CERAMIC D.M. Final Judgements In- New Champion!

Sniktch said:

Ditto. I always appreciate feedback

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Great!

Sniktch: The beginning of the story is well done. The thundering footsteps, the hopeless defence by the father,...and the quest for vengence.

The middle part, including the dream-like death march from fertility to desolation back to fertility is good too...but I was hoping for more from the old man. (Don't questing people always run into wise old men? ) The story must be short, so there's not tons of room...but there should be some sort of connection made here, some sort of resonance between the young-grieved man and the old-world-weary man. A shared experience? Just the giant's general (magical) destruction of the old man's lands is not enough.

The young man must do what the old man cannot.

The end was a decent wrap-up, but again seemed a bit rushed. I hope I don't offend you when I say that the end with the slaves seems completely un-fullfilling. Such an ending might be great for a D&D adventure...but for a story like this it serves no purpose. ...Just kinda cheapens the blow an ending should have.

Mean and cruel, ain't I?

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Speaker: My biggest problem with this story was....well, I'm almost ashamed to write it. ......Boy, did I hate the name of the protagonist's master! "Pual????!!!!" Arrrrrgggg! I can't say it. How do you say it? I'm going nuts over here.....

The story is very tight, and the action moves well from point to point. I was left a bit mystified by some of the trivia, though: why are "other teams" climbing up the spire, in the beginning? Did I just read that wrong? And why is the outsider hiding up there?

There were some great "scene setting" writing here. The way the oracle just. Stopped. The nervious mannerisms of the protagonist's master:

Pual nods. Paces. Then he plants his feet and heaves a big sigh. Not a good sign. Pual never sighs.

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The mood is set, the action is clear. And the ending is. Good. A circle with a revealed "ending as a beginning" always works for me.
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I'm not a judge, so my opinion ain't worth a hill o' beans, but I'd say the round should go to Speaker.

Both of you did very. Well.

All constructive criticism is good criticism. So thanks for chipping in, Nail!

Pual… all right, I just said it out loud a couple of times. The word does not exactly roll off the tongue. A bit rough and awkward…similar to Pual’s personality? J. I am sure he would not mind if you pronounced it Pall rather than Poo-all. Reminds me of how hard it was to get used to some Indonesian names. Zainul for example .

About the small details… agreed completely! There are several loose ends scattered throughout the story that really do not belong without explanation. Perhaps a future expansion is warranted.

Glad you enjoyed the. tale.

alish2o, there is a chance that I will be a few hours later checking in on the final results on Sunday, due to an upcoming trip to Vancouver. The delay should not be overlong, however!

The suspense kills me.

Nail said:

Mean and cruel, ain't I?

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Nah, not at all. As I said, feedback is always welcome. I agree that a lot of the story is rushed; my biggest regret in each round was that I ended up with no time to read over what I'd done before posting it, but that's what a deadline does to you

Thanks for the comments. I pretty much agree with your assessment, although like Speaker, the suspense is still killing me...

alsih2o said:

my judgement is done, i have maldurs, and i do not think arwink is the type to have his literary criticisms swayed by the masses, comment away

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Greetings all. Just wanted to throw my apologies in for this running so late. The combination of recent world events and their intersection my thesis topic (and for the sake of the boards, we'll leave that there) has kept me away from a computer for the past three days or so. I was trying to get this done before monday, but it's not going to happen unfortunately I'm very, very sorry about this.

Monday/Sunday is definate though. The ever reliable gap between classes and staff meetings ensures that

Sorry for the suspense.

Done. I've sent my comments to Clay, and they should be posted within the next couple of hours if previous rounds are anything to go by

Congrats to both the finalists. They put up some damn fine stories, and I'm sorry it took me so long to judge them.

sniktch vs speaker- final judgemnt

alsih2o

sniktch- gives us a really entertaining little tale, i love the image of the giant eating herself a lot, and the house and the old man were handled well. the climbing ic was handled decently but i really preferred the use of the "diguised" pic. all around a good usage of the pics with some real high points.

speaker- the wall women is handled really well here too. i also liked the circular aspect of the tale. the house pic was worked in well with the time passage theme.

in our first all photo ceramic d.m. i have to give the final round to speaker, 2 really strong stories, no major errs by anyone, but speaker sticks his neck just a bit out in front, despite the strangeness of the story.

maldur

Sniktch: This is your best ceramic entry yet. It has the feel of the
"original" fairy tale I heard a while back (Little red ridinghood, the
bloody, pre-grimm version).

Speaker:
Time reversal, training "slayers", misterious oracles. Great story. I really
like your "twist"

This round goes to: Speaker.


arwink

Sniktch
The first thing that really leapt out at me is the stiffness and modern
approach to the dialogue. This starts off very much as a "Young Son's Quest"
that is common to fantasy and mythology, and the initial conversation between
the old man and the main character doesn't quite ring true for the setting
being implied. The pay-off of the story also has some problems - if the family
knows about the rings magic, why didn't the father use it when the giant first
turned up? It would have worked better if it was a simple ring, an heirloom,
with powers that proved beneficial later in the story. There are some other
pacing problems, but this is more the function of the fast drafting problem of
Ceramic DM than anything else - the story seems about half as long as it needs
to be, to give the various ideas and events proper space to sink in.

All this being said, I did enjoy the voice being used to tell the tale, and the
majority of the characters are interesting work. The death of the giant, in
particular, is well planned out although the absence of real conflict in the
story (everything comes too easily for the hero) leaves it slightly
undermined.

A good story, but in need of more work.

Speaker
Speakers story is well paced, with a well constructed voice that lapses only
occasionally. The slow revelation of the stories secrets is very nicely
handled, particularly after the almost misleading introduction which introduces
us to the lead characters hunt. There are dangling questions throughout, to be
sure, but many of these leave us an open interpretation of Speakers world and
aren't essential to the main plot. As a short story, this works well, but it
may need some rethinking if expanded into a longer tale that sought to answer
the dangling questions.

There were two main problems that caught my attention. The first is to change
Pual's name - it looks too much like a misspelling, and this means that it
seems silly once the realisation hits that it isn't. It's closeness to a
modern name also lends a certain overtone to the piece that works in its
favour, but would largely be more effective if just changed to Paul. The
second was the dialogue of the Prophet. There's an attempt to create a unique
speech pattern occurring, but it simply doesn't work the way it's written.
Again, it comes off more as weirdly placed typo's than a strange speech
pattern, so more obvious breaks between words are needed."

In the end, I thoroughly enjoyed Speakers story apart from these minor
quibbles. His use of the pictures is very clear and interesting, and the
initial intro based around the climb is great.

In the end, I give this round to Speaker. Sniktch puts together a great tale,
but just doesn't hold together as impressively as Speakers does in terms of
narrative.

unanimous final round to speaker! the new ceramic d.m. champion!

all hail speaker!

thanks to everyone who wrote, judged, commented or read along

Let me be the first to congratulate the new Ceramic DM - Go Speaker! Go Speaker! It's your birthday!

Well done on both of the finalist parts. I look forward to facing one or both of you in the next competition.

Now you can go change your sig to something significantly obnoxious Speaker.

What a great Ceramic DM. Thanks so much to everyone involved.

Jay

Congratulations, Speaker. It is the verdict I expected to see, and you deserve it. It was good practice for me and I'll take one of these things eventually

Thanks to the judges, too, for their feedback; its the most valuable thing I take away from these contests. Thanks to Nail for pitching in, too. Feel free to comment on any more of my stuff in the future

speakerbump

Speaker, a well deserved congratulations!

Sniktch, you entry was good, I expect you to win next time!