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Thread: March Vignette

  1. #11
    upon the cheek of night

    EXP: 224,444, Level: 20
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    Breaker's Avatar

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    38,725

    Name
    Joshua Breaker Cronen
    Age
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    I've been asked to take this judgment over, there are a number of long entries so it may take a week or two. Thanks for your patience!
    "The breeze did not stir. The stars did not twinkle. The trees did not sway and the brook did not babble.
    For the world did not turn when Am'aleh wept, and a tear had tumbled down her cheek."


  2. #12
    upon the cheek of night

    EXP: 224,444, Level: 20
    Level completed: 0%, EXP required for next Level: 0
    Level completed: 0%,
    EXP required for next Level: 0


    Breaker's Avatar

    GP
    38,725

    Name
    Joshua Breaker Cronen
    Age
    30
    Race
    Demigod
    Gender
    Male
    Location
    Corone
    Hey everyone! Thanks for participating in this vignette contest, and I apologize that it took so long to get this judged. Your patience is appreciated, as are your unique takes on the prompt! My favorite thing about judging these contests is seeing how people interpret the same instructions differently, and you all delivered something interesting in that respect.

    But enough of my rambling, let’s get to the good stuff.

    After these short messages. I just wanted to remind you of two things:

    This was the prompt: Write a scene in which your character learns something unexpected about themselves.

    This is the definition of a vignette: A brief evocative description, account, or episode.

    Housekeeping over. Let's have fun.

    March 2020 Vignette Judgment

    Flamebird
    I always enjoy Felicity’s personality, and this was no exception. There was definitely room for improvement though, and my overall advice to you is to spend more time brainstorming and editing and less time typing words (especially in the case of vignettes).

    Use of topic: You met the topic’s requirements well, but did it in a very roundabout way. Based on both your “love, who needs that?” setup and the way the elf girl approached, I thought she was trying to seduce Felicity. This made me anticipate a wholly different learning experience, and from there to the end the conversation felt a bit forced, like you were shoehorning in the final self realization. That said, once you got to the “I want to be pretty,” bit, it rang true and put a really nice bow on the story.

    Creativity: I do think you could have been more creative in the way you chose to execute your idea. A bar is not the most unique Althanas setting, and nothing really stood out about the environment or stuck with me. I’m sure you could come up with a dozen more interesting situations in which Felicity could have learned the same lesson. When you’re writing a vignette, the idea is almost half the work, so don’t be afraid to spend more time brainstorming and less time writing. You could have cut 60% of the words in that easily and told the exact same story.

    Mechanics: There were some really silly errors here, some of which made me laugh out loud (no offense intended, but “Gilded Lady” is a pretty hilarious error to repeat). Unless the end of the world changed something, Philomel’s group is called the Gilded Lily. As I mentioned above, you also over-write in several ways.

    For example, you opened with this: “Corone seemed to be forever looped in a cycle of eternal war between factions.”

    The biggest issue here is that “forever looped” and “eternal cycle” mean the same thing. Opening with a big redundancy is not a great way to grab a reader’s attention. Another smaller problem is that “war between factions” also feels redundant, even if it is technically descriptive.

    It would have been gripping if you’d started with a single short sentence that expresses this sentiment. This is where you can shine through editing. Ask yourself, what is the sentence trying to say? Then wonder, what’s the most interesting and effective way to say that? As often as not you can get it done more creatively with fewer words.

    Notes: All my remarks aside, despite this being much longer than necessary you set the bar pretty high and answered the prompt more effectively than most of the other entrants. Kudos to you!

    DarkDelights
    You used some really strong descriptions in your post and presented some interesting ideas, but my overall advice to you would be to gear your writing more to the prompt and the terms of the contest. At over 2.5K words and with a clear beginning, middle, and end, I’d consider this a short story. We’re looking for much shorter snippets of life here. This story could easily have been fleshed out a bit more (no pun intended) and posted as a solo quest.

    Use of topic: I feel like you cheaped out on the topic a little bit. The prompt is to learn something unexpected but your character already knew her preferences - all she really “learned” is a fancy name for what she enjoys. To me it would have been a much more powerful vignette if you cut the beginning and end entirely and focused on making the body match the prompt. Just as an example, a scene in which she gets attacked by a zombie and becomes aroused while defending herself would have matched the criteria rather well.

    Creativity: You showed a lot of creativity with both your descriptions and your choice of content, but I feel like you focused that creativity in the wrong place. Similar to Flamebird, you could have benefitted from putting much more time into planning and editing rather than writing such a complete story. Despite the grisly nature of the story, I didn’t feel especially reviled because you didn’t bring the “fight” scene to life as much as you did the rain in the story’s first act. Definitely some misplaced effort here, but that’s an easy fix!

    Mechanics: I didn’t notice any significant errors that are coming to mind right now, which is impressive considering how long the piece is. Well done!

    Notes: While the staff of Althanas is happy to read and review your writing, you may want to add gore/sexual content warnings to the top of threads that get any greasier than this story did. We do have members here who like to click around and read the writing of others, but not everyone is up for this kind of content.

    StoneCutter Cartel
    Your vignette is an appropriate length, which I really appreciated as I tend to like to read all of them in one sitting when possible.

