Contest July-August 2016 Short Story Contest Voting Thread

I'll get my critiques up soon. Unlike, almost everyone else, I am a fan of putting all story critiques in one document rather than three or four. That's just "like" fishing.

I haven't had as much time to surf my beloved this forum this month but I did fix this.

I believe our last tie and some of our past near ties were created by meta-voting. I don't think anyone would vote for a piece they DIDN'T like but I think some people biased their votes to make things artificially competitive.

I agree with Pendrake. I like variant units. My own piece "New Alliances" has the Lizardmen using different reptiles, Skaven using different mutants, and multiple variant deamon breeds not in any army book. Sure MOST of the armies match the stuff in the main books but not all of them.

@discomute I liked your piece a lot. I came away with an entirely different interpretation than you intended. While I couldn't see the hints you were providing, I did catch the central characterization. Conflict between human and reptilian drives and a tortured descent into further madness. That's your bread and butter discomute. If I want to read about a scary yet captivating descent into madness that makes Lizardmen equally easily relate able and frightenly alien, I turn to you. Your piece is even more discomute than Bob's piece is Bob.

I've been meaning to ask Red Devil to do that but I haven't been on the forum as much lately and I don't want to step on the Golden Serpent's metaphorical toes. I ALMOST contemplated not having a short story contest so as not to distract from the Golden Serpent. We (mostly Red Devil) has been working on this a very long time. My attempt to split my time between helping proof pieces and finishing a Golden Serpent entry resulted in sub-par editing and a half finished piece. Real world was busy and I had a quixotic attempt to work on my WIP novela.

 

And you go back to your duty! what happened to the Scalenex Cup?

 

I didn’t have time for as much editing as I usually do (and a lot of pieces came last minute0, but on the whole the pieces were so well-polished I don’t think that’s a huge problem. One thing that came up a lot to varying degrees is I think the endings of otherwise excellent pieces could be improved.


1. The Great Game

I liked that this piece captured the essence of Kroxigor-ness without making them seem dumb and without making them seem too smart. They were focused on the task at hand. They didn’t understand the wider view of things and they didn’t feel extremely curious about it. They trusted their leaders.

The things I didn’t like tie closely into the things I did like. I felt like I only had a minimal understanding of the larger events, but that made me feel closer to the Kroxigor. The parenthesis were a little odd but I think they served their purpose. The events outside the Kroxigor immediate surroundings were distant and less important. I wouldn’t cut out the parenthesis but I’d make the non-Kroxigor blocks less detail filled. Just give us barely enough to provide a framework for the story of the Kroxigors brief introduction, challenge, and resolution of the Kroxigors brief and minor conflict of faith and the story would have been improved.


2. Food for Thought

Food for thought? Why should we or the Lizardmen consider the First Children of the Old Ones to be male. Lizardmen are androgynous beings, and it’s interesting to think of them as all female rather than all male (or neither male nor female). The story could probably be told with traditional assumed male Lizardmen, so the story didn’t rely on the unorthodox gender as a gimmick but it did enhance the story and characterization. Myol had an aggressive maternal instinct going for her. The story incorporates llamas, the principle domesticated animal of South America. It introduces a Lizardmen board game and herding. The exposition made me think of Guns, Germs, and Steel, my favorite nonfiction book.

Not much to complain about, but the story could have used a haircut. I did enjoy the exposition but it was a little long. The board game exchange could have been slightly shorter. The battle Myol didn’t participate in could have been slightly shorter. The Skaven dialog could have slightly shorter. I would have liked a slightly longer description of what was presumably Myol leading the llamas into battle.


3. The Spawning

The terrifying transformation of man into Chaos spawn is definitely a subject worthy of writing juicy fiction. The inner conflict and the fear was well portrayed. Fear of oneself and fear of what others will do. An evocative story told with an economy of words.

