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NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.
Fall Ceramic DM - Final Round Judgment Posted!
- Thread starter mythago
- Start date
mythago
Hero
Maldur
MacBeth vs Orchid Blossom
Now that is a nifty idea, MacBeth.
OB, another fine story, I esp like the use of the herb crushing
ballbearings.
Hard but I would say: MacBeth
Berandor
Macbeth: "Writer's Block"
On November 15th, 2004, a South-African writer participated in an online writing contest. A day later, he disappeared. Only his laptop has been found.
A Ceramic DM story about a Ceramic DM story. First of all, I wonder how much of what you attribute to your protagonist corresponds with your own approach. Do you wait 24h before writing? Do you google ideas?
You start off strong, the recognition of the contest draws me in, the following metaphor sealing the deal:
"...a writer's road block manned by police wearing bullet-proof vests who (the vests?) blow out my tires every time I make a break for anidea."
The good thing about your story is that the woes of a Ceramic competitor ring true. "It's just a story, just some stupid competition,..."
Calling in sick is a little too much, though. It shows me the protagonist is willing to go to great lengths for his story.
The danger with a story like yours is the same as with the repetitive phrases - you must be careful to use it for good measure, lest it becomes a gimmick and not much more. I guess the comment about the pics ("Hands. Stones.") was inevitable, though. I think this story runs close to becoming a gimmick (especially when you include smack-talk to orchid blossom in it), but it veers off just in time.
What I find interesting is that your stories often include technopaganism (or what I would call technopaganism). Here, Ted "prays to [his] DSL connection... A blessing of ones and zeroes." And if web utilities are modern Gods, then Google is the head of the pantheon.
By the time Ted heads off to the park (and we see the pic a second time), I'm getting impatient. So when do you stop talking about the tournament and give us a story? Thankfully, you introduce us to shared memory. I think the short explanation was enough to understand what you were getting at, and the long version was neither to the point nor
detailed enough to earn its existence. I think that you actually missed explaining the nature of said memory in a way that corresponds with your story.
At first, it says that "whatever enough people learn, everybody knows", and then Ted goes searching for some obscure knowledge. At first, it seems as if the shared memory was just a repository of archetypes and common knowledge, but then it's more like a giant shelf with myriad bowls, each bowl representing one specific item of knowledge, and the amount of people who know it filling the bowl; as soon as enough people
know it, the knowledge spills.
So then Ted discovers his error, and he reaches the village, where "the dome ends just at the first hut." Huh? What dome? Is it a dome of light? A dome of fibreglass installed by the police? Of course, I think it is a dome of light thanks to the pics and the following events, but at first it isn't clear because all we know is that Ted sees "a glow",
not a giant dome of light.
Then, the Meme Keeper. "I don't know what the Meme Keeper is, but I'm not sure I want to find out." Sounds dangerous, mysterious - good. But the very next sentence is "With nothing better to do, I got to the hut." Wait a moment? I thought Ted didn't want to find out? and "nothing better to do"? There's a dome of light coming probably from his laptop, he's got a writing deadline, and he's got nothing better to do?
"It's not as bad as I thought." Well, what did he think? What did he expect? Anyway, so the Meme Keeper speaks with a "regal voice": "So, you know something of this?" / "You know, the Meme, the racial memory." / "Damn." That's really not how I would expect a Meme Keeper to speak,especially not one with a "regal voice." That's more how I would expect Giles to speak.
(And later on he's very much rooted in time: "*Now* do you see? He is nothing *now*, but all his memories are part of the meme *now*."
So then our hero finds out he's brought about the end of the world. And his reaction is "Crap!"? That's the worst word he can think of? I don't think this is bad, I just wanted to point it out in case you just chose then word for the language filter.
Of course, your story is about an internal conflict having external repercussions, and you write in a very reflective voice, but when Ted sacrifices himself, "I think about my wife" is not enough for me. That's simply not very dramatic. What does he think of? Her name? Her hair? The look in her eyes when she wakes up and sees him in the morning? Her warmth lingering after she has gotten up to make breakfast? Her smell coming to him when he's on the phone with her? Her nasal voice complaining that he didn't put down the toilet seat?
Of course, the final paragraph is somewhat illogical in Ted's self-awareness after he's gone, but that's all right with me as it works to give us a good ending. And the post scriptum works exceptionally well, even if I wonder how Ted died.
In the end, I enjoyed the part about the Meme, but I wasn't too keen on the references from a purely objective point of view. Personally, I smiled at a lot of them. Once more a nice entry, Macbeth.
orchid blossom: "Untitled"
A totally different story. I particularly enjoyed the joking conversations between Carlene and Aidan, with all their pot shots and comments - I got the impression these two had been at it for a long time. I also liked the background behind the plot, and hunting sick
people when a Plague killed most humans seems almost sensible if not for the inherent cruelty.
Normally, your prose is flawless almost to a fault. This time, however, it didn't come out as well. There were several sentences that were rough or ungainly, for example
"...as she danced from one song to the next and drank the home brewed beer that had been one of the first things people figured out how to make for themselves." Which home brewed beer? Oh, *that* home brewed beer. You'd be better off with two sentences here.
"Kieran. You should be sleeping. You've been gone for weeks, and then all that unloading yesterday." sounds more like exposition than like something somebody would say, especially someone with an irreverent touch like Carlene.
"Aidan pulled back as he saw the wolf's eyes. For a moment, he thought they weren't there, ..." He thought the eyes weren't there? I'm still not sure I understand that sentence after reading the story three times.
