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BeefSupreme posted:hey what the hell even is a surreptitious muffin anyway SurreptitiousMuffin posted:I will gently caress you Chili posted:None of you bitches are loving anyone. since you boys seem so hot and bothered we'll make it official CHILIBEEFMUFFINZ BRAWL Your prompts are: inescapable gravity story must focus on a long term monogamous relationship 2000 words max due by 11:59 PM PST on 3/2/17 TOXX UP, DIPSHITS
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Feb 24, 2017 08:34
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BeefSupreme posted:
noooooooooooooooooo
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Feb 24, 2017 20:26
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so apparently this is a thingsebmojo posted:Hi thread, the something awful best dog invitational has started and we need to win!
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Feb 25, 2017 21:21
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Interprompt: Prompt
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Feb 28, 2017 23:06
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BLOOD WEEK (232) CRITS PART 3/??????? yeah, just posting more of these because I'm a slow trash mammal. I'm down to the last few, which should be up soon, but I figure I'd toss these ones out there b/c I've just been sitting on them as I try to finish. Runes Your sins: Well, if you listened to the recap episode, you pretty much know all of the issues with this story. But here they are for posterity. Right out of the gate, your first paragraph is confusing: quote:The axe lands heavy across his neck with a wet, ripping sound. Momentum buries it deep until it strikes bone and sends a familiar vibration up Aegar's arm. The man folds downward into the sand, but before he falls his free hand reaches up and grasps the axe handle. A futile gesture. The blood loss is immediate and intense. He dies with a sigh on the black sand of this foreign beach. You need to establish that there are two people before you describe who's doing what. At first I thought the person getting an axe to the neck was the protagonist. But so, the rest of the fight sequence is fine enough. I personally have trouble connecting to a story that drops me straight into  BATTLE because like, most battle scenes are more or less identical. There's some raaawwwr, there's some blargh, there's stabbing and chopping. Eventually someone wins and someone loses and a lot of people are dead. It's generally context that makes a battle interesting, but this story doesn't give much of that. So okay, the battle ends and Aegar, being a kind of old dude who just got disemboweled, is laying around waiting to die. None of this is super offensive, but I'm still not finding much to connect with. I have no sense of Aegar as a person outside of this moment you're showing us. I guess in a distant way I'm...well, I'm not sad he's dying, but I sort of agree with Aegar that his situation is very terminal and lovely. Well, I assume that's how he feels. We don't get a whole lot of insight into his head, except that he doesn't want to die and turn into a viking zombie. The ending is both coherent and nonsensical. I don't know the significance of the runes, don't know why Aegar reacts the way he does. I like to think he has undiagnosed hyperacusis. That would be kind of a neat way to put an unexpected twist on a viking story. In reality, I think he's just pissed and irrational because he's rapidly dying of inside-out stomach. I have no clue how medically feasible it is to walk when you've been disemboweled, let alone push a boulder on someone, but why the hell not, I guess. I think the ending is supposed to signify that Aegar has embraced the futility of his final moments, but resolved to tell his own story anyway since, what the hell, the other guy seemed to think it was worth doing. That's kind of all I can squeeze out of this. Beyond that, it doesn't seem to have a point. Which is what caught the judges' attention. The writing isn't bad, but the more I think about it, the less I'm sure why this story exists. I can't really grasp what you, the author, intended when you set out this write it. Not that there always has to be a "point" or whatever. But if there isn't a point, then the prose or events should be completely captivating, but they weren't that, either. So I dunno. Six Portraits of Negative Space Your sins: The first two sections hum along really well. I'm interested in the people and the mystery, and none of the prose drags. I think it was the third section where things first wobble. It's not poorly written, but it dragged on and on. Like, nothing interesting enough happened on Maggie and Finn's dates. The closest nod to real intrigue is the old woman who wanders up to them briefly, since my brain wants to connect her to events in the later part of the story. Oh, and the magical bracelet that I honestly overlooked until it came up in the very last section. I think it's because it's in the very end of the very last paragraph of the seven dates section, and by then I was kind of skimming because I was getting bored. But what really bothers me is how mature Maggie and Finn are about their relationship prospects. I could've bought them agreeing to strict rules about heavy petting, but the whole "we're doomed, lets just be a fond memory for each other" thing was too much. I think you could've have one or the other of those things, but having both is kind of overkill. Of the first three sections, this one does the least. I wanted to learn more about Finn, tbh, especially having already read the story. Jenny's sister's section is pretty good. Her voice is distinct from the others and her perspective gives a nice top-down look on the possible connections between events in the town. It does a pretty good job of pointing out details that might not seem relevant to the character, but the reader can glean some things. The scene with the old woman's monologue was interesting, and confirmed something not-quite-normal was going on. I was left wondering if she was meant to be the old lady who wandered up to Maggie and Finn on their date, since clearly she lives near enough by to talk to Jenny's sister. I think? And since the time periods don't really match up, we're left to assume that the uh, old lady lived preternaturally long? Or she's actually crazy but is inadvertently picking up on some hidden line of devil-serving vampire fairy things (???)? The final scene is the most frustrating. The way the story comes back to Maggie makes me feel like I should know/like her character better by this point. The stuff with the bracelet felt tacked on even though you mentioned it early on. I appreciate how the story kind of just shows the reader some possible clues and lets me try to sort out the truth for myself, but there still wasn't enough of an on-ramp to those bracelet shenanigans. And the very last few paragraphs felt completely compressed, like you got sick of writing the story or something. I hate to assume what's in the author's head, but I was really perplexed when I hit the end of the story. Like, I'm not even super sure what Thom's deal was. He seemed concerned the Finn had...what? Made Maggie into a fairy vampire (??) thing? I kinda get it. Whatever Thom and Finn are part of, it's only just barely brushed against this ordinary town full of ordinary lives. And we're seeing that fact through the eyes of people who can't know what the reader knows, so they're not going to connect the dots. So, in a way, the ending feels too overt and blatant. It's like the climax to a longer story that's had more time to build up to that confrontation, the moment where magic and evil show their faces. You Can't Enter Heaven Until I Enter You Your sins: Your stories are always hard for me to crit because I usually just kind of sit back and let them happen to me. I enjoyed this entry into the saga of BJ/Seb/Xavier, though I think someone who hadn't read the other story (and who doesn't know the inspirations behind the story) might be left feeling a little confounded. But gosh, this has everything doesn't it? I legitimately lol'd at the flashback fakeout. Everything about this story would be at home in, IDK, a cartoon in the Adult Swim lineup. Actual critiques: I feel like Xavier doesn't get much screen time early on. It's weird that he doesn't say