Thunderdome 2016teen: Fast Writing, Bad Writing

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flerp: Feb 25, 2014

Fleta Mcgurn posted:

Crit: the Beach Boys suck, but Pacific Ocean Blue is pretty good, so you're on the right track!

thanks for the crit and yes the beach boys are very bad

# ¿ Oct 25, 2016 17:11

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 02:40

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

heres some crits so sh can stop being sad about nobody liking the beach boys

bringmyfishback who i think is now Fleta Mcgurn

quote:

There are a lot of positives to working in the Costume Department yeah this is an awful way to start holy poo poo. like its hard to explain why but its like a combination of no concrete image w/ a well why do i care about how nice work in the costume department. it also has the issue with "wait why are you starting with how nice everything is thats not v interesting". For one, you don't have to wear the normal employee uniform of t-shirt and shackles hahaha wacky shackles!!; you can sport one of the costumes on display. You have to pay for it yourself, but I've been working here so long that I own one of every costume that's ever hit the discount bin.

Tonight, as I trudge towards Aisle A-44- Hollywood Movie Monsters- I am dressed as a Sexy Spider Plant. Tiny plastic spider plants dangle from green-and-white-striped pasties, and more plants act as a combination belt and ra-ra skirt over a green thong. We only sold two of these last year and all employees were obligated to purchase the remainders, but I think it works for me. More interesting than an old t-shirt, anyways. nope nobody cares. wacky image ok sure but wheres the story

You cannot do a Sorting Shift with shoppers on the floor. By the time you reach the end of one of these cavernous aisles, at least a hundred people have blown by you and messed up all your neat arrangements. is this the conflict? Sometimes they drag in things from other departments by accident- ghosts clinging mistily to shoppers' ankles and whispering "sShhhh" at me, or poltergeists that zoop zoop? thats not a word im p sure. yup not a word. into the plastic vampire teeth and eventually cause some really weird injuries. Speaking of vampires, NO SHUT UP GET ON WITH THE STORY I DONT CARE ABOUT VAMPIRE they tell me it's much more peaceful to sleep in this department- standing up, sandwiched between rubbery versions of their own faces and crappy copies of their luxurious capes. i get it the costume department has monsters but why. do. i. care???? It doesn't sound too comfortable to me, but if someone's banging on your coffin and screaming "WAKE UP!" every few minutes, I could see how the relative quiet of the Costume Department might appeal. Vampires wake up with a good jab from a broom, but they get awfully huffy, and occasionally take a nibble at you. So rude. no. this paragraph is bad. ok cool u have wacky costume department w/ ghosts and poo poo but like wheres the story???? wheres the intrigue????

That said, at least they're predictable. Last year, a bunch of vegetables somehow got mixed up with their mask counterparts in Aisle D-12 and rotted. We thought there had been another accidental zombie delivery, but it was kind of worse, because the forensic investigators we called got into a huge argument about whether you can call Belgian endive "just endive" and...well, the inspectors eventually came. I'll leave it at that. is this your stand up routine? it has the same cadance and style of stand-up, of non-sequiturs but isnt actually funny or interesting.

I hate walking through Aisle A-44 alone. The masks and costumes range from cheap garbage to professional-quality, and while the expensive ones are spooky, the cheap ones are actually creepier. were like five paragraphs and you havent told me what the gently caress the point this story is. is it just "look at how wacky this is?" because if so i hate you. They almost look like they're screaming silently in pain- "I was built to be the perfect man! Why would I have bolts in my neck? Why would my face be made poorly-molded rubber that's covered in flammable paint? Help meeeeee."

Still, I have work to do, and I won't get done any faster if I procrastinate. I pick up my Official Sorting Stick and begin whacking a display of hanging Sexy Zombie Elsa pop culture reference the peak of comedy costumes. I know nothing will pop out of there- the real Sexy Zombie Elsa works at the Hot Topic franchise three floors away and spends most of her time picking at scabs and pretending to still find Jack Sparrow culturally relevant i dont i just i dont know how to respond to this. this is just painful.- but if the cameras catch me skipping any costumes, I'll have to attend a retraining session, and those always leave unsightly red marks.

The hours limp by. I find an adorable ~~real~~ yes we know these are all real you have beaten us the head with this concept i get it ok fairy in Aisle A-78 and send her back to her own department that couldve been interesting to see. I perform two quickie exorcisms on some plastic pumpkin masks that couldve been interesting too and slap a "RECALL FOR DAMAGE" sticker on some cheesy "witch hand" gloves that had somehow been sculpted to be permanently flipping the bird that could've been interesting too like a prankster running the costume department. too bad YOU DIDNT DO ANYTHING WITH THEM AT ALLLLLLLLLLL. Other than that, it was weirdly quiet- except that I kept hearing footsteps it was weirdly quiet--- EXCEPT FOR THE NOISE. i hate you. At first, I didn't think anything of it. Other employees occasionally walk by on their way to other departments, and sometimes Security sends a bot or a warlock down if there have been a lot of critters found during a Sorting, but I suddenly realized that I'd been hearing these whispery little footsteps for almost an hour. That was not normal at all. your like literally in a department where there are zombies and ghosts and vampires and hearing footsteps is apparently the not normal thing here. i know this is supposed to be a "joke" but like come the gently caress on.

oh yeah and now FINALLY FINALLY you got to the conflict. why didnt you start with the footsteps.

I kept my training in mind, and pretended not to notice. I kept checking the costumes and rearranging messy shelves. Eventually, I started to notice a pattern- there was more than one set of footsteps. They'd pause just after I stopped walking, then pick up again exactly three seconds this reminds me of that really stupid tendency that creepypastas have where they give us exact time frames of time. like, think about this for a second. how does your narrator know it was exactly three seconds? did they have a loving stopwatch? also, how is something moving at exactly three seconds every single time. also the three seconds doesnt even mean anything in this story its just a useless detail (like the rest of the story) after I moved again. This remained consistent, no matter how quickly or slowly I moved.

I waited until I reached the Sexy Gardening Supply costumes ok i kinda like this joke ima give u one (out of like the other 100 stinkers youve given me. Their real counterparts were located so far away that they hadn't infiltrated our department in over a decade, and I felt reasonably certain there wouldn't be anything hiding there tonight. I pretended to be closely examining a rack of Slutty Sunflower costumes and then, after I thought I'd heard a single stray footstep, I whirled around and shrieked, "HA!"

Before me stood ten or twelve fellow employees. All of them looked weirdly alike, with long single braids on the women and the men in high-collared shirts under their VOIDMART IS A BUSINESS! what does that even mean. of course voidmart is a business i dont understand ASK US TODAY! uniform tees. In fact, they were dressed and coiffed exactly like the Voidmart employees in the official framed photo of the original department team. They looked at me with mild eyes what are mild eyes?, seemingly peaceful, and said nothing.

"What the hell are you people doing?" I readied the Sorting Stick, trying to look menacing.

A man in front with a blond bowl cut stepped forward nervously, placing his hand on his heart. "We found her," he murmured, and the others behind him erupted into excited gasps and even a couple of small, restrained squeals. Everyone's eyes seemed to glitter with unshed tears of joy.

"What the--" WHAT THE. man i hate that kinda dialogue

Bowl Cut cleared his throat. "Please, this is going to sound strange, but...I am Steve, and we are the employees of Aisle L-8."

Aisle L-8? "I've never been in there," I said. Wait, hads anyone?

"Most employees haven't." He smiled, relaxing a bit. "Ever since Opening Day, we have remained in L-8, watching. Waiting. Fending off the demoniac creatures that haunt this place." EXPOSITION HO!!!!!

"We were afraid to leave," one woman added. "We took the full-size Barney costumes and used them to block off the aisle, and we've been hiding ever since."

"Oh, god, those Barney costumes freak me out," I told her. "That's why I always just rush past that aisle." this dialogue is bad

"That's the idea," Bowl Cut agreed. "We've only had a few invasions in the past ten years."

"But how can you live in there? What do you eat? Where do you, um...go?"

"People drop food all the time," Bowl Cut assured me, "and Golden Bean delivers when we call." He indicated his walkie-talkie. "As for the other thing...well, we use a Barney head." WHO CARES I DONT CARE I DONT CARE ABOUT HOW THEY EAT FOOD AND poo poo TELL ME ABOUT THE GOD drat DEMONS

Well, that answered one of the long-standing departmental mysteries: why we occasionally find poo poo-filled Barney heads. I DONT CARE AHHHHHHHHHHH

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked. yes plz why answer some questions move the plot along

"We see your Voidmart Spirit," Bowl Cut said, gesturing to my costume. "You are one of the true employees. Also, you're quite skilled with your weapon." you are the chosen one. i hate this. i want to die. let me die plz

"My Sorting Stick?"

