two characters and their relationship. There is nothing particularly awe-inspiring about how they are described here, but they are given enough shading for me to imagine them as real people. While the reader does not find much out about the dad, the call-backs and explanations help me understand why these characters are doing what they are doing. The prose itself is well done. Instead of trying to conjure up emotion through overwrought poeticisms, like some other entries this week, you do a good job of letting little details speak for themselves. Things like Judas Priest, the giant octopus, and “Dad in the window next to his tank, hose, and mask” do a lot to distinguish this piece from its compatriots. Additional scene setting would have been nice (because certain elements come off as poorly integrated as is) but this is a relatively minor quibble. I am not too enthusiastic about the apparent suicide-by-guilt emotion thing you end on. Ren’s decision comes off as a little abrupt, as though you realized you were approaching the word count limit. I think you could have done a better job of foreshadowing his decision or found a different note to end on. What lines did I like? “And Jeff was going to take them through it. Back to the farm down South, across the strait and through the sounds. Back to Dad.” - The Prompt - 2.5/10 What is this story about? A teacher delivers a final exam and thinks with smug satisfaction about its questions. At the end of the exam, he is approached by a girl who threatens to accuse him of molestation unless he passes her. He does so. What do I think about it? The prose in this piece is competent if a bit workmanlike. I am not enthusiastic about how the second-person perspective in the opening unfurls into first person narration or the back-and-forth perspective that appears throughout the piece, but can appreciate the moxie that went behind the decision. There are also a few elements (e.g. the Starbucks gift card, the flickering fluorescent lights) that evoke strong images of middle school/ Unfortunately, this is a piece that lives and dies by its characters and, ooh boy, I have some strong emotions about them. I’ll try to keep my thoughts fairly short and concise, but I did not dig anyone in this pairing. There’s an unfortunate tendency in Thunderdome to make characters extremely pliable under pressure. I suspect that this tendency is the result of a limited word count, but it doesn’t make entries easier to read. Instead, it highlights the limitations of flash fiction and makes characters seem like shadow puppets. Characters don’t make decisions. They just act out whatever will help the writer reach the story’s conclusion as fast as possible. I won’t pretend that I’m immune to this (see: half my stories), but it is a bad habit. So, let’s discuss Mr. Snyder. Mr. Snyder delivers a final exam and is given a serious threat from a student. There’s a variety of different responses that he could have to this development and I would expect him to have a lot of mixed emotions as he reviewed his options. Mr. Snyder, however, does not do that. He instead remains one-note throughout the piece. It’s weird to say that any reaction is hyperbolic in the face of a rape/molestation charge, but somehow you succeed in achieving that distinction. Every action is undertaken with a mouth that opens then closes, or ringing ears, or shallow breaths. I am not clear about whether this accusation is real or not, but the teacher’s response rings false regardless. The girl herself is given only the vaguest semblance of an identity. I don’t know why she is doing these things or why she has such distaste for this particular teacher unless her accusation is true, which is not clear. Everyone is an rear end in a top hat in this story for seemingly no reason. It reminds me of a viral morality tale where everyone stands up and claps at the end or the protagonist turns out to be Albert Einstein. It is not good. It provides me no satisfaction. The ending manages to further underline my strong dislike for this story. What lines did I like? “I think about the summer ahead. Beers on the porch, trips to the mountains, no alarm clocks. For a moment I forget you're even here.” - Some nights i wake and realise i am still meat it-- 7.5/10 What is this story about? An elder god ruminates on its entrapment in the physical plain and how this state of existence has left it in a perpetual state of suffering. What do I think about it? This is a piece written by someone who knows how to write and it is drat good. The sentences scan well. The descriptions are on point. The entry manages to be poetic without seeming to try too hard. Each sentence has a purpose that builds toward a common theme: the futility of existence. Despite relatively few words, the story accomplishes its objective and leaves me with some very vivid images. Moreover, it manages to elevate the material and make it interesting. I enjoy Lovecraftian horror generally, but even I get tired of the same tropes and cliches. Though you rely on Lovecraft for the content itself, the focus on the origin and nature of the “gods” is kind of interesting and unique. There is something deeply, essentially wrong with the physical plain. Flesh itself is tainted by some wicked force. No matter what the “gods” do, they cannot help but leave madness and destruction in their wake. They are a massa peccati, a mass of sin. In other words, I liked the piece. It’s extremely short, but well done. If I have one criticism, it is that Hastur is underused. It feels like you are using him to signal that this is a Lovecraft story, but he seems to have little purpose beyond that. Some development would have been nice. What lines did I like? “Somewhere in the space between spaces, souls dance on phantasmal winds. We are blind to this beauty now -- trapped inside prisons of meat. Somewhere on the wending way between stars, we came to sojourn in this place and the doors closed on us, severing the silver cords.” - i wanna blow a smoke ring at the moon so it can feel what it's like to be stuck in a circle, too - 4.5/10 What is this story about? A man ruminates on the futility of it all while taking a midnight smoke. What do I think about it? Though it is in third person, this piece is essentially one long monologue on nihilism. While I can dig the concept in the abstract, something about this story doesn’t hit right for me. It might be the weird mix of slang that feels inorganic. Or perhaps it is the opening sentence that is almost an entire paragraph long. Regardless, this piece never quite manages to hit a sweet spot for me. There are moments where the prose get close to something meaningful, but no sentences that inspire no strong feeling in me. After scanning through the piece again, I think my biggest issue with the entry