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Ceramic Dm (final judgement posted, New Champion announced!)
- Thread starter alsih2o
- Start date
orchid blossom
Explorer
Berandor
lunatic
Nicely said.BardStephenFox said:OK, so far we have the following folks in Round Two.
CarpeDavid - Taking down our feline pirate friend
BardStephenFox - That's me
Berandor - He who mocks Whisperfoot!
Macbeth - Previous semi-finalist who has never won against Mythago (Lucky for him she is judging this time.)
Orchid Blossom - Wannabe underdog hoping we all forgot about her entry last Ceramic DM
Rodrigo Istalindir - For whom I do not have anything really snappy to say.
That leaves us two unknowns for competitors. We still have the tension of the random draw to see what the pair-offs will be. (Hopefully I will avoid pairing off against Macbeth on the second round.) We still have a lot of smack talk to post. And we have the moment of thinking "Where did Mark get that picture?" as well as the moment of "How the hell am I supposed to write around that?"
I don't know about you, but I am looking forward to it.
I am looking forward to handing out defeats soon!
alsih2o
First Post
Barsoomcore-
Taladas "Jared Mills"
Great first paragraph. It's like buckling up your seatbelt -- you can
hear the strap go tight on "Cause of death: Suicide," and you feel it
lock into place on "I guess he really wanted to die."
Unfortunately, the unending grammatical errors strip this story of what
power it might have. The tense keeps shifting and your sentences lack
proper structure and punctuation so that I have to re-read them in
order to figure out what you're saying. Some examples:
"One of the air tanks was dropped and ruptured and causes several other
tanks to rupture." -- tense shift
"What is it going to conquer the world with a crop of rutabagas?" --
Are you saying it's going to conquer both the world and a crop of
rutabagas? I know you're not, but this sentence isn't making it clear
enough.
The narrative flows along speedily enough -- review the picture, find
the girl, get the insight, buy the hats. Too much is left unexplained,
however -- why is Becky green and in India? Why were the deaths covered
up? What DID happen to Jared Mills? You make a lot of promises early on
that you never end up delivering on.
"It’s not even a very good cover-up." -- here's an example promise.
You're promising to tell me why it's not a very good cover-up. You're
promising to tell me why it was covered up. You don't tell me either,
so at the end of the story I feel let down.
A story is a kind of a negotiation between the reader and the writer.
The writer lays out the opening of the story like a salesman lays out
the offer. The reader looks it over and decides if she wants to
participate based on that opening. If the writer fails to deliver on
the promise of the opening, the reader is going to feel unsatisfied.
Always review your opening. What promises are you making that your
reader is going to want fulfilled? This is why getting someone to edit
your work is so important -- they'll be able better than you to notice
promises getting made and then forgotten.
There's a good story in here, Taladas, that's worth working on. But it
feels like it lacks enough care and attention to detail to be worthy of
my time. Why should I labour over a story you weren't willing to?
I know that's untrue, but a couple of things give me that feeling.
First, there's the multitude of basic errors discussed above.
Second, there's a number of moments that aren't communicated clearly
enough. For example: "Everything was black or white, not black and
white like an Andy Griffith Show rerun but black or white." -- this
means nothing to me. I mean, either it's black and white or it's not
black and white. What are you distinguishing the Andy Griffith Show
rerun from? Reruns of I Love Lucy?
Third, there's just some laziness in the language that ends up being
confusing: "I find her. I think." -- "But it was she, I could tell."
Which is it? Is he sure or not? It feels like you changed your mind as
to his reaction while you were writing, and never bothered to line
things up with each other.
Picture use is generally good -- I thought you'd thrown away the hats
but those came back nicely.
I hope it's clear why I felt unsatisfied with this story. But thank you
for it.
Graywolf-ELM "Magic Fades"
Hm. What have we here? Dwarf with problem. Dwarf seeks answer to
problem. Dwarf receives answer to problem. Dwart sets out to solve
problem.
There's a problem. Dwarf doesn't have to struggle or sacrifice anything
in order to accomplish dwarf's goal. This might be a good intro to the
ACTUAL story, which is old Fildon's efforts to track down the shaman
and restore his clan's honour. But it definitely lacks any sort of
urgency or effort on the part of our hero.
