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Mar 24, 2015 03:28
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Shadow of a doubt It was titanic, monstrous. The looming bulk of Mount Victoria could not even covers its lower body. It was so large that its true shape was lost to the horizon. There were stony outcroppings, great gangly limbs, endless mouths shrieking in hellish chorus. Swarms of gulls flocked around it, feeding on the millions of bugs that scuttled across its surface; following it as it left the bay to make its way inland. Jan tried to drink it in with his eyes, and he almost drowned. He laughed, like he used to laugh in the shadow of his father. “Pick me up! Pick me up!” he would say to dad, and dad had picked his up every time, and spun him around so the whole world turned to a blur, and the colours ran together. He now had the same feeling before the creature- he felt so small, but so safe. He wanted to climb atop its shoulders and spit in the eye of the sun. If it even had shoulders. Each of the six trunk limbs that rested on the earth had too many joints. They bent in strange places. They were perhaps, not legs at all. Animals have legs, and to call it an animal would almost be profane. He wanted it to kill him. That would be a good death. To be annihilated beneath an immense foot; crushed so flat that his toenails broke themselves against his teeth. To leave tiny parts of himself stuck beneath its heel so that he might forever be a part of something so much greater than himself. To be picked up, and spun, and to see the world in a wholly different way. He ran towards it. His bare feet pounded across hot tarmac, but he took no notice. He ran across broken bodies of men and women, towards the creature whose very body demolished the idea of sky. Another woman joined him, keeping pace, eyes seeing only Upward and Onward. “Father!” she cried. What a strange thing to say. This was not her father, nor Jan's. Jan's father had been a stout, hairy man who'd always smelled of grease. A man who'd meticulously shaved his head, but wouldn't touch so much as a hair of his beard. A retired army mechanic who loved nothing about his son, his wife and his car. The same man who'd smoked one cigarette too many until his lungs decided to cut out. This was not his f- this was not this this was he faltered. The woman tore ahead, shrieking “FATHER, FATHER.” Jan's head filled with colour, and laughter. With the reek of grease and a pickmeupdadpickmeup. With reassuring strength. With a man lying in a bed with tubes attached to his arm, beard gone thin from the chemo and despite how long it took Jan hadn't been there to say goodbye. With six golden tongues and- no that's not r- so tall his head scraped against the moon, covered in scuttling insects, with six gargantuan legs and a million grasping arms. Stinking of grease, reassuring and strong. The man who'd closed his eyes as if to sleep then never opened them again. Shaved head so tall it pickmeupdadpickmeupdadpickmeupdadpickmeup and grease and STOP that's not right at all Jan's foot flared with pain. He looked down and saw he was standing in a bed of broken glass, beside a ruined car. It had only recently burnt down- the metal still glowed. A shard of glass had sliced the connective tissue between Jan's big toe and the others. He'd been walking without realising it. Onwards, towards his Father NO that's not ri pickmeupdadpickmeupdadpickmeup and the reassuring reek of grease and before he knew it, he was running again. The pain in his foot banished, the beautiful shape of his father looming ever closer. His beautiful father with nine hearts, with lungs deeper than oceans, whose footsteps shook the foundations of the world. His father with a reassuring beard, and barklike skin carved with ancient runes of unraveling. His father the retired army mechanic with six golden tongues that sung the song that shattered the seal that walked between the walls between the worlds- beneath Mount Victoria, a throng had gathered. Thousands of men and women, glass-eyed, hands held high, swaying in the breeze. Jan approached. His head hurt. Something was wrong, but could not say what. He knew, but every time he tried to remember his head was filled with- with pickmeuppickmeuppickmeupPICKMEUP and the reassuring- The concrete beneath the crowd's feet was lower here and Jan realised his a jolt that his father's foot had come to rest here, and they were waiting for His next set of legs to move into position. Some were hugging each other, while others looked up and smiled with their mouths agape. An old man stood on the outskirts of the group. His wispy white hair grew in a ring around his bald pate. Strands floated free in the breeze. His nose bled down his neck, ruining the collar of his white shirt. “My dad,” he said, “has been dead 25 years and yet here he is. Larger than life.” He laughed at that last comment, then his eyes glazed over. He looked down at his bloodied collar, then to his hands, then to the sky. A moment of panic registered on his features. “Wait,” he said, “this isn't-” He stopped and smiled a big, toothy honest grin. “Larger than life,” he murmured. He gave half a laugh, then looked back up at father. The final set of legs was moving into position. Implacable- slow and all devouring, like cancer. The sort of thing that creeps up slowly then breaks the entire world. A limb raising; folding and unfolding; moving between walls between worlds between minds between memories between pickmeupdad and the smell of grease and a reassur pick me up dad. pick me up PICK ME UP The limb sailed overhead, clearing the crowd. A wail went up. They'd been forsaken. Left alone. Dad went out to buy cigarettes he died of cancer he was always too busy he never came back to crush them flat to teach them love to walk between walls to Jan was running again. Pushing through the crowd, and out across the street. He couldn't lose his father. Not again. The thing was already ahead of him though- each massive swing of a limb taking it further and further away. His father with six golden tongues, and a thinning beard. His father, who broke the sky, and spun him until all the colours in the world were not enough to describe the shattered life that was left. His father, gone. He fell to his knees. He was weak from blood loss. The pain came roaring back now, and he was aware of the old man walking past him, weeping. "Father," said the old man, "why? Jan own eyes stung with tears. He had no answer. He lay face-down on the road, alone with only the empty howling of his heart. "Goodbye," he murmured. He closed his eyes as if to sleep, and did not open them again. [1199 words]
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Mar 30, 2015 04:30
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sebmojo posted:your mum is a biographies
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Apr 10, 2015 03:26
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Benny the Snake posted:Don't you dare talk about my mom like that
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Apr 10, 2015 09:33
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Whoa this is deep
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Apr 16, 2015 03:12
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In. Hit me.
