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 eslaine Eaquea Legit 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 quidscribis Raia Rivka Ryuko Sarahdipity SarcasticMuppet Saxon75 ScottR sndrake Strider T_Smith Teshi The Pixiest Troubadour TomDavidson Twinky
The story will be in the next post.
Posts: 9754 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
Did you ever watch a cat and see her staring past you, fixated on something, just absolutely staring her eyes out...and when you turn to look, there's nothing there? They do it a lot...eyes widen, ears prick forward, and the purring stops, cut off in mid-rumble.
It's scares you, sometimes. When you're alone, and you've just been watching TV, and the cat is lounging around on your lap like you're a king bed at the Ritz, and all of a sudden, it happens. The purr is gone and you're following her gaze to an empty corner of the room where there's nothing, just nothing there.
And you're scared, cause, what the heck is she looking at? Sometimes I laugh when I get all into it like that, and think "it's the ghost again!" and go back to flipping channels. Sometimes. And sometimes I just stare and stare, so we're both staring, you know? Like a totem pole of fear, just waiting for some goblin to jump out of the shadows.
I feel like she's trying to tell me something, you know? "Hey, buddy, there is something there. I know you can't see it -- but I'm a cat, and man, do I see it. I got cat eyes. I can see in the freakin' dark, you don't think I can see a ghost standing there? Come on, man!"
My cat sounds kind of like my ex-girlfriend sometimes.
Posts: 9754 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
Well, I'm afraid the giving away of the gender in the end there was rather telling. Truthfully, though, until then I thought it must be a girl, because I couldn't see a teenage boy writing about a cat. But now, I think I see a teenage boy writing about a cat.
The style is deliberately casual, which is OK sometimes, but it has to be very carefully handled. Things like "You know?" and phrases like "what the heck" are funny if they're carefully and tastefully used, but if they're even slightly overdone, it sounds pedantic and juvenile.
This author has a good wit and a good purposeful attitude, but needs to re-write and refine and let just a bit of that show through without going over-the-top.
I guess Orange7Penguin.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
Somthing about the use of "what the heck" and freakin make me think the writer is LDS. I've only actually heard LDS men say the word freakin in real life, anyone else who fake curses says frickin, and there is a difference.
The relationship with the cat is a big symbol for his relationship with his girlfriend. I don't know if it works. I've never been struck by the phenomena of cat behavior. Unless you know what you are doing, I'd rather you just start in with your girlfriend seeing ghosts, and bring the cat's behavior in later.
As to the casual style. I don't read books written in this style unless they are funny. I'm from the no BS American school of reader and I've got demands on my time and I don't appreciate a writer's indulgences. I do like that the writer is talking about one thing. The problem is, that thing is morally uninteresting. No decision has been made. No history. It's not my style of story. As a plus, it's clearly written. I know what's going on, but I'm not sure there is a conflict. I guess I don't trust the writer, and I don't think I'm the target audience. This could be young adult fiction.
I think the writer is female, writing from a guy's POV. Especially since the ex sounds like the interesting one of the group.
I guess I have to guess. I don't know the posters that well. I used to keep a catalogue in my head, but LDS unmarried female, and I don't know who fits that description. Beatnix?
posted
It sounds like mac to me. Though the 'what in heck' is a little throwing.
The voice is more casual than I generally go for in books that I like to read. It reads like young adult fiction, which is no insult -- I think very highly of young adult fiction and have a lot of it on my shelves. I'd like to see more of the story...there isn't enough there to really give you a feel for where it's going. Is it just a teenager making observations? Or is it foreshadowing? Too hard to tell.
posted
I'll look at this during lunch, but I believe you gave me too many points. Both of my critiques were after the author was identified, so they did not technically contain guesses.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
I liked the "totem pole of fear" line, but only after I thought about it...it's not immediately clear what that means.
The conversational style isn't too bad, but like has been pointed out before, the swear words seemed forced and unnatural...either the person is unused to using them, or purposefully toned them down.
the narrator has that "punky kid" attitude, so aside from thinking it's a teenaged male, I'm going to advise that they either go all the way and actually use the @#)*$*%'s or just...well, find another way of saying it.
Not that I think he's a punky kid, but I'm going to guess Da_Goat.
Posts: 3516 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
I assume that the narrator is a teenager, because of choices like "cause" instead of "because," followed by a question instead of a statement, and "when I get all into it like that," and the repeated use of "you know."