Bowl Cut nodded. "We need someone with your strength, your ferocity, and your knowledge of the outside world. Our former leader left us for Automotive Repair and Time Travel, and none of us are as good at fighting off interlopers. If you agree to join our team and protect us, we'll accept you as our leader, and help you defend Aisle L-8. You can call the Golden Bean for food and sleep on a fine pile of Barney suits, and you'll be excused from corporate training and all of the team-building exercises. It will be a good life, a hard life, but I think you will be happy with us." more exposition i love this i love my life life is worth living

It was a strange offer, but an appealing one- no more trust falls? I drew myself up proudly and straightened my spider plant cap. "Show me to the Barney suits. I'm ready to transfer." why no why why why why why why why why why why why

.
WHY THE gently caress DID YOU WRITE A SETUP TO AN INTERESTING STORY AND THEN loving END IT WHERE IT GOT INTERESTING. I WANT TO SEE THEM FIGHT DEMONS I WANT TO SEE INTERESTING THINGS WHY DO YOU HATE ME WHAT DID I DO TO YOU???

so my advice for you is to 1) get to the conflict as soon as loving possible and 2) don't make your character just saying "ok yeah sure" without any conflict or resistance or anything because that is boring as gently caress

Sarkimedes

holy poo poo... a conflict in the first couple paragraphs??? character motivations??? personalities??? i think i just loving died

ok so just formatting wise uhhh please double space between every line break its just really really annoying to read the way you formatted it. like i know manuscript form doesnt do that but when posting on a forum its just better.

yeah this is cute i like the conflict so far but it feels a little flat. like, you say they hadn't sold anything in for two years but i wouldve liked to see that, and also wouldve liked to see them actually change the signs to point away from their section instead of just being told that they did that (also, me as a reader already assumed that the people changed the sign when he said that all the signs pointed the wrong direction so maybe you dont even need to tell the reader that they did that)

this is probably a bit too dialogue heavy. it's not terrible dialogue but its not especially engaging. it gets the point across but doesn't like *pop* or draw me super in. its not bad so i guess thats a good thing???

yeah thats' definitely the problem here -- everything's told to us through dialogue. every action someone takes is given to us in retrospect and we just see the reactions that people have to actions instead of seeing the actions themselves. makes me feel cold and distant.

ok this is like a p decent story that i dont like want to fling myself off a bridge so good work i guess. but like, with there being like no real action (things happen, but they happen off screen and people just tell us that stuff happened), its not super engaging. you got a real nice start though, since the conflict is kinda silly but also treated with enough respect that it was enjoyable without taking the piss out of itself. i just wanted a little something more, it has a narrative arc, but not an emotional arc. why do bern and larry care so much for the order in their section? what does it mean to them? i know it's important to them but like... why? also i dont think larry is really needed since he's just kinda there, and then that would give you some space to flesh out bern or possibly sam's character more.

Blastinus

i dont recognize your name and all the new newbies have gotten crits now so im giving u one too

quote:

Of all the possible positions at Voidmart, Shipping and Receiving had been nearer to the bottom on Geoff Thurman�s list. Not even the returns desk would have been above him. At least then he�d be able to talk to someone. But this department�well, he had a tablet computer, and all it did was chirp out work orders. ok i dont hate this first paragraph but maybe my standards have just lowered but like it sets up a relatively ok conflict (i dont like this place). its not like a good first paragraph since its p weak and not all that interesting but hey it works for now

If Voidmart seemed dauntingly huge on the consumer end, the storage side was somehow even more so, sprawling out in a complex that, at first glance, could be mistaken for a metropolitan skyline. The ceiling was lit by thousands of fluorescent tubes, many of which were flickering close to death, if they hadn�t burnt out already. Someone would be out to replace them soon, management had said to complaining staff, but in the meantime, there they stood, like a sparkling constellation of cheapness i would've liked a different word then cheapness -- something more concrete or surprising. sparking constellation doesnt work on its own because its too positive so idk this is a metaphor ud have to think about a bit to make it really work.

~~As one might expect,~~ no simple forklifts would satisfy the demands of this storeroom, not when the shelves were hundreds of feet in the air. Instead, the skies were abuzz with the rotors of hovercrafts, weaving through the dimly-lit steel corridors at the whims of their tablets. ok cyberpunk/scifi storage room i might be ok with this lets find out

�Dock GLC!� it what is this it? the computer? chimed one day, in a mechanical approximation of cheeriness ~~that grinds on the nerves after the fiftieth time hearing it~~. ~~As per usual,~~ a map of the complex lit up on his screen, showing the location of the shipment in question, but something was different this time.

�Floor 3?� he muttered to himself, rubbing his two-day fuzz. He�d never really questioned where the shipments came from. They just sort of appeared on one of many docks scattered throughout. But he�d heard that the lower floors were strictly off-limits after some sort of incident. Nobody really wanted to talk about it, but the short version his supervisor had told him was that somebody dropped a crate they shouldn�t have and the ground floor was full of zombies.

It was probably a joke though. Jerry jerry's the supervisor name right? plz clarify that when u refer to the supervisor[ was well-known for his tall tales.

He ok so heres a good example of a bad pronoun. the last named character (and also what the pronoun before this one was referring to) was Jerry but I know you're talking about the protag (Geoff). so like I know your referring to Geoff but my mind makes an auto connection to this He being Jerry so its confusing and might i say not good hoped it was a joke.

�Well, no point standing around,� he said maybe just make this a thought into actual dialogue, ~~once again to nobody in particular,~~ and began his descent. Whatever reservations he had about the walking dead paled in comparison to the threat of losing his job this could be interesting if explained.

The hovercrafts weren�t really designed for speed so much as heavy loading, so Geoff had plenty of time to see his doom come into view. Suddenly everything made sense, inasmuch as a crate two stories high could make sense, that is. No way that something that big would fit in one of the docks above.

A portly man in shorts was standing by the crate, holding a clipboard and smirking like a man who�d just brought in something guaranteed to ruin some poor employee�s day i mean.... he's not smirking like a man who does that, he literally is a man that did that.

�Hey!� Geoff ~~protested~~ said is a great word i love it a whole bunch try using it a lot more as he brought his vehicle in to land, �You do realize this thing�s only rated for ten tons, right?�

�Relax,� the man replied with a dismissive wave of his hand. �It�s mostly hollow.� He banged the side of the wooden box to emphasize the point, and the instant he did so, a loud bellow sounded from within. �Oops!� he exclaimed disingenuously. �Must have made it upset.� meh this feels kinda like cliche? something ive seen a bit before in like silly scifi comedies (futurama probably did this idk i have bad memory)

�What�s �it?�� Geoff asked, taking the clipboard. The shipping manifest only had one item on it, written in a manner far too formal for the subject matter. Geoff gave an incredulous smirk, and blankly said, �A T-Rex. Really.� thats cool i like dinosaurs

�Feel free to take a look. Poked some air holes in the side.� With a confident swagger i dont really see why hes being confident rn when hes about to like ship a trex or w/e, Geoff walked around and noticed a few holes about the size of a hand�s breadth. He was going to put the truth to the lie right here, right now. i mean... you make this out to be like a BIG DEAL but we literally just learned that there could be a trex. its not rly a big deal to me rn in the story. also maybe its just because of me or like the context of the week but im not like surprised by trexes (maybe its because of the hovercraft u got me to alrdy like suspend my disbelief a good amount so im like yeah so what its a trex who gives a gently caress)

A few seconds later, white as a sheet this is odd since like its a simile to something that isnt actually defined in the sentence. idk this might just be me but its weird, he checked off the box on the manifest, signed the line at the bottom with a shaky hand, and handed one copy back to the pudgy delivery man. �Good luck, buddy!� the supplier chuckled, and walked to the end of the dock, disappearing in a flash of light and leaving Mr. Thurman with a crate that was shaking back and forth with the complaints of the creature within. im glad u didnt actually describe the trex (im not actually im lying im kinda sad) because its like a low budget movie where they like yeah theres a big monster but you dont ever see it because they didnt have the budget to make the monster

For his part, Geoff took the matter with a surprising degree of professionalism, digging through the employee manual for instructions. ~~As one would expect with a department this huge, the manual in question would be stiff competition with War and Peace. You could quite literally kill someone with a book this size.~~ yep dont rly care. hell itd be funnier if it was like a really small pamphlet and they had a section for dinosaurs

�Let�s see�exotic animals, exotic animals�Okay, Floor 28. Immediate delivery.� ~~Depositing the weighty tome back in its compartment right above the pilot�s seat~~, he fired up the loading clamps. As long as he just stayed in the hovercraft and never, ever left, the big bad dinosaur couldn�t get him.

Right?

The crate was an unwieldy fit, to say the least. Normally he�d have had to slowly close the clamps on the article as he hovered overhead, but judging by the whine of the motor, he was pushing his luck at the maximum breadth. Guess he�d just have to take it slow.

The liftoff was sluggish, but still steady. So far so good. Just had to get around a few shelves�

Suddenly, the container shook again as the creature took another monster-sized tantrum. The hovercraft drifted to the side. A metal column came into view, and it took a hard jerk to the right on the flight stick to avoid crumbling the flying machine around it.

