VOTE! BGOL Writing Contest 1

[godofwine]

I wrote The Big Score

I also want in on the next contest.

Oh, and we also need our own dedicated forum.

We get our own dedicated forum and you think the eight stories had it bad only getting 18 votes. It will be half that with our own forum. Keep it on the board and maybe, MAYBE we might be able to pull some people in on their way to grabbing some porn. The traffic will be so low that they close it. Bet on it. Didn't they used to have a poetry forum? What happened? low traffic.

BTW, I want in on the next competition, too.

 

[sakinnuso]

30 minutes? Well great job...
I think conversations about all of the work will be coming soon.

 

[Mr MajestiK]

i want in on the next contest and the one after that lol....

 

[sakinnuso]

Man, I've been checking this page regularly since the contest ended. I thought that the purpose of this grouping was not only to facilitate writing, but to encourage feedback, critique, and discussion?

So not to come off as a the dude takes but doesn't contribute, I went ahead and tried my best to give detailed critiques from my perspective of *every* story submitted. The only story that i didn't get the chance to do was the homie who came in after the fact, and that's not for lack of wanting to but because i wanted to see if anybody else was going to jump in and get it rolling.

My story got ZERO votes, so I *know* that I'm not getting a big ole' love fest. I'm putting myself out there because that was the nature of what this was advertised to be about. I know that ninjas see the thread.

If cats just want their egos stroked and stories read, my bad. I totally misinterpreted. The way guys were talking last week, it seemed like there would be much open discussion, growth, and writing to come of things. Maybe some of us need less work than others, and that's cool. All I know is that I'm trying to be a stronger writer. My shit got ZERO, so I want to improve so that I can get one, then two, then who knows?

If this ain't the place, I won't even Colin Powell the thread...

 

[godofwine]

You are right sakinnuso. I am a novice, so I didn't feel comfortable critiquing. It would be like me critcizing NFL players after I had played only one game of bantam weight football. I don't know enough of what I am talking about to critique. But, I will give it a shot.

Also, just because your story didn't get any votes doesn't make it bad (you wrote Titans right?) sometimes people don't vote, or read the first few stories and make a descision, or read one story and think it is good. Give it their vote then they read yours and it was better but they already cast their vote.

 

[Lesane Crooks]

Man, I've been checking this page regularly since the contest ended. I thought that the purpose of this grouping was not only to facilitate writing, but to encourage feedback, critique, and discussion?

So not to come off as a the dude takes but doesn't contribute, I went ahead and tried my best to give detailed critiques from my perspective of *every* story submitted. The only story that i didn't get the chance to do was the homie who came in after the fact, and that's not for lack of wanting to but because i wanted to see if anybody else was going to jump in and get it rolling.

My story got ZERO votes, so I *know* that I'm not getting a big ole' love fest. I'm putting myself out there because that was the nature of what this was advertised to be about. I know that ninjas see the thread.

If cats just want their egos stroked and stories read, my bad. I totally misinterpreted. The way guys were talking last week, it seemed like there would be much open discussion, growth, and writing to come of things. Maybe some of us need less work than others, and that's cool. All I know is that I'm trying to be a stronger writer. My shit got ZERO, so I want to improve so that I can get one, then two, then who knows?

If this ain't the place, I won't even Colin Powell the thread...

Well even though I didnt participate in the writing I was very interested in the contest, have read every story at least 10 times and was very surprised about the voting results.

I think part is the Colin effect but ya know im gonna put it out there that I think thats another effect of the post apocalyptic BGOL. Like godofwine and others have said its more quiet without the ragggamuffins. BUT at the same time there are plenty of insightful cats (Megazell...etc) that arent here anymore and IMO im doubtful the board will be the same with the current format. Not hatin on bruh HNIC just statin the obvious.

Also I was one of the main ones talkin bout giving a story by story critique and believe it or not its still on the way (my fam/job has been hoggin my time as of late). Im bout 80% finished <---feels like I wrote enough to have done a story and I of course brought up some of the points in your post relative to Titans.

I hope to post it sometime later today. I just wanted to get them all done so I could post at the same time but yes it would have been tight to get some more feedback. Hopefully the interest will be higher for the next contest.

