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yeah sure i'm in and flash
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Mar 28, 2020 06:10
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prompt: Sylvester and Rarity A Date with Destiny 1532 words Silas was a man in desperate want of a date. This was generally true, though especially at this present moment: his cousin Anthony was getting married in two weeks, and had said in no uncertain terms that Silas could not come unless he found a date. It was these circumstances that found Silas walking main street, in search of a woman, and a suit to wear. Downtown was bustling, full of people—more than Silas was used to seeing, he thought to himself. Silas wandered down the wide sidewalk toward the clocktower at the end of the road, the proverbial center of town. It was not that Silas was incapable of finding a date; far from it, in fact. It was just that so few of the women in this small town were up to his standards. He saw with the eyes of necessity today, though, and began to reevaluate some women he had previously overlooked. His eyes caught on Laila Warren, a perfectly suitable candidate—if she weren’t dating Billy, that ugly chunk of meat. He smiled and waved, and she gave what Silas perceived to be a demure smile in response, before turning quickly into the nearest storefront. He walked past the door she had turned into—a bookstore—and caught her eyes and waved again. She hid her face behind a book, but not before what Silas was sure was a deep blush. Silas smirked. He wandered through the farmer’s market, to no avail. Women loved the farmer’s market, he knew—but all the ones he found suitably attractive already had their arms slung through a man’s elbow. There had been a cute blonde gal, poring over a pile of gigantic peaches; Silas had been moments from his approach (“Some nice peaches you’ve got there,” he’d been prepared to say) when a large bearded man appeared with two large pineapples in his hands, she turned and squeaked in delight, and disappeared out of Silas’ mind forever. He moved on, heading for the tailor recommended by his mom. Destiny’s Dresses & Tailoring was down a short alleyway just off the main drag. An A-frame sat on the sidewalk, pointing Silas toward its doors. An immaculate pink storefront lined with an array of shimmering dresses stood in contrast to the brickwork around it. Silas thought it an odd place to go for a suit, but he’d never worn one, much less purchased one, so he didn’t think on it too long. He pushed through the door to the sound of a gently tinkling bell. The inside was as glittery as the outside appeared, with rows of mannequins displaying pristine, glistening dresses. The room seemed to sparkle, to Silas’ eyes. The room also seemed to have no suits, as far as he could tell. “Hello!” called a melodic voice from out of his field of view, and he turned to look—and was struck dumb. Before him stood the most angelic creature he’d ever seen: a woman bedecked in resplendent shades of purple, with alluring curls of brown hair framing a gentle face with a kilowatt smile. “I’m Destiny. How can I help you?” “I—I—” Silas stuttered and blinked several times, before managing to cough out a complete sentence. “I need a dreth.” Destiny started as several tiny drops of spittle splattered on her face, then cocked her head slightly. Silas then turned beet red. “I mean a thuit, a thuit. I need a thuit.” “Of course!” Destiny replied, with a smile that seemed to grow brighter by the second, and seemed not even to acknowledge Silas’ misstep. “I keep suits in the back room—it’s called Destiny’s Dresses, after all!” Destiny giggled, and Silas’ began to sweat. The next several minutes passed in a blink, as Silas stood for measurements and answered Destiny’s questions regarding his suit needs. All Silas could think about was Destiny. His Destiny, he began to think, and smile began to grow on his lips. He knew now, who his wedding date would be. “I’ve got a date with Destiny,” he thought. Or he would, in just a few moments. “Hey, Dethtiny?” he said, the question poised on his lips. “Yes?” she replied, with a patient smile. “Would you—” He was interrupted, however, by the gently tinkling bell of the storefront. A loud “Hello??” rang out insistently from the storefront. “Hold that thought, Silas,” Destiny said pleasantly. “I’ll be right back!” She darted out to the storefront, not noticing that Silas face had gone a deeper shade of red than any dress in the store. Silas stood stock still, his fists clenched tightly. He knew that voice at a word. Sure enough, less than a minute later, Destiny returned with a short, mousy man in tow—Ruben. “You can have a seat over there while I finish up with this client,” Destiny said to Ruben, as she returned to her tape measure and clipboard, and resumed her work with Silas. “Oh, it’s Silas!” Ruben cried, with a grin that stretched from ear-to-ear of his small head, and a gleam in his eye that only Silas caught. “How’s it going, old buddy?” “Not bad, Ruben,” Silas replied, with all the forced composure he could muster. “Whath up with you?” “Still doin’ the lisp thing, huh?” Ruben replied, and Silas’ face once again flushed red. He was grateful that Destiny was behind him. “Anyway, I’m good. Getting a suit for Anthony’s wedding.” “I don’t know what your talking about,” Silas muttered, then added, “Yeah, thuit for Anthony’th wedding. Acthually, could you wait out front, Ruben? I don’t want Dethtiny to be dithtracted by our converthathion.” “Oh, I’m perfectly fine!” Destiny chimed in, chipper as ever. Ruben chuckled. “No worries, pal, I’ll step out. Let the master do her work.” As soon as Ruben walked around the corner, Silas started to resume his previous line of questioning—but the moment had passed, and so had his courage. ****** About an hour after he left Destiny’s, one suit closer to the wedding but still dateless, Silas’ phone rang. Ruben. He answered with a sigh. “What do you want, Ruben?” “Hey, hey, good to see you, too,” replied Ruben, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Listen, I won’t take long. Anthony told me the deal—” Silas hissed in annoyance “—and I don’t want to get in your way. You’ve got your eye on Destiny, I see.” Silas could imagine Ruben’s eyes flashing. He’d known him long enough to know there was a catch. There was always a catch. “Whath it to you?” “Nothing! That’s exactly my point. She’s all yours! In fact, I wanted to give you a tip: she loooooves dogs.” “Dogth you thay…” Misgivings aside, he was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. ****** The gentle tinkling of the door bell gave way to an eruption of barking and furious pull on the leash in Silas’ hand, as Spike leapt forward. “Eathy, Spike!” Silas shouted, and pulled firmly on the leash. Then: a loud hiss and a flash of pure white, as a cat streaked across the floor into the waiting arms of Destiny, who had just appeared from the back. “What are you doing?” Destiny shouted, with the first hint of anger Silas had seen from her yet. “Dethtiny, will you be my date to Anthony’th wedding?” The words tumbled out of Silas like a rock let loose down a hill. “What?” Destiny cried, clearly still alarmed by the situation. She quickly followed up: “No thank you! Come back for your suit when you don’t have a dog with you, please! What were you thinking?” Silas froze, unsure of what to do. He thought about asking again, not entirely sure she’d understood what he was asking. He half-turned to leave, then turned back, and began to say, “Let me—” “Out, please!” came Destiny’s immediately reply, and Silas complied. ****** Not five minutes later, as Silas sat on a park bench contemplating his next move and petting a now-jolly Spike, a despondent Ruben plopped down next to him, a bouquet of flowers and what was clearly a cat toy in his hands. “You thon of a—” “Yeah, I set you up. Was gonna try to play the considerate fellow after your catastrophe.” Silas face quivered in rage momentarily. “I knew I thouldn’t have truthted you.” “No, probably not,” Ruben chuckled. “Don’t worry, she turned me down, too. Said all men were creeps and huffed off.” The two of them sat in silence for a couple minutes, both stroking Spike’s fur, who hadn’t the faintest clue what had happened but was thoroughly enjoying his present circumstances. Then, suddenly, a thought crossed Silas’ mind. “Thay… My couthin said—” “Can you drop the lisp thing, please?” “Alright, alright. My cousin said I need a date, but he didn’t say it had to be a woman.” Now, it was Silas’ turn to grin. Ruben’s brow furrowed in confusion for a moment, but then understanding crossed his face. “What do you say? Will you be my date?” Ruben pondered for a moment, then shrugged. “Sure!” he exclaimed, as he shoved the flowers toward Silas. "You gotta wear the dress, though!"