Almost there. He was on Floor 17 now�Just had to keep rising�

A burning rubber smell started to fill his nostrils. Something was straining on this machine. It didn�t matter. He just had to make it, and then he could go back to the employee area and get a new one. He�d probably get a dock in pay, but if one of the rotors suddenly blew out and he started plummeting to his doom, that would be far worse.

Especially if that had just happened.

As in, right just now. ughhhhhhhhhhhh i hate this its too wacky, pulls me out. this should be like a tension filled moment but here it just deflates because of that

Geoff might have been screaming at that point. He couldn�t rightly recall, as his mind was instead flashing through all the different ways he could save his skin. His mind flashed back to what he�d been told about the hovercrafts during orientation, that even if a rotor failed, the other one would be sufficient to keep it aloft. So why was he falling?

Oh, right, because he was dragging a giant crate underneath.

Desperately, he scanned his finger across the myriad buttons on the dash. The clamps were designed to stay locked while the hovercraft was in motion, but there had to be a�

There! The emergency release!

The sudden deceleration back upwards slammed Geoff into his seat as the crate went crashing down into the abyss. Guess the zombies would be eating well tonight, he thought to himself, relieved at his quick thinking.

But no sooner did Geoff realize that he was no longer falling than a new problem suddenly surfaced. He�d been flying straight upwards since dodging the shelving unit, so he was right alongside it, and with one of the rotors out, his craft was listing to one side�

Before he even understood what was happening, he�d knocked the broken rotor off entirely and was now grinding the shattered remains against boxes and boxes of assorted toys and trinkets before finally coming to one last sickening halt against a large crate of washing machines.

A minute or two later, Geoff flopped out of the open window of his wrecked vehicle. Something was broken, that much was certain, and he�d have to crawl all the way back to the lift leading off of this shelf, but he was alive. Almost definitely fired, but alive. Maybe he could apply for disability pay. huh this kinda just petered out huh?

this wasnt godawful either so congrats i guess! but still some pretty annoying issues. first of all -- get to the point. too much time was spent on the buildup, get to the conflict which was trying to move the dinosaur around to the other section. get that going as soon as possible, putting in a few details that we need for the setting and then there u go its more interesting already!

but like this is kinda one of those stories that like is just kinda there to be like a fun little tale that i dont take it seriously, but it lacks that bit to make me really invested. i mean geoff doesnt have like a super big personality cause hes just basically doing his job.

also that ending was lame cause i was like... what happens now??? he just dropped a crate holding a trex! like, that's sure to cause a whole bunch of problem. hell, that seems like a bigger problem then what geoff had in the beginning of just trying to move the dinosaur. maybe that needs to be done in a longer story but like as it stands it just kinda ends with yep oh welllllllllllllll.

Beige

alright, conflict established quickly if a little vaguely not a bad ol' start if i do say so myself.

that fourth paragraph really confused me w/ its pronouns i dont like that

quote:

She appeared to give a small surveillance dronelet a slight nod before leading Alexandra along the broad aisle, leaving the plethora of electronic creatures in their wake.

did she appear to? or did she just actually do it?

why is a woman rapping what/????

quote:

From the distance came the sounds of a commotion. A crash of metal and breaking glass followed by desperate screaming.

cut "the sounds of a commotion," and make it just "From the distance came the sound of the crash of metal..." and find a way to make the sentence work w/o the sound of im 2 lazy to figure it out myself

hmmm i dont rly like how this story has shifted. it seemed to have started with Alexandra wanting a friend and Harmony like manipulating her into just accepting whatever, but now its all about Harmony dealing w/ some weird monster. also im gonna predict that Alexandra and Harmony become friends.

i really have no idea whats going on theres like a reality field wtf is a reality field

did this become like a really lovely horror game?

your shifting perspectives again -- it started with Alexandra then Harmony and now Alexandra -- please keep it consistent

wtf happened to this story i was all for a happy go lucky story about finding a friend and now its all like super angsty and melodramatic

i dont get it

i dont understand im so lost and confused

i have no loving clue what this story was supposed to be about and i really cannot comprehend my reality at this moment i need to lay down for a little and try to stop myself from screaming thanks

maybe dont make ur nice little story about a little girl trying to make a friend turn into one where people have existential terror in some hellverse because theyre a witch ok cool thanks.

# ¿ Oct 25, 2016 20:32

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

# ¿ Oct 26, 2016 11:01

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

proof of submission:

242 words

Twittering Machines

edited out

flerp fucked around with this message at 19:45 on Nov 14, 2016

# ¿ Oct 30, 2016 19:28

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

f
j
g
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# ¿ Oct 31, 2016 08:09

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

Week 222: Deliver Us From Bad Prompting :henget:

Twittering Machine by Paul Klee

So if you didn't know, this inspired my little story. It's cool, I like it a whole bunch, and it's in a little style called Surrealism. Maybe you heard of it. We had a Surrealism week once. It was awful. We're doing Surrealism again because it won me last week, but we're doing things a little bit differently.

First of all, let's talk about Surrealism. Surrealism is loving awesome. I love it. It attempts to link the unconscious and the conscious, inspired by the ideas of Freud and Jung, and is something you should definintely look up just because it's a lot of fun. For writing, though, there's two things I love about Surrealism. The importance of the image and the dream logic.

If you know me, I love images. Surrealism pushes that even further and says that you should focus on startling us. That's cool. Surprise us, but don't just surprise us with random crap. Surprise us with a weird logic. Everything should make sense in the weirdest way possible. Think of how dreams work and try to emulate that in your story. But rememeber, THERE IS STILL A LOGIC. I don't want a bunch of monkey cheese bullshit thrown in my face. Be smart. Please. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me in this thread (itt) or in irc. Just, please, don't be wacky or crazy for its own sake. Find a reason for it.

And before you say "I just don't get Surrealism," early Walt Disney is basically Surrealism so, actually yes, you already get Surrealism

If you're looking for some good example of Surrealism, I recommend reading some James Tate (especially How the Pope is Chosen) It's poetry, but they'll give you a good idea of what Surrealism attempts to do. Remember though, a story has a character that wants a thing and does things to get the thing!!!!

Also, to give you a little bit of inspiration, I'll be giving every one of you a song. They won't have lyrics, so they might be a bit difficult to write to, but basically all I'm looking for is for me to listen to your story and read your story and for me to nod and say "Yeah this fits the story well enough." Also, I like these songs so plz dont make fun of them tia!!!

Word Count: 750
Sign-up Deadline: November 4 11:59PM PST
Submission Deadline: November 6 11:59 PM PST

Judges:
Me, flarp!
SkaAndScreenplays
Chili

Entrants:
a new study bible!
ThirdEmperor
Fuubi
ZeBourgeoisie - flash rule: someone in your story needs to learn when to keep their mouth shut
sparksbloom
The Cut of Your Jib
Beige
Hawklad
vintagepurple
Thranguy
Moxie
Crab Destroyer :toxx:

newtestleper
kurona_bright
Entenzahn
Jay W. Friks
llamaguccii
Daeres
Some Strange Flea
Tyrannosaurus
BeefSupreme
widespread
Baleful Osmium Sea
Fleta Mcgurn
Fuschia tude
Maigius
Okua
TapTheForwardAssist
Djeser
Ironic Twist
(30)

flerp fucked around with this message at 07:34 on Nov 3, 2016

# ¿ Oct 31, 2016 16:18

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

ZeBourgeoisie posted:

Hey guys, this week seems like a good one to share this little game I came up with. Feel free to use it for inspiration.

All right, I've been sharing a few of these in IRC, but you really need to try it for yourself to get the full experience.

Go to a Markov Chain generator site (I use this one)

Once you find a suitable site, copy in the text I affectionately call 'The Block'. For maximum fun, set the chain length to 1. You can use any text you want, but The Block is composed of the 'best' Classic stories TD has to offer, and it produces some awe-inspiring results. For instance:

flash rule: someone in your story needs to learn when to keep their mouth shut

# ¿ Oct 31, 2016 17:37

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

a new study bible! posted:

Sign up post

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ql8K3KJyWgY

ThirdEmperor posted:

In

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2PzP7REU2o0

Fuubi posted:

Color me muffins and drink me some blue! I am in!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uvug9_xljlY

ZeBourgeoisie posted:

Yeah sure in.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bhO4BdvHrjs

sparksbloom posted:

In.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=J4rwPoRITlI

The Cut of Your Jib posted:

in

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EBhFHJMVfiI

Beige posted:

In

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dWE0nlhpdq8

# ¿ Oct 31, 2016 17:53

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

Hawklad posted:

IN

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bg6SCZjI48U

vintagepurple posted:

In

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hELte7HgL2Y

Thranguy posted:

In

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Vgxs785sqjw

Moxie posted:

in

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3MdOqsYMFp4

Crab Destroyer posted:

In with a

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jbGI4PNIr0k

newtestleper posted:

In

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pz3BQFXjEOI

kurona_bright posted:

in

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=a91ptz1W7gg

Entenzahn posted:

In

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BYaFbFLAQlQ

# ¿ Oct 31, 2016 19:26

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

llamaguccii posted:

In. Congrats, Flerp. XD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbOqFrTrFR0

Daeres posted:

In.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSmYollY_X8

Some Strange Flea posted:

I was hesitant this week but those music choices are really getting me pumped the gently caress up.

