Winter Ceramic DM™: THE WINNER!
Sialia
First Post
Knowing you, BardStephenFox, if you have a go at my story there won't be much left for our esteemed judges to wonder about.
You've never been wrong about anything I've posted yet.
But I didn't mean to say that I included or represented anybody literally, apart from the deliberate nod to my esteemed opponent. I borrowed bits of this and that, and those of you who find something familiar in this will probably be right about where it came from.
I've wanted to do something like this pretty much since AlSi2O first posted the d20 postmodern thread. Which is why I nearly wept for joy when Mythago handed me the violinist. If AlSi2O's in here anywhere besides getting himself salt roasted, it's there.
I still wish I had managed to pull it off in a more Gertrude Stein-like voice, so that form would follow function in a more avant-garde fashion, but nobody would have had the patience to read it if I'd tried that, eh?
Sometimes its important not to lose the soup in pursuit of the perfect bowl.
You've never been wrong about anything I've posted yet.
But I didn't mean to say that I included or represented anybody literally, apart from the deliberate nod to my esteemed opponent. I borrowed bits of this and that, and those of you who find something familiar in this will probably be right about where it came from.
I've wanted to do something like this pretty much since AlSi2O first posted the d20 postmodern thread. Which is why I nearly wept for joy when Mythago handed me the violinist. If AlSi2O's in here anywhere besides getting himself salt roasted, it's there.
I still wish I had managed to pull it off in a more Gertrude Stein-like voice, so that form would follow function in a more avant-garde fashion, but nobody would have had the patience to read it if I'd tried that, eh?
Sometimes its important not to lose the soup in pursuit of the perfect bowl.
mythago
Hero
Round 3 Judgment - BardStephenFox vs. Siala
Maldur
Sialia vs BardStephenFox
Hard, Hard, Hard
BardStephenFox with a tale of wisdom, patience and medusa.
I just love the full circle in the story, very nice.
Sialia with a tale of discovery, halflings, dragons and amateur art critic's.
I wonder if creation instead of collecting with spell trancendence for the
golden beast.
Judgement: BardStephenFox, but this was a real close one!
Main reason is the sudden change in Sialia's story, from the brave explorers
to the budding artist. Only slightly too sudden for me.
arwink
BardStephenFox – Duty
BardStephenFox gives us the story of a man on a mission, a country held in the grip of an unknown and unspoken evil, and a brother who spurs everything along.
All the elements of a great story here, but it looses something due to the lack of tension. There is one great surprise in this story, the discovery that the statue is really the narrator’s brother, but it’s telegraphed early on in the piece so the surprise is ruined. While I don’t normally regard this as a problem, being a great believer that where a story is going is nowhere near as interesting as how it gets there, there’s also precious few surprises or twists
in the narrators journey. The plot drives the story here, without enough detail on the character, the setting or the atmosphere to distract us from the plot’s inevitable conclusion.
In some ways, I think BardStephenFox’s choice to introduce his story with a wealth of back-story has had a negative impact. While much of this information is in place to help the reader make sense of the events, it doesn’t do anything to set up the conflict that introduces the story. The reader is left hanging until half-way through the tale until they reach the event that is going to push the narrator forward – up until then we’re getting dry info-dumps that only serve to explain the whole story from the moment the conflict is introduced. An interesting idea would be to use the background information as a method of foreshadowing, looking at the way the narrator would re-tell it after he knows what he knows by the tales end. There is a hint of this there, in the first paragraph, but it looses the dark edge and becomes drier from there.
The other problem I had with BardStephenFox’s story was that I couldn’t ever get a firm idea of the setting where it was taking place. In a lot of ways, this is a story that is told to the reader rather than unveiled or shown, and this can make it difficult to engage with the setting. Descriptions are glossed over, particularly in instances where the pictures are being used, and it gives the feeling of reading the script rather than watching the movie. Looking once more at the introductory paragraph, we get a real sense of what the Hands of the Queen represent to the character, but there is no mention of what that symbol looks like. Are the hands clenched fists, a single hand, both held in prayer? Take away the pictures that inspire the story, and there’s nothing there to create an image. The same applies to the box, the large chamber (which, for such an imposing picture, is rendered rather bland by the tale) and statue of the brother.
