posted
4 points for a critique and a guess 2 points for a guess and a rationale 2 more points if your guess with a critique/rational is correct 1 point for critiquing yourself -10 points for a guess without rationale or critique
Once you have a critique down, you get points for it. If you make a rational guess, but are incorrect you have to do a rational again, or at least say "for same reasons I stated before". You do not get points for a critique or rational for saying "what he said". You have to at least say what that person said in your own words for credit.
You can critique your own work for one point, but you can not give away you are the author. If you want, you can try to be sneaky and guess other people, with a rational, but you won't get points for it.
Heres the Guess list (not all names are entries):
Astaril Advice For Robots Annie BannaOJ Beatnix Belle Bob_Scopatz Brinestone Celia Chris Bridges Da_Goat Dan_Raven Dante dkw Dragon Ethics Gradient Elizabeth Icarus imogen Irami JamGodJeff JaneX jeniwren Jenny Gardener Jon Boy Kat Kwea LadyDay LadyDove Leonide Little_Doctor Ludosti Mackillian Noemon Nick Orange7Penguin Papa Moose Pooka/Trisha Raia Rivka Ryuko Sarahdipity SarcasticMuppet Saxon75 ScottR Scythrop Sopwith sndrake Strider T_Smith Teshi Troubadour TomDavidson Twinky
quote: The Coronal laid down chords, bouncing as his head as his son drummed the beat. The Coronal was striking man, having experienced most sensations a man can feel in the company of stimulants, be them through the mouth, through the nose, arms, thighs, and the literal needle through the eye. He had inherited a healthy body, drawn wire thin by this lifestyle, but in fit condition owing to good genes and the dietary restrictions, remnants of his time with the Nation of Islam. His body held him in impressively good stead and into a comfortable old age, weathering the onslaught of heroin ingested nearly every day since he was fifteen, except for the three years he spent in the eighties in service to Allah.
The Coronal told stories through his music, confirmed by the tracks down his arm. The Coronal friends, not blessed with a strong constitution and an aversion to pork, had died in compromising positions, slowly decomposing on the streets or apartments or in hallways throughout Oakland, or became old-looking wretches in their twenties, as the Coronal’s iron constitution withstood all the miseries of poverty and seemed to thrive on its excesses.
The Coronal’s indestructible health was the bedrock on which he had built his twenty year long, and occasionally lucrative, career as a pimp. He spent the 60s and 70s and 80s introducing young women to men who appreciated the company of young women, as there is a great deal of money in trading on a man’s loneliness.
In 1982, the onset of AIDs had a sobering impact on the Coronal. Two of his pleasures had taken more foreign and severe consequences, and Coronal came to think on a man’s willingness to make love and shoot drugs even in the most dangerous circumstances. The Coronal decided to fall in love with Najiya al Shabazz, a sister in the Nation of Islam. He donned a bow tie, a crisp new cut, sold the Final Call, and stopped dealing women and drugs. The pushers laughed, the whores laughed, and even the Johns laughed, because when a pimp falls in love, it’s always funny.
The Coronal married Najiya al Shabazz, and to avoid confusion and signal the beginning of his new life, he took her name. Almost nine months later, Kadir al Shabazz was born. Raising a son placed a load on the Coronals mind took some of the desirability from Najiyas hips, making his bow tie itch, the Final Call a chore, and Temple tedious. Najiya, practical in her faith and desperate in her situation, let the Coronal lapse into his old habits. She did not look too closely at the syringes, and he did not talk about the slimness of other women’s ankles. He had a connection at the hospital for clean needles, and such was the house of al Shabazz, and the Coronal told this story through the chords at the Fifth Amendment, and Kadir drummed this tale every Tuesday and Saturday night, their music telling stories that polite women and dapper men do not.
Interesting subject and character. Overall it reads more like a character proposal or discription than a story- if story follows, it might be better to include some of these details later on instead of blowing them all in these paragraphs. This would be doubly true if the Coronal is a main character in a novel-length story; keep something for showing later on.
If it's a story story, youd' definately better get to the story earlier, and fit any necessary details in later.
I liked some of the discriptive bits, especially;
quote:The Coronal told stories through his music, confirmed by the tracks down his arm
Technical issues/mistakes/typos:
quote: The Coronal was striking man
The Coronal was a striking man .
quote: The Coronal told stories through his music, confirmed by the tracks down his arm. The Coronal friends, not blessed with a strong constitution and an aversion to pork, had died in compromising positions,
First of all, I suggest for the second sentence you use "his" instead of 'The Coronal'. If you don't, you need an 's after "Coronal".