That said, your usage is strong and confident, and your details are for
the most part evocative. Watch out for using too many adjectives: "The
pot-bellied and grizzle-faced mage stroked his braided beard and
ornamental beard hammer absently." You spend a lot of time describing
furnishings that never play a role in the story -- if it were clearer
that they represented something important (say, Fildon's wealth
acquired through the sale of items) then I wouldn't mind spending so
much time on them.
Likewise the long story of Giro's maiming. Do we need to know this?
Very few short stories (and even fewer Ceramic DM stories) can afford
to spend even a sentence on something that doesn't contribute to the
overall effect. If this were the opening of a novel it wouldn't matter.
Such details need to pile up over a couple of hundred pages before one
can really judge if they're accomplishing anything or not. But in these
very tight tales, you're just spinning your wheels.
Picture use is a bit iffy. All of the pictures are references to past
events and none really contribute to the story itself. None form key
images in the story except for the shaman.
You need to pay more attention to finding "the telling detail" (to use
Hitchcock's expression) -- rather than blindly describe everything in
the room, describe those items that will tell us what we absolutely
need to know. Describe them in terms that tell us WHY they're important
and HOW they relate to what's HAPPENING in the story.
Strunk and White said it best: "Omit needless words." That includes
rich description that halts the story -- unless halting the story is
what you want to do.
Thanks for this story.
Decision: Graywolf-ELM
Mythago-
Note to both: punctuation needed to be better, and both did a lot of
"tense shifting"--switching from the story happening in the past tense
to describing it in the present tense and back again. Very basic
writing errors--you should be catching this at the proofreading stage.
UNTITLED (Taladas)
There's the start of an interesting story in here and it just trickles
away. We have a psychic PI, a decades-old disappearance, and a bizarre
hat collection, and it turns into a world-destroying threat that's
taken care of in a handful of paragraphs. (Why did Becky sit around
passively waiting for somebody else to deal with the threat,
especially when she knew it needed a 'talisman'?)
There isn't much characterization. Derrick is a PI, and the short
sentences help give a sense of the gritty pulp detective. But we don't
get much more. He's psychic, he has an attitude problem, that's about
it. Becky isn't much more than a plot ticket, and her brother is a
walk on; the Threat to All Of Us isn't terribly threatening. Just
being told "it's weird and it will destroy humanity" doesn't create a
sense of threat in the reader.
All in all, it reads like a promising first draft.
MAGIC FADES (Graywolf-TLM)
An intriguing story that sounds like a first chapter. That can be
done--witness Sialia's "Salt, Clay" Ceramic DM story--but the chapter
has to stand alone. That is, you may know something happened before,
and you know the characters are going on to further adventures, but
the events of THIS story are complete. Here they aren't.
I liked the unusual setting; no dungeon, no battlefield, the main
action is a dwarf sitting at his desk and then going to his workshop.
I would have liked to see the workshop described better instead of
just being told that they were sturdy and dwarven.
The voice of the forge and the narrator's voice seem uneven; "ignoble
fate," combined with colloquialisms like "easy enough," grates. I
admit I'm also not a fan of the Sudden Explanation scene: at the end,
we learn about Fildon's bargain with the shaman, but there was no
foreshadowing, no hint that this very strange bargain might have
dawned on him as being related to the current problem. It feels very
wedged-in, especially since we get no sense of why Fildon was so
terrified or what the point of the bargain was--business knowledge?
Judgment this round for GRAYWOLF-TLM
Alsih2o-
Taladas. I like the “black or white” bit. But some of the language is confusing and a couple of times I wasn’t sure if I should be laughing or not- “someplace with a name”.
There is some really funny stuff here, but it is mixed in with some confusing narrative. For instance “she/it”, I got the confusion from the first use, after that you should choose.
Sentences like “The detached hand had little nigh-invisible strings that moved the figure. It was moving the figure, controlling the figure.” Gain some strength from repetition and then give it up from too much repetition and this happens more than once in the story. I get the feeling the author is about to discover something about his/her writing style but hasn’t quite.