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Apr 20, 2015 22:57
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z93SdirnzTw
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Apr 22, 2015 00:37
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Tyrannosaurus posted:About a year ago me and ravenkult agreed to trade line crits. I did one for him. He disappeared like a little bitch. Now he's talking in irc and seems to have the same idea I have for a story this week. 
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Apr 22, 2015 00:38
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Legit wizardry up in here
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Apr 22, 2015 00:39
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Cache Cab posted:In Summary You're a loving idiot. SurreptitiousMuffin fucked around with this message at 08:40 on Apr 23, 2015 |
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Apr 23, 2015 07:06
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Let me elaborate on that. Back in the day, I was actually a big proponent of yours. I defended you in the irc when people were talking poo poo, and I tried my best to be constructive with you. There was a bit of kayfabe poo poo-throwing, but overall I felt that your writing wasn't irredeemable and that you had potential. I loving tried with you, man. I tried to get you to pull your head out of your rear end and stop repeating the same mistakes over and over again, and you chewed me out as a hater because you seem to process anything that doesn't lovingly tongue your balls as vitriol. You could be a good writer, but you need to get better at figuring out when people are being harsh-but-fair and when they're just being assholes. You lean to the latter far too often, and in the end a whole lot of us who started out on your side just got frustrated and gave up. We tried to give you a hand up, and you spat on us and told us to gently caress off. There was a whole lot of directionless bile (especially at the end, after you'd chased all your allies onto the other side by being a crazy vituperative rear end in a top hat) but there were also a bunch of people genuinely trying to help you improve. Vector wasn't my personal pick for the loss that week, honestly (iirc that was Jitzu, who has made great inroads with his writing because he actually knows how to handle criticism) and it's saddening to hear that was the point you spat the dummy, because if you go back and read my comments I really was trying to help you improve. From my exalted position as a paid, published author, I am telling you once again to pull your head out of your rear end. Thunderdome wasn't against you until you turned it against you. SurreptitiousMuffin fucked around with this message at 09:00 on Apr 23, 2015 |
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Apr 23, 2015 08:08
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crabrock posted:OK everybody shut up about cache cab now. THE OFFER Cache Cab. If you want me to, I will do a full line-crit of any three of your stories of your choosing. There will be no kayfabe, or vitriolic hyperbole; I'll be totally even-handed. If something doesn't work, I'll let you know without rubbing it in. If it does work, I'll let you know exactly why. There will be stuff that works, because you're far from the worst writer we've ever had. This is not me trying to score points, or show off, or any of that bullshit. This is me trying to help you as a writer. I want to see you improve, because good writing is awesome; it's a good day whenever more of it arrives into the world. I'm not out to cramp your style. I know you've got this speedball craziness going on in your writing, and I like it. There's definitely a place for that in the world, and I'm not going to try and cut you up to fit you into a pretty little box. I want to help you to fully realise your own voice, not mimic ours. The only thing I ask of you is that you approach this offer with the same even-handedness that I am. That you read my crits, and do your best to process them. If you don't agree with what I have to say, that's cool. Not every crit is perfect, and if something smells like bullshit, you can use your own sound judgement to ignore it. Point is, "I disagree with this b/c xyz so I'mma just do me here" is going to go down a lot better than "gently caress YOU MUFFIN YOU'RE A HACK AND I WANT YOU TO BURN IN HELL". Calm down for five minutes and try to understand that we're not out to get you. Work with me. That doesn't mean toeing the line, but it means at least trying to understand why people are saying what they're saying. It means admitting that while you're sometimes right, you're also sometimes wrong. I gave you this offer before and you spat on it. I'm giving it again, because there's a certain bugfuck fire in you that just keeps coming back and that says something. You give a gently caress, and I like that. I don't really like you, but I have to admit you've got balls and I respect that. Take me up on this, man. If you don't, you won't be seeing it again. --- K I'm out. Crabrock, hit me with your angrystick.
