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Show rules for this event
Congrats to all our entrants and, of course, congrats to our winners!
*looks at the results*
*looks at the slates*
*frowns*
Which includes me, it turns out, in a fairly unexpected bit of slate magic. Which I feel makes a good solid point about being a writer: it isn't about completely pleasing everybody, it is about pleasing enough people just enough.
No real magic story behind this one. Fussed with the prompt for a bit, nothing in my great big idea rolodex spoke particularly well to the prompt, so I just flailed about until I was like "You know, I haven't done anyone dating a cat-girl in a while. Let's make that work."
To a degree, the core vision of this story really came from the anime Kekkai Sensen (aka Blood Blockade Battlefront, aka the anime with a really fucking fantastic OP and a fucking fantastic ED, with the basic idea being a portal to the underworld opened in New York and now people and monsters are living together. Took the shape of the idea, worked it in with parallel worlds smashing together, applied it globally and then ramped it down to slice of life.
The arc I wanted to present was a really simple one (and one I can kinda failed at): Gavin moves from reluctant about the date (and awkwardly a bit both knowingly and unknowingly racist) to deciding to give the whole thing a chance. Which you'd think is a nice, tiny arc that fits well in a mini, but when combined with needing a more exotic setting and additional baggage, turns out it is actually a lot of stuff to cover in a short space!
>>horizon i r gud at english
But yeah, the date arc really just turns out to have not been presented strong enough I suspect, which is a large part of that. That, or that being the arc really is just unsatisfying.
>>Cassius Yeah, that's the other problem - I don't really have the space to world build either, so the shape of things ends up being fairly limited.
>>Fenton Thanks! And yeah, trying to portray low-grade (and surmountable) racism is tricky.
>>devas To be fair, that is roughly the shape I was going for with the end. Neither is committed, neither is fully sure, but both are willing to let this go a bit further.
>>Monokeras To be fair, that's the shit I like to do! But you raise a solid point that I never do much with the setting at large, which is a shame.
>>Ranmilia See the above. The intended arc is more a personal one where, unfortunately, a lot of it ended up left on the cutting room floor, which, in turn, reduced the clear arc of the conflict. There was a lot more junk about Gavin being new to SF and depressed and just moping around as he tries to recover from moving in with a random friend after a dragon or something burned down his hometown. Buy dragon insurance, people.
>>libertydude I can see the argument. I like to play even bizzare worlds conceptually straight at times, but the world too much falls into the background here. This would almost be a case where I really wish I'd been working in comic, where the weird would have stuck around in the back of the brain better.
>>thebandbrony Thank you kindly!
>>Trick_Question This is why you check words around words you change. That sentence was originally "his roommate" and his name came up later. When I cut that bit, I changed up to his name but didn't remove "his" :p.
I do state her race once (cat demi - choose your own level of furry), but yeah, it'd help to better focus on it, especially given Gavin would fixate some on that given his touchiness with demis.
>>Dubs_Rewatcher I do complete the arc I set out to, but I think there is a fair argument I don't complete it in a satisfying way.
*looks at the results*
*looks at the slates*
*frowns*
Which includes me, it turns out, in a fairly unexpected bit of slate magic. Which I feel makes a good solid point about being a writer: it isn't about completely pleasing everybody, it is about pleasing enough people just enough.
No real magic story behind this one. Fussed with the prompt for a bit, nothing in my great big idea rolodex spoke particularly well to the prompt, so I just flailed about until I was like "You know, I haven't done anyone dating a cat-girl in a while. Let's make that work."
To a degree, the core vision of this story really came from the anime Kekkai Sensen (aka Blood Blockade Battlefront, aka the anime with a really fucking fantastic OP and a fucking fantastic ED, with the basic idea being a portal to the underworld opened in New York and now people and monsters are living together. Took the shape of the idea, worked it in with parallel worlds smashing together, applied it globally and then ramped it down to slice of life.
The arc I wanted to present was a really simple one (and one I can kinda failed at): Gavin moves from reluctant about the date (and awkwardly a bit both knowingly and unknowingly racist) to deciding to give the whole thing a chance. Which you'd think is a nice, tiny arc that fits well in a mini, but when combined with needing a more exotic setting and additional baggage, turns out it is actually a lot of stuff to cover in a short space!
>>horizon i r gud at english
But yeah, the date arc really just turns out to have not been presented strong enough I suspect, which is a large part of that. That, or that being the arc really is just unsatisfying.
>>Cassius Yeah, that's the other problem - I don't really have the space to world build either, so the shape of things ends up being fairly limited.
>>Fenton Thanks! And yeah, trying to portray low-grade (and surmountable) racism is tricky.
>>devas To be fair, that is roughly the shape I was going for with the end. Neither is committed, neither is fully sure, but both are willing to let this go a bit further.
>>Monokeras To be fair, that's the shit I like to do! But you raise a solid point that I never do much with the setting at large, which is a shame.
