Thread: 6/1/2011 Song into Story - SCORES

Me again.

I’m going to apologise every time we do this, it seems. So sorry again for my delay.

We did have a judge moving countries, so I think we had an okay excuse for the tardiness but I’m still sorry. Anyway, at the last minute I was able to ask a friend of mine, who is an infrequent member, but very capable judge, to step in and help out.

So your judges were me, Kat, ppsage, and Anna Buttons.

A great round, a fun prompt, and some excellent stories.
Now for the winners...


Here’s the maths (and if anyone sees a mistake, please let me know)

Spider8 – 16 – 14 - 17 – 13 = 60/4 = Average 15
STAYCALM49 - 18 – 14 – 17 – 14 = 63/4 = Average 15.75
Sleepyhead – 19 – 16 – 16 – 18 =69/4 = Average 17.25
InsanityStrickenWriter – 14 – 14 – 16 – 14 =58/4 = Average 14.5
Kayt - 10 – 5 – 5 – 10 = 30/4 = Average 7.5
Richard.E.Craig - 15 – 13 – 17 – 16 = 61/4 = Average 15.25
jj1027 - 14 – 17 - 17 – 15 = 63/4 = Average 15.75
JodieLK - 15 – 13 – 16 – 15 =59/4 = Average 14.75
Apple - 17 – 15 – 18 – 16 = 66/4 = Average 16.5
Katastrof - 20 – 14 – 19 – 17 =70/4 = Average 17.5


Soooo... The winner is (drumroll please)....

Katastrof! Congratulations!!

In second place, congratulations also go to Sleepyhead. Yay!
And in third, well done to Apple.



Like a Fox’s scores

K3ng (judge)
It needs to stop raining already
I wasn’t really sure how to feel about this entry. It was largely voice-driven but there wasn’t enough in the voice for me to attach to or emotionally respond to. There was a hint here and there of more story, but it wasn’t really explored enough for me to take interest in it. And I guess that was the main problem – I didn’t care, I wasn’t sure what to care about. SpaG were fine, a few weird clunky word choices. A nice idea that could use a bit more focus.
Score n/a

**

Spider8
Could you be the most beautiful girl in the world?
I quite liked this. Nicely written, a good narrative drive pulling the reader along. Some great language in there – his descriptions of his sneaky glances especially. They were really rich. I felt it could have benefitted from a better sense of place – A club is a great atmosphere and I didn’t feel like I was being immersed in one for most the story, too busy in his head. I liked the set up and payoff. Nicely done.
Score - 16/20

**

STAYCALM49
Every Breath You Take
Haha! Oh wow, this was so great. Beautifully stylised, the language in the opening sucked me right into this, it read well-crafted and unique. Then even better, the story was really great too. A fun interchange, two characters interesting and well-developed enough to make me care about them, but vague enough that I could imagine this happening to many people. You really nailed it, great job.
Score - 18/20

**

Sleepyhead
On the bus mall
Whoo. Another great entry. A story that’s been told many times, but this was done really well, very neat, just the right amount of drama to leave an actual emotional impact. The crying-in-a-laughing-way tug at my heartstrings, as the saying goes. The whole thing really hit me. Great, strong, natural sounding voice. This was excellent. Thanks so much for entering!
Score - 19/20

**

InsanityStrickenWriter
Untitled
This has a lot of potential, and the narrative was strong and the voice was okay. I feel like the narrator could use a bit more personality, a lot of the descriptions in the beginning especially were clichés, and those are the best moments to let us know a bit more about your character, especially in first person. Lots of adverbs in there too, which can read very stale after a while. “I warily, I cautiously, I anxiously”. It also wasn’t totally clear whether the character was on the bus and having the daydream, or at the bus stop. I think I figured out in the end it was the latter, but I would recommend making it clearer. Good job.
Score - 14/20

**

Kayt
Highway to HellFrom memory I believe you saw the thread I posted encouraging people to enter this competition and then did so quite quickly. I’m glad you entered, but I do recommend for future competitions, to aim to write close to the word count. It’s very hard to judge something on par with 500+ word stories, that can carry a lot more, to a little flash piece like this. As a flash it’s cute, not quite clever enough to work really well, but certainly not terrible.
Hope to see some more from you next time
Score - 10/20

