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In. I need more reason to write.
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Feb 26, 2014 05:53
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I wrote Fire-Girl. I would like a longer crit on my story.
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Mar 4, 2014 01:48
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"In," she snuffled, remembering that time she was allergic to cats.
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Mar 4, 2014 07:44
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Fifty-Yard Dash (422 words) http://writocracy.com/thunderdome/?story=1787&title=Fifty-Yard+Dash Nethilia fucked around with this message at 04:43 on Dec 30, 2014 |
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Mar 9, 2014 22:32
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In for this week.
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Mar 11, 2014 02:09
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Katy’s Doll (998 words) http://writocracy.com/thunderdome/?story=1820&title=Katy%5C%27s+Doll Nethilia fucked around with this message at 08:21 on Dec 4, 2014 |
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Mar 16, 2014 13:23
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Peas and Carrots 104 words It was the easiest part of Sunday Speech Dinner. Mom had conjured an entire ham with perfect honey glaze and pineapple slices. Dad had made out pillowy mounds of mashed potatoes and butter-drenched cornbread dressing. Sis had whipped up a perfect strawberry rhubarb pie. Even my three-year-old brother had managed to speak clearly enough to create the butter biscuits. It’d be the first time I’d get to participate since the Mice Cream incident. I just had to say two words over the table and dinner would be served. When the swarm rose up—covered in carrots—I knew I was in trouble again.
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Mar 18, 2014 03:29
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In.
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Mar 18, 2014 08:53
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Letters from Elsewhere (1179) http://writocracy.com/thunderdome/?story=1870&title=Letters+from+Elsewhere Nethilia fucked around with this message at 08:22 on Dec 4, 2014 |
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Mar 24, 2014 01:08
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Display, Don’t Play (120) Mom caught me just as I’d gotten the pink sequined dress on the red-headed dolly; it’d been a tight fit. “What are you doing?” she shrieked, snatching the doll out of my hand. “Playing.” She shook the doll at me before realizing she’d done so. “You know better than to go into my storage cabinet!” “It’s just the hallway closet,” I grumbled, watching her start sorting out the many containers I’d pulled down. She’d probably be there for hours “fixing” her doll collection. I didn’t understand why she just let her dollies sit stuffed away like that, in Ziploc bags, with little white labels like “1969 Bubble” and “74 Malibu”. Some weren’t even out of the box. Parents were weird.
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Mar 25, 2014 01:32
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In.
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Mar 25, 2014 23:22
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Scrubbing the Evidence (1001) http://writocracy.com/thunderdome/?story=1937&title=Scrubbing+the+Evidence Nethilia fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Dec 30, 2014 |
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Mar 30, 2014 16:03
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Just as Important Thanks for the “tip” on your hundred-dollar dinner charge, Reverend Strump, but my kids can’t can eat Eternal Salvation for lunch.
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Apr 1, 2014 00:27
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In for this week, to glory or to failure.
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Apr 8, 2014 22:48
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Ignorance is Bliss (770) http://writocracy.com/thunderdome/?story=2001&title=Ignorance+is+Bliss Nethilia fucked around with this message at 08:24 on Dec 4, 2014 |
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Apr 13, 2014 22:54
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I'm actually awake before 1 pm, which can be a good thing or a bad thing. First three people who ask get crits from me. More might be offered depending on how those go. ETA: Doing em for crabrock, Starter Wiggin, and Grandmaster.flv As suggested, you'll get them post judgement. Nethilia fucked around with this message at 20:04 on Apr 14, 2014 |
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Apr 14, 2014 18:20
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 Thunderdome LXXXIX: We Don’t Need No Water, Let The drat Roof Burn I won this poo poo? How the entire gently caress? This kind of situation calls for a party. So that’s what your story is going to be about. Write me a story about a party. Birthday, wedding reception, wake, college shenanigans, house party, house party two, pajama-jammy-jam, “praise God I didn’t shoot my foot off while hunting,” whatever. As long as there’s a gathering of people showing up at one location celebrating or doing something. Plus, there must be the following in every story: Fire. Water. Grass. Interpret that poo poo as thou wilt. Word Count: 1200 to make me rue my entire college career. No fanfic, no erotica, and for extra “don’t do that poo poo” poo poo, don’t write about drugs. (Liquor being the only exception). Or do, but have your word count cut in half. You got until 11:59 p.m. PST Friday—that’s “Good” Friday—to inform me I’m gonna be reading your crazy word splatters, and until 11:59 p.m. Sunday – that’s the end of Zombie Jesus Day—to throw said word splatter on the wall for me to stare cock-eyed at and wish I’d never majored in English. Party Hosts: Nethilia Some Guy TT sebmojo Party Goers: Djeser crabrock leekster Hocus Pocus Turtlicious QuoProQuid WeLandedOnTheMoon! Starter Wiggin curlingiron kurona_bright Noah Chairchucker Erogenous Beef Jonked Sir Azrael Kalyco tenniseveryone The News at 5 Bushido Brown Drunk Nerds Grandmaster.flv Cache Cab Jeep nickmeister Whalley Thalamas Gau  PootieTang Mercedes Entenzahn (Flash Rule: Your party is a birthday party for a child under the age of five. The story is from their viewpoint.)GlassLotus itsgotmetoo Fumblemouse Grizzled Patriarch Maultaschen Kaishai Walamor Phobia Nethilia fucked around with this message at 03:53 on Apr 21, 2014 |
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Apr 15, 2014 02:33