>>Ranmilia See the above. The intended arc is more a personal one where, unfortunately, a lot of it ended up left on the cutting room floor, which, in turn, reduced the clear arc of the conflict. There was a lot more junk about Gavin being new to SF and depressed and just moping around as he tries to recover from moving in with a random friend after a dragon or something burned down his hometown. Buy dragon insurance, people.
>>libertydude I can see the argument. I like to play even bizzare worlds conceptually straight at times, but the world too much falls into the background here. This would almost be a case where I really wish I'd been working in comic, where the weird would have stuck around in the back of the brain better.
>>thebandbrony Thank you kindly!
>>Trick_Question This is why you check words around words you change. That sentence was originally "his roommate" and his name came up later. When I cut that bit, I changed up to his name but didn't remove "his" :p.
I do state her race once (cat demi - choose your own level of furry), but yeah, it'd help to better focus on it, especially given Gavin would fixate some on that given his touchiness with demis.
>>Dubs_Rewatcher I do complete the arc I set out to, but I think there is a fair argument I don't complete it in a satisfying way.
>>Not_A_Hat
Shhh, stops saying nice things while I'm trying to feel bad about myself.
But really, I'm glad you did! It might just be a perception thing where I'm noticing some kinds of critique more than others, but sometimes I legit think that 50% of all the critique I get from the Writeoffs deals with my damn endings.
Shhh, stops saying nice things while I'm trying to feel bad about myself.
But really, I'm glad you did! It might just be a perception thing where I'm noticing some kinds of critique more than others, but sometimes I legit think that 50% of all the critique I get from the Writeoffs deals with my damn endings.
Congrats to the winners, and thanks to everyone who participated! Fun prompt, great round, I'll probably speak a bit more on that at the end here.
So when I said my entry was rushed... yeah... I meant really rushed. I spent 14+ hours of brainstorming and discarding ideas. Maybe an hour writing and revising and re-revising the first couple of paragraphs, trying to hit the right opening tone and pasting things back and forth to check word budget. And then looked at the clock, and, uh, oops, less than ten minutes left to deadline, time to race to 400! Oh no, title is a required field! Oh no, 0m00s! But thankfully, it was accepted anyway, and the grace period for revisions let me quickly add another ~50 words.
As you can see, the result was less than fantastic. I didn't expect this to make it out of prelims, and chalk that up to how tough and close the round was more than any inherent quality. On the other hand, I did get in the bare(st) skeleton framework I wanted to hit, and I need to work on writing speedily and under pressure, so in some ways it succeeded... maybe?
The main idea I wanted to hit here was a relationship conflict, where two people are fairly close, but still sort of in their honeymoon period, and some life changing opportunity or event comes along. One person's reaction is "Oh yes!" and the other's is "Oh no!" and what happens then? Dell was to have the slightly more sympathetic presentation, at least to me, but it should have been open enough that people with different values could reasonably side with Rachel and not want to go on a magical multiverse tour.
Of course, most of the shading and background got dropped on the floor during the mad dash. The middle section should have been a substantial conversation between the three characters, and given them all the opportunity to voice their thoughts and flesh themselves out. Rachel didn't expect the magic stuff to work, doesn't like change, and is actually reasonably happy with her life here, while Dell is the opposite, and took "all that wiccan nonsense" seriously. They'd figure that out, come to realize they weren't terribly compatible, reference Candide and have a better title playing on the idea of finding the best of all possible worlds, blah blah blah. But all of that was cut for time, so instead I wound up with a pokey skeleton where reader feedback saw everything from gender confusion to a depressing end to an outright abusive relationship - with both characters cast as the abuser by different readers. Whooooops.
Still a good exercise, though. I must've gone through fifty or sixty ideas that were all on the level of "good single concept or scene." Those basic ideas come very easily to my mind, but actually developing them into a story that goes somewhere and has conflict and arc, that's the hard part of the writing process, for me. So I'm glad I finally hit one that was able to grow. I'm mostly the opposite of >>Cassius over here, I grew up reading and experimenting with hard sci-fi, and tracing the "how" and "what" of a story is vital to me. Pure emotional response stuff is more difficult, at least on a longer scale. For example, I spent a fair bit of time on the opening to this piece, but still don't have a very good sense for whether it actually worked or was eyeroll-worthy purple nonsense. The comments seem to indicate it worked more than it didn't, though, so... yay?
As >>horizon says, Original Mini is lunatic mode, flaws are expected, and everyone's coming to the process from different places and perspectives. "We all learned something" is the best outcome for a round I could hope for.
>>libertydude
>>Dubs_Rewatcher
>>Trick_Question
>>Monokeras
>>AndrewRogue
>>Ratlab
>>Not_A_Hat
>>Ferd Threstle
>>Fenton
>>Foehn
>>Gba500
Massive thanks to all of you!
Optimism, or, "Could be worse for ten minutes, maybe?"
So when I said my entry was rushed... yeah... I meant really rushed. I spent 14+ hours of brainstorming and discarding ideas. Maybe an hour writing and revising and re-revising the first couple of paragraphs, trying to hit the right opening tone and pasting things back and forth to check word budget. And then looked at the clock, and, uh, oops, less than ten minutes left to deadline, time to race to 400! Oh no, title is a required field! Oh no, 0m00s! But thankfully, it was accepted anyway, and the grace period for revisions let me quickly add another ~50 words.
