|
Creative Writing Competition Voting Round II
Vote for your favourite and guess the authors for a little bit of fun!
Excerpts Excerpts - Pastebin.com Hardyston Point Hardyston point - Pastebin.com Home Home - Pastebin.com what my neighbour thinks of me, I'm sure what my neighbor thinks of me, I'm sure - Pastebin.com The Landscape of Thought The Landscape of Thought - Pastebin.com The Lonely Dreamer The Lonely Dreamer - Pastebin.com Neighbours Neighbours - Pastebin.com Handsomely Trimmed Handsomely Trimmed - Pastebin.com Participants Janszoon - Home James - Neighbours Tumor - what my neighbour thinks of me, I'm sure iluvwubs - The Lonely Dreamer Howard the Duck - Excerpts Frownland - The Landscape of Thought UnchainedBallad - Handsomely Trimmed Exoskeletal - Hardyston Point |
My opinions on some of them, I also replied with opinions in some of the initial PMs.
Excerpts - Quality sci fi i suppose. When this thing is all put together it has the potential to be very good. Not my genre of choice so I can't say much more. I like the way it was put together from ads and essays instead of a straightforward narrative, that was original. Home - This was great. The twist was very unexpected and it was a very sad story. Things like Dementia and Alzheimer's make me very emotional. It gives a very sad reality about getting older that you think the guy is young and with his whole life ahead of him and then you discover that to be untrue. Handsomely Trimmed - Very funny and very good writing. The ridiculous subject matter contrasts so well with the posh, fancy writing. The Landscape of Thought - This started off well. Some amazing concepts, and the themes of sanity and the mind were very well explored. But it didn't hold my attention as much as the others. I'm more of a fan of character driven, human stories so I think that was my fault. Well written too. I still haven't decided on my vote yet. Either "Home" or "Handsomely Trimmed". |
Right, so I've read them all.
Excerpts was an interesting read, albeit rather puzzling. I didn't particularly like it, but maybe it's because it's a bit out of context. It sounds like a vaguely promising dystopian novel, however. The writing was fairly good as well, in spite of being a bit excessively wordy here and there. Hardyston Point was written well enough. It flowed well and it held my attention, but I felt it was a bit too predictable. I get the feeling that you could probably write something better than this, whoever you are. Home was a great read. I was curious regarding the usage of things like "I seen" and "we was" early on, but because it can really swing both ways, I went with the idea of the character being rather young. It seems rather uninspiring until the police officer arrives and you're revealed the major twist. I thought it was incredibly clever and it just seemed like all of my doubts and curiosities fell into place after reading it. what my neighbour thinks of me, I'm sure was a very disturbing read. It sounded particularly honest, which is something I value quite a bit, but I thought it was a bit excessive and I didn't enjoy it at all. However, I did find that despite the harshness of the words and it being mostly just a flurry of insults, it wasn't poorly written. I'll pick this up later. |
It would be better if you guys left some feedback or something, give reasons for your choice and stuff :)
|
Will do. When I have more time.
|
Some thoughts on a few of them...
"Hardyston Point" gets my vote. I'm kind of a sucker for classic short horror so this one really appealed to me. I thought it was pretty creepy and had some great little details. I'd love to see the concept expand upon a bit though. I'm fine with the situation remaining somewhat mysterious, but I'd love just a little bit more explanation of the events. I'm thinking maybe Exoskeletal wrote this one since it's so cinematic. "Neighbours" was good as well. I thought the characters were well developed and the writing was strong. I would, however, have liked to see more of the details revealed through the interactions of the characters instead of through straight description of the people by the narrator. I'm guessing this was James. "Handsomely Trimmed" was a clever concept with very well written dialogue. It didn't particularly click with me, but British manners comedy rarely does, so that's my fault, not the author's. I still thought it was well executed and very polished. I'm guessing the author was UnchainedBallad. "Excerpts", being what it is, doesn't really hang together in any coherent way, but I thought the writing was great, probably the best of the bunch. I just wish the author had turned it into an actual story of some kind. I'm 100% sure this was from Howard the Duck. "what my neighbor thinks of me, I'm sure" certainly has the potential to be an interesting character study, but like "Excerpts", it seems like just a fragment of an idea. I would love to see it fleshed out into an actual story from the perspective of this unbelievably nasty character. I'm guessing Tumor wrote this one. |
Quote:
and all your guesses are correct.... |
Home gets my vote. Out of all of the submissions, it really captivated me the most and had me until the end. Hardyston Point was good as well, but the main character seemed to be a little too naive for the situation that he was in, but other than that, it was a well written piece.