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crabock Crit:crabrock posted:Get What’s Coming Weakest Link: All these people are talking and while I know they're Tom's family after he kicked it, they could use some tags on who's chattering over who. If you were going for chatter/faceless family mass/cacophony, it didn't come through and more came off like confusing. There is a lot of mystery "they" doing stuff. The last lines are also sort of "...and that's it?" He drove back home. ....and? And what after that? The last line sort of meanders towards nothing. Strongest Chain: Love the descriptions of the tree especially the wrecked bills. Loving the part where Alex knew more about how Tom wouldn't have died from leaving a smoked cigarette to burn, though the "and smiled" wasn't needed. Definitely conveys that Alex knows more about Tom than anyone in his family. Picky Bitch poo poo: My eye gets twitchy when numbers under one hundred aren't typed out. Same with things being explained out that aren't needed for a short story. We've only got so many words; there's ways to tighten up explanations of sliced apples and why the lemon tree is short. Use contractions: for example, "I am thankful for the time I spent with him, and for the gifts he has already given me." reads really stiff and formal. Alex comes in a touch late for the story shifting to him as the focus character. I would've rather seen it all from Alex's side and maybe have Tom's part of how the tree grew and all that told while they processed the money. Speaking of the money, does it grow any other denominations of money? Overall: There have been many a story about growing money from trees, but I liked this one more than most I've read--I was grabbed from the first line even though I could see that the money was going to grow into trees. Solid, but could use some precision in spots and really be tighter in others. I think a better ending line would be moving the part about processing the bills ("None of them had ever been present to watch Tom process the bills.") to be the last line. That would more convey that Alex knew that the growing money would be worthless to anyone without knowing what to do to it, and add a punch.
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Apr 17, 2014 03:46
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Entenzahn posted:Requesting a punitive flash rule Nethilia fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Apr 17, 2014 |
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Apr 17, 2014 21:57
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Less than three hours to sign up! ETA: Grizzled Patriarch posted:Welp, I failed to submit anything my very first time in the dome. It won't happen again. In. THUNDERDOME posted:People who sign up and then don't post a story are the worst kind of people. So you and any other skip outs throwing a on that or just gonna sit there like that. I know it ain't official but...
Nethilia fucked around with this message at 04:23 on Apr 19, 2014 |
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Apr 19, 2014 04:12
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And signups are so closed!
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Apr 19, 2014 07:09
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You chucklemucks have THREE HOURS to party before the cops break it up.
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Apr 21, 2014 04:01
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 Cheese it, it's the cops! Entries closed!
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Apr 21, 2014 07:09
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Results of the 89th Thunderdome, The Party Games Having spent an evening reading jumbles of words and unable to drink to blur the pain, let’s do this. Pin the Tail On the WINNER: curlingiron wrote a touching story about a group of gamers dealing with one of the loss of their own. Double honor for making this D&D-despising judge love this D&D story more than any other she's ever read. Bravo. I pass the party hat to you. Party On, HONORABLE MENTION: We Landed On The Moon, despite the initial formatting wince on my personal end, wrote something touching about people facing down the end of the world and made the formatting work. That's how you play with words. Entenzahn took a flash rule and made it shine, writing about a kid who wanted that cake and didn't get it with a hilarious ending line. Erogenous Beef wrote a party blowing up (literally) that rolled with lots of good description and riveted from start to end. DISHONORABLE MENTION, Next Time Bring Chips: PootieTang didn't go anywhere or say anything, despite many words about warriors. Sir Azrael also went absolutely nowhere with cardboard characters and ended on a weed joke. Hocus pocus wrote political fanfic and by all rights should be DQed. Boo. LOSER who Pissed in the Punchbowl: Drunk Nerds wrote some weird rear end poo poo about a valet stalking a director, doing weird poo poo to get his screenplay read, and then getting pissed because his writing was poo poo. You don’t get any cake. A special failing call-out for Cache Cab. A hint for future trick writing. If your special snowflake formatting makes it so a judge can’t read the story, don’t further compound it by not leaving any text that can be read. As soon as the middle image started pulsing I got so sick I almost threw up. Congrats, you pulled a judge that’s photosensitive. Dis-loving-qualified. Get out my house. You'll get your quick paragraph crits over the course of the week, and if you want longer ones you can ask after they're up. Now someone clean up this mess.
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Apr 22, 2014 14:16
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Wise Fool crits for Grandmaster.flv and Starter Wiggin, with Party Week #1 coming down the chute later this evening.Grandmaster.flv posted:fuckin' lol next time I'm not writing scifi because I spent too loving long worldbuilding. Also this is my first entry ever and I am garbage at writing dialogue but no excuses. Weakest Link: First of all, you bounced from POV to POV. "She" to "I" to "she." Don't loving do that in a short story. Pick one view or the other, especially when the POV shift is applying to the same drat character. I see no wise fools, unless it's girl with one-off name. Or the guy in the apartment with his fruit bowl? Fssh. There's a lot of wordbarf that try to scream "this is the FUTURE" but it is wholly unneeded. The story came to a weak confrontation that ended with a katana, of all things. Strongest Chain: In this story the strongest chain is made of baby spit and wet gum. That is, there ain't one. If there was I couldn't see it past the drat SHIFTS. Picky Bitch poo poo: "When you use dialog," she said, "you put commas and periods inside the quotation marks." She dug into the citrus fruit with her fingers. "Yes, even at the end of the sentence. And yes, even when the paragraph is over. If you don't do this, your writing is poo poo to read. It's basic high school grammar, for gently caress's sake." Overall: Don't write like this. The characters were weak and barely distinguishable. There were a lot of words wasted on poo poo I didn't give a gently caress about--all that "worldbuilding" wasn't needed in a story that should have been 1200 words max. Worst of all, the story meandered to a clichéd ending that didn't even make anything happen. #### Starter Wiggin posted:Truth and Beauty Bombs Weakest Link: The part where we go into his headspace for wanting to set things on fire/blow things up is a slow drag between the actual stuff happening. Weave it in. Strongest Chain: I like the part about why he's doing this. I just don't feel like it was in the right space. Picky Bitch poo poo:There are lot of clunky sentences that jar my reading. Also, that citrus tie-in was weaksauce. Is he the wise fool? Cause to me he's just blowing poo poo up for the thrill, and that's crazy as poo poo but that's not foolish. Overall: Like the premise, don't like the execution. Middle of the road.
