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Noah posted:I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it. That's how rushed my prompt was, give me a moment to ruminate.
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# ? Dec 3, 2013 02:36 |
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# ? Oct 9, 2024 14:55 |
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fine. I heard the sound of a thunder that roared out a warnin'
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# ? Dec 3, 2013 02:44 |
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I'll take And the executioner's face is always well hidden.
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# ? Dec 3, 2013 02:49 |
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I'm in. I met a young woman whose body was burning.
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# ? Dec 3, 2013 02:52 |
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In. I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken.
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# ? Dec 3, 2013 02:58 |
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I keep telling myself this is the last time. That I'm going to take a break. That goddammit moving house is no time to be writing poo poo. And yet. In, curse you all. Where black is the color, where none is the number
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# ? Dec 3, 2013 03:33 |
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Oh man, this is a cool prompt. I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard.
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# ? Dec 3, 2013 03:45 |
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in and ima take Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
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# ? Dec 3, 2013 05:46 |
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In. But I'll know my song well before I start singing
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# ? Dec 3, 2013 06:06 |
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Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley
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# ? Dec 3, 2013 09:43 |
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Lazy Beggar posted:Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley Oh COME ON dammit I was gonna take that one and not write anything again. Curses. FINE. I'll take Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter and I'll write that poo poo tonight with delight. Because I hate poetry. And revise revise revise.
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# ? Dec 3, 2013 15:55 |
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magnificent7 posted:Oh COME ON dammit I was gonna take that one and not write anything again. you better toxx yourself for this one. no excuses.
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# ? Dec 3, 2013 17:53 |
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crabrock posted:you better toxx yourself for this one. no excuses.
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# ? Dec 3, 2013 19:31 |
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I'll take I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children For 500, Alex
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# ? Dec 3, 2013 20:17 |
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crabrock posted:you better toxx yourself for this one. no excuses. you don't understand it was
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# ? Dec 3, 2013 20:35 |
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crabrock posted:no excuses.
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# ? Dec 3, 2013 20:48 |
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c'mon man lemme judge you
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# ? Dec 3, 2013 21:19 |
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magnificent7 posted:Oh COME ON dammit I was gonna take that one and not write anything again. What's this, I get an idea and check the thread and the guy who chickened out last time is taking the line I wanted, without even the guts to toxx himself over it? I'm taking that line, too, because you're PROBABLY not going to submit again, and even if you do, I'll do it better. This is an in-prompt brawl, yo. Going to accept or wimp out of it too?
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# ? Dec 3, 2013 21:25 |
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Echo Cian posted:What's this, I get an idea and check the thread and the guy who chickened out last time is taking the line I wanted, without even the guts to toxx himself over it? I will judge this.
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# ? Dec 3, 2013 22:23 |
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Oh christ sakes. What is this challenge.
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# ? Dec 3, 2013 23:25 |
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magnificent7 posted:Oh christ sakes. Write your story, it gets judged as usual, I will also do a crit of yours and Echo's and rank/flense them as required. First three words are the important ones.
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# ? Dec 3, 2013 23:30 |
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Brawl Results: Crabrock vs. Muffin Your prompt was to write a story where someone gets what they want, but isn't satisfied, and to take inspiration from the descriptions of perfume. The scent inspirations shine through more clearly than the hollowness of disappointment, but I forgive you. I enjoyed reading both of these nearly as much as I enjoyed smelling my perfume-slathered wrists. Crabrock: your story had the stronger narrative arc, and you wove in several diverse elements from The Black Tower into a cohesive whole. And in a sci-fi, setting no less! I didn't quite get into your character(s), though, and that took away some of the emotional punch. The prose was also a little clunky and dry. Muffin: This has something like a story buried within it, though it feels more like a myth unravelling. Your imagery is vivid and creepy, which makes up for your er...subdued characterization and plotting. This was a close decision, but ultimately, I give the win to SurreptitiosMuffin, because his story left me with a stronger sense of desolation and emptiness. Crits later this week, after I've critted everything else.
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# ? Dec 4, 2013 00:05 |
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I felt bad for him being all the way down on my chart, so I went easy on him. I said I would consume him, and I may have celebrated a little early. Time to concede...