 

[mealstrom]

You are right sakinnuso. I am a novice, so I didn't feel comfortable critiquing. It would be like me critcizing NFL players after I had played only one game of bantam weight football. I don't know enough of what I am talking about to critique. But, I will give it a shot.

Also, just because your story didn't get any votes doesn't make it bad (you wrote Titans right?) sometimes people don't vote, or read the first few stories and make a descision, or read one story and think it is good. Give it their vote then they read yours and it was better but they already cast their vote.

I agree with you GOW. You should definitely feel free to do critiquing also. Although you may consider yourself a novice writer you are obviously a reader. That means you've developed your own tastes of what is a good story and what isn't. Your opinion is just as valid as anyone else's. Although I'll always value the opinion of another writer, I'll value just as much those that read stories like the ones I write. After all, they're the ones that know a good story from a bad one.

You're right sakinnuso - this idea was started with the idea of critiquing and helping each other, NOT as a place where we can stroke our egos. Here's what I think might have happened with your votes and critiques:

Votes: Unfortunately the voting system here doesn't allow us to pick a first, second, or third place. Just a first place. Although that is still a fairly accurate system to determine winners, it kinda leaves the bottom half wondering what the hell happened. This doesn't necessarily mean anyone thought yours was the WORST, just that no one thought it was the BEST. Understand?

Also I have to give you props. The fact that it got zero votes means that even you didn't vote for it, which means that you voted honestly and honorably. I give you props for that. It would have been easy just to vote for yourself.

Critiques: There's really a couple of things that could have happened. One could be that after everyone read the stories they got tired of critiquing each and every story, so just critiqued the ones they had the most to say about.

Another thing that could have factored in is that if people don't have a lot of positive things to say they really hate to comment on the negative. (Not trying to be mean here my man.) If you look at all the critiques they are usually positives followed by the negatives. Unfortunately this means that it is likely that the ones who didn't like it had trouble finding as much positive as negative, so didn't want to be assholes and comment on that. It sucks to think that, but it could have been partially that.

Also keep in mind that we are on BGOL - where virtually ANY thread over 5 pages long has devolved into arguing and fighting. This was a very positive thread and so cats were likely scared to start something negative by negatively critiquing someone's work. I know I was honest with my critiques (as was everyone else), but I also tried to break bad comments as easily as possible. We all kinda walk on eggshells around here when it comes to discussing negative things about each other's works since it's so easy to get into fights.


The most likely thing IMO is that people commented and critiqued on the first ones they read, then got lazy with the last ones they read. It's not right and it sucks (I think even I did this with some - I don't think I managed to get to all the critiques I meant to), but it's likely to be what happened. To set the example though I promise to go back and critique the ones I didn't critique. I work every day the next 2 weeks as well as taking classes so it might take me some time, but I WILL do it. You deserve a critique just as much as anyone else.

 

[owl]

First off, my dudes...

can we stop the pussy show? I'm saying...don't get your panties sucked up in your vaginal regions if didn't nobody vote or critique your work. I wrote Afkan. HAS ANYBODY LOOKED TO SEE WHAT THAT SCORED? FUCK A CRITIQUE. IT WAS A GOOD STORY THAT WAS WRITTEN POORLY. ALL GOOD STORIES ARE WRITTEN POORLY UNTIL THEY ARE WRITTEN MASTERFULLY. GET IT?

Second thing...you bitch ass niggas who won...you got lucky...We didn't get a big enough audience...phuck it...I said it....
This is still a competition and I think because not enough votes were cast we should do it again. Those that survived the first round and feel they want to write another story or another version of their first story, get first dibs. If one of the first round contestants is happy with their score, then new contestants get to take their place. Same rules, same topic, same genre. The new submissions must be in by Saturday at "o" hundred hours.

You pussies let me know how you feel about it...I'll handle the thread and arrange the festivities...just let me know if yall down one moe gin...

 

[Mr MajestiK]

First off, my dudes...

can we stop the pussy show? I'm saying...don't get your panties sucked up in your vaginal regions if didn't nobody vote or critique your work. I wrote Afkan. HAS ANYBODY LOOKED TO SEE WHAT THAT SCORED? FUCK A CRITIQUE. IT WAS A GOOD STORY THAT WAS WRITTEN POORLY. ALL GOOD STORIES ARE WRITTEN POORLY UNTIL THEY ARE WRITTEN MASTERFULLY. GET IT?

