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Alright this is pretty much one of the things I'm worst at so I'm In.
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Mar 15, 2016 04:15
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Sea Change (1,200 words) your knight may not draw a weapon until injured in combat We had always been the weird ones, the quiet ones, the kids who ate sack lunches in the school library and took pride in reading Le Morte d’Arthur for Accelerated Reader points. But Nate’s mom is the one who took us the renaissance fair, which she would later half-jokingly refer to as “the gateway drug.” For a while I think our parents were still optimistic, until we found out about the group that hosted live-action D&D campaigns in the park. You could almost see the trajectory of their hopes for us correcting themselves midflight. The lacrosse player, the ladykiller. Watch them arc, hit the water without a sound, sink without bubbles. We made everything ourselves. My sword was three feet of PVC pipe wrapped in insulating foam, and the armor was a few cheap yoga mats cut up and plastered with silver duct tape. Nate was our mage; his mom sewed a robe with a hood and everything. He bought a mesh bag full of sea glass from Hobby Lobby. He’d lay them out in a circle and recite the incantation he’d come up with, and anyone standing inside was invincible until they stepped out again. That was home. *** By junior year, we have everything figured out. Graduate top of the class, then off to the University of Tennessee. Summer Latin classes at the Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. We imagine a hundred other kids like us, with cowlicks and library cards and woefully uncool sneakers. My older brother writes me letters on pages ripped from yellow legal pads. He writes me from Ramadi, and then from Kandahar. When I unfold the letters, sand trickles out from the creases, fine as powdered sugar, and I scoop it into little piles on the dining table. I tell him about my plans and he tells me good luck. He tells me that if I join up, the G.I. Bill will cover my tuition, which I guess is his idea of a joke. He tells me about going on patrols, watching out for cell phones and cameras and trash in the road that might be harmless or might not. He talks about the rules of engagement, how they can’t shoot until someone shoots at them first. *** A week after we take our SATs, Nate’s mom is rear-ended at a stoplight and put in spinal traction. Her job isn’t waiting for her when she gets out, and even with Nate picking up an extra shift at the deli, the money he’s saved up for Tennessee starts bleeding away. I tell him there are still scholarships to try for, still tuition assistance programs to research, but he just gives me a tired smile and doesn’t say anything until I drop the subject. Afterward, every time I go over to Nate’s house, his mom is just sitting on the couch with a sort of spaced-out look. The accident has whittled her down, and her eyes are sad, like a whale’s eyes. I stand in the living room while Nate grabs his robe and his sea glass, and she doesn’t even seem to notice I’m there. We stop by my place on the way out the park so I can get my gear. Nate comes in for a glass of water. Dad is on the phone with somebody, but when he sees me, he nods toward a stack of mail on the counter. I go over and shuffle through it until I see the manila envelope with the little embossed seal, and I know what it is before I even read the words next to it. There’s an eel-slick feeling turning over in my stomach when I open it. It is with great pleasure that I inform you of your admission… But then I see Nate looking at the letter, and this heavy feeling drapes over me. Even though it’s too late, I put it down and act like it’s no big deal. I hurry to go get my sword and my armor and my shield out of the closet and we climb into the car and don’t say anything the whole way there. I’m counting on the campaign to smooth things over. The woods in the park are thick, and you can barely hear the sound of the highway. This has always been the place where all the other poo poo doesn’t matter. Everything that’s drowning us. Nate is setting up his magic circle in silence. I can see the muscles in his jaw clenching and unclenching. The rest of the group has gone up ahead to scout. I’m a few feet ahead when I see something land in the leaves beside my foot. I turn around and bring my arm up just as Nate throws the second beanbag. It glances off the corner of my shield. Fireball, he shouts. He throws another. Fireball. I run back into the safety of the sea glass circle. I ask him what the hell his problem is. Nate slugs me right in the guts, and even through the yoga mat, it hurts a bit. Mostly I’m just surprised, and even Nate is looking at his balled fist in disbelief. But then his face twists up and he charges into me. We are rolling on the ground, and I can feel my chest heart jackhammering, hear the blood pounding in my ears. Nate is on his back underneath me. I’ve got the hood of his robe bunched up in one hand, and my other fist is cocked. Nate is crying. His face is red and ugly and quivering. There’s snot on his lip. I think about what my brother told me, about the rules of engagement. I tell myself that this isn’t what a knight would do. I let him go. Nate scrambles to his feet and brushes dead leaves out of his hair. He starts walking. The magic circle is broken, and he doesn’t stop to pick it up. *** Once in a while, when I feel alone, or if I’ve had a little too much to drink, I try to find him online. There are more Nate Levines than I would have guessed. I keep waiting for the moment when I’ll pick his photo out of the crowd, a little bit older but still unmistakably him. I don’t have the sword anymore, or the armor. What I kept is a little piece of sea glass, pale green and smooth around the edges. It’s like all of it is there, inside that glass, like an insect trapped in amber. The sweet, dusty smell of summer grass and the thrum of cicadas. I can look at it and feel something tugging at me, like a compass needle leading me back. Sometimes I’ll sit there in my dorm room with the lights off, hunched over in the deep-sea glow of my monitor, listening to bright laughter floating through the drywall from some other room. Someone’s music turned up too loud. I’ll take the piece of sea glass and rub it between my fingers. I’ll recite the incantation, the one Nate made up, and for a moment, with my eyes closed, I let myself imagine that I’m home.
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Mar 21, 2016 06:46
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Welp, guess I get to be King of poo poo Mountain. Thunderdome Week CXC: Three-Course Tale This week, I am shamelessly stealing one of Twist's prompt suggestions from the archive, because I can't think of anything interesting and my fragile constitution can't deal with more people shouting Proooompt at me. Anyways, here's the deal: Your story this week is going to be three separate pieces of flash fiction. They must all be related in some way (you can be very loose with this requirement; I want to see some cool stuff). Each must be from the perspective of a different character. Each of your three pieces can be anywhere from 1 to 500 words words long. Obviously you should only use as many as you need. I want you guys to have fun with this - play around with voice, shift tenses and POVs, jump through space and time if you want to. Whatever lets you write the story you want to write. Wordcount: 1500 Entries Close: Midnight EST, Friday, March 25 Submissions CLose: Midnight EST, Sunday, March 27 Judges: Grizzled Patriarch A Classy Ghost Benny Profane Three-Coursers: newtestleper  kurona_bright flerp sparksbloom Guiness13 skwidmonster Carl Miller Killer Ironic Twist ghost crow Sitting Here 3.141592653 Pokeylope Thranguy sebmojo OneWhiteWhisker crabrock Tyrannosaurus Khris Kruel ExtraNoise Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 02:13 on Mar 28, 2016 |
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Mar 22, 2016 01:45
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 A Little Under 6 Hours Left to Sign Up!
