Scalenex Critiques
I bring up breaking literary rules a lot. Art technically has no rules, but I do believe that you must learn the rules in order to break the rules. Lets use Jazz as a metaphor (because I was just at a seminar that did this). Jazz breaks a lot of musical "rules". Jazz is really hard to do well, and not everyone likes Jazz.
To write a short story "by the rules". You must have a clear conflict with a clear introduction, climax, and resolution and every sentence needs to either advance the plot or help characterization. Anything else is Jazz and readers might not like it.
This is just for short stories. Novelettes, novellas, and novels can all go on tangents sometimes and get away with it.
A lot of pieces played fast and loose with the contest theme. You can have an unorthodox take on the theme while still being an orthodox short story or visa versa. I'm
guessing the fact that so many authors chose to bend the contest theme so much is not all the authors are very fluent in Chaos Dwarf lore.
Story One (The Dragon Isles archives - Condensed Chaos arrived): I like alternating narrators as a style of telling stories, ESPECIALLY when telling Warhammer Fantasy stories because there is a wealth of lore of factions and characters to draw upon. This piece was well-polished, and it set the stakes well. I would like to see where this story is going.
We've been doing the Short Story contest for a long time, and "Part One" or "to be continued" style stories are pretty common. I would say we get one per contest playing this sort of "Jazz". To my recollection, sometimes Jazzy pieces win, but we have never had a "Part One" style story ever win, maybe a couple made it to runner up. Sometimes the author continues the story, but usually not. I'm betting most authors have intentions to complete the story but lose enthusiasm when they get bottom or near the bottom of voting tally.
Lets say I bring a French Onion soup to a chili cookoff. It could best French Onion soup the world has ever seen, but it's not going to win a chili cookoff because it's not chili.
I'm a stickler for literary rules, but I'm guessing most others are not sticklers for the literary rules, but they subconsciously like to see things follow literary rules. The problem is, this is not a short story. It's an intro to a novelette. This piece is very well-written and I'd like to see more, but it's not a short story.
Story Two "The Main Event": This piece played a little bit of Jazz, and it almost made it a five-way tie. It triggered bittersweet memories of Spawning of Bob writing comedy pieces that included frequent posters on L-O. Setting aside how the Scalenex character behaved, and the fact that I know very little about pro-wrestling other than that
the cream will rise to the top, there was a few minor flaws that put discordant notes in this Jazz.
The premise was fine, it twisted the theme, that's fine a piece can play fast and loose with the contest theme and still be a properly structured short story. I wasn't exactly sure what the stakes were or who I was supposed to root for though I sort of liked the "Scalenex" character. I do like that Scalenex was rooting for the TheDarkFourth. I like to think I'm free of bias, but over the years I have given a disproportionate share of my votes to TD4. His writing style resonates with me. Still I didn't feel the stakes
here. This piece was entertaining but it didn't engage me as deeply as most of the others.
Story Three "Within the Forge": This piece hit the short story formula. There are still stories to be told. The Skink a still a prisoner and has neither escaped nor has been broken, but the introduction, conflict, and resolution was not about the Skink's prisoner dilemma, this story was about the Chaos Dwarf's magical ritual attempting to unlock a piece of Old Ones magic.
We had a complete story, excellent characterization, good pacing, and as a bonus, this set up potential for future continuation stories. It also demonstrates core aspects of Chaos Dwarves and Lizardmen very well. No major complaints but I wouldn't have minded more details on the prisoners of "myriad races".
Story Four (Elegy): This piece really played fast and loose with the contest theme including "Lizardmen" and "Chaos Dwarf" to the loosest degree possible. But this fit the short story formula perfectly. Clear introduction, conflict, and resolution and lots of characterization. The characters certainly felt real and I found myself caring about them.
I understood the character conflict, but I don't fully understood what the setting actually was. I think the story would have been improved if the setting was explained better. It's a tough order to describe all the setting succinctly because in a short story the setting exposition
must be succinct, but that's the cost when you play Jazz with the contest theme.
Story Five "Prophecies": This story played the theme straight and it fit a short story narrative well. No Jazz here. Maybe the lack of Jazz here made this piece a little flat compared to the others.
The ending was fairly predictable. The idea of a doomed protagonist misinterpreting a prophecy is a well known trope. I don't think that is a large problem for a short story. Not everyone agrees but there is a school of thought that short stories
should be fairly predictable. Another minor misgiving is that the exposition for the Chaos Dwarf's might have been a little overly wordy and at the same time not explaining why the Chaos Dwarves were poking around the Borderlands.
Story Six "The Hatchlings": Another piece that played fast and loose with the contest theme. Chaos caused dwarf
ism. The story is unorthodox in that it doesn't have conventional Warhammer conflict, no battle or anything, and the Tzeentch prisoner really wasn't a threat once captured. But it did have a clear introduction, conflict, and resolution for "What do we do about these dwarf cold ones?" It was a cute story, well paced and succinctly told. No major complaints though it seems a little out of character for me that the Slann wouldn't just put down the mutants right away, but it's okay to make Lizardmen softer than canon Lizardmen.
)? That said, I understand your point. Being far superior is great, but the most important thing is simply being superior in the first place, even if it is by a thin margin.
