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Tyrannosaurus posted:I hate this I laughed, once
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Nov 13, 2017 22:23
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in, Africa, after.
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Nov 15, 2017 01:16
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Tyrannosaurus posted:Evidently I just plain missed a couple people on a couple different weeks. Seemingly at random. I don't know why. Anyway, this is the catch up for all those weird ones. Come see my words if your name is Grizzled Patriarch, D.O.G.O.G.B.Y.N., Crabrock, Guiness13, Ironic twist, or Kurona_bright. Or if you just want to read some random crits. Or don’t. I’m not the reading police. Do what you want. lol, thanks for the heads up Ty
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Nov 19, 2017 20:37
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BabyRyoga posted:I was entertained by that reading and analysis/crit just a smudge less so than you guys were, thanks for that Kaishai, Sitting Here, and Ironic Twist. Thank you, dude. If you want to take me up on it, I will do a line-by-line crit of your entry this week, straight-up constructive, no jokes.
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Nov 24, 2017 23:50
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BabyRyoga Crit Vicengo collapsed, its hooves buckling under the stress of the sand as if a myriad of demons were tearing at them with scorching claws. It had been dragged through an unfamiliar landscape by Clavius, an inexperienced legionnaire of medium build adorned in a suit of lavish armour. He wielded a short sword in his right hand and a set of chains in his left. With a flick of his wrist, he commanded Vicengo to its feet. This is a decent first section, cuts right to the action. "It's your fault we're in this mess." He he, no capitalization, also use a comma instead of a period when dialogue attribution follows quoted textsnarled in frustration. Vicengo slowly arose, guilt welling up within its eyes in the form of a soppy odd word choice, what does ‘soppy’ mean? soporific? gleam. Before them stretched a wasteland of countless towering dunes and a single blisteringly hot amalgamation of gas in the sky that provided a disproportionate amount of light relative to the excruciating heat it emitted. There is definitely a more concise way to say this. If you can describe the same thing in fewer words, it’s a net positive. Is it that important that you say “amalgamation of gas” and not “star”? As Vicengo turned away in shame, its eyes caught a figure obscured by the twisting sands clumsily tumbling down towards them from the dune ahead. Clavius, startled by the turbulence, brandished his sword menacingly. unnecessary adverb. We should know that he’s menacing from earlier description. "Stay thy ground." Hehe, again squeaked in feigned confidence, ”in feigned confidence can go, “squeaked” is enough. Trust yourself and your reader.as the sword wavered in his grasp. The figure dropped to its knees in exhaustion as it reached the bottom of the dune, ignoring Clavius's warning. As the upheaval of sand slowly settled, Clavius glared at the figure, attempting to assess what danger it posed to him and his companion. It was a frail-looking man wearing ink-black slacks, and a tattered white coat made of an unknown alien”unknown” and “alien” are redundant, get rid of one material. The man panted heavily for a few moments, examining his surroundings. He stood up abruptly, ”heavily” is not great, but it’s still better than “abruptly”, which tells us something we already know.jerked his head a bit, and rubbed his eyes. Alright, at this point in the story—especially one this short--we should have a better idea of why these characters are here, who they are, what they’re looking for. Maybe in a longer story you could set the scene like this, but when you’re working with <1000 words you don’t want to waste a sentence. "How did you manage to end up here?" He asked dumbfounded, getting a better look at the pair. Clavius gave no reply. Vicengo stared at the newcomer intently. you have a serious adverb infestation, you should get that looked at The man approached, unmindful of the blade. "It will be here soon." he better, but you still need the comma instead of the periodcontinued, with a looming sense of urgencyhe’s saying “It will be here soon.” We don’t need to be told about the urgency in his voice. We can infer that from his words. in his voice. "Where is here?" Clavius replied hastily, as he regained his composure and gripped the sword steadily. more adverbs, sheesh "We are prisoners," the man began, motioning for the legionnaire to lower his blade. Clavius promptly raised the point of his blade to the man's neck. "Nonsense. What manner of prison is this?" He scowled angrily. "You take me for some sort of fool." As he turned towards Vicengo again, the strength in his arm began to wane and his sword drooped. A solemn look of disbelief washed