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Message: <blockquote data-quote="spacemonkey" data-source="post: 2636643" data-attributes="member: 13180">Wow - color me surprised! (pleasantly, I might add..)I'm still pretty new to this Ceramic DM thing, but I felt that maybe I just didn't do that great a job.. course that was me at 2 am after rushing all evening to put a story together.  Reading it afterwords, I though it wasn't so bad (and the 'glaring problems' not so glaring when I wasn't just finished dissecting them for hours on end).then I read MarauderX's story, and figured I was probably beat.  Overall, I think it was a bit more inventive than mine, which ended up being a fairly straightforward spy jaunt.  That's not bad per-se, but I would have liked it to be somewhat more intricate.  Hard to do in this sort of format though, as I quickly found out <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Some general thoughts on my story, and the process of writing a Ceramic DM entry from a first timer (for those interested):*  this is not easy.  I don't even think I got the hardest set of pictures, and it was still tough to pull something together.  Not that I expected it to be easy, but things are always different once you get down into the trenches.  I had fun though.*  I found this to be good writing practice.  I went with a style that isn't what I would call my 'standard', and that has probably helped me stretch a bit as a writer.  My dialog was mentioned as being pretty good, which I'm glad of.  Usually it isn't my strong suit, and I was trying to get some practice on that.  Seems that it turned out decent this time, but I'm sure I have a good ways to go.*  I definitely wasn't going for a mystery. (though I did consider that initially, it quickly dawned on me that I simply didn't have enough time to do that right).  I was thinking that Kate would have spotted Dawson's scheme sooner, but she was broken up over Nate's condition - it was clouding her usually sharp senses a bit.  If I had noticed, I would have played that up a little, but it got lost in the time-crunch.  Kate's lack of emotion was mentioned, but Nate wasn't dead - just paralyzed (and dying..).  I didn't really go over that too much in the story, and maybe I should have, but he was out of action for the duration, and I figured it didn't matter too much.* The splinter/present bugged me as I was writing, but I couldn't really think of what else to do with it.  I knew I wanted revenge link there, but couldn't think of another object to use (though shrapnel may have been good, if Nate had been the soldiery type).  It seemed a little forced to me.  I didn't really consider the size too much, just that it was long-ish (and pointy <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  I guess I just decided that I liked it in there for the final scene, and left it.*  I agree with both judges on picture use.  The blackbird was hard to work in, while at the same time it pretty much defined what sort of story I was writing (I probably would have gone another route if it had been different).  The storefront was a little 'it's there because it is one of the assigned pictures'.  Maybe if it had been the scene of the raid where Kate got the splinter in the first place, and if Dawson had been involved in that too or something, it may have tied it in better.  Ah, the things we think of after the fact.I want to thank MarauderX for giving me some good competition.  From what I've seen of the other entries, I look forward to being thrashed by some talented writing in Round 2. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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