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Apr 23, 2014 00:28
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First round of Crits. This is a mix of “initial impressions” and “second read-through post judging.” Ten at a time. ##### Cache Cab - The Last Birthday Party Party: I’m assuming from the title--the only thing I could read--that it’s a birthday party. FIRE WATER GRASS (FWG): I can’t loving tell. Two boys are at an arcade birthday party and either took drugs or got injected or whatever, I don’t know. I can’t read past the blurry center. Not won’t, can’t. I will reiterate. I’m photosensitive and the pulsing image made me sick to the point I could not look at any screens for about twenty minutes before reading on. If your writing can’t hang on its own words, “creative” formatting doesn’t save it. And if you wanted me to read this, you would have left TEXT like WLOTM did. Take everything I said here and in my judging and go sit in the corner. 0/10. ##### GlassLotus - Where the Pine Trees Grow Party: Coronation FWG: Fiery dress, lake, leaves and plants. Girl fights with family. She runs off to a place she knows and stumbles into a fairy coronation for a queen who lost her sister. However, through the magic of memory loss she won’t remember any of it, and thus will go back to fighting again. It took a long time to get to anything happening. There's only so many words to go with this style of writing, and the more spent on backstory and descriptions and "they go camping here every year" he less spent on story. Lots of tell don’t show. What irritated me most about this story is the part where Zoe won't remember any of this and so will revert to bickering. It's weak, and means there's no change in Zoe at all. Not every story has a change come through for the protagonist, but the Queen literally talks to her about how bickering with her sister led to her loss and then doesn't let her remember, so what was the point? It makes for a weak ending with an unchanged protagonist. If Zoe wasn't going to remember, at least let her remember the feeling, or have something more vague about her forgetting instead of a flat out telling. I did like quite a bit of the description--a lot of it was great--but in this kind of story, you want to cut the description for plot and character. This is one of my middles. 5/10. ##### Turtlicious - The Spider, the Tiger, and The Lions Party: Wedding celebration - wait no, it’s D&D! FWG: Fire whip and fire mages, allusion to water spots in the desert (had to hunt for it,) ???/the mead? Was there Grass? You start with a lot of descriptions of a wedding and a bunch of names that likely should mean something but don't. That part where Theif goes "boring"? Yeah, I agreed. Then you went to suddenly going “ice,” in the middle of the whole thing, which jarred the entire poo poo out of me. Don't throw your reader out of the story. Tons of Creative Talking--or what many people call saidisms--and Creative Acting, with a bunch of characters just being tossed out at me rapid fire. Then the gotcha ending told me that that this was a D&D thing--“gotcha! This is the real party!” The story in the story didn’t carry itself well, and the framing device made me groan out loud. The only thing worse to me personally than watching people play D&D is reading about or listening to people playing D&D. You have to really make it work, and you didn't. This didn't read like a story, this read like a recap of a gaming session. 4/10. ##### Drunk Nerds - Chameleon Man Loser Party: lol those Hollywood types always hanging out FWG: Drinking water moved around, setting Director on fire, landing in the dirt? Valet person not invited to party has a screenplay they want Director to read because OMG it's the Best! S/he ties their apron on like a cape, goes "what would Character Do" and sneaks his/her way in using a lot of convoluted crap based on Chameleon Man, the star of his/her screenplay. Finally s/he shows director his screen play after many animated wacky actions. It's befouled and told it’s poo poo. Screw you director! Time to throw the car over a cliff. I’m annoyed by the story in ways you can’t fathom. Wacky Writer Protagonist does all this Wacky Crap like a comic book cliche and then after getting a no for stalking the Director and playing a weak practical joke, s/he throws the car off for an ending that basically leads to a stupid revenge car destruction. A lot of buildup coming to a pissy ending. I will waste no more time on this muck. 2/10. ##### Chairchucker - Zoning Issues Party: Yep, that's a Party. FWG: Pool, Fireworks/wood-fired pizza, lawn Girl holds a party with the bouncer being her Literal Robot Servant. She prevents one guy coming in because she had a thing with him and this led to her and her friend having a falling out. After said boy is gone, Girl laments that her friend and her are not friends, and Literal Butler takes that as an opportunity to pull a Robo ex Machina and bring her to the party, leading to an awkward reconciliation. The fancy talk from Gabby threw me into eyerolls until I realized Gabby was being a pretentious bitch, then I was down for it. I was jarred by the bolding for the robot. Different formatting would have been better. The whole issue between friends was way too easily resolved with a few lines, and way too much time was spent on Casper being driven off and not enough on Katie and Gabby reconciling. But other than the pacing being off for me, this was a good story. I just think it could have used more of one thing and less of the other. 