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Post by ASGetty ((Zovo)) on Feb 19, 2016 14:23:49 GMT -5
By the way, in the novelty of a sex scene in Symbol 1, and the two crazy stories of the semi-final, your semi-final story sort of slipped under the radar, Adam. So I just want to take the moment to say it was really good. I really liked it. I actually think we kind of mirrored each in this competition. In Round 1 we tried something different and had quite specific flaws. In Round 2 and 3, we both wrote strong stories. And then in the final we wrote stories that actually shared a few flaws from our Round 1 stories. Yeah, I think Rounds 2 and 3 just had intros which "spoke to me" a little more than the others. Round 1 with it's big pile of typos, and Round 4 with it's grittiness an implied violence just didn't really grab me. Might also have been the stakes of the stories. In Round 1 I knew that no matter how good (or bad) the story was, I wasn't going to be eliminated from the competition; so I just put something on paper. Round 4, no matter how good it was, the competition was over once it was written; so I experimented. Rounds 2 and 3 actually required me to put some effort in if I wanted to keep playing. As to Round 3; I'm glad you liked it. There's actually a pretty major plot hole in there that I didn't notice until after I sent it in; but nobody called me on it. |
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Post by Kaez on Feb 19, 2016 14:38:24 GMT -5
As to Round 3; I'm glad you liked it. There's actually a pretty major plot hole in there that I didn't notice until after I sent it in; but nobody called me on it. Oh? |
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Post by James on Feb 19, 2016 16:25:21 GMT -5
So we were talking about the stories on Skype and coming up with our favourites. Pete then ranked the entire competition, so here's mine too:
1) Adam's Witch Train
1) James's Stranger
3) Adam's Robots
3) Sam's Silver Dollar Man
3) Pete's Future Seller
6) Pete's Sex Cult
7) James's Civil Nipple War
8) James's Future
9) James's No Country for James's Bad Western Final
10) Jason's Cole
11) Adam's Aftermath Final
12) Ink's Strangers
13) Sam's Elf Sluts
14) Ink's Future
15) Injin's Cole
16) Jason's Witch Train
17) Sawyer's Cole
18) Adam's Future
19) Injin's Witch Train
20) Sawyer's Strangers
I would say, only the bottom three stories I didn't particularly like. Everything from 17 upwards had stuff that worked and was enjoyable and fantastically, everyone has one story in that list.
So what did we get out of this competition:
- The first AWR competition to not have a drop-out.
- The first AWR competition that finished as scheduled.
- The Arena with the most reviews throughout.
- And, a competition where everyone wrote at least one good thing.
This is a good result, AWR.
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Post by Kaez on Feb 19, 2016 16:31:30 GMT -5
My personal list of favorite/least favorite stories. 1) James' Sex Cult
2) James' Strangers
3) Adam's Witch Train
4) Adam's Birthday
5) Pete's Future
6) Sam's Cole
7) James' Future
8) Pete's Sex Cult
9) James' Final
10) Adam's Final
11) Sam's Birthday12) Dragon's Cole 13) Ink's Strangers 14) Dragon's Witch Train 15) Ink's Future 16) Injin's Cole 17) Injin's Witch Train 18) Sawyer's Cole 19) Adam's Future20) Sawyer's Strangers Semifinalists in bold. |
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Post by ASGetty ((Zovo)) on Feb 19, 2016 16:33:47 GMT -5
My personal list of favorite/least favorite stories. 1) James' Sex Cult
2) James' Strangers
3) Adam's Witch Train
4) Adam's Birthday
5) Pete's Future
6) Sam's Cole
7) James' Future
8) Pete's Sex Cult
9) James' Final
10) Adam's Final
11) Sam's Birthday12) Dragon's Cole 13) Ink's Strangers 14) Dragon's Witch Train 15) Ink's Future 16) Injin's Cole 17) Injin's Witch Train 18) Sawyer's Cole 19) Adam's Future20) Sawyer's Strangers Semifinalists in bold. Why is my "Future" in bold at the bottom? Is that because it's notably bad? lol Anyhow, I did my "breakdown" post on my blog. Here's a link, I'm not putting it all here. wp.me/p5ULJ2-2J |
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Post by James on Feb 19, 2016 16:36:05 GMT -5
Adam cleverly getting more clicks. He's a true blogger now.