Let's do this thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_moHXjH7pc

# ¿ Oct 31, 2016 20:54

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

Jay W. Friks posted:

In.

sry missed you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZuI3ZkCHfs

# ¿ Oct 31, 2016 20:58

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

Beige posted:

I'll say it right out: I don't understand surrealism in the same way I don't understand jazz music. I can recognise it when I read/hear it and even appreciate it but when it comes to picking up the pen/saxophone it's apparent that the methods of producing it are beyond me.

You know what I mean? Does anyone have some surreal short stories which would make good learning examples?

like i said, tate's a good starting point to see how he utilizes images and a weird, but present, logic (the pope poem if you're interested http://aspenanomie.tumblr.com/post/241861939). an example of a short story could also be A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings (http://www.jonescollegeprep.org/ourpages/auto/2014/1/29/42934518/A_Very_Old_Man_With_Enormous_Wings_pdf.pdf), which even though its usually classified as magical realism, i'd consider surrealism for the purposes of this prompt.

but basically what im looking for is startling image(s) and an odd, but consistent, logic that is also a relatively complete story (for 750 words) with characters/plot/all that noise.

Tyrannosaurus posted:

In.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnHGbWYzHz0

# ¿ Oct 31, 2016 21:38

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

BeefSupreme posted:

In.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7Q7tyWQ45k

# ¿ Oct 31, 2016 21:51

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

the nice off: chili vs sebmojo

500 words on "im the nicest motherfucker around." must be a fable (aka animals and has a moral at the end).

winner gets to be courteous and let the other person judge

due tuesday 11/1 11:59pm PST

flerp fucked around with this message at 00:08 on Nov 1, 2016

# ¿ Nov 1, 2016 00:05

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

widespread posted:

IN for surrealism shenanigans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_mO0h1bwac

Baleful Osmium Sea posted:

Enough lurking. Time to be writing. In.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUlAytznxn4

Fleta Mcgurn posted:

IN IN IN although I know I'm gonna err on the side of being too self-consciously wacky. But whatever.

How many Surrealists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Fish

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q09KoR7g018

# ¿ Nov 1, 2016 02:38

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

Fuschia tude posted:

IN

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=X23Fzs1QBZA

Maigius posted:

IN!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy0aEj85ifY

my cat is norris posted:

ENCOURAGEMENT: I can't join in this week; however, I look forward to reading everything that's being written for Flerp's cool prompt.

im not

# ¿ Nov 2, 2016 01:50

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

Sitting Here posted:

hey thanks for the crits

# ¿ Nov 2, 2016 02:01

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

nice brawl judgment

Chili posted:

The Heron and The Beaver
483 Words

As spring set in the bustling forest, Heron worried that he wouldn't find another mate why tho. Though he tried and tried, year after year, he never found love. As the sun rose and the first warm air of the season just say spring or w/e filled his feathers, Heron got an idea why now. Perhaps he wasn�t the most beautiful, bright, or courageous, but maybe he could work really hard and show how he was the most special. this is a p cliche opener but like cliche isnt the worst thing in the world (still not good).

He looked around the floor of the forest and saw that winter had covered the ground with loose branches. Heron got an idea: �Maybe if I build a big stage out of branches, and stand up tall on it, all of the other herons will see how hard I work.�

And so, Heron set out to collect all of the branches he could find. He worked by sunlight and moonlight, until after three days so i guess this is a jesus story now, he gathered a pile of branches ten feet tall.

�Now to build my stage!� ok wait are you using british quotation marks or american???

But as Heron began clearing a space, Beaver walked by, crying. Noticing the pile of branches, Beaver stopped and wiped the tears from his cheek.

�Oh Heron, you have so many branches and I have found so few. I must build a drat to help keep my family safe. Will you lend me some of your branches?� gently caress having consistent quotation marks i guess

Heron looked down at Beaver and saw that the winter had not been kind to him. He was missing chunks of fur and his teeth looked as though they had split. Heron needed those branches, but Beaver needed them more. prompt found. now im just waiting for the Beaver to turn into a beautiful Heron princess and for them to have a nice gently caress session

�Of course, my friend. Please, let me help you carry the branches to the river. If we work together, we can do it quickly."

And so, Heron and Beaver carried the branches to the river, and Beaver went to work building his drat.

Heron was tired, and knowing that he no longer had a plan, decided to take a long overdue rest. He slept for three days in a tree by the river. this really is a jesus story also wtf what a lazy bird he just carried some drat branches After the third day, he heard a knock at the trunk of the tree. Heron flew down to the ground, and Beaver looked up at him, smiling.

�Oh Heron, thank you so much for lending us those branches. May I show you the drat my virgin eyes noooooo that my family and I have built?�

�I would be honored,� said Heron.

Beaver led Heron around the drat this is hosed up; it was truly impressive ill take ur word 4 it. Finally, when they arrived at the center of the river, Beaver turned to Heron.

�I saved this for last,� Beaver said.

And there, at the center of the drat, stood a high stage.

�What�s this?� Heron asked.

�It�s for you,� replied Beaver. �My family and I will guard it, and make sure you�re the only bird to stand on it.�

Heron, shedding a tear, looked down at Beaver and thanked him. He flapped up to the stage where he looked unique and beautiful but he didnt really earlier. It would be a good spring.

So I mean yeah this is p on-the-nose fable stuff but like I was hoping that the end wouldn't be like "Heron now gets to have his gently caress on and instead learns the value of helping other people" but it really did just become "Heron now gets to get his gently caress on" which ok you set that up at the beginnin and then resolved it and there's a moral but the moral is pretty plain like "be a nice guy 'cause then people will be nice to you". i mean its not like im expecting gold here but a little bit of a subversion or surprise here wouldve been p. nice to add to this story.

so its a solid effort but nothing to like write home about

sebmojo posted:

The spider and the fly
440 words

A fly was buzzing around the living room one day when he scented a most marvellous odour is this a legit kiwi spelling? what a hosed up place. He cast around for it with his sparkling many faceted eyes before finally spying a perfectly fresh nugget of cat poop, nestled in behind the tattered couch, ~~doubtless laid there by one of the many feral cats that prowled the house~~.

‘I shall eat well tonight,” he thought happily to himself, “and lay hundreds of eggs which will hatch into hundreds of happy fly children who will care for me in a couple of days when I am old!’ idk i like this a little bit. its not a voice id give to a fly

But as he was thinking these happy thoughts he flew right into a sticky web that a spider had stretched across the gap between the couch and the wall.

The fly buzzed like a tiny winged doorbell but could not free himself. Ourt of the corner of one of his eye facets he saw a black shape scuttling towards him across the web and rear back above him, its fangs dripping with poison.

‘Wait!’ shrieked the fly. ‘Please don’t eat me!’ you should probably have quotations for these still

The spider, taken aback, lowered its fangs and said ‘But I am a spider! It’s my job to eat you.’

‘I acknowledge that,’ the fly said, ‘but if you eat me I will not be able to fly down to that cat poop and lay hundreds of eggs in it, all of which will doubtless hatch and produce many new flies which you can catch on your beautiful web.. So if you eat me you will give up being able to eat my children. And may I say what a handsome and well appointed web you have made here.’ this loving fly man. i love him a whole bunch

Spiders, being invertebrates, cannot nod. lol. i actually legit laughed here However the fly thought he could hear a note of thoughtful approval in the spider’s voice.

‘You have given me a lot to think about, fly. I consider myself a reasonable spider and so I will cut you loose, on the basis that you will fly down to that dollop of feline faeces and lay your eggs in it.’ And being a spider of his word, he cut the fly free with a few quick snips. The fly buzzed a few times to get the threads off then bounded into the air.

‘Thanks,’ said the fly. 'And so long, sucker! Not a chance in hell I'm gonna let my kids get stuck on your ugly-rear end web and eaten! I'm off to the back yard to fly in circles around that dead sheep!'

The fly was about to dart away and never return, but he was at that moment snapped up by a leaping feral tabby. yep totally unexpected ending to the wacky ending which turns out to be a bit predictable

Moral: don’t trust cats, they’re assholes. preach it

truthfully i expected you to take the piss out of this prompt so thanks for not disappointing me. this is a fun little story, kinda the same level as chili's with it being the more standard wacky fable but you got a good voice and the fly is a funny character. a little predictable but hey 500 words written in a day im not expecting gold here

anyways these are both alright and are p close to each other but im gonna give it to sebmojo because he made me laugh out loud (or lol as its known in some circles) once in his story that was supposed to be funny so thats an achievement.

so everyone please welcome Chili to the judge team!!!!!

