Fortnightly Writing Competition -LIFEBOAT (Results)

Started by Baron, Tue 18/08/2015 04:09:25

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SilverSpook

Quote from: Baron on Sun 13/09/2015 04:52:34

  Finally, the bronze lifeboat of buoyancy goes to SilverSpook.  If I were not the contest administrator your piece would have certainly got some votes from me.  I'm not saying it was the best piece, but the word-play and concept were fantastically clever.  I don't have enough room to cite all my favourite excerpts, but a few include:

I missed competitive retro-gaming from my 8x10 coffin apartment in The Shelter...
The fuzz be crossin' our quanza streams and shit...
After being transcranial-magnetically-tortured for subjective millennia, his skull-chassis would be mounted on a skymansion wall, next to the taxadermied heads of Siberian tigers, cloned mammoths, and liberal senators.
...known thenceforth as ‘The Kill Shot War', for the technique of the resistance fighters who held their firearms sideways, gangsta style.

...and so on.  I also thought the character of Proto-J was funny enough, but the alternate reality where he becomes El-Presidente easily made him my favourite creation of the competition.  On the down side, the piece was hard to get into and I had to read the beginning twice to really understand the set-up.  It's not that the beginning was any more densely written than the rest, but it was a bit overwhelming right off the bat without the reader having any bearings to keep him involved in the story.  Also, the characters perceive the "bubble" that they are stuck in as more of a threat than a source of salvation, which doesn't quite jive with the theme of "lifeboat".  But I critique because I love: great work! ;-D

...The Fortnightly Writing Competition!!

Wow, thanks Baron for the thorough and uplifting feedback!  Thanks also for really trying and soldiering on through my often-convoluted, overcompressed writing style!   I often don't know quite know how much explanation to retract from a given story to hit that sweet spot of "poetic yet intelligible" but your comments are invaluable in this regard.  Thank you also for picking up on all the little turns of phrase, wordplay, and sometimes obscure reference jokes/satire!  It makes the often exruciatingly isolating act of writing bearable.  (It's excruciating for me, anyway!)

The "gangsta robot" Proto-J is also one of my favorite all-time characters, and if I could make an entire AGS game just about him, I surely would, and possibly will.

@JudasFm: Really liked the light-as-sanctuary concept, and it gave me a very... Pitch Black vibe, as in the Vin Diesel sci-fi movie in the Riddick franchise.  The suspense was well-maintained, with the little descriptions of sounds from the dangerous darkness thrown in here and there.  I was thoroughly creeped out!

@Sinitrena: Probably the most solidly, airtightly wound and unwound yarn!  Straight and lucid detective fiction of a high caliber!

Thanks all for a great competition, good luck on the next!

Sinitrena

Quote from: JudasFm on Thu 10/09/2015 09:11:48
The only thing that really jarred for me was the punctuation used while characters were speaking ("I'm sure you have a theory.", should be "I'm sure you have a theory," A period is only used if you're not going on to describe who spoke, and even then, it should be inside the quotation marks. Sorry, I'm pedantic about things like that :)

Please, be pedantic! That's one of the rules I looked up a million times and always forget. Maybe I'll remember if people tell me often enough. ;)

Quote from: Baron on Sun 13/09/2015 04:52:34
I was wondering why Ben pulled the gun on the inspector, though?  Was it just to develop his character as a trickster?  It seemed a bit ...rash for a cat burglar.  If the Inspector had no evidence against him before, now at least he'd have something to charge him with....

It was just to develop his character, yes. (My story hasn't much of a plot anyway - it's all about characters here). I wasn't sure if I should include this part and, like JudasFm with her bed scene, I rewrote it a couple of times and wasn't completely happy with it in the end. What I was going for is not so much that Ben is a trickster but that he is irresponsible and doesn't think things through - but also that he listens when someone tells him that he's an idiot.
As for the inspector, he certainly has something to charge him with, but he won't do it. There was no place to put it in this story, but this is how their friendship starts, it was Tim's fault that they ended up in this situation and Ben did save his life, so Tim decides to ignore this stupid joke. (I have at least one story planned between <boat> and <necklace> and all of this will probably be mentioned there.)



Thank you all very much for your votes and see you next round!

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