"...not blessed with a strong constitution..."
This is kind of impersonal- you want to make it clear that The Coronal is super-indestructable. How about:
"...not blessed with the same strong consitition or aversion to pork..."
Also, I'm not sure you quite mean "compromising situations". Compromising situations would imply they were found in positions that destroyed their reputations, or beliefs of others about them or something. I think you mean something more like:
"...had died, prematurely aged, in gutters and backroom toilets..."
Which gives us the same idea without the sentence that follows. The point is not his friends, but that The Colonal is extrodinarily healthy for his abuse of his body.
quote: the onset of AIDs
AIDS is all capitalized.
quote: Raising a son placed a load on the Coronals mind took some of the desirability from Najiyas hips, making his bow tie itch, the Final Call a chore, and Temple tedious.
Suffers from tense agreement and being a bit of a run-on-list. Perhaps cut out a few of the things; Najiyas hips and the Final Call would give the same impression without the run-on-ness.
My guess is Little_Doctor. I'm going youngish and male.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
At first glance (read: the first sentence,) I thought this story had to have been written by Choobak...I thought some of the grammatical/syntax(ical?) errors could only have been made because of a language barrier.
But on closer inspection some of those must have been mere typos:
quote:bouncing as his head as his son drummed the beat
(did you mean "bouncing his head?") and
quote: The Coronal was striking man
as was already pointed out.
I think this story has great potential to be comic, though I know that's not your current intent. Some of the phrases easily slip into comedy, like the "compromising positions" line, etc.
quote:The pushers laughed, the whores laughed, and even the Johns laughed, because when a pimp falls in love, it’s always funny.
quote: their music telling stories that polite women and dapper men do not.
My two favorite lines.
My guess? I don't know. I feel like this is either someone smart but young, or someone deliberately concealing their writing style. So I'll go with Orange7Penguin for now...
Posts: 3516 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
Tom, I too initially thought it might be Colonel, but I suppose it's for the author to say for sure. It could be either.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Man...i would have more guesses if it wasn't for the odd sentence structure throughout...
Also, I'm not exactly certain of JamGodJeff's age, but based on the fact that I cannot place this within the style realm of anyone I actually know, I'm going to guess him.
Posts: 3516 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
The piece reads like background for a story, not the story itself. It would be much more entertaining to me if we discovered the details of the protagonist's life during the story. What we get here is a chronological history. Perhaps the author could even use the piece as motivation for the character, and we need never know the details.
It seems as though we are in the middle of a jam session. I'll throw out JamGodJeff for the heck of it....
Posts: 2506 | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
I think the various composition errors that have been noted would tend to rule out Irami. I'm going to guess Astaril because no one else has yet, and it does seem like someone unfamiliar. I missed round one. Is there a master thread with links to all the rounds?
Posts: 2010 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
It might be good to repost the rules. You get more points for a critique, some points for a rationale, and -10 points for just guessing with no comment.
Posts: 2010 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Okay, this is a character sketch more than a story, from somebody who likes jazz and is not themselves black, Muslim, or a drug user; the author tries, but phrases like "going to Temple" aren't normally part of the Nation of Islam. I'm going to guess a female author, despite the rest of the tone, because I can't think of a man on Earth who would speak of "fat ankles" being an unattractive consequence of pregnancy.
The Fifth Amendment bar could be a place clue, but the only one I could find on Google is a gay dive bar in New York and an unlikely haunt for the Coronal (sic?). And we're looking for someone familiar with California, anyway, since we're dealing with Oakland.
The author strikes me as moderately conservative but consciously open-minded. And I disagree with Leonide's assessment: I think the author here is trying to be comic (though dryly so) in places, and succeeds fairly well.
Based on my conservative female guess, the Oakland setting, and existing posting trends, I'm going to say The Pixiest.
posted
Well i thought it was very funny, but certain phrases led me to believe the humor was unintentional...the author seems to be trying very hard to write "wise sayings"... pithy turns-of-phrase that make him/her sound street-wise and weathered.
Posts: 3516 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
Wow. I would have bet ten dollars that the author was not black. And I would have bet another ten dollars that Irami knew how to spell "Colonel."
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Lots of background exposition = a break in the action. May lose reader.
In the first paragraph, much of that description is physical. I'm a lot more forgiving of background exposition that gives me insight into character--and this accomplished that as well, by explaining the reasons for his appearance: drugs, time in Nation of Islam--than lengthy exposition that only gives me a physical description. I prefer physical description in small doses. You are on the right side of the line here, for me, but too much more about how he looks would send me away.
quote:The Coronal told stories through his music, confirmed by the tracks down his arm.