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Mar 25, 2016 23:16
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Almost forgot, Signups are Closed! Please write good words
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Mar 26, 2016 06:13
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ExtraNoise posted:I just noticed I wasn't in the list but I posted before signups closed. Can I still do this? You're in!
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Mar 27, 2016 05:33
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Still need a couple of co-judges for this week! If you've ever wanted to rain down hellfire on all the bad words, step right up.
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Mar 27, 2016 22:39
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Benny Profane posted:I'll help judge this pile, if you still need judges. Welcome aboard! Also, Roughly three hours left to get stories in!
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Mar 28, 2016 02:12
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Oh yeah I should probably close this huh. Submissions Closed! Expect results tomorrow evening, most likely.
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Mar 28, 2016 06:19
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Results! This was an interesting week. The mid-pile this week was huge, and it was hard to pick HMs because none of us could agree on stories, and everyone felt that most stories had one part that was much, much weaker than the others. Finally, what we ended up deciding was to HM specific sections of stories we felt strongly about. In order avoid making Kai tear her hair out, we're just gonna count these as full HMs for the purpose of archiving. Without further ado: The Loser this week was KK Short Story 59 by Khris Kruel for a piece with weak dialogue and thin characterization that falls into all of the common pitfalls of a time travel flash fiction story. A DM goes to Carl Killer Miller for a story that has potential and is well-written, but ultimately ends up being far too dry and distant from the characters and their motivations. HMs go to Thranguy for taking a big risk that paid off with a rad, well-crafted sestina, Ironic Twist for a strong, very well-written, and touchingly human opening, and flerp for one of the most ambitious takes on the prompt this week, with some strong imagery, some cool shifts in perspective, and a genuinely touching middle. Which leaves the winner this week: Crabrock, whose story all three judges picked for the win by a large margin. A touching story that made really strong use of the prompt and had strong characterization / motivations to make everything compelling and interconnected. Congrats! Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Mar 29, 2016 |
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Mar 29, 2016 03:07
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In.
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Mar 29, 2016 05:17
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Things have been a bit hectic lately, but I'll have crits up for the 3-part stories by the end of the week!
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Mar 30, 2016 22:11
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Transcripts From the Angel Factory, Session 17 (487 words) *snip* Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Dec 31, 2016 |
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Apr 4, 2016 02:59
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In with "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?"
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Apr 5, 2016 18:07
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Week 190 Crits Pt. 1 of 2 Khris Kruel - KK Short story 59 I'll give you props for opening with some action and establishing stakes right away, even if your first two lines are basically saying the same thing. Ellipses and exclamation points are a hard sell in dialogue - it usually feels forced at best, and really hammy at worst, which is what happened here. This story pretty much hits the whole "time travel flash fiction" checklist: Guy travels through time to rescue girl, ends up meeting a villainous version of himself, existential crisis, ends in violence. I'm guessing you just wanted to try it out, which is totally understandable and a good learning experience. Almost everyone tries it eventually, and it's very hard to pull off, just because using time travel as a basic story conceit involves so much setup and explanation that you never really have time to tell an actual story. Most of them feel like cliches as a result. The characters feel pretty thin, and I only know their motivations because you just come out and tell them to me. Even then, I can't quite get a read on Moira. She just meets this guy and wants to spend the rest of her life with him in an instant, then he disappears, and afterward she's kinda blase about everything? Then you get into a big exposition dump in the third part, where the evil-timeline narrator explains everything, including things that the narrator already knows (this is a common trap people fall into, especially with fantasy and sci-fi, and it never works. Just trust the reader to figure things out from context instead of having someone do the "As you know..." thing.)I'm gonna go ahead and say that all-caps dialogue is almost never appropriate outside of some fringe cases like deliberate satire or giant booming robot overlords, etc., and even then, it's questionable. Basically this took the loss because it's too thin on actual story and characterization, and it follows the same beats as 99% of the time travel flash fiction I've seen in the dome (which, to be fair, is something you only figure out through trial and error). ExtraNoise - Small Tragedies Take No Blame This was a tough piece to judge. I really liked the first part, and while the second was kind of meandering, it had a distinctive voice, which is one of those things that you don't see often in the dome and which I always appreciate. But the third part just fell flat - it takes the emotional subtlety of your first portion and ramps it up so far that it starts to feel kinda oversentimental and cheesy, a bit soap opera-y. These are always my least favorite stories to crit, because I don't have a ton of constructive feedback. You've got a solid hook, some well-realized characters, strong prose, and a narrative arc that exists as much in the negative space as in what's on the page, which I think is one of the most important elements of flash fiction. I think one of the judges had this in their high pile, and the other two had it in the upper middle. It isn't bad, and honestly stories with one or two good sections and one section that just drags it down is basically this week's theme, but at the end of the day this just didn't stand out above the rest of the upper pile. Sitting Here - To End All Promises This was another odd one to judge. The prose is very solid, and there are some great details / bits of characterization throughout. This was also one of many stories where each section felt a little weaker than the preceding one. Braden and Kyle feel a little like they stepped out of a rom-com, but you breathe enough life into them that they avoid feeling two-dimensional. I feel like Braden got the lion's share of the depth when it comes to motivation, which is probably why the beginning was my favorite part. Kyle's motivations make sense, but there isn't enough room in such a short section to distinguish him from the prototypical "nice guy." Omaya's section was the one I was most interested in, but her friend ends up stealing a bit too much of the spotlight, and the result is that I didn't really get enough of a look into her interior thoughts to fully understand how she feels about what has happened. The scheming stuff ends up undercutting the emotional weight of the situation for me, I think. Also as an aside, this felt pretty different for you - not in a bad way or anything, but it was a surprise when I turned off judgemode for reasons I can't quite