As with many Ceramic DM entries, BardStephenFox’s story shows a lot of promise, and could well be fleshed out to something great if given more time than the competition allows. The bare basis of his tale is there, it simply needs to be embellished and crafted to give it a sense of pacing and a living, breathing environment for the story to take place within.
Sialia - Untitled
With a story clocking in at 11,000 words after only three days, Sialia has instantly become the kind of writer I’ve always hated – those who are capable of being enormously prolific on command
. That the story holds together well, contains several well-rounded and believable characters, and makes great use of humor and tension only makes things that much worse. About midway through Sialia’s story, I realized that I was envious as well as enthralled.
Sialia makes great use of throw-away detail in the building of her story, one-off lines that suggest a greater tale without expanding on it come back to haunt the reader with their relevance a few pages later. Casual lines like “this was before the efreeti…” give us a sense of a living, breathing world that exists outside the confines of the story, the suggestion that there are further stories left untold that still somehow have a small impact on our current tale.
When the tale within a tale begins, and we’re handed more pieces of the puzzle, only to have it left brief and tantalizingly short. When the implications then suggest that the tale may be a little more post-apocalypse than straight
post-tragedy family, things get more intriguing still. Similarly, the professor’s use of magic and his apology before doing so only serves to give us more clues about both the characters and the world.
The thing that impressed me the most about Sialia’s story (after its length) was her skilled shifting of focus midway through the piece. She carefully removes our focus from the halflings, resolving their initial conflict (Stay alive and find the well), while replacing it with a new force to drive the narrative in
the Dragon’s concerns over her horde.
Judgment
While BardStephenFox’s work shows a lot of promise, I’m inclined to give this
round to Sialia. The cohesion and length of her story is impressive, especially
considering the time limit and random nature of the competition.
Judgment: Sialia
mythago
Sometimes I think we critics are the building inspectors in the great edifice of art. "Nice tall shining monument for the ages here, but you know you were supposed to use 5/16" gauge wire instead of 6/16", right? And I'm afraid that there's been a change in ANSI standards for this acoustic tile you were using, you'll have to rip it out and replace it with a layer of inflatable hedgehogs."
BardStephenFox
Lovely, lovely use of the pics. The hands as symbols of the supposedly beautiful and benevolent Queen. I particularly liked the use of the box; a recurring element in the story, and we don't even see it as it appears in its "picture form" until later in the story, after it's undergone some changes. Very nice.
However--there were two big flaws that really lessened the story's impact for me. First was the true nature of the Queen, which was telegraphed early on by the heavily exaggerated nature of how benevolent everyone thinks she is, but is later figured out by everyone but the narrator. Suddenly he realizes that his parents, the townsfolk, even his fellow guards have known but said nothing, and are now waiting to see if he's figured it out. Presumably he's been ignoring those nagging suspicions for years, and the statute was the final cluestick, but that isn't clear: it's presented as a total flipflop.
The second was the habit of backfilling in elements of the story rather than presenting them more naturally, e.g. when he sees the statue, we then learn about the whole history of the violin (and the sword). It's always hard to present background information from a narrator's POV, but I think this could have been handled more smoothly. (How, exactly? Hey, I'm a judge, not a writer.)
Sialia
Oh, the irony. I actually think the cursing up front could have been handled with the same deft touch as other little cultural bits in the story (making the sign of the kettle to ward off Bad Things, the references to the time of the efreeti) and made less...generic?
The initial section (which IMO was also the weakest) suffered a bit from "jumping spider" perspective--we go from the thoughts of the oxen to the Professor to Tarnby in a short span. Longer section-shifts work much better for changes in perspective, funny as the oxen's bit part may be.