# ¿ Nov 2, 2016 07:36

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

Okua posted:

I'm in for some surrealism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFpIMLL9V0c

# ¿ Nov 2, 2016 18:52

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

TapTheForwardAssist posted:

In.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6THFGWLEn7w

Djeser posted:

Greetings from IRL Voidmart, and in

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P-EKQp4Hedk

Ironic Twist posted:

in, might as well

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W7llAsIH5SY

# ¿ Nov 3, 2016 05:07

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

SkaAndScreenplays posted:

Thanks for the crit Seb - doubly so since it was a crit that was already claimed.
I'm glad some of the things that I felt good about worked and I'm not surprised some of what I wasn't sure about didn't.
Sorry about the piss poor proof-reading/lovely grammar. I'm working on some way to not gloss over all these blatantly obvious mistakes I make.

dont respond to crits no one cares why u wrote bad write good next time

# ¿ Nov 4, 2016 02:32

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

signups are closed! i advise you all to reread the prompt post and this post to see what i want!

i look forward to you all disappointing me!

# ¿ Nov 5, 2016 18:13

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

i forgot to say this but please link your song in your submission post it helps make our friendly archivist's job just that little bit easier!

# ¿ Nov 6, 2016 01:33

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

2 hours until submission close!

# ¿ Nov 7, 2016 07:01

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

submissions close

# ¿ Nov 7, 2016 16:48

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

Sitting Here posted:

please read

Prompt: WTF Thunderdome formatting

On Story Formatting
593 words

Hello goons! I am making this post because I've noticed a lot of formatting issues in the dome over the past few months. Your stories should be formatted to look good on the forums, not in your word processor. Proper manuscript formatting won't save your rear end in the dome. For one thing, the SA forums don't support indentation. That means you need to put an extra space between your paragraphs. Otherwise, the reader feels like they're wading through a big block of text. Blocks of text tend to make people's eyes skim, which isn't what you want in a fiction contest.

"It's no different with dialog," Sitting Here said. "People do this weird thing where the rest of their paragraphs are spaced properly, but when they get to back-and-forth dialog, there aren't enough line breaks."

"Yes," said Kaishai. "I've encountered this particular human quirk many times while archiving. Your formatting sins are engraved on every last nanoangstrom of the millions of miles of circuitry that fill my complex." Kaisha's lights flashed a dangerous red.

While the above example might not be great dialog, it is formatted correctly. Very, very (very) occasionally, you might put some dialog at the end of a paragraph for effect. Perhaps you are the sworn servant of an omnicidal AI and, after some action or character blocking, you say, "All hail Kaishai, cleanser of the Earth!"

In that case, the dialog shouldn't be its own paragraph, because it's part of a longer sentence.

***

Scene breaks are a little more tricky. There is no Thunderdome standard for indicating gaps in time in you story. Some people simply triple space, others like to use some sort of symbol. The important thing is that it's clear and consistent throughout your piece. In this example, I've used three asterisks, with double spacing before and after. This is an effortless visual cue that the story is making some sort of jump forward. Usually, you want to be minimalistic about it. You don't need forty dashes in a huge, distracting line across the middle of your piece. You also don't want to be so subtle about it that the reader doesn't notice. If you're new and unsure, feel free to do it exactly as I have in this post.

***

Finally, let's talk about your prompt, title, and word count. Your prompt and/or applicable flash rules should be the very first thing in your post. Now, it doesn't always make sense to put the prompt at the beginning of your post. If it's a week where we all got the same prompt and there aren't any flash rules, there's really no need to put any info at the top of your post, although it can't hurt, I guess. Check out the top of this post for an example. I posted the prompt, double spaced, then added the title in bold. Finally, the word count should be immediately under the title. If our almighty archivist has to guess which part of the post is your title, it may end up wrong on the archive, and that's nobody's fault but yours!

In conclusion, there are hundreds of good examples of formatting in Thunderdome, including this post. It may seem pedantic, but even legitimate publishers will often have their own formatting requirements. Good presentation will help your good words stand out! Or at least make your bad words not so painful to read. If you are unsure of something, feel free to ask on IRC, PM me, or make a post in the Fiction Advice thread.

DM

but 4 serious yes do this

# ¿ Nov 7, 2016 21:12

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

ZeBourgeoisie posted:

Also, friendly note, gdocs keeps doing this stupid thing where, if you copy+paste your story from there into SA directly, it'll randomly add an extra space between your line breaks. Both SH and I have experienced this and it seems to happen whenever google feels like loving with somebody, so watch out for it.

theres a preview button before you post

use it

# ¿ Nov 7, 2016 21:33

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

Week 222 Results :henget:

(i cant believe they got rid of :bernget: im so mad)

So, this wasn't a hard week to judge. Surprisingly, we were all unanimous in our winner and loser picks, and most of our DMs were mostly just us saying "yeah, this was bad, but not as bad as the other ones" so good work I guess guys. I, and my judges, should have crits up soon enough, so we'll go more in depth there.

Now, let's get on with the mentions!

First off, let's start with the cream of the poo poo crop, the Loser of Surrealism Week 2.0:
Say a nice hello for Moxie! You made a poor mistake writing a meta story with a head judge that hates meta stories, but that's okay because apparently the other judges do too. Pro tip: next time instead of winking at me and saying "dang there sure is a lot of exposition" maybe cut that exposition instead.

Unfortunately for the next people, they just barely missed out on getting a new AV, but they still deserve a little bit of recognition for how bad they are by earning a Dishonorable Mention:
First we have ZeBourgeoisie! He earned the pretty brown bar next to his name by having an awful protagonist and a confusing twist ending. While not as terrible as the loser or some of the other DMs, it was still a chore to read and annoying to finish. I would not recommend this one.
Next up is Maigius! While there were a bunch of stories that interpreted Surrealism as "a bunch of random poo poo I came up with" this is one that was aggravating and annoying to read. There was no logic or anything to grasp in this despite jumping around constantly alongside a lovely ending. I wanted to figure out what you were trying to say, but I realized, you didn't even know what you were saying to begin with.
Then we got BeefSupreme! Your plot was "lady returns some cufflinks, oh yeah and the guy was a vampire who like makes your feet blurry or something idk". You waste half your words talking about how effortlessly a lady gets to talk to a guy and then there's a talking fish. You had one good line ("Beyond that, how should I know? I live in an aquarium.") which might've spared you from the lose.
And last, and certainly not least, TheCutofYourJib earns a special Judge Fiat DM from yours truly! Take solace that I was apparently the only one of the judges that actively hated your story, but my judges were still confused as to what you were saying. Every sentence in this was a labor to read due to how overwritten each line was. I have no clue what you were talking about in this story. I don't want to go back and reread because I feel like I have to spend a minute trying to decipher each sentence. I hated this one and if I was a cruel dictator this one would've lost, but alas, we can't all get what we want.

Remember though, losing and DMing are much higher honors than being failures, so let's take a moment to shame Crab Destroyer, Beige, newtestleper, kurona_bright, Daeres, Some Strange Flea, Fleta Mcgurn, and Djeser. Let's not forget about Crab Destroyer, though, who must now pony up :10bux:

to the good 'Tax man if he wants to post in our good forum again.

Ok, now that's through, we get to some Honorable Mentions:
Please, give a round of applause for Tryannosaurus! You wrote a successful humor story, which, while I didn't have it for an HM, my other two judges did, and since you made me have a light chuckle, I'm pleased to give you this award in ~~excellence~~ not sucking. I feel like your plot could've been established faster, but hey, great work either way!
And, for a surprise even for me, we have Entenzahn! While I didn't have it initially as an HM, one of my judges brought up how your narrator sounded a lot like the narrator from the game your song is from. Couple that with a pretty solid story that I enjoyed reading but wasn't too enthralled by, you squeak by with an HM. But you earned it nonetheless.

And now, for the grand finale, we have a well deserved Winner:
Please, welcome sparksbloom to the main stage! This was a great story, using Surrealism to enhance her themes and characters to great effect. While I felt a little disappointed (and I really do mean a little) in the ending, we were all unanimous in saying that this was deserving of the crown, and you should wear it with pride, unless you blow up.

Thank you all, this was quite a show, and if I can leave you with one little piece of advice, it's this:

Surrealism isn't just a random crap thrown into the reader's face.

And with my job done, please, take it away sparks!

# ¿ Nov 8, 2016 00:04

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

Surreal crits

TapTheForwardAssist

So in irc when i started reading this on wednesday night, i told everyone to look at your story and told them to do the exact opposite of what you did here.

So, first of all, comma splices. You use commas like theyre periods and its so annoying.