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Apr 24, 2015 02:14
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hot diggy dog this is a lot of stories FAST JUDGING GOOD JUDGING
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Apr 27, 2015 05:15
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Selfiemancy Oooh. Emm. Geee. It was, mused Zeus, like, the perfect selfie. He paused for a moment, then added #blessed, #gogreek and #thunderlicious. Was the second a little too risque? He pursed his lips. No, he decided, it was just risque enough. When you approach anal, you have to approach it sideways. So to speak. He hit post, and basked in the warm rays of worship as his twitter followers retweeted the pic over and over again. Worship sustained gods like meat sustained mortals. The internet was a 24/7 all-you-can eat seafood buffet for his kind. After centuries of surviving on scraps from chinless history nerds, Zeus was finally living large again. Lightning seethed across his skin as he rode a wave of pure power. Zeus rose to his feet, grinning, and prepared to send out a thunder storm to let the locals know that he was the meanest loving god in town. Clouds roiled and went black. Lighting tore the sky apart. Zeus smiled, and waited for thunder. One … Two … Three … Four …. Five … Six … Tong. Wait, what? A thunderclap with all the pomp of a damp fart totally failed to rend the sky in twain. Self-respecting thunderclaps did not make sounds like that. They went BWAM or BRAK but they definitely did not go tong. Zeus took out his phone and checked twitter. Balfomel the Wizard @wizkid 2m @ZeusAuthentic119 lol more like #goawaygeek Two minutes, and already the burn had been retweeted over 100 times. The original selfie had only 10 retweets. It wasn't even that good a burn! How to respond? In the old days he'd have just chucked a thunderbolt, but this was the 21st century. This was twitter, dammit. Destroying a child with a bolt of fire from the heavens would only frighten off potential followers. He had to beat the boy at his own game. Zeus Thunder God @ZeusAuthentic119 Just Now @wizkid is that ur name because you wiz in your own pants? #talkshitgethit It worked! Within seconds, Zeus felt the power returning to his body. The storm grew again in ferocity and- Balfomel the Wizard @wizkid Just Now @ZeusAuthentic119 its because im the best wizard. I can make a better storm than u #wamuklurata #followersovemeandmealone #tubashkanamunrah The storm broke apart, and fled. Zeus refreshed the app on his phone, and saw that @wizkid's tweet already had hundreds of retweets. Zeus' tweets were getting almost no love. He felt himself wither. This would hardly kill him, but it would give him a hell of a headache. It was the principle of the thing, though. Everybody sees you getting pwned by a kid, and then they have a hard time taking you seriously. Not Tom Hiddelston @LokiOriginal 1m @ZeusAuthentic119 lol you need some ice for that burn? I got plenty. #NorseOfCourse loving Loki. Just sat there all day trolling Twitch streamers on COD while soaking up all the good vibes from those loving movies. A thought rolled its way into Zeus' mind. It was almost too good to pass up. He had to bite his tongue to keep from tittering. Zeus Thunder God @ZeusAuthentic119 Just Now @wizkid lol bring it bitch im rollin w the squad at uppsala come get me #roadtrip #sweden #blondesandblunts He hit send, and giggled. Loki was gonna get it, whatever the Hades it was. A monstrous boom made Zeus stagger, and cut his whimsy short. Something colossal was moving across the landscape. Zeus saw acne scars that were more like impact craters, and a pair of mighty braces helping to straighten teeth that were each a mile wide. “BITCH THINK YOU CAN JUST THROW SHADE AND WALK AWAY?” it bellowed “CALL ME THE GREAT RECESSION, 'COS I'M GONNA RUIN YOU AND IT'S YOUR OWN FAULT. YOU DONE hosed UP NOW.” Each step the young wizard took shattered stones, and shook Zeus down to his very bones. This was not swag. This was not swag at all. The kid was feeding off the retweets somehow. He'd come across the secret that bridges gods and men, as had Yeezy and Hova before him: he could use belief to make himself strong. There was a covenant though- there were limits. This was ridiculous. Zeus had indeed, done hosed up. Fire pierced the sky, and Zeus had to skitter out of the way as meteors of all shapes and sizes rained down upon him. “LOL,” thundered @wizkid “PWNED.” Mustering all his energy, Zeus drew himself up to full height. His head pierced the clouds, and he came eye-to-eye with @wizkid. He'd caught him off guard, but his magic was raw and scattershot. Better to have one lightning bolt that can hit, rather