I also was put off by the explanations of exactly what it is the Professor is seeking. Yes, we the readers need to know, but it rings strange that the somewhat immediate-gratification-oriented halflings would follow the Professor all the way out into these dangerous salt flats without knowing exactly what it is he is looking for. There's the impression that Mirabelle has known the Professor for a long time, and perhaps dragged Tarnby and Lillabo along with her, but that's not clear. Otherwise it sounds like they traipsed off first and asked questions later.
After this bit, though, the story really hits its stride. Post-apocalyptic fantasy that may or may not have been our world...or someone else's...or a cautionary tale...or never at all. (Dragons have been known to lie from time to time.) The box as chimney, the dragon wondering at her new hands, the incredibly funny use of the violin statue--perfect. And yes, I love the dragon as snotty art critic, because it's not just for comic relief; there's an excellent and necessary reason she's a snotty art critic.
Otherwise, um, wow.
Judgment: Sialia
The good news is, Sialia wins Round Three 2-1!
The bad news is, she has to write another piece for the next round, and her fingers are hoarse!
Maldur
Sialia vs BardStephenFox
Hard, Hard, Hard
BardStephenFox with a tale of wisdom, patience and medusa.
I just love the full circle in the story, very nice.
Sialia with a tale of discovery, halflings, dragons and amateur art critic's.
I wonder if creation instead of collecting with spell trancendence for the
golden beast.
Judgement: BardStephenFox, but this was a real close one!
Main reason is the sudden change in Sialia's story, from the brave explorers
to the budding artist. Only slightly too sudden for me.
arwink
BardStephenFox – Duty
BardStephenFox gives us the story of a man on a mission, a country held in the grip of an unknown and unspoken evil, and a brother who spurs everything along.
All the elements of a great story here, but it looses something due to the lack of tension. There is one great surprise in this story, the discovery that the statue is really the narrator’s brother, but it’s telegraphed early on in the piece so the surprise is ruined. While I don’t normally regard this as a problem, being a great believer that where a story is going is nowhere near as interesting as how it gets there, there’s also precious few surprises or twists
in the narrators journey. The plot drives the story here, without enough detail on the character, the setting or the atmosphere to distract us from the plot’s inevitable conclusion.
In some ways, I think BardStephenFox’s choice to introduce his story with a wealth of back-story has had a negative impact. While much of this information is in place to help the reader make sense of the events, it doesn’t do anything to set up the conflict that introduces the story. The reader is left hanging until half-way through the tale until they reach the event that is going to push the narrator forward – up until then we’re getting dry info-dumps that only serve to explain the whole story from the moment the conflict is introduced. An interesting idea would be to use the background information as a method of foreshadowing, looking at the way the narrator would re-tell it after he knows what he knows by the tales end. There is a hint of this there, in the first paragraph, but it looses the dark edge and becomes drier from there.
The other problem I had with BardStephenFox’s story was that I couldn’t ever get a firm idea of the setting where it was taking place. In a lot of ways, this is a story that is told to the reader rather than unveiled or shown, and this can make it difficult to engage with the setting. Descriptions are glossed over, particularly in instances where the pictures are being used, and it gives the feeling of reading the script rather than watching the movie. Looking once more at the introductory paragraph, we get a real sense of what the Hands of the Queen represent to the character, but there is no mention of what that symbol looks like. Are the hands clenched fists, a single hand, both held in prayer? Take away the pictures that inspire the story, and there’s nothing there to create an image. The same applies to the box, the large chamber (which, for such an imposing picture, is rendered rather bland by the tale) and statue of the brother.
As with many Ceramic DM entries, BardStephenFox’s story shows a lot of promise, and could well be fleshed out to something great if given more time than the competition allows. The bare basis of his tale is there, it simply needs to be embellished and crafted to give it a sense of pacing and a living, breathing environment for the story to take place within.
Sialia - Untitled
With a story clocking in at 11,000 words after only three days, Sialia has instantly become the kind of writer I’ve always hated – those who are capable of being enormously prolific on command
. That the story holds together well, contains several well-rounded and believable characters, and makes great use of humor and tension only makes things that much worse. About midway through Sialia’s story, I realized that I was envious as well as enthralled.Sialia makes great use of throw-away detail in the building of her story, one-off lines that suggest a greater tale without expanding on it come back to haunt the reader with their relevance a few pages later. Casual lines like “this was before the efreeti…” give us a sense of a living, breathing world that exists outside the confines of the story, the suggestion that there are further stories left untold that still somehow have a small impact on our current tale.
