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Ceramic Dm (final judgement posted, New Champion announced!)
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<blockquote data-quote="alsih2o" data-source="post: 1636504" data-attributes="member: 4790"><p>Barsoomcore-</p><p></p><p>orchid blossom "Journeys"</p><p></p><p>"I trust the magic, it's the technology that makes me nervous. " -- key line that tells me about the kind of story I'm about to read.</p><p></p><p>"the people who seemed to populate this outer perimeter " -- the people who populated it or the people who seemed to -- weird distinction.</p><p></p><p>This story has nearly everything it needs. The writing is simple but precise: "the moist chill of antiseptic swabs" -- "every man in the room turned into a ten-year-old". Nice and neat. The characters are well-sketched and distinct -- you'd never mistake Devon for Brendan. The ideas are fun and presented with a minimum of expositorial clumsiness.</p><p></p><p>But it's like a car with fine detailing and comfortable seat that doesn't have an engine under the hood. Looks good, but it won't get you anywhere. Your plot has no tension, no urgency and requires no effort on the part of your heroine. She doesn't have to struggle to accomplish anything, she doesn't have to give anything up, and so there's no oomph to the tale.</p><p></p><p>The use of pictures is pretty good, although both the ship and the man are really extended throwaways. They don't feel like throwaways at first but by the end of the story one is left asking, "Who cares how they dock their ship?" "What difference does it make that the fellow identified her as a magician?"</p><p></p><p>There's good writing here, but a lack of story-telling. My playwriting instructor talked a lot about creating tension in scenes -- he said that every scene must include one character trying to accomplish a goal in the face of some resistance. The more important the goal, and the stronger the resistance, the more exciting the scene. Short stories aren't quite like plays that way, and you can get away with less rigorous displays of tension, but the principle is a good one.</p><p></p><p>We don't know what Jeanelle is trying to accomplish, which is a bit of a problem because it makes it hard for us to judge how important it is AND to evaluate what obstacles are presenting themselves. We can judge from her behaviour and discussion with Brendan and Lynn that whatever she's about to do is pretty important, but in the course of the story she's not presented with any resistance to doing it at all. If we knew what she was doing, AND if we saw her overcome (or fail to overcome) some obstacles to doing it, this story would provide a much more exciting ride.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Fieari "Patterns"</p><p></p><p>This story suffers from extremely poor copyediting. Please check your usage. I've listed some of the more egregious errors below:</p><p></p><p>"Sponcer" = sponsor</p><p>"Science was easy, getting someone to pay for it was hard." -- comma splice</p><p>"todays data" -- today's data</p><p>"The scientific journals occasionally had articles about them, but few studied the things. They didn't do much... they were just there." -- "they" might refer to the journals, the things or the few who study them.</p><p>"The machine here had been built on top of this ripple though, completely by accident, which made it unusable for more standard quantum research, but absolutely perfect for his own." -- missing comma before "though", and run-on sentence. Break into two.</p><p>"That was can calculate things to thousands of decimal places? Well we can. Except, not for any specific atom. " -- ? Even if "was" is supposed to be "we" this doesn't make sense. Should that be "we can't" rather than "was can"?</p><p>"stimulants" should be "stimulus" or more likely, "stimuli"</p><p>"The camera pulled back slightly, and two oceans of water are shown" Tense problems. This paragraph suddenly turns into present tense. Why?</p><p></p><p>All these errors have the cumulative effect of annoying me to the point that I'm hardly paying attention to the story anymore. Further things that drove me crazy included:</p><p></p><p>Exclamation points. Please, I beg you to stop. No exclamation points. Ever.</p><p></p><p>Problem was, his research <em>wasn't</em> flashy. -- The only reason to emphasize "wasn't" is to draw a distinction between something that had been previously described using the form "was flashy" -- you're using the emphasis to draw the reader's attention to the different state of the "to be" verb in this case. Since there is no preceding element of that form, the emphasis here is needless.