The ending wraps way too quickly for me. I think there is the core of a really strong story in here and I would like to see it if Taladas can finish it later.
Graywolf-ELM doesn’t so much give us a story as an interesting prelude. All the picture usages are good. Good but not great.
I REALLY like the main character and his screwed up foot. The cause of it, the office, the thoughts of this formerly noble dwarf all wrap me up and make me want more. That is the first step to success. But where is my second step? The more?
Good pic use, strong intro, but I feel even if you make a continuing story each section should stand on its own.
Judgement- Graywolf-ELM
Decision- Graywolf-ELM 3-0
Taladas "Jared Mills"
Great first paragraph. It's like buckling up your seatbelt -- you can
hear the strap go tight on "Cause of death: Suicide," and you feel it
lock into place on "I guess he really wanted to die."
Unfortunately, the unending grammatical errors strip this story of what
power it might have. The tense keeps shifting and your sentences lack
proper structure and punctuation so that I have to re-read them in
order to figure out what you're saying. Some examples:
"One of the air tanks was dropped and ruptured and causes several other
tanks to rupture." -- tense shift
"What is it going to conquer the world with a crop of rutabagas?" --
Are you saying it's going to conquer both the world and a crop of
rutabagas? I know you're not, but this sentence isn't making it clear
enough.
The narrative flows along speedily enough -- review the picture, find
the girl, get the insight, buy the hats. Too much is left unexplained,
however -- why is Becky green and in India? Why were the deaths covered
up? What DID happen to Jared Mills? You make a lot of promises early on
that you never end up delivering on.
"It’s not even a very good cover-up." -- here's an example promise.
You're promising to tell me why it's not a very good cover-up. You're
promising to tell me why it was covered up. You don't tell me either,
so at the end of the story I feel let down.
A story is a kind of a negotiation between the reader and the writer.
The writer lays out the opening of the story like a salesman lays out
the offer. The reader looks it over and decides if she wants to
participate based on that opening. If the writer fails to deliver on
the promise of the opening, the reader is going to feel unsatisfied.
Always review your opening. What promises are you making that your
reader is going to want fulfilled? This is why getting someone to edit
your work is so important -- they'll be able better than you to notice
promises getting made and then forgotten.
There's a good story in here, Taladas, that's worth working on. But it
feels like it lacks enough care and attention to detail to be worthy of
my time. Why should I labour over a story you weren't willing to?
I know that's untrue, but a couple of things give me that feeling.
First, there's the multitude of basic errors discussed above.
Second, there's a number of moments that aren't communicated clearly
enough. For example: "Everything was black or white, not black and
white like an Andy Griffith Show rerun but black or white." -- this
means nothing to me. I mean, either it's black and white or it's not
black and white. What are you distinguishing the Andy Griffith Show
rerun from? Reruns of I Love Lucy?
Third, there's just some laziness in the language that ends up being
confusing: "I find her. I think." -- "But it was she, I could tell."
Which is it? Is he sure or not? It feels like you changed your mind as
to his reaction while you were writing, and never bothered to line
things up with each other.
Picture use is generally good -- I thought you'd thrown away the hats
but those came back nicely.
I hope it's clear why I felt unsatisfied with this story. But thank you
for it.
Graywolf-ELM "Magic Fades"
Hm. What have we here? Dwarf with problem. Dwarf seeks answer to
problem. Dwarf receives answer to problem. Dwart sets out to solve
problem.
There's a problem. Dwarf doesn't have to struggle or sacrifice anything
in order to accomplish dwarf's goal. This might be a good intro to the
ACTUAL story, which is old Fildon's efforts to track down the shaman
and restore his clan's honour. But it definitely lacks any sort of
urgency or effort on the part of our hero.
That said, your usage is strong and confident, and your details are for
the most part evocative. Watch out for using too many adjectives: "The
pot-bellied and grizzle-faced mage stroked his braided beard and
ornamental beard hammer absently." You spend a lot of time describing
furnishings that never play a role in the story -- if it were clearer
that they represented something important (say, Fildon's wealth
acquired through the sale of items) then I wouldn't mind spending so
much time on them.