than a thousand meteors that don't do poo poo. In the old days, Zeus would've bolted the little rear end in a top hat no question. Today? It just didn't feel chill. Not chill at all. “Okay kid,” said Zeus, “you're pretty good at this. If I follow you, will you cut this poo poo out? A god's gotta god, you know? We can help each other there.” In a heartbeat, the rage and scorn across @wizkid's face vanished. “OMG REALLY?” he said. “JONAH IS GONNA BE SO loving JEALOUS. HE'S SUCH A SHITEATER. HE TOLD STACY KIM THAT I LIKE HER AND NOW IT'S ALL WEIRD.” His face fell. Poor boy hadn't meant to say that. Zeus just chuckled. He thought of Loki, sneering behind his computer. “Well,” he said, “you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.” --- Loki sat in the sauna checking his phone. Nothing like a little geothermal energy to make you feel refreshed after a long day of trolling. He held his phone up to his face, and hit record. “Hey there watchers,” he said, “Loki here, coming to you live, just being all casual and poo poo, I just want you to kn-” The door burst down, and a dozen Thors charged in, all wearing black tactical vests and helmets. “FREEZE, MOTHERFUCKER,” they screamed. A wall of angry blonde beards was the last thing Loki saw before he got pwned hard. [1030 words] You can siphon off power from praise and worship of any kind, however the gods you're cheating may not always look kindly on it. SurreptitiousMuffin fucked around with this message at 06:01 on Apr 27, 2015 |
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Apr 27, 2015 05:58
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Yo Cache Cab, you've been and gone and clearly don't give a poo poo about my offer, so I'm passing it into somebody else. HEY, LOSERS Yeah you, people who have lost. The first three of you that ask, I'll give you a full line-crit of any one of your stories of your choosing. No loss = no crit. I'm looking to help people get from the bottom to the top.
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Apr 27, 2015 09:38
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Thyrork posted:Hit me. Heres your victim. If you'd prefer to use the google docs link, go right ahead. 1) it's important to try and find the right balance between action and dialogue. 'action' doesn't need to be fireball kung-fu fights- it can often just be little physical things somebody is doing while they're speaking. They look around, clean under their nails, take the last cigarette out of the pack then stare at it for a few seconds before putting it back etc. Also, you can have a great story with no dialogue, but it's really hard to have a story with no action. 2) simple language is better than complex language in most cases. If you're going to throw out a big fancy-looking word, make sure that you're using it correctly, and that there's not a more elegant way of saying the same thing. 3) sometimes the prompt locks you into doing something that's just kinda eh. There's always the option of going back and editing the story later though, to really make it shine without worrying about the judges getting mad. 4) the 'dome is weird. The quality of entries and the number of new writers have both been increasing a lot over the last maybe year or so, and that leads to situations where a story that's simple 'meh' ends up losing. I don't think we've seen anything genuinely awful a la Rural Rentboys or The Golden Bean in a long time (nb I have managed to blank out "Elmo is going to gently caress you now" please don't trigger my flashbacks tyvm) but at this point, losing is not the indicator of low quality it used to be. If you lose, don't get discouraged, and do keep coming back. I got two more line crits. Who wants 'em?
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Apr 27, 2015 13:11
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Thyrork posted:Thanks boss, I've thrown up at least one significant question about your feedback (the twee thing), I'd love a reply, and we'll keep any discussion on the 'doc. If you want to bounce the story off other people, you can always take it to The Fiction Farm. It's a little over 1k but that limit's more to stop people throwing down their whole novels. It's best read as "shorts only" rather than a strict rule. The farm is a good place to follow up on pieces written in the dome.
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Apr 27, 2015 22:06
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Goddamit Doc, Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab prompts again? I hate reruns. Since I'm co-judge, that means I hate all of you. May god have mercy on you if you pick the same perfume I did last time and do it worse than I did.