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Mar 30, 2020 07:08
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in flash
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Mar 30, 2020 09:01
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Prompt: Voidstricken, Universal Fingerprint! Going Down Word count: 1499 Tolliver sat in the corner of the surveillance office, snoring deeply but inconsistently as if his body had forgotten the rhythm to the song. A young boy stood over him, tapping him insistently on the shoulder. “Agent Tolliver,” he half-shouted, his voice drowned by the loud klaxon sounding throughout the room. “Agent Tolliver!” His snores continued. The boy kept trying for a couple minutes, then wandered over to the computer array and sat in front of the monitor array, awaiting some sort of instruction. A few minutes later, Tolliver snorted so loudly that he woke himself. He shook his stubbly, balding head, squared his patrol cap, and tugged his uniform jacket over his paunch. The red light of the alarm breathed slowly, giving the room an apocalyptic glow, but Tolliver seemed wholly unfazed by it, or the blaring horn. “Anyways, Ronnie, I was saying,” Tolliver said, as though his lengthy nap were but a brief intermission in the lecture he’d been giving the boy. “You’ve got to make a choice, decide where you stand. In every man’s life, there will come a time when he’ll be tested. Understand? You’ll know then which choice you’ve made. You listening, Ronnie? Hey, what’s with the alarm?” Tolliver stood up and walked over behind Ronnie, looking at the email client open on the screen. Though official VoidTower Security emails popped up at the top of the inbox every few seconds, none carried the standard emergency protocol tags. “How long has that alarm been going off, Ronnie?” “About… Seven minutes and 45 seconds,” Ronnie said with a glance at his watch. “I tried to wake you, sir. What do we do?” Ronnie turned to look up at Tolliver, who had turned away and stepped toward the far wall of the room. “Well, alarms are not terribly unusual, you know. Big building, lots of people. Lots of stuff,” Tolliver said as he fumbled in one hand with the cover to an electrical panel full of blinking lights and in the other hand a preposterously thick binder. “Come hold this open.” Ronnie got up from the desk and hustled over. As he stood holding the panel door, he could see over Tolliver’s shoulder a series of incomprehensible diagrams under the label ALARM ANNUNCIATOR CODES. “Alarms are not unusual, but they almost never take this long to issue instructions. It’s mostly automated, for one thing, and there are about fourteen backups…” Tolliver’s voice trailed off as his eyes darted from page to panel, from panel to page, looking for the matching codes. “Ten minutes now, Agent Toll—” “ALL VOIDMART PERSONNEL: PLEASE CHECK YOUR EMAIL FOR INSTRUCTIONS.” The voice on the PA was a woman’s, and her voice shook as it thundered, clearly not up to VoidTower Employee Approved Radio Protocol. Then the PA went silent entirely. Ronnie hustled to the computer, where an email had just popped up. The subject read, [URGENT VOIDMART SECURITY PERSONNEL INSTRUCTIONS]. As Ronnie opened it, the woman’s voice came back, still shaky but much calmer. “All VoidTower residents, please remain in your rooms. Whatever you do, DO NOT GO TO THE OBSERVATORY LEVEL! I repeat, DO NOT GO TO THE OBSERVATORY LEVEL! Have a great day!” Ronnie made a face and looked over at Tolliver. Tolliver was staring back at him, his finger fixed on the page. “What’s the email say?” Ronnie opened it. The email was brief—two sentences, also all caps. [ALL SECURITY PERSONNEL REPORT TO OBSERVATORY LEVEL. DETAIN AT ALL COSTS ANY RESIDENTS ATTEMPTING TO ASCEND THE TOWER.] He read it aloud. Tolliver snorted down a laugh. “What the hell is going on, sir?” Tolliver didn’t answer right away. He set the binder on the floor and pulled a cigarette from his jacket pocket, lit it, and took a long drag. “How old are you, kid?” He asked, as he stared at the camera displays, now showing people—VoidTower Personnel and residents alike--scurrying all over in disarray. “I’m twelve, sir,” Ronnie boasted, his chest puffing and his spine straightening. “Jesus Christ,” Tolliver said, as if only now just realizing how young the boy was, even though he’d been working with the VoidTower One Security Trainee for over six months. “Listen. There are fifteen thousand, five hundred and thirty-three alarm codes in this binder, ranked by priority. This alarm is a priority 44: Voidmart Supply Chain Disruption.” “Well, that can’t be too bad, can it? It’s only 44,” Ronnie said with a shrug. He wasn’t really sure what the supply chain meant. “Hah!” Tolliver laughed, and took another drag before stomping his cigarette into the tile floor. “I’ve worked here thirty years, and I’ve never seen an alarm higher than five thousand. And that one, they called in the national guard. Come on, we’ve got to move.” They exited the surveillance room and into the locker room next door, where Tolliver shouldered a backpack and tossed utility belt to Ronnie. Then Tolliver took off at a jog, and Ronnie hustled to follow. The employee area was alive with VoidTower Personnel, all shouting and all running. They continued forward, and soon burst through a set of double doors into VoidTower Commercial Zone #556—which was in a state of utter chaos. Directly in front of them, two small children stood facing the storefront of VoidTots, giggling as gouts of flame poured forth from their child-sized neon-pink flamethrowers. A VoidTower Security guard stood, completely ignored by the crowds, on a table in the middle of the courtyard, as he attempted to shout instructions through his comically oversized megaphone. Behind him, a column of residents marched forward with posters held high: FIRE JOHN PERKINS, and BOYCOTT VOIDGAMES INC, and several others of a similar theme. “Those people—” Ronnie shouted, and pointed. “Is that what the alarm’s about?” “Not even close. Come on, we gotta get downstairs in a hurry.” “Down?” “Yes, son, you heard me. Down. Let’s move!” They ran around several corners, then found themselves at Staircase C. Tolliver didn’t slow down as he began to vault several steps at a time. Ronnie did his best to keep up. He began to sweat, and he was honestly surprised Tolliver could keep the pace. “Sir, the instructions were to report to the Observatory Level! That’s on the top of the building.” “I’m well aware of that. That’s not where the emergency is.” “Sir—” “Listen, kid,” Tolliver barked, and spun around on the landing to floor 387. “Here’s your next lesson: Voidmart trusts nobody, not even it’s own employees. We’re security personnel, supposed to keep this place safe. The emergency is on the observatory level, they say. Well, there’s nothing up there. Certainly not any supply chain elements. I’ve worked here thirty years, and the first ten were supply chain security.” Tolliver shrugged his hands up and smiled sardonically at Ronnie. “I don’t know what happened, but I do know that a supply chain disruption is some serious poo poo. Like, end of the world poo poo.” Tolliver paused. “Sorry for the language.” Ronnie just shrugged. “Why send everyone to the top? Well, when you tell people what not to do, what do they do?” Ronnie didn’t answer, out loud, but he knew the answer: exactly what they were told not to do. He reflected that his parents could probably learn from VoidTower strategy. “Listen, kid, we’re headed into hell. I don’t mean that as hyperbole. I can’t prepare you anymore for what’s ahead. Stay on your toes and don’t blink.” They resumed their ferocious clip downstairs, and were soon at floor 255. Tolliver stopped and checked the map by the exit door. “Perfect,” he says, and shoulders his way through the door. Ronnie follows close behind. “There’s a cargo elevator on this floor, will take us straight down into the Supply Chain Logisitics Center.” A couple turns down non-descript hallways later, and they stood before a set of large elevator doors. There was no button, but instead a small thumbpad labeled VoidScanner RXT. Tolliver glanced both directions down the hallway, then took a small slip of black cloth from his pocket, wrapped it around his thumb, and placed it on the scanner. The mechanism beeped a couple of times, and then the doors slid open smoothly. Tolliver stepped inside. “You ready for this, Ronnie?” Tolliver slipped the cloth back in his pocket and turned to the control panel. “Ronnie, you hear me?” “Security Agent Merton Tolliver, you are under arrest.” Tolliver looked up. Ronnie stood in front of him, hand on the elevator door, VoidStunner pointed at his chest. “What are you doing?” “I, Ronald Yee, in my power as Junior Security Agent Trainee, place you under arrest for violations of VoidTower Security Protocol, as listed in the employee handbook. Code 2.4.77.9a, disobedience to direct orders. Code 1334.3.2.15, possession of illicit items. Code 12333.222—” Neither of them saw the giant purple teddy bear that burst up through the floor beneath them, swallowing them both whole in its massive fanged gullet.
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Apr 6, 2020 09:04
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Anomalous Amalgam posted:In code:
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Apr 7, 2020 00:22
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Black Griffon posted:tripple flash https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/632c61fa-75ed-4e58-bc9a-5df755c36aa0
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Apr 7, 2020 21:05
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Siddhartha Glutamate posted:In with a https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-glHAzXi_M
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Apr 8, 2020 07:45
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By fiat of the high judge Chili, I declare submissions closed hereafter.
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Apr 13, 2020 08:35
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 for crits by entry deadline this week
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Apr 14, 2020 20:37
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in and give me somethin good
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Apr 15, 2020 02:49
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Week 401 Crits -- PART 1 All stories were read in judgemode. If anyone wants to discuss my crits or your story in more detail, please send me a PM or (more usefully) find me in Discord. Happy to talk. Also I started out doing full crits but quickly realized that would take… A long time. And I only got through... Three today. The rest will come tomorrow. Comments about the week: This week differs from every other week of TD that I’ve been a part of, as the requirements of writing a good first chapter are very different from the requirements of writing good flash fiction. Flash fiction must be complete within the word count--the entire story that the author sets out to tell has be finished, all its ideas communicated within those words. The same is not true of first chapters, by definition. It makes the idea of writing a successful first chapter a lot trickier, as you still must have some semblance of an arc, to give your reader an idea of the direction of your story, without actually just writing the whole story. (Of course, add to that the idea of writing a first chapter to be judged in this format, and it gets trickier still). All that to say, mixed results. This week also brought out a lot of earnestness from you poor sweet domers. When the prompt is to write the first chapter of your novel, well, that gives us a taste of what’s in the hearts of domers, and... of course you all want to write nerdy world-buildy sci-fi and fantasy. With very mixed results. The writing, from a mechanical perspective, was not so horrible. The biggest issue was clarity of description, which I think had much more to do with a desire to world build and come up with inventive stuff than with ability to write words--except, well, definitely too much purple prose. CRITS My crit format is as follows: Plot summary: A simple, objective reading of what happens