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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mythago" data-source="post: 1859888" data-attributes="member: 3019">Round 1.8 – SteelDraco vs. Piratecat   Maldur   Piratecat Eh, confusing little story. I’m not sure I got the right feel from it.  SteelDraco Pirates, and a nice scheme to get past your enemies. I would love to read a more eleborate version of this story.  My point goes to SteelDraco, arrrr.     Berandor   SteelDraco: "Valen's Vengeance"   A very fine entry. A pirate's tale to defeat Piratecat's tale? That's unusual, and you do your part to succeed. A strong point in your writing is the frequent use of dialogue to liven things up and ring some conflict into the story. Conflict is good, as is your dialogue - not too artificial, but also not too filled with slang and dialect like a caricature.     Still, I made out some problematic tendencies in your style.  Your point of view shifts within "chapters", often abruptly. First we're with Tratok, then with Nate, and now we're back to the hobgoblin's p.o.v. Choose a narrative perspective and stick to it, or at least signal aswitch somehow.   Also, while your dialogue is telling enough, I nevertheless miss some descriptions or reactions outside of conversation. For example, what does Valen look like? All we are told is that he's a "man-shape". You must also examine your sentences for grammatical clarity. First, you   tend to change the subject midsentence:    "Seawater rolled off the creature's head as it unfurled..." I'm guessing it's the head that unfurls, not the water.   "Nate grabbed the man. (...) He crumpled..:" Tratok crumples, not Nate.   The second tendency I made out is similar: When you connect independent phrases with a conjunction (but, and, as), separate them with a comma. However, when these sentences are not able to stand alone, do not use a comma. Likewise, when you use a parenthetical phrase seperated with a comma, it should refer to the subject of the sentence.   "Each carried a hunting spear, and wore armor of turtle shell..." No comma (or no conjunction)   "Several carried woven kelp bags, flopping with fresh-caught fish." No comma   "Nate hopped easily from the landing boat, and strode up next to Tratok." no comma.   It's a minor thing for this competition, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.     Now, the tale you unfold is a queer one - pirates hunting for silverware has a certain irreverent touch to it. I also like the pirate crew, for example the magic-sniffing goblin.   "I see Valen's eggling has grown..." This idiom is not only clearly understandable to us, but it also shows us a part of lizardfolk culture (or biology, or both). Very good. The showdown is tense and fast, but I wonder why the crew listened to Sha'galok and did not interfere. Nate had just illustrated his intent to kill the lizardman, after all. "This fight is between them." is not   enough for me, just as it wasn't in the D&D movie.   How Tratok disrupts Nate's spell with a punch is great, though. And the image of him laughing whilst coughing blood is a very vivid one.   The ending, however, is just an ending in that the story suddenly stops. "Why would I be worried?" We don't know enough to be sure that Valen's rightfully unconcerned; in fact, people will probably recognize him just as they recognized his statue. I miss at least one sentence that either gives us closure or really opens the ending (like Tratok groaning at the process of being hunted again). As it is, though, the ending is just too abrupt.       Piratecat: "Jabberwockies"   Let me tell you about rhythm. Some stories have rhythm. Their words run along in a mesmerizing ebb and flow, pulsating in the reader's mind, spinning a web of fascination you have to actively force yourself out of. When you read one of these stories, your brain automatically falls in line with the cadence. Perhaps it's not so much rhythm, but melody.   Words dancing high and low, in major chords and minor discord, playing on your emotions like Vanessa Mae on a violin.    Whether you call it rhythm, melody, or snufflebuggle - this story has it.     Right from the start, it grabs me and never loosens its grip until the very end. "Tin. Tin. Biting on aluminum, licking a battery. Tin." And just like that, I'm in.   The foreshadowing starts early with Aunt Frances's clutching "a martini glass like it was a life preserver and the wedding was a sinking ship." Carol has already begun to make excuses for her "asthmatic whiffling husband" Charles.   What follows is a foray into an absued woman's soul. There are great details, like Carol sweating "(perspiration glow dew but ladies don't sweat)" - great line - from (to my understanding) fear and concentration, explaining it away with "even at this altitude, a hot breeze was flowing..." when a few lines later it reads, "'It's a little rustic, darling,' she hazarded, 'and chilly at this altitude.'", telling us somehting is amiss with the present.     Charles's plans are alluded to, but never explained: "It's much better than the alternative." or "This is the way out of my trap." Carol's mindset is illustrated excellently, I find, from her italicized subconscious mutterings to expressions like "she had grown to live for the rare moment when his gaze would alight on her..."   