Round 1: Loose Lips

Originally Posted by Dekoa

What does this phrase make you think of? Does it make you feel ill? or perhaps it makes you feel like a friend has betrayed you.

Well one of the things about this paper is that it is up to you. Yeah it's up to you. Basically you just need to stick to this theme.

Do I have to include this as my title? Only if you want to.

Do I have to use these words at one point during the paper? I don't know.

If I haven't said anything about it, then you can assume that it's up to you.

The paper will be due on Sunday March 4th at 11:59 PM EST. You need to send it at the E-mail at the bottom. May you write like a God (or maybe like Poe!).

Ok guys, I'm sorry bout not getting it to you till today, but I was so tired last night that right when I got home, I fell asleep. So lets see what we have here.

Helloween (A) = VHF
QuarX (B) = Loose Lips

AND that's it for this one. How bout a round for Helloween! Our winner vs. Quarx. Only 2 left to go guys.

I finally decided to start reviewing the stories (I had read them previously, but hadn't actually made a post):

Author A: Aside from a few spelling errors and grammar problems, the story wasn't that bad. However you seemed to have a problem with pointing out to the point of obviousness about some of the parts of the story, such as the main character's sleepiness, the attitude of the Police Officer "Huxby" or of the fate of the kidnapper & victims. Subtlety is an equal weapon to use when describing scenes, as readers might feel 'dumbed down' at being told explicitly what happened. You show some promise, so keep at it. Dialouge was fine, although a bit cliche at times.

Author B: This story was so short! ... I really think if the psuedo-scientific study of rumors as an organism (A great concept in itself) and applying it to a situation would have made this much better. Sad that you seemed to either run out of time or just quit because It was a decent Opening.

Author A gets my vote though, as being an actual story.

Author A: VHF You're definitely going for the hardboiled police-procedural style here. While that's a style I've never been overly fond of, you do pull it off well. The opening sums up the scene nicely. So why is the rest of the page taken up with essentially repeating the scene and showing how the protagonist got dressed? That could easily be cut in favor of his curt opening monologue.

The rest of the story suffers from the same problem--what could be (or is) described tersely is drawn out far too long, and as a result the meat of the story, the assault and tragedy, feels rushed. The only real reason to have the conversation with the boss and other officers is to make the audience feel something when they die, but that's not really done. I'd add that having the protagonist hear the grenade, rather than see it himself, seems odd, as does his relative lack of emotion at the devastating news.

Author B: Loose Lips I have to admit, I feel for this piece. It's a lot like the one I submitted to WoTW last year; I thought it was an essay contest, not a fiction contest, and apparently this author has similar ideas. My piece of nonfiction was walloped by a piece of fiction, and I see that fate in store for "B" here (though I did eventually get my failed WoTW essay entrant published).

As a piece of nonfiction it does leave a bit to be desired; a lot of the text chases its tail rather than proceeding from point to point or in any other sort of order. There's a lot more digital ink spilled over the nature of lips and ears than the more compelling idea of rumor/scuttlebutt as organism. The last paragraph is in particular need of some better organization, and with so much extra space allowed by the contest, the piece definitely should have been expanded, allowed to grow and breathe.

"A" has crafted a story that has potential and nice style, but needs some cuts and refocusing to be truly compelling. "B" has put together an essay that, while there are some intriguing points, generally fails to follow up on them. As such, I feel that "A" has met his goal (complete story) better than "B" met his (complete essay).