anything to Sebastian at first, considering how their last encounter ended. I could've used a bit more description of the setting. It feels very much like people moving around in empty white space. Your characters are really, uh, animated, and so it's good that the focus is on them, but I had trouble placing them in space. Basically, I think you could clarify the blocking a bit better, which would make the scene more fun since I wouldn't be pausing to make sure I'm parsing things correctly. I know that these stories are mostly you riffing on stuff that you find funny, but I actually...liked Black Jesus's plan? Like, BJ is definitely not above being uuuh a bit crass and bawdy at times, but he's still a legit good guy (which is good thing, given he's the son of god). It's hard to write schlocky cartoon craziness like this and still have your messiah character come across as fundamentally good. It would be super easy to write a cynical Jesus, so I'm glad you decided not to come at it that way. I think your stories are definitely going to appeal most to people who share your sense of humor, but I've always liked how they're over the top without being mean-spirited. I also really like your exploration of love between dudebros. While I think you'd have difficulty publishing this outside of Thunderdome, I do hope to see more of the adventures of Sebastian and Xavier someday! When It Raines, It Pours Your sins: Okay, well, first of all, we kinda have to take the protagonist's word for it that he's acting out of brotherly love and not, you know, another kind of love. I'm not usually in the business of pointing at stories and accusing them of uh, social taboos, but this one is weird. I think the reason the brother/sister dynamic doesn't work is...well, Iselle barely shows up! So all we see is her brother's obsessive and violent rescue effort. When you have a guy trying to rescue a girl without much context, the reader is probably going to assume it's because she is the romantic "prize" that he "gets" at the end, because that's how stories have been structured for a really really long time. You didn't show any of the relationship between Lucas and Iselle, so there's nothing to differentiate it from other "guy rescues girl, they ride off into the sunset" stories. I don't actually think that you meant this story to be about romantic sibling love, but their relationship was so poorly characterized that it wasn't satisfying as a motive. The action itself is okay. Too bad I don't really care about action. I mean, your blocking isn't terrible, but after a while I get sick of watching a cooldude relentlessly dispatch minions like something out of Hotline Miami. Like, take this blocking and description and put it in a story with characters who interact meaningfully with each other. There's like...a thin veneer of commentary on, IDK, fake decadent rich Hollywood people. That aspect of it didn't do much for me either. Lucas is kind of smug and cynical, but he doesn't say or think anything particularly new and cool. I was like, okay, people are rich. And also sometimes bad. Also sometimes in Hollywood. The ending line made me kind of mad, cause it's like, "Oho, that Iselle, always getting in trouble!" when we really haven't seen her do much of anything. Then I considered that the "destruction" that follows Iselle around is actually Lucas himself, much to her chagrin. I could see a scenario where he sees his super cool action guy antics are totally necessary, but in reality Iselle is perfectly capable of looking after herself. In that case, the closing line of the story would be kind of funny and ironic. But that's a stretch, because it's not really what the story did. If you haven't listened to the recap episode for this week, we also talk about your story in depth there, too! Neurotique Your sins: I think the other judges compared this to Stephen King's Needful Things. I can certainly see that, but I will defend this piece because I think it completely did its own thing. The idea of a mysterious shop that appears out of nowhere and sells something whimsical, magical, or metaphorical certainly isn't a new one. One of my favorite books when I was a little kid, Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher, used a similar thing. It's a good, easy way to get something extraordinary into the hands of someone ordinary. A shop is supposed to be a trustworthy thing, after all. Anyway. Onto the story itself. I liked it enough that it was easy to read through it, even though I was pretty sure how it was going to go from the moment Finn decided to take Kip's items. There was always going to be a catch, so all of the intrigue in this story comes from finding out how that catch works out for Finn. The macabre option was for Finn to slowly go insane as he continued taking money in exchange for shouldering terrible emotional burdens. You went for the more lighthearted approach, which gave Finn a second chance to choose peace of mind over material comfort. I was left with an ambiguous feeling at the end of the story. One thing that is never really explained by the story is the money. Like, does the store magically generate enough money to make the items enticing to new "victims" of the store? Or is the money siphoned back out of the comfortable life Finn made for himself with the cash from Kip? It's a small point, but it changes the stakes of the story. If Finn gets to keep his fancy couch and coat and TV and etc when he takes over Teddy's, then the story is kind of too good to be true. Not only are all of his debts paid, he has the opportunity to divest himself of the hand-me-down anxiety. I think I would like this story a bit more if Finn's choices seemed a little more difficult. I don't think you needed to make Teddy's/Kip more sinister. I think this story needed more information about Finn. There aren't a whole lot of particulars in this piece. It's like, Finn is a poor guy, but then he gets rich and it's good! Except having money comes with a price, and that's bad. Finn himself isn't really important to the narrative, beyond being the guy who stuff was happening to. You could've created tension by giving him some personal MO that had nothing to do with Teddy's initially, and then comes into conflict with the shop as the situation escalates. Your descriptions are all good, but sometimes the language is a little bit too...on the nose? But in like, really small, subtle ways. I'll give one example: quote:But tonight, Finn noticed an alley he hadn’t noticed before. Had it always glowed blue like that? I dunno, I think you could've zazzed this up a bit. Plus, the "had it always [done blatantly magical thing]???" It's the kind of question the narrative asks when the writer isn't sure that the reader is gonna 'get' what's going on. If you give a bit more textured description, you won't need to point at stuff in your story and go BOY THAT SURE IS WEIRD HUH Understand Your sins: I liked this story a lot, though mostly for the ending. I find your narrator's insights into this human woman a little unlikely. That it deduced her gender and her emotional states seems kind of incredible, but I guess I'm not an alien expert. I thought the "just like you and me" and "just like anyone else" was a little overkill. It's like, haha look what a normal, average dude this bug alien is!! The hoo-mon is the weird one! But the voice is tolerable so I forgave it. There were other odd things, like when the alien talks about movies. I guess it would be awkward for you to come up with a movie analogue that was arbitrarily called something else, so I get it. I guess you could've just not used that particular idea to illustrate your point. There's just a liiiittle too much obvious parity drawn between the narrator and the 'alien'. The math part, as you already know, genuinely made me laugh. I imagine that is exactly what would happen in reality, since most people probably aren't equipped to communicate much via numbers except "hey, I know basic math!" It seems true to how this kind of encounter would go in reality. I like the story best once the characters are actively working together in real time rather than musing on similarities/differences. The whole thing with the hydraulics and the collapsing bulkhead was pleasantly plausible, though I kind of wish the story had mentioned the door earlier on? You could've done neat metaphor things with it, maybe had the door stand for the fundamental communication issues between your characters. Maybe that's what you were going for, but as it is, the story feels backloaded. I did feel for your bug person, though. I thought the detail about how they felt alone but would feel even more alone if the human died was well observed. The last paragraph landed pretty nicely IMO. The desire to be understood, to cross the boundaries that separates people of all kinds, is something that resonates with me pretty deeply. Sitting Here fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Mar 4, 2017 |
