THE REAL TYRANNOSAURUS posted:

hey look when i write an ending i do very much good. i learn lesson!

Baby Babbeh posted:

Thank you so much for the crit, Jitzu. That's helpful and I agree with most of what you wrote. I actually hadn't thought about Rose specifically presenting as a ghost but I really like that initial interpretation and will probably try to accentuate that in future revisions. I was kind of struggling to get a little bit more of Rose in there but it's kind of a balancing act. I think the story rests on it being somewhat vague and there being a lot of things left unsaid, but at the moment the characterization is a little bland and I think her last line comes off a little to glib because of it. I was running up against the word count but that's no excuse. Is there anything specifically you'd like to know about her after reading it?

sebmojo posted:

The Fiction Advice thread is the place to respond to crits.

docbeard posted:

Last Dance
1197 Words
Autumn Fire

“Look to the trees.”

The Queen spoke, and her voice carried above the chaos of the revels. Musicians faltered and fell silent, conversations died out mid-breath, until Janelle could hear nothing but the crackling of the bonfire at the heart of the clearing, and the rustling of leaves. Rustling without wind, and growing louder. Feels decently autumny and plants a medieval setting in my mind.

“My friends, the Earth gasps for breath.” A good line with strong implications. Janelle felt the tremor beneath her, the third this week, the fifth this month. A weaker follow-up. Five earthquakes in a month doesn't make me think calamity. One earthquake would be unusual for Virginia. Although I still don't think these imply the severity of the situation well enough, I very much like the incongruity you've created. Queen != Virginia, and that discrepancy immediately caught my interest the first time around. The last one had lasted for more than a minute. I swear I've worked through minor tremors of that length without noticing them. So as a shake-happy Californian, I haven't seen enough details to convince me that the earth really is dying. Although at this point I'm also not sure if this paragraph's opening statement was hyperbole. This one wasn’t stopping. Probably a stronger line without the previous bit: The current earthquake wasn't showing any signs of stopping. One of the Faeries brought forth in the Transfiguration, offered Janelle his arm, to steady her. Don't think you need either of those commas. I'm okay with the capitalizations, and I'm intrigued as at this point I can't tell if you're in Reality or Fantasy Land. She’d been dancing with him a moment ago. Both times I sort of skimmed past this. It's an important bit for the plotting, but it feels tacked-on. She didn’t know his name, nor the name of the otherworldly creature he’d offered himself up to for the night. Slightly clunky, although I really like the ideas it evokes. She took his arm, and leaned.

“Her time draws near,” the Queen, in her multicolored dress of leaves Nice detail., raised her hands to the sky. “But it has not yet come! Not even we shall escape Winter’s final embrace, but Winter has not yet come! Immortal shall taste death alongside our mortal kin, but our death has not yet come! When you start the sentence with Immortal I don't know that it's capitalized for distinction, so I think it's the adjective form. Maybe "We Immortals"?” With each verse of the litany, a cheer rose from the assembled, Transfigured and unchanged humans alike", and e" -> ". E"ven the earthquake waxed and waned in accordance with the rhythm of her speech. Janelle cheered with the rest Personal quibble: either the others or the rest of _____.. “We do not mourn! We do not fear! We do not die! Not tonight! Not this most blessed of nights! Tonight is for celebration! Tonight is for love! Tonight,” the Queen drew a deep breath, “is for life!”

“For life!” the revelers cried. As far as generic speeches go I can completely envision the crowd participating in this fashion.

The cheering stopped and the revels began anew. The quake waned, but didn’t die. Another more effective presentation of the ailments of the earth. Janelle felt like she was standing on the deck of a ship. “I wish her usual sermons had that kind of energy,” Janelle said to her once and future dance partner. Rough as foreshadowing, but for some reason the generally worn phrase "once and future" fits with the is-this-magical-or-realistic tension you've been building.

He looked at her in confusion, which gave way to understanding. “You mean the Queen’s mortal vessel,” he said. Here things start coming together.

“Sandra Welton,” Janelle said. “She preaches at Carter Mennonite, when your people aren’t in town. Do people really come from other towns just for this specific ceremony? I'd imagine that anywhere reasonably distant would have their own (or closer) version. Alternatively, I also like the idea which I inferred even though I don't think it's implied that there aren't a whole lot of people left on the planet, and this ball somehow represents a significant majority of them. I like her. She’s strong, and sincere, and I like the things she says, but she’s not like she is tonight. Which I guess is the point.” She leaned closer to him. “Can I ask you something?”

