Thread: 9/29/09 - "Dec 21, 2012" Scores

I’d like to extend a huge thank you to Eggo, 2.0 and Edropus for judging this round of the LM. Also, to The Backward OX, Crazed Scribe and DarkDyer for entering. Congratulations and well done, guys.

And now, your very late LM scores…



The Backward OX: 15, 18, 18, 17 = 68 - Average = 17
Crazed Scribe: 17, 17, 16, 18 = 68 - Average = 17
DarkDyer: 16, 17, 17, 16 = 66 - Average = 16.5



Note: Please let me know asap if there are any errors or omissions. Thank you.

Eggo's Scores


Backward Ox- Apocalypse Then ~ 500 words

A guy doesn’t come to the end of the world without trying to use it to his advantage. This was fun. A little weird with the untagged dialog and then the addition of a few characters.

Great nostalgia,

Not sure I agree about new ideas though. The patent office is full of them.

18/20
Crazed Scribe- The Day the World Cracked ~ 482 wds

The second witching hour began a like glass breaking devastated the peace.

Some wrong here

before hand

Beforehand
Ran a little like a Twilight Zone episode.
17/20

Dark Dyer- Go Out In Flames -- 502 Words

Roland saw the fear in the man's eyes. He knew what the man was going to say before he did. "It's... the the apocalypse."

Had a hard time jumping from a huge fire to the end of the earth.

The winged creature came within closer view of the camera

Came closer to the camera.

Kind of cliché here. looking for something different.

17/20

2.0's Scores


Disclaimer: I didn't volunteer myself to judge this contest because I don't feel qualified to judge. It seemed like help was needed, and I did my best.

Apocalypse Then
The Backward Ox

I was very interested in the story until I found out what it was about. The voice you used is solid and engaging, but the content seems uninspired for a topic with boundless possibilities. Good mechanics and I appreciate the artistic license you took with some of the grammatical structure. I wish that I would have been able to read your perspective on 2012 instead of a story about the conceptualizing of it, I bet it would have been a great read.
15/20

The Day the World Cracked
Crazed Scribe

When I was finished reading this, I found myself wishing the word limit was higher. I'd be interested to see your view on how time unravels. I also think it would have greatly helped the flow of the story, the transitions often seemed choppy. There were a couple minor grammatical flaws and a couple transposed words, but that didn't really affect the overall readability - your voice here sounds very natural, though the professor's dialogue didn't really feel like the words of a physicist.
17/20

Go Out in Flames
DarkDyer

I'm not sure what word counter you used, but by mine you're not over count. In fact, it says you are under with 483 words. No technical flaws that I caught, the only real negative that stuck out to me was the paragraph where you started three sentences in a row with "He (action)". I liked that the first thing to register to him when he flipped on the tv was the color red. Definitely lends itself positively to the atmosphere. A realistic series of events.
16/20

Edropus' Scores


Title: Apocalypse Then
Author: The Backward Ox

I really enjoyed the longer sentences here;
that is, when you break into your natural
voice. When it feels like I'm listening to
you talk. It's familiar and comfortable,
which goes along nice with the relaxed
punctuation and the subject matter.
The delivery never really struck me. I
wasn't ever 100% on exactly what I was
reading, and that hadn't change for me by
the end, which detracted from the
enjoyment.

Thanks for the chance to judge this.

17/20

Title: The Day the World Cracked
Author: Crazed Scribe

For a story that I thought started a bit
slow, you presented a disaster, saw it on
the news, went to get a professional
opinion, hinted at a loop at the end and
even found time to cram in a scientist
giving a monologue.

"The day started like any other" and
similar literary cliches broke up the flow
a bit.

I can't help but love a story that
basically breaks down an end of the world
script in about 350 words.

Thanks for the chance to judge this.

18/20

Title: Go Out In Flames
Author: DarkDyer

For better or worse I like literal
interpretations - I like my end of the
world stories to be about the world ending.
You seem to have taken a biblical, or at
least mythical, stance with the
demon-things, which I like - but if you're
going to jump the fiction fence and
introduce devils and giant fireballs, I'd
like to see more of them.

Thanks for the chance to judge this.

16/20

Hawke's Scores


Though the amount of entries was pretty disheartening, the caliber of the entries was certainly not. Thank you, guys!


Apocalypse Then - The Backward OX - 18/20
Nits: Maybe I should of said = should’ve

Boys and their dreams. Heh.

Funny stuff. Perhaps 2012 will bring about another major baby boom, too. Hmm. Since all the good names like Baby Boomers and Generation X, Y and Z are taken, I wonder what they’ll call them. “Post-2012 baby boom” is just so long. How about “Generation Jones II”?--provided human kind lives through it, that is.


The Day the World Cracked - Crazed Scribe - 16/20
Nits: Missing a few commas; The second witching hour began a like glass breaking devastated the peace = need to work on this line; for an emdash, use two dashes or hold down Alt and punch in 0151; t.v. = TV; “Yeah, you think the reason they’re undetectable [is] because…”

I didn’t latch on to the Neanderthal mention until nearly the end, which was good. You could play that up even more. Though going back and forth in time has certainly been done, this one had the potential for much more and I think suffered from the challenge’s low word count.


Go Out in Flames - DarkDyer - 17/20
Nits: 502? Surely you could have whittle out two words or combined a few (they had = they’d) to get the count down. If this had been a big-time challenge, those two words would have disqualified your entry. Just saying.

The character’s thoughts at the end (God, demons, evil) seemed to come out of the blue, almost as if they were an afterthought. Might want to consider balancing that up a touch.

Thanks to all the judges for putting in the effort!

CS

Sorry i missed this. All 3 stories were fantastic to read one after another.