6/10 ##### Thalamas - Only One Brother Party: Funeral FWG: Rain, Firey Gas Lights, wet dirt. Dead Man’s Brother and brother’s widow think about how brother was an alcoholic woman-beater and they’ve been affair-having behind his back, and then one of the brothers dies and the “dead one” comes back to life and there sure are a lot of brothers. I like back and forth time-views, so checkmark in your corner. But part of the fun of my reading back and forth views is that I'm able to tell people apart. When it's all jumbled it's not a back-and-forth, it's a goopy mess. This was super hampered by a lot of “euphemism names” that made it hard for me to figure our which brother was which. You needed to distinguish who was who; "The younger brother" wasn't articulated before that statement was ever used. It took me four reads to realize that one brother was the poisoned one, the Widow was having an affair with someone else, and someone else pushed his brother in the gave and Killed Him For Drama before the Poisoned One came back to life--they didn't really check him to make sure he was dead, did they? There was a lot of filler that could have been cut down. 5/10. ##### Gau - December 21, 1983 Party: CRAZY SHENANIGANS FWG: Lawn/flipped plant/flower beds, Cigarette fire and bonfire, some guy has a water hose in his pants. Hank had a party that got, as we say in the hood, to’ up from the flo’ up. He surveys the damage in repulsive, graphic detail. He plans to set his house on fire, but pussies out and one of the party goers’s cigs does it for him. Death for all. Let me introduce you to a video called "Beginning, Middle, End" that aired on Sesame Street. The relevant thirty seconds? "Every story has a beginning, middle and an end. And when it's over we can go back and tell it all again." There was nothing in this story. Nothing happened. There are a lot of descriptions of body fluids and people still there and a bunch of broken poo poo and some fat guy and his penis and really disgusting details smeared everywhere including someone loving a water hose. Repulsed is a feeling I guess. Hank has no agency whatsoever. We could have replaced him with a paper mannequin; about the only thing he decides to do he pussies out on. Be glad there were stories worse than yours. 3.5/10 ##### Whalley - Dr Party, PhD. Party: Science experiment party FWG: Cigs, booze, and fake flowers? Maybe. Scientist wants to prove time travel through partying. He invites a group of fellow scientists to come help him run the experiment. It's a success! He makes it big. Interesting premise, but odd execution. The descriptions of the professors was lavish--and then became nothing as they were changed out of their clothes and mushed into the party never to be seen again, and we only saw Scruffy briefly. You know what would have helped for the professors? NAMES. I like names to tell people apart. Even bad nicknames would have helped me tell people apart. My eyes glaze over "The scruffy professor" in a way that "Scruffy" wouldn't have had happen. Question: Why was the door locked? It didn't add anything. The ending paragraphs were nice to show the results of the experiment, but they were like a weak epilogue after the good drive of the story. Especially that last line. Don't end things like that. 6/10. ##### Erogenous Beef - Keeping Score HM Party: New Years Eve party turns into Nuclear annihilation. FWG: Fireworks (and how!), charred/wrecked lawn, canned water. Pranks back and forth between a Russian ambassador and an American result in all out nuclear war. Yuri and John make it through by actually believing each other and going to the bomb shelter in time. A few pranks continue post bombing, but one makes John think Yuri is gone until he gets out to survey the damage. That sobers both of them into ending the prank war and not keeping score any more. The opening line was like biting into a fresh apple, and the story just kept getting better from that first dive in. Dialogue was the strong part of this story; I love good dialogue. The descriptions sank me well into the story, especially the description of how the bombs rattled the. I like that John kept the pranks up all the way until he thought Yuri was gone, and that action making John actually worry was beautiful. The detail about the silhouettes on the wall and John realizing his buddies argued in their last minutes? That is how you convey a lot of detail in a few words. There’s a few weak spots, but I liked this one a lot. I had it slotted to win, but curlingiron just edged you out in the end. 8/10. ##### tenniseveryone - Seven Minutes in Heaven Party: Teen/College party. FWG: Alien fire, Classic Elemental List. Two teens at the standard Teenage Party are expected to make out in closet. She's too Cool, he's too Nerdy, so she shuts him down. He claims to be an alien, but twist! He's not a liar. Her kiss will save his home. He gets to kiss her, and then the story ends pretty quick after that. I didn't hate this one. I did hate the rush into the closet--there could have been more to that than three opening lines--and the ending paragraph was a letdown. A lot of time was wasted having them tell us all about themselves and describe each others' looks. Interesting twist that Reggie was Alien, and her Air would save his people. I did like her natural disgust at thinking he was using this to be creeping, and like her thought it was someone being Creeper Stop Creeping, so the "oh poo poo he's not lying" turn was nice.While I generally like back and forth views, I think the story could have worked better from one view then swapped to another at the end e.g. sticking to Chelsea’s thoughts for the whole time in the closet, then Reggie’s at the end. Also, the issue with the ending really makes it like Reggie was lying to get a kiss. There should have been more clarification. 7/10. Nethilia fucked around with this message at 23:55 on Apr 23, 2014 |
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Apr 23, 2014 13:49
