Winter Ceramic DM™: THE WINNER!
arwink
Clockwork Golem
Judgement sent, at a shade under 1800 words and with instructions given to Mythago to cut whatever she wants should I have rambled far beyond the realms of competition interest.
I'm putting the length down to two reasons:
1) With such wildly different styles up against one another, I really wanted to try and explain what I thought he merits and flaws for each piece were as a reader.
2) Sometimes it's hard to leave the day job at work, and I wanted to try and give you some thoughts should either of you want to look at your pieces after the competition.
Edit: I'll also appologise for any times I spell your names wrong in the judgement. For some reason, I couldn't type either of them right - names alone counted for at least a quarter of the typos I could in my comments
I'm putting the length down to two reasons:
1) With such wildly different styles up against one another, I really wanted to try and explain what I thought he merits and flaws for each piece were as a reader.
2) Sometimes it's hard to leave the day job at work, and I wanted to try and give you some thoughts should either of you want to look at your pieces after the competition.
Edit: I'll also appologise for any times I spell your names wrong in the judgement. For some reason, I couldn't type either of them right - names alone counted for at least a quarter of the typos I could in my comments
Last edited:
mythago
Hero
Round 2 judgment (arwink)
arwink
Alsih20 vs Guedo79
Alsih2o – Gone Fishin’
I’m going to be blunt from the introduction here – Clay’s story shows some
strong characterization and a wealth of great ideas, but in some ways it seems
to suffer a great deal from the time constraints of the competition. When
reading it, I get a strong sense of early drafting and a story that is still
finding its direction, and while I can see the direction it’s going I don’t
necessarily think it’s reached it yet. The elements are there, but the stories
pacing and tension is uneven and the setting doesn’t quite come alive for me as
a reader.
Clay’s introduction is all about playing on the contrasts, delving into the
dream of earth before being drawn into a world that is extra-terrestrial and
mechanical. This is a classic juxtaposition in Sci-Fi stories, but the contrast
isn’t really working to its full effects here. The dream world that Clay’s
character inhabits as he emerges from cryo is to sparsely set up, to
under-developed to really give the contrast enough weight. In part, this comes
down to being told to much about the experiences – we know the character runs
his hand through the soil, that he remains in awe of the ship he awakens in, but
as readers there aren’t enough details there to let us share in the experience.
For those of us who have never been awed by the inside of a star freighter (or
experienced running our fingers through rich dirt and breathing in the earthy
smells – some of us haven’t
), more description and ambiance is needed to
really set the tone of the piece to come and get full effect from the idea being
developed here. In a lot of ways, this opening contrast would work more
effectively if it truly did disorient the reader, giving us some empathy for the
character and a real sense of why he blames his mother for his current state.
The idea of clashing contrasts comes up again as Clay’s story progresses, with
the description of the freighter re-decorated to resemble an ancient sailing
vessel. Clay is playing with his strengths here, creating a more concrete
visual than we’re given in the introduction and letting his narrator really gain
some strength as an irate son trying to cope with his mothers interference.
There is a great moment where some world-building is done by expressing this
irritation, with the imperfections of the cryo process giving us a glimpse of a
sci-fi setting that isn’t necessarily perfect in its development. In some ways,
this is one of the stronger parts of the story for me as a reader, but it also
serves to draw attention away from the openings sparseness and disrupt the
rhythm of the peace – we slow down for the detail, but it doesn’t advance the
plot/conflict set up in the opening paragraphs. I would like to see more
interplay between the narrator and his computer, as in some ways I think the
contrast between the human irritation and the machines confusion serves to
heighten our sympathy for the lone traveler in his oddball freighter.
The scene in the ship is followed by a short aside, one that disrupts the flow
of the narrative and forces the reader the change gears – suddenly the conflict
ceases to be about the infuriating peculiarities of the narrators mother and
becomes his problems with locating the customer. In some respects, I think this
information could be introduced earlier in the piece – making an early
connection between the difficulties of the job and the conflict between narrator
and mother. I’m left caught off-guard by this change in direction, and in some
ways the idea of “Damn my mother for brokering these shady deals” is the driving
force of the story – it’s the thought that’s going to tie everything together
(Anger at his mother, bad job in progress, the weirdness of the ship. All the
things pushing this forward in one handy phrase). Bring it in earlier instead
of leaving it until the middle of the piece.