in your story. This will be devoid of analysis or commentary. This helps me to make sure I have a handle on the literal plot of the story, for the purposes of the next two sections, and hopefully helps you to understand how your story read, from a clarity standpoint. Story Analysis: A critical reading of what your story is about--the themes, ideas, motifs, moods, etc. Sometimes, this is what you intended it to say, sometimes, it is not. Sometimes, your story isn’t supposed to mean anything, so hopefully this section will help you understand what your story communicates, even unintentionally. Commentary: My actual opinion about your story. I’ll give you my reaction, my opinion about the success or failure of the story, my opinion about story choices, plot mechanics, etc. Fuschia tude’s Unburdening Plot Summary: An old, apparently immortal man named Bonn moves into a vacant shop in Paris, just before the French Revolution. He sets up a laboratory of sorts, in which he creates all sorts of concoctions (with apparently controversial ingredients). The local children come to gawk at him, though they all soon lose interest, except for one small child, who continues to return. Eventually, the girl, Racine, enters the shop, and the two form a friendship: Bonn creates (his laboratory is actually a kitchen, apparently), Racine tastes. She has quite discerning taste, and apparently dislikes much of what Bonn creates--which makes sense, because, as Bonn admits, he has a poor understanding of human taste. Bonn also reveals some minor details about his past: he is independently wealthy, and has previously served for an unnamed king. Years pass, Racine appears less and less, and Bonn considers moving on to a new place (because, despite his grouchy nature, he apparently valued Racine’s friendship quite a lot). Then, suddenly, Racine appears, disheveled, and it is revealed that she has aligned herself with the revolution. Bonn steps in to defend his friend, and reveals his true dragon nature in the process. Story Analysis: This story is about friendship, and its power to reveal our true nature. Though Bonn is initially quite reticent to engage with anyone, it is through his friendship with Racine that he learns more about humanity, and that ultimately causes him to reveal himself as a dragon. When it appears that his friendship with Racine has withered away, he considers leaving Paris for some new lair. The friendship between Bonn and Racine also speaks to the power of friendship to inspire loyalty, as Bonn comments that he owes nothing to the soldiers and the King of France, and reveals his true nature, putting himself in danger by doing so (he does mention loyalty to an old king, incidentally, which indicates that loyalty is an important subject for Bonn, and more complicated than we can resolve through what’s given here). Bonn is an example of a being uncomfortable in his true identity, though for what reason we cannot discern here--it could be due to hostility toward dragons, toward him particularly, or perhaps he has a desire, due to envy, curiosity, or some other reason entirely, to be human. Racine is a clever young girl with little interest, apparently, in the friendship of youth until she enters her teens, as she apparently prefers the company of a taciturn old man. Perhaps this is part of what leads her to join the revolution. Commentary: A firm no mention for me. There is something here, in the friendship between Racine and Bonn, and in the exploration of Bonn’s past life. This reminds me a bit of LeGuin’s Earthsea Cycle (particularly in the early relationship between Ged and Tenar), a little bit of Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind (with the allusions to Bonn’s presumably legendary status in the past). However, this story suffers from a lack of excitement. Part of the problem of judging only the first chapter is that, you, as the writer, have (perhaps) some idea of what will come after; we have none. You need to hook the reader, but also build enough context for us to understand where we are. This gives me enough context to discern that we are in France on the verge of Revolution, and tries to drop a couple of breadcrumbs pointing to Bonn’s mysterious nature and past. Unfortunately, I felt little reason to want to know more. This can often be the problem with taciturn characters, which is fine if the other characters carry you, since that will provide room for them to blossom. If the grumpy old man is your main character, you need to give me some reason to care--his personal stakes, his motivations, something. We get so precious little. There are some perspective issues here, which is always tricky with characters with hidden identities. The story is clearly from his perspective, and we have access to his thoughts, but the story also wants to hide some things from us. quote:The insufferable thing about immortality is it never ends. Another: quote:One day, as he was inflating a glass vessel, Bonn saw a small child with disheveled hair watching from behind the door. He was a short man, with a white ring of hair starting from his temples, and only small tufts of hair above. This story also suffers from having to reveal your character’s dragon identity, because of the flash rule. I don’t hold that against you, but it does weaken the ending to the chapter. Feels a bit rushed. Thranguy’s How To Get Over Your Ex Plot Summary: Lise is breaking into her (newly) ex-boyfriend Derek’s house, the night after walking in on him with another girl. She left without a word that night, so is back the following night (while Derek is at work on the night shift) to gather her belongings. While looking for her things, she discovers a duffel full of cash, which she is certain Derek is not capable of possessing (by honest means, at least). She decides to take this duffel almost without a thought. As she is packing up, a car pulls up--not Derek’s. She hides under the bed with the duffel. Men come in, drop something on the mattress, discuss the money (intended to frame Derek), and the opportunity to skim a little for themselves, then go searching for it. They don’t find it, so they leave. Lise comes out from under the bed and finds the other girl on the mattress, now dead. She returns to grab the money, resolved to find the killers and clear both Derek’s name, and hers. Story Analysis: This is a story about how getting in bed with assholes is a really bad idea. This goes for Lise, of course, but also for Derek (both with red-head--an rear end in a top hat for sleeping with a cheater--and with these shadowy setup men) and Red-Head (for sleeping with Derek, who is an rear end in a top hat). It’s also how about thugs willing to steal from their boss (presumably) are also probably not smart enough to check under the bed. It’s also about the importance of checking your calendar. Not sure there is much else here yet, and I don’t know if there would be, given the straightforward nature of this crime caper. Commentary: This story was much more compelling to me than it was to my co-judges. This HM’d on my account, while my co-judges found this to be pretty straightforward and boilerplate. That probably speaks to something about this story striking me in a particular way; draw whatever conclusions you choose. I also read this story second, which means I was not yet suffering from setup fatigue (as would definitely become an issue later). I appreciated the premise here, and the setup as a first chapter. I appreciated the brevity (advice some others this week desperately needed). Reading this made me look forward to both the adventures of Lise, but also the pairing of Lise and Derek as unlikely buddy cops, given Derek’s recent unfaithfulness and new status as ex-boyfriend. I was intrigued by Lise, clearly a person with some particular skills and a seemingly unflappable nature. The prose was solid, if unspectacular. Basically, this was a generally solid story, while many of the other stories this week, to me, were not. SlipUp’s Oceanworld Chapter 1: The Trident Plot Summary: Cleon, adrift at sea and floating on a barrel, drinks seawater. This apparently summons the titan Oceanus, who offers to save Cleon in exchange for his stealing the trident of the god Poseidon. Cleon, we are led to believe, agrees (though it does not explicitly say so). He is then rescued by some former-Myrmidons-turned-’pirates’, led by Captain Xenius. He gives these men the wine barrel he was floating on, then provides these men with the plan to steal the trident (though omits some key details). They agree. They sail west, find the city of Atlantis, which rests on the back of a giant turtle (which surfaces right next to them, conveniently, but does not capsize them, also conveniently). They lay siege to the city, fight a bunch of crabs, lose a bunch of men, and wind up in the temple. While Xenius is fighting a giant crab, Cleon grabs the trident, and immediately feels its power. After killing the crab, Xenius asks for the trident, but Cleon reneges on their deal. He commands the turtle to dive, it begins to do so, and Xenius flees, while swearing that he will kill Cleon. Story Analysis: This story is about the dangers of trusting strangers, and about the seductive and corrupting nature of power (unless Cleon is actually already a bad guy, in which case, mostly the first theme). Oceanus trusts Cleon to carry out their deal, with little knowledge of his trustworthiness (aside from the presumption of a debt owed); Xenius trusts Cleon, with no knowledge of his past, character, or motivations. Bad choices all around. Also, this story is about how you definitely should not leave your trident of power just sitting around unguarded in your very obvious temple throne room. I mean, come on, Poseidon. Maybe the crabs were supposed to be the guards, but Xenius and the Myrmidons are just hella badass. But Poseidon definitely should be able to afford some better guards. Commentary: This is… Not a good story. Partly, I have no interest in Greek mythology as a story setting; it’s typically very one-dimensional in its portraiture and lacking in nuance. So take that for what you will as evidence of whatever bias. Even so, this story has other problems. The biggest one is that The Trident is not a chapter, it’s like a third of a full novel, in terms of plot. And all that Plot means very little room for characterization, atmosphere, tone, etc. A first chapter just needs to hook. I know (and can guess at) most of the plot here, but I care so very little about it because I care so very little for these characters. Cleon is a mystery. I know nothing of his story, aside from his involvement at Troy and the capsizing of his ship. To be fair, perhaps that is planned for chapter 2, or whatever. But I should at least have some sense of his character. Speaking of which… Pretty sure Cleon is the bad guy, and Xenius is the good guy. Not sure that is what you want, because you have set up Cleon as your protagonist, and Xenius as a very clear antagonist for him (along with Oceanus and Poseidon, obviously). Xenius, however, is much more sympathetic. His home has been taken, he has lost his leader (though I doubt the Myrmidon’s would be unemployed for long, despite the death of Achilles), and he and his men are simply looking for adventure and spoils. They fight without fear. And they are the betrayed party. Cleon just sort of seems like an opportunistic dickhead. Just like Xenius, I understand little about his past, his character, or his motivation, so I have no reason to care for him or even to be interested in him. On a mechanical level, the pacing of this story is not great. Because you are attempting to stuff so much plot into 1823 words (over your word count, btw), you flit between racing forward in plot exposition, then pausing but momentarily for a bit of description, then racing, then dialogue, then racing. No time to breath. It also makes it difficult to understand at times. Many of these issues could be solved on a second pass, of course. If this is a story you believe in, by all means, expand it. That would solve a ton of issues, honestly. This needs more atmosphere, more detail, and waaay more characterization. Figure out who you want us to empathize with, and give us reason to do so.