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PARTY WEEK CRITS FOR THE CRIT GODS House Party 2 ##### curlingiron - The Last Adventure Winner Party: D&D/mourning the dead FWG: Speak to Plants, pool of water, fire above it. A group of teenagers hold a D&D session together. However, one of the players died of cancer months ago. Through the DM (who was given this as a last wish), the lost player--both in game and out--leaves a final message to all of his friends. So less like a gaming session in the story, and more a gathering to mourn the dead. As I said when critting Turtlicious's story, I’m not into D&D. I know the tropes loosely, but the only thing more boring to me than playing D&D is reading/watching people play D&D. So if you take the interpretation of "party" to mean "write about tabletop poo poo", you have to do some epically good rear end writing to make me give a gently caress. I know what I hate. That's a lot of opening words, but it explains that you absolutely made me love this story. I was sort of plotting through the story until the mention of red rimmed eyes (I love telling a lot in a few details, I'm trying to do this myself), and the mention of a funeral, and then I sat up and wanted to know what was going on. This wasn't your standard gaming session in the least. As soon as Neil said "this isn't funny" I was hooked. And that hook carried me through the end, where I felt for every even those with only a line or two. This story was less about a gaming session and more about a group of getting an unexpected final message from a dear friend using a mode that mattered to all of them, including James. And the last voice waver from Theo? drat. Emotion in a line. I sniffled reading this, which might sound weak to say, but that’s a good thing. Writing is supposed to make you feel something when you read it--and something other than disgust or irritation. Less than 1200 words and I gave a gently caress about everyone. Bra-loving-vo. That's how you get a win. 9/10. ##### Entenzahn - Priorities HM Party: B-day for kid under 5, as was requested in your flash rule. FWG: Sitting on the lawn, fire catching onto stuff, uncle’s “water” as well as a bottle. Little kid wants his birthday cake by himself instead of having to share with anyone because he's four at most, if that (old enough to process birthday, young enough to not process much else). In his efforts to get to the cake (and not processing his uncle is a drunk) he accidentally sets house on fire playing with the stove, his uncle’s booze doesn’t help, and he don’t get his cake. I threw a flash rule at you, and you delivered in less words with no drug penalty. (Booze didn't actually count. My rule was more because I didn't want 30+ stories of grass to be interpreted as "LOL time to write about pot.") His not understanding his uncle's "water", interpreting the stove dials as ways to cake, and his absolute disgust with the firemen who "probably ate his cake" is perfect child self-centered. This story should warn all who plan to eventually have kids: watch them, lest they set their cake on fire. There were parts that didn't seem like kid internal dialogue, but it didn't jar me much. 8/10. This was also one of my personal high contenders. ##### Bushido Brown - Some Sunny Day Party: Celebration of wiping out Earth, using "Earth" culture FWG: “grass”, Kool-aid/ocean water, people on fire except not Earth! Ugh you’re talking about aliens mining planets, uhhhhhhgh. You know that thing I said about D&D before? It applies here. I also do not like heavy sci-fi. Magical realism, yes. High Level Sci-fi/High Fantasy, almost never. If I have to start seeing names made of Xs and Zs and other Often Forgotten Letters, my eyes cross. The twist I saw coming as soon as I saw the guy getting upset about Earth blowing up, which doesn't make for much of a twist. I did like the bit that Emotional Alien turned things on them by using a “pong” ball to blow the ship up, clever trick, Emo-lien. But if Alien Strip Miners, Inc. has been doing this countless times, why does earth get to be the one he finally suicide bombs over? Did the other planets not have grass, water, and culture, or am I supposed to care that I nearly got annihilated? Finally, the bit about from the human view didn’t really end it well. 5/10. ##### kurona_bright - What's the Point? Party: birthday party for younger sister FWG: Grass on shoulders, memories of birthday candles past/napkins, water putting out fires. Boy attends kid sister’s party. He thinks about neighbor/best friend in a totally not gay way except maybe a little? Then he has conversation with father about how has hasn’t moved on towards the future and you have to do that. This story didn't have anything really like a plot. It's another story where the MC had the story happen around him. Stuff happened, but it didn’t happen to the protagonist bar him scrubbing his shoulder into the grass after a bird poo poo on him. He’s just...there, while stuff happens to him. Oh and he thinks about stuff briefly, before his father comes out and talks to him about how We All Have To Move On So Go Out And Meet New People, the classic cliché about high school kids I've read a bajillion times while sappy music plays in the background. I could have replaced Robert with a sock puppet. What’s the point, indeed. 