Second thing...you bitch ass niggas who won...you got lucky...We didn't get a big enough audience...phuck it...I said it....
This is still a competition and I think because not enough votes were cast we should do it again. Those that survived the first round and feel they want to write another story or another version of their first story, get first dibs. If one of the first round contestants is happy with their score, then new contestants get to take their place. Same rules, same topic, same genre. The new submissions must be in by Saturday at "o" hundred hours.

You pussies let me know how you feel about it...I'll handle the thread and arrange the festivities...just let me know if yall down one moe gin...

Damn!

Still waiting on that critique brah.

To me right now, it's not even about winning anymore. I just wanna drop good material and generally get better as a writer.

There aren't that many writers of African descent dropping powerful stories or getting published which means that for the most part, we're having to put up with someone elses vision of the future that usually excludes us from the experience.

District 9 is a prime example of what happens when white writers/movie directors get to mess around with the characterization of black people.

It's high time we started really honing our skills and working on joint projects to really push our own visions of the future too.

 

[mealstrom]

I wrote Afkan. HAS ANYBODY LOOKED TO SEE WHAT THAT SCORED? FUCK A CRITIQUE. IT WAS A GOOD STORY THAT WAS WRITTEN POORLY. ALL GOOD STORIES ARE WRITTEN POORLY UNTIL THEY ARE WRITTEN MASTERFULLY. GET IT?

Damn, tell us what you really feel! This is a GREAT way to look at it and is something everyone should read. You can have the best idea in the world, but if you don't write it in a way that captures the attention of the audience then it's not going to do you any good. That just takes practice though, which is what these contests are about.

These contests are going to get us all a shit ton of practice, so we're all going to get to the point where our skills are equal. Then it will all come down to the quality of the story ideas.

 

[godofwine]

Owl, Damn, yo. From what I remember you saying, Afkan was an excerpt from a larger story. This is why it didn't work and many people didn't believe it was good. Short stories are just that, short stories, and excerpts take a branch from a larger tree, not take the best small branches to compile a smaller tree.

If you would have rewritten Afkan to fit it in a 2500 word boundary you would have had more success, or at least would have had more people have positive to say about it. It was scatter shot. Fifteen minutes from a 3 hour movie, and not even the first 15 minutes. You can't just cut a piece out of a much larger movie and expect it to work. If you are going to do a fifteen minute piece you have to build a fifteen minute piece. Doing Afkan as you did left very important details that left the reader confused and bored. Good stories need details, and since it was taken from the middle part of a larger story it lacked the details that the beginning of the story would give.

Take Godfather Part 1. You can make a short film about part of that movie, but you have to take it from one part and just expand that. You can take the part where Michael went to Italy doing a back story on why he was there, how he survived there and the dangers he faced while there. You can't just go to the part where he is in Italy and end it just before the scene where the car blows up.

I have only written poems that if a subject arises that allows me to expand one of my poems from that to a short story I will do that. I will expand my poem to fit a short story format. In order to capture the reader you must make the story understandable and that can only happen with details that doesn't leave the reader confused UNLESS you want them to be confused to find out what you want them to find out later. Afkan was a good premise, you could have even changed details and made it different than the larger story as new details hit you, but I believe it would have done better as it's own story.

 

[mealstrom]

Owl, Damn, yo. From what I remember you saying, Afkan was an excerpt from a larger story. This is why it didn't work and many people didn't believe it was good. Short stories are just that, short stories, and excerpts take a branch from a larger tree, not take the best small branches to compile a smaller tree.

That's a GREAT point.

The thing that makes shorts stories both fun and frustrating to write is that you don't have time to get into a lot of backstories, build big scenes, get into character relationships, etc. With a short story you get to get straight to the meat of it. That can be a lot of fun, but it can also be frustrating if you're trying to pull it from a bigger story.

Writing short stories really helps you learn to focus on getting as much information in as small an area as possible. Using the right kinds of words and phrases, pointing out important details instead of spending a few pages building it up, etc.

