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sebmojo more like sebmodjo because he's a mod ![]()
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# ? Feb 17, 2025 11:32 |
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more like sebmodno because no
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i'm gonna mod sass the gently caress out of this thread. sebmojo is a big ol' butt
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too dome for the uniform, too blue for the brothers
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It all changed when they gave the sheriff a badge.
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I saw a bunch of new posts and thought, hey, maybe we got judgment and a new prompt but no just a bunch of goons
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yeah these dang goon judges so slow + bad
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hey if you're bored and wanna write there are always other options
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![]() ![]() So, this was a very good week for stories. So good that there are no DMs to be given. But even in a strong week one story has to be the weakest: Geth's Verdict of loss goes to No Gravitas for Two peas in a pod. On the positive side, we deliver a Divine Verdict of HM to the following: Or Something Like It by Djeser Sand Caught in the Laughs by flerp The Concrete Divide by Kenfucius the woman OR the fools who came to drink in the dark by Surreptitious Muffin and Change by Okua And that leaves to Supreme Verdict of the week's Win, which goes to Uranium Phoenix for The Arena
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dammit people. learn to spell judgment. the card even tells you how to spell it
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These were read in judgemode. I hope everyone remembers their title. Interesting thing, in a week that could have been a slog, there was actually not much egregious. Even the long ones were not bad. Weirdly enough, especially for a no-word-limit week, the most commonly recurring problem seemed to be too little exposition when it was actually warranted. Some of you took "show, don't tell" a little too seriously. Dropping the reader straight into a strange or nonobvious scenario can work, but probably not if you never give more than the vaguest hint about what's going on! Two peas in a pod This is just kind of odd. Too much pointless dialog, weird goofy narration that doesn't explain the situation at all, and an ending sentence that manages to pop a joke setup like a collapsing soufflé. med-low Change Uh, hmm. Story of a girl on a trip with with her friend she has a crush on*, wrestling with his getting married in a few months, then giving up on any hope of the two of them. I don't know. There's nothing wrong with this story grammatically, but it's all a kind of gray blandness. And there's really not much of a character arc to her, and certainly none to his. *(Or does she? It's all so oblique it's hard to tell, but if not, there's even less to this story.) Another judge just said it was a relationship with Susan instead, and in that case yeah, I can see things a bit more clearly. I still feel like this is too stingy with necessary clarifying details, though. Confused meh You Can’t Learn That On YouTube Hunting newbie loses to a fight with a pig. OK. It seems like from the concept you might be going for a comedy, but nothing funny happens, and it's not described in an entertaining way. It all just happens, all the prose is perfunctory, and the outcome is blatantly obvious. I actually just read a similar story by Jack London, To Build a Fire. Might be worth checking out to see what he does with it. Also meh Back to the Earth Not bad. Not sure exactly about the whole scenario, could use some more explanation of exactly what is going on. Tiny communal farm trying to be self-sufficient but unable to get off the ground and bleeding members, something something criminal trial. Manages to convince the guy after a short time being kidnapped...? med-high Or Something Like It All right, that was a nice story about fleshy umbilical puppet-people. A few minor usage errors here and there, but nothing egregious. Explained just enough about the scenario and didn't linger on unimportant details. high Sand Caught in the Laughs Nice little sketch, evocative. The ending is vague and it's hard to tell exactly what happened there, but I'm sure that was intentional. high Concrete Divide I figured from the word count this was going to be overly wordy, and it is. You can write a longer story in a no-limit prompt like this, obviously, but you didn't just do that. You used too many words to describe everything. I assume you're a new or recent entrant, because writing in limited-word weeks will help you improve economy of prose. quote:“Ah, he’s all right enough, Mick,” Kieran said, And lines like "The creeping paranoia within the Catholic communities in the aftermath of the civil rights protests grew more pervasive by the day" feel too obviously like "look at me, I did research!" And that ties back into the verbosity problem. Cutting words is a skill, and one I think you need to practice. Cut until it hurts, and then a little bit more. You might be able to