Ceramic DM Winter 07 (Final Judgment Posted)

[Berandor]

Well, I got the rough draft of my entry done. It flowed pretty easily, suprisingly. I usually stare at these oddball pictures for a day and a half before any ideas hit me, but these pictures almost pulled this story from me with very little effort on my part.

I just hope that's not a bad sign.

I'd say it's a sign you're losing your mind.

But your story can still turn out great.

 

[Gulla]

I have the durned thing posted! It was quite a struggle to deal with the Muses this time.

...

(The rest cut for saving space)

Hey! Yangnome!

Why didn't I get tickets up there with the muses? They would be much better company than the (tiny) crowd down here...

And then some comments on the stories. Good work all of you, I enjoyed the stories. More comments in the sblock.

[sblock]OK, this is the first time I try some "real" commenting, but for once I have time for it, so I'll try.

Match 1:
Aris Dragonborn, I really like that you submitted the little you managed to get done. And it is a promising start. I agree with Berandor that a quick sketch of what you would have done with the pictures would be nice.
Miles Pilitus, will win this one by default, I guess. I found the story a bitt jarring to read with what feels like strange grammar. I'm no native English speaker, but I feel a proofreading of the grammar would do a lot of good. The story also feels like a recounting of events more than what I feel is a story. I cannot find a goal for the narrator nor any really interresting conflict. Hopefully you get some more of that for the next story.

Match 2:
Graywolf-ELM, this is a nice story, and a strong contender I thought when I read it. I like the nice way of showing the seductive/manipulative nature of the princess (succubus?) and the nice twist in the end, but I feel the pictures used as illustrating the entertinment is a bit too obviously the pictures dictating the story. I think a little more work on showing that the entertainment is a natural/integral part of the society the princess is visiting would lift this story from a good CGM entry to a brilliant one. And unfortunately for you that is needed when meeting Mythago.
Mythago. OK, I'll admit beeing almost a fanboy of your CGM stories, but this was brilliant. I would love to find this shortstory published in a magazine. The pace is nice, and I like the plot of someone makeing money by giving people something they want that destroys them and getting his comeupance in the end. The only negative point I can find is the use of picture 3. It is not so much that it is a bad use as that its use is drowned by picture 4 coming so quickly after it.

Match 3.
Gabriel, this is a very good first entry. I generally like the picture use and specially the riot squad one. The story uses "looking back" (cannot for my life remember the correct term for this) and I feel it steals a little bit of the tension. It builds some tension as well since I "must" wait before the current timeline advances, but I feel in this case it reduces more than it gains. This results in a feeling of too little resistance for the main character. But all in all a good story.
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.

Match 4.
This should be "match of the round" and BSF an Piratecat didn't disappoint.
Piratecat, not your best prose ever, but still good. I really liked how you got the picture of the rare disease people to be a worshipping ritual for the frog-god. The story flows nicely but in contrast to many of the very best stories this is more like a 1001 farietale: a very short story around with fables/farietales inside. The farietale is sort of mellow-good but not very tense, and the story around it isn't quite tense enuogh to remove the feeling. Not sure how it could be changed, and the mellow-good feeling is nice
BSF, were-toads? Somethimes you have ideas that just strikes out of the blue. A nice story with a hero with some resistance that fails in the end, and it even feels somewhat fair that the pretty witch wins Nice picture use, except the bulldozer, I feel. Not really sure how to comment more. It is nice, slick and good, but I just don't feel it is brilliant. I have no idea why.
So I feel this was the best match this round, so far, but Mythago still has the best story
[/sblock]

Then I'll just have to wait for the rest of the stories and see if I have time to comment on them as well.

Håkon
(hmm, after trying to formulate comments I'm very glad I don't have to write stories...)

 

[Piratecat]

And then some comments on the stories. Good work all of you, I enjoyed the stories. More comments in the sblock.

Great comments on everyone, thank you! My initial thoughts to your post:
[sblock]

Match 4.
Piratecat, not your best prose ever, but still good. I really liked how you got the picture of the rare disease people to be a worshipping ritual for the frog-god. The story flows nicely but in contrast to many of the very best stories this is more like a 1001 farietale: a very short story around with fables/farietales inside. The farietale is sort of mellow-good but not very tense, and the story around it isn't quite tense enuogh to remove the feeling. Not sure how it could be changed, and the mellow-good feeling is nice

Interesting commentary. You're right that the tension and conflict are all internal, not external.

I had been shooting for a story where the self-involved dilemma of the narrator was put into perspective by the actual religious persecution suffered by the ancient idol. Revelations get made, the narrator reaches a personal epiphany about his own life, and the concept of a froglike God of Thirst running a tiny tavern as a temple gets revealed. I meant for it to sound less like a fairy tale (that was a deliberate language choice on my part) and more like a history. You're absolutely right that I wanted a story-in-a-story as well.