is how stagnant it feels. The narrator ends in the same place he started, having accomplished nothing and undergone no metanoia. If your aim was capturing a sense of nihilism, I suppose that lack of movement was the point. However, it makes a dreary, exhausting read. Man is born. Man takes a drag from his cigarette. Man goes to bed. The end. It captures a feeling, but not one that I really have any interest in lingering on. What lines did I like? “The cig smoke hasn’t masked the scent of fast food and grease yet, but it’s getting there.” - Restless - 5.5/10 What is this story about? An insomniac goes out to a diner in an attempt to reassemble himself into something coherent. When that attempt fails, the waiter drives him home. What do I think about it? I can relate to this piece. While it isn’t an exceptional piece, I think it does capture the drugged-out feeling of being somewhere between awake and asleep. It feels like your brain has been turned to the wrong radio station and being forced to strain your ears to hear something between the static. Several of your descriptions, such as the “mechanical task of devouring the substance,” while inelegant, encapsulate that feeling. Despite the protagonist being rooted to one spot for most of the story, it has more fluidity than many of the other flash stories submitted this week. I get what the character is feeling and enough happens to keep my attention. Even though the character’s range of emotions is limited, he never feels one-note or hollow. There aren’t any outstanding sentences that I can point to, but it captures a feeling and keeps my attention. I find it satisfactory. What lines did I like? The coffee buzzed in my skin. - The Child of the Great Sky speaks to the Child of the Valley - 4/10 What is this story about? Something lectures another thing? Then that something dies? What do I think about it? It makes me feel dense to admit this, but I have no idea what this story is about. I don’t know who is speaking to whom. I don’t know which descriptions I am meant to take metaphorically and literally. I don’t know if the narrator and its child is an animal, mineral, or vegetable. The title suggests something vaguely Native American, but I feel like I am reading a take on a myth that I am unfamiliar with. Devoid of context, the story comes off as strange and cryptic. Is it a fox and a rabbit? A fox and a human child? That doesn’t seem to match the title, but I’ve got nothing. (I should probably reread this story again…) I don’t have any issue with the writing itself, which conjures some nice melancholy vibes, but the lack of clarity really inhibits my ability to enjoy what you have written here. There aren’t enough clues for me to decipher through context and I feel stupid for not understanding. Honestly, the strong descriptions and imagery are what save this from a DM for me. What lines did I like? You cannot stay with me. But you can take my memory with you. - Extrinsic Behavior - 6/10 What is this story about? A woman uses a shady service that allows her to wear someone else’s skin. She changes into a boy, wanders around trying to pick up guys, and is then murdered. Her old body is loaded up for use by some other poor schmuck. What do I think about it? Fun Fact: Forum emojis don’t appear in the TD Archives. I had to browse over to the story itself to figure out whether : phoneline: was an intended part of the story or not. For the future, I would recommend using *** or --- as a section break instead. With that minor issue out of the way, I find this story rather interesting. It is a piece that uses science fiction to explore something adolescent. Deidre might be a twenty-eight-year-old woman wearing the skin of dead people, but she reads like a teenager. She is “in love” with her changing body and interested in exploring issues of identity. Though the ending was a bit obvious, I enjoy her questions about the body’s origins. And, as with all teenage protagonists, Diedre is also obsessed with sex. Prose is competent but not exceptional. Diedre has a personality, which puts this story miles ahead of some of its competitors. I have two small issues with this story. First, the shift from partying to sex to murder comes off as a little abrupt. I suppose you were limited by the word count, but the progression of events does not feel natural to me. Instead, it seems like you are trying to fit a lot of content into a very small amount of space. I would have tried deleting some stuff. Second, the ending is a wee bit on the nose. I suppose there are worse flaws, but I feel like there was a better way to stick the landing. What lines did I like? “Where did he live, she wondered? What languages did he speak? What was his favorite music? Was he a virgin?” - Part-Time Work - 8/ 10 What is this story about? A woman works a sex hotline. While she does her usual routine, her customer breaks down into tears at the joke his life has become. The character agrees with this assessment, knowing that he’ll call back next week anyway. What do I think about it? This piece fills me with a lot of conflicting emotions, but in a good way. The inherent fakeness in “Candace’s” job creates some nice moments of levity in a story that could easily get bogged down in depressive morass. “Candace” herself has a personality and her strong feelings about her job make for a very funny opening. I even get to feel a sense of pity for the man on the other end of the phone while sympathizing with “Candace’s” lack of sympathy. It’s a cool story that juggles a lot of balls at once. It might be my exhaustion with the slew of brooding, navel-gazing submissions this week but I like this piece a lot. I like how the protagonist doesn’t fall back on obligatory sympathy when the man on the other end breaks down into tears. It is a nasty, brutish reaction but one that is mercifully unexpected. If I had to find something wrong with this story, it would be that the school element seems a little poorly integrated. The hotline is the kind of thing I could see a student getting involved in for extra money, but when you have limited words, I might have dumped it. The payoff is ultimately a bit limited. What lines did I like? Strip clubs, I muse, make sense. Porn makes sense. Erotica. But this? This is so empty. - Cut Off - 3.5/10 What is this story about? A wizard fails to produce satisfactory results for the benefactors funding his research. It turns out that his lack of satisfactory results was a ruse and an excuse to “set down [his] stakes somewhere else and continue work undisturbed.” What do I think about it? For a piece that is meant to “giv[e] me a strong moment, feeling, image, or idea,” there’s a lot of exposition and world-building in this story. The reader gets a lot of back-and-forth between Aelwyn and Gaeron that gives some