When the tale within a tale begins, and we’re handed more pieces of the puzzle, only to have it left brief and tantalizingly short. When the implications then suggest that the tale may be a little more post-apocalypse than straight
post-tragedy family, things get more intriguing still. Similarly, the professor’s use of magic and his apology before doing so only serves to give us more clues about both the characters and the world.
The thing that impressed me the most about Sialia’s story (after its length) was her skilled shifting of focus midway through the piece. She carefully removes our focus from the halflings, resolving their initial conflict (Stay alive and find the well), while replacing it with a new force to drive the narrative in
the Dragon’s concerns over her horde.
Judgment
While BardStephenFox’s work shows a lot of promise, I’m inclined to give this
round to Sialia. The cohesion and length of her story is impressive, especially
considering the time limit and random nature of the competition.
Judgment: Sialia
mythago
Sometimes I think we critics are the building inspectors in the great edifice of art. "Nice tall shining monument for the ages here, but you know you were supposed to use 5/16" gauge wire instead of 6/16", right? And I'm afraid that there's been a change in ANSI standards for this acoustic tile you were using, you'll have to rip it out and replace it with a layer of inflatable hedgehogs."
BardStephenFox
Lovely, lovely use of the pics. The hands as symbols of the supposedly beautiful and benevolent Queen. I particularly liked the use of the box; a recurring element in the story, and we don't even see it as it appears in its "picture form" until later in the story, after it's undergone some changes. Very nice.
However--there were two big flaws that really lessened the story's impact for me. First was the true nature of the Queen, which was telegraphed early on by the heavily exaggerated nature of how benevolent everyone thinks she is, but is later figured out by everyone but the narrator. Suddenly he realizes that his parents, the townsfolk, even his fellow guards have known but said nothing, and are now waiting to see if he's figured it out. Presumably he's been ignoring those nagging suspicions for years, and the statute was the final cluestick, but that isn't clear: it's presented as a total flipflop.
The second was the habit of backfilling in elements of the story rather than presenting them more naturally, e.g. when he sees the statue, we then learn about the whole history of the violin (and the sword). It's always hard to present background information from a narrator's POV, but I think this could have been handled more smoothly. (How, exactly? Hey, I'm a judge, not a writer.
)Sialia
Oh, the irony. I actually think the cursing up front could have been handled with the same deft touch as other little cultural bits in the story (making the sign of the kettle to ward off Bad Things, the references to the time of the efreeti) and made less...generic?
The initial section (which IMO was also the weakest) suffered a bit from "jumping spider" perspective--we go from the thoughts of the oxen to the Professor to Tarnby in a short span. Longer section-shifts work much better for changes in perspective, funny as the oxen's bit part may be.
I also was put off by the explanations of exactly what it is the Professor is seeking. Yes, we the readers need to know, but it rings strange that the somewhat immediate-gratification-oriented halflings would follow the Professor all the way out into these dangerous salt flats without knowing exactly what it is he is looking for. There's the impression that Mirabelle has known the Professor for a long time, and perhaps dragged Tarnby and Lillabo along with her, but that's not clear. Otherwise it sounds like they traipsed off first and asked questions later.
After this bit, though, the story really hits its stride. Post-apocalyptic fantasy that may or may not have been our world...or someone else's...or a cautionary tale...or never at all. (Dragons have been known to lie from time to time.) The box as chimney, the dragon wondering at her new hands, the incredibly funny use of the violin statue--perfect. And yes, I love the dragon as snotty art critic, because it's not just for comic relief; there's an excellent and necessary reason she's a snotty art critic.
Otherwise, um, wow.
Judgment: Sialia
The good news is, Sialia wins Round Three 2-1!
The bad news is, she has to write another piece for the next round, and her fingers are hoarse!
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