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Blind Dating in a World Gone Mad
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peddled
Pedaled. :P To peddle is to sell.
So, I really like this overall! (Disclaimer: I am nowhere near an impartial source on that; because this is right in the sweet spot of the urban fantasy universe I created and wrote in for over a decade.) But entirely aside from my biases, I think you have some strong prose here -- a nice hook, good focus contrasting a very normal dating scene with the complications of the merge, and strong internal monologue (and dialogue) that makes me root for the characters.
The main issue here is that this doesn't feel self-contained. The ending really isn't, and I'm not sure what else you could add within the wordlimit that would make it feel like one. This would be a strong opening to a longer story, and you'd definitely have me along for that ride, but in a Writeoff context I do have to ding you for the fragmentation here.
Regardless, this will set an early high water mark I'll judge the rest of my stories against.
Tier: Strong
This is sort of an amalgam of a lot of different modern fantasy stories which doesn't really give itself a clear identity from what is presented, but how can I blame the author for that? There's no way to fit that sort of thing into 750 words or less. The construction is generally pretty solid, and while there are some nice ideas floating around here, there's not a lot to really be gleaned from this, unfortunately.
This reads like an introduction, as if the author wrote took the first 750 words of the draft he was working on and submitted it. I mean the story even ends before the date is finished. We know a bit of factual information about our characters from the exposition, but we don't really know them as people yet. It's sort of like (ahem) a blind date. We know a bunch of surface information about what is going on with the person with sort of general inquiries (oh what's your job, what are your hobbies, how do you feel about x?) but we don't really know who they are.
To be honest, I wish this was saved for an original short story round, because I feel the writer has the talent to make something of this setup, and I'd be interested to see where it went. That being said, I can't really grade on a hypothetical product rather than the one that exists.
This reads like an introduction, as if the author wrote took the first 750 words of the draft he was working on and submitted it. I mean the story even ends before the date is finished. We know a bit of factual information about our characters from the exposition, but we don't really know them as people yet. It's sort of like (ahem) a blind date. We know a bunch of surface information about what is going on with the person with sort of general inquiries (oh what's your job, what are your hobbies, how do you feel about x?) but we don't really know who they are.
To be honest, I wish this was saved for an original short story round, because I feel the writer has the talent to make something of this setup, and I'd be interested to see where it went. That being said, I can't really grade on a hypothetical product rather than the one that exists.
>>horizon
>>Cassius
Merge their review and you'll have mine.
It was indeed a solid introduction. I quickly got engaged with the characters, maybe because Gavin is flawed but is aware of it and works to be better. I kinda like that.
Thank you for sharing. If you ever expand it, drop a link, I would be very interested in reading it.
@>>horizon:shameless promotion is shameless :)
>>Cassius
Merge their review and you'll have mine.
It was indeed a solid introduction. I quickly got engaged with the characters, maybe because Gavin is flawed but is aware of it and works to be better. I kinda like that.
Thank you for sharing. If you ever expand it, drop a link, I would be very interested in reading it.
@>>horizon:shameless promotion is shameless :)
Actually really liked it. Gold star.
>>horizon
I can see your point about this not feeling self-contained, but I think that given the limitations of the minific this story did the best it could.
I....think that the only way to close the story would be to add a line from Vivienne's mind about something something optimism, but it runs the risk of feeling fake.
>>horizon
I can see your point about this not feeling self-contained, but I think that given the limitations of the minific this story did the best it could.
I....think that the only way to close the story would be to add a line from Vivienne's mind about something something optimism, but it runs the risk of feeling fake.
Ok, I certainly respect the prose here: it’s well written, it’s punchy, though it seems somewhat sanitised.
My main gripe is with the story itself. You chose to tread an easy path, that of the dating with an unknown being, while your worldbuild allows for much more than that. You played it safe, and it’s a bummer, because your story sounds hackneyed to me, while you could’ve chosen to explore a much more original facet of your world.