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Apr 18, 2020 07:35
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Everything In Its Place word count: 1105 prompt: Three Way Love Affair “Hey, sweetheart,” I say as I shut our apartment door. I place my shoes in the rack—precisely, even with each other and with the shoes on either side. Not a habit I possess naturally, but Laura will comment if they’re out of line. So, into the line they go. “There’s a note here, for… You, I guess.” “Hi, honey,” she says as she pokes her head out of the kitchen and smiles sweetly at me. “A note for me? Who from?” “I don’t know.” I walk into the kitchen, where Laura is pulling a tray of asparagus from the oven. “It just says ‘Laura, my love’”. The tray of asparagus jerks ever so slightly, then Laura smirks. “You’re being funny, aren’t you? Did you write me a note?” “What? No. I found it jammed in the door.” Laura’s smile falters. “Sweetheart, who is this from?” I ask. Laura’s eyes dart to the note in my hand. Then, slowly, deliberately, she sets the asparagus down, wipes her hand on a dishrag, and turns to face me. “There’s something I need to tell you.” ****** “There’s something I need to tell you.” Her voice shakes gently. I look up from the passenger seat, where I am hunched over, rifling through my bag. Her smile twitches nervously. “Yeah, sweetheart. What is it?” “Wait,” she says, as her smile broadens and her eyes flash mischievously. “Not yet. Not here. I have something to show you, first.” “Okay,” I say with a nervous chuckle. My anxiety begins to crest its arc like a failed rocket. Laura loves to be mysterious. She giggles and cranks the music, and we drive through the city. Her cascading brunette curls bounce along with her head as she sings loudly, and so does my heart. I love this woman, I realize. “We’re here,” she whispers, and I belatedly realize the car is off. We are in a part of the city I don’t recognize, high up on a hill. “Come on!” Moments later, she is out of the car and racing up the hill across the street. I scramble to follow. My breath catches as I top the hill. The half-light of dusk silhouettes Laura against the bay below, her sundress billowing gently. A field of poppies stretches halfway down the hill, stacks of buildings running from there to the water. The lights in the homes are just starting to turn on. Across the bay, the disappearing sun casts it’s bright pinks and pale yellows on the horizon. I walk down and wrap my arms around Laura. She turns in my arms to look at me. My heart flutters. “I love you.” My heart stops. “I love you, too!” I blurt out, as my heart kickstarts itself back to life. Laura laughs. We sit there in that field until, one by one, the lights blink off, and the moonlight is all that’s left. ****** I sit in our apartment until, one by one, the lights blink off, and the moonlight is all that’s left. Used to be, a night to myself meant a cold beer and an old record, or a movie, or some Chinese food. Laura is out tonight. She still won’t tell me his name. So, I sit in our silent, meticulously arranged apartment, and I can hear my heart pounding in my chest. Palpitations. Mostly harmless. Late in the evening, the tears come. I whisper, afraid to disturb the stillness. “I miss you, babe.” ****** “I miss you, babe,” Laura says as she leans across the table, taking my hand in hers and looking at me with concerned eyes and a soft smile. “What do you mean?” I say, and look down at my dinner. I pull my hand back and shovel a forkful of veggies into my mouth and proceed to chew them into non-existence. “We live together. I’m confused.” “You can barely look at me, honey.” She’s not wrong. I force myself to swallow, and then I force myself to drag my eyes up to hers. They resist. It’s been a month and a half. She can’t live without me, she’d said. I love this woman. She can’t live without both of us, she’d said. I wanted to die. “Honey, this isn’t going to work if you’re not here,” she says, and her smile is anything but comforting. My mind flashes to silent nights, when she was conspicuously, specifically, not here. “It’s just, this is all so hard to handle, Laura.” I look at her smiling, perfectly made-up face and her perfectly arranged curls, and I can feel my face flush. “I’m not sure I can do this. I’ve tried to understand, to get used to… sharing you. I—I don’t think I can.” Laura looked at me and nodded, and reached her hand out again. I flinched, but didn’t move. “I know what you need, honey. Let’s go back.” “What?” “Our first date.” She smiled brightly. “Let’s go to the sea!” ****** Let’s go to the sea! her text had read. Now we’re jogging back up the street drenched from head to toe in seawater, laughing hysterically. All Steven told me about this girl was to pick her up from work at 4:30. Well, she is a dream. Beautiful, fun, adventurous, funny. She started calling out directions the minute she got in my passenger seat. We get along famously. We’ve got the same taste in music. We share an appreciation for grand vistas. “Let’s jump in the ocean!” she says, and we jump in the ocean. She pulls two towels out of her bag as we reached the car, because of course she has two towels. We drive home. “That was great,” she says. “Let’s do this again soon,” she says. “Absolutely,” I say, as I pull up to her apartment. “Without a doubt.” She pecks me on the cheek, then darts out of my car and up the steps. “Goodbye, Laura!” ****** “Goodbye, Laura!” I say, forcefully. Laura turns to look at me from the edge of the parking lot, where she is waiting for me. “What?” she says, with the first signs of confusion I have ever seen on her face. “Goodbye, Laura,” I say, calmly. I wasn’t sure I meant it the first time, either. I am sure now. “I’m breaking up with you.” “Honey, what do you mean?” Her face, her perfect face, teeters on the edge of composure. She takes a few halting steps toward the car, and ugly tears begin to well in her eyes. “I don’t understand.” “Yeah, I’m cool with that,” I say, as I climb back into my car.
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Apr 20, 2020 08:18
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Thunderdome CDIII -- Fight Night, Round 2 (me stopping your bad words) I am who I am, Thunderdome. Last time you let me win, I made you write fights. And, well, here we are again. I love action, what can I say? THE MISSION You have 1100 words to write me an action scene. That's it. Any kind of action you want: a sci-fi shootout, some fisticuffs, an old-timey horse chase, a taught Cold War spy thriller. It doesn't matter, so long as your scene has some real, physical, action. What does matter is that your characters are human (though not necessarily literally). That is the criteria on which your works will be judged--can I relate to your character? Do I care about the stakes? All great action movies have great action; the best ones have great characters. Why is Die Hard the best ever? Because John McClane is a relatable everyman with marital problems. What makes Lethal Weapon great? This really, really intense scene. What about Aliens? Goddamn Ripley, that's what. It is the characters that elevate these movies, because they give us someone to connect to, and they make the stakes real. So write me some good action (that's a prerequisite, of course), and make me care about it. ENEMY INTEL: -I don't like superheroes, really. So if a win/HM is your goal, you either better be really good, or choose something else. -The best action always has a sense of humor, whether they're comedies or not -You need to write a story: beginning, middle, end. You can set up the sequel, if you want, but I need to be satisfied at the end of this story. -Clarity is really important. Pay attention to your blocking. Leave the shakycam to Jason Bourne. RULES OF ENGAGEMENT WORD COUNT: 1100 words SIGNUP DEADLINE: Midnight PST on Friday 4/24 SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Midnight PST on Sunday 4/26 DECISIVELY ENGAGED: for 150 bonus wordsFOG OF WAR: Flash rules for 150 bonus words; ask at your own peril TACTICAL ADVANTAGE: I will handpick you a classic action sequence for inspiration, you will get 150 bonus words. BANNED, PER THE GENEVA CONVENTION: Erotica, fanfic, poetry, political screeds, Google docs, weird formatting COMBAT ADVISORS: BeefSupreme flerp - COMBATANTS: Ceighk +150 Chili +150 crimea +150 Doctor Eckhart +150 Ironic Twist +150 J.A.B.C. +150 NAGA LIU KANG +300 QuoProQuid +150 Sebmojo +150 Simply Simon +150 SlipUp +150 Solitair +150 Something Else Thranguy +150 Tyrannosaurus Uranium Phoenix +450 Yoruichi +300 BeefSupreme fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Apr 28, 2020 |
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Apr 22, 2020 20:59
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QuoProQuid posted:Sure. Thranguy posted:In, tactical engage me. sebmojo posted:in, tactical advantage crimea posted:In, Tactical Advantage. Doctor Eckhart posted:In, with tactical advantage Solitair posted:In, tactical advantage Uranium Phoenix posted:In, flash, tactical, Your story features a child NAGA LIU KANG posted:In, decisively engaged, fog of war Simply Simon posted:In Thunderdome? Yoruichi posted:In. Fog of War and Tactical Advantage please. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNy6DlmjY7M Nobody dies J.A.B.C. posted:You know what? I haven't written here in far too long. BeefSupreme fucked around with this message at 07:43 on Apr 23, 2020 |
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Apr 23, 2020 04:02
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Ironic Twist posted:in, with a Fog of War
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Apr 23, 2020 04:12
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WEEK 401 CRITS -- PART 2 Part 1 here, including explanation of my crit methodology, if you are curious. Not all the rest will get so thorough a treatment, especially since I've got another week of judging incoming. Sorry about that. Solitair’s Harbinger Plot Summary: Alright, this is gonna take a minute… Triana Sixsmith is making a report to her superiors, The Sun and the Moon about the preparations for a ritual to repair/heal the planet. She is nervous, which her masters remark upon. They depart. Triana ruminates on the problem at hand, the New Gods, her interaction with Janar, and what was to come. She takes her place in preparation to begin, and awaits a signal from The Sun, which never comes. Instead, their enemy, the source of the disease infecting the planet, arrives, a terrifying sky-monster beyond description. Triana transforms from humble, nervous scientist into a gigantic math god-dragon, a form she keeps hidden so she can walk amongst her supplicants. She flies into the sky and attacks the demon, who responds by breaking her mind and crushing her skull. It is then revealed that she had been a weapon, trained by the creators of Ymir (the planet?), who had led a revolt against those creators, and led the people of Ymir into unprecedented prosperity and freedom, and intimacy between gods and men--as we learn moments later, the Enlightened age. Then Triana dies in a horrifying explosion. Story Analysis: This is a story about the futility of progress--or would be, were it to end here. I can’t imagine that is your final intent. This is about the foolishness of those who believe in peace and prosperity. I suspect Ymir’s creators have something to do with plague on the land, given the current inhabitants came into their rule by wrenching it from the creators. Triana Sixsmith has some conflicting characteristics (as CurlingIron pointed out, given she is apparently an immortal dragon-god. That she would be so skittish at the start is seemingly unbecoming from the person who apparently started a revolution and shepherded the Enlightened Age; not impossible, but strange, to be sure. Commentary: Holy hell there is a lot going on here, and not in a good way. It’s kind of a bummer, because you’ve obviously got an imagination and a vision for this story, and there are some good bits. Unfortunately, it’s just really hard to read. I get your desire to build the world and do so quickly, but it’s just way too much. It’s apparent you’ve put thought into this story, and there are some ideas in there, but it is really, really, really hard to keep track of all the details you’ve put in here. Too many new names, places, power structures, all in 1200 words. It makes the story incoherent, honestly. I am curious as to whether Triana will return, if you expand this. Killing your protagonist at the end of the first chapter is definitely an option, but a tricky one. I need to know the stakes of what’s happening, understand her character, and the significance of losing her, all very quickly. And despite how much plot you’ve put in here, I’m not sure I do. I don’t understand her role beyond the ruler of this particular region, her place in the power structure, or what it means for her to die. If she does return, that’s also tricky… Creating relatable characters who are definitely not human is a challenging task. Perhaps