</p><p></p><p>"Allow me to set the scene." Wait a minute? Allow <em>who</em> to set the scene? (note the use of emphasis) Who's this suddenly talking to me? And where does he go after this sequence? If you're going to introduce an intrusive narrator, do it for a reason and let your reader know what the reason is. This whole sequence is problematic, largely due to the unspecific terminology: "vaguely ethnic", "funny accents", "ethnic", "vaguely ethnic", "vaguely ethnic" -- EVERYONE is "ethnic" according the primary definition in the American Heritage Dictionary : "Of or relating to a sizable group of people sharing a common and distinctive racial, national, religious, linguistic, or cultural heritage." The word can also be used to refer to non-Christian or non-Jewish people -- "heathens." In either case, it is a very imprecise description. Do you mean Arabic? Muslim? IndoChinese? To whom do their accents seem funny? To our suddenly intrusive narrator? To the well-dressed man who is apparently NOT ethnic (is he Jewish or Christian, I wonder)?</p><p></p><p>Be specific. Your accent is probably pretty funny to someone.</p><p></p><p>Overall, the story lacked a plot and our hero never seemed to struggle to accomplish anything. Does it matter that he has a son? If not, then why bring it up? The picture use, as well, is spotty -- it takes too long to get to any pictures at all, and the boat and robot pictures are definitely throwaways. And as for the "assembling the atomic bomb" picture, I would find it worthy of comment that an atom bomb kit included a live snake that needed some fluid extracted from it. I would definitely find that worthy of comment.</p><p></p><p>Less development on the early stuff, less exposition, and more on the parallel tracks of the guy with the lamp and the guy with the black hole. Connect them somehow.</p><p></p><p>Decision: orchid blossom</p><p></p><p></p><p> Mythago-</p><p></p><p> JOURNEYS (orchid blossom)</p><p></p><p>Good picture use overall, though the picture of the man opening his </p><p>jacket was a bit forced in an otherwise smooth narrative flow. The very </p><p>matter-of-fact combination of magic and technology was well-handled, and </p><p>the burns and Devon's hesitancy about magic were explained without any </p><p>unnecessary exposition or blather. The same goes for the background--we </p><p>get that magic is matter-of-fact, but not everybody likes it much, so </p><p>they take precautions.</p><p></p><p>So it was frustrating to see such an intriguing story run smack into a </p><p>wall. The ending was very abrupt--what happens now? Did we resolve </p><p>anything? Where did "I like snakes" come from?--and the tension with </p><p>Devon isn't entirely explained; there's something going on other than </p><p>his fear of magic, but we never get much into it. I wondered if orchid </p><p>blossom had accidentally cut off a paragraph or two at the end.</p><p></p><p></p><p>UNTITLED (Fieari)</p><p></p><p>There's a good narrative in here....more than one, which is unfortunate. </p><p>We start off with a good scientific premise that turns into a problem </p><p>with a djinn to a disaster--there are a lot of pieces that aren't woven </p><p>together well enough to fit, and the use of the ship picture was very </p><p>weak. The story also jumped around in narrative style; sometimes </p><p>descriptive, sometimes the scene is set by an authorial voice.</p><p></p><p>There are good parts here, but they feel like puzzle pieces jammed </p><p>together, blocking the narrative flow.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Judgment for this round to ORCHID BLOSSOM.</p><p></p><p> Alsih2o-</p><p></p><p> Orchid blossom- First picture use rocks. I like how tech and magic are mixed together. This whole scene is well done.</p><p></p><p> Second picture feels a bit like an out. But a lot of Ceramic DM is finding a good out. This one at least reinforces an underlying theme- the predjudice against magicians. Good effort, but not the strongest pic use. Although I have to admit that I was thrilled and entertained by the idea of sitting in a boat, just waiting for the tide to come in. </p><p></p><p> The next scene is a little confusing, with me wondering about the moving jeep, Devon at her elbow, then getting in. This was a little distracting, but a good use of the picture. I also liked the visual of the clenched jaw at the beginning. </p><p></p><p> The last picture, the robot (made completely from Cooper Mini parts IRL) is integral to the story, but then we find out it isn’t a story! I was kind of shocked to see the bottom of the page coming. Here I was grooving on the world, digging the cool characters and wild possibilities and then it was over. I hate to reference comics twice in one round but if I am gonna read all of Issue 1 I wanna see a fight. J</p><p></p><p> Darned good picture use, a real way with words. I would like to think that with more than 3 days and 5000 words this would have kicked butt…but Ceramic DM is about stories and adventures (I think) and less about just establishing concepts.