Author A: VHF

I found myself confused with consistency in this story. I don't mean the plot per se but the style it was written in. At times the dialogue seems harsh and stiff and other times better and more realistic.
I didn't feel much characterization at all from the narrator. He seemed like someone not terribly important at all in the context of the story, just someone who was there which doesn't seem like an overly effective use of first person to me. It could've easily been in third person.
The story has a bunch of things that happen, but they don't tie together in any meaningful way. For example, the scene in the office has fairly good dialogue and we learn about Buxy and his relationship with the officers but after they leave, it really means nothing to the rest of the story.
We don't really understand this perpetrator all that well either. He held his family hostage and killed them. Then he waited at shore for the cops to come so he could throw a grenade and then kill himself? If he took out some cops intentionally he seems like the kind to keep killin' dem' cops. However, if he was grieved enough to shoot himself, I think he'd do that right after killing his family. The situation just seems kind of anti-climatic in the course of the story. Four pages for the cop to learn where he's going, then two where something happens that doesn't even involve him. The story could've had more depth and effectiveness if written by the perpetrator or by one of the cops on the boat, if anything. At the end, in the last line "This event was dubbed VHF, after the deciding factor in all of this, the object that caused our collective loose lips..." is basically flat out throwing in our face why you named the story "VHF" as opposed to why the town dubbed it that, which is relatively unimportant because when the story ends, the town no longer concerns us. It's enough that we know it may ruin the town's economy. The event itself could have been an interesting story. Narration choices, pacing and lack of glue made it less so.


Author B: Loose Lips

If I recall correctly, no one yet has flat out called their work the name of their prompt. I don't think that's a bad thing but it seems a little uncreative. Given the fact that it's a sort of essay, it makes a little sense though.

I wouldn't vote against this simply because it wasn't a story but this was just very little in what could be a much longer work. If I was to submit an essay to a writing contest it would probably be a minimum of five pages and with...more information. It just seems like an observation someone would have written down.
Further than that, I find it quite difficult to read your run-on sentences with 100 conjunctional/transitional words.

Quote:

Almost viral, this elusive specie has considerable impact on the human societal structure but rarely do we actually find one before its life is in its last stages, before that; it superficially imitates the nature of facts which are rather slow and dull in nature’ though at times being stranger than fiction, which in turn has few checks against random mutations, making it easy to identify but very hard to trace...

Good writing should flow rather well and I find this does the opposite of that. I had to slow down just understand everything that was being thrown out here. This should completely be broken down into more sentences. When you go for so long like this, people lose whats at the beginning of the sentence. There's lots of parts you can take out commas and put in periods. Please do so.


I wasn't terribly satisfied with Author A's work but I enjoy what it could be as more than what both of these are. Plus the writing is still easy and concise to digest. Therefore, I cast my vote for Author A.

I'll keep it short and simple.

Author A, you practically spoonfed us some stuff that made it feel trite and cliche. But it was still an enjoyable story, with decent dialogue and realistic reactions as a whole. EDIT: Also, I assume when the made-up word "kaprengy" was used, you meant "comprende" which is an oft-used Spanish word. If not, please explain what that is.

Author B, your story came off as an essay, not a story. It was pretty boring, despite using flowery language.

My vote goes to VHF.

Originally Posted by Servilonus

If I recall correctly, no one yet has flat out called their work the name of their prompt. I don't think that's a bad thing but it seems a little uncreative. Given the fact that it's a sort of essay, it makes a little sense though.

In fairness to Author B, the real title is "In Search of the Source". Loose lips was just the name of the document.

BTW, Alec (Author A), what's a "kaprengy"? (You may answer after voting completes, kekeke).

I'm voting for Author A, by the way. Almost by default, I'm sorry to say, since the second submission was an essay.

Ah, my mistake.

Not that it really changes my perception of anything though.

Helloween (A) = VHF
QuarX (B) = Loose Lips

AND that's it for this one. How bout a round for Helloween! Our winner vs. Quarx. Only 2 left to go guys.

Ok, now let me clear some things up.

Kaprengy was actually a M*A*S*H reference. Colonel Potter uses that word, most likley a mutilation of comprende. It was sort of a little hidden thing to further the idea of "Buxy" being of the military.

As far as this story goes, i started to realize half way through that i wouldn't be able to get everything i wanted to put in in before going over 2500 words. I had to make some cuts, such as actually having the narrator present at the explosion, possibly having negotiations with the hostage taker etc...

I was also very distracted while writing this story. I didn't really feel for this peice as i kept going, as i basically made it up for a purpose. I kept getting inspired to do other peices, the stuff i usually do, constantly, and it was kind of hard to finish this one in the end.

I decided to use this story to work on my dialog. Obviously i did something right as i got more than a few compliments on it.

I'm glad there were some things that you all found good about my peice, and i'm sorry i wasn't able to put my all into this one. Hopefully i'll be able to use my next prompt with something i'm better at writing.