over his face. "Cursed by The Divine..." Clavius muttered, thrusting his sword tip first at his feet. He kicked some sand in Vicengo's direction, and it returned a whimper. I still don’t know who any of these people are, why they’re prisoners, why Clavius has control over Vicengo, etc. The man, aware of the fact that Clavius had realized something of significance, gestured to indicate that he was still seeking an answer. again, fewer wasted words would help. "Of all ill-fated luck for a man to be blessed with, it had to be this beast," he exclaimed, glaring at Vicengo. The sadness in its eyes implied that it understood. Vicengo’s a horse? I know it has hooves, but it’s still unclear as hell He continued, "The wretched thing has demonstrated wanton uselessness in all its years of servitude to my family. I needed a proper shield, and a blacksmith at the bazaar offered me coin for him in passing. I accepted his offer." Clavius spit in the sand, likening the transaction to expelling a bad taste. you could’ve just ended it with “spit in the sand.” "I spent that night with the wenches at the tavern. Went overboard, passed out, and woke up here, reunited with the blasted beast." The man gave a displeased frown. "You blame the beast?" Clavius sighed in lament. "The gods have scorn for mortals who demonstrate cruelty towards beasts. This... thing is as half-witted and lazy as there ever was. The way I see it, their judgement was to punish us both." What’s the main conflict here? They’re stuck with each other…so…what then? He’s spending the whole story explaining his predicament and spending no time attempting to change it "Punished. We're being punished.." the man calmly resigned. "I dabbled in sciences forbidden by law, deemed too dangerous to explore. There was a miscalculation in one of my experiments, and I've been stuck here since, writing it all off as an accident for.." the man paused briefly. "As if time itself held meaning in such a place," he muttered to himself, coming to terms with his sins. oh, ok, so they’re in purgatory. Why the hell is purgatory always a desert. Also, why the hell is purgatory held up as the means to an interesting story. No one ever gets out of purgatory, or does anything interesting in purgatory. Right on cue, An aethereal maw spilled out of a nearby dune, crashing into the sand beside the trio. A strange hum filled the air as its jaws parted, revealing a swirling nexus that pulled the three of them towards it like a magnet. did it really, Frank Herbert? The scientist didn't flinch, having encountered it countless times before, but Clavius fell flat on his rear end frozen in fear. He had been pulled but a few feet when the maw grew silent. "There can only be one," exclaimed the scientist in revelation, taking his previous encounters into consideration. ok it’s nice to have inspirations but you need to find a way to sublimate them and make them less obvious, otherwise they come off as a ham-handed Highlander homage Clavius suspensefully nope, nope, even for adverbs this is the most unacceptable, you should know why by now locked eyes with the scientist, misunderstanding what he had said. again, overtellingIn a blur, he grabbed his sword and thrust it into the abdomen of the scientist, skewering him. The scientist fell to one knee and grunted in pain. He removed a small device from his pocket and pointed it squarely at Clavius. As it began to buzz and light up the scientist flashed a gaze at Vicengo, as if sending a signal. Suddenly, the beast leapt in front of its master just as the device fired a scorching beam of plasma, mortally wounding it. It collapsed next to the scientist, who petting it gently on the head affirmed in a whisper, "Soon we will be free." Clavius strode triumphantly towards the maw, which once again welcomed him with a hum. "Hah! The beast finally proved to be useful. Today, the gods have smiled upon me." The hum grew deafeningly loud as Clavius was swept off his feet and sucked into the void. A hearty warmth filled his body, rejuvenating his physical strength and mental fortitude, as it fed him with supernatural energy. Before he knew it, he was expelled from the maw with a new lease on life. He gathering himself and rose to his feet, back in the sand where he started. He was alone. Ultimately, it feels like you sort of had a conceptual idea for a story and spent a lot of time narrating it back to the reader through your characters, rather than making anything interesting happen for the vast majority of the story. I did the exact same thing my first time in TD! What I learned from that experience was that the story should flow through the characters actions, not their narration, and that story comes from characters, not plot. What do they want? What will they do to get what they want? You could argue that Clavius just wants to be rid of his horse, but there are easier ways to do that and more compelling conflicts to be had. And what conflict there is should be implicit at the very beginning in a story this short. but you know, ymmv.