minor shading of both characters (although Aelwyn comes off as smug more than anything else). However, your ability to really define these characters is hampered by explaining a premise that is, frankly, not really interesting to me. There’s another version of this story that spends less time on Aelwyn’s grandiose visions of himself and the council and more on his relationship with this character that he’s drifted away from. This alternate version doesn’t need to be melancholy rumination. In fact, the upbeat nature of your entry is one of the things I like about it. However, it would need to provide a more three-dimensional image of your characters, how they came together, and the forces that eventually tear them apart. I don’t have much to say about this entry. It is a quick read but not really memorable. It would have not been my first choice for the loss, but I can’t say I am unhappy that it was. What lines did I like? Well, I thought. Time to set out to forge a new age. - Excelsior - 7.5/10 What is this story about? A man and woman journey to a mountainside to see a legendary monk who has run up and down the mountain for centuries. They catch a glimpse of the man, but he is a gnarled, disgusting thing. The man and woman never talk about the experience again. What do I think about it? I like this story. It reminds me of a roommate I had in college whose obsession with Bigfoot and the Melon Heads led us to late-night treks through the Ohio wilderness. The descriptions of nature are appropriately gross to foreshadow your conclusion and there’s an overwhelming feeling of unpleasantness throughout the piece. Even when you describe this legend, which is allegedly awe-inspiring, the description of the monk “losing a scrape of skin” makes me feel queasy. It’s a rather cool and nasty take on a pilgrimage. There’s some interesting ideas here that are expressed very well. You have a strong grasp of language that makes me want to keep reading. My biggest issue with this story is the interjection of the Legend of the Running Monk in the middle. While I understood what you were doing after the fact, I did not immediately register that this story was different from the introduction. I probably would have included the Running Monk and the purpose of Troy and Ada’s journey earlier in the story. I might have also framed the legend itself in dialogue to better integrate it into the piece as a whole. As is, it’s a jarring but necessary interjection. What lines did I like? Each time the runner's hands came up the bloodsuckers broke from him, circled, came down again. He moved like a locomotive, arms chugging, feet shuffling. There was already something dead there.
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Jun 17, 2017 03:14
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also, i guess im in with http://www.akc.org/dog-breeds/labrador-retriever/
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Jun 17, 2017 03:21
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Fuschia Tude - Extrinsic Behavior This one was decent overall. The body exchange was handled well in the text, and the premise interesting. I wish you'd done something more with the plot, though. Her just going to a club and getting punched to death for acting gay seemed a little formulaic. There's some psychological stuff that could be mined deeper in this story, too. What drives someone to change bodies as often as they change clothes? Why does Deidre feel the need to try on different bodies/lives and how does this affect her own self-identity? More broadly, how common is it in this society? If everyone can be anyone how does that change the social dynamics at the club? I feel like there's more potential in this idea than this fairly routine story actually delivers. Overall - middle Fleta McGurn - Part Time Work Some funny lines in here—like going home and swapping sweatpants for worse sweatpants—and overall this is pretty light and funny. The bored sexworker is sort of an old trope and you don't do much with it that is unusual or unique. I probably should have seen the ending coming quicker than I did (pun not intended) but I guess that's just because the phone sex worker as therapist is more interesting to me than the 'craving her disgust to get off' angle so I was hoping it'd go in that direction. But it was funny and a little jarring (in a good way) and so good job. Overall - middle Fuubi - Cut Off Okay, so there's typos and the guys name changes at the end. Beyond that, all the events of the story take place in the past. The story you should have written was her summoning the demon and killing her whole family - that seems to be where the action is, where her hubris leads to some really unpleasant consequences. Her faking her emotions all through this conversation with Gaehad/Gaeron really snuffs out any power this story might have. All we are doing is alluding to events that occurred in the past. There's just no stakes for her anymore. If she doesn't care, why should the reader? So the whole thing comes off as somewhat boring and more like a denouement for a far better story. Go back and write the story about how she discovers this new magic and it ends so disastrously — that would be a much more interesting read. Overall - low ThirdEmperor - Excelsior Well you're certainly right about your characters not being big talkers, when the only dialogue in the whole piece is "I think that's a Wagtail" and "Huh." The rest of this piece is a bunch of exposition about a monk who runs up and down a mountain continuously, and apparently has attracted a swarm of insects that continuously cling onto him. You use death as a recurring image here but I have to admit I don't really get it. What about this man in constant motion connotes death and degradation? I feel this theme could have been more clear. Also this piece is weighed down by the endless descriptors of humid pine and moist humus. There is so much description of the mountain and the travails of Troy and Ada getting into position to see the monk that it detracts from the heart of the story — tourists trying to gain a little piece of dharma by witnessing the passage of the running monk. I would have like to see more about the dichotomy of the tourists with their REI tents and Marmot sleeping bags vs. the pine and nut eating monk...there's some fertile soil to be tilled in that juxtaposition. I really didn't like the last line, it's so throw-away, like 'we went through hell and back but eh we never talked about it after' so nothing is learned/gained from the experience. Which effectively negates any impact the events of the story might have had on Ada and Troy. Overall - middle/low sebmojo - Irreducible There's a lot going on in this story. I'm getting a lot of references to wind, to earth, to fire — interpreting the elements