As a matter of fact, your worldbuilding reminds me of a white guy dating a black or metis girl the early 1900’s US. You put the scene in an alien, more advanced backdrop, but the stakes are just the same. There's nothing you specifically build on that backdrop. It's an old jalopy decked up with a veneer of Sci-Fi.
And then, of course, it’s just a beginning, and we don’t really see the guy struggling with his own convictions/feelings.
All of that, of course, doesn’t detract from the prose, but I’m probably not going to rank it as high as the other commenters did.
My main gripe is with the story itself. You chose to tread an easy path, that of the dating with an unknown being, while your worldbuild allows for much more than that. You played it safe, and it’s a bummer, because your story sounds hackneyed to me, while you could’ve chosen to explore a much more original facet of your world.
As a matter of fact, your worldbuilding reminds me of a white guy dating a black or metis girl the early 1900’s US. You put the scene in an alien, more advanced backdrop, but the stakes are just the same. There's nothing you specifically build on that backdrop. It's an old jalopy decked up with a veneer of Sci-Fi.
And then, of course, it’s just a beginning, and we don’t really see the guy struggling with his own convictions/feelings.
All of that, of course, doesn’t detract from the prose, but I’m probably not going to rank it as high as the other commenters did.
They say a picture's worth 1000 words, which is unfortunate, because that's about 250 more than you got to work with.
Which is a problem, because you are trying to both paint a picture here AND have a tiny little narrative arc, which leads to you getting neither. While your initial stuff starts to convey the idea of something akin to Hellsalem's Lot in Blood Blockade Battlefront, it is pretty quickly lost because you don't quite manage to keep up the weird touches through the date. They are two, normal people there. Which isn't bad per se, but you need
I'm not saying you need to throw something bizarre out every line, but you do need to keep mixing in the fantasy and the mundane in little ways to get the image solid in the reader's mind.
Beyond that, while the narrative arc functions, I just don't think the punch is really big enough to make for a really engaging story. His reluctance is a little too understated at the beginning for this "let's keep the date going" thing to really feel like a triumph/change.
Which is a problem, because you are trying to both paint a picture here AND have a tiny little narrative arc, which leads to you getting neither. While your initial stuff starts to convey the idea of something akin to Hellsalem's Lot in Blood Blockade Battlefront, it is pretty quickly lost because you don't quite manage to keep up the weird touches through the date. They are two, normal people there. Which isn't bad per se, but you need
I'm not saying you need to throw something bizarre out every line, but you do need to keep mixing in the fantasy and the mundane in little ways to get the image solid in the reader's mind.
Beyond that, while the narrative arc functions, I just don't think the punch is really big enough to make for a really engaging story. His reluctance is a little too understated at the beginning for this "let's keep the date going" thing to really feel like a triumph/change.
It's probably vague enough to count as parallel (universes) evolution, but dang does this happen to run close to the No Fanfiction rule. Good show though.
Hello, yes, I have an urban fantasy bias similar to >>horizon and therefore guiltily enjoyed reading this. The prose is quite strong, dialogue feels natural, character interactions are great and they're the focus of the piece so that's fantastic.
However, the narrative arc is weak and it's not a great fit to the mini format overall. What can we say the main conflict here is? Whether or not Gavin will land the girl without embarrassing himself? A. That's a little chauvinistic, don't you think, presenting dating in such a one sided way? and B. Is there ever any doubt? The worst thing he does is assuming her profession, which is a small faux pas that isn't even explained to the reader as being awkward until after it's come and gone. Definitely feels like an intro, not a complete story.
>>Monokeras also comes in and drops the hammer on the content. As he says, this is super easy low stakes writing mode. It aims to please and not much more. The middle section, full of 40k filler fluff, exemplifies what we're talking about.
Overall execution level is high, though. Quite high. Augh, where do I put a piece like this? Considering how few I have left and how the round's shaped up so far... somewhere in top 10. Definitely flawed, not #1, but the fundamentals are a big plus, and since voting is all head to head comparisons I can't claim to be unbiased. Thanks for writing!
Hello, yes, I have an urban fantasy bias similar to >>horizon and therefore guiltily enjoyed reading this. The prose is quite strong, dialogue feels natural, character interactions are great and they're the focus of the piece so that's fantastic.
