Yet another extraneous thank you to all of the participants in this amazing round.
The Special Panel Of Judges (who need a better name) were, in order of attractiveness:
ChronicLeaky
Raven69
Mimor
hopscotch
catfoodtim
Bosse de Nage
Apart from CFT, none of us knew the identities of the participants, unless they were subterfugely revealed to us. We were (obviously) not allowed to vote for our own entries. We apologise for being so late with our results and comments but we are very busy people and when we are not teaming up to judge prose entries we are busy teaming up to save a rain forest or an orphanage somewhere.
Here are our results:
1: Metal Detecting Dad’s Head
2: Unleashed
3: Slime
4: The Hungry Hand of God
5: Two Letter Lipo_ram
6: Blight
7: Bits and Pieces
8: Return Journey
9: Burnt Toast
10: Midnight Special
I'm only going to post the top ten list, but each of the judges will be posting an individual critique of each of the 20 entries here, apart from Raven69 who didn't understand that she would have to do any actual work. (I'll be posting mine later, once I have gathered them all together)
Originally posted by hopscotchCool. Looking forward to more discussion.
Yet another extraneous thank you to all of the participants in this amazing round.
The Special Panel Of Judges (who need a better name) were, in order of attractiveness:
ChronicLeaky
Raven69
Mimor
hopscotch
catfoodtim
Bosse de Nage
Apart from CFT, none of us knew the identities of the participants, unless they were subterfugely revealed to us ...[text shortened]... e to do any actual work. (I'll be posting mine later, once I have gathered them all together)
Here are my comments on the prose entries. I tried not to be too rude.
500 Words: I could be incredibly hypercritical of this piece if I wanted to, but I'm not.
An Affair: Present and Future: It's so unfortunate that it is only properly understood when you have the background knowledge and the identity of the author, which I figured out as he is a friend of mine. This is a disturbingly personal piece of prose, and knowing what I do, I am bound by my ethics to subtract a few points from my score.
Bits and Pieces: This piece reached me on a level that I'm still trying to comprehend. There's a certain genuineness to it, the lack of pseudo intellectual pretension is refreshing. Pity about the last line which spoils it.
Blight: I have no real criticism of this piece, it's very good, but it could use a little dash of brilliance at the end.
Burnt Toast: I wrote this.
Cipela (Shoe): Appalling, bad grammar and spelling, lack of any substance or point, the author has potential but needs a few years to mature. Sorry.
Dealer’s Choice: Fairly decent dialogue but no real plot or anything substantial to comment on. It's like walking into a conversation where you have no idea what's going on and you leave before you find out.
Edgar’s Night Class: This is actually quite good. It obviously doesn't suit the competition because of the word count and the swear words, so I'm forced to give it a low rating.
Entertaining St. Jude: Lack of emotional expressiveness, almost cold. The joyous section stirs no warmth in me and the sad section is overly masculine and therefore I cannot sympathise. Perhaps the word limit inhibited this author's conception.
Metal Detecting Dad’s Head: Superb! Highly immersive and delightfully succinct.
Midnight Special: It's not bad. I think the author drowns a bit in his/her desire to express an impressive vocabulary and the piece becomes a bit too abstract.
Percival the Sandwich: I am going to read this to my imaginary children one day.
Return Journey: Really good. Great sensual imagery and the descriptive tone is not overdone. I also liked the layout of the piece.
Slime: Simply excellent. I had to read this four times before I figured it out. (yes, I'm a bit slow)
The Hungry Hand of God: Very good. It's like Bret Easton Ellis meets Chuck Palahniuk. This author seems to have put a lot of work into this competition, and this piece is definitely a credit to it.
The Interview: It's ok, I guess. A bit long winded, even for a 500-word piece.
Two Letter Lipo_ram: I quite liked this piece for the surprising dark humour at the end, and as it is a lipogram it receives bonus points for the geek factor. The patient in the story reminds me a bit of Bug-Eyed Earl from Red Meat.
Unleashed: Gaaahh... amazing!
Untitled: What is size 10? Is that fat or thin? I don't know these things! This idea deserved a lot more. I would have preferred to see more investigation of the mind of the woman, but instead it's just too simply bitter, when there should have been plenty more psychological complexities going on. Also, statistically, women rarely shoot themselves in the head, they want to look nice after they die (it's a fact, check it out). The most common method of female suicide is an overdose. (not to mention that shotguns don't shoot bullets)
Writer’s Block: Tries and fails to convey what it feels like to have writer's block. Too many dashes. I guess a bit of inspiration is required to adequately depict the curse of the block, oh irony.
Percival the Sandwich - The part about Percival's shame over his bit of fat was cute and the message was clear – death will inevitably come and either he will have fulfilled his purpose or he will be tossed and of course, he desperately hopes for the former. It would have been a better story if he'd been passed over, thrown out and then picked at by birds and rats and realized that his purposed could be served in an unexpected way. The woman was boring and unnecessary.
An Affair: Present and Future – Initials piss me off. At first I thought it was written using that random paragraph (sentence?) generator that someone posted a while ago. Anyway, tries too hard to be something and puts the reader off.
Untitled - This would have potential if the writer put more effort into making the character's voice truer as she aged. The melodrama is overdone and the first part – giving her stats – is distracting. It would have been better if that were left out and the diary entries given more thought. The end with the baby crying is startling and good.
Two Letter Lipo ram - Very good – especially with the added restriction of not using 'g' or 'h'. I don't know if it was the author's intention but I read the inmate's tone as interested but detached (also as a stoner) – like the way a person would talk about an accident he'd witnessed but not been involved in. And that makes the murder confession chilling without being manipulative.
Bits and Pieces – Terrific piece with a crap denouement. I probably would have voted for it if the last sentence had been left off.