4/10. ##### The News at 5 - Wedding Presents Party: wedding FWG: Trees/grass, rain, tiki torches Man goes to a wedding with a gun as his "wedding present" because the woman isn’t marrying him. He was going to shoot her or her husband or himself--it was all muddled up--but doesn’t kill anyone because it rains. Did you just write friendzoned.txt? Jillian didn’t marry Paul so he wants to kill someone--her, her new husband, himself, maybe all three, maybe just him, it's not like it was clear--and spends most of the conversation fondling a revolver. I felt creeped out by this story, and not in a good way. If I was supposed to feel bad for a guy who didn't get his dream girl, I didn't. Ew. 3/10. ##### WeLandedOnTheMoon! - Impact Point HM Party: End of the world, I’m feeling fine. FWG: bluegrass, the water of the world, the fiery destruction smash. Two people caught in the end of the world come together at the end. Literally, in the formatting and the story because the planets crush together into a smash-smush. There was the initial wince of formatting wonk, but at least you didn’t do weird poo poo that made me upchuck, and you left text to read below. Thank you. Moving into the story, it wasn't very clear if Dylan and Marie knew each other beforehand, or if they were just connecting for the first time in some way, or if they were from separate worlds or parallel versions of the same world smashing into each other. They knew each other enough to know each other's names, so I assumed parallel versions of the same world since Marie knew what New York was and made refs to her own home town. That could have been a lot clearer. It’s a good story with and without the formatting. Plus the formatting makes sense--I could see it in print being the kind of story you have to turn the book upside down to read Marie's part--so it got the HM. 8/10. ##### nickmeister - Masks Party: regular community get together FWG: Grass, ocean, tiki torches and grills. Man at a party is an outsider to everyone. The young woman who organized this monthly shindig is nice to him, but everyone else isn't. He almost loses his refund check and it floats towards the sea, which triggers a flash back. He has said check saved by the kind woman, and then everyone makes masks and the quirky girl dances with him. There was something resembling characterization, but it gets smushed under repetitive language and weak metaphors. I ain't asking for a mystery novel in 1200 words, either say poo poo about people or don't but don't pussyfoot around it. Al is a wooden hearted guy who is scared of the ocean and everyone in this New Town acts like he has the Face Plague or something and he's Not Here To Make Friends, and I don't know why so I don't care. You wrote nothing that made me care about him or Quirky Girl With Creative Name Spelling, and the little that happens isn't much of a story. Spend less words on clunky wordplay and more on characters and actions. You only have so many. 4/10. ##### Maultaschen - 4+ BR, Gorgeous View Party: Literal house party, as in selling a house. FWG: Lawn, deep sea reference, drinking water, pools, volcano ref, reactor cores, Woman is selling a house for her family in North America. There are many strange people/things because Future, including a person who is creepering around ready to wipe out humanity with coded language that she doesn't notice. Then the Government shows up because CRIMES OF EARTH and it’s not the guy, it’s the other guy and there’s fires and shooting and running she falls into the core and then she’s a lightning goddess or something and screw you time to zot the world-- See how I summarized it? That's because the ending was rushed and out of nowhere and made no sense. I was with you until the ending. I cared about Belinda and her husband and her sick child, and why she was pushing hard to sell the house. I could even shake off the creepy guy because I got the feeling she would do anything for her daughter's sake, she's doing this to get her life stable again, ignore the weird and close the deal. And then you veered left into crazy and cheese it it's the cops and everyone's running and the creepy guy just teleports and she's suddenly going to zap everyone around her when they want to know she's okay. Don't do that. Wacky twist endings suck. 5/10. ##### PootieTang - The Messenger DM Party: ???? FWG: ???? There’s some knights or some poo poo and a lot of flowery language and nothing happens. When I was a child in Elementary School back in the late 80s, one of my most hated writing assignments was to write "descriptive stories" which were not stories at all; they expected us to describe a picture in inane purple-laden prose that expected me to write fifty words describing the exact shade of color and softness of the fabric hat sitting on some bear's head. I think that was phased out by the time I was in fifth grade, but it lasted long enough that I hated every second of it because my child self knew that a full page of description was not a story. This is a lot of words to say that I suspect that you were subjected to the same "descriptive stories" I slogged through, but you liked it. Because that is what you gave as a "story". Nothing happens. You describe a bunch of people getting sloppy wasted at a party, knights or something, and they talk of the King and Women and Goblets, then they ride to glory or something. And gently caress to all happened. You should watch the Sesame Street Video I linked before. Now you don't even have to scroll. 2/10. ##### Starter Wiggin - Thirsty Party: Eclipse party. FWG: bonfire, grass on the ground, water hides the dead. Vampire “you” and your indeterminate partner make smexy kisses under a blood moon before you bite the poo poo out of them until they die, and you throw the corpse in the river before luring more fresh food. Stories told in second person bother me; they scream that I'm supposed to feel myself as a character in the story and I can't lose myself in the words. First or third, first or third. I suspect you left everything gender neutral to not pick one or the other, but if you'd picked one you could have been a lot less ambiguous and blurry. There was interesting description and contrast (liked the part about the moon verses the dead under the Protagonist) but I could not get over that "you" hurdle. The lines with random song lyrics could have been cut out entirely, and I'd have lost nothing in the read--the second to last line was a decent rear end closer, and then you did that. No. Bad writer. 4/10.