But I'm not dissatisfied with how it came out. For some reason, the image of the mongols carrying away the bride and someone doing the same with a bulldozer always makes me grin.

One thing, though - you mentioned rare disease people. You may be thinking of mongoloids, people born with a genetic birth defect. Mongols were the horse-riding asiatic barbarians who swept across China and western Europe a thousand years ago. Knowing that makes a big difference in whether the story makes any sense or not, and it's not necessarily obvious.

Thanks for the commentary![/sblock]

 

[questing gm]

Just a little question before i put things down into words.....

do the pictures need to be used in order ? ....or i could place them whenever i feel it suits my description...?

 

[Miles Pilitus]

[sblock]OK, this is the first time I try some "real" commenting, but for once I have time for it, so I'll try.

Match 1:
Miles Pilitus, will win this one by default, I guess. I found the story a bitt jarring to read with what feels like strange grammar. I'm no native English speaker, but I feel a proofreading of the grammar would do a lot of good. The story also feels like a recounting of events more than what I feel is a story. I cannot find a goal for the narrator nor any really interresting conflict. Hopefully you get some more of that for the next story.
[/sblock]

Some reponse to the comment
[sblock]You're probably right. The idea for the story struck me and I was basically finished with the story when I felt the lack on conflict. I didn't flesh the story out enough, and probably would have lost. I joined this to give me some quick chances to try and get feedback, so more's better. Hopefully my next story will be a little better.

I was trying to write the story as a "Stream of Concesness" kind of fashion with the entire story happening from the viewpoint of the character's internal monologue. It didn't work very well, it would seem.[/sblock]

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

You can use the pictures in any order you like.

 

[Sialia]

A nice batch of first round stories, and I enjoyed reading all of them. Pleasant distractions all.

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

Couldn't tell you exactly what triggers that, or, indeed, whether it's really something that a writer should be striving for. When I'm not pregnant, I'm deeply the skeptic about emotionally manipulative, tear-jerking stories (which is not to say I haven't been guilty of writing these on occasion. So the drama!) But pregnant, the weepy response always catches me by surprise with a feeling of "oh--that's so true!" and it's often not about things that are inherently sad. Sometimes it's relief, or culmination, or something spit-take funny.

Anyway, the only reason I mention this is that I think the very best fiction always has some sort of true thing at it's core. Our writers this season all seem to have the hang of grammar, character, plot and a pleasant turn of phrase. Given the consistently high level of quality in this first round, I'm still hoping one of you breaks through the "pleasantly amusing" barrier into the realm of "ohmigosh--that is incredible."

I know you have it in you.

 

[Graywolf-ELM]

You can use the pictures in any order you like.

DOH! I was in somewhat of a hurry, and would have mixed them up except they fit in that order well for me. The old Chief just had to be at the end. I appreciated the comments on my entry,(both Gulla's specific ones, and Sialia's general ones, I'll take what I can get.) I liked the story, I just wanted more of my time to flesh out a bit of history, and how it influenced the arts here, to give more meaning to the images. With the time I was able to give it, I am satisfied. Honestly, I am surprised how much I fit into so few words this go around.

GW

 

[Sialia]

Miles,

[sblock] I think yours came closest for me, actually--it certainly had the ring of truth about it.

I think what failed was the "telling" the conflict instead of showing it: We heard that these affairs usually go badly, but we never saw this one teeter on the brink, or felt fallout from the previous year's disaster, or relived a particularly painful moment.

This story had a lot of potential. I liked the setting and the detail and the prose. I wanted to feel the characters more deply--I knew the narrator, but he is so self absorbed, he never really introduces me to his family, and the events don't give me enough of an outside peek as to how they are feeling about him, or how he fits in/doesn't fit in among them. Is he part of the hazardous condition, or just an observer? To what extent is his misery of his own making, or is he just a victim? How bad does it get when it gets bad?

I think this story is worth developing some more. [/sblock]

 

[Gulla]

[sblock]

One thing, though - you mentioned rare disease people. You may be thinking of mongoloids, people born with a genetic birth defect. Mongols were the horse-riding asiatic barbarians who swept across China and western Europe a thousand years ago. Knowing that makes a big difference in whether the story makes any sense or not, and it's not necessarily obvious.

Nope, I was thinking about this picture which was featured quite prominently in the news in Norway last year. If my memory doesn't fool me (it sometimes does) it shows people with a rare disease living somewhere in the earlier USSR, I think close to the Caspian Sea. The disease forces them to move this way, if I rememmber correctly. The disadvantage of remembering the pictures from an other context, I guess.

I definitely got the Mongol reference, being a dedicated Civilization player (all the way back from the original) I really]/b] hate it when Djengis and his Mongolian hordes crush my puny empire [/sblock]

Thanks for the commentary!

No problem. For once I have the time and feel like giving something back for all the nice stories.

Håkon