Like the scene with the redecorated ship, the confrontation between the narrator
and his client livens up the piece a great deal. It has detail, we get a chance
to see the two characters develop by comparing their impressions of one another,
and the narrator’s irritation starts to really shine through. Unfortunately,
especially given the zinger at the end of the story, the irritation is directed
more towards the client’s situation and the job rather than the narrator’s
mother – the epilogue seems to be heading for a moment of ironic resignation but
isn’t quite getting there.
The point of all this (Apart from the fact that I’m a wordy bastard) is that
Clays story shows a lot of promise – the elements to bring this together as a
cohesive and well paces story are in place if Clay wants to later take the time
to play with them, rearranging them and fleshing out some of the less detailed
areas. Like many early drafts, it shows its strengths in concept, setting and
character, but needs to develop the pacing and mood. Clay has set up of motif
of contrasts in many of his scenes, which is another aspect that can easily be
played with to add more strength to the piece.
Guedo79 – Gloomy the Bear
Since the introduction to Clay’s piece was blunt about the direction the
judgment was going, I may as offer Guedo79 the same opportunity – this is the
first poem that I’ve seen in a Ceramic DM (at least in the few competitions I’ve
judged), so I’m impressed at the idea and the way he’s put thing together
conceptually. The bad news is that rhyming poetry without meter tends to grate
me the wrong way, and when I read this aloud to myself there were several
moments that had my cringing as the meter disappeared.
In terms of its narrative, I quite like the way Guedo79 has approached the
images and put together the story – it’s a playful approach, one that has fun
with the subject, and uses the childish theme of a boy and his pet to grisly
effect at the close of the poem. It brings back childhood memories of Dahl
books, which is always a good thing, as well as satisfying that little part of
my adult self that takes a childish glee in the horrible misfortune of a truly
amusing unhappy ending. I’m a sucker for anything that ends with most of the
major characters dying
Similarly, I think the rhyming structure and the choice of poetic images you’ve
used to illustrate the characters works particularly well for the genre of
poetry you seem to striving for. While the rhyming structure is simplistic, it
works well for the parody of children’s narrative poetry and you make great use
of several of the descriptive elements and images common to that form without
necessarily dragging them to far into the ground. The evocative use of language
in Gloomy’s feasting scenes towards the close are particularly gruesome, but
evoke a sense of delicious playfulness in their approach.
And yet, for all the things I find to like in this, I still can’t get past the
meter. For me, and most other people I know who enjoy poetry, the true joy of
the form really comes down to the musicality of the language – the attempt to
create rhythm through the inflection, ebb and flow of words rather than music.
There are some elements of that here – the use of rhyming line-ends certainly
creates a sense of rhythm, as does the choice of a repeating refrain. However,
neither is quite strong enough to carry the music of the poem on its own,
particularly as the poem progresses and the refrain is used more often as the
Stanza’s shorten. What I find myself craving for here is a greater sense of
rhythm within each line of the poem, slowly building together
The opening line here is a perfect example of what I’m talking about – when its
read aloud the rhythmical emphasis on the D and M in Freddy and Gloomy, as well
as the D’s in both Day and Dell, creates a elegant 4-beat line that sings to the
ear. Something about it simply catches your attention when read aloud,
reminding us of kindergarten chants and nursery rhymes, but also the regular
drum-beat of the 4-beat music bar. Had the entire poem made use of this rhythm
– a common one in children’s narrative poetry – there would have been a nice
sense of music to the entire piece. Contrast this with the second line – Again
we have an emphasis on the M in Gloomy, but there’s also a moment where there
are two inflected words close together when we hit the A’s in all alone, then
another two beats to be found in Fred and tell. In short, we drop from four
regular beats to a line that has five irregular beats. (For non-poetry types,
try reading these two lines aloud and see if you feel slightly awkward when you
say All Alone).