put my thumb on. sparksbloom - Ethnomedicine This was one of the few stories that really took some chances by jumping around with settings, and I thought that was pretty cool. I like the premise a lot, though it almost feels like a bit too much time is devoted to the setup. You do a good job of making the exposition feel organic, so it isn't as noticeable, though I'm kinda torn on the first section. It does a good job of setting the stage, but the murder / suicide at the end is so sudden and so brutal that it ratchets up the stakes and tension in a way that the next sections can't really match. The middle section is easily my favorite, and I appreciated how much of a tonal and even stylistic change there was going into it. The two sections together have a neat way of creating this whole world in broad strokes, which is definitely something I was hoping for this week. The third section felt like it just ran out of steam, though. Miyako has interesting and sympathetic motivations, and I like that your instinct was to subvert expectations by presenting two options and then running with a third that still made thematic sense. It just felt like it needed more room to breathe - the ending feels a little unsatisfying, like it's trying to wrap things up more neatly than they should be. I had this in my upper middle pile. OneWhiteWhisker - Doors Locked and Windows Painted Shut Another story with really strong voice. This had a cool triptych feeling, where all the pieces contribute to one another and form a cohesive whole. I will admit that I wasn't quite sure what was going on the first time I read it - on the second read it was a lot more clear, so I'm not sure if that means there's a clarity issue or if I just missed something the first time. Hopefully another judge will weigh in on that! The first two sections here are strong - I think I might slightly prefer the first, just because it works better on its own, while the second requires more context. The third isn't bad, but it was one of many victims of the "sentimental in a way that feels a little forced" endings this week. It relies pretty heavily on exposition, and while disguising that as an internal monologue was a smart call, the end result is still more telling vs. showing, and it leans on some stock tropes that make him feel less "real" than the other characters. I don't have a whole lot else to criticize here - the mood and voice here are really effective, but so much of the actual story / action happens off-screen that it was difficult to see these characters get to inhabit themselves, if that makes sense. Thranguy - Afterimage This was a fun spin on the prompt - having a single object tie all three pieces together was clever, and there's a lot of energy in this story. The language in the first section (especially "What the Devil?") had me confused on the time period for a moment - it feels weirdly artificial. But the back and forth is fun, and things just keep escalating. Your sestina is the real gem here, and the section that netted you the HM. I was hoping someone would experiment with form and that definitely fit the bill. It's really well-done, too, which couldn't have been easy. All of the judges were impressed by it, and it took some balls to even attempt something like that. The third section is a little hit-or-miss for me. The beginning feels like it's just beating around the bush until the action plays out, and the dialogue is the weak link there, again. It's obvious from the beginning how this is going to play out, but you do a good job of leaning into that element of inevitability instead of playing coy with it, which works to your advantage. It lacks the energy of the first two sections, but it's still a satisfying way to tie things up. Guiness13 - Jack Really creepy and neat concept. I will say that the very beginning feels a little muddled; I think you need to establish who Jack is and why he's suddenly worried about him a little earlier, because the first section is almost over by the time it makes sense. The image of the little boy sitting in front of this black stone is effective, and I was surprised things went south so quickly, since usually that would be a set-up for a slower burn. That's not a bad thing - I think doing the unexpected is kinda necessary with horror. The second section flows naturally from the first, and the choice of narrator was a good one, I think. Immediately juxtaposing the murder with a little snippet of parental drama is a clever little bit of tonal whiplash. The way this ended felt a tad underwhelming - the rock surrounded by animal skulls and the image she sees of her husband are well done, but the actual murder almost feels mundane afterward, this time around. It's tough to go back to the same well when you're doing a circular narrative like this, because you have to keep subverting expectations or it loses impact. The third section kinda fizzles out for that reason. We already know what it coming because it's happened twice, and then it plays out exactly that way again. I like the concept here, but it's hard to think of a way to sustain that tension / sense of dread without radically changing the outcome each time. It also seems a little foolish of Jack to give Roy the stone in an attempt to set up a future murder, given what he knows about it so far. flerp - The Three This was kind of a contentious story. All of the judges liked something about it, but all of those things were different, as I recall. This was definitely one of the most ambitious stories of the week - the shift in scale and tone from piece to piece is very bold, and I like that. The individual sections are also more loosely associated than most of the other entries this week, which gave you room to play around with layering themes moreso than strict narrative. The beginning feels like a legit creation myth, and I also knew immediately who wrote this story once I saw the dog. There's actually a decent amount of pathos in this section, which is pretty impressive given how dry and distant that sort of mythology can feel. The second section was my personal favorite; I think you took this character and made them feel very human. Their motivations aren't always 100% logical, but that's how it is in real life, too, and it works because you make me believe them. The final section has this very cold, rational tone that is kinda depressing and comforting at the same time, somehow. I dunno, not a whole lot else to say about this one. Everyone had a different thing they liked about it, but everyone liked it. 3.141592653 - Timeless Possessions The biggest issue here is that you devote so many of your words to establishing setting and details, and it ends up choking the actual narrative. It's very common when starting out to overuse adjectives in order to "paint a picture," but it's also very easy to go overboard, to the point where all the details become a little overwhelming and you start to lose sight of what is actually happening. I think in this case you could have dialed it back and let context clues do the heavy lifting, but word economy is something that really takes some time and practice to get the hang of. The story that is here is bittersweet, but some of your stronger details do a good job of creating this warm, comforting mood that gives the piece an "everything will be alright" feeling that is always nice to come across in the usual sea of doom and gloom. The letter is a good example of exposition, which you generally want to avoid. You're using it to tell the reader what has happened off-screen in a direct way that gets around having to actually show things happening and how people react and change during those events, which you want to avoid because that's exactly where the actual meat of drama and characterization are going to occur in any given story. I think giving us a more immediate look at things through the husband's eyes would have been more interesting - it would give you the opportunity to show us what happens to him and what is going through his mind, which would be a lot more powerful than the letter. I will have Part 2 up early tomorrow afternoon!
