posted
Ok, here's how it goes. I post a story/excerpt someone sent me. You try and guess who it is from the list I provided. I won't tell you how many people sent in submissions. This is how you score points:
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
The story will be in the next post.
Posts: 9754 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Along the Interstate 15 freeway between Las Vegas and Los Angeles there is a small town called Baker. Baker is hot, dusty and dry. Baker is not the sort of place in which one would ever choose to settle, being that civilization as most of us know it is only a few more hours down the road. It is a glorified truck stop, and hardly even that, having the approximate population of one neighborhood in Bakersfield or Barstow, where the truckers finally built up cities around their rest areas. Most people would never remember Baker except that it is on the way to Vegas and also contains the world’s tallest thermometer. In fact, most people don’t remember it anyway. But if you drive west from Baker on the interstate for about 30 miles, the desert takes on a quality that is all at once forbidding, desolate and absolutely beautiful.
There is a certain quality about the air and sunlight in the Mojave Desert. It is difficult to describe; impossible, perhaps, to someone who has never before been there. The seeming lifelessness of the desert both shrinks the viewpoint to the self and reminds the traveler of the vastness of our world. It can accentuate the emptiness of a lonely heart, but as the sun rises over the barren hillsides, the soul exults in the splendor of a display so perfect that it must have been created just to be seen. The hills and mountains there seem as though they have forgotten water, having been eroded for centuries by the wind. This rougher form of weathering leaves them sharp and craggy, but with a thick layer of dust, through which the rocks show like the bones of a decaying earth. Yet, as you look over the natural skyline, the air is so clean, the sky so bright and pure, that it seems that the world ends right there, and nothing more lies beyond them.
Imagine this landscape with a single ribbon, four lanes wide, of faded asphalt running through it. Upon this dry river rides a single vessel, with neither sail nor sea, gleaming silver in the harsh desert sun. It is here, within this vehicle, that we join our hero, such as he is.
posted
Dude, your list seems to have rather a lot of people who I haven't seen around here in a long time.
Posts: 4534 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
I remember saxon75 posting this somewhere else.
So that is my rational. I gave him a critique back then, as I enjoyed it and wished him to continue it....
Posts: 66 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
I like the comment about the thermometer. I always like little throw-aways like that, that seem ridiculous but that makes them all the more believable (and in this case, it happens to be true!)
I don't like the phrase "such as he is" mostly because i think it's overused. I think the sentence works fine without it.
Posts: 3516 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
At the time I put it in because I wanted to sort of play up the "regular joe" aspect of the protagonist, but you're right, it's a poor turn of phrase. Personally, I think that the last sentence is pretty cheesy. And the whole thing seems a little overdone at this point, though I think the imagery works well enough.
Posts: 4534 | Registered: Jan 2003
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quote:Along the Interstate 15 freeway between Las Vegas and Los Angeles there is a small town called Baker. Baker is hot, dusty and dry. Baker is not the sort of place...
Too many "Bakers" spoil the story, as it were.
quote: It is a glorified truck stop, and hardly even that, having the approximate population of one neighborhood in Bakersfield or Barstow...
I would put a "just" imbeteween 'of' and 'one' so it's "of just one neighbourhood"
posted
I actually like the repetitive Bakers -- it's a neat literary thing that I see in a bunch of stories (i've used it a few times myself...) :0) I mean, Baker is a pretty dull place, right? The repitition just accents that.
Posts: 3516 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
About the Bakers: I thought that although that was probably the intention, the repetativeness wasn't handled in the best way it could have been. I especially didn't like the sentence that ended with Baker right next to the one that began with Baker... it just didn't flow for me...
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
One problem for me, I think, is that when I'm writing the prose portions I tend to "hear" it in my head. It's like I'm reading it aloud. I think this actually works out nicely for me most of the time, but the repetition here sort of highlights a place where it doesn't. See, when I say it out loud, I put in pauses that may not be readily apparent to someone else just reading it. So the sentence beginning with "Baker" right after a sentence ending with "Baker" doesn't sound bad to me because there's a pause in between. No particularly good way to show that in writing, though.
posted
Well, yeah, I could put in a paragraph break there, but in terms of the prose flow, it's not really appropriate. Alternately I could put in an ellipsis, but that doesn't really work for narrative, just dialogue and internal monologue.
Posts: 4534 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
There's some really good imagery here, I love some of the small details like the thermometer.
However, I think it would have problems as a story introduction because it's three paragraphs of static description before we ever meet the character.
It's too much for me. I would rather meet the character right away, then perhaps we could get some of that wonderful imagery through the character's thoughts.
I know you guys are going to kill me for bringing up the dreaded "show don't tell" but I do find a good bit of telling in this description.