I hate this because it�s a bunch of random poo poo sprewn about with no regard to any actual coherence or logic. Yes surrealism blah blah blah but this isnt actually a dream or have any logic its just �i wonder what weird poo poo i can put together� a cat whose fur is an orange peel and has ice cream for eyes. I can do weird poo poo too but that doesnt actually mean anything. The beauty of surrealism is how the absurdity WORKS, how it makes sense to the author, and thus, to us. When i read this, i only see you trying to just say weird poo poo without taking into consideration what your weird poo poo MEANS.

But this isnt a story. Like, you tell us at the end it�s the last thought of a dying soldier, but like, it has no meaning. The rotten cherries are because the gas that killed this man smells like rotten fruit. But this has no meaning to the soldier. I don�t know poo poo about him except that he�s a dying soldier. There�s no plot either. It�s you saying �Something is wrong� over and over and over again but never expanding on it. I don�t gain anything from this. You could�ve just made your story three words: �Something is wrong� and that would�ve been just as a meaningful. My teacher said something really insightful this last week: "the issue with using repetition sometimes is that the repetition can say the same thing, which is frustrating as a reader. When repetition works, it's when the repeated phrase or word takes on new meaning." And that's the problem here. The phrase doesn't take on new meaning.

Also gently caress your ending info dump.

The music interpretation is fine, tho a little on the nose but w/e.

Jay W. Friks

Its lame that i gave you such an awesome song and you wrote me a letter instead. Sure i dont hate the letter format, but i sure as hell don�t think it fits this song at all, but oh well.

The issue here is that you have a lot of absurd images and ideas, but they don�t come together to form a meaningful whole. There�s a lot of odds ideas, clocking in on the abacus, puppies running in, being scared of the puppies, etc etc, that on their own may seem good or neat or surreal, but they�re put in with a scattershot approach, with you thinking �well, sure if you dont like this image its okay because ive got twenty more where that came from!� The issue, though, is that since you don�t actually linger on any of the images and your plot is basically �hey, can i get a promotion?�, nothing really occurs or is given any emphasis. It�s just �heres this image, here�s this image, here�s this image� but you never go beyond that and try to explain what the images mean.

Vintagepurple

If, for some reason, peoples� thoughts before they die are a loving theme this week, im gonna be pissed.

This has very similar issues to TapTheForwardAssist�s, in that while it does have some bizarre images (and I think the images here work better than the ones in TapTheForwardAssist�s because they are coherent and make some kind of sense while still being odd), we don�t really learn anything from this story. We just learn, yep, this was the last thoughts that a dude had before he died, and nothing really meaningful was gleaned from this fact. I don�t really learn much about the dead dude except he died. Why did he think of butterflies and a flying dolphins? gently caress if I know!

The music interpretation is good tho, the song fits nicely with the story.

Okua

Please, for the life of me, put double spaces between each line. It just looks so much better to read.

I have a sick-addled brain, but im having a tough time grasping your images. I feel like there�s like a few key words missing or a vague pronoun in each of them that keeps me from fully understanding the images. For a surreal piece, that�s a huge deal.

For some reason, I found myself really starting to enjoy this by the last half of the piece. While I was like w/e for the first half since it was rly just like trying to find its footing in the surrealism, when it started to have the birds crack out of their shells from the pickaxes, that birds are like ore, that was cool, but I think that could�ve been pushed further to derive some more meaning from it. While I liked the ending, I felt it was a tad bit too easy and too� quick? It didn�t feel deserved to me, as I felt like I didn�t learn much of Sarah and the narrator and the birds that it didn�t feel as meaningful as I think it was supposed to.

Basically, cut the first half and work towards your ending.

Solid work, though, as it got going near the end.

ZeBourgeoisie

You know, I deliberately chose this song because of its fast pace and I wanted to see how someone would use it in their story. A garage sale type thing seems like an awful choice.

Hmmm yes I really do like this protagonist who took his friend�s jar that was from his Grandma�s, this is the kind of guy i want to read more about (I dont).

Boobtube? (ok thats a thing i guess)

Please, dont ever say in a story �it�s hard to describe.� like, i would only reserve that to like dialogue i would never ever ever use that in prose or anything ever.

So I guess this another one of those Sixth Sense ending stories where the protag was in a painting the whole time or he became a painting or�... Idk.

I feel like, i think, maybe that this guy was a painting the whole time but then� why could he be given the vase? What is even happening? This is just� frustrating. It�s a story where i feel like the whole point of it was its surprise ending but i dont even know what the surprise is.

I don�t like twist endings to begin with, but this is just frustrating. I can�t make sense of what you were trying to say, your protag is just plain unlikable, and while some of your descriptions were nice, the story, the ending, everything, they don�t come together to be anything enjoyable.

The Cut of Your Jib

I like the opening lines. Doesn�t really fit with the music imo but w/e. I don�t like how you missed an apostrophe s on the our in the beginning paragraph. Then I�m lost. We got fire and glass and ram�s eyes and life and��.

I have no context.

You really have to work on keeping your prose from getting too florid. I can see what your trying to say but im also just lost. I dont know what the hell is happening even though i feel like you know what your trying to say. I�ve read some of your other ones, like the lighthouse one, and you get too caught up in your prose to recognize that a reader needs some space to fully understand the story.

Like look at this line dude

quote:

The lie of the stream reveals its truth in molten rivulets that build upon themselves until I can�t hold the fiery mane on my shoulders and am borne down into the mouth.

What the gently caress does this mean??? �The lie of the stream� �molten rivulets� �fiery mane� like fuckkkk i cant process all of this. You can maybe give me like one or two of these lines in a story but its just a series of dense, hard to process images that i cant link together. This is frustrating.

Oh man you were getting somewhere the mom was there and i was feeling something and you said �does blue weigh more than green� and aghhhhh.

quote:

bituminous miasma

No stop this right now stop these words i want to get off

this is dense, but not in the good way. Its just, way too much, each line is an ordeal to read, filled with a bunch of strange and, at times, strained language. Like, im not saying its bad that your writing is dense, but when its too dense, you dont give your reader any time to process what�s happening. I couldn�t, for the life of me, figure this out and it�s because of that issue. You may give me a dense phrase, but they spatter among a few simpler phrases for me to be able to understand what the hell your story is about. But it�s like, i get one sentence in, and if i try to process exactly what that sentence is saying, it�ll take me like a minute. I have to do that for every minute dude. That�s a lot, and it�s a lot of thinking. I don�t have the brain for that. I�m sorry. I just plain hate this.

Fuubi

Some light hearted surrealism. Im okay with this, this has been way too dark for me even tho i gave you all the funniest poem to read as an example you jerks. Anyways

Ok ill be honest here i dont know a lot about pickles here and im not gonna look up any pickle stuff rn

And another pickaxe in two stories? This is like a really interesting Thunderdome Jungian collective consciousness kind of thing.

Plz dont use the word dank unless ur talking about weed (and dont really use that word in that context either)

quote:

Looking at the ghouls also made him remember that they were the ones who had placed him in the pickle to begin with, and he also realized that they had a tendency to eat human flesh.

Man, i was kinda feeling this story in like a �ok ill play along� kind of manner but then this just killed the mood. It was just like, idk, made everything stop working.

Welp that just ended.

I can feel the song in this tho a little bit and it is a bit tougher of a song to work with.

One of my judges had this for a DM, and while I don�t think this is a good story, hell I�d even say bad, I think why this works despite being not great is its sincerity. If you can channel this energy more into your stories, your stories will be a joy to read. So, even if this wasn�t a great story, it landed higher because of how much I feel like you liked the story and how that was translated into the story.

So, in that sense, this is a good story. Keep it up and work on your craft and you�ll be getting better!

sparksbloom

Ok so this is what I was really interested in. i wanted to see how people would approach songs like these since theyre weird as gently caress (but i love �em so much anyways)

quote:

I couldn�t be sure who she meant: me or the bomb.

No. dont do that. Leave it unsaid.

Huh, i think this is the one i like the most so far, esp for how it does surrealism. As in, there�s a bizarre image and idea -- building a bomb that runs with love -- but is expanded upon in the story and isnt just a hodgepodge of random images that the author came up with.

There�s emotion in this, but i get a feeling of disappointment and im not sure why. I almost wouldve felt better if the bomb blew up because he did stop loving her� maybe even realizing that it was him that fell out of love and not her. Maybe that�s what you were going for, or trying to imply, but the ending as it is, I don�t feel like the guy will keep loving her forever. But then again, love being a bomb, it�s a great analogy. This is a solid story, the best so far, that really works with the Surrealism and uses it to be something meaningful. I just think the ending is flubbed a little bit.

But other than that, there�s not a lot to complain about. The emotions felt real, the metaphor of two people building the bomb was surreal while also being easy acceptable, and with a couple more drafts, this could be an even more awesome piece! Still, excellent work.

Thanks for writing a good story to one of my favorite songs tho.

Moxie

Please, don�t have a story where your protagonist says �i dont think my parents are really human� and have the parents be actual non-human creatures because if you do im gonna be so so so mad. Ok, well, credit where credit is due, you didn�t do that at least.