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# ? Dec 4, 2013 00:38 |
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This is how a lady makes herself prettier.
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# ? Dec 4, 2013 00:59 |
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Save your words for that thing you're making. The one we're all going to
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# ? Dec 4, 2013 01:22 |
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In with: I met one man who was wounded in love
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# ? Dec 4, 2013 02:25 |
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Jeza posted:I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin'
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# ? Dec 4, 2013 05:53 |
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I'm probably going to regret this: I'm in. "I'll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest" DreamingofRoses fucked around with this message at 06:53 on Dec 4, 2013 |
# ? Dec 4, 2013 06:47 |
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CRITS, CRITS FOR THE CRIT GOD. God Over Djinn - Memory Problems And we leap into the medical misery and the tone of the story is laid bare - a depressing situation, probably with some other people feeling sad about it. I am not overwhelmed with desire to read a litany of other people’s troubles. And the rest of it continues in this vein - ‘dark domestic vignettes’ as you so handily point out to us that we are reading. Her mother sucked, but so far not in any interesting ways. And the voice behind it telling us what we should think about it, providing commentary “The entries recorded the wounds and indignities that underpin a life. The damage done by proximity to others.” There’s nothing wrong with those two sentences as written, I just don’t think this story of intercut journal entries is the right place for it. Maybe it’s the fact that there’s so many fragments - we just get a picture of relentless poo poo going down that might be better illustrated by focussing on a larger fragment that illustrates the mother as a person. It’s odd then, that I liked the ending. The simpler style works better, possibly after the the bland exposition of the first section and the purplishness of middle section it comes as a relief. Symptomless Coma- Hide Harry This is a little hard to read. It wasn’t until the second read through that I realised Tobias Finch was a boy and not a dog. Giving the cat a human name probably didn’t help for clarity You have to be very careful with this style of writing not to appear too precious or too irritatingly precocious. “because Fair Play” sounds like early 21st century net speak, not bright child, and the run-on sentences get a bit wearisome after a while. The lines after ‘I di’ent mean to” sounds more like a writer than the voice we’ve been hearing. Bu these are largely cosmetic problems and easily fixed. There’s a lot to like here, because the character comes through, and the happy, upbeat ending belongs to her and her optimistic, energetic personality. V for Vegas - the naturalist Oh dear. I have no idea what the point of this was. It started of breezily enough, a little light physical comedy as someone is hit on the head with possibly a thing, that might be fruit. And then...zip. We learn that some birds eat the fruit and I’m bored. I keep going, thinking that there must be more to it than that, and we see the gentleman hit on the head with the fruit get some dodgy primitive medicine and then … nothing. There’s no mystery here, no wonder, no arc and, most terminally of all - no conflict, just an endless succession of missed opportunities to do something interesting. I keep thinking, am I missing something? The prose is basically competent, but there is nothing here to captivate my attention at all. You may have just bored your way to the loss. Also - pretty much all of the prompt is missing - not looking good for the Vster.. Nubile Hillock - carbonoserfatu This was tight and action-laden. It assumed its style and kept it, with a consistent and lagrely intersting voice. Unfortunately, that voice wasn’t very forgiving of the newcomer. I had to re-read it to even begin to make sense of it. It probably doesn’t help that I think of a a snow-machine as a machine that makes snow for movies or skifields, whereas here I assume its a cross between a tank and a snowmobile? A couple of elements didn’t quite gel, either. She jumps a police barricade and then has enough time to stop at a pawnbroker? Must have made a bit of distance in the intervening time and it just seemed an odd thing to do. I get why she did it, but relying on a shop assistant at such a time seems rather less well planned than the rest of the escapade. I think the real problem here, once we piece together what has happened, is that we have no investment in the success of the operation. There’s speedy action and betrayal, but why does Tali need the bitcoins? What are the stakes here? The style lacks a little substance. RoeCocoa - the fish that didn’t bark The fish unfortunately didn’t do anything else either. Because it was dead. Which was part of the problem with this story. It was adequately observed and the voices rang true, but there was no