in your flash rule as the four elements of Aristotle. But to be honest none of the characters motivations land for me. Gustaf (wind) develops this irrational hatred of his son at age seven, and doesn't speak to him for twelve years after his breaks a glass. Why? What about that act, or who his son is, warrants that extreme response? And then boom the winds change and he suddenly says "it's over" and then the kids burns down the house (fire). The mother's response to him bringing a girl home doesn't land for me either,..why would she hate him so for doing something every teenager does? All the water and earth and air and fire imagery (if that was intended) are woven nicely through the story, but the individual motivations of the characters are suspect to me. Overall - middle Bad Seafood - One Credit Clear This story feels incomplete. You've got a whole lot of cool imagery which I really am enjoying, then a silly typo at the end and the story ends abruptly I just wish this were longer and achieved some sort of resolution. Overall - middle Uranium Phoenix - Drfiting This is okay. Stories that open wiht the protagonist waking up always arouse my worst suspicions, but this isn't bad. There's too much information, sometimes it's okay to hold back some stuff from the reader, you don't need to paint the world in such fine brush strokes in such a limited word count. But once the story hits it's stride thing start moving and I am hooked. Overall middle-high
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Jun 17, 2017 04:13
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In with http://www.akc.org/dog-breeds/pug/
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Jun 17, 2017 04:48
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Sitting Here posted:crits Hawklad posted:crits QuoProQuid posted:crits
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Jun 17, 2017 06:23
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sign ups closed
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Jun 17, 2017 08:20
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Thanks for crits guys
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Jun 17, 2017 09:18
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week 253 crits pt. 2 the rest restless This is all description and very little thematic throughline. Very often, flash fiction will present us with a bunch of odd or distorted images, but usually they are all driving at some larger concept, something that feels bigger than the constraints of the story. Yes, this certainly does present us with a vivid image of an insomniac's experience, but it does it in such a way where the poetic aspects of the prose feel really forced. Also, if you hadn't mentioned insomnia in the first line, I would've assumed this person was on drugs. Even if it wasn't a drug trip, it still read like one. If I want that experience, I'll go read the Erowid archives, TYVM. Your character is nothing except a lens into his own experiences. For how interior this is--the reader is deeply anchored in the narrator's experience of insomnia--there is no sense of personality here. Side note, artsy line breaks kinda make me cringe unless you really really earn them. I dunno if that is really a helpful crit, because it's deeply subjective. Despite the tone of this crit, this story was pretty much in my inoffensive pile. While you didn't do anything particular novel with all your globs of description, you did technically do what I asked for the flash length pieces. You focused very acutely on one experience. The narrator goes from merely experiencing the effects of their insomnia to, at the end, apparently being consumed by it. So there IS some movement, even if it's not very strong. the child of the sky speaks to the child of the valley Beautiful and brief. Love and...idk, metaphysics or cosmology woven together with a light touch. The ambiguous and mythological nature of the primary characters makes this story feel intimate and human even as it seems to set the stage for some biblical-scale lore. This could be some mytho-historical event between two tribes, or it could be an elder god passing on its dominion to a smaller god. It could be many things, but the loveliness of the prose makes the ambiguity acceptable. extrinsic behavior I like how little worldbuilding this story does. I have no idea how this body swap happens, and I don't even know that much about Deidre herself except that she is careless with other people, whether she is dating them or literally inside of them. But that is enough for the premise. This story moves forward without ever offering much explanation. It has the sensuality and creeping ominousness of a film like Neon Demon, although obviously this is scaled way down to just one small series of events that end carelessly. I just really appreciate about it is that you did scifi at a flash length without wasting words on exposition. I am not sure if I quite love how the ending was handled; any time I see a tiny, two paragraph ending after a scene break and with a different POV, it feels tacked on. I guess it does deliver one important piece of information (that Deidre has, through her carelessness, consigned her body to other people's use), but I think you could've just blended it into the rest of the narrative. I mean, it wouldn't have been out of place if we'd seen Deidre get taken down, lay unconscious in the bathroom, and then like...you could basically ended the same way, just without the scene break and the explicit POV shift. part-time work I am basically with this story until it gets to the end where both characters agro at each other. On one level, I kind of like that this authentic conversation gets ruined by equally authentic spite and self loathing. On the other hand, I feel let down that something more novel or unexpected didn't happen in the course of that final conversation. I feel like you went with one of the two "obvious" routes for this story. The other obvious option would've been to have the final conversation be sincere and heartfelt, but idk if I would've liked that either. I just wish there'd been some kind of small detail or exchange that gave this piece a little more dimension. cut off Oof, you really should've opted for the short story category. Then you could've used more words to flesh out the context for this confrontation. But okay, setting aside my dumb prompt for a moment, let's talk about the problems with this piece that have nothing to do with my quibbles about flash fiction vs short stories. So, Aelwyn has been a naughty person (not actually sure if they're meant to be a guy or a girl, apologies if I use the wrong gender--to me the name reads as female, but the voice of the narrative is ambiguous). But it's okay because she has prepared for this! Which we