 

[Les W]

There is an art to a short story that must be learned and honed that the talented full length story teller isn't automatically blessed with. Things to think on:

-Spike, Kubrick, Spielberg, etc could not direct a short movie/story better than a "B-" film student, yet that student with an infinite budget could not make a movie HALF as good as those directors named worse movies

-Books turned movies are almost never written by the book's author (unless they have crazy power) because writing a 250+ page novel is nothing like a 120 page movie

-The shortest short story is punchline story, the most talented authors in history likely could not write one of these to save their lives

 

[Les W]

Man, I've been checking this page regularly since the contest ended. I thought that the purpose of this grouping was not only to facilitate writing, but to encourage feedback, critique, and discussion?

Yeah that's what I took it was and that's how I carried it
I read all the stories back to back and did critiques as I went along, many didn't do this, but I feel like I critiqued everyone's pretty well.

I also offered anyone who had further questions about my critique even MORE feedback. I am very well read and studied story writing as well. No one took me up on this, so this is an ironic post imo

First off, my dudes...

can we stop the pussy show? I'm saying...don't get your panties sucked up in your vaginal regions if didn't nobody vote or critique your work. I wrote Afkan. HAS ANYBODY LOOKED TO SEE WHAT THAT SCORED? FUCK A CRITIQUE. IT WAS A GOOD STORY THAT WAS WRITTEN POORLY. ALL GOOD STORIES ARE WRITTEN POORLY UNTIL THEY ARE WRITTEN MASTERFULLY. GET IT?

You pussies let me know how you feel about it...I'll handle the thread and arrange the festivities...just let me know if yall down one moe gin...

I like your competitive fire owl, makes me motivated to pour you a big ice cold cup of STFU .

But on the real I am not really into the "competition" thing as far as art goes primarily for the reasons you named, so the competition is cool but I'd just as soon do away with the voting altogether (which sounds bad as a "loser"). If you are in this to "win the trophy" you are kinda wasting energy imo

To me right now, it's not even about winning anymore. I just wanna drop good material and generally get better as a writer.

This is my state of mind pretty much from the git, this stage ain't big enough to even motivate me for winning sake and I just like honing the skill to be honest this is pretty much the first time in 10 years I let anyone read my work

So imo I won as soon as they posted my joint BOOM!

 

[ansatsusha_gouki]

I hope these contests will help me with my writing I've been told I can write a story really well but my grammar sometimes ruins it....I will accept all criticism from everyone unless you is blatantly being an asshole about things.Im not much of a writer but I do got alot of imagination.Also this contest can force me to stop being lazy about writing my book because I can write alot of ideas down in one day but be lazy for a week.

I've very protective about any work I do so hopefully nobody wont steal it....lol

 

[owl]

Naw, y'all, don't let me fool you into thinking I'm more competitive than I really am.

Sometimes I feel this thread needs a little fire, so I put it in there. No hard feelings I hope.

And GoW, you are absolutely right, and I am definitely on top of that.

 

[Les W]

Naw, y'all, don't let me fool you into thinking I'm more competitive than I really am.

Sometimes I feel this thread needs a little fire, so I put it in there. No hard feelings I hope.

And GoW, you are absolutely right, and I am definitely on top of that.

I hope we can contribute ideas as far as craft in the next thread too

Like for example, I engineer my story based on the ability to do several things in a couple pages like:
Introduce an attention grabbing problem and then Come full circle or resolve the problem
Accurately paint the picture
Deliver action quickly
etc

My vision of the story does suffer but you can see where I'm going.

 

[godofwine]

I hope these contests will help me with my writing I've been told I can write a story really well but my grammar sometimes ruins it....I will accept all criticism from everyone unless you is blatantly being an asshole about things.Im not much of a writer but I do got alot of imagination.Also this contest can force me to stop being lazy about writing my book because I can write alot of ideas down in one day but be lazy for a week.

I've very protective about any work I do so hopefully nobody wont steal it....lol

Check it, your last two sentences. My old English used to force us to realize that "alot" was not a word. The actual word is "A LOT" Speaking it, it sounds like one word. But typing the word is two separate words. Also, "I got alot of imagination" should be I have a lot of imagination" or even "I have an active imagination."

Got and have are very close and are almost interchangeable. One just works better than the other in some cases. Spell check will pick up alot instead of a lot, but it will miss whether you should have got or have in a sentence.

Grammar is one of my strong points. My mom doesn't remember this, but I do. When I was in first grade I came home talking some slang that I'd heard in school. My mother slapped me in the mouth. "Until you learn how to speak PROPERLY, keep that slang out of your mouth".