Other things are when Carlene "confirms her diagnosis", a diagnosis we didn't know she'd made, or when it's not clear whether the Morticians are known or not (the villagers don't seem to know who he is - Aidan sure doesn't - but Kieran says "You don't say no to a Mortician.", suggesting that people obey him because of his reputation).
Now, your plot is fine, with the mortician hunting sick people and Carlene as a healer defending them. However, this plot doesn't receive a lot of detail, while we get information about other things that don't really deal with it (Carlene's training, the whole background about the village and retrievers, the market). The mortician is always "the man in the suit" and remains nameless, faceless and in a way harmless (not even the wolf gets a name).
All we know is the mortician wears a black suit and drives a car, but we do know where the family lives that finally adopts the sick boy and where he is playing. We do not know whether the picture of a boy as "shingle" is symbolic of something or not, but we do know Mrs Kennedy thinks by drawing a human body you can memorize the muscles better.
I got the impression you wanted to tell us about Carlene and Aidan, and just threw the sick people and the mortician in to create a little diversion and some tension.
It's a nice story, but you can do much better.
The Pics
montmartre (Yes, I can finally see the pic's name again)
- orchid blossom has Aidan give Carlene a bas-relief to use as a shingle for her house. Whether the image of a boy signifies something to the post-apolcalyptic society she lives in, we don't know.
- Macbeth's Meme Keeper has a coin on a chain, given to his grandfather by colonists in exchange for, well, a *lot* of land. (a strange, square coin or a framed coin, I guess). The Keeper uses the coin to show us what the Meme does to the world, ridding it of its information.
light shines in
- Macbeth shows us the Meme Keeper's hut, with said Keeper in the foreground and his family huddling in the back. The dome's light shines through.
- orchid blossom's sick survivors have sought refuge in the retrievers' hut. There are three people in there, led by a man in "African printed cloth". Sadly, the woman to the left is already dead.
rowing
- orchid blossom's mortician approaches the hut in a rowboat manned by retrievers. Fortunately, Carlene notices the boat and manages to hide just in time.
- Macbeth's river scene is vitally important for the story, so important that we are treated to it four times. This highlights the surprise when suddenly the view from the other side of the river is still the same, but I wouldn't want to read a short story where over 7
pages, one illustration accompanies the text four times.
wiley
- Macbeth's gives Ted quite a fearsome looking dog to take with him to the river. Pooch - a fitting name for the slavering beast - is not quite as important as the river itself, so we only see this pic twice.
Still, the loss of the dog's self showcases the Meme's danger even more than a blank coin does.
- orchid blossom gives the mortician a hunting wolf, trained to sniff out sickness. From a certain angle, the wolf doesn't have any eyes, and it sneezes when it catches Carlene's oils, but it is the morticians most important hunting tool.
montage
- orchid blossom gives us Carlene's medical bag, filled with various utensils and the drawing Carlene made of Aidan. The strange contents derive from Carlene's hastily packing and enable Aidan to recognize the bag and understand the danger, prompting him to get one of the retrievers to lie.
- Macbeth gives us a grab bag packed by Ted in a state of confused frenzy. Everything possibly helpful to connect with the Meme is thrown in, and Ted even scribbles a very competent drawing of the human bodyto go with it. The contents of the bag are perhaps Ted's moment of true inspiration in the story, as he seems to use everything to finally
connect with the Meme.
The Judgement
Both stories have their share of things to like, but also some things that didn't work for me. I was not impressed with either pic use (though both used the "montage" reasonably well), especially not with Macbeth's recurring pic use - it took me out of the story as I had to click on the link (or think of what the pic was, as it were, since I read a printed version).
In the end, I felt that orchid blossom's writing was a little off, whereas Macbeth consciously chose the way he wrote the story. "Writer's Block" seems to be more coherent, better focused, and orchid blossom's pic use is not superior enough to make up for that.
POINT TO
mythago
Macbeth - "Writer's Block"
Okay, let's be honest--writing a story about having writer's block is always a very big risk. Sometimes the story works anyway. A lot of the time it veered towards not working at all. There are interesting elements--the writer's seeking the mass consciousness leading to unexpected consequences, the loss of identify of the dime and the dog. Overall if felt very forced, though. The bracketing telling us how this story was found kills the suspense and really clunks. The dialogue suffers from the "Amber effect," where the characters all pretty much talk alike, as if to make a point of telling us that hey, it's only a story, so don't get too caught up in us. And we don't. Ted isn't interesting. The Meme Keeper is a plot device. Ted's wife is a reference. The tension of the story is in the end of the world, but we already know that never happened, or we couldn't have found Ted's laptop, right?
There are bits and pieces of some really interesting ideas in there, but the overall sense is of a story the writer didn't much like. The repetitious use of the pics doesn't come across as thrifty or creative, just repetitious, to show us that they can be used more than once. (This could have worked well, in the contrast between the animated Pooch and the meme-struck Pooch, but it isn't convincing. The montage picture was just awful, and honestly I was sick of references to the same river shot.) I kept looking for more of those good ideas but found the story, and picture use, ultimately frustrating.
orchid blossom -
The characters here are interesting, if not terribly inspired (they honestly seem more like types than interesting, individual people; their interactions are slightly more interesting than they are). The world is--or could be--a good setting. The pictures are used well; I particularly like the use of Carlene's bag with its disparate elements. The main problem I had with this story is that it overexplains everything. We're repeatedly told things that are, or could be, obvious (the fact that electricity is rare, the wastefulness of gasoline). The characters don't know things they should so that somebody else can explain it to them, and us.