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Apr 30, 2015 06:49
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DERMUFFINKRITTENINGSKEIT, PARTENZUZANGUMMENUN 1 Broader problems this week: I'm seeing a serious case of Stephen King Syndrome going on in a lot of the stories. That's when the story sets up something really cool but then runs out of words or time and goes "OKAY gently caress IT TIME FOR VIOLENCE" and then everybody dies in a gas explosion. Who needs catharsis when you can just kill everybody, amirite? Lack of direction was also a bit of problem. Pretty language can help to prop up a weak story, but only so far. Make sure you understand what your characters want, and why we care what they want. The rest of the story should fall into place. "Person sits and whines about something" is not a story, no matter what that guy in your MFA tells you. Specific Stories: Funeral for a Dog - Mrenda This was really hard to follow. I think you tried to be too clever with all the little clues you spread around the place, and we just missed them all. The general rule is that you can be as clever and sneaky as you want with themes and sideplots, but the main through line has got to be pounded in with a sledgehammer. Readers are not mind readers, and clarity of expression is very important in storytelling. Thought for next time: try to tell a very simple story. 1-2 characters, no mystery: just a motivation, and somebody trying to fulfill it. Low pile. Stopwatch - Wangless Wonder I liked this. The 'dome gets a lot of high fantasy/genre fic adventure, and it was cool to see something more grounded executed well. Pay attention folks: the stakes don't need to be sky-high for the story to be interesting. Lady wants to lose weight, lady tries to lose weight, lady has a hard time of it but other factors keep her going. It works. It lost out to some of the gutsier and more lush stuff, but that doesn't mean I didn't appreciate something lower key. Not a bad story, just got pushed down in a strong week Thought for next time: try again with the more low-key stuff. You've got a talent for little human touches and I'd like to see you explore it a bit more. High-mid. Rogue's Eyes - dmboogie Kinda generic fantasy with the 'wise old kung fu master' cliche thrown in for good measure. Two wise old kung-fu masters even. The general agreement on this piece was that it jumped around far too much and needed to focus on a new stronger scenes rather than trying to tell a huge story in a small space. Thought for next time: try to tailor your story to the wordcount. Going too big in flash fiction tends to sink people a lot faster than going too small. Mid pile. Final Luxury - bigperm I liked this, but the pacing is a bit odd and it suffers for it. You kinda try to play off the Glorious Death thing as a twist when it's obvious from the start. Too much talking, not enough scene setting or action. This feels like it should be a very physical piece, but I had real trouble picturing it. It's vaguely middle-eastern in my head, but that's as specific as I can get. Thought for next time: if you're gonna worldbuild, don't be afraid to really throw yourself at it. The story shouldn't read like a wikipedia entry, mind: it's about letting the character of the world show itself through the interactions that occur. Mid pile. Lilium - spectres of autism It's like a really good story with a lovely story glued to its back. #1 victim of Stephen King Syndrome: the language is gorgeous, the worldbuilding is absolutely on-point and then SUDDENLY VIOLENCE AND OMG IT'S THE APOCALYPSE for REASONS. There's so many questions left unanswered that could use more exploration, but instead we got a bunch of eh stuff with people dying. A more quiet and ambiguous ending would've served you well here. Spend a bit more time with the world you've woven and let it grow. Thought for next time: calm down, don't feel compelled to end with a bang. High-mid. The Deadly Curse of American Revolutionary Oliver Hammond - Blue Wher Fallout Boy called; they want their single title back. This one is way too telly, and just not very original. It feels like a whole lot of video game character slammed together, talking stilted "badass" stuff at each other and then fighting. Basically, it comes off more like a video game than a story. Thought for next time: try to write about normal people doing normal things. Strip all the cliche back and just try to write something human.
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May 5, 2015 04:08
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DER GROSSESTE MANNSCHAFT: DER MUFFINKRITTENZUGENSCHAFT 2 Poison for the Mid Light - TheGreekOwl Called this one as you because the weird end-loaded subject sentences ("went he to the house") look like a weird porting of Greek grammar onto English. Raventkult tells me I'm wrong there and he's actual-Greek instead of weird third-generation Antipodean immigrant so  . Either way, it doesn't really work. It's technically correct English grammar, but so is 'buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo' and that doesn't exactly make for good stories. The register to poncy as hell, and does nothing but slow down the piece and make the protagonist sounds like an rear end in a top hat.aaaaand here I'm going to intercept "SILLY MUFFIN THAT WAS THE POINT" with a piece of advice I feel like I've given too many times: if the whole point of your story is to intentionally be annoying, or to piss off the reader, or anything in that vein at all, write a different story. If the narrator is intentionally a really terrible person, there has to be some real payoff to it rather than "yes they are awful end story'. So yeah. Terrible deployment of faux-sophisticated language, no plot whatsoever, ending in a dumb punchline. Thought for next time: don't try anything complex with the language. Keep it as stripped-down as you can. Also tell the protag should be likable. Valley of Death - Mercedes Dammit man I like your writing, but this was a bridge too far on the eye-rolling sillyness. That deadspan self-aware "hey we're not in a story" bullshit is hacky and overplayed. The ending came out of nowhere and made no sense. The whole plot was just confusing and hard to follow. Not your finest hour. Thought for next time: you're already pretty funny; you don't need to force it any harder. It comes off like a bad actor frantically mugging the camera. Thought for next time: just chill out and do your thing. Everyone Has Their