However, the narrative arc is weak and it's not a great fit to the mini format overall. What can we say the main conflict here is? Whether or not Gavin will land the girl without embarrassing himself? A. That's a little chauvinistic, don't you think, presenting dating in such a one sided way? and B. Is there ever any doubt? The worst thing he does is assuming her profession, which is a small faux pas that isn't even explained to the reader as being awkward until after it's come and gone. Definitely feels like an intro, not a complete story.
>>Monokeras also comes in and drops the hammer on the content. As he says, this is super easy low stakes writing mode. It aims to please and not much more. The middle section, full of 40k filler fluff, exemplifies what we're talking about.
Overall execution level is high, though. Quite high. Augh, where do I put a piece like this? Considering how few I have left and how the round's shaped up so far... somewhere in top 10. Definitely flawed, not #1, but the fundamentals are a big plus, and since voting is all head to head comparisons I can't claim to be unbiased. Thanks for writing!
On the whole, I actually liked this. The dialogue felt natural, the two main characters had some good chemistry with each other, and there was just enough world-building to get me interested. Oh, and that wyrm was great.
The one downside for me is that the setting felt a bit extraneous. While certainly interesting to see the human world merging with the magic world, the story is so down-to-earth and similar to our world that it makes the magic part feel a little unneeded. I could see Gavin and Viveanne hanging out without the demi aspect, and I don't think that's a good thing. A story with this kind of fantasy idea needs to accentuate the fantasy a bit more, if only to feel a little more unique.
7/10, would play Warhammer with cute cat girl again
The one downside for me is that the setting felt a bit extraneous. While certainly interesting to see the human world merging with the magic world, the story is so down-to-earth and similar to our world that it makes the magic part feel a little unneeded. I could see Gavin and Viveanne hanging out without the demi aspect, and I don't think that's a good thing. A story with this kind of fantasy idea needs to accentuate the fantasy a bit more, if only to feel a little more unique.
7/10, would play Warhammer with cute cat girl again
Your dialogue is really impressive here! Smooth and realistic, while also revealing character personality. Though I feel like this story fell victim to the word-count requirement, I still had fun reading it and delving into the world you made--what precious little we got, anyway.
Great story. I only have nitpicks (apart from some already listed above which I won't repeat).
You appear to be a native English speaker, but in English the phrase "his Tobias" definitely implies that Tobias is his significant other. This doesn't make sense in context.
I don't think it's a problem in the story, but many readers may be bothered by the fact that they never get to know what species the date actually is. I don't play 40k, but when I look up Warhammer online it doesn't appear that any of the common races have ears that can lay back. The fact that there are no other visual cues makes the one you do use stand out. I agree that her race isn't important, but you should be careful about teasing the reader.
The "stared at him for a long time" feels rather awkward, like you're trying to say something about her mindset, but not fully clueing the reader in on what she's thinking or why she hesitates (she doesn't seem hesitant anywhere else in the story).
Also, >>Ranmilia makes a good point. I think this barely passes, primarily because of the meta: you're talking about people who play 40k more than you're talking about 40k itself, so the story doesn't rely specifically on that universe (to me).
You appear to be a native English speaker, but in English the phrase "his Tobias" definitely implies that Tobias is his significant other. This doesn't make sense in context.
I don't think it's a problem in the story, but many readers may be bothered by the fact that they never get to know what species the date actually is. I don't play 40k, but when I look up Warhammer online it doesn't appear that any of the common races have ears that can lay back. The fact that there are no other visual cues makes the one you do use stand out. I agree that her race isn't important, but you should be careful about teasing the reader.
The "stared at him for a long time" feels rather awkward, like you're trying to say something about her mindset, but not fully clueing the reader in on what she's thinking or why she hesitates (she doesn't seem hesitant anywhere else in the story).
Also, >>Ranmilia makes a good point. I think this barely passes, primarily because of the meta: you're talking about people who play 40k more than you're talking about 40k itself, so the story doesn't rely specifically on that universe (to me).
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.