I learned from this and my vocabulary grew because i was forced to say what I mean in words. I read a lot so my vocabulary increased. I read books that were well above my grade level as well. Many authors use context clues that tell you what a word means even if you don't know the word.

Grammar is about remembering. Closing your eyes if need be to see if this sounds right. Sometimes you should go away and come back to it reading it aloud and see if it sounds right. If that doesn't help, find a person you know who is educated, (possibly even more than you are, but at least equal to you), and bounce it off of them. That should help.

 

[ansatsusha_gouki]

Check it, your last two sentences. My old English used to force us to realize that "alot" was not a word. The actual word is "A LOT" Speaking it, it sounds like one word. But typing the word is two separate words. Also, "I got alot of imagination" should be I have a lot of imagination" or even "I have an active imagination."

Got and have are very close and are almost interchangeable. One just works better than the other in some cases. Spell check will pick up alot, but it will miss whether you should have got or have in a sentence.

Grammar is one of my strong points. My mom doesn't remember this, but I do. When I was in first grade I came home talking some slang that I'd heard in school. My mother slapped me in the mouth. "Until you learn how to speak PROPERLY, keep that slang out of your mouth".

I learned from this and my vocabulary grew because i was forced to say what I mean in words. I read a lot so my vocabulary increased. I read books that were well above my grade level as well. Many authors use context clues that tell you what a word means even if you don't know the word.

Grammar is about remembering. Closing your eyes if need be to see if this sounds right. Sometimes you should go away and come back to it reading it aloud and see if it sounds right. If that doesn't help, find a person you know who is educated, (possibly even more than you are, but at least equal to you), and bounce it off of them. That should help.

great point

Don't get me wrong I do try really hard to get my grammar up to par but the harder I tried the more it sound wrong..For example I would get confuse where to put a comma,colon and semi-colon.Another example, will be which verb,adjective and adverb to use in a sentence.Most of the time the word I use sound right but to other people they would tell me its wrong..That's why I've been reading alot of books for the past 2 years to help me which words to use.....I've been trying to find a software that will help me with that problem...


At least my spelling is on point

 

[owl]

The War Room.

A clever bit of writing with two twists of plot wrapped neatly in the epicenter of the storyline. I think you played on the audience's attention just right with the female colonel attacking the black ops specialist while bringing on the president, and of the course the left hook, the president's dog.

The story itself was imaginative with a bit of metaphysics attached to it. I'm sure all the members of PETA on the board would be quite intrigued by it. The only concern I would have is the manner in which it was written. Your punctuation with the comments needs to be attended to, and at some points the overall flow of the narrative could be better. You like myself, have a way with dialogue, so watch your writing outside of the quotation marks.

 

[owl]

The Titans


Not quite sure I want to tackle the metaphor that the writer has explain for fear that I might miss something intrinsic by way of my own interpretations.

Sometimes a hit really misses.

And I know I have been sort of hard on the writer, and I still feel you have to keep your bearings in these types of contests, I do feel his disdain.

This was a good story.

With the exception of the two errors of punctuation, I didn't find it difficult to read the story at all. I was intrigued by the description of the caste system in which scientists were servants. The surreality of the our protagonist's journey into awareness is gripping and although I believe I might be adding too much of my own interpretation here, there is a sense of the ascension in the latter poetic parts of the tale.

I would suppose that the action was not "active" enough, and possibly the audience expected to be lead into a battle or a blood curdling climax of mythological creatures feeding themselves into a frenzy. Eh...who ever can tell these things?

I can only suggestion to the author some sort of popular convention. I don't know, sex sells and violence intrigues. This a story that I would read. And from what I've gathered along the years, my tastes are respected, but definitely not always common.

 

[godofwine]

great point

Don't get me wrong I do try really hard to get my grammar up to par but the harder I tried the more it sound wrong..For example I would get confuse where to put a comma,colon and semi-colon.Another example, will be which verb,adjective and adverb to use in a sentence.Most of the time the word I use sound right but to other people they would tell me its wrong..That's why I've been reading alot of books for the past 2 years to help me which words to use.....I've been trying to find a software that will help me with that problem...