Demons - Broenheim Not a bad story, but kinda got overshadowed by the guy who came along like five stories later and wrote the same thing but better. The pacing is a bit off in the first half, and I think that's what dragged you down. It's kinda slow and clunky and doesn't really go anywhere. That kinda mumblecore melancholy only works in shorts if the whole piece rolls like that. It needs time to grow and expand, and you just didn't have that much space to play around in. When the more fantastical aspects kick in (couldn't tell whether it was literal or a metaphor, but it didn't really matter so w/e) it was great but it took too long getting there. Short version: tried to do two things at once, didn't really do the first one justice. Thought for next time: commit to a single pace/tone structure. You've gotta keep shorts pretty simple. The quiet/understated melancholy route can definitely work, but it needs more room to move. Baxter's Second Hand Books - Bompacho Christ, what an rear end in a top hat. Okay, so I get that we were supposed to be sympathetic towards gramps, but it wasn't entirely clear the degree to which his son was an rear end in a top hat and that make gramps seem like an even bigger rear end in a top hat. Opinions from the judges varied: I thought the son was just gonna turn it into a cafe, and gramps was basically a lunatic. The others thought maybe there was a son/doctor plot to remove power of attorney from gramps and modify the will or something, but that really wasn't explained well enough. You can be as coy and clever as you want about secondary stuff in the story, but the main plot through-line really needs to be hammered in with the subtly of a sledgehammer root canal. Thoughts for next time: write as if your audience are idiots and need the plot laid out as clearly and concisely as possible or they will miss it entirely. The Doom That Came to Ipswich - ravenkult We chatted a little in PM about this, and you confirmed all the judges' suspicions: that you kinda just ran out of words and weren't able to end that well. Overall this story was pretty high-tier, but you just couldn't quite manage to stick the landing. Try to expand on this one; blow it out to 2000-3000 words and see what happens. Language is nice and there's definitely some cool ideas here, but you weren't able to explore them well enough. I don't think that's entirely the wordcount's fault- there's a lot of bloat around the middle that could go. I did like it overall, but it got knocked down from the HM tower by a really strong closing pack. Thought for next time: the beginning should be good, the middle can be eh, but it is absolutely vital to end strongly.
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May 8, 2015 03:05
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Yeah sure why not. Spain me. In.
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May 9, 2015 02:13
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VERY BELATED RAVEN-OSAURUS BRAWL JUDGEMENT Sorry, been kinda slow on this one. My life is all kinds of fun strange right now and I keep getting distracted. Anyway. You both wrote Viking wizards who bring back the dead, with varying degrees of success. Multiple-winner Tyrannosaurus had better odds going into it, but it ended up being a lot closer than that. So, some thoughts. RAVENKULT - NINE WOLVES The more serious of the two pieces. As soon as I figured out it was a draugr, I was waiting for her to eat him. I always thought that was a cool piece of the lore- draugr eat the ones they love. That's a tangent though. Back onto the story, I feel like the plot makes excellent use of the wordcount, at the expense of description. Pacing's nice, arc works well, but I'm not sure I could picture any of the characters or the setting that well. I didn't even figure out it was supposed to be literal vikings until you brought up Lindisfarne. A little more time (both in description and action) with the characters and this would've been solid, especially the relationship between the wizard and his draugr. I'm now picturing you running into a giant wall that says "WORD COUNT" until your head is bloody, then cursing my name to the open sky. So be it. A final note; you wrote 'planning' as 'planing' at some point. Always do an eye spell-check on top of the F7 one, as stuff like that can slip under the radar. Proofreading issues often a sink a story, but I'm willing to let a single one slide. TYRANNOSAURUS- NOTHING MORE, NOTHING LESS Seems to be going for the bittersweet/silly thing that Chairchucker and Merc sometimes manage to knock out of the park. Honestly, I'm not a fan of the dialogue. I could see a more modern way of speaking in a period piece, but that this modern. It helps to highlight the sweet relationship between the two characters, but it's also jarring and twee and ultimately damages the thing. This is called "The Juno Paradox". Dial it back a few notches and you'll hit gold. Plotwise it's not as tight as Raven's; it has the emotional arc, but not a physical one as such. Also kinda lacking in physical description, which is surprising for you. RESULTS It's close. I felt like both stories had nice ideas but were a little thin on the ground. Both had strong characters, and managed to get a lot of information across in a limited space, but still not quite enough. Not bad stories by any stretch of the imagination, but could definitely use expansion. At the end of the day, one of you reminded me a lovely 2000s movie I hated and one of you didn't, so I'm giving it to Ravenkult.
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May 10, 2015 22:51
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btw I'm probably going to be late this week. I would rather be DQed and lavish enough attention of the glory of Spain 2015 than half-rear end it to meet the deadline.
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May 10, 2015 23:03
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Sitting Here posted:I will do 5 crits this week. First come, first served. Quote this post if you want one. I'll try to have them done by the end of the day tomorrow.
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May 11, 2015 07:31
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blue squares posted:Yeah Benny is totally the problem here /sarcasm
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May 17, 2015 00:42
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blue squares posted:What? No. I took a break from writing.