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Mar 4, 2017 03:14
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well i guess i gotta be in
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Mar 4, 2017 07:13
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Chilibeefmuffin brawl results! As usual, I'm not totally decided on this as I start typing this post. All three pieces had things I like, but they also had deep flaws that made me frown. Muffin Well of course this was pretty, you're Muffin. I'm really really sorry that your poetic skills are probably being wasted on me. I enjoyed the structure of your story though, even if poetry isn't in my wheelhouse. It was charitable of you to not make me read *only* poetry. Okay so lets take a look at what's actually going on in this piece. The core events in this story are...two guys meet for what should be a fling, but it turns into something more. The riff on half-deaths says that perhaps this relationship stagnated, but these lovers can't bring themselves to break out of the cycle they've created for themselves. I can see why you opted to do a sestina; the structure is very spiral-like, which is appropriate because this piece has a very brooding, ruminating feel to it. I liked that the 'gravity' was pure metaphor, even if that metaphor was perhaps a bit on the nose. On the other hand, i can't complain too much about its on-the-noseness because love and gravity to tend to have the same effect on human bodies. You fall in love, you drift closer and closer until you're in low orbit. Then that love loses its luster, but you are still stuck in that low orbit and your fuel has been drained by, i dunno, apathy or hopelessness. Getting out of "orbit" would change the status quo beyond what you can imagine, so it's hard to muster up the energy to do so. So the metaphor was solid, and had some nice dimension to it. On the other hand...now, you couldn't have known this, but I was really hoping for more of an exploration of the actual relationship between your characters, and not so much a riff on love/monogamy itself. Poetry and poetic prose is hard for me because, as a reader, I want to connect with characters who are doing things in real time on the page. I want to see this relationship's trajectory, want to watch it spiral down the gravity well from which there is no escape. This piece makes me feel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3KAstxRIZk Chili! You naughty person, you used a lot of words to show the meet cute part of the relationship! A better move would've been to condense your first scene down to, I dunno, a paragraph of snappy exposition. I was more interested in reading about a long term relationship already in progress. On the other hand, this story did hit some emotionally true notes for me. I once dated a blundering goofball for a couple years, and this piece reminded me a lot of that relationship. It takes a lot to love someone who seems to run into trouble again and again, regardless of what that trouble is. Especially when you're watching them do something that, to you, seems impossibly painful. It helps that Wes and Jeremy are very likable. That makes me want to cheer them on. On the otherrrr hand... quote:“This is what I want; I like what I do! And look, I’m not gonna be anything less than honest with you here fun-size. Boyfriends have brought this up before. That’s always when this poo poo starts to end. I fall down for a living. As far as I know, no one else in the world does that. That’s why I’m so loving awesome. And you’re so loving awesome because not only are you gonna cure cancer someday but for whatever reason, my life choices don’t bother you. I never gave you crap for not joining the NBA, and you never gave me crap for not being normal. We work well together.” Okay, I wish you'd taken all the words used to describe their meeting/falling for each other and used them to expand on what I quoted above. The ending made me happy, but left me with some questions. So Wes is going to get out of the falling down game for good, which Jeremy should be happy about and supportive of. And he pretty much is supportive. But am I supposed to walk away from this piece with the assumption that Wes is going to put on one last gig? I mean, there is a point where even a guy who can't feel pain probably needs to count his blessings and give up his act, and I felt like, by the end Wes was at that point. There's no real reason for Jeremy to come around and approve of Wes's antics at that particular time, so the tickets end up feeling like kind of a saccharine gesture because you needed a way to punctuate your story. It's a thing I've noticed tends to happen at the end of feel good stories; you've got the reserved person and the free spirited person, and the reserved person eventually comes to see the free spirited person's point of view because uuuuuh that's how feel good stories work. People come out of their shells, conservative dads come to understand their kids' new-fangled ways, the introvert becomes a gregarious social butterfly. Doctors decide to suddenly enable their boyfriends' dangerous occupation. I dunno, maybe I'm too much of a cynic, but I often find there isn't a whole lot to explain *why* the reserved character has a change of heart. But like I said, Wes and Jeremy are likable, which is what carries this story for the most part. This piece makes me feel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZaZaWcdtbY Beefsupreme So, this story started out the most promising of the three IMO. You gave me a dogeared, worn-in relationship, and that's what i wanted. I instantly got the sense of who these two people were to each other. Though I will say, Chuck was characterized a lot more charitably than Janelle. He was the trucker out risking his life and bringing home the money, she was the petty wife with a bad shopping habit. The fact that she explicitly talks about the cute fitness instructor just makes her seem super ungrateful. Which, shallow, ungrateful wives exist, but in fiction, we read stories to connect with the characters. And like, I don't need her to be a good person to connect with her. I just need her to be a more unique, interesting person than she is. I'm wondering if you were doing a similar thing to what Muffin did, which is using the gravity/love metaphor to show how like...not only is Chuck caught in the orbit of this random planet, but also the decaying orbit of his marriage. Which would be fine, but I think Janelle should've been fleshed out a little better even so. What really annoyed me was the ending! he's just stuck, and resigned to waiting. Just like he's stuck with a partner who maybe doesn't appreciate him as much as she could. I dunno. i was surprised by where the story stopped, because I feel like it could've gone on a beat longer and given more of a sense of resolution. There were a lot of good details, and maybe a few more technical details than was necessary. I especially liked Chuck's interaction with his cleaning robot, and the sheer banality of him blearily eating cereal as he deals with spaceship stuff. This was very much a 20th/21st century story kind of draped over a scifi story. Which isn't a complaint! I just wish you'd gone a bit further, showed some kind of meaningful change. This piece makes me feel: Some combination of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYYRH4apXDo and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH-i8IvYIcg Results! Ummm IDK, all of these made me feel different things and, as I said, I liked/disliked a roughly equal number of things about each piece. Oh uuh i really have to choose? Okay. I am not usually a stickler for prompt adherence, but in this case, I'm going to use it as a tie breaker. In light of that, Beefsupreme wins! But good job all of you!