This was a great story that sort of lost me at the ending. If you are going to have a Skink and Human converse with no language problems, I’m willing to hand wave that away but the dialog better be awesome. Instead it was adequate. It wrapped everything up which is good, but I’m not seeing it as a very literary appropriate ending. All indications were that this man had no choice. For this to work he’d have to have at least one point where he considered just letting the forces against him kill him and maybe view that as preferable to mutating. Probably want two or three thought situations but he didn’t seem to even consider not using every iota of his energy to preserve his own life.


4. The Rat and the Serpent

When I started reading this, I thought “this is going to be a comedy piece. Ratek? The two tailed Skaven?” Fortunately the story was skillfully written to put me into the correct serious state of mind and I was able to enjoy this story as the drama it was intended to be. I have long toyed with the idea of Lizardmen, especially Skinks stepping into the shoes of honored forebears and taking their names. It makes sense. Run by un-aging Slann, influenced by un-aging Sauri and with a culture that puts the group over the individual I see a case for many Lizardmen taking the identity of one who has come before them and it was well-portrayed here. The author also captured the the Seraphon situation/condition without going too deep and using the Age of Sigmar equivalent of treknobabble. You also showed why usually, Slann don’t bother explaining things because their followers probably won’t like what they hear.

Haircut. Dialogue was longer than needed to be. Both the Prophet of Ratek’s grandiose visions and the various Soteks’ discussions. I’d also consider reorganizing the paragraph structure. There was sentence length variation but I couldn’t tell whether it was a bunch of short paragraphs or one big rectangular block of text. Its nitpicky, but I like to see a relatively even mix of short, medium, and long paragraphs. Long paragraphs to set things up and short paragraphs to drive key story events home. Medium paragraphs for everything else.


5. The Project

Brilliant idea. Both funny and thought provoking. I liked the nontraditional format because I use a laptop, not a smart phone, so I had not problems. I felt I understood the different personalities of the Old Ones.

The ending was not good. So I was ready to accept that the Warhammer World was created by corporate scientists but then you had to make the Old Ones grade schoolers and you drove it with borderline l33t sp33k. That’s too much. One reason I was slow in making my critiques is I didn’t know how to talk about this one. I really like the piece and I strongly dislike the ending, but I couldn’t come up with a better way to end it.

I thought about Key and Peele. They get a lot of views on the Internet but few people watched their shows. Technological changes aside, if you watch the show you have to watch their good and bad sketches. Online, you can cherry pick. If you have a comedy piece based on a brilliant and funny premise, there are two good ways to end it and there are two bad ways to end it. One good way is to keep the piece so short that you end it before the reader (or watcher) gets tired of it. The other good way is to make an ending that’s almost as brilliant and funny as the initial premise. The two bad ways are to just keep reiterating the joke till it’s not funny anymore or close it with a mediocre joke. This is the latter. Making the Old Ones obnoxious kids was not as clever as making the world a failed science project. I’m not sure what would be better. The best I came up with was “Project is a failure, we need to cut our losses. We can sell what’s left to a consortium that deals with subpar cases.”

This is what I came up with after a week of letting my work commute daydream go to this story.

Dr. Tzeentch: I think the others left this setting too early I see a lot of potential with these created forms.

Dr. Slaanesh: I think this would an enjoyable project to manage. I like a good fixer upper.

Dr. Nurgle: Meh, I don’t want to go deep managing this. Just let me take a few samples here and there and I can make a good garden project out of it. Just a few alterations here and there.

Dr. Khorne: You threw away our money on this? Just destroy everything and stuff the more interesting looking specimens as trophies, and we be done with this. Promise me you’ll never buy any used planets from Orbital Laboratories Developments Of Neo-Environmental Science ever again.


6. The Weight of Our Actions

This was a good story. It showcased different levels of Lizardmen society and their interactions too, but it also had good development for the Nehekharan characters which is hard to do. The battle was exciting and the ending was dramatic and meshed well with the story. Good pacing.

I can’t really poke a lot of holes in this. I’ll just say this piece could have used a haircut. The desert battle description was a bit longer than it needed to be and perhaps it was a bit dry. Crickets chirping. Maybe a little bit less dialogue. I see the story has two gems, Aphosis’ Sysiphus boulder like struggle to collect a replacement soul where he always feels like “this next attempt will work!” and Qor-tek’s heroic struggle. The rest is just a framework to support these two main characters and should be kept light.