What does this mean?
quote:The Coronal friends, not blessed with a strong constitution and an aversion to pork, had died in compromising positions, slowly decomposing on the streets or apartments or in hallways throughout Oakland, or became old-looking wretches in their twenties, as the Coronal’s iron constitution withstood all the miseries of poverty and seemed to thrive on its excesses.
Is this use of "coronal" as adjective (which it is, but it has been used as a noun until now) on purpose, or should this be "the coronal's friends" or "the colonel's friends"?
How did his friends' weaknesses cause them to die specifically in "compromising" positions? Did they literally decompose on the streets? Is this set in a time when there are no civil services to take care of things like this?
I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt on this, in case this is science fiction, but I'm not sure.
quote:as there is a great deal of money in trading on a man’s loneliness.
Nice turn of phrase.
quote:The Coronal decided to fall in love . . .
Another nice turn of phrase. I assume this is intended to serve as characterization, and this is the kind of characterization I like: subtle and snuck in in pieces.
A lot of sentences begin "The Coronal did this" or "The Coronal did that." Is this for effect? Again, I can see how it could be, maybe to create some sort of a parable effect, which I could see being a direction you are headed. But if not, it is kind of a redundant way to begin a lot of sentences.
quote:Raising a son placed a load on the Coronals mind took some of the desirability from Najiyas hips, making his bow tie itch, the Final Call a chore, and Temple tedious.
". . . Coronal's mind and . . . " ?
"Najiya's hips"
There is faulty parallelism here. Some of it might be for effect, and it is a nice, tragicomic, effect, but some parts just don't work. The way it is worded, it is the loss of desirability that has made his tie itch and so forth. Also, normally, parallelism requires that the listed clauses have the same structure, so all three clauses at the end might have "[making] (noun) [implied linking verb] (descriptive noun)" but "[making] his bow tie itch" does not follow this structure. Normally, when parallelism is only partial like this, it is done for comic effect, which might be why some people wonder if the tone is intended to be comic. (By the way, I think bowtie is one word.)
quote:Najiya, practical in her faith and desperate in her situation, let the Coronal lapse into his old habits. She did not look too closely at the syringes, and he did not talk about the slimness of other women’s ankles.
Very nice. This is my favorite part of the whole passage. I like the characterization of Najiya, and the tragicomic description of their trade-off.
quote:. . . and the Coronal told this story through the chords at the Fifth Amendment
I don't understand what is being said here.
I don't read this as a comic piece, but perhaps as a modern parable.
Some of the language issues lead me to suspect the writer is young (but gifted, given the very gritty feel of the cultural description) or perhaps someone with a first language other than English. I tend to think it is an American, though, because the culture feels right.
My gut tells me the author is male, but I can't really think of a good reason why, so it might merely be my own inherent sexism telling me so--and I see from a reload that the writer has already been found out. Oh well. Next time I'll have to write faster.
posted
Really, my guess was not based on Irami's writing. I've seen too many of these stories turn out to be unlike the usual style of the author, specifically designed to mislead.
It was a blind guess this time.
Posts: 2506 | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
"I wasn't even on the list of possible guesses...."
Well, it was either you or pooka, and you were Californian.
The mental process should have gone "black character in California" and produced Irami, ideally with a little beepy sound effect. But it didn't. *grin*
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
This is the first page of the fifth chapter, and the Coronal is based on my old barber in Inglewood. He was strung-out, but he cut a fine head of hair. I wanted to submit a section that only I would write. I figured it would be obvious. Even the typos were my brand of typos.
I needed a ghetto fabulous name that would serve as a running joke. Coronal is perfect because he got the name for being a "crown jewel," and yet it leaves the door open for people to presume or ask about some fictitious military service. I haven't decided whether the name is going to be his birth name or a nickname.
We already kind of know the character and his son through their actions from previous chapters, so I didn't hesitate to dump some information, as long as I could keep the funny. As I read it now, the prose is down right unmusical. How about this:
quote:The Coronal laid down chords, bouncing his head as Kadir drummed the beat. The Coronal was a striking man whose continued life was a standing miracle, like time or physics or the beating of the human heart. He had felt most of the sensations a man can feel in the company of stimulants, administered through the mouth, nose, arms, thighs, and the literal needle through the eye. His healthy body, drawn wire thin, was in fit condition owing to good genes and dietary restrictions, remnants of his time with the Nation of Islam. The body held him in impressively good stead and into a comfortable old age, weathering the steady trickle of heroin He had nipped nearly every day since he was fifteen, except for the three years he spent in the eighties in service to Allah.
