Orchid Blossom vs. Greywolf Elm decision-
Mythago-
Good picture use overall by both.
CHAOS GATES (Graywolf-ELM)
I very much like the setting: not a lot of exposition or history of
How It Came to Be, we know there's magic and chaos, let's move on. The
story suffers terribly from a shifting and uncertain point of view. At
first, it sounds as though we're watching will on a video (a nice way
to approach it), hence the present tense and the description of things
like his grin. But then we see later that's not the case; he turns it
off once, goes on an hour and a half uneventful run while being
recorded. So either the initial scene is awkward, because it describes
Will as though he's being watched rather than from inside Will's head,
or you switched POV through the story. That also doesn't work.
The fight with the spiders is too over quickly. I don't mean that he
kills the spider fast, but that you handwaved right through the
remaining four and getting the egg sacs. There's more of that 'hurry
past this scene' compression when Will arrives at HQ; this is the
climax of the story and it just feels rushed, here's your mission,
kid, hop through. And why does Will have to carry the fish through,
anyway? According to the way you describe it, he's just leaving the
fish there. Why can't they throw the fish through? For that matter,
since Will is an artificer, why can't he make a floating bot that
works the way his DVR does, and tow it through? It seems odd that
they'd send a perfectly good Altered on a needless suicide mission.
Minor points: exposition in places that comes from an author's
viewpoint rather than flowing naturally with the text, and
abbreviations (# and HQ) where there shouldn't be.
BIRTH PANGS (Orchid Blossom)
Interestingly, another cross-world story, though of a different type
than Graywolf's. What is it with alcohol and sucking on eyeballs
anyway?
The opening scene is a nice way to set out the central problem in the
story. Unfortunately, while the author knows these are gnomes, we
don't, and all we know--several paragraphs in--is that the speakers
are not human. Later we learn they're gnomes. This is hard on the
reader who is trying to form a mental picture of the people to whom
these voices belong.
The biggest problem is that the characters never seem to SAY anything.
They sniffle, mumble, marvel, laugh, and do all kinds of little busy
work to flag who's speaking, but they don't just flat-out SAY
anything. Once in a while this works, but several paragraphs running
and it makes the characters look awfully busy.
There were a couple of plot points: why are the soldiers guarding this
gap, and why isn't there an organized uprising if the gnomes are
pulling a fast one? (That is to say, you'd expect the soldiers to send
word up and get a strike force brought in, not just rush in on their
own.) And I didn't buy the warning shot in the shoulder. That close
and with that powerful a weapon, Carowyn would be dead unless the
soldier was so nervous (and he doesn't act nervous) that he missed her
completely. Even with magical constitution, taking a high-powered
rifle shot in the shoulder and walking around well enough to tell
Jacob to fetch an herb basket really didn't ring true.
Judgment this round for ORCHID BLOSSOM.
Alsih2o-
Greaywolf- ELM- This reminds me of some of the Lobo comics my brother sends me. No “Story” so much as a walk around a world. Lobo bashes someone, talks about bounty hunting into the camera, destroys a planet. Nice, humorous light reading.
I do really like how the wardens pic is used, and the Siala art is treated well. This is entertaining but I think it falls short of shining.
Orchid blossom- I like the built in tension of waiting for enough info to realize who everyone is and what side they are on. This can be overdone easily, but for the most I think it is done pretty well here.
Great treatment on the garden gnome pic, integral to the story and well handled. It seems the eye pic inspired matching story elements again, I like to see two different treatments, but which writer do you blame? Blame the pic picker I guess.
I am also fond of how the mutation broke into an explanation of what was happening. I wish there was more of a balance for this at the end, where things were more confusing.
Judgement: Orchid blossom
Barsoomcore-
Graywolf-ELM "Chaos Gates"
There's no story here. I'm looking around, lifting up meaty paragraphs,
but I'm not seeing any sign of a story. What's Will's problem? What
does he need to do? What's he trying to accomplish?
There's a lot of world-buildy details here but none of them provide us
with any emotional pull and did I mention there's no story?
I don't really know what else to say about this. There's no story so
there's very little to comment on.
Your paragraphs are too thick and ponderous. Break them up -- it makes
my job reading MUCH easier.
Picture use is hard to comment on because while none of them relate to
the story that has more to do with the absence of any story than a
problem in the usage. Why do we find out about the car? Why do we watch
him fight the Spider Bear? Say hi to the soldiers? None of this
contributes to any sort of narrative.
Story MUST be about a change in a character. We must see a character
striving, struggling to accomplish something. If we don't get that,
we're just reading an encyclopedia entry.
Strunk and White, Rule 17: "Omit needless words"
Consider the effect on your story if we remove the following sentence:
"Will waves to the waitress for his check, in the universal sign, of
one hand flat, as if holding paper, and the other hand making a check
mark on it."
As far as I can see, there's no effect whatsoever. So delete that
sentence. It is composed of needless words. Also remove the comma after
"sign".
The big problem, of course, is that since there's no story, it's
impossible to determine which words are needless. Or rather, it appears
that they're all needless.
Tell me a story.
But thanks for this. There's some great world details in here and this
would make a very fun campaign setting, I reckon.
orchid blossom "Birth Pangs"
Whoa. How'd you do that?
K. Let's see.
Picture use? Five pictures, none of which could be removed from the
story. Well, maybe the first one was a bit of a throwaway but I reckon
that opening scene is sufficiently important. Check.
Characterization? Carowyn, Jacob, Steven and Erica. All distinct, all
real, all sketched in quick details. Check.
Story? Saving the world of magic from bad insensitive humans. I think.
Doesn't matter, it ends happily. Check.
Style? It's sparse but I'll take economy over flashy any day. You
accomplish quite a bit in 2400 words, I have to say. Check.
One might wish for a little more oomph to the emotions, something a
little more personal to Carowyn's struggle. I'd enjoy the story more if
I saw her making sacrifices for what she wants. Or else being immensely
clever.
Nevertheless, a fine story.
One question: given that the car is illustrated as possessing racks of
"gas globes", why the decision to have Carowyn sit in the back seat and
toss other globes out the window? It just seemed strange and sort of
took away from the purpose of the racks. Surely if you had to throw
globes out the window anyways, you wouldn't go to the trouble of
building special-purpose weapon racks? Maybe it's just me. But it
bugged me. A little.
Work on your action scenes. Both the careen of the car and the attack
of the Spider Bear required re-reads on my part. Remember that people
tend to read the first and last sentences of a paragraph in order to
figure out if they need to read it at all. If you bury important
details (like "the Spider Bear ATE the soldier") in the middle of your
paragraphs you make it harder for your reader to follow the action.
"This time Carowyn felt a rumbling through the ground just before she
saw it." This time? When was the previous time? I didn't get that.
A very good story. Thank you.
Judgement: orchid blossom
Decision: Orchid Blossom 3-0, see you next round.