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Apr 7, 2016 04:11
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Week 190 Crits Pt. 2 of 2 Entenzahn - LEGO This one made me smile. Partly because I was imagining Chairchucker reading it, but still. Your first section is my favorite - the voice is strong, and there's this dryly amused tone that really works to balance and highlight the absurdity of the situation. It's funny, but I also feel bad for the guy, which means you did a good job of making him feel like an actual person. The second section feels kinda perfunctory, like it's just there to set up the conflict and justify the logic of the narrative. The characters have less depth here, and towards the end it gets into slightly sappy territory - the father and son reconnecting over an old childhood hobby angle - and even with Lego, specifically - has been pretty heavily mined, which makes it tough to do anything that feels fresh. The third section is fun and creative and has a lot of energy. It's silly, and it lacks the nuance of your first section, which balanced the goofiness and pathos more gracefully, but it's hard not to like it, even still. You actually did a pretty good job of bringing this dystopian future to life in very few words. My biggest issue with this section is that thematically, it feels like it's re-treading your second section a bit, which takes some of the shine off. Still a fun read, and a welcome addition to this week. Carl Killer Miller - Royal Blood There's a neat story here, but it gets kinda buried underneath biographical / historical information and the dry tone. This is primarily an issue of aesthetic distance - the reader is kept at arm's length from characters' actions and interior thoughts, and the result is that it becomes almost impossible to get invested in what is happening. You've got a bunch of characters ripe for interesting drama, but we only get to hear about it in terms of a historical record, after it's all happened. Trying to create that sense of distance is something a lot of people experiment with, but it's very hard to pull off in the constrained space that flash fiction offers (I've tried it myself, and usually crabrock or flerp yells at me for it). Essentially, this feels like an "ideas" story where you've got this sprawling world and all these interpersonal dynamics in mind, but that's all less interesting / compelling to a reader than the characters and how they react to the obstacles in their way. You've got to zoom that camera in and let us see what they are going through and how they feel about it in a more personal and immediate sense - this is why, say, reading a history textbook can be really interesting and informative, but it's usually not a very good story. I will say that outside of a couple really minor, nitpicky grammar errors, you've got some nice, mechanically strong prose, and there are a few vivid images that stick out. This is good news, because it means you've cleared probably the biggest hurdle most newer writers face, and now it's just a matter of refining the actual storytelling process, which comes mostly from reading and writing a whole bunch. Tyrannosaurus - Everything Comes from the Ocean; Three Stories of Expression This was an odd one, and I'm still not totally sure how I feel about it. The first section was divisive - I thought it was a neat idea, and a creative setting, and the character motivations are clear and sympathetic, but the atmosphere is so brutal and oppressive that it almost wraps around and turns the tragedy into parody. I still liked it, but it feels like it probably didn't have the intended effect. Though this could totally just be me having a weird reaction to it, because one of the other judges like the first section the most. The second section was the weakest for me. I feel bad for the narrator, and there's some good characterization / detail early on, but it kinda loses the thread a little and falls back on some well-worn tropes. The father is just a little too thinly sketched and the narrator's desires just a little too clean and obvious for me to really get into this part as much as I would like to. The third section is my favorite. It was one of the few sections this week that really put me in the room with these characters, because you just nail the mood and the details and the way little things become big things. There's a lot of humanity in this piece, and the ending is great. This was one of like two or three stories this week that had a really strong, punchy finish. skwidmonster - Niloticus I like the way this story approached the prompt - everything is tied together in a way that is concrete and abstract at the same time, which helps the passage of time in the story feel more real. The first section drags a bit, but I can't quite put my finger on why. I think it just takes too long to lay out the stakes and the narrator's motivation, so that by the time we figure out what is going on, it's already over. Some of the prose here feels a little overwrought, too: "So far he seemed quite enamored with my sinless persona" is a good example. The second section was my favorite. You did a good job of bringing this rainforest to life, and your use of detail sets up a really ancient, peaceful mood that compliments it well. Using an animal perspective as a way to frame the sections that bookend it just has a neat overall effect, like an interlude that is still compelling. The third section hits this much more energetic, noirish vibe, and the gator-skin shoes acting almost as another character was an interesting idea that mostly works well. The issue here is that the shoes kinda steal the spotlight from the actual narrator - we only ever get a sense of what he's thinking / feeling filtered through his footwear, which ends up sapping some of his agency. I almost wish you'd gone all-in with the concept and just made the shoes the narrator. Ironic Twist - Three Left in Omaha Lots of great imagery and strong prose, unsurprisingly. It actually feels like you went a little overboard in some places - there are a few dense pockets of metaphor / simile that are on the verge of obscuring what is going on. I liked the first section the most - there's a really effective blend of sadness and anger that rings true, and you take it in some interesting directions. The second section was my least favorite, mostly because, like a good 75% of the stories this week, it falls into that sorta cheesy / overly sentimental territory. It's a hard thing to judge because those feelings can definitely be real, but they also don't have enough depth to make them particularly compelling in a work of fiction. I absolutely love the image of the "terrified worm eye" on the mug fragment, though. It creates this very sudden, effective burst of absurd dread that really works. I liked the third section. Nice characterization, some really solid, spare prose, and the dreamy, sorta wistful atmosphere is great. The very end felt a little tacked on, for some reason. It just comes across as too neat, like a way to end things that sounds poignant but doesn't really feel emotionally connected to the moment that precedes it, if that makes sense. Loaded Up and Tucked Away All three judges had this as their win pick, so there wasn't a whole lot to talk about. The beginning does a great job of evoking those feelings of childhood, and you have a good eye for details that seem unimportant but end up revealing a lot about the characters without needing to come right out and say it. You also know when to hint at things and when to hold back, which makes a few moments that could easily feel schmaltzy have some genuine impact instead. The way everything unfolds across all three sections is maybe a little predictable, but you get us invested in the characters so that we want to see it play out that way. All of the characters have clear motivations and distinctive voices, and you end it at just the right time when most people would probably try to keep it going and push it over the edge. I dunno, I don't have a whole lot of constructive feedback with this one. kurona_bright - Caught Breath There are some neat ideas here, and some solid action, but the biggest issue is clarity. None of the judges were completely sure what was going on in this story, and we basically had to hash it out in irc. The other problem I had with it is that the dialogue all feels like it's just there to advance the plot - it's all very cookie-cutter and doesn't quite feel realistic, and we never get a really good feel for the characters as a result. I kinda wish you'd jumped around a bit more with the perspectives, since a lot of the story is contextualized by stuff that is happening off-screen. You've got a good feel for the pacing and because you keep things flowing it didn't really bother me, but I think it would have solved some of the clarity issues. Still, you've got solid prose, good pacing, and a decent narrative arc. The ending is a little disappointing because it just sorta trails off, but I can live with it. newtestleper - Punakaiki - the Value of Staying Silent I like the first section - you do a good job of putting the reader in the scene, though the very beginning could maybe be cut down a little so you've got a stronger hook. There's a nice, building sense of dread and mystery which makes me want to keep reading. The second section was probably my favorite. Solid hook, and coming off the back of the first section, there is already a sense of unease that compliments this part. This is another good example of holding back just enough information to make the situation compelling without being confusing, and you are able to turn up the tension pretty effectively in a very short span. The beginning of the third section is maaaaybe edging in on exposition via dialogue, but it feels natural enough that I can let it slide. I like the way this all ties together - it's not a clean resolution, and that works. The whole piece does a good job of evoking a kinda cold, isolated, off-beat atmosphere that makes even mundane stuff seem sinister. I know you were rushing to finish this and it's maybe not quite as polished as it could be, but it was still an enjoyable read.