that’s why you make her so nervous at the beginning, but it doesn’t really work for me because I come to learn that she is a god, and that makes me question why she would be so nervous. I would really consider a change in tense for this story. When I read this line the first time, I was actually confused for a moment: quote:That signal never arrived. Instead, the sky erupted Your story is sort of a classic DM candidate: big ideas, competent writing, but it absolutely has to hit. This draft unfortunately did not. You have big ideas and this whole new world you want to communicate, and you actually have some really nice writing in here. The prose is ever-so close to being purple at times, but I think that is a function of the breakneck pace required by what you’re trying to squeeze in. This reminded me, in content and ambition, of NK Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy, which is quite good. I would recommend you read that, if you haven’t. Siddhartha Glutamate’s The Happily Hereafter Plot Summary: The Narrator (not sure whether it’s a man or a woman, or what his/her name is, but I will use him/he pronouns for simplicity’s sake, and since I read it in that voice) finds himself in the afterlife, which is like the world’s longest DMV line. The (dead) people there, instead of talking, spend the time ruminating on all their personal screwups, and experiencing anxiety over what everyone else must think, even though they never actually see anyone they know. Everyone is waiting (they think) for judgment, at which point they will learn whether they are headed to Dis (a city in hell? I think?), or… Not really sure. The Narrator then meets St. Nick, or, more accurately, a mall Santa Claus who is not yet aware that he is actually dead. His entrails are hanging out, and he is asking for the paramedics. The Narrator comforts him, and steers him to a help desk, where he will, hopefully, get some answers about his death. The lady there has no record of him, but Paul (our mall Santa) thinks that means he shouldn’t be there; he asks to speak to a supervisor. Lubinthe (the lady at the help desk) summons Helzberg, her superior, a 12 year old prairie girl with a sarcastic mouth. After some digging, she connects the dots that Paul is another mall Santa arrived from the 1990’s, with no records. Story Analysis: This is a story about how people who are bored out their minds (lives? souls?) can barely be bothered to help their fellow man, despite having, apparently, more time than they could possibly fathom. The Narrator only does so because he doesn’t enjoy the prospect of being annoyed by Paul’s crying, in addition to his persistent boredom. This is also about how everyone hates Nazis, even if they have no context for understanding their existence, given the breadth of human life that exists in limbo. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what sort of themes this story is shooting for. Perhaps the goal here is explore the boredom of our existence, through the lens of this limbo reality--to turn the mirror on humanity, as it were. Perhaps the ambition here is just to have a fun little romp searching for the clues about The Great Mall Santa Disappearance of 94. Perhaps this is aiming to be an introspective look at The Narrator’s past life, and him looking to find redemption for some misbehavior, or just a pattern of average badness. Commentary: The biggest problem with this story is that a story about the boredom of eternity is just… well… boring. There just isn’t much action. This is mostly dialogue, and expositional dialogue between characters, all to get us to the end point: a bunch of mall Santas are appearing in limbo with no records. I grant that you need to set up limbo, to let us know that Santa here is dead, as is everybody else, so that you can set up your central mystery. But you need to do so much more efficiently. This is the first chapter of a novel, so you’ll have plenty of room to expand on the setting; here in this first chapter, you just need to get me hooked to want to read more about it. Either Chili or Curling mentioned that you have too many names for Santa, and I agree. I thought it was actually Santa Claus at first, because there is not enough clarity that it is just some rando mall Santa, and the pile of names you use for him does not help. Why shouldn’t it be the real Santa Claus, here in limbo? (Also, if Helzberg is aware that mall Santas have been showing up all over, why doesn’t she immediately recognize that might be what’s happening here? It sort of just seems like you wanted to give her more dialogue to show of her precociousness.) The consensus between the judges, if I am remembering correctly, is that the first half was decent, but the shift to Mall Santa Mystery was a downturn in the effectiveness of the story. I believe that to be true. That isn’t because there is a flaw with the idea; I just think there is no momentum to the storytelling there. Like I said above, it’s a lot of whiny Paul dialogue with characters from different time periods. I almost want to say this isn’t weird enough. I wonder if you just haven’t spent enough time on this yet; a lot of the weird limbo details seem a little half-baked, like the mention of Shakespeare’s theater. There are these little details like that which, in a more coherently constructed world, would be more flavorful, but as it is those details seem a bit random, and stick out negatively. The internal logic of the story doesn’t always hold up, and seems to take backseat to jokes, like Helzberg’s “Been dead longer than you.” That seems an odd piece of information, which nobody remarks upon, even though the Narrator has previously mentioned that time is funky in limbo. The intro bit works better. You’ve got these ideas (which need more polish, but the seeds are there) about this limbo world, and the way that it reflects things about our own reality/lives. I didn’t fully understand the list of thoughts--were those thoughts people were having about him? Were they randomly selected thoughts? Not entirely clear. The setup makes it seem like they are his thoughts, or directly related to him. This feels like something Don DeLillo would write. I would recommend reading some of his stuff; White Noise is a particularly good one. His brand of cynical satire would fit well with some of what you are trying to accomplish here. Nethilia’s Songs of the South Plot Summary: A young slave, Daniel, was caught using magic (forbidden to slaves) to remove worms from tobacco leaves, so the masters had him hung. Daniel hated touching worms, so he avoided doing so when possible, though his mother Vanna Mae warned him against doing so. Overseer Jacob and two mages came, subdued Daniel, and took him away. The next morning, Rosalee (our narrator, and as far as we know, mute) is told by her mother to either take the long way, or avoid looking at Daniel hanging by whatever means possible. Rosalee does so for four days, but eventually she cannot resist: she looks. He hangs there, bathed as if to absolve the white masters of their sin, with a paper of warning around his neck. His body is scarred with the marks of the mages, who hope to kill his soul by trapping it in his dead body, so that his magic will die with him (as they believe it belongs only to white folk). Realizing she has a moment of solitude, she frees his soul by singing. Rosalee, though to this point mute, actually is only hiding her voice, in order to hide her own magic. She will not use her voice, because she does not want to leave her mother like Daniel’s mother. Story Analysis: This is a story about the cruelty of slave owners, and the lengths they will go to preserve their own power. This is about the self-deceptive tales (magic belongs only to white people) and the desperate rituals they cling to in order to convince themselves of their own righteousness and superiority (i.e. bathing Daniel’s body). This is about the cleverness and resilience of youth, as seen in our precocious narrator, Rosalee, as she discovers early in her life (I mean toddler early, as another crit pointed out) both the power of her voice and her need to hide it, for fear of the consequences. The white folk in this story are prettied up, they live in the big house, they possess powerful magic, and they believe in their own goodness, but they could not be uglier or weaker, upon close inspection. Conversely, the slaves in this story (particularly Rosalee), despite all attempts to strip them of power and dignity, are ultimately full of both, and nobility on top of it. Commentary: I must admit, the first 20 words of this story had me quite nervous. There are very few domers who could tackle such a sensitive subject, and when you’re reading in judgemode, you don’t see the author. So, I read this story with much trepidation, and it definitely spoiled my first read-through. Upon second and third readings, I liked this story much more, and obviously concurred in judgement with Chili and Curling. The strength of this story, to me, is in the back half, with Rosalee and Daniel’s body. It is where we see her character burst forth, and declare to us her quiet heroism, in revealing the power of her voice and her life’s necessary deception. The strongest worldbuilding happens here, and this is a good example of worldbuilding within the context of the story, as opposed to pure exposition. We learn about this world, about the power structure, about the magic of the white masters and the black slaves, the injustice of the system, all within Rosalee’s experience of the present moment. The same can be true of the first sentence, as well. It establishes much about the world very quickly: the perspective (a slave, which we can presume by the use of ‘massa’), the setting (plantation era, roughly), the power structure, and also, magic (and that it is illegal for slaves to use it). That’s a lot of stuff in… 11 words. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the first half was not as immediately compelling to me, though take that for whatever it’s worth. Perhaps just my own cautious reading is all it was. I also can’t figure a different way for you to structure this chapter, as the reveal of Rosalee’s voice relies on us believing her to be mute, and quickly. It all is necessary setup. So I don’t really have any advice here, and maybe you don’t need any--by the end, I was bought in, and that’s all a first chapter needs to do. Rohan’s A Chance Meeting Plot Summary: Vera Grenadier, a huntress (?), is on her way home when a radar alarm alerts her to the presence of another ship in sector. It is a USC Peacekeeper, hailing her for an inspection, despite their location in unoccupied space giving them no jurisdiction to do so (although, conversely, no oversight to prevent them from doing so). They prepare to board, and Vera’s defenses are not prepped in time to prevent them; she has no contraband, nor really any cargo of any kind, aside from Chester Garron of the Lucky Few (a famous… hunter? I’m guessing?), who she found, wounded (I think? Though Chester seems to think he was kidnapped). She prepares her sidearm to fight off the boarders, but then another ship comes to her rescue--a former classmate, Miles, as she will soon discover. Miles boards her ship, and Vera remains wary, but eventually convinces Miles to leave (though he does figure out that she’s hiding something/someone). After he leaves, Chester arrives in the cockpit, awake and in no mood to make friends. Story Analysis: Trust no one. Seriously, you can’t trust the authorities, or your classmates, or the people you’ve rescued/kidnapped. Of course, this is also a cautionary tale about the dangers of falling asleep at the wheel. Don’t watch porn on the job, Vera. Her weapons aren’t charged, she’s mostly defenseless, and she’s going to have to resort to extreme violence (as it seems sidearms are a significantly powerful weapon?) in order to fend off these rogue ‘Peacekeepers’. Given Vera’s seemingly basic tactical failings, I must conclude that either she’s gotten lucky to rise to second in her clan, or her clan sucks. She doesn’t even notice Miles in her sector, either, (nvm I just reread and she does see a second dot) and he quickly dispatches with the Peacekeepers, and boards her ship, and has her on her heels, despite him seeming to believe Vera is somewhat notable in the hunter world. She also either didn’t take necessary precautions in securing Garron. She’s bad at her job, I think. Also, cops are dicks. Commentary: I am a sucker for sci-fi, so this story had an advantage. Unfortunately, I think it mostly fails to deliver, which is more a matter of execution than of ideas. I’m not sure what the big ideas of this story are/will be (I hope you know!), but I am not out on any of the world building here. It’s fine, though not exceptional. The problem is that too much is too vague, so I don’t know the stakes (and there are a couple of confusing bits, too, which I will get to). For example, what is a huntress? A bounty hunter? A literal hunter, like animals/monsters (as I am lead to believe by the