I was puzzled by the herbs throwing off the wolf. Has nobody done this before? Did the Mortician really think the sick woman crawled in and died all by herself?
I particularly liked the dynamic of the Retrievers going to get sturdy items for trade and sale, but again felt this element was over-explained. It's hard to walk that line between leaving the reader scratching his or her head and telling all, but that's the sweet spot a writer needs to hit.
My vote this round for orchid blossom, for an overall stronger story and far better use of pictures.
Winner for this round is
, who moves up to Round 3.
MacBeth vs Orchid Blossom
Now that is a nifty idea, MacBeth.
OB, another fine story, I esp like the use of the herb crushing
ballbearings.
Hard but I would say: MacBeth
Berandor
Macbeth: "Writer's Block"
On November 15th, 2004, a South-African writer participated in an online writing contest. A day later, he disappeared. Only his laptop has been found.
A Ceramic DM story about a Ceramic DM story. First of all, I wonder how much of what you attribute to your protagonist corresponds with your own approach. Do you wait 24h before writing? Do you google ideas?
You start off strong, the recognition of the contest draws me in, the following metaphor sealing the deal:
"...a writer's road block manned by police wearing bullet-proof vests who (the vests?) blow out my tires every time I make a break for anidea."
The good thing about your story is that the woes of a Ceramic competitor ring true. "It's just a story, just some stupid competition,..."
Calling in sick is a little too much, though. It shows me the protagonist is willing to go to great lengths for his story.
The danger with a story like yours is the same as with the repetitive phrases - you must be careful to use it for good measure, lest it becomes a gimmick and not much more. I guess the comment about the pics ("Hands. Stones.") was inevitable, though. I think this story runs close to becoming a gimmick (especially when you include smack-talk to orchid blossom in it), but it veers off just in time.
What I find interesting is that your stories often include technopaganism (or what I would call technopaganism). Here, Ted "prays to [his] DSL connection... A blessing of ones and zeroes." And if web utilities are modern Gods, then Google is the head of the pantheon.
By the time Ted heads off to the park (and we see the pic a second time), I'm getting impatient. So when do you stop talking about the tournament and give us a story? Thankfully, you introduce us to shared memory. I think the short explanation was enough to understand what you were getting at, and the long version was neither to the point nor
detailed enough to earn its existence. I think that you actually missed explaining the nature of said memory in a way that corresponds with your story.
At first, it says that "whatever enough people learn, everybody knows", and then Ted goes searching for some obscure knowledge. At first, it seems as if the shared memory was just a repository of archetypes and common knowledge, but then it's more like a giant shelf with myriad bowls, each bowl representing one specific item of knowledge, and the amount of people who know it filling the bowl; as soon as enough people
know it, the knowledge spills.
So then Ted discovers his error, and he reaches the village, where "the dome ends just at the first hut." Huh? What dome? Is it a dome of light? A dome of fibreglass installed by the police? Of course, I think it is a dome of light thanks to the pics and the following events, but at first it isn't clear because all we know is that Ted sees "a glow",
not a giant dome of light.
Then, the Meme Keeper. "I don't know what the Meme Keeper is, but I'm not sure I want to find out." Sounds dangerous, mysterious - good. But the very next sentence is "With nothing better to do, I got to the hut." Wait a moment? I thought Ted didn't want to find out? and "nothing better to do"? There's a dome of light coming probably from his laptop, he's got a writing deadline, and he's got nothing better to do?
"It's not as bad as I thought." Well, what did he think? What did he expect? Anyway, so the Meme Keeper speaks with a "regal voice": "So, you know something of this?" / "You know, the Meme, the racial memory." / "Damn." That's really not how I would expect a Meme Keeper to speak,especially not one with a "regal voice." That's more how I would expect Giles to speak.
(And later on he's very much rooted in time: "*Now* do you see? He is nothing *now*, but all his memories are part of the meme *now*."
So then our hero finds out he's brought about the end of the world. And his reaction is "Crap!"? That's the worst word he can think of? I don't think this is bad, I just wanted to point it out in case you just chose then word for the language filter.
Of course, your story is about an internal conflict having external repercussions, and you write in a very reflective voice, but when Ted sacrifices himself, "I think about my wife" is not enough for me. That's simply not very dramatic. What does he think of? Her name? Her hair? The look in her eyes when she wakes up and sees him in the morning? Her warmth lingering after she has gotten up to make breakfast? Her smell coming to him when he's on the phone with her? Her nasal voice complaining that he didn't put down the toilet seat?
Of course, the final paragraph is somewhat illogical in Ted's self-awareness after he's gone, but that's all right with me as it works to give us a good ending. And the post scriptum works exceptionally well, even if I wonder how Ted died.
In the end, I enjoyed the part about the Meme, but I wasn't too keen on the references from a purely objective point of view. Personally, I smiled at a lot of them. Once more a nice entry, Macbeth.
orchid blossom: "Untitled"
A totally different story. I particularly enjoyed the joking conversations between Carlene and Aidan, with all their pot shots and comments - I got the impression these two had been at it for a long time. I also liked the background behind the plot, and hunting sick
people when a Plague killed most humans seems almost sensible if not for the inherent cruelty.
Normally, your prose is flawless almost to a fault. This time, however, it didn't come out as well. There were several sentences that were rough or ungainly, for example
"...as she danced from one song to the next and drank the home brewed beer that had been one of the first things people figured out how to make for themselves." Which home brewed beer? Oh, *that* home brewed beer. You'd be better off with two sentences here.
