CERAMIC D.M. the final judgement is in!

alsih2o · Jan 17, 2003

speaker vs taladas-judgement!

ALSIH2O-
taladas: feeds us a story of a man cursed by his own need for revenge.

taladas has handled 3 of the 4 pictures well in my opinion. i like thr treatment of all but the
fighting men, it seems to be tacked on, even while it is a fulcrum point in the story. he has woven
a tale of tale of redemption, as has his opponent. i enjoyed the main theme of the story even if it
it felt a little rushed.

speaker brings us a story of redemption as well, with a spooky twist

speakers story handles all the ingredients well, and while it is a little long side i did
not realize it until my third reading! i liked the flow, the handling of the pictures and the
moral. this is a strong piece, and in my opinion it is a shame taladas had to face
this stiff competition in the first round. strong all the way around.

i am left proud of both of these contestants, but speaker left me standing on my chair applauding.
speaker gets my vote.

Maldur-
Speaker:
great moral tale! very oriental, and mysterious.

Taladas:
Good start but a very hurried end. It came over as very choatic/throw
together story. Your ideas are nice though. Work some more on them!

winner: Speaker!

ARWINK-
Taladas
Okay, this was just weird

Taladas piece caught me off guard, given the tone
of everything I'd read up until this point. Unfortunately, I thought it needed
more room to breath and let all the disparate elements included come together
cohesively. As it stands, it's just too chaotic, swap genres and styles
quickly and without warning. Further, the adage of Show don't Tell comes into
play here as well. The scene that stands out the most is the meeting between
the narrator and Lee Hung because it's given more than a momentary examination
before shifting to the next plot element. Unfortunately, it just doesn't need
this kind of focus as much as other elements of the tale do.

Speaker
I was immediately grabbed by the voice here. It's one of those classic, folk-
tale beginnings that really snaps a reader to attention and sets up a strong
expectation of style. That this strong voice and very definite style carries
on through the story gives it a great deal of strength and pays tribute to
Speaker's ability to imitate folklore. The use of the pictures is stylish, and
the story is well crafted and a very strong voice.

Speakers was the stronger of these two. It came off as more complete that
Taladas' tale, which needed a bit more space and fleshing out to really come
into the ideas presented. Further, Speaker's work echoed the work of Neil
Gaiman's work in the Worlds End story arc of sandman, which is something of a
favorite of mine. I give this round to Speaker.

winner- speaker...with our first unanimous vote

Speaker · Jan 17, 2003

I'm glad to hear that I made it to the second round. Thank you for the kind comments, judges all.

Arwink- While I've never read Neil Gaiman's work, I'm flattered for the comparison. Now I will have to pick up a copy!

Taladas · Jan 17, 2003

Congratulations Speaker, you did a great job with your story.

I would like to thank the judges for giving good honest critiques. Best of luck to the people in the next round.

mythago · Jan 17, 2003

Congrats to the winners so far!

alsih2o · Jan 17, 2003

Taladas said:
I would like to thank the judges for giving good honest critiques. Best of luck to the people in the next round.

thanks for participating taladas, you are welcome back to the next one, probably late february

Mirth · Jan 17, 2003

Whew! I was holding my breath on that one, especially after I read alsih2o's critique. (Honestly, I couldn't figure out how to work "Jesus in a basket" into my story

) Maldur, the pictures just screamed GREEK to me. Arwink, I have 20/400 vision, so that might account for some of the bluriness.

Thanks go to megamania for giving me a good run for the money.

I have to say that I approve of this new 3 judge thing

Now, when does the next round start?

alsih2o · Jan 17, 2003

astralpwka vs shadoes lady- judgement!

ALSIH2O
astralpwka: gives us a dose of the plague, ala poe

astralpwka sends us out into this dark world with an elf. his handling of
the ingredients never really shines, and i felt some of them could have been
more central to the story with just a bit more effort. the tone of the story
is handled well, but i think it would have benefitted from one more rewrite.

shadoes lady: feeds us a tale of heroines and attitude.

the ingredients are handled competently, if not shiningly. the 3 ladies coming
together to end the demons reign has a definite appeal, even if it was only
because it is nnice to see women be something beside the barwench

the women
are smart and smart-alec, and this works to nice effect.

i have to give this one to shadoes lady.

MALDUR-
astralpwka:
Story with a nasty twist. death plague and music. Funnny that both
contestants use a bard

Shadoe's Lady:
Funny, heroic and well told. And he can write too, you know!

Really hard choise but : Shadoes lady!

ARWINK-

Shadoes's Lady
What at first drags a slightly becomes interesting and quirky with the twist of
the leading lady telling her story and the men flee. It's got a nice bit of
style to it, very atmospheric, but unfortunately sets up a tone that doesn't
carry through to the rest of the entry. Things get really, really bogged down
in the 4th and 5th paragraphs, where things suddenly go dialogue intensive and
there's a massive and unnecessarily obvious info-dump on the reader. This is
also partially a formatting problem - large blocks of dialogue are a pain to
read, especially when people get into an exchange. After all the dialogue,
we're given a lot of plot that seems overly hurried, especially when contrasted
with the lengthy dialogue blocks and the style of the beginning. Overall this
has some good elements and some very stylish use of the ingredients, but just
needed more focus on the pacing and structure of the story.

Atralpwka
What initially drew me to this piece was the use of an aria as a plot device.
It's a very cool idea, very elegant, and music is far to underused as a fantasy
element. What lets it down is the way the plot unravels. It's very swift, and
very uneven. There is a lot of focus at the beginning on events and the
description of Alandor's surroundings, but it gradually gives way to swift
plotting and rapid shifting from scene to scene. A more paced approach is
needed in these parts, giving more focus to the plague city, the mercenaries
and the surroundings leading up to the final confrontation between the bard and
his patron. Things just slip by too rapidly as it stands; it jumps through
events so fast it took a couple of reads to get them straight in my head.

It's hard to pick a winner here. Both entries have some particularly strong
elements, and both have some very definite weaknesses in much the same area.
And while I'm tempted to give Astralpwka a slight edge for the stylistic
elements of his story that do work, I also feel that Shadoe's Lady piece is
stronger when it comes to the task of incorporating all of the ingredients.

In the end, it came down to Astralpwwka, but only by the slimmest of margins.

winner- shadoe's lady...by 2 to 1 vote!