    Use of topic: I really enjoyed reading this but I’m not sure that you fully delivered on the topic. Judging by the last line, it seemed like Bugsy already knew he was allergic to prawns, which means he didn’t really learn anything, he just accidentally ate something. Maybe I’m misinterpreting something here, bu regardless, the ending was fairly unclear. I also had to read the beginning a couple times just to wrap my head around what the dwarf was talking about. Even though it would have sounded less “cool”, it might have behooved you to have him say “...And I want one of those manor houses, at least three city blocks long.” Or something similar. The specific information would have helped me understand the context right away.

    Creativity: You have one of the most creative uses of the topic, even if you may have missed the mark on your ending a bit. I thought you did well with the descriptions of the restaurant and food, it was evidently quite swanky, but you can get more intimate here by showing more and telling less. It seemed like you labeled almost everything in the restaurant, but I didn’t get nearly as many odors or sounds or feelings by comparison.

    Mechanics: Your mechanics were pretty solid; I think I saw a few small errors but mostly stuff that’s at least partially my preference. The one thing you definitely could have done better mechanically is NOT include the separator. A vignette is supposed to be a snippet/slice of life, and this makes it more like a sequence. It might have been trickier, but I think you could have found a way to segue from one brother to the other without splitting your prose.

    Notes: If not for the lack of clarity in certain parts, I think this vignette would have won. Good work!

    Mikael
    This vignette got off to a shaky start, and I think that trend continued throughout the story. Your first sentence is a run on sentence, but despite that it provided no important information. I didn’t know where Mikael was other than in a hallway, and got no information about his current state or the context of the scene. The result of this type of writing is that it seems like there’s nothing important going on, so it’s not a terribly compelling read.

    Use of topic: I had trouble understanding exactly what Mikael learned, there didn’t seem to be much focus on the topic, or maybe I’m over tired. In any case, there were a lot of unimportant elements that distracted away from the main thrust.

    Creativity: You definitely focused too much on things like the marble. You used “marble” 4 times and “stone” 8 times in this short piece. I think you were trying to create a running metaphor, but it didn’t really sync together because of the overuse of the same words and the way you mixed it with the chain metaphor. Good work overall though, keep building these skills.

    Mechanics: The one thing that really stood out here is your run on sentences. Try reading your vignette out loud in a normal speaking voice - unless you’re a singer or otherwise trained to breathe economically, you’ll probably have trouble getting through some of those sentences in one breath. Any time that happens, you should really consider breaking it up into one or more phrases.

    Notes: While this was overall an appropriate length for a vignette, it was much longer than it needed to be. My advice: if you only have a small idea, write a small vignette/story. Never add more words just to make something appear more robust.

    Ayvriel
    I think was the shortest vignette, and yet it was the most effective of the bunch. That’s because it was written as a vignette, not a short story. You focused on showing a slice of life that effectively answered the prompt, and the result was a pleasant and short read. The one big problem I have with this vignette is that you told everything and did little to no showing. I feel like you can get away with this type of storytelling in a vignette contest, but it still would have been a richer reading experience if I’d gotten to experience the realization of freedom along with Ayvriel.

    Use of topic: You drove towards your character’s internal realization the entire time, and the final line effectively gave additional context to the rest of the piece, which is a strategy I like to see in vignettes. Even if they aren’t funny, they can have a similar rhythm to a joke by delivering a “punchline” ending. Great job.

    Creativity: This is where you lacked the most - because you told the entire story with little showing, you missed most opportunities for strong imagery. The only metaphors I noticed were pretty cliched like the caged songbird etc. You could have given less background, focused in on the moment of the realization even more, and shown what happened to her at that time and it would have been so much more compelling.

    Mechanics: Solid mechanics, and basically the perfect length. Really well done.

    Notes: I would have had trouble picking a winner if not for your entry. Thanks for that!

    I gave it away, but here are your winners:

    First Place: Ayvriel
    Second Place: Stonecutter Cartel
    Runner Up: Flamebird

    Congratulations, and thanks to everyone for entering. I’m doubling all of your rewards because this took so long. I hope to see you all participating in the June vignette!

    Rewards arriving shortly.
    "The breeze did not stir. The stars did not twinkle. The trees did not sway and the brook did not babble.
    For the world did not turn when Am'aleh wept, and a tear had tumbled down her cheek."


  3. #13
    upon the cheek of night

    EXP: 224,444, Level: 20
    Level completed: 0%, EXP required for next Level: 0
    Level completed: 0%,
    EXP required for next Level: 0


    Breaker's Avatar

    GP
    38,725

    Name
    Joshua Breaker Cronen
    Age
    30
    Race
    Demigod
    Gender
    Male
    Location
    Corone
    Doubling rewards due to the 2 month delay!

    Ayvriel receives 400 EXP and 400 GP.
    StoneCutter Cartel receives 320 EXP and 300 GP.
    Flamebird receives 900 EXP.
    DarkDelights receives 200 EXP.
    Mikael receives 200 EXP.

    Rewards added!
    "The breeze did not stir. The stars did not twinkle. The trees did not sway and the brook did not babble.
    For the world did not turn when Am'aleh wept, and a tear had tumbled down her cheek."


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