"Kieran. You should be sleeping. You've been gone for weeks, and then all that unloading yesterday." sounds more like exposition than like something somebody would say, especially someone with an irreverent touch like Carlene.
"Aidan pulled back as he saw the wolf's eyes. For a moment, he thought they weren't there, ..." He thought the eyes weren't there? I'm still not sure I understand that sentence after reading the story three times.
Other things are when Carlene "confirms her diagnosis", a diagnosis we didn't know she'd made, or when it's not clear whether the Morticians are known or not (the villagers don't seem to know who he is - Aidan sure doesn't - but Kieran says "You don't say no to a Mortician.", suggesting that people obey him because of his reputation).
Now, your plot is fine, with the mortician hunting sick people and Carlene as a healer defending them. However, this plot doesn't receive a lot of detail, while we get information about other things that don't really deal with it (Carlene's training, the whole background about the village and retrievers, the market). The mortician is always "the man in the suit" and remains nameless, faceless and in a way harmless (not even the wolf gets a name).
All we know is the mortician wears a black suit and drives a car, but we do know where the family lives that finally adopts the sick boy and where he is playing. We do not know whether the picture of a boy as "shingle" is symbolic of something or not, but we do know Mrs Kennedy thinks by drawing a human body you can memorize the muscles better.
I got the impression you wanted to tell us about Carlene and Aidan, and just threw the sick people and the mortician in to create a little diversion and some tension.
It's a nice story, but you can do much better.
The Pics
montmartre (Yes, I can finally see the pic's name again)
- orchid blossom has Aidan give Carlene a bas-relief to use as a shingle for her house. Whether the image of a boy signifies something to the post-apolcalyptic society she lives in, we don't know.
- Macbeth's Meme Keeper has a coin on a chain, given to his grandfather by colonists in exchange for, well, a *lot* of land. (a strange, square coin or a framed coin, I guess). The Keeper uses the coin to show us what the Meme does to the world, ridding it of its information.
light shines in
- Macbeth shows us the Meme Keeper's hut, with said Keeper in the foreground and his family huddling in the back. The dome's light shines through.
- orchid blossom's sick survivors have sought refuge in the retrievers' hut. There are three people in there, led by a man in "African printed cloth". Sadly, the woman to the left is already dead.
rowing
- orchid blossom's mortician approaches the hut in a rowboat manned by retrievers. Fortunately, Carlene notices the boat and manages to hide just in time.
- Macbeth's river scene is vitally important for the story, so important that we are treated to it four times. This highlights the surprise when suddenly the view from the other side of the river is still the same, but I wouldn't want to read a short story where over 7
pages, one illustration accompanies the text four times.
wiley
- Macbeth's gives Ted quite a fearsome looking dog to take with him to the river. Pooch - a fitting name for the slavering beast - is not quite as important as the river itself, so we only see this pic twice.
Still, the loss of the dog's self showcases the Meme's danger even more than a blank coin does.
- orchid blossom gives the mortician a hunting wolf, trained to sniff out sickness. From a certain angle, the wolf doesn't have any eyes, and it sneezes when it catches Carlene's oils, but it is the morticians most important hunting tool.
montage
- orchid blossom gives us Carlene's medical bag, filled with various utensils and the drawing Carlene made of Aidan. The strange contents derive from Carlene's hastily packing and enable Aidan to recognize the bag and understand the danger, prompting him to get one of the retrievers to lie.
- Macbeth gives us a grab bag packed by Ted in a state of confused frenzy. Everything possibly helpful to connect with the Meme is thrown in, and Ted even scribbles a very competent drawing of the human bodyto go with it. The contents of the bag are perhaps Ted's moment of true inspiration in the story, as he seems to use everything to finally
connect with the Meme.
The Judgement
Both stories have their share of things to like, but also some things that didn't work for me. I was not impressed with either pic use (though both used the "montage" reasonably well), especially not with Macbeth's recurring pic use - it took me out of the story as I had to click on the link (or think of what the pic was, as it were, since I read a printed version).
In the end, I felt that orchid blossom's writing was a little off, whereas Macbeth consciously chose the way he wrote the story. "Writer's Block" seems to be more coherent, better focused, and orchid blossom's pic use is not superior enough to make up for that.
POINT TO
.............MACBETH
mythago
Macbeth - "Writer's Block"
Okay, let's be honest--writing a story about having writer's block is always a very big risk. Sometimes the story works anyway. A lot of the time it veered towards not working at all. There are interesting elements--the writer's seeking the mass consciousness leading to unexpected consequences, the loss of identify of the dime and the dog. Overall if felt very forced, though. The bracketing telling us how this story was found kills the suspense and really clunks. The dialogue suffers from the "Amber effect," where the characters all pretty much talk alike, as if to make a point of telling us that hey, it's only a story, so don't get too caught up in us. And we don't. Ted isn't interesting. The Meme Keeper is a plot device. Ted's wife is a reference. The tension of the story is in the end of the world, but we already know that never happened, or we couldn't have found Ted's laptop, right?
There are bits and pieces of some really interesting ideas in there, but the overall sense is of a story the writer didn't much like. The repetitious use of the pics doesn't come across as thrifty or creative, just repetitious, to show us that they can be used more than once. (This could have worked well, in the contrast between the animated Pooch and the meme-struck Pooch, but it isn't convincing. The montage picture was just awful, and honestly I was sick of references to the same river shot.) I kept looking for more of those good ideas but found the story, and picture use, ultimately frustrating.
orchid blossom -
The characters here are interesting, if not terribly inspired (they honestly seem more like types than interesting, individual people; their interactions are slightly more interesting than they are). The world is--or could be--a good setting. The pictures are used well; I particularly like the use of Carlene's bag with its disparate elements. The main problem I had with this story is that it overexplains everything. We're repeatedly told things that are, or could be, obvious (the fact that electricity is rare, the wastefulness of gasoline). The characters don't know things they should so that somebody else can explain it to them, and us.
