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Lives in a dumpster. Writes on used TP
Interesting premise, but even in the span of less than 1k words, we dwell on his talent for too long. Since it's revealed more or less at the start, we're not really building up to anything more. I personally would have gone the opposite route: things going wrong, as opposed to him making the same kind of escape as so many times before
Prose is very good though, good pacing, decent humor that doesn't outstay its welcome. Good job!
Prose is very good though, good pacing, decent humor that doesn't outstay its welcome. Good job!
Has a bit of an "ends on a punchline" issue, which is a recurring thing with most short stories, but I enjoyed the flow of the prose. Well done!
This is a somewhat hectic entry. There's definitely an interesting story in here, but it juggles too many things at once to really hit home. In and of themselves, the individual components are executed well, but tossed together, it doesn't flow very smoothly.
The narration itself already tries to depict a somewhat zany protagonist, which is fine on its own, works well with the exposition (being a psychic spy, if I read that right, must not be a very comfortable life), but then we get to the quick back-and-forth dialogue which only offers scraps of information and moves at a rather fast pace. To me, it feels like it should have been one or the other, with more time devoted to fleshing out a single component.
The narration itself already tries to depict a somewhat zany protagonist, which is fine on its own, works well with the exposition (being a psychic spy, if I read that right, must not be a very comfortable life), but then we get to the quick back-and-forth dialogue which only offers scraps of information and moves at a rather fast pace. To me, it feels like it should have been one or the other, with more time devoted to fleshing out a single component.
Love this poem. The quality of the rhyme and rhythm goes up and down a lot, at times it feels like it bends the rules just to squeeze a line in, but the overall vibe I get from it is fantastic, outweighing any "structural" issues I see in it (in fact, considering the short deadline, even this is amazing). It's a whole story, it's emotional, no "punchline ending", and it's all told in a format that is much harder to pull off well than in simple prose.
Well done, definitely my favorite so far!
Well done, definitely my favorite so far!
It started off so wonderfully Australian, but then there was a distinct lack of the c-word. I'm disappointed.
Joking aside, decent story, though it wasn't quite as witty as it could have been. And while I adore crass humor, this was on the weaker side.
Joking aside, decent story, though it wasn't quite as witty as it could have been. And while I adore crass humor, this was on the weaker side.
At the risk of sounding redundant, I'll join the others of saying that this indeed reads like the first two-three pages of a fantasy novel. But in my opinion, length was not the issue. There's no reason why one cannot write short one-shots about imaginary worlds, trying to compress as much information into a few words as possible, and then leaving the reader to wonder what else might be going on in that universe.
However, in this particular entry, we barely got a few hints at a plot, as well as its relation to the prompt. To your credit, it was exchanged for proper prose and exposition (there's a few grammar mistakes, but I don't get worked up about those), which is vital to immersing the reader, so it's not a lack of skill we are seeing, merely incorrect focus. The exposition is great, but it pushes the story closer to what the others pointed out above, namely "this is the start of a whole novel".
However, in this particular entry, we barely got a few hints at a plot, as well as its relation to the prompt. To your credit, it was exchanged for proper prose and exposition (there's a few grammar mistakes, but I don't get worked up about those), which is vital to immersing the reader, so it's not a lack of skill we are seeing, merely incorrect focus. The exposition is great, but it pushes the story closer to what the others pointed out above, namely "this is the start of a whole novel".
>>Monokeras
Word of advice for the future: unless you're the editor, or if the story is chock full of glaring mistakes, only point out things like this if you can contextualize it in a useful way (e.g "it ruins the flow of the narration and does not help with immersion") Doing it just for a cheap laugh is bad form, to put it mildly. "Hey, I know you wrote a whole story, but GUESS WHAT, I only noticed that (debatable) mistake in the first sentence!"
Word of advice for the future: unless you're the editor, or if the story is chock full of glaring mistakes, only point out things like this if you can contextualize it in a useful way (e.g "it ruins the flow of the narration and does not help with immersion") Doing it just for a cheap laugh is bad form, to put it mildly. "Hey, I know you wrote a whole story, but GUESS WHAT, I only noticed that (debatable) mistake in the first sentence!"
I'll be honest: out of all the stories you submitted, this might be my least favorite (and I did really like some of the others). Which is strange, because in terms of flow and attention to detail, it does rate quite high, but the overall experience just left me with a bad taste in my mouth. The quirky style and the profanities feel like such a massive "vote-bait", where any lack of substance is covered up by the character doing a stand up comedy routine of complaining about annoying people. It got old very fast, had no real relevance to the story, and it refused to go away.
Sorry for being so blunt, but I would much rather have seen your other submissions take this one's place on the scoreboard. This one just drags them down, acting like further proof that one can either write something that challenges the reader (and be ignored) or just play to the crowd.
Sorry for being so blunt, but I would much rather have seen your other submissions take this one's place on the scoreboard. This one just drags them down, acting like further proof that one can either write something that challenges the reader (and be ignored) or just play to the crowd.
Mixed feelings about this prompt. Less gloomy, but also likely to open the floodgates to forced comedy. I felt like the previous one ("Hiding in Plain Sight") was better because it doesn't imply a specific tone in advance.