Ceramic DM -- Fall '06 ** yangnome wins! **

[maxfieldjadenfox]

Ni Tessine
Destruction

Part Two in the Alambur Saga.

Picture Use:
The flying squirrel thing wasn't necessary to the plot and left rather quickly, never to be seen again. If it had accompanied Alambur on his quest or had been essential to him in some way I would have been happier. The blue cross with the face was well used for the scrying part. I liked the use of the glass, and the description of the scene. It was a stretch for me to see the archaeologists (or whatever they were) as guards, but hey, I'll go with it. The parchment worked for me.

Now. The writing is nicely crafted. Good, and not overboard with some lovely descriptive bits. I read somewhere that a good story requires knowing what your main character wants and not giving it to him. This story does the opposite. From the beginning, all Alambur has to do is ask, and it is given. There is no dramatic tension. Having written my share of D&D logs, that's what this feels like. I think the style is great, nice word usage, but I want that dramatic tension! Next round, don't give him what he wants too soon, OK?

 

[maxfieldjadenfox]

Mmh. Thanks for the comments. I'm actually grateful for dropping, at least I don't have to write more utter crap like that. xD Well, not until Nanowrimo, anyway...

Oh, by the way, I'm a girl.

You know, Linderel, that your entry wasn't crap, don't you? Don't you? I think CDM can be discouraging, especially if you are newish to criticism. Which you may or may not be. (Since I don't know you beyond 10 posts, I'm not sure.) I look at it as an exercise. You have to write fast, with weird subject constraints. People are going to read what you write and judge it. I find it quite terrifying, and yet, I try to do most of the competitions. Why? For exactly the reasons mentioned above. CDM has stretched me, sometimes to breaking, and I always come away with some gem to use the next time I write something. I actually started off calling your competition a tie, but with CDM picture use is key and Roger did that a bit better. Still, I reread your comment this morning and it rubbed me the wrong way. Writing is art. Art is communication. You communicated. It's all good.
And I knew you were a girl.

 

[Linderel]

I have this funny way of thinking about my stories. They can be good, or so I'm told. Some people claim some of my stories are, in fact, very good stuff. But if they're not good, in my eyes, they're about the same as crap. Stupid and silly, I know, but let's not care about that, shall we? I know they had some potential, and that they weren't utter crap. I'll just need to work on believing that. ^_^

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Here's what I want to do next:

Semifinal round: Three-way contest between NiTessine, Roger and yangnome. The top two advance to the finals. Semi-final to begin this Thursday or Friday, finals the week after.

I don't like the three-way rounds, but at least this way it's not for the win.

Judges will provide the usual commentary, but will also give me a numeric ranking (1-3) for each story, 1 being best, 3 being, er, least-best.

 

[maxfieldjadenfox]

Works for me. Deathless prose, anyone?

 

[Sialia]

Okay, but you asked...

My friend Larry "does" Cher. One of my fondest memories is of him standing in my living room at about 3 AM after a Halloween party, saying,"I'm done with this bitch" and dropping first the wig, then the falsies and other acoutrements on the floor. Looked like Cher had blown up...

Oddly, this is my favorite piece of writing in this thread yet.

Thank you.

 

[yangnome]

Sounds good to me.

 

[maxfieldjadenfox]

Oddly, this is my favorite piece of writing in this thread yet.

Thank you.

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

 

[tadk]

max...thank you for sharing that very moving piece..thank you very much...
to the participants.....wow.....very impressive

Linderel....good luck with NaNo...this will be my 5th try.....

 

[yangnome]

yeah, thanks for telling the story max. i really enjoyed it. Sialia's right. That quote there is great. i could see that being a really interesting start to a novel or story of some sort.

Tadk, you need to approach NaNo with a more positive attitude. This year will be a win for you. By saying it is a try, you are resigning yourself to defeat before you even start writing.

I'm a bit anxious about this year's NaNo. Last year, I entered with a very strong idea and breezed through it, ending with what I believe is a very strong novel. this year, i don't have anything nearly as concrete. i do have a few ideas though, one of which seems to be fronting the pack. I still have a lot of thought to do before I can write it though. Even then, I don't know how it will all turn out.