I'm surprised how my shitty as fuck one shot that was a giant dicksuck to Cowboy Bebop got fairly positive feedback.

I wonder how something I'd work on for a while would play out then...

At 8/5/09 09:02 AM, Scarab wrote: RapeMuffin - 9/10.

I should say first of all that I don't think I've ever enjoyed a story about Tom Fulp more so than I have here. I generally have an unfair, already-negative stance on stories in this category, but thankfully this uses a refreshing sort of creativity to put some life into itself. Perhaps I'm not being nice to your entry by associating it with that genre (loosely), but I thought it was worth bringing up.

That's fair enough - I knew that I would have some readers who would think that this was just another Tom Fulp fan-fiction, but I tried my damnedest to give it more substance than that. I originally was going to have a different, more generic celebrity in the story - but then I came across a thread that was titled "Memorializing Tom's old Bedroom" (it argued for enshrining Tom's childhood bedroom, since Newgrounds was "born" there). I figured that if a user was insane enough to suggest enshrining Tom's room, they were crazy enough to use one of their wishes to bring Tom to their island to "just hang out".

The technique is pretty sound as usual, with lots of different things experimented with. The dialogue was fun, and it managed not to swallow up the whole story.

Yeah - I'm not very good at writing dialogue, so I try not to center my entire story around it.

Something else that really stood out for me, even though this is probably a personal thing, is the didactic purpose behind it all, especially when you consider the beginning of the story. It's bittersweet in that way.

Yeah - I figured that the story required some point to it. I'm glad people picked up on it.

Oh, except the "alternate ending". I laughed if I'm being honest.

Really? Oh man, if my story actually made you laugh, then I am so pleased.

Another good entry, and while I'd suggest playing up some more description/imagery/etc in some areas, you make a good use of the limit, so that's not really doable in this case.

Yeah - I always seem to push the word-limit boundaries. Its a shame. but I like writing longer plotlines - so the descriptive end of the my stories suffer.

At 8/5/09 09:02 AM, Scarab wrote: 4urentertainment - 6.5/10.

That's unfortunate, but the entry isn't bad overall.

That's all I wanted to hear.

So that's a 4/10,5/10 and 6.5/10 from three judges. There's a fourth judge right? That'd be Zerok

I'm quite satisfied with how the results turned out. Does anyone know when or if there will be an August competition?

Thanks for your ratings and comments, Fyndir and Scarab. I'm really stoked you guys liked my entry, as I thought I left a lot in my story to be picked apart and criticised.

I'm also glad to see the contestants taking something away from my (and the other judges') feedback. To me, that's one of the most rewarding parts of being a judge, seeing what you guys take away from this contest.

Thanks to all the judges for their comments and reviews. I always enjoy feedback and it is the primary reason I have enjoyed doing these contests. Getting in the top 3 would be a nice bonus :)

@Fyndir: Thanks for your rating, I'm glad you enjoyed the story and thought the writing was well written.

@WB: Heh, I didn't realize it at the time but the plane crash could be Dues Ex Machina. It actually wasn't supposed to happen that way but I ended up way over the word count without it. Bottom line was, it took too many words to adequately explain how they made into the jungle alone without anyone else around. The crash was a shortcut :p Thanks for your feedback, I will try to be more aware next time.

@Scarab: I'm very glad you enjoyed the flow of my story, it was difficult achieving the correct mood in only 4500 words and I wouldn't have been able to do so without the help of fellow writers giving me comments and assisting with revisions. I have never really tried horror before in any capacity so I am glad I was able to achieve pleasant results.

Thanks for the fairly positive reviews!!

I had actually imposed some fairly restrictive and challenging rules for myself, since I don't write much anymore and wanted to see if I could do something like this. I forced myself to not post my story for a general review, I restricted writing time to less than one hour, and I said that I wouldn't edit the story outside of basic spell/grammar checking.

So for something that only took about 30 minutes with no reviewing done by me or anyone else, I'll take my 6/10 (Fyndir), 7/10 (WB), and 5/10 (Scarab) with joy. Thanks to everyone who read it.

If anyone else has any comments, I'd love to read them.

At 8/5/09 01:31 PM, Twilight wrote:

At 8/4/09 09:00 PM, Fyndir wrote: Crabnek | [09/10] |
Compelling story, very well written.

DoctorJaevel | [10/10] |
Excellently written.

Winners in my eyes >:C

Words can hurt too... :(

But seriously - there were about 7-10 different users who could have arguably placed in this contest. The three that did place in this month's MWC don't seem to be each judge's favorite piece - we were all just given relatively high marks by all of them.