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Mar 4, 2017 09:23
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Reminder: Long Walk exists, and it is a good place to get poo poo done https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3812360
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Mar 4, 2017 22:18
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+250 extra words for judging a brawl Radical Self-Careless less than 1250 words “I loving hate you,” says Maggie. She lets out a shaky breath. “Yeah. That feels good. I. hate. You. I hate you! I should break this glass and do a homemade trepanation on your stupid brain. But you know what, rear end in a top hat? That would be too good for you. Because right now, you’re stuck being you. And that's worse than a shard of glass to the frontal lobe.” She stares hard at her reflection’s face. It stares back at her, twisted and feral. Her hands are braced on either side of the bathroom sink, fingers curled so that her nails scrape the countertop. Her shoulders are hunched. Her gnarled expression is framed by greasy clumps of hair. “I’m glad you’re stuck in your stupid life,” she says. “Can’t even shower for your dumb job because you're a pointless animal.” Maggie rolls her neck, lets out a peal of barking, hysterical laughter. “And--and, dude, even if you smelled like roses. Even if your basic physical presence wasn’t repugnant in every way. You would repulse people, because people got a sense for who doesn’t matter. And guess what, you don’t matter. You never factored in. You were never going to factor in.” A twinge shoots through her left arm. Her left hand curls into a fist so that the countertop presses painfully against her knuckles. At the same time, all the strength goes out of her right arm, which collapses underneath her and sends her lurching to one side. “Idiot,” she hisses, catching herself before she can topple over. “You can’t even--you’re just a loving idiot.” She regains her balance, but now her right arm is dead weight at her side. She can still feel it, but she can’t lift it anymore than she could sing Noah’s ark into existence on her front lawn. “The front lawn you never mow,” she adds out loud. “The lawn you’re paying out the rear end to neglect. You--” she breaks into another shrieking fit of laughter, then sobers “--you told everyone how you were gonna get this house, get your life together, do all kinds of nice, homely things. Things you could put on your Facebook. It all sounded so nice when you were bragging about it, didn’t it?” Her vision explodes into a lightning-bright starburst. A moment later, pain blossoms in her left cheek and quickly sends its tendrils down into the left side of her jaw. When her sight returns, she finds her left arm cocked and ready, fist balled up so tight the knuckles are bone white. “I’m still standing, fuckbrains. Because you don’t even know how to throw a punch.” Another fleshy thwack. Maggie staggers backward, cracks the back of her head against the wall. Scribbles of light wriggle out of the corner of her vision like luminescent worms. Her left hand isn’t done. It grabs a fistful of hair and forces her head down. She falls. Her forehead clips the rim of the toilet hard enough to split skin. She collapses onto the small, stained rug, her right arm folded painfully beneath her body. Blood dribbles out of the wound, filling her right eye socket with a warm, sticky mess. Her left hand still hasn’t let go of the fistful of hair. It yanks her head up hard enough to feel like whiplash, then slams her skull against the grimy floor as she screams, “Shitfucker!” Her vision goes completely back. The ringing in her ears is a wall of shrill needles jabbing at her brain. She’s on her back. She doesn’t remember rolling over, but when her vision returns, all she can see is the mold-spotted expanse of the bathroom ceiling. Her right eye is glued shut by blood, and her left rolls wildly in its socket. She can’t make it focus. She watches her left arm rise up and fumble with one of the drawers below the sink. Her left hand uses the handle to pull her into a sitting position, and the world lurches. Her stomach heaves. But she’s not done with herself yet. Lefty opens the drawer all the way, reaches inside, and gropes around until it finds a familiar shape. It emerges again with a pair of slim scissors, some remnant of an ex-boyfriend’s shaving kit. The left arm angles itself so the scissors are aimed straight at her face. “No no no nononoYes please no please yes, yes, yes,” she babbles. She scrambles backward until she collides with the tub. The hand and the weapon follow. She feels tension in the left arm. It's coiling in preparation for the fatal strike. Her right arm, which has been limp as an empty sock up until now, shoots up, her right hand gripping the left wrist with ferocious strength before the blow can come. “Just go,” she screeches. “I just want you to loving go away!” Lefty drops the scissors. Its arm yanks out and away from her body, pulling against her right hand like a panicked animal. She sprawls forward onto her belly, on top of her arms, which writhe underneath her like embattled cobras. “I’m sorry,” she sobs into the linoleum. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.” The left arm wriggles out from under her body and pushes her up onto her knees. Her stomach heaves and she wretches, which sends new ripples of pain up into the hurricane of agony that’s whirling in the center of her skull. “Please be nice to me,” she slurs. “Please love me.” The left elbow nearly buckles, but straightens itself. “You wouldn’t love you if you were someone else,” she says, but her voice is less certain. She collapses onto her left side and curls into a tight ball of blood and pain and tears. “Please forgive me,” she whispers. The left arm twitches in one last spasm of rage. Then both arms wrap tightly around her. The embrace is too little, too late, but it’s something. And now Maggie has a moment to simply rest in the straightforward landscape of physical pain. She croons to herself and weeps softly into the floor. She lays there for a time, waiting for her brain to explode. She doesn’t know how much damage she’s done to herself, but everything is blurry and doubled and her stomach churns in spite of its emptiness. Her thoughts spin in meaningless circles, a wheel turning but going nowhere. She waits to die. But she doesn’t die. And, after an interval that feels like an eon, she finds the strength to drag herself to the phone and dial three numbers. “I need help,” she says, though she can’t tell if the sounds she’s making are even words. “I can’t stop being me and it hurts too much and I don’t think I can stop myself again.” “Stay with me,” says the voice on the other line. “Someone is coming to help you. Just stay on the line. I’m going to be right here with you.” Maggie sobs into the receiver, sobs for grief and gratitude that she’ll see another day.
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Mar 6, 2017 08:14
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here is another crit from week 232, part ???/??? full disclosure, I mostly do these at work and I was able to get precisely one done today. here you go sebmojo!!! Spider Your sins: This is a reprisal of a theme you've riffed on a bit before. If I were going to describe this Mojo sub-genre, I'd say something like..."what if the things that separate us overcame the things that connect us?" or, sometimes, inversely, "what if the things that connect us overcame the things that separate us?" Your answer to those questions usually comes in the form of something surreal and punctuative happening to disenchanted white collar types. While all the judges liked this story to varying degrees, at a second glance, I don't know if all the story elements hang together as well as they could. The first thing that doesn't work for me is the "package in a mineshaft" metaphor. I mean, by itself, it's great. Your narrator sees himself as an object in free fall, subject to the whims of whatever he collides with. On the other hand, he's got his whole sort of mantra ("nothing inside my head I didn't put there") that contradicts that glib, fatalistic viewpoint. Someone who is plummeting down a metaphorical mineshaft, bouncing off of metaphorical life things, is going to probably find their head full of a lot of thoughts they didn't intentionally put there. I think the metaphor needed some further development to work with the mantra, if that makes sense. Maybe you did it on purpose, but if so, I don't think the story gives enough of a nod toward it. I don't really like how the notion of this narrative-weaving brain spider came in at the end. It was like, oh, here's a new metaphor, but I guess the story is over so we're not gonna do much with it. The spider idea isn't well linked to the "package in a mineshaft" and "nothing inside my head I didn't put there" ideas. In fact, all three ideas seem to contradict each other a little bit. I think you could link them together with a little more work, though. Or maybe I'm a big baby who wants to be spoonfed tidy, easy stories. IDK. People are complicated and usually contradict themselves in all kinds of ways, but I wish the story had acknowledged that a little more. It's a shame because I liked the mineshaft/spider metaphors individually. The "nothing inside my head I didn't put there" was an aspect of the character's personality that I found annoying, but it served the story well enough. I was left feeling a little confused about what I was meant to take away from this story. Obviously, this is a literal event that's happening, and obviously it's happening to modern, preoccupied people. But is the story saying that we're losing each other because we're lost in our heads/phones/whatever? I'm not so sure. That would be kind of a hackneyed message, and this story feels too personal to be making a point about those doggurn kids and their smart phones. What I took away is that...we all read sad news about far away people. And we're able to write it off because it's not part of our immediate reality. And then you've got this guy, who is way too removed from his own life to notice when faceless oblivion starts circling around his own existence. And then the real tragedy is that he can't/won't mourn for all of this. Even in that last moment, he can only fail to comprehend. TBH I think this piece is going to be a Rorschach test for the reader. Oh, and... quote:Halfway through the night I went upstairs but she wasn't there, her side of the bed rumpled as though she'd had a bad dream and got up, gone for a walk. I share your love of comma splices, but this is a bad one IMO.