As you can see, the result was less than fantastic. I didn't expect this to make it out of prelims, and chalk that up to how tough and close the round was more than any inherent quality. On the other hand, I did get in the bare(st) skeleton framework I wanted to hit, and I need to work on writing speedily and under pressure, so in some ways it succeeded... maybe?
The main idea I wanted to hit here was a relationship conflict, where two people are fairly close, but still sort of in their honeymoon period, and some life changing opportunity or event comes along. One person's reaction is "Oh yes!" and the other's is "Oh no!" and what happens then? Dell was to have the slightly more sympathetic presentation, at least to me, but it should have been open enough that people with different values could reasonably side with Rachel and not want to go on a magical multiverse tour.
Of course, most of the shading and background got dropped on the floor during the mad dash. The middle section should have been a substantial conversation between the three characters, and given them all the opportunity to voice their thoughts and flesh themselves out. Rachel didn't expect the magic stuff to work, doesn't like change, and is actually reasonably happy with her life here, while Dell is the opposite, and took "all that wiccan nonsense" seriously. They'd figure that out, come to realize they weren't terribly compatible, reference Candide and have a better title playing on the idea of finding the best of all possible worlds, blah blah blah. But all of that was cut for time, so instead I wound up with a pokey skeleton where reader feedback saw everything from gender confusion to a depressing end to an outright abusive relationship - with both characters cast as the abuser by different readers. Whooooops.
Still a good exercise, though. I must've gone through fifty or sixty ideas that were all on the level of "good single concept or scene." Those basic ideas come very easily to my mind, but actually developing them into a story that goes somewhere and has conflict and arc, that's the hard part of the writing process, for me. So I'm glad I finally hit one that was able to grow. I'm mostly the opposite of >>Cassius over here, I grew up reading and experimenting with hard sci-fi, and tracing the "how" and "what" of a story is vital to me. Pure emotional response stuff is more difficult, at least on a longer scale. For example, I spent a fair bit of time on the opening to this piece, but still don't have a very good sense for whether it actually worked or was eyeroll-worthy purple nonsense. The comments seem to indicate it worked more than it didn't, though, so... yay?
As >>horizon says, Original Mini is lunatic mode, flaws are expected, and everyone's coming to the process from different places and perspectives. "We all learned something" is the best outcome for a round I could hope for.
>>libertydude
>>Dubs_Rewatcher
>>Trick_Question
>>Monokeras
>>AndrewRogue
>>Ratlab
>>Not_A_Hat
>>Ferd Threstle
>>Fenton
>>Foehn
>>Gba500
Massive thanks to all of you!
>>Haze
>>horizon
>>devas
>>Ratlab
>>Trick_Question
>>AndrewRogue
>>Fenton
>>Monokeras
>>Ranmilia
>>libertydude
Thank you everyone for your comments and criticism, they're all appreciated. And sorry about being a little late with this response; for some reason I was dead tired yesterday.
I'd thought about the prompt a bit and realized that 'parallel universes' didn't necessarily mean a sci-fi concept; the term could apply to things like the spirit world or the lands of the dead in mythology. I just happened to think of Norse mythology because of its Nine Realms, which could be interpreted in such a way.
Another element to this was a thought I'd had concerning the idea of Viking afterlife: Niflheim (or, more accurately, Hel's hall of Helheim) was where those who had died of sickness, old age and generally anything other than valorous battle would up going. Well, that would also include the absolute best warriors as well, since no mortal opponent could defeat them in battle. Hel would be more than willing to take such warriors into her company, I imagine, and it sounds fitting that the daughter of Loki would be the beneficiary of such a cosmic technicality. (She's also getting more than a few leaders, wise-men and who-knows-how-much of a labor force as well, so it's no wonder her home is essentially hermetically sealed from the rest of Creation in the legends.)
Looking back on it now, even before the comments came in I realize that I did badly hurt myself with the format I used. It requires that the audience be able to 'become' the viewpoint character and be led around the nose by the author. It's either going to work or it isn't, and there's not much middle ground.
I also managed again to write a piece that really didn't have anything going on in it. It does have nice mood and an interesting idea, but there's no real story going on in it like >>Ranmilia mentions. *sigh* And I thought I was being so clever, again... (Then again, it was something of a stream-of-consciousness piece that I wrote in about an hour and spent another hour polishing, so I shouldn't be surprised.)
As for individual responses:
>>Haze
I'm glad you liked it. Like I said above, it was an experimental piece, and I'm glad it wasn't a total bust with everyone.
>>horizon
Thanks for the detailed review. I do agree now that the format hurt the story, and also the 'twist' of Hel being the goddess in question. I thought I'd learned that lesson from my first attempt in these contests back in February but...apparently not. (Oh well, maybe I'll do better next time. :) And you do make a good point about the 'leprosy' thing being made too late in the piece, it should have been better integrated in the piece (considering she was rotting away in mythology, I thought it would have been a likely cause of her condition, making her home something of a leper colony).