Likewise the long story of Giro's maiming. Do we need to know this?
Very few short stories (and even fewer Ceramic DM stories) can afford
to spend even a sentence on something that doesn't contribute to the
overall effect. If this were the opening of a novel it wouldn't matter.
Such details need to pile up over a couple of hundred pages before one
can really judge if they're accomplishing anything or not. But in these
very tight tales, you're just spinning your wheels.
Picture use is a bit iffy. All of the pictures are references to past
events and none really contribute to the story itself. None form key
images in the story except for the shaman.
You need to pay more attention to finding "the telling detail" (to use
Hitchcock's expression) -- rather than blindly describe everything in
the room, describe those items that will tell us what we absolutely
need to know. Describe them in terms that tell us WHY they're important
and HOW they relate to what's HAPPENING in the story.
Strunk and White said it best: "Omit needless words." That includes
rich description that halts the story -- unless halting the story is
what you want to do.
Thanks for this story.
Decision: Graywolf-ELM
Mythago-
Note to both: punctuation needed to be better, and both did a lot of
"tense shifting"--switching from the story happening in the past tense
to describing it in the present tense and back again. Very basic
writing errors--you should be catching this at the proofreading stage.
UNTITLED (Taladas)
There's the start of an interesting story in here and it just trickles
away. We have a psychic PI, a decades-old disappearance, and a bizarre
hat collection, and it turns into a world-destroying threat that's
taken care of in a handful of paragraphs. (Why did Becky sit around
passively waiting for somebody else to deal with the threat,
especially when she knew it needed a 'talisman'?)
There isn't much characterization. Derrick is a PI, and the short
sentences help give a sense of the gritty pulp detective. But we don't
get much more. He's psychic, he has an attitude problem, that's about
it. Becky isn't much more than a plot ticket, and her brother is a
walk on; the Threat to All Of Us isn't terribly threatening. Just
being told "it's weird and it will destroy humanity" doesn't create a
sense of threat in the reader.
All in all, it reads like a promising first draft.
MAGIC FADES (Graywolf-TLM)
An intriguing story that sounds like a first chapter. That can be
done--witness Sialia's "Salt, Clay" Ceramic DM story--but the chapter
has to stand alone. That is, you may know something happened before,
and you know the characters are going on to further adventures, but
the events of THIS story are complete. Here they aren't.
I liked the unusual setting; no dungeon, no battlefield, the main
action is a dwarf sitting at his desk and then going to his workshop.
I would have liked to see the workshop described better instead of
just being told that they were sturdy and dwarven.
The voice of the forge and the narrator's voice seem uneven; "ignoble
fate," combined with colloquialisms like "easy enough," grates. I
admit I'm also not a fan of the Sudden Explanation scene: at the end,
we learn about Fildon's bargain with the shaman, but there was no
foreshadowing, no hint that this very strange bargain might have
dawned on him as being related to the current problem. It feels very
wedged-in, especially since we get no sense of why Fildon was so
terrified or what the point of the bargain was--business knowledge?
Judgment this round for GRAYWOLF-TLM
Alsih2o-
Taladas. I like the “black or white” bit. But some of the language is confusing and a couple of times I wasn’t sure if I should be laughing or not- “someplace with a name”.
There is some really funny stuff here, but it is mixed in with some confusing narrative. For instance “she/it”, I got the confusion from the first use, after that you should choose.
Sentences like “The detached hand had little nigh-invisible strings that moved the figure. It was moving the figure, controlling the figure.” Gain some strength from repetition and then give it up from too much repetition and this happens more than once in the story. I get the feeling the author is about to discover something about his/her writing style but hasn’t quite.
The ending wraps way too quickly for me. I think there is the core of a really strong story in here and I would like to see it if Taladas can finish it later.
Graywolf-ELM doesn’t so much give us a story as an interesting prelude. All the picture usages are good. Good but not great.
I REALLY like the main character and his screwed up foot. The cause of it, the office, the thoughts of this formerly noble dwarf all wrap me up and make me want more. That is the first step to success. But where is my second step? The more?