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Mar 9, 2017 05:07
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ok I'm in specifically to see what amazing Rush lyrics I get
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Mar 15, 2017 00:23
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 holy crit
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Mar 15, 2017 22:53
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revolther posted:Dry noir detective prose or screenplay versions of other novels are the only form of acceptable writing. I look forward to reading your contribution!
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Mar 17, 2017 20:05
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Rush lyrics: The writer stare with glassy eyes Defies the empty page His beard is white, his face is lined And streaked with tears of rage Thirty years ago, how the words would flow With passion and precision But now his mind is dark and dulled By sickness and indecision Effigy 3000 words Over the drainage ditch. Down the steep trail, mindful of low-hanging branches. Left at the charred tree husk and the clearing full of purple flowers. Onto a smaller, less obvious trail that meandered through a purgatory of blackberry bushes. Into the cathedral shade of ancient evergreen trees. Across the foundation of the burned down house, where shards of glass still sparkled even after decades of weather. Hunter and Ethan could find the route to the shrine in their sleep, or while drunk, or in the dark with a giddy girl out past her curfew. It wasn’t really a shrine, of course, though everyone who went there agreed there was something extraordinary about it. Sometime in the past, someone had trained a holly tree to ignore the sun and plunge her branches into the ground. The result was a thick, leafy dome that offered shelter from sun and rain alike. Above the dome, the leaves changed from stiff and spiny to soft and deciduous. The branches were spaced further apart and reached upward, toward the sun, like a proper, sensible tree. One trunk. Two trees. Hunter and Ethan had, as teenagers, agonized over the strange tree. They’d searched the internet and even asked the high school biology teacher about it. When they couldn’t find a definitive explanation, they shrugged it off and decided it was just one of those things. They didn’t need to understand it to appreciate it. Outside of the shrine, it was a drizzly day. Underneath, the earth was dry and the air smelled of dust. Ethan was saying, “I know it makes me sound like a dick, but I found this place. Finding something makes a person feel a sense of ownership, you know? That’s normal. So if Olivia wants to come back here ever again, she’s going to have to talk to me.” He leaned against the trunk of the uncanny tree, hands in his pockets. “Yeah, I dunno dude,” Hunter said. He was crouched in front of a pile of bric-a-brac that he’d hauled through the woods in a black garbage bag. He stroked his stubbly chin and looked down thoughtfully at the assortment of objects. There was costume jewelry, interesting-looking cans and jars, string, duct tape, streetcar tokens, ribbon, and an assortment of polished, decorative branches, of the sort that a certain local florist used in her arrangements. Ethan looked down at Hunter. “Did you burgel the thrift store dumpster, or something?” “I was thinking about how we used to make shrine guardians,” Hunter said. “Like, you know, those stick dudes. We kind of just stopped doing that.” Ethan nodded. “Every summer. ‘Til we figured out with was more fun to have makeouts back here.” “Our makeout partners were very impressed with this place back in high school,” Hunter agreed solemnly. “Be honest with me. Has Olivia brought any guys back here? Since. You know.” “I really dunno, dude.” Ethan crossed his arms and glared out at the drizzle. Hunter appeared to be focusing entirely on the arrangement of items in front of him, as though he could pull them together into something cohesive with sheer willpower. “I feel useless,” Ethan said at last. “Gonna see if I can still climb to the top.” “Don’t land on me when you fall,” Hunter said, not looking up. Ethen hoisted himself up between the thick canopy of holly branches, wincing as the spiny leaves scraped against his exposed hands and cheeks. As soon as he was above the upper arc of the tree dome, though, the branches spaced out and the leaves softened. It was an easy climb to the upper layers of the canopy. The shrine was in a patch of forest on the edge of town. From his perch, Ethan could see some of Main Street and the businesses that crouched along its length. Not many folks were out and about, due to the weather, and the endless curtains of drizzle gave the town a faded, forgotten look. Though he couldn’t see it from his vantage point, he knew that Main Street curved out to the river. After crossing the river, it narrowed into a winding two lane road that led up to a poorer, more rural neighborhood in the hills. Olivia’s neighborhood. That winding road was a bitch to drive at night. Especially if you were driving someone else’s car. And especially if that someone had begged you to drive them home even though you’d had a couple drinks too many. Granted, Olivia had been wasted. Ethan told himself that he’d been looking out for her; the drunk guys at the party were certainly eyeing her with something a little predatory in their expressions. That’s how Ethan remembered it. Horny-looking dudes, drunk Olivia, and their mutual desire to leave the party. They could’ve just hung out in the car, but Olivia had been a serious barf risk, and he’d told himself that she would be pissed at him if he let her puke in her own car. So he’d bundled her into the passenger seat, rolled down the windows, and started the five mile trek to her family’s homestead, way up on Tokul Road. Things were going fine until, somewhere along that winding bitch of a road, Ethan thought he saw something--an animal, maybe, he couldn’t remember anymore--and swerved straight into a power pole. Olivia got whiplash and a concussion. The car was totaled. After the hospital, they just...didn’t speak again. No one talked to Ethan about it, not really, but he gleaned that the community had judged him soundly at fault. He’d been fined and given community service, along with a mark on his record, which, Ethan thought that was fair. He’d always be a criminal. Why did they have to rub it in? “You’re lucky Olivia’s family doesn’t got enough money for lawyers,” one of the baristas at the coffee shop had remarked as she handed him a cappuccino. The persistent chill of rain on his face brought Ethan back to the present. He needed to make Olivia understand, he decided. He’d been silent too long. He’d only been looking out for her, trying to get her out of a potentially bad situation. “I’m gonna write her a letter, man,” he called down to Hunter. “It’s been three months. I can’t let her just throw away a cool thing because of this bullshit.” Silence from the base of the tree. Then: “I dunno, dude. I really. Dun. Know.” Ethan clamored down from from the upper branches of the tree, swearing as he eased his way through the narrow gap in the holly branches at the bottom. He stumbled as he hit the ground, then turned to glare down at Hunter. “Are you part of the ‘punish Ethan forever’ brigade too?” he demanded. “I know I hosed up. But you don’t know someone your whole life and never gently caress up once.” “She never hosed you over,” Hunter said coolly. He’d sorted the different objects into two piles. “Oh, so now I didn’t just gently caress up, I hosed her over. Cool.” Ethan ran a hand through his damp hair. “loving someone over is something you do on purpose. loving up just happens. The accident just happened. I wish every day that I’d got her home safe. And that’s what I need her to understand.” “She lost her job, man,” Hunter said. He stood up and dusted dry loam off the knees of his jeans. The look he gave Ethan was hard and sharp, and Ethan had to look away. “She drove pizza for a living. You know she saved up, like, five months’ pay for that piece of poo poo? She was proud of it. And you, I’m sorry to say, took all that away. Even if you didn’t mean it, that’s still the definition of hosed over.” “You’re actually mad at me,” Ethan said, his voice breathy with disbelief. “Just like the rest of this idiot town. Why’re we even hanging out?” “Because you found this place and are way too possessive of it and I want to build a shrine guardian here,” Hunter said. “I don’t hate you or anything. I just think you hosed Olivia over.” “I’m gonna write her a letter,” Ethan repeated. He could hear how petulant and childish he sounded, but he didn’t care. You didn’t just throw away a friendship because of an accident. . They ended up at the Rolling Log tavern, like they did most nights. There