If this is the case, I think the tone is completely plausible. I don't see the speaker as intended to be someone "punky" at all. Good kids swear too, and some of them use fake swears.
I don't find the tone too casual. If your narrator is a teenager, then I think some casualness is pretty much required, or the tone is all wrong.
quote:and the cat is lounging around on your lap like you're a king bed at the Ritz
Nice simile
I too loved the totem analogy.
Brilliant last line.
I think people are way off base believing this writer is a teenager. I think the writer is someone not too young, but still young at heart. Someone more like my age, who still remembers being a teenager pretty well. I think it's by a male, and not just because of the last line.
The LDS idea of Irami's is an interesting one, but I can't think of an LDS poster who fits the rest of my criteria, so I'm going to go with Chris Bridges.
quote:Sometimes I laugh when I get all into it like that, and think "it's the ghost again!" and go back to flipping channels. Sometimes. And sometimes I just stare and stare, so we're both staring, you know?
That sounds like T_Smith. The fake swearing, the portence of the subject, and consistent wonderment all point to someone LDS and young, and the cultivated spookiness points to a guy.
Posts: 1163 | Registered: Jan 2005
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posted
Nice idea! I can honestly say that my cat never "sits on my lap like its a king-sized bed at the Ritz" but I have no doubt that normal cats do .
I feel like I'm always picking on the same thing but there's an awful lot of 'sometimes's in this piece. I know it's there for effect, and it's not too bad, I'm just pointing it out because for some reason that seems to be the thing that is catching my eye .
Otherwise, this is really good. No rambling. Description, but not distraction.
I hope that this is about the girlfriend. Like Irami says, if she is like this cat, then she can potentially see things others can't, and that's pretty cool.
I have no idea whether this is male or female, young or old, so I'm going to take a wild stab:
posted
I was tempted to go with T_Smith also, but I guess it wouldn't have made a difference.
We're allowed to guess again, right?
I still feel like this is a male author. Chris was a little bit older than I was thinking, but I went with him because of his sense of humor. Looking at males a bit closer to my age, who would use fake swears instead of real ones, I have it narrowed down to a couple I feel might be it.
I will choose ScottR.
(I don't actually know ScottR's age, but I perceive it to be close to mine.)
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
I get a gut feeling that the author is female. I can't offer any substantiation for that though. I also feel that the author is either young or young at heart. Something about the turn of phrase coupled with some subconcious connection concerning cats and a beloved lady punster suggest that Elizabeth penned this piece. There is also a sense of fun and funkiness in the imagery that I associate with her and her love of music.
Posts: 2022 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
It could certainly be a female trying to "write male." I don't think it's as young as a lot of people think, but I could see it being her. But there are some pretty sophisticated images, analogies, and similes here. I'm not saying somebody young (as in a teenager) wouldn't be talented enough to write like that, but that it takes a certain amount of world-experience to think of some of those things, no matter how talented one is.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
I mostly agree with Annie. The casual writing style can work very nicely. It gives us a good picture of the narrator, and allows for color in the narrative. The problem, though, is that that kind of writing is actually harder to do well than straight writing. Basically what the author is doing is giving us a very tight Limited 3rd Person POV. There are advantages to doing that, but there is no room for slop when you do that. You have to really know the narrator--and I think that this writer does. But also you can't let the fact that the narrator's voice might include colloquial grammar affect other parts of your writing, like punctuation. For me, ellipses almost never work outside of actual dialogue. You can sneak them into narrative or internal monologue once in a while, but twice in the same paragraph is too much for me. Things like that need to get tightened up for this piece to really work.
I took sort of a different interpretation of the last line. To me it sounded more like an aside than anything profound. The piece is written as though the narrator is speaking directly to us, so the way I hear it is that he realizes that what he's saying sounds a little silly, so throws in this little line about his cat sounding like his girlfriend.
I don't get a really good sense of the author's gender or age. I could just as easily see a young woman writing this as an older man. What I do sense is that the writer is relatively inexperienced, or else is trying to make us think so.
posted
This passage has promise, but it's way too long. I feel like the author is behind me beating me on the head to make sure I GET.THE.POINT.
Okay, already - cats look at things, it's creepy, okay. Let's move on.
I think the whole thing would work better if the four paragraphs preceding the girlfriend comment were condensed to one, no more than two.
