Ceramic DM Winter 07 (Final Judgment Posted)

[Piratecat]

Gulla, cool! I had no idea that's what the picture was of. Interesting.

Alternate (cynical) ending to my story, not to be used in judging it:
[sblock]...His face filled with light. “Then don’t talk about it, son. To anyone. But you’re always welcome here. I’ll make you some breakfast. And there’s a phone if you need to ring someone up.”

I did.

They were real. Many Gods, not just the one true one. Deuteronomy had not been lying to me. There were false gods, and judging by what happened to the Knights Templar, they were a threat even to those who tried to keep their faith strong. Worse, they gained power from worship. I had learned that, too.

I have seen their Abominations. Alicja would have to convert, or die. There is no place in this world for false idols.

The barman had gone back into the kitchen. I picked up a chair, a heavy stout thing of dense oak, and turned to face my foe.

-- o --

It's much less 'feel-good' than the original, and rings truer in terms of the narrator's history, but it wasn't what I wanted to say. I scribbled it down when I thought "How I could I now turn the entire story around?" I suppose that's one way.[/sblock]

 

[Berandor]

Thanks for the comments! Sialia and Gulla both: While I did not try for "universal truth" in my story, brilliant would have been nice. I hope I get another try in this contest...

also: look at what kind of pics I have to work with!

[sblock]

Berandor, you can do better than this. Not that it is bad at all, but you are capable of brilliand and this is only very good. Amusingly the picture of the riot squad is your best use also, I think. The structure of this story is very nice (maybe a bit too obvious since I manage to identify it ) with the same scene in the start and the end and the repeating "There are three kinds of..." I'm not quite sure what is wrong with the story, but it just feels a bit less interresting than I expected. It might be too high expectations, of course.

It's the expectations

One of my problems with Ceramic DM is that I tend to take pictures very literally. For example, with Piratecat's story I would have had great difficulty not to take the four-legged family as what it is, people running on all fours. That also means that p.o.v.-pictures tend to be used as if a character is actually watching the exact scene, not as if it's the scene as described by a narrator. And of course, three of the four pictures were totally crazy. I knew that trying to spin them into a serious narrative would be difficult, so I chose the opposite path of comedy. That's very, very hard to do brilliantly, so my goal was to win by craftsmanship and by making fun of blind, of mentally deficient, and of grieving people as well as of terrorism. Yay!

I know that my characters are a little sketchy, too, but I felt I had to keep things going instead of padding them out and making it all fall apart, even at the cost of stretching logic. All that jazz is just meant to say that I agree with your comments. Thanks![/sblock]

And now I'll make a quick comment on the (other) stories so far:
[sblock]Gabriel: I liked your story. What I think would have been better, though, is to tell it all as it happens and not as a flashback-of-sorts. That way, we would be able to experience all the events directly, and not summed up in a few sentences. And the "traitoress" would have been with us for a much longer time, too, so the "end" would carry more impact. The idea is cool, though.

Match 1
Aris Dragonborn: see my post somewhere above.
Miles Pilitus: Your story flowed along without much of a plot. Sure, there were things happening, but they didn't really feel connected or to speak about some greater relevant truth. Not that it was badly observed or anything; the proceedings were described quite realistically. I was just left wondering why you told this story; what was it about?

Match 2
Graywolf ELM: What distracted me a little were the dialogues in bold. A nice story (and a D&D theme! Whoot!), but I felt the pictures were just not really connected. The stage was just set and re-set, and with the story's framework, any four pictures probably would have been incorporated just as neatly.
mythago: Cool story, but the ending lacked a little punch for me. It's probably expectations, though. The idea was wonderful, and the protagonist was just the right kind of to go down at the end. Creepy! I thought the "fight" picture wasn't too well integrated into the story, just a little side plot or remark.

Match 4
BSF: Were-toads! Also a D&D-story! The wedding picture did stick out a little bit (that *was* a mean pic!), and I felt the ending was a little rushed. Overall, I enjoyed the story very much, from the matter-of-fact behaviour of the toady family to the rakish-roguish plan of our anti-hero.
Piratecat: While I thought that the wedding picture was nicely explained, it wasn't really that well integrated into the story. Or so I thought. Also, I would have preferred the optional, or director's cut ending you just posted The story was very atmospheric, but it left me a little cold, mainly because I didn't feel the conflict was that well resolved.
When he meets the "goddess", the protagonist says,

"I don’t think she’s a heathen, I mean, but everything I’ve ever been taught insists that she speaks blasphemy, and if I marry her I’ll be ex-communicated."

