Ceramic DM feedback thread[JUDGES, OUT!]

[Piratecat]

Hey, I was wondering - I'm not sure I understood their secret backup plan alluded in the last line of the story. Is it obvious and I just need to reread the story because I missed it?

 

[MarauderX]

Hey, I was wondering - I'm not sure I understood their secret backup plan alluded in the last line of the story. Is it obvious and I just need to reread the story because I missed it?

The backup plan was the statues that Marak had seen in the beginning, and he had meant to ask Shamuss about them. Had Marak known that part of their plan he would have revealed it to the cultists as well. Eh, it was a poor explanation and didn't come out cleanly, and I wish I had spent more time adding & editing. Ah well, free critiques are a great reward for a half-baked chapter.

 

[FireLance]

Macbeth, you bastard, you totally stole the schtick which I was planning on using later in the competition. Drat!

Gasp! You realize what this means, of course...

Spoiler

Macbeth beats orchid blossom with a schtick.

 

[Macbeth]

Wow. I was going to post 'I'm beat,' because that story wore me out. Then I read Piratecat's story. Wow. At least I still get to say "I'm beat." Nice job, PC. Have fun in the finals.

 

[Piratecat]

I knew Don Diego was too good to be true! It was that damn rictus of a smile. I love how you showed his speech - it is a wonderful description of how someone with that sort of a gift might sound. The way you communicated images is one of your strengths. I swear, I smelled the town - and that's not something most authors can make me do. Thank you.

And I'd say you're being kind in your above comment. I like my story too, but it's kind of a risk. There's no telling how the judges will take it. There's no action at all. Alsih2o tends to include action shots in his images when he's judging, but Mythago doesn't, and I thought I might be able to create a strong and lean story if I didn't try to add any. This ended up at 2000 words, a lot less bloated than most of my prose, but I don't think that's intrinsically a weakness. I hope not, at least.

I've never written a piece that's just conversation before and it's making me nervous -- but the voices and the characters are very strong in my head. They kept telling me what to write. I based them on old PCs from my game, sixty years later, and to be honest I had Paul Simon's "Old Friends" running through my mind the whole time I was typing. The last story I wrote I had to struggle on, but not with this one. I'm not sure if that's good or bad.

For me the key to getting started was Sialia's mer-donkey. It totally steers a story in a particular direction... no horror or sci-fi with that bad boy in there. That made me want to do a conversation with a transmuter. I thought of the mer-ass/morass misunderstanding, got ambushed by Abbott and Costello, and knew I had found a good way to start. I agonized a lot about how to steer it from there, but in the end I just plopped my characters down on the bench and let them talk to one another.

My grub use is a little weak, but I'm hoping the judges won't mind too much because the squirrel is decently integrated.

Now for the waiting! Good luck to both of us.

 

[Bandeeto]

Piratecat:

My grub use is a little weak, but I'm hoping the judges won't mind too much because the squirrel is decently integrated.

I did so love integrating the squirrels. Much more fun than the reverse, of course.

I loved the story. Naturally, I'm way wicked biased. Laughed myself silly.

It left me wondering how someone who didn't know these characters as well as I do would take it. I wouldn't dare to presume that all of the judges were familiar with the Defenders Early Years thread, and I can't visualize easily how someone coming to them fresh would understand what those two are all about.

You see, I found myself just grinning about the fact that Arcade has a grand-daughter. Who else could appreciate that, really?

Thanks P'Cat. It was wonderful.

 

[Sialia]

Not that I’m one to complain, but there are two teensy things I would want to tweak about Piratecat’s submission, if I were, say editing a group of stories about these characters and wanted to include this.



Here’s the first:

Leaves swirled about their feet. The last of the laughter died away. The man with the sandwich took one final bite, savoring the taste, and then brushed off his hands with the handkerchief.

“Why is it that we outlive the good ones?”

“Paranoia. Resourcefulness--“

“. . . Shirking . . .”

“--Luck. I’ll point out, however, that I am one of the good ones.”

“Tell it to the pufferdoves.”

The other is that I wouldn’t place the illustration of the morass at the spot where the old geezer first mentions it. It gives the audience too much information, too early. I’d stick it down below, whether the not-quite-as-old geezer gets it:

“Speaking of which, you were telling me about the donkey.”

“You mean the morass.” This time he enunciated.

His friend blinked, put the syllables together, and traced the thread of the previous conversation.

[insert illo here]

He unconsciously stroked his mustache before wrinkling his nose in contempt. “If you meant ‘mer-’, you should have said ‘mer-‘. And that’s a terrible name.”

Other than that, I would not change a thing.

 

[Sialia]

Wow. I was going to post 'I'm beat,' because that story wore me out.

I can well understand that. I feel emotionally wrung out just reading it.

You put a lot into that one.

And I found a lot there.

Your language was really powerful in this one--beautiful cadences, beautiful, strong images.
The only place I saw the time pressure was a little bit in the proofreading (man, I hope this round doesn't come down to a close count of which of you had fewer typos) and in the closing cadence of the very last paragraph.

There is nothing else that I wanted to have happen in this story, but the language of the very ending wasn't quite perfect. I can't tell you how I'd fix that last sentence, except that the rhythm needs to slow just a teeny bit before the final emphasis. I blow through it too fast and find myself surprised to have come to the end of the line, even though I know the story is now over.

It's because the rhythm of the rest of the piece is so very perfect that this one spot seems rough. This is not a quibble about content--the content is perfect. It's just a phrasing thing. A little (methaphorical) sandpaper and oil should fix the scratch, and you will have a very shiny thing here.

It's one of those rare Ceramic GM stories that might be usable outside the confines of the game, without the illos.
(Although I admit that if I were to reprint this outside the game, I'd make Burro monstrous in some other way, more terrestrial, less aquatic. He so damn scary the way you paint him, he could look like nothing more than an ordinary donkey and he'd be terrifying just standing there chewing cud on four normal feet.)

 

[Macbeth]

As always, thanks for the feedback, Sialia. I also think the ending is rough, but I really have a hard time finding a closing cadence, something that sounds right. I've had the same problem in a few other stories, and it's something I need to work on.

Thanks for the feedback, and thanks even more for the pictures that inspires the story.

 

[RangerWickett]

I'm thinking of trying to submit my first story, Hunger, to Amazing or some other fantasy fiction magazine. Do you have any suggestions for what sorts of changes I might need to make? I really like the core idea.