Good pic use, strong intro, but I feel even if you make a continuing story each section should stand on its own.
Judgement- Graywolf-ELM
Decision- Graywolf-ELM 3-0
alsih2o
First Post
Barsoomcore-
RPGgirl "20090 Upanga Road"
First off, I really enjoyed this story. A seemingly effortless glide
from one picture to the next -- which is what Ceramic DM is all about.
You couldn't tell this story without the pictures, and that's exactly
how it should be. The images of Derek on his little pig bike and Ngai
in the fish tank are central to the story, and even the books, which
might be considered a throwaway, are so emotionally charged that you
get away with it just fine.
Very well told. So now I'm going to tear it to little bits. That's what
you signed up for, isn't it?
You suffer from unclear descriptions. I can't always see what's going
on -- or rather, once you've set the scene, you seem to violate what
you just said and so I get confused.
Take Derek's first arrival at the enkang. He looks in, sees no one but
some kids, calls out and turns away. A voice calls "from the recesses
of the biggest hut." Derek turns back "to face a seven foot Maasai
warrior wrapped in bright red silk." This is confusing. Did the seven
foot tall Maasai emerge from the hut? Did he materialize behind Derek?
Suddenly you're changing my impression of what the scene is, and so I
start to doubt my initial impression, and I get confused and you lose
the evocation of the scene you originally had.
Another: at the end of the conversation with the Maasai, we see Derek,
"jumping astride the bike and peddling back Dar as fast as he could."
Which is fine, except that after Derek has evidently returned to Dar,
the Maasai calls out to him. "Oh, I see," says your reader, "He didn't
peddle back TO Dar, he peddled back TOWARDS Dar. I get it now." But by
now your reader is no longer engrossed in the story.
This sort of thing is common throughout the story.
"Still skeptical, Derek returned to the elder’s hut. Entering, he was
surprised by the enkang shaman waiting just inside the door." Why was
he surprised? Was she doing something strange? Was she hovering at the
doorway? Painted blue?
Okay, enough about that. You get the idea. Let's talk about structure.
Derek's problem (I think) is that he's kind of lazy. He got himself
into this rather interesting mess (delivering pork in Dar Es Salaam)
because he didn't apply himself thoroughly enough, and his uncle is
forever drilling the lesson of industry into his head. I'd like to have
seen more made of this. Maybe what we needed to see more clearly was
Derek's laziness early on, in order to contrast it with what he does
for Ngai. Though then I'm wondering why Ngai gets the hard-working
Derek...
You spend too much time explaining what needs to be done to restore
Ngai. It feels like you don't think I'll believe you unless you provide
lots of context. Keep in mind that Ngai is basically a MaGuffin, and as
such, you don't want to spend any more time on it than absolutely
necessary. Once the audience has it, move on. It's the LEAST important
part of your story. What matters isn't who Ngai is or why Derek has to
be the one to free him. What matters is what happens to Derek.
Very fine story indeed, RPGgirl. A real pleasure.
yangnome "Mother Knows Best"
If you're going to build your story out of big blocky paragraphs, you'd
better be supplying some energetic, poetically muscular prose to power
your readers through those great big undigested chunks. To be honest,
this was a hard story to get through. I kept skimming rather than
reading, because of those big paragraphs.
Hemingway can do it. But even Hemingway breaks it up and delivers some
one-line paragraphs to build a rhythm with the reader. And not many
people can write like ol' Ernest.
If your story is going to be based on the slow recovering of memory,
there'd better be some urgency to that recovery. It needs to MATTER if
our hero figures out the truth now or later, otherwise, who cares?
THIS story doesn't get started until the "brotherhood" enters the
scene. And even then it's not until we learn that the brotherhood
harbours some dark secret that we see any reason to even be interested
-- and by this time your story's nearly over.
You need to cut about 75% of this story out. Seriously, this is a
1,000-word story.