�Zany antics� oh god this is a story im going to hate huh?

Oh god this self awareness is painful

I will say im def not the audience for meta jokes. I write meta sometimes, but i just dont like things were people are like �why is everyone expositing� when i can feel the writer like winking at me. It�s like, yes, it is exposition. Being aware of the exposition doesn�t make the fact that it�s exposition go away.

Yes, im salty.

Yup i hate this a whole bunch! Its just meta on top of meta and it even has a corny ending that is so completely undeserved.

I�m not a fan of sitcoms, myself, but even then, this was a bad sitcom because it felt forced. The ending felt forced, the �wackiness� felt forced, your main character�s straight man character felt forced. It committed one of the worst sins a story can make, and that is, it tried to be funny and wasnt funny.

Too much dialogue, not enough story, forced emotions, this isnt great. Heck, it�s even bad!

It�s unfortunate, but I hope you take this loss as a learning experience.

Thranguy

Oh man i love drowning!

quote:

It tasted like licorice and autumn and static electricity.

Take out static electricity, it doesnt fit well with �tasted�

This is similar to Okua, in that the beginning is you fumbling around with a bunch of images, trying to find the one that hits its mark. Then, you finally reach it with the Grackle and it starts to take on some life and meaning rather than just being a slideshow of images. The issue, though, is that the emotional impact you want from that moment isnt really there since we never see Billy, never see why Billy is so important to the narrator, and the beginning could�ve been much better served setting that up rather than the protag just being �yeah i was sad�.

Yeah I don�t have much to add here, I think that was the big issue. Billy isn�t given the development for me to feel like he�s important as the story tells me he is.

Music is good tho

Ironic Twist

That second paragraph -- it�s some good writing, but for what purpose? It gets really the same idea across as �Clicking the button in the cradle made it hurt worse�. It�s a bunch of words to say something you already said.

Did you slip into second person for some reason?

Yeah i dont get this? I guess the empty crib means a baby died or something but other than that i cant really glean any other meaning from this. Like, it�s some good writing, the images are coherent, but their meaning is vague and hard to notice. It doesn�t help that your images are spent reiterating the same ideas that the whole story is basically �dude sits there for a while, then cuts off (what i think is) his arm�. Yeah and then you end with grief and pain and its like wtf is the grief and pain we dont see that i dont know what the hell youre talking about!

I kinda forgot about this story, which is sort of an issue with a Surrealism week, in that when everyone�s trying to surprise each other, it stops being a surprise. I just think the issue here is that 1) the backstory isn�t very clear and 2) there�s not enough movement or energy in this piece.

Tyrannosaurus

I love this song a whole bunch so plz dont disappoint me.

Huh ok, this was uhhhh a story that happened. Its funny but not like haha funny more like light chuckle funny. It fits the music well i think, but i just found it lacking a bit. I liked the first paragraph a bit but then it seemed like it was just trying to set up that, yes, all the pigs are people, and all of them are undercover PETA agents. We got that rather quickly. But you kept having to tell us that. And then you were going on tangents about how they were furries and poo poo but like� that never came up meaningfully in your story, it was just a dumb side joke that could�ve been spent developing the plot. Like, I would�ve liked to see more. How do they react to the fact that meat, is in fact, murder? Idk. It�s a punchline when it can be a premise.

I think this can be pushed further but in no way did I think it was a bad story, meaning I could easily HM it.

Entenzahn

Whisky, Colt .45�s, this is like gonna be some surreal western or noire?

Hmmm ok this can be an interesting inversion.

Huh this was� kinda interesting? While not as well written as something like Twist�s, I think it worked better as a story. I guess the problem i have is i dont really understand why the gun needs to shoot. And, since my interpretation is that the protag shot this lady who was prob like a lover or something, and he feels an intense amount of guilt that he becomes trapped in this weird void, i dont see why the protag actually shot the lady then. But, I think the images are done well in such a way that they enhance the story rather than dominate the piece and prevent it from getting towards any meaning. But i still find this piece lacking in some ways� i think i wish i understood exactly why the protag is in the position he is in.

Overall though, I think the thing I didnt bring up in the crit was that you established the mood nicely, which is why when Chili brought up the Bastion comparison, I started liking this story more. Bastion has a great mood and so does this, and you nail that same kind of mood, which is what pushed this over the edge.

a new study bible!

Huh, this was cool. I liked the premise and ideas here, but there was a few confusing bits, like him jumping into the red chute and then trying to get out of the red chute. I would�ve liked a different path to be followed when you started on about the green chute not opening, that�s when i was really starting to feel something, that Teddy had to keep throwing away all of those perfectly good animals, i think you can expand on that and take it in an interesting direction. The ending for me didnt really work here, since i dont really get it. It�s just� why does he go down the chute and then want to come back up? Its a weird leap that feels like a surrealist leap and more like an author saying �i have to get this guy down here� leap.

Yeah, I wanted to love this story given the way you start, but I feel like you need to move the ending in a different direction. It�s a cool and neat idea, but it�s not developed far enough. I wanted to care about Teddy, and I was so close to doing that, but the story pulls me out just too soon that it hurts me that I can�t like this story more.

Fuschia tude

Its interesting that a lot of you are going for animals that are mechanical.

Ok the leap (lol) from the frog to the girl is uhhh not very good in my opinion.

I can see this working as a prose poem imo, but as a full story, not so much. I mean, the plot is mostly, the girl threw a frog out the window and now it plays at the bottom of a lagoon. I love the ideas here, some of the images are cool, but some of it is is odd (�Fish turned to metal splinters� seems off to me).

I think there�s too much focus on the girl esp. for a piece this short. I think more time shouldve been spent on the frog, although theres an interesting interpretation to say that humans are fickle and dont care for the wonders of nature and that animals are more intune with this spectacle and can be entranced. With the frog being both mechanical (man-made) and also natural, i think you can hit on some cool themes and ideas.

I think if you want to expand this from being less of a prose poem (which, for me, I have no issue with writing a prose poem) and to take it to more of a story style, then give the frog more agency and make a stronger conflict centralized on the frog.

Unfortunately this is a flash fiction contest and not a prose poem contest, so it�s hard to judge to the rest. It�s not an incredible prose poem, but has the skeleton of a good one, so with some work, I can see this being a strong piece.

Baleful Osmium Sea

Opening paragraph is nice but a little overwrought.

Overwritten (not as bad as Jib�s tho)

What was the point of the child? Get rid of the sword?

Why did the Knight throw himself?

There�s some good images and ideas, but the meaning is muddled. Why does the Knight want to get to the Dragon? Seems like characters know a lot more than me which is frustrating. This can be really cool but it�s not there in this story with the combination of confusing motivations and the overwritten prose.

Yeah this is like, an awesome Surrealism piece that�s trapped in a bunch of stone. You need to chisel away some of the excess, some of the unneeded stuff, and explain the really cool stuff such as 1) why the name of the dragon is taken 2) why the knight is made up of only a suit of armor and 3) why the dragon becomes a lord (and why that�s important). Like, I think about it, and it has some super cool poo poo in it, but it�s just too difficult to comprehend and I�m not given the right knowledge to really appreciate this story, unfortunately.

ThirdEmperor

Hell, Arizona. P. accuracte.

�The folk beneath� beneath what?

�Their� - who?

Eh, i thought you were going somewhere but then it was just like �yeah the fish dude licked everything� which just isn�t that interesting.

Yeah I don�t really have much else to say. I guess the intro was kinda interesting, with the people being on the other side of a permanently frozen lake but then, idk, you just wrote about a wacky fish person licking everything. The former was interesting in a spooky way, the latter was just kinda wacky, and they don�t work together. I would�ve liked to see one be expanded, and I would�ve prefered the people on the other side of the lake.

Also, how does the music fit here? I guess the ice but I wanted the music, not the thumbnail, to be a part of the story. I love this song and I think it has great potential for a story.

Maigius

First line�s sentence construction is bad.

Eh I don�t like Surrealism when it's like one person seeing things and nobody else sees it.

Proofread.

Yup, this is another random spattering of ideas w/ little development or meaning in these images.

Proofread plz.

Yeah uhhhh this was kinda random, its logic hard to grasp in a bad way, since it moves but moves in a dissatisfying way, where it just jumps around w/o any consistency. It�s just a chore to read and the images arent particularly engaging that I enjoy them. It�s just frustrating with very little gain. There�s no meaning to it, from what I can tell. It�s just lol stockbrokers I guess?

BeefSurpreme

What is its home?

Ok, setting, but character? Plot? Conflict?

Who cares? Nothing meaningful is happening, she�s just seeing Finn w/ no conflict or opposition.

Vampire, talking fish, its Surrealism all right

Yeah this was just odd. Like its a whole bunch of �I want to see Finn� with nothing in protag�s way, but then vampire! But then i dont get why the vampire is and since he just fucks up your feet.