>>devas
Glad you liked the piece, though I imagine you saw much better later on.
>>Ratlab
Sorry if the idea went a little past you; I was trying for something different and I apparently succeeded on that count, for good or ill. And I didn't think about the use of the word 'damn' being so jarring in the piece. Thank you for pointing that out.
>>Trick_Question
Thanks for liking the piece, overall. I agree, looking back on it now, that 'who the audience is supposed to be' could have been made a lot clearer. And thanks again for mentioning my sad attempt at a 'twist' that shouldn't have been one. As for Hel's name and home - I thought 'Hela' would be a better way of putting down a female deity's name, while the rest of it means I should have done a better job of researching my mythology before submitting the piece.
>>AndrewRogue
Glad you liked the piece. I think you're probably right about the choice of protagonist and the fact that there's a lot of mood but not much in the way of a sense of triumph for Hel. I think the latter is probably a consequence of this piece really needing more of a story element to it and higher stakes.
>>Fenton
Thank you for the praise and the different take on Hel's naming in the story. I'd meant the word 'damn' to be used because Hel is basically trapped for eternity in her realm; no one, no thing can leave her realm, not even her, and I would imagine that to be horribly frustrating over the long term, which is why I had her getting like that. She's just that upset over the matter.
>>Monokeras
You're right about the problems with the piece: when I take a closer look at it, it looks more like a guide giving a tour than anything else. No conflict, no stakes, just someone talking to someone else. While it is well-written, it needs a lot more to it. (To be honest to everyone, I'm shocked at how well this piece did in this round.)
>>Ranmilia
Yeah, this piece seems to be well-written, but it's 'full of sound and fury, signifying nothing'. I don't have a lot of answers to the questions you raise because I wasn't thinking about it at the time; I just wanted to put something out into the contest this time around. I really should have thought a lot more about this piece and given it more underlying structure before submitting it. But thanks for the detailed critique, I do appreciate it.
>>libertydude
I'm glad you thought it was interesting. Like I've said to some of the others, I do understand that this piece needed more directioon and 'story' to really work better. I'll see what I can do next time.
Thanks once again for all of your comments and kind words. I hope to see you again (and do a better job with my submissions) next time!
>>horizon
>>devas
>>Ratlab
>>Trick_Question
>>AndrewRogue
>>Fenton
>>Monokeras
>>Ranmilia
>>libertydude
Thank you everyone for your comments and criticism, they're all appreciated. And sorry about being a little late with this response; for some reason I was dead tired yesterday.
I'd thought about the prompt a bit and realized that 'parallel universes' didn't necessarily mean a sci-fi concept; the term could apply to things like the spirit world or the lands of the dead in mythology. I just happened to think of Norse mythology because of its Nine Realms, which could be interpreted in such a way.
Another element to this was a thought I'd had concerning the idea of Viking afterlife: Niflheim (or, more accurately, Hel's hall of Helheim) was where those who had died of sickness, old age and generally anything other than valorous battle would up going. Well, that would also include the absolute best warriors as well, since no mortal opponent could defeat them in battle. Hel would be more than willing to take such warriors into her company, I imagine, and it sounds fitting that the daughter of Loki would be the beneficiary of such a cosmic technicality. (She's also getting more than a few leaders, wise-men and who-knows-how-much of a labor force as well, so it's no wonder her home is essentially hermetically sealed from the rest of Creation in the legends.)
Looking back on it now, even before the comments came in I realize that I did badly hurt myself with the format I used. It requires that the audience be able to 'become' the viewpoint character and be led around the nose by the author. It's either going to work or it isn't, and there's not much middle ground.
I also managed again to write a piece that really didn't have anything going on in it. It does have nice mood and an interesting idea, but there's no real story going on in it like >>Ranmilia mentions. *sigh* And I thought I was being so clever, again... (Then again, it was something of a stream-of-consciousness piece that I wrote in about an hour and spent another hour polishing, so I shouldn't be surprised.)
As for individual responses:
>>Haze
I'm glad you liked it. Like I said above, it was an experimental piece, and I'm glad it wasn't a total bust with everyone.
>>horizon
Thanks for the detailed review. I do agree now that the format hurt the story, and also the 'twist' of Hel being the goddess in question. I thought I'd learned that lesson from my first attempt in these contests back in February but...apparently not. (Oh well, maybe I'll do better next time. :) And you do make a good point about the 'leprosy' thing being made too late in the piece, it should have been better integrated in the piece (considering she was rotting away in mythology, I thought it would have been a likely cause of her condition, making her home something of a leper colony).
>>devas
Glad you liked the piece, though I imagine you saw much better later on.
>>Ratlab
Sorry if the idea went a little past you; I was trying for something different and I apparently succeeded on that count, for good or ill. And I didn't think about the use of the word 'damn' being so jarring in the piece. Thank you for pointing that out.