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Apr 8, 2016 05:49
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Mother in the Radio (940 words) "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" *snip* See Archive Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 00:37 on May 13, 2016 |
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Apr 11, 2016 04:06
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In.
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Apr 12, 2016 01:04
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sebmojo posted:In, flash, ok
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Apr 12, 2016 01:09
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Flash Rule: medicine. For every disease is akin to the living being and has an appointed term, just as life has, which depends on the form of the triangles, and cannot be protracted when they are worn out. And he who, instead of accepting his destiny, endeavours to prolong his life by medicine, is likely to multiply and magnify his diseases. Regimen and not medicine is the true cure, when a man has time at his disposal. Enough of the nature of man and of the body, and of training and education. The subject is a great one and cannot be adequately treated as an appendage to another. To sum up all in a word: there are three kinds of soul located within us, and any one of them, if remaining inactive, becomes very weak; if exercised, very strong. Wherefore we should duly train and Waiting For the Lightning (545 words) *snip* Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 19:08 on Dec 31, 2016 |
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Apr 18, 2016 07:20
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In with Molten Copper vs. Elmer's Glue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dw-0H0IWAI&list=PL_SnzqrBNSf9DP-VivvrCWJcgfQFdSdI7&index=16
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May 6, 2016 17:55
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Inner Space (800 words) Molten Copper vs. Elmer's Glue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dw-0H0IWAI The landlord wakes me up at six in the morning and tells me there are holes in the walls. I’m supposed to be cleaning up the apartment for the next tenants. Redo the shower grout, shampoo the carpets, that sort of thing. I put a patch kit in my box and head upstairs. The landlord is standing there with his head cocked, like maybe he’s looking at some kind of art installation. Someone has punched a couple dozen quarter-sized holes into the plaster. I picture the guy who’d just moved out, always bent forward with that pained expression on his face, like he was walking into a strong headwind. I can’t imagine him doing all this. After the landlord leaves, I stick my pinky in one of the holes and wiggle it around. It’s odd, how smooth they are. Not like you’d get with a drillbit or a drywall screw. I spend a few hours filling them up with spackle, then paint over the whole mess. Once it dries, it’ll be like nothing ever happened. *** “If it’s supposed to be a joke,” the landlord says, “it isn’t funny.” Hearing that, it hurts a bit. He’s not a bad guy, but he bought this place after all the hard work had already been done. The apartments changed hands and I came with it, like a piece of furniture. It used to be a shithole. But what can you say to somebody who’s never built anything with their own two hands? He’s telling me I screwed up, and now something is wrong two days before the move-in date, which makes it even worse. The holes aren’t fixed. They’re even bigger, fist-sized. It makes no sense to me. I check the number on the door, like maybe there’s two apartments with holes in the walls and I walked into the wrong one. I wonder how far the holes go, whether they lead to other apartments, other lives. Even when I shine my penlight into them, I just see more darkness. First it pisses me off, and then, if I’m being honest, it gives me the heebies, which makes me even madder. I use the mesh tape this time, feather spackling across it with my putty knife. By the end I’m sweating, and my back is fried. I can feel the muscles knotting up, and all I want to do is take a very long, very hot shower. When I stand up to go, I see the cat outside. It’s sprawled out across the dumpster lid, basking in the sun, just watching me. Yellow eyes shining like coins on pavement. “You look pretty goddamn pleased with yourself,” I say. The cat just licks its paw. I shoo it and it doesn’t even flinch. For a moment I feel all this anger come wobbling up to the surface, and I want to chuck my measuring tape at this cat. I want to hurt it. But as soon as I pick it up, the urge drains away, and I just feel embarrassed, ashamed. *** I dream about giant termites boring through the walls. In the dream, there’s millions of them, a whole red sea of them, big as cars. They chew the whole building down to sawdust and powdered brick, quick as you like. Everybody’s in bed or getting ready for work, standing in front of freshly devoured sinks with lather on their stubbled cheeks, staring around all bleary-eyed, looking lost and childlike. Kids crying and all that. And somewhere, off in the dark, the sound of mandibles click-clacking. I can’t sleep, so I get up and watch some TV. There’s a crusty blotch of beige housepaint on my forearm, which I pick at with my thumbnail. Then I sigh and push myself up off the couch and grab the maintenance keyring. At first, I don’t know what exactly it is that I’m looking at. Some of the holes are bigger than I am. Some of them are closing and unclosing, like the valves of an enormous heart. The air in the apartment is stale and wet—it feels like the living room is holding its breath. Pale fluid congealing along the baseboards. I reach out, touch a solid spot on the wall. Something trembles under my palm, shrinks away. A sound is coming through the holes, faint, like wind, or the whisper of a stovetop range before the gas ignites. I’m not scared, exactly, and I don’t know why. There’s this weird sensation, a sort of tingling at the nape of my neck, and it tickles at first, but then I feel so happy that I almost can’t stand it. A realization that I’m looking at the work of an impossible craftsman. And I step inside.
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May 9, 2016 04:42
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In with A Nice Southern Town.
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May 11, 2016 01:39
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quote:A Nice Southern Town The Jackalope (1167 words) *snip* Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Dec 31, 2016 |
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May 16, 2016 06:11
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In.