real hook that gave the reader anything to hang on to. In some ways it was the flipside of the previous story - everything was clearly and simply described, there was no action or betrayal just everyday characters, but when you look back you’re just as unattached to the happenings because you have no stake in it. It didn’t help that the story started and ended weakly. “In the sacred master bedroom with its southern exposure” is just wasted words in the sentence as in no way is any of that detail important. And at the end, when Henry makes the OK sign - I’m all like, What does that even mean? “Yeah, good one fish, you’re dead. Good thing you kept quiet about it”? One question that I always fail to ask myself is “what is the real story, here.” In this case it’s the missing fish. Yet half the story is done before its absence is revealed. Start with the interesting thing first. Bitchtits McGee - Faye Dunaway Wow that looks like a poo poo movie. Once again the ThunderDome has taken me places I did not wish to go. Unfortunately, some of that horribleness has leaked into this story, which spends too much time going into details about the movie plot (actually not even that, but just bits of it) and not enough time trying to have something else go on that makes sense. I just completely failed to latch on to the character because all that happened seemed to be her drinking and then maybe hallucinating she’s at the doctors office (or is that the reality? It is a Mystery!) but I’m not even sure. And then at the end Deacon is a part of her. Did he donate a liver, or something. I have no idea what to make of this and so I just don’t care. Nikaer Drekin - Porcelain Lost, No Reward This was a difficult thing to get right, but the mix of absurdity and pathos was pretty well judged. I had visions of people responding to Dirk Gently like normal people would, rather than as bit players in his story. I know you like comedy, and there’s always a real danger of going overbroad, mistaking the zany for the actually funny, but this, I think, comes the closest I’ve seen from you to have an emotional truth to it. To be honest, I really like the character, and would read more from him. Nice one. Jeza - all fall down I distinctly remember the feeling I got reading this story. The cuts were made at exactly the right time to add suspense, each backward shift revealing more about who the characters were and how they fitted into the scheme of things. I actually read it forward when I’d finished and still liked the story, but the backwards style is what makes it. Technical mastery isn’t a term I fling around with reckless abandon, so believe me when I say I was very impressed by the quality of this piece. Tight prose, a well executed hook, and great pacing. Obliterati - Go forth and sin no more I wasn't overly impressed by this one. The Devil turning up and having a go at someone is kind of incredibly cliche, and this certainly didn’t up the stakes in Devil having a go at someone genre. This devil seemed kind of wimpy and ineffectual. It’s meanest trick is saying “I know what you did last summer” and then pretending to take someone to Hell. Not even a particularly unsettling vision of hell, this hell has mottled ground and...and...a steel door. Forgetting the Lord’s prayer is an ok touch, but it needs to be contrasted as even worse than something, well, hellish, to really carry the impact you want. This is another one where the actual story starts about half way through, at “well then, Father, has he forgiven you?” The rest is largely disposable info about how not many people go to church, that doesn’t really affect the actual story. Kaishai - Passage Fare I’m usually at a loss to nitpick at your work at a detailed level, as there’s very rarely much you can point at and say this didn’t work. As usual, there’s an easy, flowing style with interesting words choices and clarity of meaning. The danger is that the work becomes too smooth, even twee. This story is a good example - there’s nothing really wrong with it, but when you get to the end you haven’t really gained anything, or been through much. Person gambles, wins, does good deed and is rewarded isn’t much of an arc. No good deed goes unpunished, except here, and so it’s hard to do much more than give a gentle cheer that things worked out and then move on. docbeard - Waaarg This was a tough flash rule, and the take on it intriguing but doesn’t really come off that well. Taking Kafka’s Metamorphosis and making the insect a rhino has something going for it, but the therapist/magic practitioner just doesn’t come across as anything more than an exposition dumper and plot resolver. The protagonist takes no action, his Rhino-ness happens to him and then stops and that’s it. Needs more special sauce. Walamor - Closure I liked this one. It starts at the beginning of the story and carries on at an acceptable pace. The muteness of the protagonist has a peculiar effect that makes you quite clearly imagine what he’s saying. But formatting wise, I really think you should have broken up Paul signing and somebody else speaking into separate paragraphs because it does read like the quotes are what Paul is signing, which is a distraction. I’m not 100% sure how I feel about Paul’s essential action being to do nothing and go with the