As we continue through the poem, this irregular sense of line rhythm continues
and there are numerous stumbling blocks, but there’s also an underlying sense
that it is heading towards having a unified (or, at least, a more controlled)
sense of rhythm. There is a feeling that the four-beat line is struggling to
stay on top of things, and the poem could easily be shaped into a strong regular
rhythm should Guedo feel the need to play with it at a later date.
The Judgment
I find it hard to pick a winner in this round, partially because both entries
show a lot of promise, but also because I can see a lot of directions I’d like
to see both pieces take as a reader. I have to give Guedo79 bonus points for
attempting something I hadn’t yet seen in the competition (Poetry), as well as
slipping him the benefit of the doubt given he didn’t know he was likely to have
an rhythm obsessed poetry nut like me on the judging panel. In the end,
however, I have to sneak Alsih2o by the barest of margins – the edge given
partially because I enjoyed his use of the bell imagery slightly more than
Guedo79’s bear collar, and partially because in the long run I think there’s a
touch more complexity to the narrative world Clay’s creating. Apologies to
those following who aren’t a fan of wordy explanations of judges comments, but I
felt strongly enough about both these entries that I wanted to explain my
comments rather than just say a few brief words and name a winner.
Judgment: alsih20
arwink
Alsih20 vs Guedo79
Alsih2o – Gone Fishin’
I’m going to be blunt from the introduction here – Clay’s story shows some
strong characterization and a wealth of great ideas, but in some ways it seems
to suffer a great deal from the time constraints of the competition. When
reading it, I get a strong sense of early drafting and a story that is still
finding its direction, and while I can see the direction it’s going I don’t
necessarily think it’s reached it yet. The elements are there, but the stories
pacing and tension is uneven and the setting doesn’t quite come alive for me as
a reader.
Clay’s introduction is all about playing on the contrasts, delving into the
dream of earth before being drawn into a world that is extra-terrestrial and
mechanical. This is a classic juxtaposition in Sci-Fi stories, but the contrast
isn’t really working to its full effects here. The dream world that Clay’s
character inhabits as he emerges from cryo is to sparsely set up, to
under-developed to really give the contrast enough weight. In part, this comes
down to being told to much about the experiences – we know the character runs
his hand through the soil, that he remains in awe of the ship he awakens in, but
as readers there aren’t enough details there to let us share in the experience.
For those of us who have never been awed by the inside of a star freighter (or
experienced running our fingers through rich dirt and breathing in the earthy
smells – some of us haven’t
really set the tone of the piece to come and get full effect from the idea being
developed here. In a lot of ways, this opening contrast would work more
effectively if it truly did disorient the reader, giving us some empathy for the
character and a real sense of why he blames his mother for his current state.
The idea of clashing contrasts comes up again as Clay’s story progresses, with
the description of the freighter re-decorated to resemble an ancient sailing
vessel. Clay is playing with his strengths here, creating a more concrete
visual than we’re given in the introduction and letting his narrator really gain
some strength as an irate son trying to cope with his mothers interference.
There is a great moment where some world-building is done by expressing this
irritation, with the imperfections of the cryo process giving us a glimpse of a
sci-fi setting that isn’t necessarily perfect in its development. In some ways,
this is one of the stronger parts of the story for me as a reader, but it also
serves to draw attention away from the openings sparseness and disrupt the
rhythm of the peace – we slow down for the detail, but it doesn’t advance the
plot/conflict set up in the opening paragraphs. I would like to see more
interplay between the narrator and his computer, as in some ways I think the
contrast between the human irritation and the machines confusion serves to
heighten our sympathy for the lone traveler in his oddball freighter.
The scene in the ship is followed by a short aside, one that disrupts the flow
of the narrative and forces the reader the change gears – suddenly the conflict
ceases to be about the infuriating peculiarities of the narrators mother and
becomes his problems with locating the customer. In some respects, I think this
information could be introduced earlier in the piece – making an early
connection between the difficulties of the job and the conflict between narrator
and mother. I’m left caught off-guard by this change in direction, and in some
ways the idea of “Damn my mother for brokering these shady deals” is the driving
force of the story – it’s the thought that’s going to tie everything together
(Anger at his mother, bad job in progress, the weirdness of the ship. All the
things pushing this forward in one handy phrase). Bring it in earlier instead
of leaving it until the middle of the piece.