cut your word count in half in a lot of places and still convey what you need, whether that's a plot beat or a world fact. The story structure itself is not bad. It made more sense once I realized that Mick and Kieran switched their positions over the course of the story. I'm bad with names, so I'm not sure that's your fault. What really held you back here was the execution. med-high Interrupted ![]() This is confusingly rendered and it took a second reading for me to figure out what is going on. Early on, is he at the apartment or at the hospital? I assume the latter is a flashback, but your writing makes it seem like it happens after the apartment. And you realize you switch to present tense at the end? More importantly, I have no idea what the ending means or why he's doing it. Yes, it's a callback to the opening, but so what? What is it and why does it matter? low the woman OR the fools who came to drink the dark Why is this an image Formatting? The [pre] code lets you preserve formatting. I really don't know how to compare this to the rest. It's all so vague and metaphorical I can hardly read it as a story. ?? The Sharing Economy Cool idea, Uber John Malkovich. Ended better than I was expecting from the twist, but I'm not sure about the whole story. Nothing about it really popped; maybe it's the narration, it being so matter-of-fact. You do enough to characterize Ren that I think it would be much stronger written in her voice. And a small quibble: the whole thing is told from Ren's POV, even if it's not in her voice, except in saying that Marlene showed Tom the O on her hand. Ren can't know that. It seemed jarring. med-high The Arena Now here's an example of a long story where the extra words and details aren't extraneous. Despite being as long as Concrete Divide, it was a much faster read. All the parts work together humming. Even if the ending is obvious from the first feather found, it was still a fun read. high God of War "seems to have dulled my resistance"? From a first-person narrator? You should know, you don't have to guess. In the Questions paragraph, you describe past events in the present tense. You're already writing in the present tense, you can use past for past, you don't even need to use past perfect like past tense stories do. OK, that's a cute story. Starts out seeming like it might be a kind of quiet testament, slowly turns into pulp anti-nazi action. med-high Crystallization That was nice, kind of elegant. Bit of a slow start, but I don't really have any nits to pick. high Hard To Blame Eve Nice little story. I'm not sure about the ending; it seems a bit farfetched that everyone would take trades constantly. Also, how often do these offers get made? med-high The Moon in Capricorn Ten bucks a day plus expenses is not much, especially for the 40s. Decent noir story, but not enough betrayals or conspiracies imo. For a noir, it's way too straightforward. And for all the magitech in society, it doesn't play out any differently than a standard gangsters and guns noir story. med War Cry Um. Smug woman defends self, wins court case. This is just bland, and if it's trying to make her look sympathetic, it doesn't. If it's trying to be a farce, well, it's not funny or insightful. med-low Backlash Hmm. The story was very obvious and the protagonist is basically a cipher, with only a sketch of backstory to give him any meat at all. He doesn't do anything interesting with an army of swarming chainsaw drones, just attacks the headquarters? Even his revenge is boring. med Funerals are for the Living This... isn't a story. Nobody here wants something and acts to achieve it. An adult takes in a child, I assume a relative, except oh no he doesn't he gets distracted on the way and stops in at work, which is a graveyard, the end. They don't even get home, the only thing that was supposed to happen, and not because they get waylaid or interrupted either. Everything is hanging unresolved at the end just as it was at the start, and nothing is explained. This feels like chapter 2 of a novel. I have no idea what happened or what will happen and I have no reason to care about these characters. I couldn't tell you a single thing about either one, besides the unexplained new guardianship. low Last orders please You do not use commas right, often. Eh. Not bad, but it didn't grab me. The humor didn't really hit me, and the plot is thin enough that the story doesn't really hang together as a worthwhile thing if it's not amusing. med Not Gone West I'm not sure why he's talking to the scarecrow. I guess it's kind of a displacement object, personifying his loss and despair. What exactly is going on at the end, why does she look at him hopefully when he laughs? This is trying to be a meditation on death and futility, I assume. But it doesn't land for me, and without that there's essentially nothing at all happening in the action of the story to make up for it. Med Fuschia tude fucked around with this message at 06:05 on Feb 14, 2017 |
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BeefSupreme posted:dammit people. learn to spell judgment. lol if u think we can spel
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If only Uranium Phoenix was as fast and good with their prompting as Fuschia tude was with their crits.