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Dec 9, 2017 16:46
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 to finish crits for Week 274 and Week 281 before Jan 1 2018.
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Dec 28, 2017 02:45
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WEEK 274--I SCREAM CRITS Ritual Luck This is pleasant, but it feels a little flat. More like an introductory chapter to something longer than a complete whole. Even though the opening paragraph has a purpose, it feels adjacent to starting out by describing the weather—it’s time you could be spending getting straight to the heart of the story instead. I like the family dynamic in place here, but again, it all feels a bit flat, muted, pastel. Why today? Why are we hearing about this particular moment in time? What’s so special about this scene as opposed to any other one? I thought you worked in your prompt reasonably well, but it felt like the story came to a head at the deployment of the prompt, whereas maybe you could have put the prompt at the beginning and then could have had the story grow organically out of it, and maybe you’d have ended up with something stronger. As it is, it’s a lot of unnecessary layers in the way. An Unpulled Thread I like this so far. It gives me an Omelas vibe. Although I wish that you’d found a more organic way to weave all of the information in paragraphs 2-4 into the story, rather than just having the narrator tell me without any subtlety. Matter of fact, if I was writing this story, I’d take those paragraphs out and start with him getting curious, leaving, and conveying all the world details through his journey outside. Finished. Now it seems more YA than anything else. The romance seemed a bit shoehorned in. I liked the last line, but there’s not a lot here to make it feel earned. I don’t know why they like each other and I don’t believe in their connection because there’s not a lot of depth to either of their characters. The story is somewhat intriguing, but there’s not a lot holding it together. Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before Well, I -know- how you used the prompt in your story, but this just seems hyper-literal. This isn’t bad, it’s just that it feels a bit too Chicken Soup For The Soul for me. I know you can do those stories well, but this one feels like it’s lacking depth. It’s really hinging on the tiger tail as a memory-laden heirloom, but you don’t even describe what it looks like. There’s not a lot of description in this story in general, really, which leaves me feeling like I should be seeing this more vividly than I am and feeling like I -should- be more affected by Grandpa’s death than I am. Ultimately I think you could have done more with this. Amon-Zeus The first line is strong, concise. The scene is set very well, I’m enjoying the description, but I’m not moved by what’s at stake here, which makes me think of Belle from Beauty and the Beast saying that she wants much more than this provincial life. Or a suburban teenager feeling stoned ennui. I get where the prompt fits in, but I think setting the story at the least possible point of compelling conflict was a bad idea. Beyond that, it reads like believable historical fiction, though there are moments where I feel like I’m just reading a Wikipedia page. On the whole, it’s decent, but again: why -now-? Why this particular moment in time, in history? Purge I’m really enjoying this—on a sentence level. The words pop off the page in a way that stays with me. This is one of the more comprehensible stories I’ve read by you, and it’s an improvement, in my opinion. I see the threads of style and theme through each story. But as one whole, entire entity? I’m not sure it works. I like these two parallel stories, but I can’t see the point at which they intersect, except through this nebulous theme of -suffering-, of walking a rocky road. This might rank high on the strength of the sentences alone, but when I’m finished reading, I still ask myself what the story means, what it was all for. And I can take an educated guess, but that’s about it. Technically, You Would Only Need One Time Traveler Ice-Cream Social Solid first line. Well done. This is pleasant. The writing is on point, but it’s also kind of quotidian. I like Francis as a narrator, and I like Ron as a sheepish catalyst for her life, but on the whole this story seems a bit too…smooth. Textureless. I wanted something to go wrong at some point, even something small. I don’t think you need grand and sweeping gestures or natural disasters to write a story that stays with somebody, but I just wanted something a little less amiable, something that would push Francis towards being a more active character. There’s the 2045 magazine at the end, but even that’s nipped in the bud. I would’ve either created more of