</p><p></p><p> Fieari- This is very confusing. There is a very interesting premise surrounding a ripple, and then I am lost. Our writer seems much more comfortable with discussions of the technology than the people. I really think there is something in here, but it obviously needs a lot more time to come out.</p><p></p><p> Judgement- orchid blossom</p><p></p><p> Decision- 3-0 for orchid blossom who moves on.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="alsih2o, post: 1636504, member: 4790"] Barsoomcore- orchid blossom "Journeys" "I trust the magic, it's the technology that makes me nervous. " -- key line that tells me about the kind of story I'm about to read. "the people who seemed to populate this outer perimeter " -- the people who populated it or the people who seemed to -- weird distinction. This story has nearly everything it needs. The writing is simple but precise: "the moist chill of antiseptic swabs" -- "every man in the room turned into a ten-year-old". Nice and neat. The characters are well-sketched and distinct -- you'd never mistake Devon for Brendan. The ideas are fun and presented with a minimum of expositorial clumsiness. But it's like a car with fine detailing and comfortable seat that doesn't have an engine under the hood. Looks good, but it won't get you anywhere. Your plot has no tension, no urgency and requires no effort on the part of your heroine. She doesn't have to struggle to accomplish anything, she doesn't have to give anything up, and so there's no oomph to the tale. The use of pictures is pretty good, although both the ship and the man are really extended throwaways. They don't feel like throwaways at first but by the end of the story one is left asking, "Who cares how they dock their ship?" "What difference does it make that the fellow identified her as a magician?" There's good writing here, but a lack of story-telling. My playwriting instructor talked a lot about creating tension in scenes -- he said that every scene must include one character trying to accomplish a goal in the face of some resistance. The more important the goal, and the stronger the resistance, the more exciting the scene. Short stories aren't quite like plays that way, and you can get away with less rigorous displays of tension, but the principle is a good one. We don't know what Jeanelle is trying to accomplish, which is a bit of a problem because it makes it hard for us to judge how important it is AND to evaluate what obstacles are presenting themselves. We can judge from her behaviour and discussion with Brendan and Lynn that whatever she's about to do is pretty important, but in the course of the story she's not presented with any resistance to doing it at all. If we knew what she was doing, AND if we saw her overcome (or fail to overcome) some obstacles to doing it, this story would provide a much more exciting ride. Fieari "Patterns" This story suffers from extremely poor copyediting. Please check your usage. I've listed some of the more egregious errors below: "Sponcer" = sponsor "Science was easy, getting someone to pay for it was hard." -- comma splice "todays data" -- today's data "The scientific journals occasionally had articles about them, but few studied the things. They didn't do much... they were just there." -- "they" might refer to the journals, the things or the few who study them. "The machine here had been built on top of this ripple though, completely by accident, which made it unusable for more standard quantum research, but absolutely perfect for his own." -- missing comma before "though", and run-on sentence. Break into two. "That was can calculate things to thousands of decimal places? Well we can. Except, not for any specific atom. " -- ? Even if "was" is supposed to be "we" this doesn't make sense. Should that be "we can't" rather than "was can"? "stimulants" should be "stimulus" or more likely, "stimuli" "The camera pulled back slightly, and two oceans of water are shown" Tense problems. This paragraph suddenly turns into present tense. Why? All these errors have the cumulative effect of annoying me to the point that I'm hardly paying attention to the story anymore. Further things that drove me crazy included: Exclamation points. Please, I beg you to stop. No exclamation points. Ever. Problem was, his research [i]wasn't[/i] flashy. -- The only reason to emphasize "wasn't" is to draw a distinction between something that had been previously described using the form "was flashy" -- you're using the emphasis to draw the reader's attention to the different state of the "to be" verb in this case. Since there is no preceding element of that form, the emphasis here is needless. "Allow me to set the scene." Wait a minute? Allow [i]who[/i] to set the scene? (note the use of emphasis) Who's this suddenly talking to me? And where does he go after this sequence? If you're