Georg’s March Madness and Writeoffs · 6:24pm Mar 21st, 2015
So far, even after entering the Writeoff.me writeoff, I’ve been able to keep up with a chapter a weekday posting on Fimfiction. Flash Sunset is going to be difficult, because I have to finish the last chapter by next Friday, but I’m on it. Also Letters From a Little Princess Monster is currently breaking my fingers, but I’m done with Monday’s chapter and should be able to hit the next week’s target if life doesn’t get complicated. The Traveling Tutor and the Royal Exam is easy. I have enough cached chapters to go through April on a Tue-Thu release schedule. :)
Here are my reviews of the Writeoff.me contest with the prompt of “Best Medicine.” I entered (not telling) and had one ‘Cadence of Cloudsdale’ style entry that I didn’t quite get done that I’ll stick at the very bottom of this post. I’m considering finishing it up and seeing if its worth anything later. (continued below the break)
Anyway, my scores are based on the crude but simple scale of Writing, Story, and Character as follows:
Scale:
1 = Ick
2 = Fair
3 = Average
4 = Pretty darned good
5 = Professional quality
(Note: The word ‘nice’ gets used a lot. It’s a compliment. Think of it as a blue ribbon.)
Asking to put these in order of ‘best’ to ‘not quite best’ is difficult at best, a little like lining up a bunch of cute orphans and deciding which ones get parents and which ones go to the rainbow factory, I suppose. I’m giving a bonus point (*) for the fics that stick in my mind, and a second bonus point for those that followed the prompt well (+1) and didn’t seem to have the prompt added after the fact (like I did last time I entered). Everything that made it this far is well worth reading, and they’re very short, so even if you don’t like one, you can roll right into another. (Just like jellybeans, I suppose. Even the ones you don’t like make the rest that much better.)
Very top of the list: Perfect Cure, 4th District, and If You Can’t
Special Mention: * (Gallery is here)
The Topiary Garden
White Lies
First, Last and Always (Apple family goodness)
The Perfect Cure for the Common Cold
If You Can’t Cry
To Soothe the Savage Breast
Lament
4th District Court (read it out loud for best impact)
Behind You
5,5,4 - A nice touching children’s story with a moral. Very Bad Horsey. (but written by Oroboro) Didn’t make it to the finals, but I liked it
Start:
I Shall Please
4,4,5 - Seems to be pretty well characterized, but there’s no real hook or driving force in this story.
Laughter is the Second Best Medicine
4,5,5 +1 - I like the way it captures the different way two very different ponies battle their colds. Seems a little choppy in spots, but with a little sanding and some varnish (and some chicken soup) it should improve.
* The Topiary Garden
5-5-5 — Smooth and practiced with few distractions. Twilight as Older Twilight is quite comfortable. Recomended. My only complaint is that it’s too short, and really doesn’t match the prompt.
Mondays
4,5,5 +1 - Captures our favorite school teacher quite well, but a little choppy in spots. Also explains why she keeps working there.
The Poetry of Politcs
5,5,5 - A nice look at a character overlooked by most with a touching backstory, all crammed into a tiny space. Seemed just a tad forced, but wordcount rules on these tiny promts.
Balm
5,4+,4+ - Another story crimped by length. Characters are a little off and story seems just a tad off-center, but still darned good.
First, Last and Always
5+,5,5 +1 - touching, short, and to the point. It has that ability of a story to drag you into the page and give you a little shock when it’s over.
Opportunity in the Community
4,4,5 - The story is a little flat compared to what one would expect. It just seemed to sit there.
Granny Knows Best
5,5,5 +1 - Touching and deep while taking place in a single place with a single character. Nice touch.
* Lament
5,5,5 - It takes a lot of work to make usable poetry for a writeoff, and I have to appreciate it (having done so badly with my previous attempt.)
* White Lies
4+,5,5 - There are a few rough patches that seemed to be lurking in here, but that’s expected with a straight dialogue between two ponies with accents. Somewhat of a weak hook, but pure goodness otherwise with a beautiful ending.
I Want To Go Home
5,4,4 - I didn’t connect with the main character doing the narration as well as I would have hoped, and was a little fuzzy on the worldbuilding.
It’s a Fine Line
5,4,5 - Good characterization, excellent writing, but the story dragged a little and didn’t match the prompt very well.
Scootaloo, M.D.
5,5,5 - Ah, children at play with power tools. What could possibly go wrong.
A Healthy Obsession
5,5,5 - Captured Filly Twilight perfectly. I give this one an A+... or at least until her parents go by the school to pick up the homework she missed and find out she didn’t miss it.
Aspirations
5,4,5 - The story is a little weak, but everything else is picture perfect.
Love At First Sight
5,4+,5 - There’s a little weakness in the story, but it sticks with the theme pretty well, and the character introduction and fleshing out is done quite well.
In The Fields
5,4+,5 - Still slightly soft in the story line, but fits with the theme and touching to boot.
I Will Learn
4,5,5 - Seemed a little rough at the seams.
Good Girl
3,3,4 - Mixed tense. Ick. Choppy story. Ick. Maybe its just that I don’t like this kind of story.
* To Soothe The Savage Breast
5,4+,5 - Tackling a project like this in poetry with four different POVs is a massive undertaking that is deserving of wild applause. The downside of it is a somewhat choppy story and only a vague relationship to the prompt.
* The Perfect Cure for the Common Cold
5,5,5 - Ah, the Elements of Oblivious and Clueless. Touching and funny at the same time. Doing this *with* humor and a working punch line mixed with Flutterdash and Rarijack. Genius. (or should I say perfect?)