And just in case we don't hate Charles enough, you give us the nightly climb into the grave where my loathing for the bastard reached new heights.   I think that even in the end, a large part of Carol is caught in Charles's web ("He did such hard work for the both of them.") – that sound very realistic to me (sadly).   Now, there's the odd sentence that could be trimmed, or where a comma is amiss or missing. But these instances are solitary in nature and shall not be dwelt upon any longer - for now.     On top of it all, you mix your narrative with Carroll's poem. Charles is galumphing, the manxome foe, while Carol uffishly sits at the tum-tum wooden table... and it works.   And the ending. The ending is just... Snicker-snack. I realize this sounds more like and endorsement than like a critical assessment, but so be it.     Thank you, Piratecat. Thank you very much.     The pics   The Cave   - SteelDraco's cave is not natural in origin and holds one hundred (and one) cases of platinum silverware. Strong magics guard against intrusion, able to fell even a hydra.   - Piratecat's cave is an ancient burial site, home to desiccated corpses, tin silverware and milipedes. Only a candles lights our way down there, a flickering flame exposing the horror that is otherwise hidden in darkness.     The Silverware   - Piratecat's "utensils" are made from tin covered with silver, and at least one "vorpal blade" will be put to good use soon.   - SteelDraco's silverware is the motivation behind the pirates' quest, platinum forks and spoons. Even though we never see the silverware itself, only its containers, we can surmise that it hasn't rusted in the years of being buried in the cave.     The petal necklace   - SteelDraco has Sha'galok wear a necklace of bone spines topped with a black pearl containing Captain Valen's soul.It is an unseemly piece of jewelry, yet quite important.   - Piratecat's variety of "Anthropoda Myriapoda" is shy, yet probably paralytically poisonous. What's more, they gyre and gimble in the wabe and look distressingly cute with a purple ribbon on their head. This is my favorite picture use of the tournament so far.      male bust   - Piratecat has his heroine experience a vision, seeing her husband in the shriveled face of a mummified corpse. Maybe it is here Carol realizes she will not satisfy Charles until he is dead, but it is still Piratecat's weakest pic.   - SteelDraco gives us Captain Valen, he who "destroyed the fleet of Thron's Hold, sailed out of the Mirrormere, and dared to steal from Raelin the Glutton." If that isn't a resume worthy of at least middle management, I don't know what is. (We're sailing on the big accountancy!)     Judgement   I think it's probably clear where my vote goes to, but the story really clicked with me.   SteelDraco, a very nice entry; you would have a good chance to advance, usually - and you still might, since it takes two votes to win a round.   Other than that, what can I say except POINT TO [spoiler]PIRATECAT[/spoiler], and "Snicker-snack", off to my sig!      mythago     SteelDraco – “Valen’s Vengeance”   Arr! Few things are as pleasin’ as a good pirate yarn.   Whew. Had to let that out.     The prose was engaging; what I found lacking was suspense. It’s pretty obvious where the story is going and who’s driving it. We have the young snot who’s not the man his father was and isn’t half as clever as he thinks he is, and the second-in-command, loyal to the dead (?) father, who really runs the show and will put the brakes on the kid in the end. Pretty much from the beginning you can see that the kid is going to get his comeuppance.       There is too much “as you know…” dialogue in the beginning, telling us of Valar’s deeds and the background. It’s as nicely handled as one can expect, but still, there is a feeling that these characters are only repeating this information (that they know all too well) for our benefit.  That said, the prose flows along, and I quite liked the device of Valar as figurehead of his own ship with his soul sealing the bargain with the guardians. I’d have liked to see a better wrap-up. It thuds rather than, er, rips. (Why should I worry, is not much of a pirate-y, Valar-like thing to say.)     Excellent use of pictures. The statue as jaunty, butt-kicking Valar is perfect.       Piratecat – “Jabberwockies”   See, people, THIS is why I didn’t enter Ceramic DM this time around.     A great horror story without supernatural oogies. It reminds me a bit of “The Yellow Wallpaper”; we flip back and forth, believably, watching Carol mentally disintegrate over the years of her miserable marriage. Charles never raises a hand to her or terrorizes her, but his terrible self-centeredness and withholding of approval are devastating.     The only real criticism—and I’m reaching here—is that I’d liked to have gotten a better sense of why Carol married him in the first place. It’s clear from the wedding scene that he was a jerk from Day One, but what she saw in him (or why she thought she saw anything) isn’t entirely clear.     Picture use: I had a bit of trouble seeing the ‘mummy’ one as you placed it, and the silverware seems a bit shiny for an archaeological find—but plausible.   My three-cornered hat tips to [spoiler]Piratecat[/spoiler]       Judgment this round to [spoiler]Piratecat[/spoiler], who goes on to Round 2. Nice work, gentlemen.</blockquote>

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