I was puzzled by the herbs throwing off the wolf. Has nobody done this before? Did the Mortician really think the sick woman crawled in and died all by herself?
I particularly liked the dynamic of the Retrievers going to get sturdy items for trade and sale, but again felt this element was over-explained. It's hard to walk that line between leaving the reader scratching his or her head and telling all, but that's the sweet spot a writer needs to hit.
My vote this round for orchid blossom, for an overall stronger story and far better use of pictures.
Winner for this round is
Macbeth
Macbeth
First Post
Thanks. To be honest, I think that idea was all tha oulled me through. Interetsingly enough. PCat said in the feedback thread that he had been contemplatin someday using the same framework.mythago said:
Yes I google ideas, I spend 24 hours before writing, but I don't usually go crazy. Most of the time.
I did realize the danger (especially as I wrote the damn thing), but i did purposefully stay away from using repetitive phrases (thought it looks like my pictures were too repetitive. Whew!). I don't know what you mean about smack-talking, I tried to be very resprectful of my competitor (the narrator seems very intimidated by his match). THe references to stories by BSF and Alsih2o were chosen specifically becuase (a) I liked those stories and (b)I felt I knew both of them enough they wouldn't take it the wrong way, BSF I even game with every Friday.
I have to be honest: you're right, I didn't particularly like it. The premise grabbed me, but I just didn't feel like writing it. The part that went the best for me (the opening and the Ceramic DM references) seemed to carry slightly better then the rest, but I probably got a little carried away with the references.
Thanks a lot to the judges, and a huge round of applause for orchid blossom. I really thought I was going to loose that round. I won't be reliably around until Sunday, but if I do feel I can start earlier I'll post.
mythago
Hero
[font="]Berandor[/font]
[font="]Firelance: "Burnind Hands - I choose you!" a.k.a. "Cinders"
Where do I know the story from? Hmm... difficult.
Actually, I was both delighted and worried that you chose to re-interpret a classical fairy tale. Delighted because it's something I like to read, worried because it's very hard to do it right.
On the one hand, you give the reader something to recognize, and have him look for similarities and deviations. On the other hand, you have a basic plot structure that makes aligning events a little easier, especially in a contest where you only have very limited time to write the story. Plus, you make it clear that the reader is just reading a story, hence he can look for parallels to other stories. You also interpret game rules with a personal twist. I absolutely enjoyed your way for sorcerers to learn new spells (Animate Rope, Disguise Self, Burning Hands, etc).
The story's conclusion is referenced throughout, which I personally like more than having a total surprise ending as it rewards attentive readers. The stepmother's name "Feuxmains", Brina's explained difference between witches and sorcerers. I also liked that the Baron recognized Ella's face (makes me wonder whether Cinderella's prince
only looked at her feet).
The ending was a little weak because in the final sentence "Brina smiled and nodded, and the two of them boarded her boat and sailed out to sea, towards the horizon." contains so much action. Perhaps if Brina got ready to leave, and Ella jumps on board, and then we'd get the final conversation would help. Then, the ending would just read "Brina smiled and nodded, and the two of them sailed out to sea. Towards the horizon."
Still, a very nice story with a little help from the Brothers Grimm.
Sparky: "All that Glitters"
Speaking of the Brothers Grimm...
I'm not sure whether you wrote to the right audience, since Humpty Dumpty, Dr. Seuss and the old Lady in the Shoe are not exactly household names in [/font][font="]Germany[/font][font="], and I'm not sure about the [/font][font="]Netherlands[/font][font="], either. In fact, I only know Dr. Seuss from less-than-mediocre movies and the excellent ENWorld Dr. Seuss competition. I still don't know who Sam's supposed to be, for example. The Cat in the Hat? Yosemite Sam?
Now, about poems. Including poetry in a Ceramic DM entry is ambitious, because you don't have a lot of time to get them right, but getting them right is very important. I don't know much that falls flatter on the audience than bad rhymes. Your rhymes don't always work.
"I hope this is short, I don't rhyme for sport." Ugh, indeed.
"Is it about your partner's death? Is it true he OD'ed on crystal meth?" Well, I'm sure you can easily decipher the not-so-succesful ones. If in doubt, read aloud.
However, there are also rhymes that do work.
"Your Majesties, there is more news. I regret to say the abuse accrues. This death, you see, has come in twos. It's not just one, but two you lose." Very nice. I especially like "abuse accrues", an alliteration with a rhyme.
On to the story itself. It's strange. Very strange. You throw in every fairy tale creature you can think of - and I love it. When I imagine a world where Mayor Goose reads the chicken's testimony about a falling sky while Rapunzel carries her hair around to a murder investigation, I just love it. It's a good kind of sensory overload.
Still, while the murder case is there, it's solved rather easily. All conflict is overcome quickly. The best scene is the interrogation. Romaine really tries to get the boy to speak, and when she finally succeeds, his mother enters.
Before and after that, it's all fairly easy. The Dumpties' lawyer (quoth the raven, "Neville More.") tells the police everything about her daughter and Jack, his mother runs up the stairs to where she can't flee and gives in instantly, and so on.