a conflict or made sure that the language and the dialogue were so charming that I would’ve wanted to have read 5000 more words of their banter. This story was pleasant, but it didn’t accomplish either for me. He Came Back Oh God I should’ve known that this was where this prompt was going to go. What’s jumping out at me immediately is the lack of dialogue, specifically the lack of dialogue from the conversation with the police. It reads like you realized that you’d have had to write a murder mystery and you decided to leave out all the things people like about murder mysteries. So far this just seems very generic. How do you dismiss your husband coming back to life!? YOU MURDERED HIM. And the police are totally chill with the fact that you called in a false murder report. Okay. Oh, -this- is where this is going now. From one pulp cliché to another, then. Ok, the ending is really effective and vivid but it takes too long to get there. I would’ve just made the whole story a longer version of that last section. If you’d focused on slowly ratcheting up the tension from word 1 and ended with the same ending, I would have a much better opinion of this story, but as it is, it feels like you tried to do too much and span too much time with what little you had to work with. Loss Prevention “broken arms” and now my interest is piqued, immediately, which is what you want. Huh. That ending was disappointing and made me feel like you ran out of words, even though you didn’t. There’s some interesting stuff set up in the middle of the story, I’m led to believe that it’s going to go somewhere, and then—nothing. I guess the climax of the story is meant to be Macey rejecting the narrator, but that comes off as more of an anti-climax and it makes the narrator seem like more of a creep than I think the story intends. I also didn’t understand where the prompt influenced the story. It all just felt like wasted potential, ultimately. Acceptance I’ve seen this story from you before, crabrock, and almost every time I end up enjoying it. The writing is polished and evocative, as always. The story feels more like a trans-planetary fable than anything—mostly due to the simplicity of the dialogue— and it works for me, and it takes another step up in quality in the second half when the bird shows up. I’ve seen plenty of “monsters with a heart of gold” from you, but never the vulnerability combined with that vulnerability getting trampled on. The ending with the crab falling just like the soldiers was a nice bit of bookending. Maybe the title’s a bit bland? I can’t think of much negative criticism I can give here. Maybe in the future you could obfuscate it a bit less through metaphor and try writing a more contemporary story, just to challenge yourself. korean|american So this is meant to be a series, like SH’s Messiah stories? I liked the first one, despite the ending being kind of weak, so I’m interested to see how this one differs. I like the idea of a repartee between two facets of a person’s personality, and here the conversation is interesting enough, but there are times when I can’t tell the difference between the people speaking. As for the story as a whole, it’s nice, and very vivid, but I don’t think it works as well sans the context of the earlier story. In the first one I was able to tell that the characters were just a part of Jane’s psyche, here it’s much more unclear, and as a result it’s not clear what’s at stake. I would definitely read this if it were a chapter in a longer work, though. Ceremony You have a thing about playing around with format, sometimes to your detriment. Here, the format isn’t as obtrusive, which leads to a fuller story and more room for the details to blossom. I think you had one of the best uses of your prompt this week, and it was very central to the progression of the story. I will say that the beginning was a bit muddled, which I normally hate in a story this short, but once I realized the reason for it I was on board. I thought this was a deserving winner. The Girl With Orchids In Her Hair Once I got to the orchids-and-ash bit of description at the end, I was overjoyed. You had the best, most visual use of your prompt out of anyone in this week, and it was downright lovely. That said, this story felt like it was missing a lot of character agency due to its structure, which was what held it back from the win for me. Barely anything in this story happened due to the actions of the main character—it was all due to the actions of the mystical orchid spirit. The story is described beautifully, but it all feels like I should be reading this from the perspective of the orchid spirit instead of her unrequited boyfriend. Nevertheless, this was written well. The Impermanence of Rainbow Sherbet This isn’t a bad story, especially not by Thunderdome Loss standards, it just feels