Like the scene with the redecorated ship, the confrontation between the narrator
and his client livens up the piece a great deal. It has detail, we get a chance
to see the two characters develop by comparing their impressions of one another,
and the narrator’s irritation starts to really shine through. Unfortunately,
especially given the zinger at the end of the story, the irritation is directed
more towards the client’s situation and the job rather than the narrator’s
mother – the epilogue seems to be heading for a moment of ironic resignation but
isn’t quite getting there.
The point of all this (Apart from the fact that I’m a wordy bastard) is that
Clays story shows a lot of promise – the elements to bring this together as a
cohesive and well paces story are in place if Clay wants to later take the time
to play with them, rearranging them and fleshing out some of the less detailed
areas. Like many early drafts, it shows its strengths in concept, setting and
character, but needs to develop the pacing and mood. Clay has set up of motif
of contrasts in many of his scenes, which is another aspect that can easily be
played with to add more strength to the piece.
Guedo79 – Gloomy the Bear
Since the introduction to Clay’s piece was blunt about the direction the
judgment was going, I may as offer Guedo79 the same opportunity – this is the
first poem that I’ve seen in a Ceramic DM (at least in the few competitions I’ve
judged), so I’m impressed at the idea and the way he’s put thing together
conceptually. The bad news is that rhyming poetry without meter tends to grate
me the wrong way, and when I read this aloud to myself there were several
moments that had my cringing as the meter disappeared.
In terms of its narrative, I quite like the way Guedo79 has approached the
images and put together the story – it’s a playful approach, one that has fun
with the subject, and uses the childish theme of a boy and his pet to grisly
effect at the close of the poem. It brings back childhood memories of Dahl
books, which is always a good thing, as well as satisfying that little part of
my adult self that takes a childish glee in the horrible misfortune of a truly
amusing unhappy ending. I’m a sucker for anything that ends with most of the
major characters dying
Similarly, I think the rhyming structure and the choice of poetic images you’ve
used to illustrate the characters works particularly well for the genre of
poetry you seem to striving for. While the rhyming structure is simplistic, it
works well for the parody of children’s narrative poetry and you make great use
of several of the descriptive elements and images common to that form without
necessarily dragging them to far into the ground. The evocative use of language
in Gloomy’s feasting scenes towards the close are particularly gruesome, but
evoke a sense of delicious playfulness in their approach.
And yet, for all the things I find to like in this, I still can’t get past the
meter. For me, and most other people I know who enjoy poetry, the true joy of
the form really comes down to the musicality of the language – the attempt to
create rhythm through the inflection, ebb and flow of words rather than music.
There are some elements of that here – the use of rhyming line-ends certainly
creates a sense of rhythm, as does the choice of a repeating refrain. However,
neither is quite strong enough to carry the music of the poem on its own,
particularly as the poem progresses and the refrain is used more often as the
Stanza’s shorten. What I find myself craving for here is a greater sense of
rhythm within each line of the poem, slowly building together
The opening line here is a perfect example of what I’m talking about – when its
read aloud the rhythmical emphasis on the D and M in Freddy and Gloomy, as well
as the D’s in both Day and Dell, creates a elegant 4-beat line that sings to the
ear. Something about it simply catches your attention when read aloud,
reminding us of kindergarten chants and nursery rhymes, but also the regular
drum-beat of the 4-beat music bar. Had the entire poem made use of this rhythm
– a common one in children’s narrative poetry – there would have been a nice
sense of music to the entire piece. Contrast this with the second line – Again
we have an emphasis on the M in Gloomy, but there’s also a moment where there
are two inflected words close together when we hit the A’s in all alone, then
another two beats to be found in Fred and tell. In short, we drop from four
regular beats to a line that has five irregular beats. (For non-poetry types,
try reading these two lines aloud and see if you feel slightly awkward when you
say All Alone).