You also shift in your narrative's time a lot. Mostly, the story is written in present tense, but you often switch to past tense and back."I couldn't help but remark, ..." / "Sam was unfazed. Man the little man puzzles me. I prodded him..." - past/present/past in three consecutive sentences. You really have to look out for that.
The image of a mother selling her daughter nugget by nugget is grisly and great, but if she does, how come the children are emaciated and dressed in rugs?
Oh, and how does Captain Grimm grab Rapunzel's hair?
"My partner in rhyme." is a nice ending, showing that Rapunzel has accepted Sam.
A nice story. Thank you.
The Pics
yellowshoe
- Sparky's "old lady who lived in a shoe" has just recently renovated her home. The poor woman must have been born without a fashion sense AND blind for this outfit. Still, having the shoe as a home is a great twist.
- Firelance's shoe is just one more cruelty in a sixteen-year-long line of cruelties that the stepmother levvies on Ella. It's also the shoe Ella leaves behind as she flees the baron, and despite it not fitting her, he recognizes the young sorceress.
pullover
- Firelance gives us Brina dressed in silverweave, tightly holding on to her scarf. On the other side of said scarf, a dangerous fire spirit uses Heat Metal. Behind Brina? We don't know.
- Sparky also doesn't much care for the background, having the golden statue of Captain Grimm tightly hold on to Rapunzel's hair, enabling the Detectives to climb the second story window and discover a grisly crime.
egg
- Sparky uses the egg as Humpty Dumpty's unborn offspring, though I do wonder how the eggling would have looked like with Jack as father.
- Firelance's egg is just a bauble Brina uses to waken Ella's sorcerous powers. In a way, it's like the ring Yogurt gives Lone Starr in "Spaceballs".
jetty
- Firelance shows us the place where Ella dreams about the future and a better life, and also where she meets Brina. If only the stones ran to the opposing shore, I think Ella would have run off already.
- Sparky's jetty is the place of the gruesome murder of Humpty Dumpty, showcasing once more that eggs and egg-people break when falling from the slightest height (in fact, Sparky uses the pic on a different scale, so that the stones form a daunting wall).
content
- Sparky's Captain Grimm is a gold statue whose headshot doesn't look like a shot of her whole body (pullover) at all. The Captain has been turned to gold when she caught Midas and proved it was him. In the time since, she has perfected the dramatic swivel.
- Firelance gives us a small statue representing Disguise Self, similar to Drizzt's panther. When invoked, a ghostly female form appears to guild the caster in the finest cloth or a guard's uniform, whatever is required.
Judgement
Sparky's tale was more imaginative and impressed me with its strangeness. It's a chaotic, yet cool world he describes. However, it's also a chaotic storyline that lacks tension.
Firelance relies on already existing structure to weave his story around, but his interpretation of the tale as well as of the game rules are fun to discover and not without merit. The story is also more coherent than its counterpart.
In pic use, I think both have a weak "pullover" and while Sparky's shoe is great, it doesn't give him a distinct advantage. In the end, though I liked the quirkyness, I give my POINT TO
.
[/font]
[font="]Maldur[/font][font="]
FireLance vs. sparky
Firelance and sparky once again prove similar pictures breed similar stories, fairy tales each this time.
My vote goes to firelance , both stories proved about equal in skill, but the rhyming of sparkies story irked me.[/font]
[font="]mythago[/font]
[font="]FireLance - "Cinders"[/font]
[font="]Argh. OK, one more time: DO NOT use the "As you know…" method. Long speeches where the characters tell each other things they already know, in great detail, to fill in the reader are not credible, they fall flat, they remind the reader we are reading a story, etc. etc. A more realistic flow of dialogue would be "I should never have married your no-good father! And me stuck with a worthless girl like you, oh the injustice…" or somesuch. The whole speech giving us the timeline and events shows the author with his hand stuck up the character's backside, miming the words.
[/font]
[font="]All right, on with the rest of the story. It picks up quite a bit toward the end, veering from a predictable ending. Ella saves herself instead of passively falling into the Baron's arms (and the Baron is hardly Prince Charming anyway). The shoe isn't magical; the Baron looks at Ella, not at her shoe size. Nice use of the pullover pic in the scene where the spirit is bound. I would liked to have had a little clearer picture of the stepmother's debt to the fire spirit, though: she bound this spirit so she could run an inn and the price was being harsh to her stepdaughter? Er.
[/font]
[font="]The middle part of the story, and the dialogue, need work. Some of the pictures are frankly throwaways. The dialogue is awkward. The scenes jump abruptly in time. True, fairy tales are not always grand literature, but they need to ring true, and these characters are flat up until the very end.[/font]
[font="]Sparky - "All That Glitters"[/font]
[font="]“Our preliminary study of the more intact shell fragments show some crazing on the left upper hemisphere. I think Humpty was pushed.” - No more CSI for you, young lady.
[/font]
[font="]A mash-up of everything from Mother Goose to Greek myth; it mostly works pretty darn well. The rhymes, unfortunately, didn't. Rapunzel (nice catch on the last name, by the way) is not a rhymer, and Sam-I-Am is a dangerous choice; if you can't match Seuss it can get ugly.[/font]
[font="]Very nice use of the pictures, though I had trouble with the Captain being a statue and being able to move and pose (as in the pullover pic) simultaneously. There were a few other minor flaws--why shouldn't Sam know about Rapunzel's history?--but overall a really funny and well-put-together story.[/font]
[font="]My judgment this time for
.[/font]
[font="]Winner of round 2.2 is
.[/font]
[font="]Firelance: "Burnind Hands - I choose you!" a.k.a. "Cinders"
Where do I know the story from? Hmm... difficult.