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Apr 26, 2014 14:28
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WRAP THIS PARTY UP (yes it's still party week crits) Last 10 + 5 to grow on. ##### Kaishai - Backdraft Party: Celebration of a conquering. FWG: Cooking fire, cleaning water, lemongrass. The cook, Ronya, is dragged to the kitchen by a member of the army that has conquered her people. She is a good cook and so is ordered to cook the feast the conquerors will eat in the celebration of victory. As she cooks, her mind turns to her now-slain husband, and in her grief her emotions literally lace the food with her emotions; this causes the the soldiers to turn on their general because Magic. Once I figured out what had happened, I loved the story. There were a few things that tripped me up, such as the names of the people around her. Making most of the conquerors nameless helped me focus more on Ronya--the story was about her, so any of their names could have been skipped, with the exception of the general and the guy that held her. And saying "because Magic" isn't a down cut to you--sometimes, magic just should happen, and in fact explaining it many times is like explaining jokes. The detail about her seeing the preserves and being reminded of her lost husband was a good touch. High, but went with others for the HM. 8/10 ##### Kalyco - Domini Cannes – The Dogs of God Party: Funerals, and then it looks like one at the end. FWG: rain/tears, ????? Two priests sneak targeted people past SS guards and into Poland. This one took a long time to to get to where it was going. Less opening, more closing. Anytime someone says "my name is" in a story it jars me; there's other ways to spin names into the story. And I'm not sure if the party was the focus; there was a funeral at the start and a party of getting by at the end, but the middle was a lot of talking and travel that felt a little dragged on and tedious. Bouncing back and forth between "Fr." and "Father" was also an issue for my reading. One of the other. There's a lot of telling instead of or at the same time as showing, such as when Father John sees that Miriam is Romani, but then says so. 6/10 ##### leekster - Murky Waters Party: Wake FWG: lake, cremated bodies/ash, lawn Two people try to spread ashes of two dead men, instead the pilot smears them on himself, there’s some controversy, it blurs together. I can't tell your characters apart. There's a lot of names that don't distinguish who's who, and a lot of weird sentence structure. The few spatterings of dialogue don't tie anything together. At the end of the story I couldn't tell who was wearing whose ashes and who had jumped into the lake. If a reader can't tell characters apart or even what the ending is, then the story isn't good. Ther'es also a lot of "telling", such as this part: "Maria went off on a long tirade about how this family had always conspired against her; that her husband was guilty before he was even convicted in their eyes." Why didn't you show this? Everything is jumbled and nothing is clear. 4/10 ##### QuoProQuid - Hierophany Party: Resurrection/Easter Party FWG: Moses Parting seas, grass and dirt, Nun and Angel rush to the party to end all parties. This story isn't about the party; it's about a nun and an angel hijacking a car on Easter by his order, and driving around in it. Talking about the party isn't holding the party, and ending on the line that the party was "sweet" doesn't cover it. The ending is meek after all the HIGH OCTANE CAR DRIVING, which wasn't even that interesting. Lots of grammar and speech issues. Meh. 4/10 ##### Walamor - The Arboretum Party: For plant hijacking? FWG: flowers, trees and poo poo, fire exit, water dumping, It’s the future and people are running around and the girl is hot and In The Future We Will Not Have Plants? I’m not even sure what happened. The entire story was a jumble of futuretech and running around and Unique Names For Things to make them sound futuristic, like vibroknives and NeoCity and "sexy" women in body suits who smell like dirt and the worries of scrambling. You spend a lot of time jabbering on and on about things to make the reader go "OH MAN THE FUTURE" but there's no story in there. This feels like the opening of some Teen Dystopian style movie that doesn't go much of anywhere. Don't throw a bunch of crap at me about the future to make a story, I get enough of that reading teen lit. 4/10 ##### Jeep - A Cremation Party: wake/funeral FWG: plant that got peed in, things catching on fire, sea life/water Man dies. The mourners, by his request, have a wake for him before he’s cremated. He wanted a wild party, so this becomes orgies and drunkenness, and during the process they set the church on fire, cremating the body in the process. Interesting premise, but you didn't do much with it. So Sanders wanted to go out without visible mourning, and so everyone just fucks in public and drinks a lot. The parts with his daughter and wife interested me and the backstory of Saunder's life--which was like an infodump, sadly--but they got lost in the sea of drinking, pissing, and loving. There was so many places this story could have gone, but instead you went with the base factors of wild partying and people being awkward and drunk and ehhhh. She lost the crowd to drunken shenanigans and you lost me halfway through. 5/10 ##### Sir Azrael - The end of an Era DM Party: teens hanging out FWG: lawn, water in booze, “fire” up joints eff you Three girls with generic rear end names and two guys with generic rear end names hag out, one dumped her man, they’re going to summon demons, and you lost half the word count to make a throwaway joint line at the end of the story. Everything is in single lines and everyone says everything or asks or intones and I hate you. There were no characters--just a list of names doing and saying and intoning and showing up, and I don't care what anyone said or anything they did. Write less like a fifth grader who just discovered drugs. 2/10 ##### Grizzled Patriarch - The Siege Party: Feast in the middle of a siege FWG: firing of canons, ??? There's a seige going on outdoors and inside everyone is trying to have a feast, but it's just there. Nothing really happens in this story. There's a lot of descriptions of people and things, and I like this. But there's no action or intrigue. It feels like everything is going on outside the hall where the battles are happening. If you were trying to go for desperation or exhaustion among the rich during a siege, it didn't come through--it just felt tedious, like I was watching all this play out and waiting for it to end. If that's what Pavel was feeling, it more felt like he was just a fly on the wall watching everything, and the little he does just doesn't come across. I didn't feel for him, I just wanted there to be something happening other than him seeing everything go on. 4/10 ##### Hocus Pocus - A Man Alone With Himself DM Party: Political with old rulers FWG: ???? FANFIC ABOUT POLITICIANS IS STILL FAN FIC. Stories about sad painting presidents are still fanfic. If we'd replaced all the Name Dropping and taken out all the political references in this story, this would just be a story about a sad old man who paints and his pitiful friends being sad at a party, attempting to relive their glory days like ex-jocks and playing practical jokes out of nowhere. You made me read about Karl Rove's ham head, go to hell. You get nothing. 