Round 1, Match 4 Judgements - MarauderX vs reveal
Round 1, Match 4 Judgements - MarauderX vs reveal
Everytime I think I am done with work this week, I end up going back in to work. It is a bit of a pain actually. I barely know what day it is right now and I have a headache from sleep deprivation. Blah, blah, blah - the question is who won? Right? Again I will need to beg off and pull Macbeth in right now. If I had known I would have so many issues at work, then I would have not agreed to run this Ceramic DM. *sigh*
This round is a little tough because one of the competitors did not make the story in on time. Our judges have provided comnmentary and I have tried to pull that commentary out gracefully and append it at the end. Arwink, please scroll all the way down for your comments.
Again, thanks to our competitors, we have some great fiction. Now, on to the judgement.
Rodrigo Istalindir
Ceramic DM Round 1 Match 4
MaruaderX - "Insight"
A sweet little story, with a bit of winter to cool you down this hot summer day. The author starts out right away with a bold gambit, offering us a protagonist both obnoxious and whiny. A risky approach in Ceramic DM, as the time and space constraints offer little room for character development. He is the polar opposite of Liz, the young nurse assigned to care for him, and the natural conflict between the perpetually cheerful and the permanently grumpy is effectively drawn.
The other scenes in the hospital are somewhat mixed. Realistic, concrete settings can work both ways. Tale an environment everyone is familiar with, throw in some specific details to flesh things out, and you create at rich setting. On the other hand, you also run the risk of jarring the reader out of the rythm of the story when a detail rings false. In this case, everyone has seen enough emergency tracheotomies on TV to accept it at face value, and that creates a nice bit of tension as well as setting the stage for the action in the hospital. On the downside, several things seem off -- Abe undressing himself while injured, for example -- and that hurts the attempt at realism.
The scenes with Liz, whose cheerfullness helps Abe see the world in a different way, are well done. The brief visions of daffodils and snowmen and such are much more effective than simple exposition or dialogue. Abe and Kim's discovery of their mutual attraction is a little rushed, but still plausible, and the reappearance of the daffodils is the perfect touch to tie it all together.
The penultimate paragraph could be dropped. Other than to include the roomate (and accompanying picture), it serves no real purpose. Skipping directly to the last paragraph would have been more effective. As it is, it kind of breaks the mood. Beautiful ending, though, and the bouquet of 'daffodils' is a brilliant touch. Almost Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan cute, but a little of that doesn't hurt.
Picture use: The snowmen as a vision of winter wonderland is a great choice. Very easy to go in other directions, but perfect for this story and the mood. The blood cells is a little awkward -- something in the text to tie it to Abe's emotional development would have made it stronger. Even a brief mention of how it made him feel vulnerable, or something. As it is, it's just there. Same with the roommate wearing Kim's hat. It was kind of jarring, since there had been no transition between them kissing in the hospital and her being in the apartment, so my suspicious mind jumped into overdrive, imagining Kim and the roommate being involved or some such. The kung-fu kick is just totally out of place. I'm not sure how I would have worked it into the story, but it just doesn't work.
Reveal - "Untitled"
Similar to MarauderXs story in that both deal with troubled people turning over a new leaf, but it couldn't be more different in tone. It starts off harsh, gets a little rough in the middle, and ends with a bang. The relationship between Sonia and Eric is believable, and the dialogue , snappy and gritty, rings true. I'd lose the first two paragraphs, though. Starting with the profanity is unnecessary, and the second paragraph gets a little confusing. Leading off with "Do you think the blood will come out of this shirt?" is a near-perfect way to begin this story.
The author makes a couple of good choices. First, showing Sonia as a victim makes her more sympathetic. This makes her turn-around at the end a little easier to swallow. Within the Ceramic DM constraints, that might have been hard otherwise. Also, by telling the story as a series of flashbacks, events can be spaced out over years, making the changes the characters undergoe more plausible.
Still, the perils of a realistic setting come back to bite, and the resolution seemed too clever by half -- the kind of overly complicated scheme that only works in B movies. Why go to all those lengths? Who took the pictures? Why beat Eric in the fight, when losing would have given her an out?
This is a story where I think the only true ending would be a bad one. I was expecting it, was looking forward to it, and instead of being pleasantly surprised, I felt a little cheated.
Picture use: Excellent picture use, here. The snowman graveyard is very evocative, something that brought me back to my childhood and the schoolyard across from my house that was filled with snowmen in the winter. The 'marbles sculpture' is also a creative use, intricately bound into the story in several locations. The kung-fu kick is also crucial (although it really doesn't look like a sweep). Fat Jack in his pink hat is perfect, and the accompanying text really justifies it.
Judgement:[sblock]
MarauderX's story of a grouch opening his eyes to the beauty around him is really sweet and magical. Reveal's tale of love lost and found is dark and dirty. Interesting to see those last two stories deal with similar themes in such radically different ways. A tough decision, as I feel both stories worked well and were well writtten. In the end, picture use is the deciding factor, and Reveal clearly had the edge with better use of the marbles and especially the man in the hat.[/sblock]
Macbeth
MarauderX - Insight:
First things first: I really liked the feel of the story. It managed to never become to sweet, and in fact seemed bittersweet more often then not. The characters were deep and interesting, but they changed to quickly.
The biggest problem was that the end didn't seem to flow from the begining. Abe's change seems rushed (which I guess is to be expected for a Ceramic DM story), but I really liked the direction it went. Adding a few more scenes, to make Abe's change more gradual, would have made all the difference. As it stands, while the change was fast, it at least seemed in character.