The Lonely Thinker almost got my vote, it was a handsome poem that had a lot of beautiful moments that ended somewhat chillingly. But Home edged it out by a tad bit. The rest were very good, but none of them held my interest so steadily as the ones mentioned. |
*cough*
Don't let this die, it'll only take twenty minutes to give these a read. |
I really liked Home. I've been busy at work so it's the only one I've read so far but I'm going give my opinion on all of them. The length and twist at the end of Home was great and it actually gave me a bit of an emotional response. Great job.
|
Excerpts - Hard to access as the context of what's written isn't available.
Hardyston Point - It was decent, not the kind of story I generally seek to read but I can understand it's appeal. Home - This was quite good. My grandfather had Alzheimer's and it brought up a lot of repressed emotions about that. Silver medal for sure. what my neighbour thinks of me, I'm sure - Pretty masturbatory but similar to what Unchained Ballad said, I can respect it's honesty. I enjoy reading works of catharsis sometimes but I felt that this was mostly for shock value. The Landscape of Thought - All I could think was "pretentious." Bits of it were good, but I couldn't connect with it at all and, honestly, ended up scanning over bits. The Lonely Dreamer - It wasn't bad by any means, but it also lacked in originality. Neighbours - I like writing that feels observational, as this one did. It didn't seem to have much of a hook pulling me along, I kept reading because it was interesting, but I didn't get that "I need to keep reading to find out what happens" feeling. That said, I'd give it the bronze. Handsomely Trimmed - This won my vote. The dialogue was clever and I thought the concept was hilarious. Well written and a fun read, of all the entries this is the one I read more than once. Take my reviews as you will, my opinions should by no means be valued. :laughing: |
Quote:
|
Right, time to get around to the rest of the stories. Sorry about the delay.
The Landscape of Thought has a few good moments in what concerns imagery and interesting reflexions, though I felt it was needlessly wordy and that a few expressions seemed a bit commonplace now and then. I didn't like the ending at all, unfortunately. I'm sure you could do better. The Lonely Dreamer is difficult for me to comment on because I generally have a hard time with truly enjoying poetry in general. That being said, I think the rhyming doesn't sound very natural in this piece - but then again, I seldom do. Neighbours was a great read. I enjoyed the writing quite a bit and the touches of dark humour. I think you portrayed the desensitization to violence and the coarseness rather well. The only flaw I see in it is that it seems to have ended rather abruptly, I'd like to see it go on a bit longer and have a proper ending. |
To finish up my commentary...
"The Landscape of Thought"—I thought was well-written and a great idea, but it could benefit from some re-working. The reality of the situation isn't that surprising as a big reveal at the end and I think the story might be more interesting if we know what's going on right from the beginning (to possibly give a better sense of what's at stake), with some interesting twists and turns along the way. I'm guessing this is by Frownland. "The Lonely Dreamer"—I'm not much of a fan of poetry so probably not the best person to comment, but I think this could have benefitted from either a stricter adherence to serious poetic structure or from something that moved beyond a simple rhyme scheme. It had some nice descriptive moments though. I'm guessing iluvwubs for this. |
Bump.
|
So were my last two guesses correct?
|
Quote:
|
Home
interesting way of presenting somebody suffering from Alzheimer's from the 1st person perspective, pretty well-written and succint and to the point, although i wished it was longer Neighbours pretty much voyeuristic, i didn't like much how the way it seems to try too hard to be making the observer sympathetic to the reader, when all it does is just exude some form of self-pity what my neighbour thinks of me, I'm sure i can't get past the first few paragraphs - this is just too much verbiage and pornograffiti - worst of the bunch The Lonely Dreamer this is passable as song lyrics, as poetry? try harder - as one who have actually studied poetry, i would say the structure would have been lots better if it were blank verse and not divided into quartets The Landscape of Thought this is my pick - i pretty much enjoy verbose and pseudo-existentialist themes Handsomely Trimmed pretty witty and erm, "British" I suppose, but i didn't find it that funny Hardyston Point reads like a screenplay to a conventional contemporary horror movie but i don't think the twist was executed well at all, and you're left with "this is it?" |
I will read, post, and vote today.
Promise. Just re-read my story. Jesus Christ I need to proof read before I hand **** in. A lot of typos and at the end I called it Hardyston Beach. I had been debating whether to set it on a mountain or a beach. For shame on me. |
Quote:
|
...Bumpity?
|
bump bump
|
Quote:
Quote:
|
| All times are GMT -6. The time now is 02:09 PM. |
© 2003-2025 Advameg, Inc.