a bit airy and directionless. I like the banter between the two characters, and I like the concept of things disappearing from a person’s life, but all in all I think that it reads more like you had a concept pre-made and ready to go and wanted to shoehorn the prompt you were given to fit with the already-conceived story. Literally, the title could have been “The Impermanence of (Tiger Tail/Crab Ice Cream/Gold Krugerrands in Cake) and it would’ve shaken out to be a similar story. I like the dialogue, though, even though it reinforces how much the story needs a sense of agency for its characters. He Who Tells Us What We Cannot Do I remember this fondly, actually—maybe because it’s not what I expect when I think of a story based off of ice cream. It has some depth and some hints of an established world in it. Where it falls apart is the ending, where Pater just undoes the characters we’ve been following for the entire story in one scene break, making the whole thing seem a bit pointless. I wanted them to kill and devour Pater  But if this were executed better it might have been in contention for a positive mention. As it is it feels like it needed revision, and maybe the editing-out of a character or two. There’s so much going on that it feels like way too much for one story.Can’t Always Get It I mean, yes, this isn’t finished, or at least it reads more as a vignette rather than a finished story—but it has the hint of something larger and with more emotional resonance than what we see on the page. You should write the story that begins where this one ends. Fishfood I like the world. It feels like one of my metaphorscapes that SH talks about—where things just disappear for good, even if parts of them don’t stay buried. Like apophenium’s story, this was more hinting at a defined world rather than showing it all to us, but this seems more polished. And again, like apophenium’s story, it falters a lot at the end, where you get the narrative twist and aren’t given any time to process it, because the story just cuts off. This is still pretty good, though. I want to read something longer in this vein. What Is Superman Ice Cream? I mean, sometimes these lampshade stories work and sometimes they don’t. I see a lot of Fumblemouse’s story in this, where it feels like the prompt in the title was superfluous and interchangeable, but where this story diverges is at the fact that I feel like there’s more at stake, and that the characters seem more human. I couldn’t understand how Judith and Tiffany were related, at all, but I liked Judith’s PoV and I believed in her sad dependence. You’re able to fit a lot into the word limit, and it leads to a deeper story, even if the character doesn’t really do much to change her situation.
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Dec 31, 2017 16:28
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WEEK 281 MERMAN CRITS The Cowboy’s Sparkles This read like a fairy tale or a legit children’s book, and I wasn’t the only judge to say that. It felt very pleasant, for better and for worse—worse because it was sort of missing the texture it needed to give it more emotional depth. It reads like a story for little kids, which is not a bad thing by any means, but when you’re up against stories with more emotional complexity, judges who aren’t little kids are always going to gravitate to those complex narratives. The writing is solid for what it accomplishes, however. You overuse the word “sparkle,” and that repetition is another thing that makes it feel geared towards a younger audience. Weapons and Vices I enjoyed the way you were able to sublimate your reference and turn into something that felt like it organically belonged in this story. My immediate thought is that I don’t know why Enrico and Cooper are in this story—the main conflict seems to be between the narrator and December, and the other two characters feel very secondary for a story this short. As for the ending, I’m torn on whether I like it or not—I can see the importance of leaving the most terrifying bits unknown, but on the other hand ending it before anything concrete also feels like a bit of a cop-out and a way to push any sort of conflict to the side. The atmosphere is really well done, and that and the setting are the most vivid parts of the story, which probably earned it the positive mention. Remembrance I think you hamstrung yourself with the prompt you chose. There wasn’t much here that made me care what happened to the characters. This feels like a stock Atlantean story that doesn’t really have anything new to distinguish it. The end scene would have weight, if either of the characters stood out at all, but for me they really didn’t. I would’ve preferred just the middle scenes with the merman kids on their own, without the frame, because Atlantean Stand By Me seems a bit fresher