I agree with the comments that this type of style can be hard to pull off for some length of time. Short story, perhaps. But a novel length of this type of chatter would be way over the top.
It does have possibilities, though - especially if there's going to be a story following about how the girlfriend can see things that aren't there.
I have no idea, no guess even to gender. I'm going to take a stab and say Brinestone
Why? NO rationale whatsoever.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
I love this, if for no other reason than it's centered around cats.
I agree with those that said it's a bit too casual for its own good. The overuse of 'sometimes' was especially jarring.
I loved the imagery in this sentence
quote:Like a totem pole of fear, just waiting for some goblin to jump out of the shadows.
I have an outrageously small nitpick with the last sentence, though.
quote:My cat sounds kind of like my ex-girlfriend sometimes.
This sample appears to be about a cat's peculiar staring, not it's meows. So unless the last sentence is said from a separate party (in which case, we need some quotation marks), I'd feel more comfortable if it read "My cat is kind of like my ex-girlfriend sometimes", rather than sounds. Like I said, outrageously small.
I'm going to guess Annie, because the first sentence of her first post in this topic sounds exactly like what a female that didn't want to be guessed would say. And because all of my better guesses have already been named.
posted
I like the casual breeziness of the piece, and the (already mentioned) metaphors. I agree with Annie that it needs to be tightened up a bit.
Overall, I like it quite a bit, and would be interested in finding out where this is going.
I will guess at random, as I can't decide if the speaker is meant to be young, or the author actually is young. And as for male v. female, I'm not entirely certain whether the speaker is male, let alone the writer.
posted
Synesthesia didn't enter? That seemed like a good guess to me. Also Chris Bridges seems like a cat person. And this has a good sense of voice, combining humor and honesty. Then again, Jon Boy is a cat person.
P.S. Edited to bold my only guess that hasn't been ruled out. I didn't even notice the Utah-fied swearing.
posted
Hm. I think I'll take another fairly wild stab and say imogen, because her name kind of reminds me of cats.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Gah! I'm running out of people who fit my criteria! I don't think Bob is a cat per--wait a minute. He has a cat! (Or at least, he had one in Florida. Was it his?)
Hmm . . . Bob or Strider? Bob or Strider? Bob or Strider?
posted
Raia has not been guessed yet. Are you guessing her?
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Strider seems like he could be a good fit for the writing style. And if Icarus thinks he's a cat person that's also a plus. So I'll guess Strider.
Posts: 4534 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
I wasn't saying that he seemed like a cat person. Rather, he was the next person on my list of maybes, but I kept looking back up at Bob there. This is a funny piece and Bob's a funny guy. So then (and my post is a fairly literal distillation of my thought process from this point) I attempted to convince myself it could not be Bob because Bob is a dog person.
But then I remembered his cat.
And even if it wasn't his cat, it would give him the familiarity to have made funny observations about them.
And, come to think of it, the post is not so much positive in its portrayal of cats as it is familiar.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
I've about exhausted my text-based reasons. However, I think it likely, given how this game has gone in the past, that the author has posted in this round. The only person who has posted in this thread without a guess is sarcasticmuppet, so she is my guess.
Posts: 4534 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
I'm starting to be convinced that I'm shooting too old, so I'm going to go with Sopwith, who otherwise fits my criteria well.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
D'you realize, I would have guessed Saxon75 a long time ago, except for the fact that his piece was just used. And, while there was no promise that an author's piece will not be used twice, I kind of doubt Nate would repeat an author so soon. I'm not changing my vote or anything, just saying . . .
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
For the same reason, I'm going to guess Icarus. And say that I liked the piece, but think it's a bit too casual for such a short snippet; as a consequence, we don't really get a strong image of the narrator's character. This won't be an issue in the larger work, of course, but it makes it darn hard to review this tiny piece of it.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I'm just about to give up. Last guess, the one I had in mind before Sopwith. Close to my age (I think) and a witty guy with a casual approach: NoemonPosts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
I like the story although it does need some tightening up.
I don't like the use of the "..." - a little nitpick.
Although I like the casual voice, at some parts it feels a little forced. "You know" and "sometimes" are both overused - perhaps if it was given a tight edit then the casual tone would flow more naturally.
My guess - just because part of the tone reminds me of some of his writing about going to pick up Sascha - is Dan Raven.
Posts: 4393 | Registered: Aug 2003
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