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May 24, 2016 00:51
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These guys, uh, they're not very good. *frantically mashes the broken laughtrack cue button* You, uh, read their words, and the impression you get is that they're bad - they're less than ideal words. *breaks into flop sweat*
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May 24, 2016 20:23
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Week 198 Crits, Part 1 of 2 Chernabog - Corporate fiction I'm not usually a big fan of opening with dialogue. It can work sometimes, but here you are basically using it to play coy with information that you feed us a couple lines later. You do a good job of establishing the characters' personalities right away and giving us the rough plot, though the whole "let me get this straight" thing is a kinda just cheating in exposition. Couple minor mechanical errors with grammar / strange sentence construction, but overall the prose is pretty sharp and you do a good job of making the action easy to follow. The pace is also nice and brisk. The lady with the IT problem is a nice, natural way of wringing some extra tension out of the situation, and it feels both real and sympathetic. I get where you are going with the ending twist, and it's a nice sentiment that is in the spirit of a buddy movie, I think, but as some of the other crits have touched on, it requires too much suspension of belief. Normally I am totally open to taking stories at face value and just accepting the internal logic, which is probably why I like surrealist / absurdist stories so much, but here that suspension of disbelief isn't rewarded. Generally, there needs to be some kind of thematic / metaphorical / allegorical payoff to justify buying into an outrageous premise, but here it's mostly a twist for its own sake. It wasn't a chore to read or anything, and it's got a nice sincere tone that works for it, but the ending just lets this one down. Hammer Bro - Equites I'll be honest, I read this twice and I'm still not totally sure that I understand what is going on. There's very little context to work with here, although the world they are living in seems interesting enough. You go for this playful, quippy tone with the dialogue, and while you achieve that, it has the side-effect of making every line feel like it's being delivered with an ironic sneer, or that it's artificial / exaggerated, like I'm watching a stage play. That creates emotional distance that is hard to overcome, and because of that I don't really have any way to relate to these characters or get invested in them. There's the seed of a neat idea here, but it feels like the actual meat of the dramatic tension / characterization / stuff that would really make this story work are somewhere else, and we're just getting a peek of the set-up. This is another one where the ending just falls flat. You end it on basically a one-liner, and it might as well be an aside to the audience. You had more words to work with, and I think this needed to be fleshed out more so that there was a larger context to settle into / more room for the characters to breathe. This was one of my loss candidates, but in the end T-Rex argued that it was at least ambitious and had heart, which I agree with. It feels like there is a complex, realized world behind the scenes, and that's always a cool thing to see, even if the end result misses the shot a bit. a friendly penguin - You have to get in to get out I think you could stand to dump the reader right into the action without the exposition at the very beginning - you do a good job of evoking that confused / panicked state of mind without making everything a jumbled mess, so you can get away with less overt context. The way you handle the god's dialogue works pretty well. Basically, this story has an interesting setup, and a good conflict, but it's probably more suited to a much longer piece. That's always one of the more challenging parts of writing flash, I think. As it stands, the resolution happens so quickly and so neatly that it just isn't satisfying - they don't really overcome any hardship to get there, and we don't see into Kata's head at all, when it almost seems like he should be the PoV character, since he's the one who actually gets something like closure. This was one of many stories this week that felt like an introductory chapter to a longer piece - imo, it's almost better to just leave Vassily's thread dangling than say "It was his turn to find home," because that creates new (unfulfilled) expectations and saps the energy / impact of Kata's arc being completed. Mr. Gentleman - Escape from the Mudfront This was my personal favorite of the week, by a very thin sliver. I think this hit on a lot of the buddy movie elements better than most stories this week - you've got two characters from very different backgrounds who shouldn't mix at first glance, but they end up learning from each other and improving themselves / finding the meaning of friendship, etc. etc. in the process. Prose is solid throughout - the banter is a little cheesy but that seems in the spirit of the prompt, and it's brisk enough that it never really overstays its welcome. Both characters have very distinctive and fitting voices, which is always nice to see. The story itself is kinda cliche - variations of this theme have been done to death and it's hard to make them feel fresh, but at least you made the effort. I was expecting it to end on the typical Disney-esque tragic event + sappy ending note, and it looked like it might pan out that way up until the very end, so I appreciate you subverting that one. It's another story that is explicitly setting up a bigger story to come, which hurts it. Something more concrete would have helped, I think. I have very different thoughts about how stories "should" end than a lot of people in the dome, but what I look for as a judge is either a traditional, clear resolution, or some through-line that makes it possible to reasonably imply what is going to happen after that last line, even if it's a bit ambiguous. I don't mind there being multiple hypothetical endings, but if I can't think of one immediately after finishing the piece, it didn't go far enough. Marshmallow Blue - They've Taken Mr. Chips Your prose isn't bad, although you've got a ton of minor mechanical errors that really mess with the flow. You've got a fun premise to play with here, but I can't get a read on the tone at all. It's got some black comedy elements, partly because the basic plot is so absurd, but then there's all this extreme violence at the very end that is basically played dead straight and just makes the protagonists seem like complete psychopaths. My favorite part is the bit where they're singing together after a sale, because that's the only part where we really see these characters in a "behind closed doors" setting where they can breathe and feel like actual characters. You devote a lot of time to the whole "bird selling cars" premise, but that's not really the important part of the story, and you could have cut a lot of that to focus on deeper characterization. The setup here is good - it's got a sort of Coen Bros vibe to it. But the kidnappers are cardboard - we don't even know what their actual motivation is besides "to get money." You could do a lot of things with them - make them sympathetic antagonists by having them doing a bad thing for a good cause, make them total evil assholes that hide in plain sight as a prim and proper couple, etc. Some kind of nuance to it, anyway. When you are missing that, it makes the events of the story feel like a book report - things happen in a specific order, but there's no deeper sense of why or what effect it is having on anyone involved, and it ends up being distant and detached. And even though Jim and Sarah are planning to kill Brady, having him just pop out and snap a woman's neck, then barbeque her husband, topping it off with an action-movie quip, is just not gonna come across well without a lot more character development. Probably not even then. Falling back on sudden violence to resolve conflict is a common mistake for newer writers, and it's almost never satisfying. CANNIBAL GIRLS - Wednesday Mornings This took an interesting spin on the buddy dynamic by starting the relationship on a kinda antagonistic note. Solid prose, nice flow and pacing that makes it all easy to read. The main issue for me here is that there just isn't really much of a conflict to drive these characters. They are both making the best of bad situations, and that's sympathetic, but things just happen to them and then it's over. I don't get a sense that they overcame