than the other half of the story. Your descriptions are very nice, as always, but I just wish there was more to work with here. The Skull Beneath This was my win pick. You fit a lot into the word count, and it helps that you gave yourself a more conventional structure to work with. It does feel like more of an establishing shot or an opening chapter to something larger at some points, and the conclusion did make the whole story feel a bit open-ended, and the paragraph before the end seemed a bit rushed and disconnected, but I really liked the characters and I liked the main conceit so much I was willing to overlook a lot of the flaws. How To Die In The Arms of a Merman The deadpan-ness and low key nature of this story was what made it stick with me, I think. This was also a bit open-ended, and a bit of an anti-climax, even though it made sense within the context of the story and within the context of the main character. You’re able to say a lot with clear sentences and key details, which is exactly what you want to do in a story this short. Karen seems like a weakpoint in this story that could be fleshed out more, but in lieu of her, the main relationship between the MC and Miguel felt tender and real. I’m undecided on how necessary the list of rules is or whether it gets in the way or not, but overall, the story held together. Tank! I liked the tone of the story at first, but by the end of the story I was a couple steps past being sick of it. The italicized interludes actually helped, in my opinion, and I think I would’ve liked this story less without them. Ultimately, it’s ok, and I’m glad that it’s this long because I have a feeling that it would grate on me if it went any longer. It probably has something to do with the implication that Chad and his friends are basically fish-rapists. Or recovering fish-rapists. Plans This story really, really suffered from the lack of any sort of focus. There’s something here in the voice of the main character and his disaffectedness, but ultimately he’s just a jerk who doesn’t care about other people, and the plot is just a collection of events that happen one after another through no sort of cause and effect or agency of the main character. It feels like you wrote this in one rush of effort and then didn’t go back to sort through what you put on the page, and if not, then it certainly reads like it. It has embers of something good, though, mostly in the main character’s attitude. Like a Mer-seault. It Won’t Hurt Him at All This was ok. It felt like it was a bit lost on me, but I have a heart of ice, so. It’s good for what it’s trying to be. The pacing is really out of whack, if I had to point at one area that needed the most fixing. Also the fact that the story really misses the point of merman week. Even a mer-dog would have been a closer effort. For Guys and Girl I’m glad that this didn’t get the loss, but it wouldn’t have been abnormal for it to garner one. The story is made out of mostly atmosphere, like a cake that’s 10% cake and 90% icing. To be fair, it’s really good atmosphere that you’ve created—I like the setting and I like the repeating motif of the fuchsia lighting—but I find it really hard to connect with any of the characters because they all feel really distant and standoffish. There are details in here, like the deer head, that are placed like they’re supposed to have a lot of weight, but it’s all kept a secret from the reader. What do these characters want? Why are we hearing a story about them, specifically? Out of the Raines I appreciate the effort to keep several threads of Thunderdome lore running with this story, but it ended up a bit too unsatisfying for me. I had to be told by Kai that the Raines twins were from another story, because I couldn’t remember anything about them. As of now, I still can’t. And regarding the story itself, it started out promising, but the way it ended felt a bit unearned and felt like it canceled out what came before it. As far as revenges go, the billboard ad felt a bit far removed from a Masterstroke and it told me nothing about Lucas or Iselle at all. You might have been in trouble during another week. Cookery There’s a rich world here that we as the reader only get to see parts of, but what we do see is fairly captivating. And also fairly confusing, at points. It is kind of irritating that it’s a cooking story and we never see any descriptions of her cooking or any mouthwatering descriptions of wizard cuisine. We just get a moment with her family, and then a heartwarming moment with her father that’s only given a little bit of time to settle before the story abruptly ends. I wanted more, a lot more, but you were the last story in, so maybe it was just a time thing.
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Jan 1, 2018 02:25
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