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May 17, 2015 05:37
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YOU DIDN'T USE MY PROMPT SUGGESTION YOU MONSTER I'MMA WRITE THE BEST STORY EVER TO PROVE YOU WRONG ALSO THAT STORY I STILL OWE FOR EUROVISION WEEK IN
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May 19, 2015 08:07
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in memoriam Little Samuel had no eyes! Little Samuel spoke no lies - Little Samuel came from hell with eyeless eyes and mouthless mouth. Samuel Holmes often thought of hell. He knew the place too well, and on some days he longed for fire-and-brimstone and pitchforks. Hell is cold; not overbearingly so, but enough to make the world ache. Hell is wet; not in oceans but in the slow rot that crumbles a house from the inside. Hell is a dark forest without a single soul with whom to share your pain. Hell is a place of quiet hosed-up-ed-ness with nimble little thorny fingers that grab and tear. Samuel's hell was written deep in his genes, and it made itself known all across his face: he had no eyes, no mouth. Painted in their place grew a thick layer of skin, with nothing underneath but empty holes. On his birth, his mother Beatrice had sobbed in the way people sob when mere crying is not enough; when the heart is curled tight like a fist and only the smallest of sounds can escape. The doctors had given him two weeks. The odds had beaten him, so he'd made it his duty to beat the odds bloody. Only his sister Alice showed him any kindness- the sincere kindness of children who don't know any better. She’d always been the only one to know when he was hurting, and she would hold him close and say “calm, calm”. In the now, in the time-that-is, it may have been June, though Samuel had long since lost the sense of clocks. Late spring, by the telling of the dew around his bare, calloused feet. Voices in the wood- shrill, so shrill so as to hurt. Laughter, which frightened him for it was so totally alien. Neither his mother nor father had ever laughed. He thought the young woman was screaming, that there was something so wrong with her throat the scream bubbled up in little dancing bursts. He learned to use his nose and his ears and his skin to navigate a world he could not see. He never needed to eat nor drink, but he was filled with a hunger and thirst that tore at him from the inside. He stalked through the trees towards the sound, and a second voice joined in: a young man, taunting, making the same short screams also. Both of them stank of sweat. “I love you!” she said. “I love you more!” he said. Dumb words, dripping with rank sentiment, painful in sincerity. Words that knew what they meant, and did not need to hide. His first kill was a bird. It was an accident. It must've been fooled by his silence and stillness, and taken his shoulder for a branch. He didn't cried out when its little clawlets scuttled across his bare skin, but it was a near thing. He grabbed at it in a frenzy, squeezed too hard, shattered its little skull and not-cried-out again as the fragile bones dug into his palm. What a mess. His father hit him for it, but that was no surprise. His father hit him every time he'd felt ashamed. A day without violence was a good day. Years went by, bodies went underground. Samuel hunted by scent, like a hound. Hunted birds and cats, hunted children from the neighbourhood who were foolish enough to jeer. Eventually, when he was big enough, he hunted his father and beat him to death with a piece of wood; hit him and hit him and felt the big thick bones crunch just like the little fragile bones bones of the birdie. Mother was out at a friend's house, probably drunk. Samuel dragged the limp, wailing man over to the porch step, then stomped on the back on his head until the wailing stopped. Samuel loved the sounds and smells things made while they were hurting. Loved the vulnerability, the intimacy. He lay with his arms wrapped around his father for hours, until his sharp ears caught the screams of neighbours, and the incoming sirens. He fled then- ran off into the hills and not come down for years, until he was nothing but a story told by children to scare each other around the campfire. They called out to each other, and Samuel recognised not panic nor desperation but a warmth and joy that filled the emptiness in his chest. He came closer. His feet knew this stretch of wood well, and he did not break a single twig, nor disturb a single branch. He didn't stop existing because people forgot. He stayed in the woods, and killed the things that came too close, and savoured all the delicate pageantry about their deaths.The squeaks, the smell of blood and innards, and sharp, wet bones digging into his palm and reminding him of happier days. Reminding him of the mother who he never saw, and rarely heard; the little scampering creature who couldn't bear the sight of her own son. A lack of love that ran so deeply it seemed to pull at the strings that made the world dance. A very physical absence, that Samuel made manifest with his scarred hands. His ears and nose became sharp; all the better for hunting. In the now, in the time-that-is, Samuel came to the couple who were locked together, stinking like animals in rut. Stood over them until the man screamed, then the woman screamed, then they ran and stumbled and were bitten at by the sharp fingers of the forest. Samuel found the man first, and put thumbs into his eyes, and found joy in his struggle to break free. Every blow to Sammy's monstrous body only stiffened his resolve, and made him drive his thumbs deeper until the man's breath came out in a rattle, then stopped altogether. The stranger's last shudder warmed Samuel, reminded him of the purring of a happy cat in the better times. Alice, even as the years passed and the innocence of childhood was torn down, had always been kind to him. Let him touch her face to see what a smile felt like. Didn't stink like fear every time he approached. She stopped smiling as she got older, but she was never violent like the others. The girl had tripped. Samuel could smell blood from her wounds, and the reek of sex still upon her. He sniffed the air once, twice. A broken leg? She writhed on the ground ahead of him, whimpering in pain. He enjoyed the gentle susurrus her body made against the wet grass, the moans that escaped her lips so like the moans she’d been making only minutes before, with a man who was now dead. She tried to lunge, to bite, and Samuel smashed her across the face with the flat of his hand. Her nose broke, and a jet of warm blood coated his fingers. The