anything, or grew as characters, or even had any particular goals. The narrator wants to get this kid to go to school, but the kid just says "nah" and that's it. You paint a strong picture of their daily lives, but it's too mundane to really get invested in. The most interesting character is honestly Bob - he just vanishes into thin air, his house is empty, he likes weird art, he's maybe a millionaire (?) - he's only in this story for a couple lines but there's a good hook there and some weird circumstances that could drive an entire separate story. This ended up in the middle pile for me - it's competent, there's a few nice scenes, prose is good, but there needs to be some kind of challenge or growth or something to make it more compelling. Slice of life stories are very difficult because you really need to end up saying something pretty insightful or approaching the mundane in a completely different light to make it work. Jick Magger - Drats You spend a lot of time establishing that these are dogs, when honestly the first paragraph and the bones of the plot itself are enough to get that across, I think. Because of this, the first half of the story story stars to drag - too much of the description is about how dogs find and follow scents, instead of showing us how they are feeling. You do a little bit of this when Ginger first gets free, but it comes across as a little perfunctory - I want more than "for the first time, she felt free," because that on its own is just a cliche. The interesting thing is that all of the buildup and the laid back feeling of that beginning does help make the tonal whiplash more effective - the shift from these domestic dogs prancing around and being free to tearing off a rat's head and getting covered in blood is jarring and unexpected, which is good. It makes me want to keep reading because it's subverting my expectations. The prose is solid, and the description does a pretty good job of painting a picture of everything that happens. I'm not entirely sure why the rat makes Ginger sick - it was in a trap, but was it poisoned, too? - and while you do squeeze some tension out of that situation, it ends too quickly for it to have that gut punch feeling you were probably going for. It's a situation where you either needed to take the scene farther, or build up such a sense of dread that you can leave Ginger's ultimate fate unspoken while still making the reader feel it. QuoProQuid - Veins and Arteries That's quite a hook, especially in a week with pretty meh openers overall. Lots of good, gross imagery. The whole piece has a neat mixture of creepy and goofy that works well, especially for a buddy movie prompt. You kinda have to just buy into what's going on and not ask too many questions, but I can deal with that. Multiple characters with clearly defined desires / conflicts - good. The ending feels a bit flat, for some reason. The whole chain of events gets a little complicated at the end, and it's hard to see a way that this is all going to wrap up after the last line, and it muddies up the resolutions for these characters. It's one of those stories that exists in its own little bubble and anything that happens before or after to contextualize things gets murky. This was still in the upper pile for this week just because you do enough right to make it a compelling, well-paced, story with strong prose - I just wanted the resolution to be punchier / more satisfying. I'll have the rest of these crits up on Monday!
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May 29, 2016 05:19
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The Shape of Human Hearts (795 words) *snip* Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 19:08 on Dec 31, 2016 |
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May 30, 2016 01:10
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Dunno if I'll have time for this but how can I resist, In.
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May 31, 2016 00:51
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Week 198 Crits - Part 2 of 2 sparksbloom - Hold the Bees This started out super promising - both T-Rex and I figured it would be a win candidate when we started reading. Conflict is established right away, you've got a nice, subtle narrative voice going, prose is clean, and there's a surreal setup that immediately makes me want to keep reading. You introduce a second character, but I'm not sure you really do enough with her to justify taking away space that could be used to flesh out the narrator, since their goal is the same and having two of them doesn't really add much to the story aside from at the very end, which is where things fall apart anyway. Also a little confused as to why she's so hilariously bad at sculpting these miniatures if it's "all she knows." The ending just feels really rushed to me. You do a good job of setting the scene and establishing some tension, but then when the action starts, it's all moving so quickly and with so little insight into what the characters are thinking / feeling that it all feels sorta weightless. The way everything comes together is a bit disappointing - the dialogue shifts and feels a lot more wooden, and I'm not sure what the deal is with the Stork conjuring up the baby and just swallowing it again. I think I see what you wanted to do there, but you really need to make the narrator react to it, or it just seems out of left field, especially since a few lines later he basically calls all the effort he's put into getting a baby "silly." I dunno, it feels like a happy-ever-after ending crammed into a couple paragraphs between two characters that have essentially just met. There's just not enough meat to get me invested or give the action any punch, but I could see this working in a significantly longer piece if you ever fleshed it out. Thranguy - Comrade Rusty and the God Strong opening hook, evocative prose and a good example of getting attention with a jarring shift. You spend a lot of time on a setup that you toss away with a single line, which I'm a little torn on. I think it's funny, but afterward the whole "spy in a child's body" thing isn't really relevant anymore, which makes it feel a little unnecessary. Dialogue is snappy and realistic enough, hits that Buddy Movie banter angle pretty well, although some if it is edging a bit into "as you know..." territory. If he's had dealings with the god before (especially a god of information), the bragging about past exploits / skill at finding things is something they probably both already know. There's lots of neat little touches here - I like the tattoo on the back of Sinner's head, for example - and you do a good job of balancing out the action and the dialogue to keep a nice pace without overcrowding things. However, this is another week that ends in a cliffhanger that sets up a larger scene. This is a particular problem in this story because you don't resolve the conflict that you already have before dumping them into another one off-screen; the reader doesn't find out if he finds the "stick" or survives the ambush. Ending it on the line "No better way to start a new adventure" is basically saying "there's a more interesting story here, but you don't get to see it." Jitzu the Monk - Cherry Grindon Park This was a weird one to judge - it didn't click for me, but there's not a lot in particular that's wrong with it. The biggest issue is that I think your story needs to start almost where it ends, because the bulk of it, while well-written, isn't nearly as compelling as the last third or so. You do need some backstory to make the setup make sense, but there's probably a way to move the timeline up and still get that in there somehow. The kid who needs a ride is sort of a sub-conflict, and there are genuine stakes if the narrator gets caught, but it never feels like that's an actual risk so it ends up being a regular ol' car ride. The kid's voice also feels a little inconsistent if he's meant to be eight - especially when he's talking about Cherry Grindon and the centrifuge. Virtually all of the emotional / dramatic payoff is backloaded in this piece, and because of that, we don't really get enough time to let the impact of what has happened truly breathe. The dad has some surface reactions and a couple thoughts that I think you did well - it feels like how people really think when they are in shock, instead of going way overboard / melodramatic like a lot of people tend to do with stories like this. It's another story where there just isn't enough actual conflict in the story itself to drive things - there's plenty of it on the periphery, but it never becomes the focus like it needs to. mistaya & Echo Cian - Rattus Nobiles First of