Don't tell me it's "all at once forbidding, desolate and absolutely beautiful," show me. Show me how the landscape changes into something else, describe for me what about it makes it forbidding and beautiful.
quote:There is a certain quality about the air and sunlight in the Mojave Desert. It is difficult to describe; impossible, perhaps, to someone who has never before been there. The seeming lifelessness of the desert both shrinks the viewpoint to the self and reminds the traveler of the vastness of our world. It can accentuate the emptiness of a lonely heart, but as the sun rises over the barren hillsides, the soul exults in the splendor of a display so perfect that it must have been created just to be seen.
I think you can toss the first two sentences. What use is there intelling us it's impossible to describe if you're going to describe it for us in the immediately following sentences?
I agree with the comment about "such as it is." I don't like it at all. But I think the whole thing would work better if we're introduced to our chracter right away anyhow.
I think it would be better to show us the desert through his/her eyes, so the reader can not only get the feel for the desert setting, but learn something about the character in the process.
Of course, if the hero is born in the desert, he's not going to wax poetic about how it accentuates the emptiness of a lonely heart. And, he may be the type of character that doens't wax poetic at all. So, then you'd have to decide whether the beautiful prose here is important to the story at all, or is it just pretty?
If it's supposed to be a descriptive essay on desert landscapes it's awesome. But does it fulfill the purpose in the story that it needs to? Only the author can answer that.
I love a lot of it - I think it's wonderful writing, I'm just not convinced of it's value in a story. Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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quote:I'm just not convinced of it's value in a story.
This is exactly why there's no more to this little stub of an intro. It just doesn't make much sense as a part of a larger story.
Really I never had much to work with here anyway. The idea was a story about a guy who's sort of trapped between worlds, living in Southern California but having been raised in Northern California. (Yeah, it's more than a little autobiographical, which is another problem.) I had this idea of him driving back and forth a lot, and the roads and driving would be some kind of metaphor for his life. The problem is I never really had a good idea of any of the characters or storyline, just this vague notion of an idea.
So, yeah, what Belle said.
Posts: 4534 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
I hate The Principal, because I took notes as I read it and wrote up a rather lengthy critique.
Actually, no. I hate The Principal because s/he did not guess, s/he narked. S/he knew the answer without any deduction and simply spoiled everyone else's fun.
Saxon would have been about my fourth guess. I would have guessed DanRaven, Bob_S, and Papa Moose first.
-o-
I don't understand why there are no points for critiques now that guessing is done. Critiques are kind of the point, with the guessing just a fun game to frame around this, neh?
Well, I'm gonna be anally retentive, then, and keep my critique to myself.
posted
Yeah, eslaine...i feel like you played the last round of this game...you should know better than to ruin the round for the rest of us! especially poor saxon, cause he'll probably get less critiques because of it...
general rule of thumb for everybody: don't do that. Posts: 3516 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
Seriously...If you "know" the answer due to some outside reason, keep it to yourself. Getting some points for the correct guess isn't worth spoiling the game.
-sorry to jump on the bandwagon, I didn't see Leonide's post.
posted
I thought it was pretty good except three things were jarring: The semicolon, "weathering leaves" and the last phrase, "The Hero, such as he is.
This is a contemporary fiction piece, which pares down those who are more known for interest in Sci-fi/fantasy. It's probably someone who lives in the west, but not the north (probably not mack or Annie). Due to the location I'm guessing Papa Moose. I hope this round didn't end without me. I am replying without reading everyone else's assessments.
Posts: 2010 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
What I most about this excerpt was the wealth of description that was provided.
"the Interstate 15 freeway" redundant?
I like this turn of phrase: "It is a glorified truck stop, and hardly even that . . . "
By this time:
quote:Most people would never remember Baker except that it is on the way to Vegas and also contains the world’s tallest thermometer. In fact, most people don’t remember it anyway.
it gets to be too much. Okay, we get the point. It's nowheresville. Now get on with it.
A heck of a lot of time is spent desctibing a place that is (apparently) nothing more than a reference point for the real setting.
I found this transition awkward:
quote:But if you drive west from Baker on the interstate for about 30 miles, the desert takes on a quality that is all at once forbidding, desolate and absolutely beautiful.
There is a certain quality about the air and sunlight in the Mojave Desert.
This sounded profound to me, and led me to believe that the author was a "grown-up": "The seeming lifelessness of the desert both shrinks the viewpoint to the self and reminds the traveler of the vastness of our world."
quote:It can accentuate the emptiness of a lonely heart, but as the sun rises over the barren hillsides, the soul exults in the splendor of a display so perfect that it must have been created just to be seen.
Beautiful. Antecedent unclear, though.
The concluding paragraph gives me the sense that the preceding description was going through the motions. "Our hero" creates a "gentle reader" tone that might not be out of place, since the scene seems comic. But the juxtaposition of some quite profound-seeming description with the occasional comic line and now this creates a bathetic effect that is jarring. Is it deliberate?
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