know from basically the get-go. So like, there's no real tension because your protagonist is mentally rubbing her hands together going muahahaha!! And like, there is this paragraph of explanation near the end (where it's revealed that Aelwyn has discovered a new kind of magic) that I think is supposed to be an "aha" moment, but it really just feels like the narration version of a villain monologue. And the lovely thing is, I don't even think Aelwyn is supposed to seem that villainous? Other than summoning a demon that wipes out her whole town, I guess. Which....she did because she wanted to be dismissed or exiled? I guess? It's really not clear why she didn't pack up and leave without all the fuss and death. I've read stories more or less like this before, where the protagonist is being indicted for some alleged crime or wrongdoing, and then it's revealed at the end that they were justified (or the ending vindicates them in some other way). The thing is, the revelation has to change my perspective on the story in some way. But in this case, it was a very clear cut progression from "protag did something wrong but has planned for this eventuality" to "protag is fleeing to go regroup elsewhere because their work is too precious". It was basically a flat line from beginning to end. One way to avoid this is to start with the revelation ("So when I discovered a whole new dimension of magic power, channeling chaos instead of boring, predictable, lawful magic, I had "stopped." There were no more discoveries from me, and that made them restless. ") and then build up to some additional revelation from there. Excelsior So this actually reminds me of a series of short stories by J. Robert Lennon, called See You in Paradise. The whole point of that collection is to sort of point out the absurdity that exists in the lives of ordinary folks. I thought you captured a similar vibe here. You've got all these ordinary people seemingly looking for something extraordinary and kind of strange, but they almost can't help but contaminate it with the trappings of curiosity. I think i would've liked it if you'd used more of your words for establishing some sense of character in your observers--as it is, i feel like i get a lot more information about the monk and the setting than i do about the people observing the monk. Which is kind of the point, i think; these are every day folks who've made the trek out into the wilderness for a night, and they are not the centerpiece. But I still wish Troy and Ada had been given a little more attention. As it is, they are indistinguishable from the other faceless observers come to watch the monk. Otherwise, i was actually pretty fond of this piece. With a little development, i think you could probly publish it somewhere. Irreducable Ugh I should've HM'd this. Oh well, it was a strong week. This feels personal and evocative, though at the same time it could be a sort of applicable to any family who shares ingrown, tightly wound tension. It straddles the line between metaphor and magical realism. I don't feel as though I saw all that deeply into any given character's mind, but at the same time, I did not begrudge the protagonist for burning down his home of compressed and compacted resent and strangeness. I took away the sentiment that time heals all wounds, but wounds still leave scars, and some scars make us feel angry and alienated forever. There is something cathartic in the protagonist burning down this home made of materials that, compressed as tightly together as they are, make for an excellent conflagration. IDK, PM me about this one, I'm interested in your intent. One Credit Clear I like this. There is what i would describe as a....jaunty tension? Like we know this kid has got a gun, but we know he doesn't intent to use it. So what exactly is the little bugger up to? Well, he wants to impress a cool and tough girl. And you get the sense that later in life, he'll look back at this and laugh at himself for trying to act like someone he isn't. He's not a hard, self destructive dude who smokes and carries guns. But it's endearing to watch him go through this adorably facile teenage moment. There is even a hint of the wisdom he'll have once he reaches proper adulthood, when he talks about how he's better at the arcade games now that he doesn't blow his whole allowance on them. This definitely appealed to my small town school kid sensibilities. For me it was a bowling alley rather than a laundromat, but the motivations and actions of the protag ring true. This is another piece that was on the cusp of my HM list, but it was a strong week. Drifting The beginning of this story is totally my jam and got my attention. On the other hand, parts felt imbalanced. Like, the beginning of the story is super descriptive, but then you gloss over some parts, like how she somehow hacks a security card to keep up with the various changing access codes. It's not that I want to know exactly how she did that (I don't), it's just that the level of detail from plot point to plot point feels lopsided. That said, the tension escalates nicely. I like how the false reality comes as this gradual realization. i thought that was pretty well done. I did not understand how floating in the virtual stars in some zen-like state let her break free from virtual reality, but whatever. That was fine. but then everything after that came too easy, without sacrifice. The story ends with the abstract notion that she might be captured, but everything preceding that sort of unfolds pretty conveniently. I think that's a consequence of the word count. You were being pretty ambitious with 2500 words. Which is cool. But it meant that you sort of just had to make poo poo happen without a whole lot of fuss. Granted, the various turns of the plot itself were interesting enough to carry me along, but I never felt like the protagonist was going to fail or get severely sidetracked (well, beyond the time she spent in that thought police contraption). Another story that might've HMed in a weaker week. Sitting Here fucked around with this message at 10:02 on Jun 17, 2017 |
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Jun 17, 2017 09:55