Actually, I was both delighted and worried that you chose to re-interpret a classical fairy tale. Delighted because it's something I like to read, worried because it's very hard to do it right.
On the one hand, you give the reader something to recognize, and have him look for similarities and deviations. On the other hand, you have a basic plot structure that makes aligning events a little easier, especially in a contest where you only have very limited time to write the story. Plus, you make it clear that the reader is just reading a story, hence he can look for parallels to other stories. You also interpret game rules with a personal twist. I absolutely enjoyed your way for sorcerers to learn new spells (Animate Rope, Disguise Self, Burning Hands, etc).
The story's conclusion is referenced throughout, which I personally like more than having a total surprise ending as it rewards attentive readers. The stepmother's name "Feuxmains", Brina's explained difference between witches and sorcerers. I also liked that the Baron recognized Ella's face (makes me wonder whether Cinderella's prince
only looked at her feet).
The ending was a little weak because in the final sentence "Brina smiled and nodded, and the two of them boarded her boat and sailed out to sea, towards the horizon." contains so much action. Perhaps if Brina got ready to leave, and Ella jumps on board, and then we'd get the final conversation would help. Then, the ending would just read "Brina smiled and nodded, and the two of them sailed out to sea. Towards the horizon."
Still, a very nice story with a little help from the Brothers Grimm.
Sparky: "All that Glitters"
Speaking of the Brothers Grimm...
I'm not sure whether you wrote to the right audience, since Humpty Dumpty, Dr. Seuss and the old Lady in the Shoe are not exactly household names in [/font][font="]Germany[/font][font="], and I'm not sure about the [/font][font="]Netherlands[/font][font="], either. In fact, I only know Dr. Seuss from less-than-mediocre movies and the excellent ENWorld Dr. Seuss competition. I still don't know who Sam's supposed to be, for example. The Cat in the Hat? Yosemite Sam?
Now, about poems. Including poetry in a Ceramic DM entry is ambitious, because you don't have a lot of time to get them right, but getting them right is very important. I don't know much that falls flatter on the audience than bad rhymes. Your rhymes don't always work.
"I hope this is short, I don't rhyme for sport." Ugh, indeed.
"Is it about your partner's death? Is it true he OD'ed on crystal meth?" Well, I'm sure you can easily decipher the not-so-succesful ones. If in doubt, read aloud.
However, there are also rhymes that do work.
"Your Majesties, there is more news. I regret to say the abuse accrues. This death, you see, has come in twos. It's not just one, but two you lose." Very nice. I especially like "abuse accrues", an alliteration with a rhyme.
On to the story itself. It's strange. Very strange. You throw in every fairy tale creature you can think of - and I love it. When I imagine a world where Mayor Goose reads the chicken's testimony about a falling sky while Rapunzel carries her hair around to a murder investigation, I just love it. It's a good kind of sensory overload.
Still, while the murder case is there, it's solved rather easily. All conflict is overcome quickly. The best scene is the interrogation. Romaine really tries to get the boy to speak, and when she finally succeeds, his mother enters.
Before and after that, it's all fairly easy. The Dumpties' lawyer (quoth the raven, "Neville More.") tells the police everything about her daughter and Jack, his mother runs up the stairs to where she can't flee and gives in instantly, and so on.
You also shift in your narrative's time a lot. Mostly, the story is written in present tense, but you often switch to past tense and back."I couldn't help but remark, ..." / "Sam was unfazed. Man the little man puzzles me. I prodded him..." - past/present/past in three consecutive sentences. You really have to look out for that.
The image of a mother selling her daughter nugget by nugget is grisly and great, but if she does, how come the children are emaciated and dressed in rugs?
Oh, and how does Captain Grimm grab Rapunzel's hair?
"My partner in rhyme." is a nice ending, showing that Rapunzel has accepted Sam.
A nice story. Thank you.
The Pics
yellowshoe
- Sparky's "old lady who lived in a shoe" has just recently renovated her home. The poor woman must have been born without a fashion sense AND blind for this outfit. Still, having the shoe as a home is a great twist.
- Firelance's shoe is just one more cruelty in a sixteen-year-long line of cruelties that the stepmother levvies on Ella. It's also the shoe Ella leaves behind as she flees the baron, and despite it not fitting her, he recognizes the young sorceress.
pullover
- Firelance gives us Brina dressed in silverweave, tightly holding on to her scarf. On the other side of said scarf, a dangerous fire spirit uses Heat Metal. Behind Brina? We don't know.
- Sparky also doesn't much care for the background, having the golden statue of Captain Grimm tightly hold on to Rapunzel's hair, enabling the Detectives to climb the second story window and discover a grisly crime.
egg
- Sparky uses the egg as Humpty Dumpty's unborn offspring, though I do wonder how the eggling would have looked like with Jack as father.
- Firelance's egg is just a bauble Brina uses to waken Ella's sorcerous powers. In a way, it's like the ring Yogurt gives Lone Starr in "Spaceballs".
jetty
- Firelance shows us the place where Ella dreams about the future and a better life, and also where she meets Brina. If only the stones ran to the opposing shore, I think Ella would have run off already.
- Sparky's jetty is the place of the gruesome murder of Humpty Dumpty, showcasing once more that eggs and egg-people break when falling from the slightest height (in fact, Sparky uses the pic on a different scale, so that the stones form a daunting wall).
content
- Sparky's Captain Grimm is a gold statue whose headshot doesn't look like a shot of her whole body (pullover) at all. The Captain has been turned to gold when she caught Midas and proved it was him. In the time since, she has perfected the dramatic swivel.