were other, nicer spots in town, but the Rolling Log was where all the townies and bikers went, and the bartender didn’t glare at Ethan like he was the spawn of the devil. By unspoken agreement, he paid for Hunter’s drink. It’d been a quiet, awkward walk out of the woods and into town, and he felt a little bad about taking things out on Hunter. The guy was caught between sides, after all, and Ethan didn’t want to put any pressure on Hunter to choose him over Olivia. They talked sports, bitched about their jobs, and commented on the flatness of the beer. They didn’t talk about Olivia, or Ethan’s plan to write a letter. It was dark by the time they finished, though the drizzle was no less persistent. “I’m gonna retrace our steps. Thought I saw some kinda animal bones in the bushes on the way here,” Hunter said. “What the hell do you need with animal bones?” Ethan asked, pulling his jacket tight against the chill. “For the shrine guardian,” Hunter said. They walked back the way they’d come, out to the edge of town. Sure enough, there was a half-buried pile of bones under a stunted, unkempt magnolia shrub that occupied the yard of an abandoned house. Hunter and Ethan looked at each other, then went in search of sticks. After acquiring the necessary tools, they got down on their hands and knees and worked together to drag the corpse out from under the bush. It was tedious, delicate work that required them to hook their sticks in the gaps between the creature’s bones and tug it gently out of the earth’s clingy grip. “Cat or raccoon, you think?” Ethan said. “Gonna assume it’s a raccoon. Too sad if it was a cat.” Finally, it was unearthed enough that Hunter could coax the skull away from the other bits. He scooped it up with the black trash bag that he’d used to carry materials out to the shrine. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, that’ll do perfectly.” They turned back to the street, ready to make their way to their respective homes. A familiar laugh stopped Ethan in his tracks. Across the street, just outside of the small trailer park where the town’s most destitute lived, was Olivia. She was leaning against a mud-spattered Jeep, very much in the arms of a guy Ethan didn’t recognize. Her smile was bright under the orange streetlight. “Come on, dude,” Hunter said, putting an arm around Ethan’s shoulder. “I’ll bet we can still find our way to the shrine in the dark.” Ethan let himself be ushered out onto the sidewalk and down the street. His blood was loud in his ears. “I didn’t know she was…” he said. “Seeing someone? Yeah. Ever since after the. You know. The thing. That happened.” “And you didn’t tell me?” “Would you tell you?” “You’re not me,” Ethan said, shrugging off Hunter’s arm. “You’re like. A good person, or whatever.” They reached the edge of the shrine forest. Ethan squinted up into the darkness. “Yo, what’s this sign? I didn’t notice it earlier.” “Oh yeah, that’s been there for a while,” Hunter said, his voice bitter. “‘Proposal of Land Use Action.’ They’re gonna put a housing development here.” “They’re gonna take out the shrine? What the gently caress,” Ethan said. “The comment period is still open. I said my peace. Now all I can do is build stupid guardians and pray that, I dunno, god will intervene or something, pretty much,” Hunter said. “Here, I got a flashlight app on my phone. Let’s get to the shrine before it gets too late. I’m not bringing a gross animal skull home.” They jumped the drainage ditch and made their way down the precarious path, past the hulking mass of the dead, charred tree. They were nearly drenched from the drizzle by the time they reached the shelter of the shrine’s dome. “I still can’t loving believe it,” Ethan said. They set their phones on the ground so that the shrine was lit by pale, eerie light. “Olivia dating. Dumb housing development taking out our shrine. What the hell.” “You’re blocking the light,” Hunter said. He was once again crouched over his piles of sticks and trinkets and, now, an animal skull. “Can I help, or something?” Ethan asked. “No.” Hunter’s hands worked mechanically, methodically, as he used a combination of sticks and duct tape to create the semblance of a human figure. The finished product was about the height of a toddler and Ethan thought it looked sufficiently witchy. “Not done yet,” Hunter grunted. He leaned the effigy against the trunk of the tree and began draping it with jewelry and ribbons. Soon, it had tin cans for boots and nearly a pound of plastic and scintillating cubic zirconia for armor. Hunter sat back on his heels, considering his creation, then reached for the garbage bag. Gingerly, he set the raccoon skull on a jutting bit of wood that served as the effigy’s neck. “poo poo,” Ethan said after a long moment of silence. In the pale light of their cellphones, the thing had a spectral quality, like it could leap up and start dancing some arcane dance at any moment. After another beat of silence, he said, “So, you gonna like, say a prayer to stop the development, or something?” “Naw,” Hunter said. “Mainly just wanted to have something freaky-looking out here to scare the surveyors when they show up.” “You really think they’re gonna go through with it? Like, other people came to the shrine. They know this is out here.” “Dude, they’ve got other things to worry about. Half of them are moving away. No one cares about some dumb tree fort they played in as kids, or whatever.” Hunter took a deep breath, made a sound like he was going to say something else, then fell silent. “Hey, what? What is it?” Ethan said, prodding Hunter in the arm. Hunter sighed. “So, I heard that Olivia and Nick--that guy she was with--are moving out of town. Closer to the city. Better public transportation. More opportunities, and all that type of stuff.” “You ‘heard’ or she told you?” Hunter didn’t say anything. “gently caress, dude. You know how I feel about her.” “I know. Which is why you should want her to be happy.” Ethan gritted his teeth. His blood roared in his ears. His fists clenched and unclenched of their own accord. The effigy’s eye sockets regarded him with black mockery. With Olivia, it’d been something special. Sure, they only kissed a couple of times, but they’d been practically inseparable. Ethan liked the slow burn, the will-they-won’t-they tension. And he knew Olivia felt it too. They held hands during movies and brought each other as dates to family functions. Before the accident, it seemed like there’d been all the time in the world to play out their small town romance. Before the accident. Ethan stared at the skull--he was really sure it was, in fact, a cat and not a raccoon--and thought about how if he’d been going just a little bit faster, if he’d swerved just a little harder, Olivia might’ve ended up as a bunch of bones in the ground. It was something that, in three months of griping penance, he’d never let himself think about. You could’ve killed her, his brain told him. Instead, you just took away half her life. How gracious of you. He fell back onto his rear end, head spinning from booze and realization. “I took it away,” he breathed. “She could’ve been happy here. In this town. And I could’ve said, no dude, let’s wait. But I drove and I took it away. And she’s not dead. No thanks to me.” “No poo poo,” Hunter said. He gave Ethan’s shoulder a rough squeeze. “But you know, I wouldn’t want to have to think about this stuff either if I was you. It’s heavy.” Another interval of silence, interrupted only by the patter of rain on leaves. “I’m not gonna write that letter, am I?” “Nope.” “I gotta let her go, don’t I?” “Yup.” “Why does everything cool have to stop?” Hunter settled down on the ground beside Ethan. “For what it’s worth, she forgives you. She wanted me to tell you that. I thought it would just make you mad to hear, but. She forgives you. She’s just gotta go.” Ethan turned to Hunter. “Okay, well. We’re not letting this place go. I’m gonna write into the city. We’re gonna get everyone in town to write in. We’ll take them here, show them this place. Maybe they can like, preserve it, or something.” “I like your spirit, but it’s not gonna happen. There’s like, millions of dollars going into developing this land. It’s probably a done deal, even if they gotta go through the formalities first.” Ethan rested his forehead on his knees. “Everything good is turning bad.” “That’s how it goes. Magical poo poo doesn’t last forever. At least, you can’t keep going back to the same magical poo poo over and over. You have to branch out, magically speaking. And what we had out here is magic. But stuff changes, and sometimes it’s our fault. So you go with it.” Ethan breathed deep. “You ever think about getting out of here, too?” he said to his knees. “All the time.” “You ever think about enlisting a roommate?” “Just been waiting for you to pull your head out of your rear end.”