all, props to you and Echo for being the only people to actually buddy up for buddy week. The opening is really heavy on physical description, which doesn't make for a good hook. I'd cut that first paragraph completely and figure out a more organic way to fit in description throughout the story. The story is also a bit frontloaded with backstory, which is admittedly important + story-relevant information. The bit with bringing a girl over and seeing a nosebleed is a nice touch - maybe not the most original thing in a "reformed vampire" story, but it establishes the kind of person he is, and it's a nice humanizing moment. The banter is good - a little exposition heavy in some places, but for the most part it's disguised well. This was one of the better stories this week in terms of dialogue that felt like it was pulled out of an actual buddy movie. Another thing you did really well was having a main, plot-based conflict in additional to an interpersonal conflict and even a couple peripheral conflicts that all work together to flesh these characters out and shed some light onto their motivations. This kind of dramatic layering is hard to pull off in flash fiction, and it always makes a story feel more real. The action when they confront the cultist is well-paced, though there are some minor clarity issues when things start getting really hectic. Satisfying resolution, though, and some nice tension when it looks like they might end up fighting each other. This story almost ends with that same kind of "see what happens next time!" vibe that a lot of people fell into this week, but I can forgive that because there was actually a full narrative arc in the rest of the piece. Fuschia tude - French Leave A little exposition-heavy in the beginning, and it's told in a pretty impersonal way that sucks some of the impact out of it. I think you could cut right to the chase and let us piece the setting together from context, especially since the larger scale of the war isn't really what's important here. You do a good job of creating atmosphere with it, though - especially that subtle current of paranoia that shows up all over this piece. The dialogue feels a little stilted at first - I think a lot of people have the tendency to overdo the more "proper" speech patterns when working with anything historical, and it usually makes the language feel scripted and unnatural. You get better about this as the story settles into a groove, though. I would like to see more characterization - it's hard to get a read on them as people, since so much of the story hinges on dialogue and description that is building the setting rather than the characters. They have a goal and there's some conflict, which is good, but because I don't see how they are responding to it / processing it on a personal level, it just feels like I'm sorta drifting through the story. There isn't any emotional momentum to drive things forward. I think you are also being a bit too coy with what they're after - there are some papers they need, but they don't actually get mentioned until pretty late into the story, and we never find out what they actually are, so it basically becomes a sort of McGuffin object, where it's important because you say it is, and because it drives the plot forward. This is also yet another story this week that feels like it's setting up a larger, more exciting chain of events. Carl Killer Miller - The Last Case of Detective Ford and Tumor McCoy Opening paragraph is a little weak - you could cut it and jump right into establishing the conflict via radio for a better hook. I like that you just set up this character dynamic matter-of-factly with a single line about the tumor's origin. It's a goofy premise, but it works because you just put it out there and get on with it, instead of spending time trying to coax the reader into suspending disbelief. You also do a good job of giving both characters distinctive voices, which is pretty crucial when they are occupying the same body. Like a lot of stories this week, you lean a little heavily on expository dialogue / description in a few places where it isn't really necessary, but oddly enough the biggest issue is clarity in the back half of the story, where you've got perspective shifts, multiple names getting thrown around, and some action that could use better blocking to get a picture of what's going on. I like how there's just enough ambiguity to make it seem like Ruiz might possibly be the guy missing from hospice for a moment - it plants a tiny seed of doubt that makes the reveal at the end a little less predictable. I kinda wish you'd played your cards a little closer to your chest - at first you can almost buy that Ford is actually a working detective with a tumor that nobody else knows about yet, but about halfway through it becomes clear that he's just delusional, so you can kind of see where the story is heading. You do include enough action in between those points to keep me reading, though. This is a big improvement of the last story of yours that I judged, so you should be proud of that. You did a good job of pulling the lens a little closer to the characters and making it feel more personal. dmboogie - Teach's Spirit Strong opening hook - saying Keith "floated" past the narrator immediately makes it clear that something unnatural is going on, without being overly blunt about it or killing the pacing to explain. Good example of word economy doing some heavy lifting. Solid narrative voice, and you do a good job of immediately establishing characterization through dialogue and actions. The weary cynic + bright-eyed optimist combo is well-worn buddy movie ground, but that's kind of the point, and you do enough interesting things with the dynamic to justify it. It takes maybe a little too long to get into the meat of the story, but there's some good details peppered throughout. I like that you give Keith some small moments to breathe, like when he's critiquing another teacher's methods, to prove that he cares a bit more than he's letting on. It makes the story arc feel more authentic. The ending feels earned, and because it comes from a place of genuine character growth, it's satisfying and heartwarming in that sorta schlocky-but-sincere way that buddy movies shoot for. Not a lot else to say about this piece, honestly! Entenzahn - Aftershow This would have easily been in contention for the win if you'd submitted on time, dammit. Conflict established right out of the gate, strong characters with distinct voices and mannerisms, evocative prose that mixes a neat setting with a noir vibe that works surprisingly well. Bodo's inability to not pull pranks, combined with his really flat, disaffected line delivery, is great. Pacing is solid - it drags a little bit in the middle, but you close things out with an entertaining, frantic action setpiece that plays off of both characters' identities, which is neat. It's another story that ends with a setup for a sequel, but like a couple others this week, the fact that you actually have a decent arc in the rest of the story, which well-realized characters and some strong prose chops to back it up, makes it a lot less egregious.
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Jun 4, 2016 20:53
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Ironic Twist posted:
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Jun 6, 2016 04:37
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Entenzahn posted:I'm calling out notorious Ideas Guy Grizzled Patriarch so I can huff paint all weekend and write a 300 word premise about some bizarre bullshit like the ghost girl living in my toilet brush or whatever the gently caress oh but the words are so PRETTY I bet you thought you'd sneak this callout past me while I'm busy being stuck in a volcanic crater lake, but I saw it thanks to the power of fly-by-night wi-fi, and now there are only 3,000 miles between my foot and your rear end. (Brawl me when I get home in like a month)
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Jul 3, 2016 04:48
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sebmojo posted:I'll do my crits by submission deadline, Hell yeah I want some angry seb crits.
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Aug 10, 2016 01:24
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Paladinus posted:Just wanted to say thank you to some poor saps who not only read my lousy words, but read them out loud for some reason. In return, here are some words (mentioned by the very same saps) read out loud by me while sitting on the toilet.  This is great.
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Aug 27, 2016 21:51
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