There's also a problem with point of view. Is this the thoughts of our
hero as he discovers the truth? The first paragraph ("I guess you'll
have to bear with me for a couple minutes") suggests that but then why
is the whole thing in past tense? And what's up with the italicized
bits? They're not clearly differentiated from the rest of the story. I
know what they're supposed to be: our hero's "quoted" thoughts. But
then you get lines like, "There is no way I could live me life like
this," which ought to be italicized but aren't. And these sorts of
inconsistencies really make it hard for me to embrace the story and
lose myself in it.
The story as I see it is of a fellow who joined up with an unsavoury
group, didn't take their evil seriously, and got betrayed by them. But
this story is hard to find behind an unnecessary set of contrivances
like the memory loss and the discussions of reincarnation, and the end
result is that the story itself is robbed of its strength.
Betrayal only means something if we care about the people involved. And
the only way to get us to care about these people is make them the
center of the story. I feel like you're shying away from the actual
emotional core of your story -- which is a betrayal of a friend -- and
giving me a lot of smoke and mirrors that I don't care about. Show me
the friendship and THEN turn it into a bitter act of cold-hearted
betrayal. NOW you've got a story.
Decision: RPGgirl
Mythago-
20090 UPANGA ROAD (RPGgirl)
The biggest believability hurdle is Derek getting sent to Africa to live
with his uncle--a foster home, or a residential foster care place, would
be far more likely than placing him in Africa unless his uncle jumped
through all the hoops to get him there. I'd trim the details about all
the other options closed to him.
The rest of the story hangs together quite nicely. Why does Derek have
to do this task? Magic reasons; he's a foreigner. Is he saving the
world? No, but he's helping a lot of people who couldn't otherwise be
saved through normal means. I'd leave out the stuff about 'child of
Africa'--it just sounds off. And it would be better to actually hear
Erasto speak to Derek, rather than giving us the summary version of Ngai
and his imprisonment.
I very much like that Derek, while a likeable kid, is still a kid and
not the Hero Reborn. The Masai admit that they weren't exactly expecting
him (though they are kind about it), and he has normal-person problems
getting in and freeing Ngai. However--I know that it's tricky to get
Derek from freeing Ngai to back out of the aquarium in a narratively
interesting fashion, but "it all went black and then he woke up in his
own bed" is a little too much of the easy way out.
Very good use of the pictures. The books, while briefly shown, tied into
the emotional theme of Derek's loss of his father and his future.
MOTHER KNOWS BEST (yanggnome)
Small credibility point: if the narrator is eviscerated and waiting to
die, how is he writing all this down? (He tells us he's writing.) Either
he's not dying, in which case he's probably figured out an afterlife is
not in the cards, or he's dying and would be unlikely to carefully write
all this out.
The Uglyfish photo, highlighting the most dramatic moment of the story,
was nicely used. The book and bicycle photos, unfortunately, were pretty
much throwaways. (I'm also not sure why our narrator would be in an
unfamiliar place alone with a stack of his books.)
I liked the way the story started out, with the single, irrelevant
memory of throwing pencils into the ceiling, and the narrator's
frustration at remembering one useless, frustrating memory. The problem
is that the memories that explain it all come in a long rush, after he
sees the sharps container. After seeing himself in the tank it's kind of
anticlimactic, and it feels forced. Bits and pieces slowly building to a
conclusion, or one huge rush when he sees what he really is: either
would work, but the long tale about the fraternity feels kind of tacked on.
Judgment this round for RPGGIRL
Alsih2o-
RPGgirl gives us a cute, interesting, quirky little tale. It has some wording and language problems but they fall aside for em as the pictures work smoothly into the text and the images provided by them and by the author work harmoniously to drag me along through the story.
There area s I said, some bumps. The push to industry by the uncle followed by him sending the hero to bed, things like that can be distracting but they washed away for me under the weight of the interesting characters and the cool use of pictures.
Yangnome- To be honest I am made a little uncomfortable by the opening text. The whole part about being unable to move and in pain and not knowing where you are doesn’t lean towards the almost casual writing style of the narrator.
I really did like most of the picture usage, the Uglygfish pic especially. Unexpected use always gets extra points from me. But I still feel there is a large hole here. Like two stories are being told and the author hasn’t realy dedicated to one over the other.