- Firelance gives us a small statue representing Disguise Self, similar to Drizzt's panther. When invoked, a ghostly female form appears to guild the caster in the finest cloth or a guard's uniform, whatever is required.
Judgement
Sparky's tale was more imaginative and impressed me with its strangeness. It's a chaotic, yet cool world he describes. However, it's also a chaotic storyline that lacks tension.
Firelance relies on already existing structure to weave his story around, but his interpretation of the tale as well as of the game rules are fun to discover and not without merit. The story is also more coherent than its counterpart.
In pic use, I think both have a weak "pullover" and while Sparky's shoe is great, it doesn't give him a distinct advantage. In the end, though I liked the quirkyness, I give my POINT TO
FIRELANCE
[/font]
[font="]Maldur[/font][font="]
FireLance vs. sparky
Firelance and sparky once again prove similar pictures breed similar stories, fairy tales each this time.
My vote goes to firelance , both stories proved about equal in skill, but the rhyming of sparkies story irked me.[/font]
[font="]mythago[/font]
[font="]FireLance - "Cinders"[/font]
[font="]Argh. OK, one more time: DO NOT use the "As you know…" method. Long speeches where the characters tell each other things they already know, in great detail, to fill in the reader are not credible, they fall flat, they remind the reader we are reading a story, etc. etc. A more realistic flow of dialogue would be "I should never have married your no-good father! And me stuck with a worthless girl like you, oh the injustice…" or somesuch. The whole speech giving us the timeline and events shows the author with his hand stuck up the character's backside, miming the words.
[/font]
[font="]All right, on with the rest of the story. It picks up quite a bit toward the end, veering from a predictable ending. Ella saves herself instead of passively falling into the Baron's arms (and the Baron is hardly Prince Charming anyway). The shoe isn't magical; the Baron looks at Ella, not at her shoe size. Nice use of the pullover pic in the scene where the spirit is bound. I would liked to have had a little clearer picture of the stepmother's debt to the fire spirit, though: she bound this spirit so she could run an inn and the price was being harsh to her stepdaughter? Er.
[/font]
[font="]The middle part of the story, and the dialogue, need work. Some of the pictures are frankly throwaways. The dialogue is awkward. The scenes jump abruptly in time. True, fairy tales are not always grand literature, but they need to ring true, and these characters are flat up until the very end.[/font]
[font="]Sparky - "All That Glitters"[/font]
[font="]“Our preliminary study of the more intact shell fragments show some crazing on the left upper hemisphere. I think Humpty was pushed.” - No more CSI for you, young lady.
[/font]
[font="]A mash-up of everything from Mother Goose to Greek myth; it mostly works pretty darn well. The rhymes, unfortunately, didn't. Rapunzel (nice catch on the last name, by the way) is not a rhymer, and Sam-I-Am is a dangerous choice; if you can't match Seuss it can get ugly.[/font]
[font="]Very nice use of the pictures, though I had trouble with the Captain being a statue and being able to move and pose (as in the pullover pic) simultaneously. There were a few other minor flaws--why shouldn't Sam know about Rapunzel's history?--but overall a really funny and well-put-together story.[/font]
[font="]My judgment this time for
Sparky
[font="]Winner of round 2.2 is
FireLance 2-1
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FireLance
Legend
Phew! After reading Sparky's story, I knew that it would be close.
Thanks to the judges for the comments. I will try harder to cut out the "As you know" speeches in future.
Sparky: My opinion might not count for much, but I thought you had a great story, rhymes and all. In some ways, I liked it more than mine. It made me laugh.
No Turkey Day in my country, so any time is good for me.
Thanks to the judges for the comments. I will try harder to cut out the "As you know" speeches in future.
Sparky: My opinion might not count for much, but I thought you had a great story, rhymes and all. In some ways, I liked it more than mine. It made me laugh.
No Turkey Day in my country, so any time is good for me.
orchid blossom
Explorer
Congrats to MacBeth! People always say it, but I was just as sure you would move on as you were sure I would.
I pretty much knew my stories weaknesses when it went up, but there was no time for any further fixing. I think the over-explanation happened because I was trying to work out the world myself. I would write something, then think I was going to end up leaving a hole that would pull the readers attention. So as I was writing I was working on the internal logic for myself.
More and more I find all that I can get prepared in three days is the roughest of first drafts. Like MacBeth, I don't write for at least the first 24 hours (I don't generally have an idea at all for the first day and a half), and the writing time I have tends to get the idea down on paper, but never as elegantly as I'd like. I'm sure I'm not the only one with this problem.
Congrats again to MacBeth. I'm glad to see you go on cause I always enjoy your stories, and now I get to read more of them!
I pretty much knew my stories weaknesses when it went up, but there was no time for any further fixing. I think the over-explanation happened because I was trying to work out the world myself. I would write something, then think I was going to end up leaving a hole that would pull the readers attention. So as I was writing I was working on the internal logic for myself.
More and more I find all that I can get prepared in three days is the roughest of first drafts. Like MacBeth, I don't write for at least the first 24 hours (I don't generally have an idea at all for the first day and a half), and the writing time I have tends to get the idea down on paper, but never as elegantly as I'd like. I'm sure I'm not the only one with this problem.
Congrats again to MacBeth. I'm glad to see you go on cause I always enjoy your stories, and now I get to read more of them!