There should be a separate section where each judge picks his/her own favorite piece as well (which can been seen in their reviews obviously - but a judge's "perfect 10" or highest-scoring piece tends to be unfairly neglecting, in my opinion).

At 8/5/09 01:45 PM, RapeMuffin wrote:

At 8/5/09 01:31 PM, Twilight wrote:

At 8/4/09 09:00 PM, Fyndir wrote: Crabnek | [09/10] |
Compelling story, very well written.

DoctorJaevel | [10/10] |
Excellently written.

Winners in my eyes >:C

Words can hurt too... :(

But seriously - there were about 7-10 different users who could have arguably placed in this contest. The three that did place in this month's MWC don't seem to be each judge's favorite piece - we were all just given relatively high marks by all of them.

There should be a separate section where each judge picks his/her own favorite piece as well (which can been seen in their reviews obviously - but a judge's "perfect 10" or highest-scoring piece tends to be unfairly neglecting, in my opinion).

Sure, here's my top 10:
1)TheBlueSpartan
2)RapeMuffin
3)Peaceblossom
4)Coop83
5)Lost-Chances
6)TheLameSauce
7)CaptAcid
8)blakedatch
9)Luxury-Yacht
10)Deathcon7

Admittedly, I feel rather downtroddened by my scores: A 5, 6 and 7.5. Well, 7.5 isn't so bad, but the other two make my fiction sound like "meh." But either way, thanks for the criticism you three. This has been probably my first exposure to true honest criticism in regards toward my writing, and no doubt if I stay mindful of your words I'll improve in future ventures. Still, I feel that I should say some things and maybe clear up some things for you judges.

To Fyndir: My entry is more or less a romanticized recollection of a past scene in an on-going series of mine that is based in Star Wars but really isn't Star Wars (confusing yes but believe me I have all kinds of random s**t going on that the only thing Star Wars is the setting and most of the races). So I can understand your confusion and the confusion from the rest of you; I basically dropped you guys in the middle of a pretty lengthy and complex storyverse.

To WritersBlock: Your score affected me the most. A 5... middle of the road, nothing special is what that says to me. But I like how you called my story bizarre. It perfectly describes the universe and all the happenings that take place around those two characters, both in past present and future. As for the dialogue, I'm sorta hurt that you called it artificial but I can understand. Normally I write my stories out like a script, hoping to one day turn them into something visual. My entry's style is not a norm for me so I'm kinda rusty in making it seamless. And admittedly I could've polished the dialogue some more but I really wanted to get through everything, and I suppose I was trying too hard to sound eloquent hence your issues with the wording and vocab. I also apologize for those times where reading was painful for you. I'll try to avoid making that mistake again in the future.

To Scarab: I appreciate the good score! As I told WritersBlock I tried too hard to sound professional and eloquent so next time I'll just stick with simple but effective words more often. And forgive my use of dominating dialogue as you call it; it's a reflection of my real life enjoyment of talking a whole lot and getting great satisfaction from it. Clearly not everyone are favorable of excessive wordiness.

I hope I addressed most of your critiques and cleared up some confusing parts accurately. Like I said, this is my first time my writings were judged by actual judges, and I hope to improve as time goes by. Again, thanks for helping me (in your own brutal ways T_T).

At 8/5/09 09:02 AM, Scarab wrote: amador10 - 6.5-7/10.

Finally, is an island specifically part of the plot? It might be implied, but I didn't pick on it so much. It's not a bad entry overall, and the thought is clearly there, but I unfortunately found the execution lacking in some places, as I've said above.

Well, the island is just said once, and then it is left to the reader to logically think why it is set on an island or something. And I suppose my piece would've done good with at least one proofread. I just wrote as I went along, never thinking about the whole thing.

Thank you kindly for the criticism. And congratulations to all the winners.

At 8/4/09 10:52 PM, WritersBlock wrote: TheThing:
Theme: 3/5
Structure: 4/5
Total: 7/10
Comments: I thought you did quite a good job with this story. It has a sense of tragedy, of themes holier than thou, and the way that it is written really reflects that. It's not as powerful or moving as it could have been, but it has elements of sadness without stressing on the present themes. You don't try to ram beliefs and ideals down our throats, you just present them "as is", and for that I think this story is written particularly well. That being said, I didn't feel as attached to your story as I could have, you had a pretty good balance, but I think if you had tilted slightly across and drawn me more into your story, that would have just sealed the deal.