“Ask what you will,” he said.

“Do you think they should have told people that the world’s ending?” The announcements had gone out weeks ago. Jumping in with future-knowledge, this states that they'd only announced that the world would end recently. But this festival is something that has happened before. If they're having this festival, it's because they thought the world was going to end. But if they thought the world was going to end, then the announcement confirming what everyone believed would be unremarkable. The earthquakes, the storms, the early frost, all symptoms of something very wrong beneath the Earth’s surface. Seem like kind of minor symptoms for the end of the world. This would be Janelle’s last Hallowe’en I'm not fond of the archaic spelling., hers and everyone’s, and she probably wouldn’t see Christmas, or even Thanksgiving. “I wouldn’t have told people if I were in charge. Why let people worry about something they can’t change?” Again, I don't get the impression that the end of the world snuck up on anyone.

“Such answers are beyond my station, and I am happy for it,” the Faerie said with a laugh.

“Fair enough,” Secret pun if you read it aloud. Janelle said, and pulled away. At his confused expression, she said, “Sorry, it’s not you. I’m looking for someone specific. One of your people. And it doesn’t look like the world has seven more years, so there’s not going to be another Transfiguration. Why does this happen once every seven years? I'd expect people to toast to oblivion at least annually, if not more often. This is my last chance to find him.”

“Ah,” said the man. “And who is this lost love? I’m already jealous.”

“Don’t be. He’s my father,” Janelle said. In fact, looking at it closely, I get mildly frustrated that interesting setting with interesting social behavior is interrupted for played-out drama.

*

The Queen was toasting marshmallows on a sharpened stick when Janelle found her. I like that the queen is frivolous. “Come, daughter, join me. Bring the chocolate and the crackers. We must time this correctly!” A passer-by And that she's not very important. handed her a package of graham crackers and a bar of chocolate without any further bidding from the Queen, and Janelle stepped forward. The ground lurched and she stumbled, but didn’t fall. She hadn’t expected to get near the Queen at all If the queen's station is so informal that a passer-by, as opposed to a servant, hands her the crackers, then why would Janelle think her unapproachable?, hadn’t thought her dance partner’s suggestion of enlisting her help was a good idea. She just didn’t have any better ones. If she's that hard-up for ideas I don't believe she's been thinking very hard. Perhaps this quest isn't terribly important to her the character, just like it's not terribly important to me the reader and it may've been secondary for you the author as well.

She certainly hadn’t expected to be standing here now, making s’mores with the Transfigured Queen of Faerie. How is the queen picked? I have, and like, the notion that she just declared herself and the other local townsfolk went along with it, since people sensed that the world was going to end anyway. But there are some contradicting specifics in your story. “The timing is not so terribly important,” the Queen whispered, as though sharing a great secret. Again, I like her whimsicality, especially given her supposed import and the gravity of the planetary situation. “But it pleases me to think it is. Hold out the crackers. There. One marshmallow for you, and one for me, and thus are bargains struck and bargains fulfilled.” Not sure what the last bit means but also fine not knowing. Still adds flavor.

“Thank you?” Janelle said. Glad the protagonist doesn't know either. She couldn’t think of how to broach the subject of her father.

“You are welcome, daughter,” the Queen said. “Do you know why we come among you at Summer’s end and leave before Winter’s rise?” She took a bite of her s’more and continued speaking. Queens apparently didn’t have to be polite. “Look to the trees. In the time of their death, they burst forth with one last, blazing gasp of life. Eucalyptus? But I didn't think they burned annually. And I don't know if they're in Virginia. As my twice-as-old D&D buddy used to say, "You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think." They are not slaves to the Summer, and they are not cowed by the Winter. We who never die, That's a stumbly comma. will never live. To walk among you at this time of last life is as close as we can come.”

“But you’ll die along with us, That comma could go, too. this time,” Janelle said. “Everything’s going to die.”

For a moment, she saw something in the other woman. Not a mythic, regal figure, and not a rural Virginia preacher, but someone young and fragile and scared. A good line for showing that this is indeed serious. More effective than the previous dialogue, anyway. And determined. Admirable human quality. “Yes. All the more reason, then. The past is gone, the future will be the death of us all too soon. But tonight, we will live before we die.” The Queen smiled at her. “But come, you have questions for me.”