description of the exploits of the Lucky Few)? An assassin? Not clear. I am also not super clear on the power structure as it relates to the Peacekeepers; it seems sort of like an Empire kind of situation? But what would the ramifications be of her killing (I’m guessing) three cops? Confusing things: if her ship is “as small, light, and cheap as possible”, how can it also be “worth more than the gold that could fill it”? These seem directly contradictory. Is she saying that the ship is worth more to her? Or is she saying that her ship is actually incredibly valuable, as a tool, for it’s size and weight, and I should ignore the cheap bit? Second confusing bit: is Chester Garron being kidnapped? This is actually a huge problem. I have no clue, and as a consequence the stakes of the story are all screwed up. My first reading is that she found him wounded, and is rescuing him, but if he is kidnapped, the presumption would be that she bested him and caused his wounds. The final bit hinges on my understanding the stakes here; if she actually kidnapped him, then she effed up and is now answering her own failed precautions. If she is rescuing him, this is all a big misunderstanding. Also, I don’t know whether she is a bounty hunter; if she is, am I to presume that Garron would be worth something to the Peacekeepers? Since she has no contraband, why is she not interested in the Peacekeepers boarding her? If she is just rescuing Garron, couldn’t she just hand him over to the Peacekeepers? Or, if he’s wanted, turn him in for the bounty? Or perhaps they would take him from her, and tell her to bug off? A lot of questions. I also just think too much happens in this first chapter. There are like, three plot twists? None of which is bad on their own, but it all just happens very quickly. Since I have no pre-existing reference points to this world, you have a lot of world building to do, but more important is that I have a reason to care. The first chapter needs to get me there, and then you can worldbuild to your heart’s content. Schneider Heim’s All is Fair in Love and Wrestling Plot Summary: Hitomi Kisaragi, a girl of indeterminate age, stands outside of her girlfriend’s apartment with a box of doughnuts. She knocks, and is greeted by a very large, intimidating middle aged man, who gruffly invites her in. Kanako, the girlfriend, is in the kitchen. The man turns out to be Kanako’s uncle, Shinobu; he proceeds to grill Hitomi while they wait for dinner. Then they eat dinner, and Shinobu proceeds to grill Kanako. He then gives his gruff approval to the pair. Kanako and Hitomi then study for a while, and Kanako reveals that her Uncle Shinobu is actually a professional wrestler. She invites Hitomi to go watch one of his matches. Hitomi agrees, though she is not a fan of the violence. Kanako passes her exam, and they go to the wrestling match. Shinobu is wrestling against the champ, Testuo/Tatsuro Kazanari. He loses. Kanako has a great time. They visit Shinobu backstage; he is upset, but Kanako encourages him. He vows to win the championship in front of Hitomi and Kanako. Story Analysis: Big scary men are actually really nice, under their gruff exterior? Pro wrestling is really fun, despite its appearance of brutal violence? Honestly, this is pretty thematically thin. Instead of focusing on the potential themes, I will give you a little more character study on how these characters read. Hitomi: shy, and perhaps a bit sheltered from broader culture (outside of video games). She is new to pursuing women romantically, and despite having previously dated men, she is relatively sure (or at least very hopeful) that Kanako is The One. She is absolutely infatuated with Kanako, and actually declares that she is in love with her. It is unclear how long they have been dating (the implication, based on her having never been to Kanako’s apartment or met any of her family, is not long), but it definitely seems like she is out over her skies, as she actually is pretty uncertain of Kanako’s feelings toward her. Also, she is hoping to get laid? Feels a little incongruous with the rest of her feelings. Kanako: Confident and capable, Kanako has been living on her own for a bit, despite her youth, a point of contention with her uncle. She definitely is reaching down to pull Hitomi up, as it’s not immediately clear what draws her to Hitomi. She is not shy about sharing her feelings about Hitomi publicly, despite not having previously shared those feelings in private with Hitomi, and despite Hitomi being nervous about coming out about their relationship. Hitomi is apparently not worried about the implications. Shinobu: Big, strong, gruff… Tsundere, I think, is the term? Actually a warm teddy bear under his intimidating pro-wrestler exterior. Very straightforward and blunt, though perhaps not particularly self-aware. Commentary: Honestly, I spent more time on the previous section than I should have. I’m not really sure this warrants significant analysis, because I’m not sure this is really a story for the written format. This reads like it’s actually supposed to be a manga or an anime. It is so full of cliches and tropes, exaggerated reactions, and is completely lacking in subtlety. I don’t really know what the purpose of this story is, and what it is even trying to set up. I considered doing a line-crit for this story, because there are a lot of small stylistic choices that bugged me about the writing. I will still do this, if you want, though it will have to wait until after I finish all my other crits and judging for next week. An example, though: quote:
quote:A painting garnished the living room wall, a bright shooting star slashing through the darkness of the night. quote:1. A painting of a bright shooting star, slashing through darkness of the night, garnished the living room wall. My biggest issue is that nothing really happens; or rather, nothing happens of significance. There is a plot, to be sure, but there are hardly any stakes. Anything that might raise conflict is quickly quashed. Hitomi is concerned about revealing her and Kanako’s relationship; Shinobu (the only family of Kanako’s given any weight, by the story) doesn’t bat an eye. Kanako needs to study for her test; she passes. Shinobu loses his match; Kanako is not concerned, and encourages her uncle, who is momentarily bummed but then totally fine and utterly resolved. (I don’t know if pro-wrestling is different in Japan, and perhaps it is not fixed, though the story beats seem to indicate that it might be--in which case, there are no stakes at all.) Your end beat is flat, as well--of course she will see Shinobu again; she’s dating Kanako, who has made it clear that Shinobu is over often for dinner.
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Apr 23, 2020 07:31
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Signups are CLOSED.
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Apr 25, 2020 08:33
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I will officially close submissions when I wake up. Sebmojo, QuoProQuid, crimea, you have until... whenever that is.
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Apr 27, 2020 07:34
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Oh right, submissions are CLOSED.
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Apr 27, 2020 17:47
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 THUNDERDOME CDIII RESULTSLOSER I asked you to write action this week, and you succeeded in writing action. Except for one of you. NAGA LIU KANG's Virtue & Vitriol confused 'no fighting' with 'no action', and contained exactly zero adrenaline. DISHONORABLE MENTIONS Fortunately, the rest of you managed to meet the minimum requirements. Unfortunately, most of it was bad action, but such is the way of Thunderdome. The other bit of the prompt (and more important): make us care about your characters. Good characters can cover many mistakes. Our DMs spent far too much time telling us about half-baked fictional worlds, when that time would have been much better spent making your characters interesting and your stakes clear. Simply Simon's To Win Her spent all it's time talking, and then, after the action, erased all the stakes. Not good. Something Else's The Incident on Vascon 9 gave us two unlikable characters with unclear motivations, which makes for an uninteresting story. J.A.B.C.'s River's Shadow featured three tenses in the first sentence, which is a bad start. Though the action was okay, the rest was not strong enough to make up for the grammatical concerns and some lackluster storytelling choices. DQ Ceighk's The Standing Stone narrowly avoided a DM by virtue of having been disqualified, for editing his story. HONORABLE MENTIONS On to the good stuff. Our HMs were rewarded for having compelling stakes and compelling action--though they accomplished this in different ways. Chili's Shoot was a fun wrestling romp with heart, and clear, relatable character motivations. Simple, short, and effective. Uranium Phoenix's Those Untouched by War lacked strong worldbuilding, but receives high mark for creating exceptional tension and brief, brutal action through effective structure and prose, with just enough heart to carry it. WINNER Some battles leave both sides so battered and bloodied that declaring a winner becomes a meaningless exercise. Not so here. This fight saw the winner mount a pile of enemies, weapon held aloft and nary a scratch on him. This story managed humor, sparse but effective action, and, most importantly, relatable and interesting characters with personality (and even a bit of an arc!), all in 1200 words. A unanimous, easy choice. YOUR NEW BLOOD GOD: Tyrannosaurus -- the end of days Mount your throne, King. I relinquish it gladly. EDIT: Thanks to my co-judges, flerp and Chairchucker, who are both magnificent bastards. BeefSupreme fucked around with this message at 17:20 on Apr 28, 2020 |
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Apr 28, 2020 07:54
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Thranguy posted:In, Flash me someone. fighter jets in and flash me
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May 19, 2020 19:04
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CRITS (PART 3) FROM WEEK 401 Been a minute, still gotta finish all these. Sorry everybody! Also, some of these get the full three section critique treatment, but I've to start moving more quickly so from here on it will just be the commentary bits. Anybody who wants the full deal will have to make trades with me. Black Griffon’s Iterate Plot Summary: Reggie (username: nuascendant), who is rather jumpy, has been jumping from ‘safehouse’ to ‘safehouse’ (really more of random locations, by the looks of it). His current one is the apartment of a man named ‘Bud’, found through a dodgy online marketplace; Bud lives a pretty sloppy lifestyle. Reggie is mostly unbothered by this. He gets to work, posting that he is on the move, but still planning to release his ‘sequence’. One chatroom member comments that he shouldn’t be online so much, another (apparently a real-life nazi) comments that he’s looking at the wrong things. Reggie, who hasn’t been sleeping much do to his jumpiness, drinks a Diet Pepsi with a caffeine pill for good measure. Someone knocks on the door, startling Reggie. Bud comes out to open it, asking if it’s Reggie’s. Reggie replies that it is not. He opens it, and then a strange event occurs: the door opens, then rewinds, again and again. Whoever is on the other side is retrying the event, looking for the version that satisfies their needs. Reggie, who is outside the sphere of influence of this rewinding, pulls his gun and shoots through the door. The final sequence involves Bud in the path of the bullets. Reggie moves to leave out of the window, but a voice stops him, begging him to stop--not just currently, but his whole plan. The voice says he’s unraveling his lifeline, in effect; Reggie says so what and jumps outside. That’s part one. Then part two begins, from a new perspective: a woman’s (though, questionably human). She is the one manipulating timelines, and she begins to do so with Reggie’s current actions. As she jumps, she rewinds again and again to find the set of events which kill Reggie upon landing. She is satisfied that the cover of him having pissed off some drug dealers after a fall from grace in his position at MIT (for pursuing crackpot mathematical theories) will hold. She then plans how to handle the online chatroom; she will muddy his tracks and try to discredit him by manipulating the information he put out and flooding it with more, incorrect ideas. She reveals that Reggie only ever had a fraction of the truth, but that if any of the people with whom he was communicating are any kind of mathematician, they could continue digging into his line of inquiry. Having cleaned up the scene to her satisfaction, she moves to a bar across town, where she drinks (despite it having little effect on her). Then she gets a call that they have lost control, and the sequence is in the open. Story Analysis: This story is about the importance of ignorance--that there are some things that the public should not know. To guarantee this, some people have to die (and, it follows, some people have to do the killing). This story is about the true existence of a secret conspiracy underpinning all of society. This story is also maybe about how despite all efforts to keep things nice and tidy, some darkweb denizens will eventually unravel the whole thing. Despite the narrative complexity, and despite all of the sentence I wrote just now, this story does not have a whole lot of thematic coherence. Though, as I have learned in the reading of chapter 1 stories, that’s a little hard to judge; in this case, though, there is a whole lot going on and I’m having a hard time trying to piece together what this story wants to be about. Commentary: I really liked this story at first. You had the highest degree of difficulty, by far, given your three flash rules, and I certainly think you made good and clever use of them. On subsequent rereads, however, this story does not hold up to scrutiny. It is not that I like it less, (though much of my affection could probably be attributed to my weakness for sci-fi thrillers), but I just don’t think the content is strong enough to hold what you’re trying to put on it. As CurlingIron said, I’m not sure where this goes, and I’m not sure you know, either. The complexity here is high--just look at the length of my summary above. I tried to slim it down, but this text is dense. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, and actually indicates some good world building in your prose, given how readable I found this; you communicate a lot in your word count here. That density, though, makes it hard for anything to breathe, and makes it hard to sift through to know what you really want us to know. Another quirk of this chapter (as I should have been referring to these all along, as opposed to ‘story’) is the switch in perspectives halfway through. It definitely threw me for a loop, as the woman reads as the antagonist at first, but I am fairly certain she is your protagonist. Which is totally fine, just something to be aware of--our first sympathies will typically go to the character we meet first, unless they are obviously bad or whatever. Reggie, though jumpy and a little dodgy, is the guy with the truth, or at least part of it, as the woman confirms. She’s the cops, and nobody likes rooting for the cops. For her to gain my sympathy, I would need to understand why she is covering this sequence up, and why it is okay for her to murder people in order to do so. The difference in Mission:Impossible is that I know from the get-go that the NOC list getting out is a Bad Thing. Here, I don’t know that. Part of the issue here is potentially a chapter construction issue; Reggie’s bit may be more of a prologue (which would make sense, given that it is chapter zero [which may also be a coding reference, as in computing the first entry in arrays and the like is position zero, but your story doesn’t mention coding so I won’t pretend to be certain]), and then we’re supposed to follow Woman and learn her motivations and whatnot. All of that to say, if you want to expand this story, I would consider how you paint these characters and how you want them to read. Speaking of the woman… Is she human? I have many questions. She refers to her “shell” several times, as if her consciousness is seperate from her body, her body a construct that allows her to move around in the world. She has control over this shell, and can approach something like feeling the effects of the world on it (i.e. alcohol) and the effects of many millions of read/write cycles, but I am unclear on anything beyond that. Of course, this is only chapter one, so presumably we would learn more about this in future chapters. I think you could revisit how much information you reveal about this character and how you do it, either to create more obvious lines of inquiry, or to be more subtle, or whatever you want. Again, consider how you want this character to read, and what you want the reader to be thinking/questioning/exploring in their minds. The last line of this needs a little polish. I think the construction of it robs it of its potency. You want this to be a total ‘oh poo poo’ moment, and it is (kind of--again, lack of understanding of the stakes factors in here), except Floating Point’s delivery is soft. You need to create more urgency here; even just the way Tom Cruise delivers the line lets me know that this is serious business. This story makes me want to watch Tenet. Saucy Rodent’s BREAD ALONE, Chapter One Plot Summary: Kimberly, a “bulemic, teenaged alcoholic”, is in a counseling session with her therapist, Wanda. Kimberly tells us that Wanda is the best therapist she has had, because she in fact does not care about what Kimberly has to say--as opposed to the rest of her therapists, who care out of some sense of self-righteousness. Then, during a session (unclear if at the beginning or middle or what), Wanda asks how Kimberly has been smuggling in booze. Kimberly deflects, which Wanda allows, then asks about her eating. Kimberly chooses this moment to reveal her secret, but first asks Wanda to get her some water. She does so (in a unicorn cup, which is perhaps meaningful? unclear). Kimberly relates the story, which she says will sound crazy: when she was 11, her parents were driving her to a Renaissance Festival in Wisconsin (unclear how far away this is), and while they were driving through the woods, a voice called out to her from the trees, bidding her to come into the woods. She begins to do so, her parents scream at her, they turn around and go home. Since then, Kimberly has had the persistent presence of the voice, which is responsible for all of her bad behaviors. Wanda at first writes this off as her imagination run wild, in lieu of writing it up as schizophrenia (which would require her to refer her to a psychologist). Kimberly begs Wanda to believe her, and reveals further that she has Jesus powers: water to wine, multiplying loaves, healing, walking on water, etc. She then throws her cup, now full of wine, at Wanda, who remarks calmly that it is the best wine she has ever tasted. Story Analysis: Bad therapy is actually good therapy? I am not too sure, honestly. This story is very much a Chapter One, and not a complete story. It could be a complete story, in which case I think it would be about how mental health problems are real, and not the fault of the person in question--as we see with Kimberly, who has, as far as we can tell, a real actual demon behind her drinking and her bulemia. Beyond that, I’m having trouble conjuring up themes here. Wanda is above all an incredibly lazy therapist, who can barely be bothered to get her patient a cup of water. Her questions are seemingly out of boredom, as opposed to genuine interest. Oh, another implication here is that therapists as a whole are pretty worthless--they either are extremely lazy, like Wanda (and despite Kimberly’s claim that this actually makes her the best therapist she’s had, she is pretty objectively terrible), or so self-righteous that they only listen to you in hopes of finding an opportunity to sermonize. Commentary: This story HM’d, but I was actually not particularly in favor of that. The more I read this story, I’m not sure it holds up. That is not to say that the story concept is bad, or that there are not good elements here; as a whole, however, this Chapter has significant issues that would make me extremely wary of reading more. The therapy here is not good. I don’t mean that Wanda is a bad therapist (though that is also very true); I mean that the depiction of therapy is not well executed. This scene doesn’t feel real. Of course, your story is also about demons and spiritual powers, so perhaps you don’t mean it to be realistic; however, the more realistic you make the therapy, the more room there is for things that are unreal. I’m not sure that makes sense, so let me say it another way: if I believe your therapy (the real bits), the more room there is for me to suspend disbelief on everything else. I’m struggling a bit with Wanda’s character. I’m not sure she doesn’t care about Kimberly, as Kimberly claims (though, of course, Kimberly may not be the best judge of character), or if she is just incredibly lazy. I am leaning toward the latter, because she does apparently have a high degree of curiosity. Of course, that impression may be due partly to us being dropped in the middle of their most interesting session, by far. Similarly, Kimberly is apparently reticent to talk about these really big problems, but we wouldn’t know that based on what we see in this scene. I might include a little more detail (like, a sentence or two) about how she’s been in therapy for 6 years and never mentioned this, or something like that. The biggest issue is not necessarily your fault: I have no idea what kind of book this is supposed to be. Is it a fantasy novel, and Kimberly will be literally fighting demons like some kind of teenage Constantine? (I hope so!) Will this be a more personal story, a look at mental health and its effects, how it manifests, etc.? I might also be interested in that. As it is, I have no expectations for this story, and not in a good way. This is the sort of issue that the cover of a book really helps with. Also… do you wanna know how I got these scars? Sitting Here’s See-Sayer Plot Summary: Thun, one of the clan’s grandmothers, watches the clans hunters depart, presumably for some good ol’ huntin’. The grandmothers are responsible for, as far as I can tell, midwifery and the delivery of wisdom. After the hunters depart, Thun and the other matrons head off to their secret hideout where they will hangout for the day. On the way there, Thun slips into dreaming--some form of clairvoyance. In this dreaming she sees some fragmented images that she does not understand: something accelerating, flashes of light. The other matrons notice her strange behavior as she bumps into Wepa (the mother of all mothers), who cautions her to keep her mind in this world. Thun is chastened. The other mothers want her to take up dreaming full time as the clan’s see-sayer, but Thun resists, because she knows what that entails (slow madness, and a lifetime of celibacy). It also appears that Thun is not a traditional mother, anatomically. As they reach the cave and partake in its luxuries (food, blankets, etc.), Thun reflects on her bountiful career as a midwife, and how the clan doesn’t need a see-sayer. The future is, in her mind, as the past was: full of birth, death, more birth, and always birth. Someone then asks what is in the sky, and all the mothers go outside to observe. Some celestial object is streaking across the sky (a spaceship??!?!?), then crashes. Thun’s vision returns and coincides with this occurrence, and when the questioning continues as tp what it is, she answers: “the future”. Story Analysis: There is a lot going on here, but because this is ostensibly chapter 1 of a larger work, much of it is not fleshed out beyond hints or the initial seeds of ideas. As such, I will touch briefly on many things, but not dwell too deeply on them. This clan is some form of hunter-gatherer, pre-modern society, with an established social structure. We don’t get too much info on this, but we do know that the clan’s grandmothers are greatly revered (though we do not know if that equates to being the rulers of the clan). They are semi-nomadic, and believe in some form of magic, at least in terms of future-sight. They live (at least from their perspective) in harmony with the land, and their lives have been peaceful for some time, as far as we know. The clan also seems to have fluid ideas about gender and biological sex, or at least in terms of gender roles: Thun appears to have male anatomy, but fills the role of mother in the clan (though she will not have the biological experience of motherhood). This also doesn’t appear to be something she knew intuitively--until puberty, perhaps?