Your plot is god awful. Your character doesn�t really have a conflict besides �i need to return this thing� and even then, nothing gets in her way. Dudes just let her go into the bar and she sits down and then its like �OH poo poo HES A VAMPIRE� and shes like �nvm im good im gonna go home� and thats that.

I can feel the music tho.

llamaguccii

This was a tough song. I shouldn�t have given it but I love melee too much.

Phew this first paragraph has a lot, a lot, in it

Yeah this has a lot of jumps -- maybe a bit too much jumping -- but it does make me want to go back and figure it out so maybe that means its ok? But im left feeling dissatisfied on the first read, its a little too incoherent and too rapid with its jumps.

This frustrated in the same way Jibs did, but not as bad, as I think they were some comprehension I could muster, but idk, I wasnt super impressed with, even though there�s some unsettling aspects to this that I liked.

With some cleaning up, I can see this working as a prose poem.

Widespread

dialogue punctuation is wrong (read this: http://litreactor.com/columns/talk-it-out-how-to-punctuate-dialogue-in-your-prose)

I dont think you capitalize bricks but ill need to consult Chairchucker

Fun fact: me, my bro, and my neighbors used to have Lego wars so this is bring back memories

Firearms def shouldnt be capitalized

Yeah this was fun + cute, but prose was rough. Really, that�s the whole jist of it. The plot�s silly and cute and I liked that because that can work, but you should probably get a line-by-line so you can work on your craft. Read more, write more, that�s what I always say.

Hawklad

Vague pronoun in opening line I hate it soooooo much

Lil overwrought (was carboniferous rly needed?)

Dont use bright-eyed thats a cliche phrase

�The day everything changed� cut that

No i get it, u dont have blood

Hmmm this couldve been more interesting if you played w/ the relationship between the protag and the symbionts rather than the relationship between the protag and wife. The latter is just not that interesting in comparison.

Song name drop but i kinda like it

Huh -- i think i like this. Lost of cool images and like, it work in its Surrealism. I think approaching it from the protag�s relationship w/ the symbionts would�ve been more interesting but i liked this a whole bunch (addendum in the last paragraph im just transcribing some notes i wrote). It drives me to reread while it still feels satisfying on the first read.

Ok well the beginning was not as good as the ending, so thats frustrating but the ending got interesting. I could have maybe seen this be an HM if the beginning was stronger since I really felt it was starting to jam with me near the end.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2016 00:55

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

# ¿ Nov 8, 2016 19:54

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

flash rule plz

# ¿ Nov 9, 2016 18:54

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

yea mine was accepted 2

# ¿ Nov 14, 2016 19:46

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

Reverse order crits so people who got skipped can get something at least

Kaishai

This feels awkward as a letter -- its somewhere in between actual prose and a person really writing a letter. Id like for it to go one way or the other, the voice seems to be going back and forth.

How do you italics in a letter? I mean this is prob a email so idk what im even saying

Ok, see things like

quote:

Thin rocks rose up out of the dirt. Only they were fingers, not rocks,

Doesnt work in a letter because why did she say they were thin rocks? She knows they were fingers, so she would prob say something like �I thought they were thin rocks, but they were these hosed up fingers.� or at least, i feel like that�s how someone would say it. The whole description of the man coming out its just� idk, it has that same problem of feeling like an attempt at being prose while also still trying to be a letter.

Yeah, like the dialogue doesnt make sense and lines like

quote:

My voice had that strangled-frog croak Angelea used to laugh at and spook me to hear again.

makes sense in prose but in a letter� why is she talking about this detail when she�s talking about A LITERAL ZOMBIE TALKING TO HER. It doesnt make sense.

Why didnt the girl just get the gently caress out of there like for real. A loving zombie showed up and shes like nah ill stay in this house wtf.

Why is she telling this guy what happened?

There�s some like kinda cool emotions here but like� the plot doesnt make a whole lot of sense. The story relied on your narrator believing a zombie monster thing and i dont really get why she does? The plot just needed the narrator to do it soooo she did.

The letter format is p tacked on and this story is aching to be in an actual prose format then forced into a letter, i feel like.

Trex

This was an easy read but a little� insubstantial. It doesn�t really have a lot of motion in it or move anything past what it is. Soldier helps a baby out, writes a letter to it, says �don�t give up� but it�s not really anything more then that, huh? That�s a horrible thing, and I liked this for what it is, but I felt like there could�ve been more. I liked the character here a bit, he has a good voice, but I don�t feel like I learn much about the soldier or the girl or anything. Not a whole lot of development I guess.

Ska

Aka vague bullshit the story

if youre doing something this short you need, you NEED, to be specific. This is meaningless because i dont know what youre talking about. �This war to come� -- dont explain what the war is. �Action� -- you dont say what action youre going to take. Who cares? Who is the girl he�s writing to? What�s any of this? I don�t see why I care and the vagueness doesnt give me anything else.

Jay W. Friks

This is real odd. Idk what it is but there�s jsut like weird statements that feel like� so bland for what they�re saying (I ran over your daughter like mannnn that should be so much stronger).

Huh autism� that kinda helps this story but it still feels odd in a dissatisfying way.

Still a dude talking about how he�s socially awkward is a bit too self indulgent for a letter written to the father of the daughter he�s killed. Like, cmon now.

Uhhh huh. This was uhhh rough. I didnt like the parts where it was like the guy being like �im sad because im a socially awkward dude� because like� youre writing a letter to the father of the daughter you killed, but idk, there�s like some realness in this that hits� i guess the best way to put it is it hits me in an odd way that i dont know how i feel about this. I feel like it�s not great but there�s something here that genuinely makes me feel like hurt and there�s some rough poo poo in here. Idk what to say about this honestly.

Thranguy

Dialogue always feels weird to exist in a letter, you know? It makes sense as prose but in a letter, it just looks like something you wouldnt write that way. Youd just be like �yeah this dude said this� instead of an actual dialogue exchange.

Also you both just slowly nodded in the dialogue� wait why are you saying you slowly nodded in a letter?

Phew thats a lot of dialogue in a letter aint it.

Oh so this is like gods i guess. Ok i c

I guess i dont rly get this� its a lot of dialogue but like not with a good amount of context for me to understand like whats rly going on. Like ok i think its gods that are also liches and then the boss dad is coming back and hes gonna enslave �em and then there�s humans but the humans dont ever die for some reason but then there�s some dialogue between the gods andddddddddddddddd i think you needed to kind of run with one of those ideas instead of scattering them about because i dont rly know what youre trying to say.

Hammer Bro.

I really hate this kid voice its the most generic kid voice in existence.

Yeah this kid voice is super obnoxious because its so clearly just the kid misinterpreting things but not in an interesting or clever way just an obnoxious way that it makes me have to work as a reader for no real reason.

Oh its satan. That�s lame. This story is lame now. Why is Satan defending this little girl? What�s the point of this? Her parents die but then everyone else in the neighbor dies or maybe its the rapture or��. I dont get this. I dont get why it needs to be Satan. I don�t get why there needs to be a Cerberus (that�s Greek/Roman too they don�t have Cerberus in Judeo-Christian mythology I don�t think) so uhhhhh yeah this was very stupid! And not good either imo.

a new study bible!

i dont think i can ever accept dialogue in a letter now it just always makes me feel weird

this guy seems uhhhhhhhh not v right in the head u know what i mean

ok this is like kinda silly w/ some seriousness to it that's fun. i like the little like revelations you have in here, w/ us realizing he's going through Disneyland all the time so he can find his brother again after all these years. yeah idk i had a good time reading this, but the pacing is a little off and it feels like there's pockets of prose splattered in w/ some letter poo poo. it's alright tho.

# ¿ Nov 16, 2016 00:26

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

im in with a platypus :toxx:

# ¿ Nov 16, 2016 07:40

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

llamaguccii posted:

In (Please give me a creature)

for not submitting last week.

Thanks guys, for the TOXX tutorial.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2016 01:53

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

Animal: Platypus
Flash rule: Baffled by your own body.

1100 words

The Fable of the Platypus

http://writocracy.com/thunderdome/?story=5279&title=The+Fable+of+the+Platypus

flerp fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Dec 26, 2016

# ¿ Nov 20, 2016 22:15

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

23rd century BC

# ¿ Nov 22, 2016 17:59

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

23rd century BC

973 words

Listen to Me, Not the Flames

http://writocracy.com/thunderdome/?story=5299&title=Listen+to+Me%2C+Not+the+Flames

flerp fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Dec 26, 2016

# ¿ Nov 28, 2016 05:11

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

a new study bible! posted:

Hey... so, uh, I know this isn't the place for this exactly, but fictionwar finalists are out, and I'm one of them.

Just wanted to say thanks to Thunderdome for making me a better writer and helping me achieve my first paid writing submission.

congrats!

# ¿ Nov 28, 2016 20:44

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 02:40

flerp: Feb 25, 2014

prompt

# ¿ Nov 29, 2016 06:38

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > Thunderdome 2016teen: Fast Writing, Bad Writing

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