Janelle had never met her father. She only had her mother’s stories of the Faerie she’d met three Transfigurations, Whoa, comma! ago. A doomed, tragic romance, I like those words even if they're Telling. the man who could only be with the woman he loved one night every seven years. Not sure why they couldn't stay in touch afterward. I think even at masquerades people exchange cell-phone numbers. Then don't call them. Except that twenty-one years had passed, and he hadn’t sought out her mother, or her, not once. Meh. She had no idea what he looked like, who he was, what he valued. She knew him only by his absence, by the hole he had made in her past. So her mom did a bad job of raising her? I'm not too fond of the cultural influences which compel people to find their biological parents. And in my (indirect, anecdotal) experience, the kids who had good adoptive parents growing up don't terribly care about their sperm/egg donors. And certainly the numerous third-hand stories I've heard about people actually catching up to the folk that abandoned them never end like in fantasy. No sympathy here. Tonight, whatever it held, was too important to waste on him. Then why has she wasted this much of tonight on him? “I think you’ve answered my question, your Majesty. Thank you for sharing your marshmallows with me.”

*

“Dance with me till sunrise.” Janelle hadn’t expected to find her old dance partner again But you said "future" earlier!, but she spotted him in the crowd, and before she knew what she was doing, she made her way to him.

“Until the end of the world,” he said with a laugh. I guess it's the denial because the situation really is inevitable that I like about this story. There's no obvious reason to continue on with life, but people are being festive and vital out of, well, humanity. He put an arm around her waist as the ground bucked beneath them. “If we can keep our footing that long. Did you find him then? Your lost father?”

“No,” Janelle said. She smiled. “Your Queen was very helpful, but I didn’t find him. And he never tried to find me.”

“Ah,” he said, and Janelle knew he didn’t understand, or particularly care. Nor did I particularly care. Nor did you? He was happy to see her, and for tonight, that would be enough. “Then he is a fool.”

“Forget him. I don’t want to think about him,”

“Then what do you want?” he asked.

“What everyone here wants.” She looked him in the eyes, and leaned closer to him. “To live before I die.” I'm tired of this piece at this point. The last scene doesn't add any unexpected/interesting information, and builds on the plotty points of the story that I didn't much care for anyway. I like that:
* The world is ending.
* People are celebrating in a civil fashion; not rioting.
* They're indulging in elaborate fantasies.
The social aspects are more interesting to me than the personal drama. I don't care for any of the specific characters, but I like the scene and I'm interested by the group.

Djeser posted:

It’s About Them
1073 words

Chris and Elisa met in the statue garden at college. They sat and shared their notes and went to lecture with grass stains on their pants. They came each day to talk. First they talked about class, then about themselves, and then about each other. I'm fine with the rushed exposition. It sets the tone for some sort of relationship drama and doesn't waste much time, although it's not immediately engaging like people seem to favor these days. As the school year went on, they sat closer together, and began to whisper so the statues wouldn’t hear. Now I'm suspicious. No one knew if you could still hear as a statue At this point there are a whole host of ideas blossoming in my mind; the predominant one is that there's some sort of ~virus that petrifies people. I suppose a vague whiff of one of the more "recent" Song of Ice and Fire books come to mind, if recent can be applied to any works by that fella., but like any two people in love, they felt love was the greatest secret they’d ever discovered. This is a pleasant insight about the human condition. I was interested in the setting after the first half of this sentence, and I am developing empathy for the main characters by its close. They didn’t want to share it with anyone, living or statue. Cute.

The next semester, they had class in a different lecture hall. I think it's because the petrification disease spreads slowly, so it's safe to be around the statues for a while but eventually those territories must be abandoned. They didn’t sit in the statue garden any more, but to Elisa, the two of them were always there, surrounded by sphinxes and angels and the last dreams of dying people. So "the last dreams of dying people" is not a pretty thing in my mind on first read. Tragic and beautiful, although only to a slight degree, since I don't know any of the general people mentioned and the petrification is clearly not a cause for concern, whatever its cause. It also feels a little forced that her image of them is always stuck in that garden. Was the first semester of the relationship really that much better? You imply (or tell; I come to understand) later that the statues are like a heaven/imprisonment, but at this point the sentiment is unexpected and incomprehensible. To Elisa, there was only one way this could end. Foreshadowing and such, but it still doesn't make emotional/logical sense. Even on the second read.