>>Trick_Question
Thanks for liking the piece, overall. I agree, looking back on it now, that 'who the audience is supposed to be' could have been made a lot clearer. And thanks again for mentioning my sad attempt at a 'twist' that shouldn't have been one. As for Hel's name and home - I thought 'Hela' would be a better way of putting down a female deity's name, while the rest of it means I should have done a better job of researching my mythology before submitting the piece.
>>AndrewRogue
Glad you liked the piece. I think you're probably right about the choice of protagonist and the fact that there's a lot of mood but not much in the way of a sense of triumph for Hel. I think the latter is probably a consequence of this piece really needing more of a story element to it and higher stakes.
>>Fenton
Thank you for the praise and the different take on Hel's naming in the story. I'd meant the word 'damn' to be used because Hel is basically trapped for eternity in her realm; no one, no thing can leave her realm, not even her, and I would imagine that to be horribly frustrating over the long term, which is why I had her getting like that. She's just that upset over the matter.
>>Monokeras
You're right about the problems with the piece: when I take a closer look at it, it looks more like a guide giving a tour than anything else. No conflict, no stakes, just someone talking to someone else. While it is well-written, it needs a lot more to it. (To be honest to everyone, I'm shocked at how well this piece did in this round.)
>>Ranmilia
Yeah, this piece seems to be well-written, but it's 'full of sound and fury, signifying nothing'. I don't have a lot of answers to the questions you raise because I wasn't thinking about it at the time; I just wanted to put something out into the contest this time around. I really should have thought a lot more about this piece and given it more underlying structure before submitting it. But thanks for the detailed critique, I do appreciate it.
>>libertydude
I'm glad you thought it was interesting. Like I've said to some of the others, I do understand that this piece needed more directioon and 'story' to really work better. I'll see what I can do next time.
Thanks once again for all of your comments and kind words. I hope to see you again (and do a better job with my submissions) next time!
King Laius
Congratulations to all the finalists and the other medalists, particularly AndrewRogue.
The reviews on King Laius didn't have leave me expecting such a decent placement. But apparently some people really liked it, and the people who didn't like it still ranked it somewhere in the middle of their slate. And that all somehow added up to a silver medal.
Some reviews pointed out that there didn't seem to be a complete story here. That there was no payoff at the end. To that criticism I would say: I understand why you feel that way. The reader, given such a shocking hook as this story's, naturally wants to find out what happened to them.
Problem: That's impossible in a 750 word story. I spent hours puzzling over it and finally concluded there was simply no way to do it. No way to write a complete story with the hook, the plot, and the resolution in 750 words.
So instead I wrote a story with a different conflict -- what the character's decision was after discovering the gun. Does he hide in his house, hoping to avoid fate, or go about his day, expecting to meet it? That's a story I can tell in 750 words.
If I ever get around to rewriting this, however, it'll be the first kind of story. Obviously it'll be a lot longer. And I think I'll retitle it Oedipus's Gun.
Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed it.
Congratulations to all the finalists and the other medalists, particularly AndrewRogue.
The reviews on King Laius didn't have leave me expecting such a decent placement. But apparently some people really liked it, and the people who didn't like it still ranked it somewhere in the middle of their slate. And that all somehow added up to a silver medal.
Some reviews pointed out that there didn't seem to be a complete story here. That there was no payoff at the end. To that criticism I would say: I understand why you feel that way. The reader, given such a shocking hook as this story's, naturally wants to find out what happened to them.
Problem: That's impossible in a 750 word story. I spent hours puzzling over it and finally concluded there was simply no way to do it. No way to write a complete story with the hook, the plot, and the resolution in 750 words.
So instead I wrote a story with a different conflict -- what the character's decision was after discovering the gun. Does he hide in his house, hoping to avoid fate, or go about his day, expecting to meet it? That's a story I can tell in 750 words.
If I ever get around to rewriting this, however, it'll be the first kind of story. Obviously it'll be a lot longer. And I think I'll retitle it Oedipus's Gun.
Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed it.
>>Cold in Gardez
For my perspective, getting "this is nice" reviews with few nitpicks doesn't generally mean that a story is top shelf material. My most glowing reviews usually mean a story is going in the middle of the slate. If I feel passionately enough about a story to argue it to death, that probably means I appreciate it for its potential.
I had a lot of complaints about your story, but it still ended up number 4 in my slate (and I reviewed every finalist), primarily because I thought the three I placed above it were a little more creative in their inception (yours was easily the most well-written among my top five). The idea was excellent, I just wanted for it to be extended further. I think there are ways you could have done this in 750 words, but that doesn't mean you should have done so: you had a specific story you wanted to tell.
For my perspective, getting "this is nice" reviews with few nitpicks doesn't generally mean that a story is top shelf material. My most glowing reviews usually mean a story is going in the middle of the slate. If I feel passionately enough about a story to argue it to death, that probably means I appreciate it for its potential.
I had a lot of complaints about your story, but it still ended up number 4 in my slate (and I reviewed every finalist), primarily because I thought the three I placed above it were a little more creative in their inception (yours was easily the most well-written among my top five). The idea was excellent, I just wanted for it to be extended further. I think there are ways you could have done this in 750 words, but that doesn't mean you should have done so: you had a specific story you wanted to tell.