Your prose was nice and brief, a good fit for this story. It seemed like you were tempted to become to wordy, but especially in a story like this it is important to show love rather then tell us that Abe is in love, and you do that very well.
Picture use was, I felt, a bit week. The snowmen were by far the best used, giving us the first glimpse of a world like Abe has never seen. On the other hand, the karate-style picture of the fight was fairly week. It really felt tacked on. the blood picture was very creative, but wasn't all that important.
Reveal:
I liked this story a lot. Interesting that two of the stories both got love themes out of that set of pictures. Maybe green blobs imply love?
Anyway,this story opens strong, continues reasonably well, and finishes strong. I liked the picture use, all of it was solid, if not amazingly creative. The most creative use was the green globs as art, which made for an interesting story point and a metaphor for the relationship. The rest of the pictures were just above average, though you did make good use of the fight picture, which barely fit into the other two stories.
The story itself was well told. You had some particularly strong prose near the begining and end ("Her tears froze to her face, creating a
hauntingly beautiful mosaic of sadness in the midday sun." in particular stodd out to me), but the middle of the story was a bit straightforward. Being just straight forward isn't nessecarily a bad thing, but compared to some of the imagery at the begining and end, it wasn't as good.
Judgement, if needed:[sblock]
It's a shame Arwink's story wasn't finished, since it had a lot of promise. But, given that Arwink only really gave us a preveiew of a longer story, Reveal is my choice. All of the stories were strong, but Arwink's didn't seem complete and MarauderX's suffered from some iffy picture use. [/sblock]
Maldur
MarauderX vs. reveal vs. Arwink
Emotions are the pivot of these stories, hate and love for reveals, Again hate and love for MarauderX's, and contempt and fear in arwinks (allthough arwinks story is more "muted").
I personally find it odd, that only one of the three stories names the fight pic as Capouera, but that might be just me.
reveal
Intense story, with an odd twisting end, my first reaction was: "that woman is insane, run dude run!"
MaurauderX
ok, that was just plain odd, hallucinations, a cranky selfproclaimed genius, and a freaky nurse. Odd, odd odd.
Verdict:[sblock]
Eventhough the question if arwink is on time with his story still stands, my verdict wont change: I say reveal produced the best flowing story this time. so reveal it is
[/sblock]
Judgement Summary: [sblock]Reveal takes this round with 3 votes! Now we just need to get through Round 2 and see who remains.[/sblock]
Commentary for Arwink
Rodrigo Istalindir
Arwink - "Cold Comfort"
A nice beginning, juxaposing the mundane with the hint of the supernatural. Some nice bits -- comparing the cars in LA vs. Prague, the description of the corpse. Very noir, and it really sells the setting. There is a real assurance in the way the author lets the story develop, using the prose to fill in the edges, but letting the actions of the characters speak for itself. "With shaking hands, he buried the burning tip in the corpses ear and waited for the smell of sizzling ichor." Excellent -- with one sentence establishing that Dane has been through this before, and that it was really bad, without actually saying it. Wonderfully done. Similarly, waking up from his dream with O'Banion already fled is a great stylistic choice. What you don't see is often scarier than what you do, and this was a much better approach.
Unfortunately, the story is incomplete. The dream interlude doesn't tie into the rest of the story. Although there are hints as to Dane's background and experiences, they aren't developed as much as they should be. No explanation of the green eggs is offered, or of Dane's psychic abilities, etc. Go back and finish this -- the elements are there for something truly good and creepy.
Picture use: Very good. The 'White Death' is suitably creepy, and very well realized throughout the story. The green egg portends bad things, though unfortunately we never get to see what. O'Banion wearing his dead daughter's hat and scarf is touching, and a very effective way to bring some depth to the character. The martial arts kick is a throwaway, since the scene it is in doesn't tie back to the rest of the story.
Arwink's tale doesn't live up to the promise. Unfortunate, since it was shaping up well, and what there was I found really engaging.
Macbeth
Arwink - Cold Comfort:
What we have here is a really good begining for a story.
I know the time constraint really kicked in on this one, but I don't have too many complaints beyond the obvious abrupt ending.
The only other thing I felt was lacking was conclusion. Perhaps it's a side effect of the short story, but I felt confused when I reached the end. We've got eggs in people's ears, psychic snowmen, and some weird voice in a dream, all of which is well done and interesting in and of itself, but none of them tie together.
With another few paragraphs, maybe even just a few more lines, this story could have been very good. As it is, it seems more like a sample: good, intersting, but not enough to stand on it's own. It almost seems like a preview, given away to make you want to buy the book.
Picture use was very strong on a picture-by-picture basis, but they didn't work together. The green goo as eggs was probably the most straight forward and solid use of that picture in these stories, and the snowmen were obviously important. The fight picture was not all that important, but the story behind it ("Weaponless, watched, never free of their masters vigil. They pretended to dance in order to escape detection, to prevent the guards from knowing they were learning to fight") really caught my fancy. If I knew more of why that strange dream happened, it might be more integrated, but as it stands it's a great picture with fairly little to do with the rest of the story. However, a group of slaves trained in dancing as fighting is a great idea for some D&D monks.
Maldur
Arwink
Psychic agency, "eggs", mutant killer snow men. It seemed a bit short, the story was under developed. Frankly I expected more from you.