skin over his mouth pulled taut as he grinned. He wrapped a single huge hand around her throat and squeezed until he could feel the delicate bones in her throat grind together, then shatter. She went limp. Her heart was still beating; fluttering like a moth trapped in a glass jar; but it wouldn’t last long. Alice, who in the good times had- Alice, who- He ran a hand across the woman’s face. His own heart quickened, and he felt a dry retch rising in his throat. For a moment, he hung in the perfect moment between ecstasy and agony. The big eyes, the soft lips, the lines around her mouth because she smiled and frowned too much and too deeply they- no, not her. Too carefree. Samuel slumped, and smiled as much as his ruined face would allow. He realised he hadn’t been breathing for several seconds, and let it all out through his nose. When he breathed back in, the stink of blood and bile caught him, and for once did not comfort him. The brutal shock of almost-recognition was still fresh, and he couldn’t take it any more. He took the girl’s eyes, and closed them, then laid her arms crossed over her chest. He couldn’t speak to say sorry, but his mouth made the words anyway. He took one more deep breath through his nose, tried to savour what he had wrought, then found he couldn’t. He turned, and slowly, with shaking legs, walked back into the forest; walked back into the numb, frigid belly of hell. [1421 words] Your villain cannot speak and cannot see. They cannot have magical powers, but they must be an effective villain.
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May 25, 2015 06:27
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The new Mad Max movie has spawned the  emote, and I encourage all Thunderdome members to use it as much as possible.
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May 26, 2015 12:52
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newtestleper posted:One tip: If there's anything you're not happy about in your story, make sure you write a paragraph or so explaining why. Like, for example, if you were sick for a few days and didn't have enough time to edit it- let the judges know! They'll be sure to take it into account when judging. Fausty posted:Or I can just fix it. I think that works better. 
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May 27, 2015 22:15
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A title in bold is an excellent title. It portrays strength and masculinity two traits that are coincidentally shared by the common sea otter. The virile posters Thunderdome would do well to emulate these pleasing sea creatures.
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Jun 1, 2015 10:24
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whoa there's like a million posts in the thread I wondered what happened nevermind it's Benny trying to weirdly lawyer the rules of a no-stakes internet creative writing competition despite the fact that that's really dumb and petty, but also if he's gonna push that line really hard, precedent is against him pretty loving hard and Thunderdome, being an English language competition, is clearly a common law system over a civil one so precedents (especially one upheld many times in the same material circumstances) are pretty binding k that's my contribution go back to reading about Rosa Flores getting 4 army dicks put in her
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Jun 3, 2015 05:28
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I have a sneaking suspicion that Cache Cab is not entirely sincere about his posting at this point
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Jun 16, 2015 00:13
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but idk that would be a lovely thing to do if somebody created a sockpuppet specifically to troll the thread with so it's probably wrong
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Jun 16, 2015 00:13
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it would be really hilarious if the two guys whose IP addresses Cache Cab happens to switch between had both given up on their dream of being serious writers and were now writing creepy fetish erotica on Amazon lmao
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Jun 16, 2015 00:20
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2 FYAD mavericks making  ironically writing stories about lady soldiers getting gangraped lol if that were a real thing we totally just got trolled
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Jun 16, 2015 00:33
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irony is p cool
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Jun 16, 2015 00:33
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ahaha I loving love it. In.
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Jun 30, 2015 04:07
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jimcunningham posted:Wait, what's flashing?
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Jun 30, 2015 04:19
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So, a lot of people have asked me to look at their stories recently, and a recurring problem I see is something called "Garden Pathing". I think I've talked about this in an earlier thread but that was literal years ago so I thought it might be useful here. Garden Pathing is when a sentence looks like it's going to do one thing, but then suddenly changes tack. This is jarring for the reader, and often knocks them right out of the story. An example: The horse raced past the barn fell. Did you get that sudden 'ohfuck' moment when your brain realised it wasn't reading the sentence it originally thought it was? You just got garden pathed. It's tied in with how the human brain processes text; we subconsciously try to use the words we've already read to predict the ones that are coming next. If those words aren't the ones we're expecting, we get a little shock that things haven't lined up properly. She told me a little white lie will come back to haunt me. In both of these examples, you can make the sentence much more clear by simply adding a few words. The horse [which was] raced past the barn fell. She told me [that] a little white lie will come back to haunt me. Usually all it takes is a single preposition to fix, but you'd be amazed at how common this problem is, in the dome's writing and elsewhere. If you pay attention and learn to eliminate garden path sentences, you can make your writing much more clear with only a handful of extra words.
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Jul 1, 2015 11:08
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