Fortnightly Writing Competition: The Sphinx (Results)

Started by Sinitrena, Fri 17/06/2022 19:09:40

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Baron

Hey Guys,

Great bunch of stories this time.  They were all well-written and engaging.  I ended up mostly voting based on adherence to the theme....   :-[ 

Specific feedback is in hide-tags so I don't spoil Mandle's life:

Spoiler


@Mandle:  I found the motive disturbing but sadly realistic, and your description of the crime was as thorough as it was graphic.  I won't pretend that I liked the content of your story, and the message was a bit of a downer, but your writing style and word choice was strong (I particularly liked the "nest of satanic vipers").  The biggest issue for me was the tangential link to anything sphinx-like: basically it was just the company name.  Even the game they were making, which could have somehow related to riddles or sphinxes, was basically just a graphic FPS set in a fantasy Egypt.  I voted for your story, but not as much as for the other ones.

@Stupot:  This was an exciting and action-packed romp through Cairo - literally, when it came to the 50 foot tall kitten.  Although I am left wondering whether it was actually a 50 foot kitten that wrought all the carnage, or just an elaborate hoax perpetrated by Mr. Moussa and the nanobots.  Think about it: he had the ability to make large life-like creatures appear (and, presumably, to make prominent monuments disappear), he was around when Toby grabbed the piece of stone and so could trigger the attack to coincide with that event, and there is no other rational explanation (in the context of the game world) for how the kitten came to life (it was even reported to be stone inside by Dr. Al-Ameen).  There is the little hitch of the nanobots not being able to actually interact with things (witness the attempted handshake), but perhaps that too was a ruse to ensure that Mr. Moussa (or his company) escaped culpability? 

@WHAM:  This was an epic quest with some awesome character development as historical events were revealed for what they really were.  But.... the sphinx thing seemed to be a bit incongruous with the rest of the story.  Thomas of Ravenwood is walking through snows seeking justice and then... bam!  He's in the desert sands talking to a sphinx-like stone monument god-thingy.  How the... what?!?  And then there's the afore-mentioned journey down memory lane, which was great as it turned Thomas' idea of justice on its head (although in an un-sphinx-like manner the creature resolved more riddles than it posed), but then... bam!  We are back in the snows.  It kind of feels like the dream-walk or inner revelation or magic side-trip was just bolted onto the story more than an integral part of it.  Or maybe it was the long trek through the snows that was bolted on to the main meat of the story?  :-\   I think with a bit of editing either way yours could have been the best story of the lot, as it contained many elements of a truly great tale.

[\hide]

Well, thank heavens for those hide-tags!  Otherwise people might accidentally read about what they were presumably interested in (i.e. reaction to the stories).  (nod)
[close]

Stupot



Nice batch of stories here. Pats on backs all round.

Here’s a bit of brief feedback.

Mandle’s story was by far the shortest but it packed a hefty punch, especially with certain events in America still raw. Of all the stories, this was the one I could most easily visualize and it painted a very depressing picture. But it painted it well. The link to Sphinxes was tenuous but I didn’t mind so much.

Wham’s story had the vibe of an epic saga and some lovely word choices and enviable descriptions which created a gorgeous atmosphere. For whatever reason though, I struggled to fully visualize what was happening moment to moment and found myself having to reread parts in order to fully get what was going on.

Baron’s Egyptian Noir is a great concept, and the story itself was interesting. Very zippy and quippy with lots going on in terms of humour. To be honest, though, I would love to read a version where the humour was dialled back a bit, and the central mystery was allowed to come to the fore.


â€"-

Thanks for your thoughts Baron. You’re right that no explanation is given to how the cat even came to be. The honest truth is that I never did actually settle on a reason even in my own mind. I had a few ideas, all of which were highly unoriginal, so I kind of left it unresolved. I did consider that the cat itself was also made of these nanodrones but dismissed it as I preferred the idea that it was just a giant biological kitten.

WHAM

Mandle: I can't say I much enjoyed this one, but that mostly goes down to the fact that it's too close to things I've read on all-too-real news as of late. A part of me felt like the story was written to align with that harsh reality, to remind us that it's a thing that's happening, but I don't think a reminder was really needed. Perhaps there was more to this story than I discovered, but I finished it and just felt exhausted.

Stupot: A fine play on words with the title, and a fun story to boot! I kept envisioning a mix of the Tom Cruise War of the Worlds movie and Jurassic Park, but all in Egypt, and that's a fun and action packed combination of influences to draw from, on purpose or by accident. This was easily my favourite of the bunch.

Baron: Too many puns / jokes. Too many funny words and names I felt I constantly wanted to start googling to see if they were based on something or just made up, which proved highly distracting. For some reason I couldn't really get into this one, despite it reminding me of Terry Pratchett's writings quite a bit.


As for my own story: I drew inspiration from Dan Brown's Meteorite, Stargate SG-1 and maybe a hint of Game of Thrones. My first draft was a vision of some kind of NATO special forces unit stumbling upon a Russian arctic research base that had uncovered a Sphinx statue entombed in ice, but I scrapped that quickly. From that I kept the sphinx in ice theme, with a mental image of the sphinx statue embedded in ice and snow locked in my brain, and went with a more fantastical approach instead.

Baron's comment of the protagonist somehow moving from snow and ice to a desert makes me think I massively failed in characterizing the moment of discovery. In my mind I saw the protagonist fall through the ice into a massive cavern of chill and frost, where the water had somehow drained, leaving only the fine sand and dirt that made up the cool lakebed for him to land on. A surreal place that just barely, maybe, might have a reasonable explanation for existing. The sphinx itself, described with "its noble jaw covered in a layer of frost, icicles hanging off it" was to be a magical thing that awakens, provides insight and wisdom and, sends the boy back on his way on a future quest. Or perhaps it was all a dream the boy had while stumbling in the ice, and his canine companion snapped him out of it just in time?