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Because I said I would crit them all... Fuschia Tude - Extrinsic Behavior This one was decent overall. The body exchange was handled well in the text, and the premise interesting. I wish you'd done something more with the plot, though. Her just going to a club and getting punched to death for acting gay seemed a little formulaic. There's some psychological stuff that could be mined deeper in this story, too. What drives someone to change bodies as often as they change clothes? Why does Deidre feel the need to try on different bodies/lives and how does this affect her own self-identity? More broadly, how common is it in this society? If everyone can be anyone how does that change the social dynamics at the club? I feel like there's more potential in this idea than this fairly routine story actually delivers. Overall - middle Fleta McGurn - Part Time Work Some funny lines in here—like going home and swapping sweatpants for worse sweatpants—and overall this is pretty light and funny. The bored sexworker is sort of an old trope and you don't do much with it that is unusual or unique. I probably should have seen the ending coming quicker than I did (pun not intended) but I guess that's just because the phone sex worker as therapist is more interesting to me than the 'craving her disgust to get off' angle so I was hoping it'd go in that direction. But it was funny and a little jarring (in a good way) and so good job. Overall - middle Fuubi - Cut Off Okay, so there's typos and the guys name changes at the end. Beyond that, all the events of the story take place in the past. The story you should have written was her summoning the demon and killing her whole family - that seems to be where the action is, where her hubris leads to some really unpleasant consequences. Her faking her emotions all through this conversation with Gaehad/Gaeron really snuffs out any power this story might have. All we are doing is alluding to events that occurred in the past. There's just no stakes for her anymore. If she doesn't care, why should the reader? So the whole thing comes off as somewhat boring and more like a denouement for a far better story. Go back and write the story about how she discovers this new magic and it ends so disastrously — that would be a much more interesting read. Overall - low ThirdEmperor - Excelsior Well you're certainly right about your characters not being big talkers, when the only dialogue in the whole piece is "I think that's a Wagtail" and "Huh." The rest of this piece is a bunch of exposition about a monk who runs up and down a mountain continuously, and apparently has attracted a swarm of insects that continuously cling onto him. You use death as a recurring image here but I have to admit I don't really get it. What about this man in constant motion connotes death and degradation? I feel this theme could have been more clear. Also this piece is weighed down by the endless descriptors of humid pine and moist humus. There is so much description of the mountain and the travails of Troy and Ada getting into position to see the monk that it detracts from the heart of the story — tourists trying to gain a little piece of dharma by witnessing the passage of the running monk. I would have like to see more about the dichotomy of the tourists with their REI tents and Marmot sleeping bags vs. the pine and nut eating monk...there's some fertile soil to be tilled in that juxtaposition. I really didn't like the last line, it's so throw-away, like 'we went through hell and back but eh we never talked about it after' so nothing is learned/gained from the experience. Which effectively negates any impact the events of the story might have had on Ada and Troy. Overall - middle/low sebmojo - Irreducible There's a lot going on in this story. I'm getting a lot of references to wind, to earth, to fire — interpreting the elements in your flash rule as the four elements of Aristotle. But to be honest none of the characters motivations land for me. Gustaf (wind) develops this irrational hatred of his son at age seven, and doesn't speak to him for twelve years after his breaks a glass. Why? What about that act, or who his son is, warrants that extreme response? It is not clear in the text at all. And then boom the winds change and he suddenly says "it's over" and then the kids burns down the house (fire). The mother's response to him bringing a girl home doesn't land for me either,..why would she hate him so for doing something every teenager does? All the water and earth and air and fire imagery (if that was intended) are woven nicely through the story, but the individual motivations of the characters are suspect to me. Overall - middle Bad Seafood - One Credit Clear This story feels incomplete. You've got a whole lot of cool imagery which I really am enjoying, then a silly typo at the end and the story ends abruptly I just wish this were longer and achieved some sort of resolution. Overall - middle Uranium Phoenix - Drfiting This is okay. Stories that open with the protagonist waking up always arouse my worst suspicions, but this isn't bad. There's too much information, sometimes it's okay to hold back some stuff from the reader, you don't need to paint the world in such fine brush strokes in such a limited word count. But once the story hits it's stride thing start moving and I am hooked and it was an enjoyable read. Overall middle-high
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Jun 17, 2017 16:23
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Thank you folk's
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Jun 17, 2017 23:38
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about 12 hours left to submit just as a reminder, please put a link to your dog in your submission post. also there's one more slot for a judge so if for some reason you want to read a lot of bad fiction then ill gladly have you.
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Jun 18, 2017 19:26
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Aaaaaaand, it's gone!
Chili fucked around with this message at 12:41 on Jan 2, 2018 |
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Jun 19, 2017 02:04
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Fogdog (748) http://www.akc.org/dog-breeds/rottweiler/ On the foggy road to Hell, I stopped in a yellow pasture to rest. Beside me and the pasture there is a lone leafless tree. Neuron starlings chatter incessantly from its bony branches. Pulling off my scalp I feel for the bullet. My body grows warm as life resurges within me. The birds notice me and speak in unison, “YOU THERE! SELF HATER! WE HAVE A PROPOSITION FOR YOU.” I ignore them as conversation would use up too much time. “WE CAN GIVE YOU MORE TIME.” The notion of time means something very different on the Road than it did when I was alive. The joint gaze of hundreds of fat mushy red birds was unnerving. Fear crept back into me, I say, “You are fauna of the Road, can you betray the law of the land?” “IT IS BECAUSE WE ARE FAUNA THAT WE CAN BREAK THE LAWS. WE STEAL FROM THE CRIPPLED DEAD TO BARTER WITH THE MOBILE DEAD LIKE YOU.” I scoff. “The sooner I get to the wastes the sooner I get this bullet removed. Any more time would be useless for that is my most immediate concern.” “BUT YOU KNOW WHAT THOSE GIANTS WILL DO ONCE YOU GET THERE? SELF-HATERS ARE ONLY GOOD AS BRICKS AND MORTAR TO THEM. IF YOU RETRIEVE SHINY THINGS