The Coronal told stories through his music, confirmed by the tracks down his arm. His friends, not blessed with a strong constitution and an aversion to pork, had died in compromising positions, slowly decomposing on the streets or in apartments or hallways throughout Oakland, or had became old-looking wretches in their twenties, as the Coronal’s iron constitution withstood all the miseries of poverty and thrived on its excesses.
His indestructible health was the bedrock on which he had built his twenty year long career as a pimp. He spent the 60s and 70s and 80s introducing young women to men who appreciated the company of young women, as there is a great deal of money in trading on a man’s loneliness.
In 1982, the advent of AIDS served a blow to men of his calling. Two of his pleasures had taken foreign and severe consequences, bringing him to think on a man’s willingness to make love and shoot drugs even in the most dangerous circumstances. He decided to fall in love with Najiya al Shabazz, a sister in the Nation of Islam, and he donned a bowtie, a crisp new cut, sold the Final Call, and stopped dealing women and drugs. The pushers laughed, the whores laughed, and even the Johns laughed, because when a pimp falls in love, it’s always funny.
The two married and to avoid confusion and signal the beginning of his new life, the Coronal took her name. Almost nine months later, Kadir al Shabazz was born. Raising a son placed a load on the Coronal’s mind and took some of the desirability from Najiya's hips, making his bowtie itch, the Final Call a chore, and Temple tedious. Najiya, practical in her faith and desperate in her situation, let the Coronal lapse into his old habits. She did not look too closely at the syringes, and he did not talk about the slimness of other women’s ankles. He had a connection at the hospital for clean needles, and such was the house of al Shabazz. The Coronal told this story through chords at the Fifth Amendment, and Kadir drummed this tale every Tuesday and Saturday night, their music telling stories that polite women and dapper men do not.
The Fifth Amendment is the name of predominatly black bar in Oakland, off of Lake Merrit. My ex and I used to go, and I dig the name.
I know some of the sentences run on, I'm just thinking that by the time someone gets to the fifth chapter, and I keep the funny, that I can be breezy with the sentence structure.
Icarus, I'm glad you picked up on Najiya. She is going to figure prominently in the story, her actions shape the arc of the plot more importantly than the Coronal's actions, and the seed is planted in that paragraph.
My English is a bit helter-skelter. It's my mother tongue, and I don't speak anything with any sense of fluidity, but it's poor, with large craters in my diction and an alien cadence. The upshot is that one person's crater is another's well-placed valley.
I think it's a product of reading to myself as I grew up, and not hearing english spoken correctly or speaking correctly myself.
posted
Irami, it's my gut feeling that by the fifth chapter, if we already know these characters, it's too late to dump this kind of exposition on people. If you haven't already shown your audience this stuff, they're not going to appreciate having it shoveled into their heads.
BTW, "Coronal" isn't pronounced like "Colonel." It's not a functional pun.
"Colonel" is pronounced "kernel" in most places; "coronal" is pronounced "koh-ROW-nul."
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:BTW, "Coronal" isn't pronounced like "Colonel." It's not a functional pun.
"Colonel" is pronounced "kernel" in most places; "coronal" is pronounced "koh-ROW-nul."
Of course you are right, but I have a tongue like a potato, and if I'm not paying attention, those two words sound suspiciously similar.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
I never thought to look at a woman's ankles either, but my friend's mom told him it's a predictor of whether a person is going to gain weight in their later years.
For clarity, this is written from the POV of a guy at the bar that night who knows the Coronal and Kadir. The description was originally just to set the scene of the bar, but as I started writing, I figured it was a good time to set down some thoughts about the family. This isn't supposed to be omniscient. To the best of my ability, this is written in the voice of the POV character, who is listening to the music and staring at a drink in the next sentence.
btw, this isn't science fiction. It's a straight story about courage, savagery, music and the Gods.
posted
I can't say I'm familiar with Oakland, but I have been there several times. Ironically, to go to the temple. But it was a Mormon Temple.
And if I used "coronal" in a story, it would be to explain why some Arabic words are not preceded by "Al-". Which I don't think most people care about.
Posts: 2010 | Registered: Apr 2003
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This is my favorite part of the whole passage. I like the characterization of Najiya, and the tragicomic description of their trade-off.