From that I read that he's not that hung up on her faith, personally, but fears his community's repercussions should he marry her. And these repercussions weren't really affected by the events, unless he'll send his family or even the whole community to listen to the toad-god's story. So I was kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop.[/sblock]

Just a few short comments, there, nothing too egrerious (sp?).

Next: judgements?

 

[mythago]

That said, there was not one that touched on a personal truth so intense that it kicked off the hormonal "weepy" response.

Hm. I have been trying to avoid button-pushing, myself, because all of my clients are at least sick and a good number are dying (or they have died, and my clients are the family members). I noticed that I was doing a lot of stories with misery and people dying at the end, which didn't seem healthy, or mushy romantic stories which are not so much my thing.

 

[Sialia]

Hm. I have been trying to avoid button-pushing, myself, because all of my clients are at least sick and a good number are dying (or they have died, and my clients are the family members). I noticed that I was doing a lot of stories with misery and people dying at the end, which didn't seem healthy, or mushy romantic stories which are not so much my thing.

Right--misery, melodrama, and mushy not required. Bleagh.

What I meant is, your writing is always excellent, but this felt so distant from anything you actually care about, that it seemed kind of Lego-like. Here's Mythago's usual set of elements ready to snap together, and we can already guess roughly what shape this is going to be from pretty much the first picture usage. The story fits your oeuvre, is a perfect match for your brand appeal, but it doesn't take us anywhere new.

I'd like to see you sweatier, or at least more surprised at where you wound up afterward.

 

[mythago]

Right--misery, melodrama, and mushy not required. Bleagh.

What I meant is, your writing is always excellent, but this felt so distant from anything you actually care about, that it seemed kind of Lego-like. Here's Mythago's usual set of elements ready to snap together, and we can already guess roughly what shape this is going to be from pretty much the first picture usage. The story fits your oeuvre, is a perfect match for your brand appeal, but it doesn't take us anywhere new.

I'd like to see you sweatier, or at least more surprised at where you wound up afterward.

You said that on purpose!

Maybe I'm just getting predictable in my creaky old age. Or, like Piratecat, I'm extra-rusty.

 

[orchid blossom]

Judgements sent for the first two completed rounds, the others should be in from me tomorrow afternoon.

I had to retype them all. I still haven't gotten that e-mail I sent myself.

 

[Sialia]

You said that on purpose!

Maybe I'm just getting predictable in my creaky old age. Or, like Piratecat, I'm extra-rusty.

Plainly, you need more lubricant.

 

[Sialia]

Piratecat,

(caution: critique below and I'm counting on the fact that you know I love you and your writing to soften the tone 'cause I'm too tired & cranky to think of a sensitive & humorous way to say this.)

[sblock] 1. Why the heck is your narrator interested in marrying a woman who doen't share his religious views? If his sect is that important to him, I'd have thought shared faith would have been a dating pre-req.

Not that it couldn't happen that he might fall in love with someone much against his preconceived ideas of the perfect domestic partner, but it seems to me that if that's what's happened, it's important enough to the story to show us some of that. I'd buy that maybe he didn't know she was Wicca right away and loved her first and then had to adjust to new information, but I'll bet she knew what his faith was within a few paragraphs of meeting him--he wears it on his exterior loudly. (And it's hard to believe he wouldn't ask. Or his passionately religious family/community.) What was she thinking? If there's some other reason he's into her, or that she's into him, that would have been important too.

I dunno--something just didn't ring true about this relationship. If the story is to work all the way through, I'd have to buy the struggle between faith and --whatever the strong compelling reason for wanting to get married to each other is.

2. As it is, the relationship becomes kind of irrelevant compared to the discussion about whether there is one god or many. In which case, lose the relationship altogether, and focus solely on his own spiritual journey. There's enough meat for the story there, if that's really where you want to go. But if I don't buy either his faith, or his immersion in a community that makes him think he has no faith options, it won't fly. You haven't gotten far enough inside his head to really show us the world through his eyes.

3. If the story is rather about the thirsty frog god's experience, then give us a narrator who's more inherently flexible, but a virgin to flexible ideas, maybe someone who's never met anyone who wasn't a member of his own faith before. It would give him fresh eyes to see the frog with, and leave a lot of his distracting baggage outside.

[/sblock]

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Plainly, you need more lubricant.

Is the judging going to be that harsh?

 

[mythago]

Is the judging going to be that harsh?

"Bring me a semicolon....well oiled."