Marriage seemed like nothing. Of course they’d get married. I revert back to fast-forward mode, which is acceptable. Elisa never brought up kids; she assumed they’d be gone too soon to take care of kids. I still think it's involuntary. When college ended, they got jobs. Elisa took her engineering job easy. Maintains a vaguely dreamlike quality about the story: she's gone through half of her life and hasn't really taken any of it seriously yet. Chris attacked his graphic design job with a determination, like he wanted a career, like it actually mattered now. There's nothing to make me suspect he did or did not take things seriously previously. So there's no impact from contradiction. All I get is that he's in opposition to her outlook. No one got a career, no matter how many blogs and magazines complained about the young adults of “the new stone age”.

Elisa didn’t worry about Chris’s determination. They were going to have a great vacation for their last year, then become a pair of statues. That's what she thinks, but I never expected it to be true. Somewhere on the Mediterranean coast, she imagined. It was one of the most popular places for people to get petrified. Who pays for these things? I should probably save the various questions this story raises for the end.

She didn’t remember what started the conversation that ruined everything. Something about planning for their last-year vacation.

“I don’t want to get petrified,” he said.

Elisa’s father was thirty-two when he had gone statue. That was typical now. Her grandfather had been sixty-something before he finally gave in from fear of dying. He had been one of the old guard, the people who still treated statues as a disease. They were almost invariably elderly, conservative, or both. Chris was neither, so what he was saying made no sense. You say that this is what's going on, but there's not enough in this story to make me believe it, and that really hurts this piece. I've got no trouble accepting that somebody came up with a technology to lock you into your favorite fantasy for all eternity, but I don't buy that healthy people are doing it in their early thirties.

“You mean you don’t want to do it with me?” she asked. Italicize the "with", or italicize the "me", but I'm not sure what she's angry about (timing or companion) when you italicize both. Elisa’s cheeks were warm Embarrassed or angry? and she gripped the pen she had in her hands. Weak description. "and she squeezed her pen." Or something that doesn't imply that her having a pen bears any relevance.

He shook his head. “I don’t want to do it at all.”

“But why? We’d be together,” she said. That should have been enough for him. Can't understand her line of thinking, and there wasn't much since the opening paragraph that garnered my empathy for her, so her objection doesn't make a lot of sense but I also don't care.

“As statues, though. There’s more than half of our lives left. I’m not calling it quits. I’m not going to be a statue,” he said. I agree with him, but only in a no-duh kind of way.

Elisa sat down next to him and put her arm around his shoulder. She was still angry, but her anger had no target. There was no girl who’d led him astray. Is she really that shallow? Foreverdeath without you is fine, as long as nobody else is involved? There was only Chris, and she couldn’t be mad at him for being himself. Like much about her, this obsession feels out-of-place. Or contrived.

“It’s not calling it quits. It’s like a dream, that’s what they say,” she said.

“One dream, forever. That’s it. What if I don’t like it?” He looked into her eyes. He can't be the first guy to ask those questions. And surely they have Science. This is being presented both as a magical new phenomena (with how she's reacting to it) but also something that's been going on pervasively for generations. There really shouldn't be confusion about what happens. Or there shouldn't be so many people doing it. She tried to find the answers for him.

“It’s going to be exactly what you like. Everyone who was scared, all that stuff years ago--they just didn’t understand. It’s heaven. It’s whatever you want most,” she said. Those aren't the very powerful descriptive words of one who is convinced. Brainwashed, maybe, but not convinced.

“I don’t want to be one thing forever. Even if it’s some amazing fantasy, I don’t want that. I want new things. We’re twenty-eight. We shouldn’t be dying,” he said.

Elisa pressed the side of her body against Chris. “It’s not dying,” she said.

Chris settled his face against the side of her head. “It might as well be.”

It was three weeks before Elisa moved out. It was months before she managed to move on. She had spent a third of her life with him.

But she did move on. Richard was easier and more relaxed than Chris, and he wasn’t afraid to talk about what would happen when they went statue. Back on fast forward and at this point I'm really not sure what the focus of the story is. It's kinda on her but it's kinda on them but it's kinda on ideology? When they talked, they were wistful, remembering life, looking forward to becoming stone. Talking with Richard was peaceful and free and resigned compared to talking with Chris. Perhaps some of the vaguely-dreamlike quality from reading this story comes from the heavy amount of hasty telling. I'm not against it, per se, but it doesn't draw someone in, and I don't know that there were enough other merits to make this a story I'd consider worth my time in the wild.