flow, though. On the one hand, you have a neutral protagonist to whom things happen, but on the other that decision is made by him, and complications arise that add tension to the story. Perhaps just a little something extra, a moment of doubt and remorse about leaving Samantha, would have sharpened the taste a little. He’s accepting of his own guilt, but he never makes the connection between what he did to the boy’s family, and what she is about to do to his granddaughter. Tyrannosaurus - Blood Another favourite. What I particularly liked about this one was how all the elements tied up and resolved at the end, and yet the end wasn’t completely expected. It had a sense of completion about it, as if it couldn’t have ended any other way, yet I was still intrigued by the character of Moses, and spent some time wondering about his mindset and why he had done what he did. To have a character appear as a person worth pondering like that is not something that happens all the time, and you did it with a mostly simple, clean style. Crabrock - the challenge And this one was just...weird. I got the feeling that Herbert worked as a character, but the russian didn’t. I liked the idea of Herbert freaking out the other chap with his indifference to the possibility of death, but the Russian got very squeamish very quickly considering he was playing Russian Roulette, indeed, had suggested the idea. A couple of lines grated - “Herbert wasn’t regarded as a deep thinker” jumps from quasi-herbert’s POV to you telling us about him. “interesting metal bars” isn’t a nice thing to say - why were they interesting? as potential prizes? really? Ther whole STI thing (is that we’re calling them these days?) seemed tacked on - did he get the clap from Katrina? The possibility isn’t even mentioned, which seems a wasted opportunity to tie up the details. Mastajake - Scaveneger Hunt Ask yourself this question - if someone gave you this to read and said “Here is some fiction that I wrote,” what would your impression be? That the story is pointless, that there’s a whole bunch of missing details about what’s going on that could have provided some context, that there’s no real drama here other than ‘will the brother talk to someone?” If the crux of your conflict is ‘will a character talk to someone’ then there should be should at least be consequences from the action, some reason to hope, or dread, that he does. And then at the end they both flirt, but the card specifically says only one person needs to, so there’s not even tension from that. So blah. This got a dishonourable mention only because V for Vegas blew the prompts and actively disappointed me - but this one could easily have taken the loss. You need to engage your inner critic and listen to it when it says “gently caress this poo poo, start again.”.
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# ? Dec 4, 2013 11:10 |
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In with "I saw a white ladder all covered with water." We don't have to use the line verbatim right?
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# ? Dec 4, 2013 16:49 |
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Jagermonster posted:In with "I saw a white ladder all covered with water." No, you don't. Prompt can be interpreted as flexibly as desired, though I will be noting whether stories take the prompt and run with it or just shove it in as lipservice.
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# ? Dec 5, 2013 00:04 |
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Fumblemouse posted:
Crits much appreciated! Snow machine is actually backwoods old-timey dialect for skidoo or snowmobile! If you absolutely need a visual, maybe something like this. As a prairie dweller, using terms like snowmobile or skidoo conjures up images of Arctic Cats and Polaris, which are not cool enough. Also, I wanted the blockade to be a toll road but that's my fault for not being clear enough. ALSO THIS NEW PROMPT IS OKAY BUT THE ONLY PROBLEM IS THAT IT ISN'T "BOOTS OF SPANISH LEATHER" ie: THE BEST SONG BY ROB DILLON
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# ? Dec 5, 2013 01:06 |
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Fumblemouse posted:
Calling him out. Thanks Jeza for your crit!
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# ? Dec 6, 2013 06:15 |
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In with I heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin'.
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# ? Dec 6, 2013 18:20 |
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Edit: poo poo gently caress piss I can't participate, stupid work getting in my stupid way
Toaster Beef fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Dec 6, 2013 |
# ? Dec 6, 2013 20:41 |
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DreamingofRoses posted:I'm probably going to regret this: I'm in. I knew I was going to regret that. Sorry, guys, I've been trying and I've got like a third of it down, but there's no way it's going to be done by Sunday English time. I'll be back after the 16th when my exams are over.
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# ? Dec 7, 2013 20:00 |
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DreamingofRoses posted:I knew I was going to regret that.