I can't believe I didn't mention this in my last post, but congratulations to all the entrants and winners in this round, especially AndrewRogue!
Post by
Trick_Question
, deleted
>>Trick_Question
Okay, I'll admit to not understanding the meaning of the image you showed me. Is it a good thing or a bad thing? I apologize for causing offense on my earlier message, if that's what this is about.
Okay, I'll admit to not understanding the meaning of the image you showed me. Is it a good thing or a bad thing? I apologize for causing offense on my earlier message, if that's what this is about.
>>eusocialdragon It's standard message board statement of agreeing or seconding somebody else's statement. I.E. she is also surprised she didn't mention congrats to the entrants and is piggybacking on you to express it.
:p
:p
>>eusocialdragon
As >>AndrewRogue pointed out, I'm just agreeing with you that the winners and entrants deserve congratulations.
As >>AndrewRogue pointed out, I'm just agreeing with you that the winners and entrants deserve congratulations.
>>Trick_Question
>>AndrewRogue
Thanks for the explanation and the agreement, and forgive me for my ignorance. <:)
>>AndrewRogue
Thanks for the explanation and the agreement, and forgive me for my ignorance. <:)
>>horizon
>>Trick_Question
>>AndrewRogue
>>Dubs_Rewatcher
>>Ranmilia
>>Monokeras
>>libertydude
Thank you all so much for such a wealth of critique! I'm absolutely blown away by all the wonderful feedback you've been kind enough to leave.
>>Trick_Question
>>AndrewRogue
>>Dubs_Rewatcher
>>Ranmilia
>>Monokeras
>>libertydude
Thank you all so much for such a wealth of critique! I'm absolutely blown away by all the wonderful feedback you've been kind enough to leave.
>>GroaningGreyAgony
>>Foehn
>>AndrewRogue
>>Dubs_Rewatcher
>>Monokeras
>>Ratlab
>>Ranmilia
>>libertydude
Late retrospective is late. Since this round is over and a new one has already started, I won't go in full details. See at the bottom for the explanation.
>>GroaningGreyAgony
I'm still waiting :p
>>Foehn
I don't get how this is 'tell' and not 'show'. Moreover, the sentence 'No problem', is supposed to show the man's feeling, a sarcastic comment on the climbing.
Indeed, time constraint and word limit was a big problem with this one. First draft ended with 1.100 words, the rest was cutting off everything.
As for the meaning, look at the the bottom.
>>AndrewRogue
As I said, look at the bottom for the explanation
>>Dubs_Rewatcher
Don't really know if this was possible. Since it's a metaphorical piece, the characters couldn't be really defined. And since you didn't get the meaning, I can understand how uninteresting these two 'hollowed people' were.
>>Monokeras
You read it not like I intended it to be. Too bad. Let's meet up at the bottom for the explanation.
>>Ratlab
See at the bottom/
>>Ranmilia
More or less. Since it's about chosing, Matrix is not really far.
I'm not sure but you mean that the story makes sense in the way that you get a man iclimbs a mountain, talks with a woman, crosses a door and goes back after a moment, but you don't get what the whole story is supposed to mean, right?
>>libertydude
Another draft maybe, 500-1.000 words more will also probably be effective.
Anyway, thanks you all for your review. Now here comes the 'fun' part.
EXPLANATION
This was supposed to be a metaphorical piece about being born and dying. The whole first part is from a baby POV, while he's still inside his mother's womb and he's about to be born.
Since I was over the word limit, I had to cut off some of the clues pointing in that direction but I thought I left enough and the obvious ones. It seems not.
The rope represents the umbilical cord. Since he had left it behind him, he can't stay, because he's gonna die pretty soon.
Now that you know he's a newborn, this one should be more obvious. Same for the paragraph above.
The woman isn't supposed to represent something specifically (like a goddess, or the mother). She is here to have some dialogs and add dynamism in the story. You can't look at her like a loving motherly figure, the person you see before and after your life.
As for the last part, he's here early because his life ended earlier than planned. Suicide? Probably.
The whole story was inspired by the tragedy that happened to one of my cousin I'm really closed to a few months ago. She lost her newborn baby. He was only a few weeks old and the doctors confirmed he hadn't any illness or any malformation. He just refused to live. It seems that newborn babies can already chose if they want to live or not. At least, that's what I believe. It seems to be the only explanation as to why some newborns simply dies while they should have lived.
Anyway, thanks again for your comments. I'm a bit disappointed to see that the joke story, written in one hour, did better than the one I put much more efforts in. I don't know which conclusions I should draw from this but I'm sure there are some. See you.
>>Foehn
>>AndrewRogue
>>Dubs_Rewatcher
>>Monokeras
>>Ratlab
>>Ranmilia
>>libertydude
Late retrospective is late. Since this round is over and a new one has already started, I won't go in full details. See at the bottom for the explanation.
>>GroaningGreyAgony
I'm still waiting :p
>>Foehn
Whilst the opening does a good job of establishing a setting, it could be stronger; describe how the man feels to be doing what he's doing, rather than what he's doing. The old "show, don't tell."