The Laughter I Choose To Be
5,4+,5+ - Wonderful characterization, beautiful touch on the writing, and a very nice perspective on the “One of the M6 is a changeling” meme, even if it seems a little off for the prompt. Pinkie Pie is written extraordinarily good, and likeable to the point where I want to be introduced. Good work.
Light and Dark
5,5-,5 - I have to confess a certain adoration to your headcanon for Canterlot’s construction and the attitude of the Typical Unicorn Royal. I too would not be too upset if a drop of something were to wind up in his tea.
One Untended and Apart
5,5,4 - Beautiful origin story for the tree. Sounds like Ghost.
* 4th District Court
5,5,5 — On first read, I didn’t get it. I did the second time through. And the third. At the fourth, I think some of that elixer got on the page, because I couldn’t stop. Help!
Love and Other Bandages
5,5,5 — Very smooth worldbuilding. Lightning Bug gets Best Bug award.
Back On That Horse
5,4,5 — Poor Scoots and that scooter.
The Problem with Prokaryotes
4,4,5 - Seemed a little slow and choppy, but the characters seem spot on.
The Cure for Death
4,4,4 -- A little off in all respects, although some can be blamed on the length and some on the dying character speech.
Gilda Has the Floor
4,4,5 - Characters are spot on, but the story and writing seemed a little weak and choppy.
* If You Can’t Cry
4+,5,5 +1 - Humor is hard to bring off in a short story like this. It worked perfectly. Needs a little work with some sandpaper, I suppose, and it will be perfect. And pink. Another touching but funny story. Darned decisions.
Hometown Support
5,5,5 — good job pulling a plot line in such a short number of words. If there were rough patches, I didn’t notice it because the story pulled me in.
Intention
5,4,5+ — Very nice characterization, a little weak in the story line, but excellent writing.
Ten Degrees
5,5,5 — A Lyra/Bon fic that really holds together. It’s probably the melted chocolate.
And here is the fragmentary bit that I didn’t have time to finish and turn in for the contest. Enjoy.
Homesick (First draft of my incomplete Cadence of Cloudsdale story)
Although it has been several busy days since I arrived in the castle in Canterlot, I still have not seen everything inside the walls, although every moment I continue to believe that I will awaken from my dreaming to the sounds of the Dawn Chorus and the gentle touch of Sister Aeon upon one shoulder. If this is a dream, it is far grander and more detailed than any that I have experienced in my centuries of life in the Abbey of Song, and it continues every time the sun rises over the impossibly high crags of the Canterhorn to the east. The reason for the sunrise is the simplest thing that I had taken for granted when surrounded by the Sisters, one of many such foolish questions with no good answer such as ‘Why is the sky above us and the ground below?’ or ‘If there were no air, how would we breathe?’ but seeing the Sun-Nag use her enormously long horn to cast magic that I could never control and seeing the sun lift effortlessly over the horizon at her command makes me feel so small and insignificant.
Without the Sisters to awaken me and bathe me and take care of all of the rituals of life that have filled my existence without interruption for so many centuries, I am cast adrift, like one of the pieces of dandelion fluff that floats in the air during summers in the Grand Gardens of Knowledge. Tiny little bronze signs signified the contents of each small patch of flower or plant there, and the Sisters would permit me only one day a week among the neat and tidy rows. They would watch from a distance as I nibbled small bits from whatever plants struck my fancy at the moment, be it the common Gardenia jasminoides or my sacred Verticordia, and from this, the Guild of Flosimancers would determine the planting and harvesting for the town and the surrounding fields. It always had made me nervous, for I could still remember the one beautiful spring day I had fallen asleep in a bed of violets and the resulting harvest which had overwhelmed the Sisters’ desire for anything purple for several decades. Among the vast number of corridors and stairs in this new place, I have found a similarity, although somewhat different.
There are ponies here who have much the same purpose as the Guild of Flosimancers or their rival Guild of Paigniomancers, but instead of examining my taste in flowers or toys, they seek to find out everything they can about me. They lurk in bushes and behind stairwells, disguise themselves as servants, or use clever mechanisms of glass and metal to watch me from afar. There is a pattern to their appearance that I find fascinating in the way that it interacts with the fiercely serious stallions with brilliant lights in their hearts who seem to be everywhere in this strange and terrifying place. Much like the Sisters, the guards are here to protect me from all harm, but they are not soft and loving, but instead hard and shining on the outside, much like my beloved pearls from Reduit. When one of the Royal Guard and one of the ‘reporters’ meet in my presence, there is a flare of conflict that I fear will turn to violence and makes me yearn for my peaceful bedroom so far away, where my slightest worry can be soothed by the gentle Reassurance Choir and a few nibbles of Sister Cream’s fudge.
You're not evil enough to review stories. Your scale says "1. Ick", but the one story that made you say "Ick" twice, you gave 3,3,4 to.
2897189 It had some redeeming quantities or it couldn't have gotten this far. Still, it's like finding a pit in a piece of cherry pie. And then a second one. (Hmm. I wonder if Equestrian apple pies still have the seeds?)
I hope you finish "Homesick." (Presumably at some point in April or later, of course.) I quite like what's there thus far.
I'm amused that now two difference "Cadance of Cloudsdale" stories have been done (or almost done) for the Writeoffs, and neither one of them was Skywriter's.
The bit about falling asleep in the violets was great. I agree this is worth continuing.
2897907 Yeah, but the bar is placed very high in this condition. I get nosebleeds. Honest.