There was no one she’d rather get petrified with more than Richard, but when she thought of them together, she only thought of the statues they’d be. There weren’t any memories of the two of them with the smell of grass mowed that morning, backs against the hedges, talking about nothing for hours between classes. Chris filled her life as a human, but she would be a statue soon. She’d have to put him behind. I like this sentiment, although the presentation is rather dry. The core idea of even failed relationships being an important part of the narrative of our lives and therefore to be cherished is a decent one, but it's only just barely glanced upon. This is the second thing that almost engenders empathy in me, but she's already described as too alien for it to take root in me.

Elisa and Richard’s last-year vacation took them around Europe. It ended in a quiet abbey in Scotland that offered space to prospective statues. They went on a tour, admiring the statues of those who’d already come here, then found a comfortable alcove by a window to sit and wait for it to come.

It started as a fever that flashed through her. It struck her nerves and made her heart pound. Her thoughts began to topple away. The edges of her mind spilled open. Every idea spun out of control, whirling into nothing. Her body felt lighter than air as it started to harden. Richard stood, holding her, as white marble blotched across her skin. There's decent intensity in these words, especially given the context of the rest of the story. Her jeans draped into a translucently carved dress and marble armor slid from Richard’s shirt. Another bit of interesting lore. That was the last she knew before she folded into the statue-dream with Richard. Which hasn't been confirmed outside of hearsay?

The years had hardly touched Elise by the time Chris caught up with her. She was a princess, held by a knight, tucked into an abbey and lit by the afternoon sun.

“It doesn’t even look like her,” he said.

Taylor stood beside him. She and Chris had already visited her ex along the Côte d'Azur. Seems like a kind of weird thing to do, but more palatable than the general premise. “It’s what she wanted to look like,” she said.

Chris said, “I know. It’s about them, in the end. Making sure they’re happy.”

“Now what about making sure we’re happy?” she asked.

Chris rested a hand on Taylor’s side and pulled her close. He’d seen Elise off. Now he could focus on life. So he couldn't focus on life during however much time he'd spent with Taylor up to this point? That's not generally how relationships as I know them end. People move on and hopefully wish well for each other, but don't feel responsible for their future any longer.

“There’s a bar in town, isn’t there?” he asked.

Taylor was never as soft and thoughtful as Elise, but she held onto life just as tightly as Chris did. At the beginning of the new stone age, that was all he could ask for. Uh so maybe the story's about these people, then? Muddled.

sebmojo posted:

The Hammer and the Muffin

Lets keep this fast and dirty; 800 words, a love story on a speeding train, no-one may speak. 21 Nov, high noon PST.

Sitting Here posted:

ALL HANDS ON DECK

It's been brought to my attention that Thunderdome has lost its perfect gold thread rating.

It's time to rise. Your day has come. Gather your wit, your will, your luck and your power, and go forth! And rate the thread a 5.

History will thank you.

Remember, Thunderdome loves you, and you love Thunderdome. If you see something, say something. Friends don't let friends vote TD down.

ZeBourgeoisie posted:

I rated the thread five and brought it back to gold. Just to test, I temporarily changed my rating to three and it went back down to four.

Long live the dome!

Sitting Here posted:

Cash-Bro Brawl

I want you to tell me, in 2000 words, due by November 21st at midnight PST, a story inspired by the concept of social capital. Cache Cab, you will have to use your imagination because you'll never know what it's like to have social capital.

Remember, this is a . If either of you fail to submit, your name will forever be stricken from the book of goon. At least until you cough up :tenbux:

sebmojo posted:

Hammer the Muffin

fast dirty judgment alright these were both p tight and fun to read so neither of you beshitted yourself, good details, imaginative, narrative propulsion ect ect but in one the love story was front and centre and the other it was sort of abstract now i gotta say muffin takes the prose crown, no surprises there coz motherfucker got chops but really its just just a set of amusing incidents innit and the love story is scuppered by having the story be one that happens to him rather than them so though martello needs to work through his info dump addiction poss w/ professional help imma give the brawl to him now hit the showers you two you're covered in loving lymph

JUDGMENT: MARTELLO

Broenheim posted:

The "Hey, I Should Probably Write A Story An Hour Before It's Due" Brawl Entry vs. Cache Cab (Seriously Cache Cab if you submit, you will probably win)

Words: 1148

The worst story to ever win a brawl

blue squares posted:

blue squares posted:

Broenheim posted:

Next week I'm actually going to have time to write, so I'll have enough time to whoop your rear end kid.

Brawl me, for realz.

(Also, I'd rather have some of my brawl wins not be wins by default).

blue squares posted:

I was just kidding. Maybe I'll take you on sometime. I got assigned a goddamn 2500 word horror story for my current brawl.