7. Strength and Conviction

You forced me to write this to you directly Discomute. While I couldn't see the hints you were providing, I did catch the central characterization. Conflict between human and reptilian drives and a tortured descent into further madness. That's your bread and butter, Discomute. If I want to read about a scary yet captivating descent into madness that makes Lizardmen equally easily relate able and frightenly alien, I turn to you. Your piece is even more Discomute than Bob's piece is Bob.

I’m pretty sure no one who read your piece figured out your twist ending. It’s a brilliant twist ending, but you short stories should not be that subtle. I liked the story fine as a vague “Saurus is going mad because of his imprisonment” story but if you want to lead us to a brilliant completely unforeseen twist. You have to be explicit.

Did you know JK Rowling developed a backstory for Dean Thomas? He thinks he is Muggle born and is treated that way, but his dad was a pureblood wizard who married a muggle. He left his pregnant wife for his family’s protection because Death Eater’s wanted to recruit him. No impact on the story because Rowling never wrote that down in her books. If you don’t write it down, it’s not really in your story. This doubly important in short stories because you don’t have as many words. Kurt Vonnegut said the reader should be able to finish your story if you cut off the last few paragraphs. I wouldn’t go that far, but when in doubt in a short story, be explicit.


8. Hexoatl, the Induction Ceremony

I enjoyed the Skink’s development and I really liked how the wise but simple Kroxigor was portrayed. It’s different than what you usually see but still Kroxigor-y. Kroxigorical. Nevermind. I liked this twist ending. It shocked me, but at the time when I re-read the piece a second time it made sense. I could see how it was built on what came before it. Not “and now how about this!” The jokester in me wants to add the line.

The crowd roared their approval knowing that the Skaven’s inevitable slow death of exposure in the jungle was far more painful than anything the Skink could have done.

That’s just silly. I like that the protagonist has no regrets though he probably gave up his promotion for a painful death.

Not much to poke at, but I was a little unsure whether this was Lizardmen or Seraphon. It mostly seemed Lizardmen-like but the capitalized “Starpriest” made me wonder. Also, I really disliked Kon'Juncty'Vitus. A piece that has to courage to boldly explore themes GW writers would never dare to do should have the courage to drop GW’s stupid pun names. “croak” “tick tack toe” “itsy bitsy.” The apostrophes make it worse. Bob can mock me all I want, but I really don’t like silly names in serious pieces. Comedy pieces, sure. But it doesn’t fit here.

9. A Story in the Stars

The story was beautiful and eloquent and primed me to accept a startlingly revelation.

Then you threw this ending at me. Sorry I can’t come figure out to do two paragraphs full of commentary on this. Too polished for me to take fault with word choice or sentence structure. Well-paced, well structure. You just threw an ending at made me go WTM. I read it again and the ending seemed even weirder than the first time. A valid comedy technique but this wasn’t my cup of tea.

Scalenex Cup is goes to "Hexoatl, the Induction Ceremony." It set up a conflicted and well nuanced character who died making a bold decision. Honorable mention to Spawning. I liked the development and impending doom there.

 

Given that this round authors tend to reveal themselves before the ending, and given that I'm not going to win...

I protest!
I've made a killing of lizardmen characters! Five! Blood and deaths everywhere! Victory was mine! It's a conspiracy! It's a trap! warm-blooded in disguise! The Illuminati! An earthquake! A terrible flood! Locusts!

(screams fade in the distance, while Killer Angel is carried away in straitjacket, toward the Discomute Asylum)

 

Well first off, the Scalenex Cup is a subjective process. But it's not about the the quantity of deaths. Then we would call it the Peter Jackson Cup. It's about killing well developed characters in a way that makes the audience sad, or perhaps angry.

 

I suppose you know that I wasn't being serious ... but thanks for the explanation.

Untold as a "not narrated event"? because in this case OF COURSE you don't have any prize.