--until changes in her body became apparent. We don’t know anything about the gender roles of the rest of the clan, or whether there are any at all. That, presumably, would tie into a theme of the larger work, especially when complemented by Thun’s wrestling over her potential identity as clan see-sayer. I can see Thun wrestling with the idea of destiny and fate over whether she is to be the clan’s see-sayer (ironic, that the seer of destinies would wrestle over the compulsion of destiny--or perhaps not ironic at all), and whether she has to accept what everyone else wants from her or whether she can self-determine her own path, along with the consequences of either of those choices. The crashing ship (I’m assuming) also introduces elements of culture shock--both of the clan members reacting to whatever the ship brings, and if its people/beings, how they react to the clan. Whether we have to accept the future, or have some agency to change it, etc etc etc. Thun’s declaration at the end also provides a contrast to what Thun was saying to herself just moments before--that the future is known, because it has been a certain way for so long. The crashing ship immediately provides a new variable into the lives of this clan, and Thun, who has resisted being the see-sayer (though moments before foresaw the outlines of this event) may be forced to change her position by necessity. Commentary: There is a lot of good stuff going on here. This is excellent world-building, for a few reasons: it is well conceived, well written, and compelling; it trusts us the reader to make some inferences, and to not need mountains of exposition (i.e. describing in detail what a see-sayer is, the structures of the clan, etc.), and even plays with our expectations; it is rooted in character, and uses character to reveal the things we do know about this world. Chapter 1’s are a hard gig, because they have to accomplish these sorts of things while also advancing the plot. This was one of my favorites from this week because it manages to do that well. We get both an initial sense of this clan and this world, and are also immediately presented with the central conflict or inciting incident (the crashing of the object/ship). There isn’t a whole lot for me to critique negatively here, in part because I don’t know what comes after. A fuller picture would be required to know what this chapter is ultimately trying to accomplish, and whether it is successful at that; I can say with full confidence, though, that this succeeds at a first chapter’s most important job: I want to read more of this. I don’t know whether it would continue in this perspective, or switch to characters from the crashed starship, or include both, or whether this is ultimately just a vignette only thematically connected to some other story (like the beginning of season 2 of The Leftovers, goddammit Lindelof). This is also just good writing in general, beyond the world-building aspects. It is similar to Neth’s story this week, in that there is both little that happens plot-wise, and little in the way of dialogue, but a tremendous amount is communicated. The trick is doing all that without being boring, a hard task to be sure. Anyway good job is what I’m saying. HFCS’ Blackfeather Commentary: I had a really tough time with this story. It’s mostly a function of the world-building, which I found to be horribly unclear; I am left with so many questions about so many things, and at the end, I basically have no idea what any of this is supposed to mean. Also, basically nothing happens in this story. It fails the first chapter test: no, I do not want to read more. Mind you, that doesn’t mean it needs to be tossed permanently, it just means it probably means it needs to be tossed out and rewritten. There is a broad problem with your storytelling and world-building: you hint at so many unknown ideas, but so very few of them provide enough detail to have any idea what’s going on. We know precious little about this world your characters inhabit, despite knowing the names of several cities, and some of the practical functions of mail-delivery, and some (ostensibly) important titles, like Heir of the Slayer. What the importance of any of these things is, though, is entirely unclear. Some of the problem here is the mechanics of your prose, too, in revealing these details (or not revealing, as it were). One example: what is a Himari-style braid? I don’t know what that is, and Google just gives me vague anime references, which still isn’t helpful. I also don’t have any sort of description that might give me a clue. Another example: “half-tree, half-stone structures called mabokiin”. This is tricky, I admit. I would much prefer you just use the term mabokiin, and then told us that they were residential dwellings (which you do, in the next clause!). By saying ‘structures called’, though, it turns it into a different kind of exposition. Give us context clues, and trust us to figure it out. That’s the broad problem: you drop so many unknown references and ideas and provide so little in the way of context to determine either what they are supposed to mean or what their significance is. Some more questions that I do not have enough context clues to figure out. Are these bird-people? They have hairplumes, which I cannot figure out what that is supposed to mean. Plumage is for birds, hair is for people. So what the heck is a hairplume? What is a drakathra? A dragon? I have slightly more information, but it is clearly a made up word. Not a problem, but is this supposed to be a significant reference? If so, I need more info; if not, save the reference until it is, or use a more universal reference. What is the Slayer? Is everyone suspicious of everyone else being a demon? Is it possible for anyone to be a demon? What’s wrong with being a demon? What is a Y-shaped apparatus? Oh it’s just a goddamn perch?!? Why didn’t you just say perch?? Are these two siblings… You know… Look, I’m just saying it’s a little weird in this first scene. I would rewrite this story from scratch. I would sit down and outline what you want this story to be about, and focus on making this first chapter do only a few things: introduce the characters and a few significant details of your world, and make it exciting. Most of all, it must be clear. You can save a whole bunch of your world-building and ideas for subsequent chapters. You can flesh out characters later. But you gotta make us want to go there first. dmboogie’s Copyright Trademark Commentary: This story really pissed me off. It’s not awful, no, and the grammar is competent, and some of the jokes are even good (“Look, just tell me your name, and why you sound like a robot hosed a ransom note.”). I think it’s because I really, really, really dislike Blade--sorry, BL4D3_W4LK3R_696. I find him unfunny and completely unsympathetic. Even with the apparent goodwill motivating his quest to build a crappy version of the filesharing system that one dude we all know had in college, I just don’t like the dude. And that’s a problem, when he’s your protagonist. (I like Rose, for what it’s worth--she’s got spunk. Though, she isn’t the main character, so who knows how her shtick would hold up under that level of scrutiny.) (Also, take note that both the other judges liked this story much more than I did, so take what I have to say with a grain of salt.) This reminded me of Snow Crash, which (in my opinion) is a good thing to be reminded of. Unfortunately, this doesn’t deliver the same qualities that make Snow Crash great. There are hints that this story takes place in some vaguely dystopian future (amazon scrip, figurehead of the resistance, the state of the apartment complex, etc.), but we don’t really get any significant world building here, which is a bit of a bummer--this would benefit by being weirder, in my opinion. This milquetoast dystopia isn’t all that compelling. And ultimately, that is the problem with this chapter as a whole: it fails to compel me to want to read anymore. The conflict of this chapter is essentially resolved, and I have nothing that really hints at any compelling conflict beyond this chapter, aside from these two living in a lovely apartment complex and being under the thumb of our corporate overlord, Jeff Bezos. He also even apparently succeeded in his modest goal of tapping into the router, so, problems solved. Even though the conflicts are resolved, however, this chapter still feels incredibly unsatisfying. Part of that, of course, is I don’t ever really feel as if Blade is in any real danger; coupled with my disinterest in him as a character, the stakes feel really low here. What is this story supposed to be about? What are the actual, major conflicts here? What are the themes of this going to be? Where is the action? Honestly, just make this story freakin nuts, and it will be better. Doctor Eckhart’s What You Can’t Leave Behind Commentary: So many of the stories from this week made me unreasonably angry, for one reason or another. This story is one of them. It’s just an absolute mess--the tone is all over the place, I have no clue what is going on until halfway through, I can barely keep track of who is talking at any given moment, and I don’t really like any of these characters. Mind you, none of this means that this is a bad idea for a novel, just that I really didn’t like this chapter. It might need to be torn down to the foundations and rebuilt. Or it might need to be thrown out. Depends on how much you like this story. Let’s talk about the tone here. It’s really hard to know what you are going for here, and I acknowledge that perhaps tonal inconsistency is part of the play here (given that the characters are grappling between taking selfies in one moment and emotional breakdowns in the next), but I really don’t think it works at all. That sort of play would work better later in the book, I’d say; also, it’s hard to pull off well. Usually, when I think of tonal inconsistency, I think about events that don’t match the tone of the writing, in order to make things grotesque/funny/whatever. When the tone of the writing itself is inconsistent, it makes it really hard as a reader to latch on to anything--a really big problem in the first chapter of a book. Even if the tone were consistent, and you were trying to make this read like the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, despite the calamity that has just occurred, it’s a really strange choice for a first chapter--unless you were going to use it to highlight some unusual aspect of your main characters, e.g. they were unbothered by events that would horrify normal people, for reasons related to their character… Anyway, all this brings me to my second point: the obfuscation and withholding of details makes this hard to follow. There are different reasons that authors intentionally withhold information. Sometimes, it is because a character does not possess that information, and the perspective of the novel means we don’t either; sometimes, an author will hold something for dramatic effect; sometimes, narrators are unreliable; sometimes, an author is attempting to manipulate tone. I’m sure there are more, and all can be valid and effective. Here, though, it is just bewildering. It makes me think you are attempting to manipulate our reaction to these characters, because we don’t find out the reason these women are on the road until more than halfway through, when Nandi sort of casually slips in a mention of the blast after they’ve just been ruminating on romance novels and Astrid’s sex life?! This is part of why the tone feels so wildly inconsistent--like, what the hell? A blast that wipes out the town they came from? What kind of blast can do that? A goddamned nuke? They just lost their cats, not to mention their homes, families, whatever else, and they are cracking wise about high heels? Who the hell are these women? There is also just remarkably little detail in this chapter, to begin with--it’s mostly dialogue (another problem, which I’ll get to in a minute). I know very little about these women, aside from some travel habits. I know nothing about their relationship to each other, their jobs, their appearance… Anything, really. One seems to be a conspiracy theorist, one seems to be a psychopath, and all seem remarkably unconcerned with the fallout of this vague blast. I also don’t know what the landscape looks like--at first, it seems like these women are just on some impromptu trek. I don’t even know if they are on a paved road. Not only is there precious little information, there is precious little action. Like, nothing happens. These girls talk, without telling us much of anything, but they also don’t do much. They walk, and maybe walk a lot, but nothing happens. They don’t get anywhere, they don’t encounter anything or anybody, they don’t make any major decisions. There is an additional problem with that: I don’t know who the hell is talking. Partly because I have so little information about these characters, so I don’t know one from the other to begin with, but also it’s just all dialogue all the time, sometimes without attribution. I found myself confused most of the time, having to re-read to try to keep the characters straight, and then I just kind of gave up. Partly, it’s the presence of three characters talking in equal measure, with little to distinguish them from one another in speech patterns. But really I just need more detail and more action. This fails the first chapter test. I don’t want to read more of this. I will say, though, that I could be convinced--post-apocalypse, conspiracy theories, all that’s cool stuff. So maybe there is a good story idea hiding in here, and this thing turns into an absolute banger. Right now, though, it’s just not.
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Aug 10, 2020 07:03
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| # ¿ Dec 13, 2025 16:28 |
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ah dammit alright i'm in
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Aug 18, 2020 04:26
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