going to introduce an intrusive narrator, do it for a reason and let your reader know what the reason is. This whole sequence is problematic, largely due to the unspecific terminology: "vaguely ethnic", "funny accents", "ethnic", "vaguely ethnic", "vaguely ethnic" -- EVERYONE is "ethnic" according the primary definition in the American Heritage Dictionary : "Of or relating to a sizable group of people sharing a common and distinctive racial, national, religious, linguistic, or cultural heritage." The word can also be used to refer to non-Christian or non-Jewish people -- "heathens." In either case, it is a very imprecise description. Do you mean Arabic? Muslim? IndoChinese? To whom do their accents seem funny? To our suddenly intrusive narrator? To the well-dressed man who is apparently NOT ethnic (is he Jewish or Christian, I wonder)? Be specific. Your accent is probably pretty funny to someone. Overall, the story lacked a plot and our hero never seemed to struggle to accomplish anything. Does it matter that he has a son? If not, then why bring it up? The picture use, as well, is spotty -- it takes too long to get to any pictures at all, and the boat and robot pictures are definitely throwaways. And as for the "assembling the atomic bomb" picture, I would find it worthy of comment that an atom bomb kit included a live snake that needed some fluid extracted from it. I would definitely find that worthy of comment. Less development on the early stuff, less exposition, and more on the parallel tracks of the guy with the lamp and the guy with the black hole. Connect them somehow. Decision: orchid blossom Mythago- JOURNEYS (orchid blossom) Good picture use overall, though the picture of the man opening his jacket was a bit forced in an otherwise smooth narrative flow. The very matter-of-fact combination of magic and technology was well-handled, and the burns and Devon's hesitancy about magic were explained without any unnecessary exposition or blather. The same goes for the background--we get that magic is matter-of-fact, but not everybody likes it much, so they take precautions. So it was frustrating to see such an intriguing story run smack into a wall. The ending was very abrupt--what happens now? Did we resolve anything? Where did "I like snakes" come from?--and the tension with Devon isn't entirely explained; there's something going on other than his fear of magic, but we never get much into it. I wondered if orchid blossom had accidentally cut off a paragraph or two at the end. UNTITLED (Fieari) There's a good narrative in here....more than one, which is unfortunate. We start off with a good scientific premise that turns into a problem with a djinn to a disaster--there are a lot of pieces that aren't woven together well enough to fit, and the use of the ship picture was very weak. The story also jumped around in narrative style; sometimes descriptive, sometimes the scene is set by an authorial voice. There are good parts here, but they feel like puzzle pieces jammed together, blocking the narrative flow. Judgment for this round to ORCHID BLOSSOM. Alsih2o- Orchid blossom- First picture use rocks. I like how tech and magic are mixed together. This whole scene is well done. Second picture feels a bit like an out. But a lot of Ceramic DM is finding a good out. This one at least reinforces an underlying theme- the predjudice against magicians. Good effort, but not the strongest pic use. Although I have to admit that I was thrilled and entertained by the idea of sitting in a boat, just waiting for the tide to come in. The next scene is a little confusing, with me wondering about the moving jeep, Devon at her elbow, then getting in. This was a little distracting, but a good use of the picture. I also liked the visual of the clenched jaw at the beginning. The last picture, the robot (made completely from Cooper Mini parts IRL) is integral to the story, but then we find out it isn’t a story! I was kind of shocked to see the bottom of the page coming. Here I was grooving on the world, digging the cool characters and wild possibilities and then it was over. I hate to reference comics twice in one round but if I am gonna read all of Issue 1 I wanna see a fight. J Darned good picture use, a real way with words. I would like to think that with more than 3 days and 5000 words this would have kicked butt…but Ceramic DM is about stories and adventures (I think) and less about just establishing concepts. Fieari- This is very confusing. There is a very interesting premise surrounding a ripple, and then I am lost. Our writer seems much more comfortable with discussions of the technology than the people. I really think there is something in here, but it obviously needs a lot more time to come out. Judgement- orchid blossom Decision- 3-0 for orchid blossom who moves on. [/QUOTE]
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