Well, I've been writing on and off, but only in the last few months have I really gotten a lot of great tips on writing in general. I'm hoping with more practice I can improve my skills, and I know that these contests do help.

At 8/5/09 09:01 AM, Scarab wrote: TheThing - 7.5/10.

The inspiration you noted identified the sort of idea you wanted to discuss, so that was a plus point. I also think you used the island well, and the language served the purpose skillfully. A lot of the words were well chosen whether they were describing the island in a more concrete way, or whether they were designed to be abstract. I do think that the entry could be extended, though I also believe that it could go overboard if it was extended too much. The ending could possibly be built on if you managed to maintain the general balance of physical description and abstract metaphoric images to show the ideas up. An interesting entry.

I don't think I could have made it any longer without it feeling longer. I said what I wanted to say in the space needed to say it. I might have been able to draw out the ending a little more, but my descriptions of Humanity were running low and there isn't much more to say.

Oh, and thank you to everyone who judged the submissions; I know it may have taken you a little longer this time, but the reviews were great, and probably helpful to most of us.

Thanks to all of the judges so far for all of the helpful feedback and kind words.

At 8/7/09 05:28 AM, Peaceblossom wrote: Okay, I don't think this was answered, but how do the money winners get their prize? I'm essentially just very curious. I'd really appreciate if somebody told me how it all works.

gum PMs tom with the winners and tom puts the store credit onto your account. you should see it when you're on the store. That's how it worked last I heard.

I WOULD post my scores.... but my laptop is down and that is where I wrote out all of my reviews and scores and what not. So much for that huh? I do remember that most of the stories were crap and Coop and Rape and Peaceblossom were my top 3 stories.

I define crap as having a score less than 4.

Most of them I gave 1s.

All I can say to the mass people out there is proof read, proof read, proof read! I know it has been stated many times already, but it is so so important. When there are dumb mistakes like usage errors or problems with tense, it throws the reader out of the story. If you had an interesting story and some of these errors then I probably looked over them and based the score more on the story itself. Usually not the case however.

ANWAY... if anyone is just desperate to hear MY take on their story then just ask. Ill reread it and let you know.

At 8/7/09 11:55 AM, speeling wrote:

At 8/7/09 06:29 AM, ForNoReason wrote: ANWAY... if anyone is just desperate to hear MY take on their story then just ask. Ill reread it and let you know.

Bad idea, I know, but I'd really like to know what you thought.

Samesies for me. This is my first MWC, and I'm trying to improve my writing. It's gotten better over the last 6 months or so, and I'm hoping that writing once a month would help.

At 8/7/09 11:55 AM, speeling wrote:

At 8/7/09 06:29 AM, ForNoReason wrote: ANWAY... if anyone is just desperate to hear MY take on their story then just ask. Ill reread it and let you know.

Bad idea, I know, but I'd really like to know what you thought.

Ditto on this. I'm just curious as to how shitty my first real attempt at this was.

Argh! I feel like I really could have gotten somewhere if I'd known about this sooner!

I got a 6.5 for approximately an hour and a half of rushed an un-thought-out writing.

That's rather upsetting, honestly. I think there needs to be a better way to learn about these. =\ Does August even have a writing contest?

At 8/13/09 04:43 PM, bahamalama wrote: I got a 6.5 for approximately an hour and a half of rushed an un-thought-out writing.

As I mentioned at the top of my scores/comments, my scores are generally used for me; it's so I can look through all of the entries at the end and judge my top selection on my very igid personal scale. Your overall score would've been something different, putting the other judges into account. Overall, I'd be happier with people taking stuff out of my comments than the numerical scores, as much as I know how much the numbers do matter as a way of evaluating some work easily. Eh, just keep that in mind is just what I'm saying!

Does August even have a writing contest?

Yes: talk thread, entries thread. WritersBlock is the organiser.

You can generally find these things for now by searching for "mwc9"on the BBS search.

At 8/13/09 04:54 PM, Scarab wrote:

:happier with people taking stuff out of my comments than the numerical scores, as much as I know how much the numbers do matter as a way of evaluating some work easily. Eh, just keep that in mind is just what I'm saying!

Oh of course! I read each review, and I got two 6.5's and a 5, so =P
And I will keep everything that's been said in mind. When I wrote in the lyrics, they had a meaning. Then I saw that I had 15 minutes left and went "Oh fuck!"

and THANK YOU for the links! I might get writing!