Good pic use, but some failure in…cohesiveness?
Judgement: RPGgirl
Decision: RPGgirl 3-0
RPGgirl "20090 Upanga Road"
First off, I really enjoyed this story. A seemingly effortless glide
from one picture to the next -- which is what Ceramic DM is all about.
You couldn't tell this story without the pictures, and that's exactly
how it should be. The images of Derek on his little pig bike and Ngai
in the fish tank are central to the story, and even the books, which
might be considered a throwaway, are so emotionally charged that you
get away with it just fine.
Very well told. So now I'm going to tear it to little bits. That's what
you signed up for, isn't it?
You suffer from unclear descriptions. I can't always see what's going
on -- or rather, once you've set the scene, you seem to violate what
you just said and so I get confused.
Take Derek's first arrival at the enkang. He looks in, sees no one but
some kids, calls out and turns away. A voice calls "from the recesses
of the biggest hut." Derek turns back "to face a seven foot Maasai
warrior wrapped in bright red silk." This is confusing. Did the seven
foot tall Maasai emerge from the hut? Did he materialize behind Derek?
Suddenly you're changing my impression of what the scene is, and so I
start to doubt my initial impression, and I get confused and you lose
the evocation of the scene you originally had.
Another: at the end of the conversation with the Maasai, we see Derek,
"jumping astride the bike and peddling back Dar as fast as he could."
Which is fine, except that after Derek has evidently returned to Dar,
the Maasai calls out to him. "Oh, I see," says your reader, "He didn't
peddle back TO Dar, he peddled back TOWARDS Dar. I get it now." But by
now your reader is no longer engrossed in the story.
This sort of thing is common throughout the story.
"Still skeptical, Derek returned to the elder’s hut. Entering, he was
surprised by the enkang shaman waiting just inside the door." Why was
he surprised? Was she doing something strange? Was she hovering at the
doorway? Painted blue?
Okay, enough about that. You get the idea. Let's talk about structure.
Derek's problem (I think) is that he's kind of lazy. He got himself
into this rather interesting mess (delivering pork in Dar Es Salaam)
because he didn't apply himself thoroughly enough, and his uncle is
forever drilling the lesson of industry into his head. I'd like to have
seen more made of this. Maybe what we needed to see more clearly was
Derek's laziness early on, in order to contrast it with what he does
for Ngai. Though then I'm wondering why Ngai gets the hard-working
Derek...
You spend too much time explaining what needs to be done to restore
Ngai. It feels like you don't think I'll believe you unless you provide
lots of context. Keep in mind that Ngai is basically a MaGuffin, and as
such, you don't want to spend any more time on it than absolutely
necessary. Once the audience has it, move on. It's the LEAST important
part of your story. What matters isn't who Ngai is or why Derek has to
be the one to free him. What matters is what happens to Derek.
Very fine story indeed, RPGgirl. A real pleasure.
yangnome "Mother Knows Best"
If you're going to build your story out of big blocky paragraphs, you'd
better be supplying some energetic, poetically muscular prose to power
your readers through those great big undigested chunks. To be honest,
this was a hard story to get through. I kept skimming rather than
reading, because of those big paragraphs.
Hemingway can do it. But even Hemingway breaks it up and delivers some
one-line paragraphs to build a rhythm with the reader. And not many
people can write like ol' Ernest.
If your story is going to be based on the slow recovering of memory,
there'd better be some urgency to that recovery. It needs to MATTER if
our hero figures out the truth now or later, otherwise, who cares?
THIS story doesn't get started until the "brotherhood" enters the
scene. And even then it's not until we learn that the brotherhood
harbours some dark secret that we see any reason to even be interested
-- and by this time your story's nearly over.
You need to cut about 75% of this story out. Seriously, this is a
1,000-word story.
There's also a problem with point of view. Is this the thoughts of our
hero as he discovers the truth? The first paragraph ("I guess you'll
have to bear with me for a couple minutes") suggests that but then why
is the whole thing in past tense? And what's up with the italicized
bits? They're not clearly differentiated from the rest of the story. I
know what they're supposed to be: our hero's "quoted" thoughts. But
then you get lines like, "There is no way I could live me life like
this," which ought to be italicized but aren't. And these sorts of
inconsistencies really make it hard for me to embrace the story and
lose myself in it.