I don't get how this is 'tell' and not 'show'. Moreover, the sentence 'No problem', is supposed to show the man's feeling, a sarcastic comment on the climbing.
Possibly due to the constrains of the word limit, the whole intro feels a little jumpy; he needs to repeat something "a few more times", but the following sentence "he sees the top of the mountain." The sentence after, he's close enough to "get his whole body on the plateau." The jumps make it a little hard to follow, though that might just be me.
Indeed, time constraint and word limit was a big problem with this one. First draft ended with 1.100 words, the rest was cutting off everything.
As for the meaning, look at the the bottom.
>>AndrewRogue
As I said, look at the bottom for the explanation
>>Dubs_Rewatcher
Give me a reason to care about your characters, and I might find myself caring more about their possible death and resurrection.
Don't really know if this was possible. Since it's a metaphorical piece, the characters couldn't be really defined. And since you didn't get the meaning, I can understand how uninteresting these two 'hollowed people' were.
>>Monokeras
You read it not like I intended it to be. Too bad. Let's meet up at the bottom for the explanation.
>>Ratlab
See at the bottom/
>>Ranmilia
There's a Matrix reference?
More or less. Since it's about chosing, Matrix is not really far.
It doesn't not make sense, it just doesn't make sense, if you get what I mean.
I'm not sure but you mean that the story makes sense in the way that you get a man iclimbs a mountain, talks with a woman, crosses a door and goes back after a moment, but you don't get what the whole story is supposed to mean, right?
>>libertydude
Another draft maybe, 500-1.000 words more will also probably be effective.
Anyway, thanks you all for your review. Now here comes the 'fun' part.
EXPLANATION
This was supposed to be a metaphorical piece about being born and dying. The whole first part is from a baby POV, while he's still inside his mother's womb and he's about to be born.
Since I was over the word limit, I had to cut off some of the clues pointing in that direction but I thought I left enough and the obvious ones. It seems not.
The rope represents the umbilical cord. Since he had left it behind him, he can't stay, because he's gonna die pretty soon.
For the first time, he screamed.
Now that you know he's a newborn, this one should be more obvious. Same for the paragraph above.
The woman isn't supposed to represent something specifically (like a goddess, or the mother). She is here to have some dialogs and add dynamism in the story. You can't look at her like a loving motherly figure, the person you see before and after your life.
As for the last part, he's here early because his life ended earlier than planned. Suicide? Probably.
The whole story was inspired by the tragedy that happened to one of my cousin I'm really closed to a few months ago. She lost her newborn baby. He was only a few weeks old and the doctors confirmed he hadn't any illness or any malformation. He just refused to live. It seems that newborn babies can already chose if they want to live or not. At least, that's what I believe. It seems to be the only explanation as to why some newborns simply dies while they should have lived.
Anyway, thanks again for your comments. I'm a bit disappointed to see that the joke story, written in one hour, did better than the one I put much more efforts in. I don't know which conclusions I should draw from this but I'm sure there are some. See you.
>>Monokeras
>>Trick_Question
>>AndrewRogue
>>Bachiavellian
>>Haze
>>Ranmilia
>>libertydude
Late retrospective is late. Since this round is over and a new one has already started, I won't go in full details. See at the bottom for the logic behind the story and the 'joke'.
>>Monokeras
I never watched Star Trek, so I can't say anything about that (see you in Discord, I want to understand what you meant)
>>Trick_Question
You don't need to have studied the topic for years to get it. The lawyer states that there is an infinite number of parallel universes. To prove it, he reminds the audience that everytime humanity looks up to the sky, it discovers bigger things everytime (satellites, planetes, stars, galaxies, galaxy clusters...). The same goes for matter.
Because that's the joke? Granted it's not the funniest joke.
>>AndrewRogue
That's somehow the point. See at the bottom.
>>Bachiavellian
I think your main concern is because the 'just kidding' ending is only the first part of the joke. However, the other parts take place 'outside' of the story. Thinking about the lawyer's logic and everything that happened before and after the story. Granted, this is not obvious, and I can't fault people for not thinking beyond the story, especially if the story in itself isn't that good.
>>Haze
And that's exactly the point, like several comedies and jokes. I'm relieved to see some of you got it. Several comedies are funny at first glance but when you look deeper into it, you realise how tragic it is for the characters. I've always thought the more in-depths the joke is, the better it is (don't know if I succeeded here but I tried)
>>Ranmilia
That was more or less intentionnal. See at the bottom.
>>libertydude
Mild success!
Thank you all for you review. Now the 'fun' part.
EXPLANATION
This was supposed to be my take on a prompt I found boring to stay polite. The logic behind the story is obviously flawed but the whole story relies on that flawed logic. It was a reasoning exercise for me and the reader. The lawyer assumes a lot of things are true to prove his theory (the infinite number of parallel universes, the possibility to travel between them...) but even if he's right, it can be still countered within the same logic.
That's why >>Haze is right. The setup is funny and becomes tragic, but that's half of the joke. By following the lawyer's logic, you could argue that the universe in which the story takes place isn't the one where the traveller will come when the clock will ring, but after the trial.