WE WILL GIVE ENOUGH TIME TO CHOOSE YOUR OWN PATH.” Pain shoots through my head. I rip my scalp open and shove the bullet back into place. “So what is this shiny thing?” “BURIED IN THE MUD OF THE PASTURE ARE SEVERAL KEYS. BRING MANY.” I ask, “What are keys doing in purgatory?” “THEY ARE HERE BECAUSE THEY ARE EASILY LOST.” The birds chatter again as they’d forgot a detail, “OH YEAH. YOU WILL NEED YOUR SENSES AS A BEAST FROM THE SHELLED WORLD LIVES THERE.” I wonder more about the beast than the keys now. If I am going to find keys there is no time to ask questions. I pick the bullet from my skull once more to use my living nose. Shelled beasts would have a smell. Within the dense pasture, my steps kick aside the emaciated body of another who’d lost all their time and never made it. They lay in catatonia at the moment of their death until the rare event an officer carried them further. “Who is in my field?!” a bellowing voice calls. I’m not sure what a living beast could do to me in purgatory. “Respond! I am a Keeper and I'll not abide trespassers!” I ask, “What is a Keeper?” The pain in my temple sears. It responds, “I was given status by the officers of divine law. I have earned favor by enduring as you should rightfully do.” Pleading, I say, “I need keys! I will do anything you ask for payment.” There is an acrid scent of wet fur. It lumbers through the fog. It’s a large black dog with a brown muzzle. Dangling from a chain collar are rows of keys. It growls, “You are running out of time shade.” The bullet flies up to my head. It pushes through like an unstoppable forefinger. “Please! I beg you, Keeper. I did not know what you were and I need just a bit more time to make it to hell.” My fingers snatch at the bronze key hanging from the collar. It nips at my hand and the bite freezes me in place. Baring its teeth it says, “As a Keeper I must guard objects from the Shelled world that fall in.” My body flattened into the grass as the bullet bursts through my parietal lobe. The dog snorts and paws a key off its chain. “There are too many of you shades lying around here. I will let you go with the promise that you go straight to hell once you’ve made your deal...” My vision shattered and moments flash by like shadow puppets made of broken glass. Kicked out of house. Needle in arm. Body Rotti ng.. I steal a gun and finish it. The fragments reassemble. I’m beneath the empty tree the birds had sat in. My hand clutches something in a firm grip. It feels like sand is soaking into my palm. I can carry on with renewed hope. If a dog could earn the favor of this Intangible world than I can suck it up and weather a year of Hell's prodding.
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Jun 19, 2017 02:52
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Arm the Man with a Dog 747 Words “Going on a trip to the underworld? You gotta have a dog,” said the salesman. “If Orpheus had the sense to bring his sheepdog he’d still be honeymooning with Eurydice. Izanagi? Forget about it, same deal. Now Inanna, Inanna had the sense to get a proper hound, and she’s the one what did it right.” “I don’t remember being in the myth,” I said, eyeing the animal on offer. He looked eager enough. “You think Ninshubur was a human?” The salesman asked. “C’mon. Faithful servant, trustworthy enough to get your relatives to come rescue you from a deep dark hole? That’s a collie, all the way. So you going to buy Virgil or what?” I did. I wanted every advantage I could get. My brother had always been there when I needed him, and I had to do this. We’re gods- half-gods, demigods, whatever. On our mother’s side. More than enough power to get into plenty of trouble. Like the time he convinced half of France that the Governor of Mississippi was a trained ferret. Or the time I ‘borrowed’ the crown jewels of Britain and lost them at a Moroccan baccarat table. Or most recently, the time he seduced the wife of the Capo di Tutti Capi. It came as a shock to both of us to learn that, after centuries of youth, we are mortal. The man was right. Having Virgil around was indispensable journeying to the underworld. Cerberus, to start. He’s one lonely three-headed dog, and more than willing to let a person slip by in exchange for a little innocent canine company. Charon’s trickier. Guy’s made of bones and the last thing you want is to have the boat capsize mid-Lethe because someone sees his arm as a chew toy. So I had to hold Virgil tight the whole trip. Then there’s Anubis. Jackals aren’t properly dogs, but they’re close enough, and if he sees you’re a proper dog person, he’ll use the extra-heavy feather to weigh your heart against. It’s a big place, the underworld. I’d have had to go wandering from boss to boss trying to figure out which one had my brother, if I didn’t have Virgil. He caught the scent and lead me straight to Pluto. “Whadda you want?” he said. “I want my brother back,” I said. “Who?” “Drughal. Came in just last week, Demigod. Looks like me, only less handsome,” I said. “Oh. That guy,” said Pluto. “He’s been a real barrel of laughs. Made little bunny ears to put on all the lost souls. I laughed and laughed.” Pluto’s voice made it difficult to believe that he had ever laughed in all of the years since the Titanomachia. “So can you let him go?” I asked. “You know, if it was up to me, sure. He doesn’t fit in with the experience I’m trying to shape here. But you know. Rules are rules. Can’t let anyone out for free.” “What do you want?” “What I really want is-” Pluto looked up. “Nah, nevermind.” “What?” “Well, to get out of here myself. A vacation. Well, not a vacation. I got some business with the pack of backstabbers I call a family. But they’ll stop me at the gate, and since they demoted my other form to a dwarf planet it doesn’t have a snowball’s chance getting out.” “You do have another form, you know,” I said, cracking a small grin. “What? Oh, you mean-” said Pluto. “Think that’ll work?” The hardest part of any journey to the underworld is getting out again. The trick is not looking back. You look back, and you turn to stone, or a pillar of salt, or else the person you’re trying to rescue gets pulled back or rots down to bones before your eyes. And it’s a long, quiet journey, plenty of temptation to turn around. That’s where having a dog comes in handy. When you’re getting walked by a leashed dog, with it pulling you forward, looking back is right out. You’ve got to keep your eyes forward to make sure the animal isn’t pulling your foot over a rock or in front of a charging mastodon. So picture two brothers, Hans and Drugal, walking out of Hades led by a pair of trusty dogs. One is the trusty Virgil, well-serving guide. And the other, a bright yellow flop-eared hound, which you will see, if you look at it more closely than any of Hades’ guardians ever did, is Pluto.