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Post by ASGetty ((Zovo)) on Feb 19, 2016 16:37:53 GMT -5
Adam cleverly getting more clicks. He's a true blogger now. I don't know what you're talking about.... No, seriously though, there's hyperlinks and stuff that I didn't want to transfer over; and it's like 1700 words. |
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Post by Kaez on Feb 19, 2016 16:38:50 GMT -5
Why is my "Future" in bold at the bottom? |
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Post by ASGetty ((Zovo)) on Feb 19, 2016 16:39:33 GMT -5
Why is my "Future" in bold at the bottom? Well, yeah, of course.... |
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Post by James on Feb 19, 2016 16:43:45 GMT -5
If everyone does a list of the stories, I'm going to be a nerd and work out an average of the lists.
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Post by ASGetty ((Zovo)) on Feb 19, 2016 16:45:45 GMT -5
If everyone does a list of the stories, I'm going to be a nerd and work out an average of the lists. That means I gotta go back a read a bunch of them again... A couple for the first time... What? |
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Post by Kaez on Feb 19, 2016 16:53:19 GMT -5
If everyone does a list of the stories, I'm going to be a nerd and work out an average of the lists. Of your list and mine, we ranked everything within 3 points of one another... except for your Sex Cult, which was 7. |
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Post by James on Feb 19, 2016 16:59:03 GMT -5
If everyone does a list of the stories, I'm going to be a nerd and work out an average of the lists. Of your list and mine, we ranked everything within 3 points of one another... except for your Sex Cult, which was 7. I'm really gratified that people seemed to like it so much. And the response to the story has made me like it more in retrospect. But yeah, I still don't think it was amazing. It definitely had some really funny stuff, though. I'm proud of a lot of those jokes. |
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Post by Sekot on Feb 19, 2016 19:04:11 GMT -5
I really enjoyed Zovo's final story as it wasn't dragging in any way. I mean, yeah there's nothing really there to talk about, but I loved its length since so many others feel they have to write these massive walls of text with so much that just does not matter. The whole thing just felt like a quick joke and the absurd hard turn at the end just worked for me. Compare that to James' final story, and I got easily distracted by the way he constructed his sentences. Coming from the Skype call, I get now that he was trying to create a voice that wasn't his, and to me that showed. Compare it to Sex 2 or Strangers 2 and we have this very distinct creative voice. What I wanted to put in my review but wasn't really sure how to talk about is the waffling between narrator and character POV. Its hard to describe but its just kind of a feeling I get from the read. I think Sex Cult 2 was a better story, and I really did not like that one.
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Post by Sekot on Feb 19, 2016 19:14:15 GMT -5
I really enjoyed Zovo's final story as it wasn't dragging in any way. I mean, yeah there's nothing really there to talk about, but I loved its length since so many others feel they have to write these massive walls of text with so much that just does not matter. The whole thing just felt like a quick joke and the absurd hard turn at the end just worked for me. Compare that to James' final story, and I got easily distracted by the way he constructed his sentences. Coming from the Skype call, I get now that he was trying to create a voice that wasn't his, and to me that showed. Compare it to Sex 2 or Strangers 2 and we have this very distinct creative voice. What I wanted to put in my review but wasn't really sure how to talk about is the waffling between narrator and character POV. Its hard to describe but its just kind of a feeling I get from the read. I think Sex Cult 2 was a better story, and I really did not like that one. Some of the other things I talked about on Skype I want to reiterate here since they're relevant for Zovo. I really liked your semi-final piece Zovo, I thought it presented some really cool ideas. The problem I struggled with was reviewing it and deciding whether I liked it for what was there, what you had written, or if I liked it for how I could have taken that idea and transformed it. It was probably my second favorite story that I really read behind James' stranger. |
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