I guess the traditional mental image of the sphinx in the desert, combined with my use as soft, fine sand as the excuse for why the protagonist survived his fall into the void underneath the ice, overrode whatever detail I'd thought I'd written.

Lesson learned.
Wrongthinker and anticitizen one. Pending removal to memory hole. | WHAMGAMES proudly presents: The Night Falls, a community roleplaying game

Sinitrena

Alrighty, we have a winner - a very clear winner this time around.

But let's start with the 4. place, which goes to Baron with 6 points. A weird tale that has too much going on set in a world that makes only slightly sense and requires a whole lot of suspension of disbelieve. It's a fun ride but doesn't have a lot od substance. With more focus on the detective stuff and a more realistic (as in more historical; in the end, it is a fantasy tale with the conclusion) world might work better because the reader (and the writer) wouldn't be so distracted by the weirdness of all around the actual plot. The plot could be interesting if it had more explanations and some more motivation for the characters. As it is, it's fun to read but not a lot else.

The 3. place goes to Mandle with 7 points. This was difficult to read, for obvious reasons when you look at the recent news. The connection with the topic of this FWC round is tenuous at best but okay. A well written story about such a difficult topic can be important, as it can bring the psychology of such situations in a more stomachable and easier to understand forum than a news report or a trial. But, it can also lead to a serious spread of missinformation. A story that has nothing for a plot but a mass-shooting event, especially one that has the perpetrator as the protagonist, should therefore try to educate and not give inaccuracte information. Too often, people think that mass-shootings happen spantaneously or are not planned or there are no warning signs. None of that is true. For more details, see the link I posted right after Mandle's story. All that said, simply looked at as a story, without any problematic content, I like the writing.

Our 2. place this time goes to WHAM with 9 points. Actually, this was my favorite of the bunch this time. It's well written, it's fun; but where is the Sphinx? I mean, it's obvious that the creature Thomas meets is supposed to be the Sphinx but if you'd read this storyoutside of the context of this competition, it's really just some vaguely described creature. The word "Sphinx" is (unless I missed it) not used once in the story and the classic characteristic of a Sphinx to ask riddles isn't there either. I do not like the ending of the story. It's heavily implied (actually, more than implied) that Thomas has to or at least should atone for the sins of his familiy. But this is a pretty flawed moral. Thomas didn't do anything wrong - his family did. Thomas isn't profiting from the bad deeds of his family either - he lost everything. He isn't in a position to make anything that was done wrong by his familiy either, nor do the people that were wronged demand it (they actually led him go). And even if Thomas were to atone for the sins of his family, that wouldn't clean his family name, it would give it a new reputation not restore an old one.  Still, exciting story.

And our absoultely clear 1. place goes to Stupot with an amazing 18 points. This was an exciting tale which felt like a cheap action flick or like a nightmare. It has this slightly disconnected feel of a dream that someone tried to piece together later. There was a lot of weirdness here, things that just happened without too much reason apparent or given, people just showing up out if nowhere, abilities that just so happen to exist. It was a fun ride, though not a very logical one.

Over to you, Stupot.

Stupot

Wow, thanks for the votes, everyone. I was pleased with my story but I also knew it was full of things that could be picked apart and used against it (not to mention the dozen or so typos I never got around to correcting). I’ll start thinking about the next topic. Look out for it in the next day or so.

WHAM

Congratulations to our winner! A well deserved outcome, indeed!

Quote from: Sinitrena on Sat 16/07/2022 10:26:48
The word "Sphinx" is (unless I missed it) not used once in the story and the classic characteristic of a Sphinx to ask riddles isn't there either. I do not like the ending of the story. It's heavily implied (actually, more than implied) that Thomas has to or at least should atone for the sins of his familiy. But this is a pretty flawed moral. Thomas didn't do anything wrong - his family did. Thomas isn't profiting from the bad deeds of his family either - he lost everything. He isn't in a position to make anything that was done wrong by his familiy either, nor do the people that were wronged demand it (they actually led him go). And even if Thomas were to atone for the sins of his family, that wouldn't clean his family name, it would give it a new reputation not restore an old one.  Still, exciting story.

You are all-around correct. I didn't want to go with the traditional Sphinx and riddles combination, and the story wound up being much more about the young boy and some twisted cosmic karma that has him atoning for sins that are not his. For all intents and purposes the Sphinx of the story might as well have been a black monolith or a talking squirrel, so my tale doesn't really make the most of the theme. I just had the visual of the Sphinx embedded in ice and frost in my head and I wanted to build something around it to justify trying to paint that visual in words, and doing it in such a way that the reader might be able to grasp the image without me having to mention the word Sphinx even once. Sadly, judging by Baron's comments and more, it seems I failed quite badly in that goal. Still, very happy to hear you found the story otherwise an interesting read!
Wrongthinker and anticitizen one. Pending removal to memory hole. | WHAMGAMES proudly presents: The Night Falls, a community roleplaying game

Mandle

Quote from: Sinitrena on Sat 16/07/2022 10:26:48
The connection with the topic of this FWC round is tenuous at best but okay.

From your opening blurb when introducing the topic: "Or maybe S.P.H.I.N.X. is an acronym for a secret organization?"

Was the game dev organization in my story not secret enough to qualify?

(laugh) (laugh) (laugh)

I was going to leave some feedback as well but, after reading all the others, everything that I was gonna say has already been said.

Looking forward to the next round, guys!

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