There is one universe where he would come at the right moment, one where he'd come 1 hour early, one where he'd come 1 hour and 1 min early, one where he wouldn't come at all, etc...
That's the problem when you try to talk about time travel. Space travel isn't much of a problem, you can come up with any 'bullshit' to explain why one can travel faster than the speed of light, but when time travel is involved, it's almost impossible to not fall into one of the time paradoxes. That's why I found the prompt annoying and this story was a way to illustrate two things:
-Writing about time travel is futile because you'll almost always end up with paradoxes and your universe can't exist
-Thinking too hard about time travel for a story is futile and prevent the reader from enjoying a good story
Back To The Future has time paradoxes. Does it make it bad movies? Definitely not. There are fun, exciting and enjoyable movies.
I'm glad that some of you chuckled at least. I didn't really aim for something bigger. I'm a bit disappointed that this story, written in one hour and a half (one of the reason the English is sometimes a bit awkward), did better than the one I spent more time to craft and polish. I guess there are some conclusions I need to draw from this but I can't see them for now.
Anyway, thank you again for your comments. See you in the next round.
>>Trick_Question
>>AndrewRogue
>>Bachiavellian
>>Haze
>>Ranmilia
>>libertydude
Late retrospective is late. Since this round is over and a new one has already started, I won't go in full details. See at the bottom for the logic behind the story and the 'joke'.
>>Monokeras
I never watched Star Trek, so I can't say anything about that (see you in Discord, I want to understand what you meant)
>>Trick_Question
I don't follow the argument about stars and elements and infinity, and if there's anypony in this competition who understands this topic, it's me
You don't need to have studied the topic for years to get it. The lawyer states that there is an infinite number of parallel universes. To prove it, he reminds the audience that everytime humanity looks up to the sky, it discovers bigger things everytime (satellites, planetes, stars, galaxies, galaxy clusters...). The same goes for matter.
It also isn't clear how the traveller could traverse multiple universes accurately but miss the time by two hours
Because that's the joke? Granted it's not the funniest joke.
>>AndrewRogue
Basically, what's holding this story back here is that thinking too hard really derails the core punchline.
That's somehow the point. See at the bottom.
>>Bachiavellian
That really doesn't feel like a joke to me--there's just not very much actual subversion, outside of what you're going to get from a "just kidding" ending.
I think your main concern is because the 'just kidding' ending is only the first part of the joke. However, the other parts take place 'outside' of the story. Thinking about the lawyer's logic and everything that happened before and after the story. Granted, this is not obvious, and I can't fault people for not thinking beyond the story, especially if the story in itself isn't that good.
>>Haze
I think this is pretending to be a comedy, but went so far into anti-humor for the "subversive" punchline that it actually feels like a tragedy in logic and tone.
And that's exactly the point, like several comedies and jokes. I'm relieved to see some of you got it. Several comedies are funny at first glance but when you look deeper into it, you realise how tragic it is for the characters. I've always thought the more in-depths the joke is, the better it is (don't know if I succeeded here but I tried)
>>Ranmilia
except the curtains aren't quite pulled all the way down and the audience can see into backstage
That was more or less intentionnal. See at the bottom.
>>libertydude
For a story that's a set-up to just one joke, that was actually pretty decent.
Mild success!
Thank you all for you review. Now the 'fun' part.
EXPLANATION
This was supposed to be my take on a prompt I found boring to stay polite. The logic behind the story is obviously flawed but the whole story relies on that flawed logic. It was a reasoning exercise for me and the reader. The lawyer assumes a lot of things are true to prove his theory (the infinite number of parallel universes, the possibility to travel between them...) but even if he's right, it can be still countered within the same logic.
That's why >>Haze is right. The setup is funny and becomes tragic, but that's half of the joke. By following the lawyer's logic, you could argue that the universe in which the story takes place isn't the one where the traveller will come when the clock will ring, but after the trial.
There is one universe where he would come at the right moment, one where he'd come 1 hour early, one where he'd come 1 hour and 1 min early, one where he wouldn't come at all, etc...
That's the problem when you try to talk about time travel. Space travel isn't much of a problem, you can come up with any 'bullshit' to explain why one can travel faster than the speed of light, but when time travel is involved, it's almost impossible to not fall into one of the time paradoxes. That's why I found the prompt annoying and this story was a way to illustrate two things:
-Writing about time travel is futile because you'll almost always end up with paradoxes and your universe can't exist
-Thinking too hard about time travel for a story is futile and prevent the reader from enjoying a good story
Back To The Future has time paradoxes. Does it make it bad movies? Definitely not. There are fun, exciting and enjoyable movies.
I'm glad that some of you chuckled at least. I didn't really aim for something bigger. I'm a bit disappointed that this story, written in one hour and a half (one of the reason the English is sometimes a bit awkward), did better than the one I spent more time to craft and polish. I guess there are some conclusions I need to draw from this but I can't see them for now.
Anyway, thank you again for your comments. See you in the next round.