At least my spelling is on point

Punctuation is an Achilles heal of mine. Colin & semi-colin I am lost. The definition of verb, adjective, adverb is lost on me as well. I don't know how I got out of school not knowing it, but we didn't do a lot of writing in school. Funny thing about the semi-colin is the fact that you can avoid using them and therefore never show your lack of understanding how they are used....now that I think about it, that is how I got out of having that exposed on me in school.

 

[ansatsusha_gouki]

Does anyone have any advice for riddles, because I want my book to have riddles and I have no clue at all how to write one....I've been lookin online but cant find shit.

 

[owl]

What kind of riddles are you thinking about?

 

[ansatsusha_gouki]

What kind of riddles are you thinking about?

Stuff like names,locations and weapons

I want the riddles to be around 5 or 6 on a scale 1-10

 

[owl]

Stuff like name meanings,locations and weapons

I want the riddles to be around 5 or 6 on a scale 1-10

You like playing on words. I could see you taking that pretty far. Not sure of any sources outside of books, though. I'll check around and see if I can find you something specific.

Five or six, huh? Going for "campy"?

 

[Les W]

The War Room.

A clever bit of writing with two twists of plot wrapped neatly in the epicenter of the storyline. I think you played on the audience's attention just right with the female colonel attacking the black ops specialist while bringing on the president, and of the course the left hook, the president's dog.

The story itself was imaginative with a bit of metaphysics attached to it. I'm sure all the members of PETA on the board would be quite intrigued by it. The only concern I would have is the manner in which it was written. Your punctuation with the comments needs to be attended to, and at some points the overall flow of the narrative could be better. You like myself, have a way with dialogue, so watch your writing outside of the quotation marks.

Thanks for the feed. I agree, much like my posts here, I find that upon review I could have added clarity. The version I submitted was broken up and the format included italics and so forth.

mealstrom: can you tell us (esp assassin216)the format you used to do the final draft? Like the spacing size and font? Cause the story I submit was compressed nicely by you despite the loss of the above mentioned

Stuff like names,locations and weapons

I want the riddles to be around 5 or 6 on a scale 1-10

I think you need to look into metaphors, puns, personification, and etc for riddles.

iirc the basis for a riddle is putting something very familiar in a new light so much so it is unrecognizable.

is that ur question?

 

[ansatsusha_gouki]

The format will be pdf or you can use Microsoft Word


If you got Open Office you can use OpenOffice.Writer to change the file into a pdf file

I think you need to look into metaphors, puns, personification, and etc for riddles.

iirc the basis for a riddle is putting something very familiar in a new light so much so it is unrecognizable.

is that ur question?

yes

 

[big pimp]

Good stories.

 

[Lesane Crooks]

Does anyone have any advice for riddles, because I want my book to have riddles and I have no clue at all how to write one....I've been lookin online but cant find shit.

Prolly become proficient at solving them then reverse engineer.

 

[Lesane Crooks]

Another thing that could have factored in is that if people don't have a lot of positive things to say they really hate to comment on the negative. (Not trying to be mean here my man.) If you look at all the critiques they are usually positives followed by the negatives. Unfortunately this means that it is likely that the ones who didn't like it had trouble finding as much positive as negative, so didn't want to be assholes and comment on that.

C/S

I found it (finding +/- for all) harder to do than you would think at first.

 

[Lesane Crooks]

I know these are waaaaaay past due but I just dug them out after starting on my reviews for the 2nd contest.



Basic format is:

==========================================
Title
TV Guide Style Quick Synopsis

Positives
Negatives

<General Critique>
==========================================

As a fellow writer (well a wannabe one anyways lol) I am not too comfortable with critiquing other fellow writers style because I believe in individuality but

if it's an agreed part of the process I can give my feedback's on the various stories with my point of view.

Like a lot of people have pointed out its kind of a tricky thing tryin to critique somebody elses work but the bottom line is yall put some work into these pieces and you deserve some feedback.

But I would like yall to keep a few things in mind when you read my critiques:

• I honestly liked em all. They each gave a unique perspective and approach.
• A lot of the negative aspects are stretches and overanalysis...just tried to keep it balanced.
• Hindsight is 20/20
• Im of the opinion shared with Owl that being that this contest had no winners or losers.
• Its hard to compare diff genres (drama vs. comedy) so a lot of them were unfairly contrasted with others where attributes for a well composed story might be diff.

But most importantly

• Its much easier to critique somebody elses work than to compose your own and offer it up for scrutiny.