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Mar 20, 2017 04:59
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deep incore
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Mar 21, 2017 07:08
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magnificent7 posted:I'm in. I can do this. Just look at my avatar. 
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Mar 23, 2017 23:49
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Uranium Phoenix posted:I still need someone step the hell up. Gersh durn ingrates.
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Mar 27, 2017 02:05
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Genre: Classic schlager Song: Rote Rosen, Rote Lippen, roter Wein by Rene Carol All the Future Behind You 1000 words I do not care if you watch me from beyond the lamplight as I dance with the memory of my lover. Look, you gawkers, as I hug myself like a madman. Watch from your cowardly shadows as I rest my head on the ghost of my wife’s shoulder. Pah! Do you know what it’s like to leave the ashes of your home behind? Do you know what it is like to move into a tired, stale apartment building with nothing but the clothes on your back and an envelope full of sympathetic cheques from your few remaining family members? Yes. Watch me sway and clutch at myself. Take your blurry photos and giggle at them with your friends. Would you like to hear me sing? I will sing you the first song she and I danced to, in the park, under the moon. “Du bist mir fern und doch nicht fern, denn uns're Seelen sind eins.” You’re so far away from me, and still not far, because our souls are one. Are you recording now, little spies? Are you laughing at an old man’s pathetic crooning? I will raise my voice, for the benefit of your cell phone microphones. “Und ich weiss dass wir uns wiederseh'n!” And I know that we’ll see each other again. Perhaps you are here because of my clothing. Perhaps I should not have taken these dresses from the communal laundry room. Perhaps I should not be wearing them like a feverishly layered cake. I will return them, eventually. But not until I’ve danced all our dances, sang all of our songs. This is a public park. You are free to record with your devices, as I am free to sway and dance in fine women’s accouterments. I would remind you that, according to the signage, none of us should be here, since it is past dusk. You are nearly as culpable in this crime as I. Oh, little spies. If you only knew what it was like, that long ago night in the park. Her cheeks were pink from the cold, yet she dipped and spun as though we were on some warm Hawaiian shore. The band never missed a beat. It was as though fall’s chill was helpless against the warmth of our love. There were other couples dancing, but they were stiff and confined. Very German, you might say. We were something more. We were the fire at the heart of Berlin. She and I, we sailed to the Americas, hand in hand, and held each other close when nuclear war was on the tip of every American tongue. We saw the wall fall and a new world rise. Your world, young gawkers. We watched ascension of the devices that you now use to mock me. You think I am too old to see you in the sylvan shadows, too old to hear you over the babbling of this fountain. He’s the laundry thief, you are likely muttering to each other. This is the monster that is stealing our clothing. One day, I left my home and went to work. I closed the door on a place, a space delineated from all other spaces. Our place. I was running late and did not kiss my wife goodbye. When I returned to that space, it was no longer a place. It was a square of land that contained some ashes and some fire fighters. She loved to shop, my wife did. She loved cashmere things and silk things. I loved the feeling of those things under my fingers as we dipped and twirled around the living room. I loved the swish and sway of her skirts. I would prefer to wear my wife’s dresses, instead of the garments of strangers, but fate and fire took those away from me when they took her. “Keinem ist mein Herz so gut gewesen wie dem einen der mich jetzt verlassen hat.” To nobody my heart was as kind as to the one who has now left me. All you see is an old man draped in mismatched women’s clothing. All you hear is the guttural intonations of a language you do not understand. I do not hate you, gawkers; I only lament your ignorance. You could never know the kind of love I had, the love I still carry with me. You think I enjoy the cheap cotton and polyester of these garments. You think I get off on these shoddy approximations of graceful attire. You tell each other that I clutch at myself as part of some disturbed sexual act. The truth--a truth you are not worthy of--is that I only want to feel the heat of a body beneath fine, womanly things. I want to hear the swish of skirts and the songs we used to love. I want to feel the chill of the fall air, smell grassy park smells, and imagine that I am back in that night in Berlin, when my whole future was still in front of me. You are getting bolder, now. Creeping forward into the lamplight that illuminates the fountain. Ah--I see how it is. You are a young man and a young woman, trying to impress each other by straying dangerously close to the old laundry thief. Here, let me sing louder for you. Let me flip and twirl my skirts for you. Yes, good. Take her hand. Lead her into the lamplight and wrap your arms around her waist. I do not sing for you, little spies, but I will keep singing so long as someone dances beneath the moon with love in their eyes. And I see it, now--the love. Perhaps you don’t know it yet yourselves. But I know. Decades from now, you’ll remind each other of an old man in stolen women’s clothing, crooning to himself in the park, acting the fool. You’ll laugh about my silly songs, and remark that my foolishness is what made you brave enough to love each other.
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Mar 27, 2017 07:44
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INTERPROMPT: Falsetto Dubstep Dracula in the Australian outback this guy:  in this place:  ok go
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Mar 27, 2017 17:55
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goddammit chili. IN with schizotypal personality disorder.