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# ? Dec 7, 2013 23:08 |
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Late crits. God Over Djinn – Memory Problems An okay entree and an alright dessert bookending a shallow meal. We've got a mother and daughter whose relationship is on the rocks and no real investment in either of them. Until your ending, both these women are defined by their dislike for one another, a relentless dislike with very little in the way of levity or justification, and only the loosest sense of understanding. Eight years of erasing her home from her memory plus the eighteen she probably spent there besides makes for 26 years of cultivated antagonism, which very little of what you showed us in the diary seemed to combat, making the daughter's about-face from wanting nothing to do with her mother to wanting reconciliation a bit mysterious. They hurt each other, okay, sure, but that seems a minor point to make after 26 years about a woman whom, an hour ago, you didn't care if she lived or died. HOMEWORK: Someone pledges their undying loyalty to someone else and they mean it from the bottom of their heart. Their relationship is neither servile or romantic. I'll give you 500 words. Symptomless Coma - Hide Harry Ah, precious children. Every writer's favorite way to get out of writing kids. That aside, there's some heart here and some real flow. Your stream of consciousness works more than it doesn't, but when it doesn't it really doesn't. Like Fumblemouse I too had some difficulty discerning between the dead pet and the new friend, and there are a few bits where the winding nature of the narration gets tangled up in itself. Stream of consciousness done well can be quite involving, but it also amplifies any mistakes found therein. HOMEWORK: The world is actively ending. Tell me why your protagonist doesn't care in 500 words. Your protagonist may not be depressed, angsty, angry, cynical, or nihilistic. V for Vegas - The Naturalist Dear diary. Today some stuff happened. I ate some fruit. Here I will allude to some pictures and other things I haven't actually included. Yeah, sorry man, not doing it for me. I want to say nothing happens, but between your allusions and generally solid prose I'm tempted to think there's something beneath the surface that we're just not seeing because you tried too hard to be clever about it. Also not seeing how it hits the prompt or your flash rule even remotely. When pressed for a loser I picked Mastajake over you because I had completely forgotten about your story after reading it the day before. I expected more from you. HOMEWORK: The evening is ruined by a murder most foul. Give me the police report, the autopsy, and three short letters or relevance. 1,000 words. Nubile Hillock - Carbonoserfatu There's a lot going on here we're given very little context for. Who are these people and why do we care? This is actually pretty atypical for you, since you're usually pretty good about implying left things unsaid about your world and your characters. Your playful jumping through time also gets the better of you, since it feels less like you're revealing information in a roundabout way and more like you're just breaking up set pieces for the purpose of breaking up set pieces. I really don't know. Bitcoins. HOMEWORK: A man's life depends on his ability to smuggle fish into a foreign country. Make us care about his fate in 700 words. RoeCocoa - The Fish That Didn't Bark Now here's a lot of words about nothing, or more specifically about one thing. The fish is missing, the kid ate it. "OK." A lot of stories this week felt like they were simply relaying an event then dropping the mic. That's all your story really feels like, like some story this guy is telling me at the bar after a long day. "Oh man, so, okay, get this, we bought our daughter a goldfish, right? But she ate it. Kids man. Kids." HOMEWORK: Someone is born, lives, and dies in 200 words. BitchTits McGee - Faye Dunaway Another story in which something happens. This time it's two things, the latter of which feels tacked on. Two people watch a bad movie for eight hundred words then one of them dies so the other can have a heart transplant. Or something. This is, this could almost work. There's some okay chemistry here, bonding over a bad movie. The whole thing just suffers from Bar Story Syndrome, which I will now refer to all subsequent iterations of this problem as. HOMEWORK: Someone is born, lives, and dies in 200 words. Everyone whose entry was marked Bar Story Syndrome is getting the same assignment this week. Nikaer Drekin - Porcelain Lost, No Reward Don't have a lot to say about this one. It was good. It made me smile. Actually, I'd advise everyone whose stories I knocked on for being anecdotal to read this. Even though it's only about one thing, it backs a lot of stuff into that one thing. There's an arc and even characters we're invested in. At the end of the day, if nothing else, your story should at least be enjoyable to read, if not also interesting in some respect. Nikaer