With that I salute the writers and present my reviews.

 

[Lesane Crooks]

"Afkan" by Owl

A goliath humanoid enjoys a tryst in an otherworldly club atmosphere when he is assaulted by the brother of his romantic partner.

good metaphors, excellent dialogue, really colored the mood of the club and -in flashes- of the participants
1 Dimensional, Action/characters felt jumbled, story flow was erratic (aside from the time warp)

I wrote "Afkan", which is a part of a larger body of work. I played with a lot of ideas, not really understanding the overall theme of the contest, and figured I would just take the characters and put them in situation before the story that I'm writing would have taken place in. I've been told by someone who read the story that it didn't fit the short story scope, and I agree, not enough build up, nor detail, and I felt any more than what was there would have killed it. But maybe I thought wrongly...

Bruh Owl,

You basically pointed out why the story lacked some solid cohesiveness. When I read it I could tell it was part of a larger narrative and that the characters (including some of their motives) had expositions in earlier or lateral stories. But that is the main test of a short story (as Mealstrom pointed out) -to condense your gourmet banquet into a drive thru value meal. Sure its not as texturally satisfying but just as fulfilling with respect to a budget (time in our circumstance). I feel what you were saying by trying not to edit out too much build up but I would argue that you had too little -almost next to none- focusing more on the moment.

However, borrowing a line from my man Morpheus in Matrix "your weakness is not your technique". On the contrary, your style is fresh and expressive. IMHO, the interaction among the characters was best amongst the submissions. I have no doubt with minor editing changes you would be a lock for most improved if you submitted a second story.

 

[Lesane Crooks]

"The Beast" by Mealstrom
A group of 5 unsuspecting spelunkers encounter various pernicious beasts in the depths of a cavernous labyrinth.

top notch chill factor, focused narrative, tapered cliffhanger, absolute mastery of adjectives/adverbs
1 dimensional, seemed to barely graze the contest themes, too scary for young children


Bruh Mealstrom,

Its very hard to critique a story that is for all intents damn near perfect but ill give it a shot Without question the engine of this story runs on the fuel of suspense. You do a superb job of building a base of hopelessness and ratcheting up the fear to an apex of horror. In doing so you do not allow any other elements (ranges of emotion, motives of characters outside of the protagonist/antagonist) resulting in a quasi predictable storyline. Also the minotaur concept while updated and mythological did not seem as contemporary as some of the other stories and (aside from the bull being able to manipulate an axe) didnt seem to push the fantasy envelope as far as some of the other stories.

All of that said from a technique perspective you easily wrote the best story. And while the negs I have are already reaching they are easily countered with the fact that the main point of a short story is having to edit out stuff that enhances the story....like painting an outdoor sunset vista with 2 colors. Or more eloquently put:

That's a GREAT thing to remember. When writing short stories we don't have a lot of time to get into character backgrounds, descriptions, etc. You have to IMMEDIATELY hook the reader and make them feel like they HAVE to finish the story. If you don't have them hooked by the end of the first paragraph chances are they aren't going to finish it.

Mos def deserving of the gold medal.
Props.

 

[Lesane Crooks]

"The Big Score" by Mr MajestiK
An evening partygoer wooed by the enticement of a sexual escapade serves as early morning snack for a diabolical vixen.

Uber contemporary, good use of sensuous specific metaphors, surprising end twist
abrupt ending, no real passion for the events at stake

Bruh Majestik,

I like a few other cats first read this piece thinking you might have glossed over the theme having not gotten to the supernatural component at the end. Good rope a dope. Admittedly, though it means most of the fire in your essay is concentrated in the tail end leaving a large portion of the story as a simple preamble. Its a difficult charge to suggest that you could have taken away some of the contrast of the end and spread it throughout the story. Not sure how it could have even been accomplished aside from focusing more on the key characters and their ordeal (I felt a lot of parallels between this And Les' War Room and to a point even ColdChis Fairy).

All in all a very snapping episodic thriller with that "first 5 minutes of the first Blade movie" vibe. Lots of fresh club descriptions/vernacular making this IMHO the story (along with Fairy) that most feels as though its happening in September of 2009. Brings me back to the time when I got stranded by my potna at the Sportsmans Villa Club in Jacksonville a few years ago...but thats another story.