As we continue through the poem, this irregular sense of line rhythm continues
and there are numerous stumbling blocks, but there’s also an underlying sense
that it is heading towards having a unified (or, at least, a more controlled)
sense of rhythm. There is a feeling that the four-beat line is struggling to
stay on top of things, and the poem could easily be shaped into a strong regular
rhythm should Guedo feel the need to play with it at a later date.
The Judgment
I find it hard to pick a winner in this round, partially because both entries
show a lot of promise, but also because I can see a lot of directions I’d like
to see both pieces take as a reader. I have to give Guedo79 bonus points for
attempting something I hadn’t yet seen in the competition (Poetry), as well as
slipping him the benefit of the doubt given he didn’t know he was likely to have
an rhythm obsessed poetry nut like me on the judging panel. In the end,
however, I have to sneak Alsih2o by the barest of margins – the edge given
partially because I enjoyed his use of the bell imagery slightly more than
Guedo79’s bear collar, and partially because in the long run I think there’s a
touch more complexity to the narrative world Clay’s creating. Apologies to
those following who aren’t a fan of wordy explanations of judges comments, but I
felt strongly enough about both these entries that I wanted to explain my
comments rather than just say a few brief words and name a winner.
Judgment: alsih20
Last edited:
mythago
Hero
Judgment Round 2 (Maldur, mythago)
Maldur
guedo79
poem *shudder*
I can not read those buggers. I tried several times, but it just doesn't work for me. Something with bears?
alsih2o
Spaceships, betrail, and weird unexplained tech.
My vote : alsih2o
mythago
alsih2o: nice balancing of the creepy and the outright funny-as-heck. I admit that my eyebrows went up a bit when you zipped right through the hands pic, but then you came back to the soil as a story element. Very nice integration of all the pics, especially since they don't scream "science fiction."
guedo79: lots of points for trying a poem, and a long one at that. But...it doesn't scan. The meter is off. This bugged the almighty snot out of me, I'm afraid. (Free verse is OK. Doggerel is OK. Elaborate sonnets are OK. But they have to scan for the type of poem they are.) The cute, warped boy-and-his-pet story was well-done in a kind of sick way. That's a compliment, by the way I really was disapointed by the use of the pictures. The bells got a lot of use; the rest seemed almost shoehorned in. I know that length is an issue, especially when you're trying to keep up a poem instead of short fiction; however, there didn't seem to be much reason that, as an illustration, one would pick (say) the hands instead of a drawing of the boy, but it's very clear why the bells were appropriate.
Judgment: alsih2o
alsih2o takes round 1 3-0! Congrats to both of you!
Maldur
guedo79
poem *shudder*
I can not read those buggers. I tried several times, but it just doesn't work for me. Something with bears?
alsih2o
Spaceships, betrail, and weird unexplained tech.
My vote : alsih2o
mythago
alsih2o: nice balancing of the creepy and the outright funny-as-heck. I admit that my eyebrows went up a bit when you zipped right through the hands pic, but then you came back to the soil as a story element. Very nice integration of all the pics, especially since they don't scream "science fiction."
guedo79: lots of points for trying a poem, and a long one at that. But...it doesn't scan. The meter is off. This bugged the almighty snot out of me, I'm afraid. (Free verse is OK. Doggerel is OK. Elaborate sonnets are OK. But they have to scan for the type of poem they are.) The cute, warped boy-and-his-pet story was well-done in a kind of sick way. That's a compliment, by the way
I really was disapointed by the use of the pictures. The bells got a lot of use; the rest seemed almost shoehorned in. I know that length is an issue, especially when you're trying to keep up a poem instead of short fiction; however, there didn't seem to be much reason that, as an illustration, one would pick (say) the hands instead of a drawing of the boy, but it's very clear why the bells were appropriate. Judgment: alsih2o
alsih2o takes round 1 3-0! Congrats to both of you!
Mathew_Freeman
First Post
Congrats to Clay from England!
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