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Apr 5, 2017 17:52
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Chili posted:More I would like to receive an additional diagnosis from  box 12
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Apr 5, 2017 22:44
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thank you for the crit
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Apr 7, 2017 06:16
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You can also come into the #thunderdome IRC channel if you want to whine about how much writing sucks with the rest of us
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Apr 10, 2017 02:50
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Schizotypal Personality Disorder + Gambling Disorder for 1050 extra words Messiah's Redoubt 2135 words removed for editing! Archive link Sitting Here fucked around with this message at 02:15 on Dec 7, 2017 |
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Apr 10, 2017 03:51
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:*** THAT'S 20 ENTRIES *** sjgj drag it out chili, savor the power
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Apr 10, 2017 05:38
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Thank you judges. I am too drunk and sleepy to make a prompt right now but I'll come up with one sometime in the AM PST
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Apr 10, 2017 10:10
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 Week CCXLV: it's all about me, fuckers I stayed up way too late trying to come up with yet another way to squeeze blood out of the TD stone. The truth is, I just want to read stories that deal with topics that appeal to me. Normally this involves a lot of Googling and a lot of reading lovely previews on Amazon, but Thunderdome presents a unique opportunity. I can make the stuff I like come to me. So I am going to do my best to help you do that. I am going to present some topics, along with an explanation of stuff I don't want to see. You can choose to write about all of them or one of them or maybe just a couple. STUFF I LIKE the near future I like stories that make a projection about what the world might be like over the next couple of decades. For this category, I don't want apocalyptic stories. I don't want to read about memes that exist IRL (though you can try to make up your own, if you're feeling brave). I don't want blatant political satire. I don't want a ripoff of an episode of Black Mirror. I don't want unrealistically advanced technology. fungus! Stories that deal with fungi in some way. I don't particularly want stories where the fungus is considered malevolent or harmful. I don't want stories about the time you took shrooms when you were 20 (although stories can still deal with the psychoactive properties of some fungi--just don't write a trip report). I don't want over-the-top body horror. long-term relationships I dunno, I think there tends to be too much focus on meeting/falling in love in a lot of stories. I enjoy reading about the challenges of long term commitment to a romantic partner. There aren't a whole lot of 'don'ts' for this category, except that I don't want to read about first meetings/falling in love. Dreams, obvs I've written a lot of dreamy bullshit for Thunderdome. I like stories that deal with the internal reality of our slumbering minds. I don't want stories that build up something cool only to say ~it was all a dream~. I don't want stories that use dream logic as an excuse to be pointless. I don't want stories where the protagonist(s) is passive and idle while interesting things happen around them. mythologizing the ordinary i'm fascinated by the personal myths and superstitions people hold, often without even realizing it. I'm actually having trouble thinking of the exact ways in which you could gently caress this up, but I'm sure goons will make it obvious in hindsight. non-human perspectives i like stories that take me into the mind of something very unlike myself. I don't want to read about a dog who loves his master so much and is a Good Boy (you can write about dogs, I guess, but holy gently caress don't do that trope). Don't do that thing where you spend the whole story having your non-human describe human things in awkward animal/alien terms, even when it's perfectly obvious to the reader what the character is seeing/experiencing. No talking animals. No stories where ~the humans were the real monsters all along~. the broad concept of outsider art so there's the 'real' definition of outsider art and the broad, slightly inaccurate one. I'm using the broad, slightly inaccurate one. Basically, i like art that expresses a cool concept in spite of lack of training, practice, or education. This isn't so much a topic I want people to write about (though you can, if you want) as it is a general flavor for the entire week. If I like your ideas, I won't necessarily hold poor writing against you. BUT WAIT WHERE'S THE GIMMICK!? well. Normally I would forgo having a word count, but I decided this would be a good opportunity to try out something I've been wanting to do for a while. Any time between now and when signups close, you may post a one sentence 'pitch' for your story. A good pitch will give me some idea of the characters and conflict in very few words. Step one of this article on the snowflake method has some good advice on writing one sentence summaries. If you decide to pitch me your story summary, you get 300 extra words. I will also tell you whether your premise seems interesting to me or not, though I won't be giving any feedback beyond that. You can still write about a premise I don't find interesting, and anyone who pitches a summary will get the extra words. Because someone asked, yes you have to sign up to do a pitch. Sitting Here posted:A little more clarity: you aren't obligated to stick to your pitch, though it's more fun if you do. If I don't like your pitch, it might still be worth turning into a story! But if you decide to take my opinion to heart, you can certainly discard your lovely idea. Deadline for signups and summary pitches: Friday, April 14th at 11:59PM PST Deadline for story submissions: Sunday, April 16th at 11:59PM PST Word count: 1200 words, plus a possible 300 extra words if you pitch a summary. Judges: me a handsome judge Entrants: flerp Tyrannosaurus Radical and BADical! ThirdEmperor djeser chili newtestleper SurreptitiousMuffin Uranium Phoenix Fleta Mcgurn Thranguy Hawklad crabrock Jay W. Friks RandomPauI Entenzahn Mrenda Ceighk Killer-of-Lawyers The Cut of Your Jib BeefSupreme Sitting Here fucked around with this message at 05:07 on Apr 15, 2017 |
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Apr 10, 2017 18:15
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note: I will respond to these with "yes", "no", and "kinda". Radical and BADical! posted:IN kinda
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Apr 10, 2017 19:03
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A little more clarity: you aren't obligated to stick to your pitch, though it's more fun if you do. If I don't like your pitch, it might still be worth turning into a story! But if you decide to take my opinion to heart, you can certainly discard your lovely idea. If you want to be really hardcore, you can to complete whatever you pitch to me, regardless of my opinion about it.
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Apr 10, 2017 20:34
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Djeser posted:In yes
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Apr 10, 2017 20:35
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Chili posted:In the not so distant future, a large medical device conglomerate believes that it has found the solution to suicide prevention. kinda
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Apr 10, 2017 21:34
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flerp posted:pitch: a twenty something year old drops out of grad school to find his unknown father, discovering that his father spent the last years of his life painting the walls of his farm house before dying no
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Apr 10, 2017 22:40
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:pitch: human misery manifests as rot and mould. Perspective of a man being consumed by his surroundings, becoming detached from the human experience. kinda
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Apr 10, 2017 23:05
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:repitch: kinda
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Apr 10, 2017 23:36
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Uranium Phoenix posted:In kinda Fleta Mcgurn posted:In. yes
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Apr 11, 2017 07:15
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Thranguy posted:In kinda Avshalom posted:my breasts yes Hawklad posted:In kinda
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Apr 11, 2017 18:53
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crabrock posted:pitch: a mountain in a relationship with a fungal colony that is expanding into its core, threatening to kill it but also they are in love Q before I answer: are you in?
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Apr 11, 2017 19:50
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crabrock posted:pitch: a mountain in a relationship with a fungal colony that is expanding into its core, threatening to kill it but also they are in love yes You just didn't specify 'in' so i wanted to make sure all the i's were crossed and the t's were dotted
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Apr 11, 2017 22:20
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Jay W. Friks posted:In yes
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Apr 12, 2017 06:50
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newtestleper posted:A now-homeless man is compelled to burrow intricate tunnels deep into the earthquake-shattered rock beneath his city. We found his tunnels, mapped them, and tried to understand him. yes RandomPauI posted:In mmmm....no
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Apr 12, 2017 19:59
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