The story as I see it is of a fellow who joined up with an unsavoury
group, didn't take their evil seriously, and got betrayed by them. But
this story is hard to find behind an unnecessary set of contrivances
like the memory loss and the discussions of reincarnation, and the end
result is that the story itself is robbed of its strength.
Betrayal only means something if we care about the people involved. And
the only way to get us to care about these people is make them the
center of the story. I feel like you're shying away from the actual
emotional core of your story -- which is a betrayal of a friend -- and
giving me a lot of smoke and mirrors that I don't care about. Show me
the friendship and THEN turn it into a bitter act of cold-hearted
betrayal. NOW you've got a story.
Decision: RPGgirl
Mythago-
20090 UPANGA ROAD (RPGgirl)
The biggest believability hurdle is Derek getting sent to Africa to live
with his uncle--a foster home, or a residential foster care place, would
be far more likely than placing him in Africa unless his uncle jumped
through all the hoops to get him there. I'd trim the details about all
the other options closed to him.
The rest of the story hangs together quite nicely. Why does Derek have
to do this task? Magic reasons; he's a foreigner. Is he saving the
world? No, but he's helping a lot of people who couldn't otherwise be
saved through normal means. I'd leave out the stuff about 'child of
Africa'--it just sounds off. And it would be better to actually hear
Erasto speak to Derek, rather than giving us the summary version of Ngai
and his imprisonment.
I very much like that Derek, while a likeable kid, is still a kid and
not the Hero Reborn. The Masai admit that they weren't exactly expecting
him (though they are kind about it), and he has normal-person problems
getting in and freeing Ngai. However--I know that it's tricky to get
Derek from freeing Ngai to back out of the aquarium in a narratively
interesting fashion, but "it all went black and then he woke up in his
own bed" is a little too much of the easy way out.
Very good use of the pictures. The books, while briefly shown, tied into
the emotional theme of Derek's loss of his father and his future.
MOTHER KNOWS BEST (yanggnome)
Small credibility point: if the narrator is eviscerated and waiting to
die, how is he writing all this down? (He tells us he's writing.) Either
he's not dying, in which case he's probably figured out an afterlife is
not in the cards, or he's dying and would be unlikely to carefully write
all this out.
The Uglyfish photo, highlighting the most dramatic moment of the story,
was nicely used. The book and bicycle photos, unfortunately, were pretty
much throwaways. (I'm also not sure why our narrator would be in an
unfamiliar place alone with a stack of his books.)
I liked the way the story started out, with the single, irrelevant
memory of throwing pencils into the ceiling, and the narrator's
frustration at remembering one useless, frustrating memory. The problem
is that the memories that explain it all come in a long rush, after he
sees the sharps container. After seeing himself in the tank it's kind of
anticlimactic, and it feels forced. Bits and pieces slowly building to a
conclusion, or one huge rush when he sees what he really is: either
would work, but the long tale about the fraternity feels kind of tacked on.
Judgment this round for RPGGIRL
Alsih2o-
RPGgirl gives us a cute, interesting, quirky little tale. It has some wording and language problems but they fall aside for em as the pictures work smoothly into the text and the images provided by them and by the author work harmoniously to drag me along through the story.
There area s I said, some bumps. The push to industry by the uncle followed by him sending the hero to bed, things like that can be distracting but they washed away for me under the weight of the interesting characters and the cool use of pictures.
Yangnome- To be honest I am made a little uncomfortable by the opening text. The whole part about being unable to move and in pain and not knowing where you are doesn’t lean towards the almost casual writing style of the narrator.
I really did like most of the picture usage, the Uglygfish pic especially. Unexpected use always gets extra points from me. But I still feel there is a large hole here. Like two stories are being told and the author hasn’t realy dedicated to one over the other.
Good pic use, but some failure in…cohesiveness?
Judgement: RPGgirl
Decision: RPGgirl 3-0
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