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Jun 19, 2017 03:55
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sparksbloom fucked around with this message at 04:36 on Nov 27, 2017 |
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Jun 19, 2017 04:59
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Failed. Too busy with work. 
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Jun 19, 2017 06:04
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in the spirit of father's day, you all disappointed me like good sons/daughters but also in the spirit of father's day ill keep submissions open until i wake up tomorrow. thatll probably be around 10 or 11 AM PST
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Jun 19, 2017 07:28
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Thanks for the crits.
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Jun 19, 2017 09:44
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Snow White 748 words http://www.akc.org/dog-breeds/samoyed/ There’s a moment in every man’s life where you have to kick back and accept your fate. And for Tyler McNutty, that moment came during the Great Whiteout of 1984, when the Yukon seemed to be covered in snow for all eternity, all the way from the ground to the gates of heaven, and he found himself in the middle of an endless blaze of white, white and more white, in all directions, until all he could do was to find himself a nice tree to sit down and die against. And then came the dog. At first he took it for an apparition, a trick his dying mind played on him, conjured out of the flurry of snowflakes that raged through his vision. But the dog was real, and its black snout came into focus clearer and clearer, like a beacon in the white, until finally, sharp teeth pulled on Tyler’s sleeve. Get up, the dog seemed to growl, straining itself against Tyler’s weight. It pulled with the strength of an animal that had been lost in the cold for a while, and Tyler resisted likewise. He tried to swat the dog away, but it wasn’t ready to give up. It jumped back, and forward, danced around him, barking as if it wanted to play, digging its wet snout into the side of Tyler’s head, barking, pulling again, barking some more, and barking until Tyler thought, well, he’d prefer to die without that headache. So he got up. It felt like he had to learn how to stand again. “What do you want?” Tyler said. “Chrissake.” The dog didn’t waste any time. It disappeared into the snow, reappeared, barked at Tyler as if to tell him to hurry up, disappeared again. Tyler followed, slowly, feet sinking knee-deep into the snow step by step while the dog kept rushing him, making noise and jumping up on him as if to push him forward, and if it’d been any taller it might just have, and he might just have fallen over and disappeared in the snow, and thank the Lord he didn’t. When they finally arrived, though, it wasn’t at safety. The drat dog had just brought them to a different tree, with a corpse on it. It was semi-frozen, a glistening trail of blood sticking to the side of its head where a thick branch had hit. There was gear on him. Digging tools. Survival equipment. A map, with markings. This would bring them home. This was it. Tyler almost forgot about the dog in the heat of the moment. Only when the cooker was burning, and snow started turning to water, did he remember to offer some to the animal. But it only stared at him accusingly. And maybe a bit dumbfounded. “He doesn’t need it anymore,” Tyler explained. The dog cocked its head. Tyler held out the bowl of water. The dog carefully approached, took a few licks, then gently took it out of his hand and put it down next to the corpse. Nothing happened, except more barking. “We’re leaving,” Tyler said. He packed up the gear as the dog watched him, growing visibly agitated until it went back to his previous routine of barking and jumping at Tyler as if to try to shove him into some kind of action. But there was no action to be taken. That guy was dead, frozen solid to the tree. They could only save themselves. “Let’s go.” Tyler went ahead, and the barking stopped. “There’s nothing I can do. Let’s go.” But the dog didn’t come. And when Tyler turned back around, it still sat there, looking at its master, and then back at Tyler. Waiting. And Tyler damned his conscience. And he knew he had to move. But his feed didn’t budge, until they turned, and brought him back to the dog, and the man, and he went on one knee and he said, “There’s nothing I can do.” Softer this time. But the dog only licked Tyler’s face in response, and finally, when nothing else happened, it snuggled against the corpse and laid down, and looked up at him is if to say, “So what now”. Time seemed to freeze between them. The only sound was the howl of the wind and snow, and, somehow, through all that, the dog’s tired breath, faint, exhausted, air visibly freezing in front of his nostrils with every grunt. Tyler sighed. He unpacked the tools and got to work.
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Jun 19, 2017 12:27
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archives
sebmojo fucked around with this message at 22:26 on Jan 8, 2018 |
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Jun 19, 2017 17:04
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Not trying to start too much poo poo here, but I heard that Third Emperor gets his ideas from Highlights magazine.
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Jun 19, 2017 18:43
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 jfc, what is that, like 10 failures? After getting a massive extension?  INTERPROMPT: Why is [your name] such a goddamn failure?
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Jun 19, 2017 18:44
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Sitting Here posted:
Third, you don't have to bother with that interprompt, I handled it for you.
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Jun 19, 2017 18:48
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submissions close
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Jun 19, 2017 19:14
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Third Chili brawl! Prompt: Two people are stuck in a room or some other confined space. They hate each other. They may not kill or harm one another. Some kind of resolution much be reached, for better or worse (BUT NO DEATH!!) 750 words due by idk, 11:59:59 PM PST on Friday June 23
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Jun 19, 2017 19:15
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Chili posted:Not trying to start too much poo poo here, but I heard that Third Emperor gets his ideas from Highlights magazine. For those who don't speak Chili, allow me to translate. That random space he inserted in my name should be interpreted as a long, awkward pause to chew on his own genitals.
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Jun 19, 2017 19:20
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i need to see some es, you whiny kaybabies
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Jun 19, 2017 19:26
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Looks like this week
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Jun 19, 2017 19:32
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went to the dogs.
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Jun 19, 2017 19:32
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results seafood gets a dm
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Jun 19, 2017 19:34
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and a very stern look
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Jun 19, 2017 19:34
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