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did somebody say prompt?
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poetry is good
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dammit learn to spell pormpt
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BeefSupreme posted:dammit learn to spell pormpt
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its not even valentines day yet ur gonna get cursed
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i could use some bad luck and a prompt
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flerp posted:its not even valentines day yet ur gonna get cursed getting cursed by kissing flerp isn't a valentine's day special, it's a year-round deal
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Djeser posted:getting cursed by kissing flerp isn't a valentine's day special, it's a year-round deal lol if u think people kiss me
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speaking of years its been 17 dog years since our last prompt
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People stopped kissing Flerp after they realized he wasn't turning into a prince.
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Djeser posted:getting cursed by kissing flerp isn't a valentine's day special, it's a year-round deal Herpes Simplex A is a virus... not a curse...
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![]() Thunderdome Week #CCXXXVII: A Way for the Cosmos To Know Itself Science fiction is not really about predicting the future. It may occasionally seem to precede technology with concept, but it’s record of prediction is really just awful. It’s more of a way to explore things, like different ways people and society could be, investigate questions of ethics, and explore human nature.
Flash inspiration: Can’t think of something neat to base your extraterrestrial off of? Request a critter and I will give you a picture of some weird-rear end organism on Earth to inspire you. Use it! Or don’t. *** Deadlines: Signups close 11:59 PM Friday Pacific Time. Submissions close 11:59 PM Sunday Pacific Time. Judges: *Uranium Phoenix -sparksbloom -sebmojo Sentient Stardust: -flerp -Dr. Kloctopussy (with critter!) -SkaAndScreenplays (with toxx) -Thranguy (with critter!) -Jay W. Friks -SurreptitiousMuffin -BeefSupreme -Djeser (with toxx) -newtestleper (with toxx and critter!) -Okua (with critter!) -Obliterati -Metrofreak (with critter!) -Hawklad (with critter!) -a new study bible! (with critter!) -The Cut of Your Jib -Solitair (with critter!) -GenJoe -Twiggymouse -Deltasquid (with critter!) -Killer-of-Lawyers (with toxx) -Chernabog -llamaguccii (with toxx and critter!) Uranium Phoenix fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Feb 17, 2017 |
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in
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In and I want a critter
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not a rule, just a suggestion because I've judged similar weeks like, a solid half of the people are gonna write about Jesus being an alien trying to intercede in our development. Jesus, or Mozart, or Tesla etc etc if you write a story where a historical figure turns out to be an alien trying to intercede in humanity's development so as to help us elude the cataclysm that befell his own race, then the judges are gonna loving hate you
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Dr. Kloctopussy posted:In and I want a critter You get the peacock mantis shrimp!
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IN & ![]() I am very happy this prompt came up... (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) SkaAndScreenplays fucked around with this message at 08:01 on Feb 14, 2017 |
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:if you write a story where a historical figure turns out to be an alien trying to intercede in humanity's development so as to help us elude the cataclysm that befell his own race, then the judges are gonna loving hate you Also if aliens turn out to be responsible for almost all major technology and there's like an orb that just helps people invent cell phones and the internet I will send cyborgs to hunt you down irl.
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in and flash critter me.
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Alie-in
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:not a rule, just a suggestion because I've judged similar weeks cool i really appreciate the advice ![]()
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It's about time I got my loser portrait.
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Thranguy posted:in and flash critter me. You get Ophiocordyceps unilateralis (zombie fungus)! ![]()
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:not a rule, just a suggestion because I've judged similar weeks SEE ALSO: NO FANFICTION
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flerp posted:cool i really appreciate the advice in
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Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering. So sayeth Saint AugustINe.
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# ? Feb 17, 2025 11:32 |
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SkaAndScreenplays posted:IN & dont beg
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