Midnight Special – Committedly surreal and well-written. It easily pulls the reader in with sharp imagery but the word limit works against it. This piece needs more room to grow.
The Interview – I didn't get it until the sentence towards the end referring to Mary and their theater plans and then realized this interview is going on between Abraham Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth (his assassin). Knowing that and re-reading it, there are some nice touches – like JWB entering from the south and the nod to Ford's Theater, among others. It's unclear whether this conversation is totally in Lincoln's mind or if it implies that he and JWB were actually in collusion. Nicely done but the last two sentences were not necessary. It would have been better at "…and extinguished the lamp."
Writer's Block - It's like being at a race but the cars are doing nothing but sitting at the starting line revving their engines. You know it'll be good if it just starts.
Burnt Toast – I like this one very much. There's good contrast between one man who needs little, if any, reason to jump into a fight and another who is clearly skilled at rationalizing his way out of a confrontation even when one is called for. And it has a ring of truth to it as well but maybe that's just me, projecting. Still, I liked it more each time I read it.
Blight - This is good and an effective demonstration of how a message is received after it has passed through the filter of individual experience or inexperience in the case of Little Sammy. If the author didn't feel the need to spell that out for us in the second paragraph though, it would have been better.
Unleashed - Definitely a top choice. Convincing, engaging and worrying.
Metal Detecting Dad's Head – Awesome! Well crafted family snapshot. Also a top choice.
500 Words – self-indulgent and unamusing.
The Hungry Hand of God – This is another favorite. Although it suffers from predictability, it's compelling with powerful imagery.
Dealer's Choice – I see what the writer is going for – something sinister moving beneath the surface of this banal card game - but it's unsuccessful.
Slime - I like this. I don't know why or what to really make of it but I find myself re-reading it and it's not unpleasant.
Edgar's Night Class – Should be disqualified for flouting the word limit so blatantly but a good read nonetheless.
Return Journey – I liked the first part very much and I liked "The unconcern of the youth sitting on the bench beside him was unfeigned and total" too. If these two parts had been put into something more cohesive, this would have been a stronger entry.
Untitled (Cipela) - Blech.
Midnight Special: n/a
Bits and Pieces
I liked: the lapidary, musical style, the evocative imagery.
I didn't like: the abrupt final transition. Reader betrayed!
Unleashed
I liked: the marriage of form and content; the convincing content especially -- there's a real threshold moment at the end, a i]genuine frisson that tells you this is the real thing.
I didn't like: n/a
Dealer’s Choice
I liked: the narrative situation, using a conversation to allude to much more (like Hemingway in 'The Killers', say).
I didn't like: the failure of the narrative situation to intimate strongly (I started off thinking there must be a body in the fridge but by the end I was just confused).
Slime
I liked: the clever form
I didn't like: the slime, I mean content -- you could have adapted the form to practically anything else, something more space opera, perhaps ... since the form is a space-opera form, IMO.
Percival the Sandwich
I liked: the form, very neat.
I didn't like: the infernal glibness.
Metal Detecting Dad’s Head
I liked: the setting, the characters, the evocative descriptions, the interesting use of a gift
I didn't like: the writing was a bit soggy in places
Entertaining St. Jude
I liked: the description was convincing.
I didn't like: not caring about the description.
Return Journey n/a
Blight
I liked: the progression of imagery, ending with the brilliant ceiling fan image.
I didn't like: the feeling of the piece being slightly forced, the author's ideas interfering with the story.
Two Letter Lipo ram
I liked: the self-imposed constraint was cleverly managed.
I didn't like: yet another psycho plot ...
Writer’s Block
I liked: nothing about this piece.
I didn't like: how boring it was, especially. Sorry!
The Hungry Hand of God
I liked: the condensation, the author's use of intimation rather than spell things out.
I didn't like: the somewhat hackneyed theme. Using a sledge-hammer to crack an eggshell ... So the hoped-for frisson is more like the stale satisfaction you get from guessing the ending to an overdone film five minutes after it starts, although you get a lot of fun from the incidental stuff along the way.
The Interview
I liked: the genuine sense of mystery!
I didn't like: not having a clue what it was about without a solution provided!
500 Words
I liked: the fact that it was clever.
I didn't like: the fact that it was lazy and not clever enough.
Burnt Toast
I was completely indifferent to this piece. I have nothing good or bad to say about it. Sorry!
Cipela (Shoe)
I liked: the rhythmic sense of derangement.
I didn't like: the way it didn't add up to anything; not much more than word salad.
An Affair: Present and Future
I liked: the quality of the style.
I didn't like: the opaque narrative that requires a skeleton key to unlock its baroque intricacies. A bit like everything that's wrong with modernism, really. Have you read Ulysses?
Edgar’s Night Class
n/a
Untitled
I liked: I really can't think of anything I liked about this. Sorry.
I didn't like: the bitterness and boredom of it all.
Originally posted by hopscotchLol, I'll be posting mine. 🙂
I'm only going to post the top ten list, but each of the judges will be posting an individual critique of each of the 20 entries here, apart from Raven69 who didn't understand that she would have to do any actual work. (I'll be posting mine later, once I have gathered them all together)
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Originally posted by hopscotchsize 10 is average.
Untitled: What is size 10? Is that fat or thin? I don't know these things! This idea deserved a lot more. I would have preferred to see more investigation of the mind of the woman, but instead it's just too simply bitter, when there should have been plenty more psychological complexities going on. Also, statistically, women rarely shoot themselves in ...[text shortened]... ethod of female suicide is an overdose. (not to mention that shotguns don't shoot bullets)
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more effort will go into it next time, this only took about 30 mins to write......it shows but hey.