Drekin accomplished far more than the bare minimum, but it's a good example of how to get things done. I guess I had a lot to say about this one after all. HOMEWORK: The fate of the toilet in 500 words. Jeza - All Fall Down The minute I finished this story I knew it would be my pick for the winner. You hit the prompt on all four cylinders and spun your flash rule into a powerful narrative device, each step backwards in time peeling back another layer of the story and the characters. It works so well reading it chronologically presents an entirely different story. Good job. HOMEWORK: [special teacher's exemption] Obliterati - Go Forth and Sin No More Bar Story Syndrome. The devil shows up and torments a guy. The end. Might've worked better if the protagonist had a little more meat to him, or if we had any kind of hint or foreshadowing as to the nature of his crime. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is the only unforgivable sin in Catholicism (and most branches of Christianity) that I'm aware of, but I presume if that was the case he wouldn't be a priest. I need a little more to go on. HOMEWORK: Someone is born, lives, and dies in 200 words. Kaishai - Passage Fare So this was a solid submission and my pick for second place. I still stand by that. The whole thing is competently put together with understated, amiable characters. But the whole story feels like I've read it somewhere before. This kind of morality play brings very few surprises to the table. Your protagonist does the selfless thing, the right thing, and it all turns out to have been a sort of secret test of character. Even something as simple as him having to wait on a second selfless person to come along would've done wonders to change things up. HOMEWORK: A man and a woman wake up tied together on a burning yacht in the middle of the ocean. Neither of them can swim and help is not coming. You have as many words as you deem necessary to rescue them from their fate. Docbeard - WHAARG Bar Story Syndrome. Guy gets turned into a rhinoceros, some woman turns him back. The end. Waste of a good premise. HOMEWORK: Someone is born, lives, and dies in 200 words. Walamor - Closure This story was okay. Well-tread ground but decent results. Your flash rule actually does a lot to bring something extra to the party, and I was so prepared for the man's would-be murderer to show mercy that I was pleasantly surprised when she actually didn't. A little trim and some salt, the woman and the girl being more than well-worn stock characters, would go a long way towards putting this up there with Kaishai's piece. HOMEWORK: Night has fallen over the Arizona desert. A shovel bursts out from the earth and three figures emerge from the underground. You have 500 words to tell me what happens next. Tyrannosaurus - Blood A significant improvement from your earlier efforts. Good going. Still some rough spots. This is basically a dialogue story, but the dialogue is not consistently strong enough to carry it all by its lonesome. A little more description would've eased the burden. Didn't stick with me like it stuck with Fumblemouse, but I really dug your ending. HOMEWORK: Two old men sit on a park bench overlooking the sea. This is the first time they've seen each other in twelve years. Tell me about them in 800 words. Minimal dialogue. Crabrock - The Challenge Herbert is okay. Not great, but okay. The Russian less so. He makes Herbert gamble with his life but doesn't like unnecessary deaths? Doesn't he want the girl? It's in his best interest Herbert keeps going. Not quite Bar Story Syndrome but almost. A dude risks his life for a girl he admits he really doesn't care about and it's over. We don't really learn anything about Herbert except he's dumb and impulsive and the girl he's prepared to kill himself over exists only as a string of letters spelling out the fact that there is, in fact, a girl, and not some debt or adrenalin junky. Not your best work. HOMEWORK: Someone is born, lives, and dies in 200 words. Mastajake - Scavenger Hunt Bar Story Syndrome. Siblings get roped into speed dating on a tour group. The end. HOMEWORK: Someone is born, lives, and dies in 200 words.
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# ? Dec 8, 2013 00:22 |
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I'm not going to make the deadline tomorrow. Short-notice road trips to winterize in-laws's beach houses and general personal short comings/disorganization/procrastination, etc. etc. This is embarrassing. Definitely going to have tox or whatever its called to show my face around here again.
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# ? Dec 8, 2013 03:27 |
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# ? Oct 9, 2024 14:55 |
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Going through nicotine withdrawal, but will soldier on. I have a plan; as soon as I can put the broken pieces of my mind back together I can actually write the drat thing.
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# ? Dec 8, 2013 14:40 |