2/10. ##### Noah - New Beginnings Party: Birthday FWG: Grass, inner fire fury, water and gin Sister hates her birthday because poo poo has gone wrong the last two times. Her brother shoes up--he had wrecked one of the bad parties. She tells him to piss off but he stays and after some talking, she feels renewed. Interesting premise, but bad execution. Primarily, your formatting pissed me off. Stop barfing commas at me or I’ll drown you. A lot of words were wasted on backstory dumps that could have been shrunk down, repetitive text (you said "time for new beginnings" three times, sweet loving gods) or descriptions we didn't need. I still don't know why Margie made up with Ben, unless the magic of hugging did it. Tighten your mess up. 5/10 ##### Fumblemouse - A Policy Of Perfection Party: Retirement party FWG: In the floating orb things. Guy at his retirement party has major hallucinations before he dies. I didn't like this story much. The characterization feels nonexistent, smothered in a bunch of well-done descriptions of Arnold's wild last moment hallucinations that take over before he dies. He's irritated, and he tries to talk. Then he dies. That's the whole story. I did, however, like the opening with his irritation with the misspelled engraving. That made me snerk. But it just didn't go anywhere, and I didn't feel it. 5/10 ##### Djeser - I did a good thing today Party: Cabin party of DEATH. FWG: death by lake, death by tree/death on the lawn, death by fireplace. Doom omen tries to save teens from dying. Teens die anyways out of super panic at the omen's very presence. This was a really funny story. I could feel the omen's utter frustration of having had to deal with this poo poo before, very "god drat it, not again." The sentences felt way too choppy, though, probably because of the repetition of "the shadow beast." There was probably another way to refer to her. The deaths are funny, but they're also pretty rushed--they're supposed to be shotgun, but they feel not quite fast enough to be perfect or slow enough to savor. I think the last two paragraphs could have been swapped, for a lot more of an ending impact--having SB think that she saved Maria and then jump to "whoops, no, she dead." 7/10 ##### crabrock - The High Ground Party: teen party end of year FWG: grass skirt, wet kisses, smoke and ash ref and cigs. Girl plays spin the bottle, ends up getting Frenched by her frenemy, tries to blur that out with her brain. Good descriptions of stuff. Decent, funny dialogue. But the girl-on-girl kiss is weird because I can’t tell if No Name is in denial of being gay or so straight that being kissed squicked her out, both of which would have been valid with some clarification. Speaking of which, any reference to her having a name would have been a boon. I also feel like paragraphs were out of order in places. There's a lot of buildup to the kiss, but not enough words to have anything after it but a few lines about disgusted drinking. A little less on the actual game would have helped; that could have been done in more snippet form, maybe? 6/10 ##### Phobia - The Last Tea Party Party: tea party FWG: grass necklaces, water “tea”, setting things on fire. Girls try to have a tea party, but one is upset because mom make a cut and run, and then they make up cause friends. Pickyass first of all? They’re six graders, which makes them eleven minimally. Generally most girls in the US after the age of five don’t have tea parties with stuffies and talk with faux titles about Disney princesses, unless they’re socialy stunted, forcing it, or weird. If you wanted me to realize that they were forcing the party to ignore an issue, you should have made more mentions of the awkwardness of girls this age pulling through a tea party, and cleared up early on that they were this age. I got to the end and went "wait, they're preteens?" There's also a lot of mistakes that could have been cleaned up with some proofreading. The Everybody Laughs ending also feels out of nowhere. I feel like pacing and clarity was the death of this one; realizing they're preteens adds a layer that could have been so much more poignant if that had been explained or shown much earlier. 5/10 ##### Mercedes - Son of Man DQ - Late In jokes do not a story make. ##### I'll do two line-by lines if you want more of my bitching about your writing.
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Apr 29, 2014 23:57
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Been sitting around all week mewling about it--gently caress it, I'm in.
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May 2, 2014 11:30
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Friend of Mine (996) http://writocracy.com/thunderdome/?story=2108&title=Friend+of+Mine Nethilia fucked around with this message at 08:27 on Dec 4, 2014 |
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May 5, 2014 01:24
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IN this week, and I'm offering a cross stitch pattern.
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May 9, 2014 06:35
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Mango Magic (1370) http://writocracy.com/thunderdome/?story=2139&title=Mango+Magic (elephants, cross stitch pattern, a completely foreign language) Nethilia fucked around with this message at 08:27 on Dec 4, 2014 |
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May 12, 2014 01:06
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And once again I find I've taken forever. IN.
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May 16, 2014 09:36
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Distinct Changes (1175) http://writocracy.com/thunderdome/?story=2168&title=+Distinct+Changes Nethilia fucked around with this message at 08:28 on Dec 4, 2014 |
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May 19, 2014 06:54
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IN after two weeks of not being able to participate.
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Jun 10, 2014 17:00
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Sundown Towns (1248) http://writocracy.com/thunderdome/?story=2255&title=Sundown+Towns Nethilia fucked around with this message at 08:31 on Dec 4, 2014 |
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Jun 16, 2014 06:38
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Baby Momma (Got you for 18 years) Maybe this time when that son of a bitch knocks me up, he'll pay his drat child support.
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Jun 17, 2014 04:48
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In like a delicious R&B song.
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Jun 18, 2014 02:05
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A Mean Pinball (1077) http://writocracy.com/thunderdome/?story=2277&title=A+Mean+Pinball Nethilia fucked around with this message at 04:45 on Dec 30, 2014 |
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Jun 23, 2014 00:06
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| # ¿ Dec 4, 2023 23:35 |
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Mercedes posted:BITCH YOU TRIPPIN Oh, so it's like that, after all our people have been through.  You talk big words, motherfucker, but can you write them? Survey says no. You're gonna need Black Jesus to save what's left of your scrawny rear end by the time I'm done with you. Let the Black on Black Brawl commence.
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Jun 26, 2014 04:43
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