**

Richard.E.Craig
Where I am Lying
This is short and sweet and kind of beautiful, almost something I could see as poetry. The tense you chose to write it in was odd, all the ‘had’s made it a bit clunky, and it could just have easily been told in simple past tense. I like the story and the setting, worked well with the song choice, I feel like it could have used some more original/interesting details about the famine, about Ireland, about the wedding. Just something that sets all those things apart from the expected.
A nice job.
Score - 15/20

**

jj1027
The Collapse
Hmm. I like the idea here but I felt the voice of the whole thing wasn’t quite working. At first it felt contemporary, and then the lady’s dialogue made it feel a little unrealistic, then the following few paragraphs all had that feel to them. I think that feel needs to be solid throughout and maybe even amped up and polished a little. There was a bit of almost-rhyming scattered throughout, and I quite liked that, I think it adds something to regular prose, if it’s not intentional, it’s a good thing to keep an eye on.
Score - 14/20

**

Jodie LK
Seperated
Sad story you have here, and told well, it’s easy to empathise with the narrator. I decided to listen to the Dolly version of the song while reading it, (I’m much more familiar with the Whitney version). Anyway, the moroseness of the story matched that of that version of the song quite beautifully. I think some more physical descriptions could have helped ground the story a bit more and give it a feeling of place. Otherwise I thought it was well done.
Score - 15/20

**

Kat – Judge
Breathe Me
Very strong protag here, and I liked the relationship between the two girls. You set up an excellent point of interest with the screaming going on downstairs and just the right amount of nonchalance at the HIV thing. Delicately handled, a pleasure to read.
Score – n/a

**

Apple
Me and Bobette's Strange Afternoon
Another cool entry from you, Mz Apple. The voice in this is strong and consistent. The beginning foreshadows what’s coming so subtly, and you set up a very believable real scene, before you take it into the surreal, which makes it really rich and enjoyable. Made me laugh, the dialogue was really strong, and overall a well-crafted entry. Thanks!!
Score - 17/20

**

Katastrof
Just Words
A nice entry to finish on. This was poetic and special. I think you created something unique and polished, it was clearly written with skill and care. I like your formatting, with the paragraphs, and isolated lines for impact. I like your character and the progression of information makes sense and works well as an emotional experience for the reader. Beautifully ended. My favourite of the bunch.
Score - 20/20




ppsage’s scores

I have to say that it's really easy for me to see the song prompt in almost all these, even though I only actually know a couple of them. Interesting effect and I'm glad to have judged them. For me The Collapse and The Bus Mall were standouts and then the second tier was extremely close. All I did there was take a point away on some for balky formatting. Come on people, these are very short and even if you have to work in the ugly box, it only takes a minute or two extra. There were so many entries that I also ranked them by ordinals and sorted to make sure I'd got it the way I wanted. (Note to Fox: they're not in order anymore, sorry.) I think Sleepyhead didn't follow the thread linking procedure, I hope all the judges found that gem hidden away in the workshop thread. pp

*********************
#00a 29/20: Kat: Breathe Me - Judge entry


A great little story, very evocative. I think you're getting too good for the rest of us. However, remember Chekhov, if you put a moon halo on the mantle in the first act, you have to use it before the story's over. Actually, the various continuing illuminations are probably good enough.

***********************
#00b ??/20: k3ng: It needs to stop raining already - Judge


Interesting as an internal dialogue, but not sure if it adds up to a story. Too teleological for true stream of consciousness, but a good start if that's the direction desired. Which would be cool. There's that fugue passage in Ulysses, for inspiration.

One of my most hated songs, from the can't-get-it-out stand point, which I suspect is the author's malicious intent. This is a judge's entry which I'd normally give a score higher than the scale allows, for the superhuman effort involved, but right now my mind's so polluted by unwanted lyrics that I can't count higher than two. After that comes—three maybe?

********************
#01 17/20: jj1027: The Collapse


A really good job of using specific action, mostly dialogue, which is the epitome of direct action in narrative, to relay the story. The close third POV suits a short piece very well. Maybe change the last sentence to something similar i.e., "Later on she watched a ship come and to take the bridge to ... it stands still ..."

I think comic pieces pose the greatest challenge, seems like there's less leeway in them. Or maybe we just can't take them as seriously and so prejudge them as simplistic. This one goes off without a hitch.

********************
#02 16/20: Sleepyhead: On the bus mall


Very nice pacing here, the details move the reader through the situation effortlessly and the conclusion follows perfectly. I prefer the syntax of the second paragraph where straight past tense is employed even though the action is not current, to the blunted language later on where so much becomes 'he'd' and 'I'd.' For instance: "We’ll leave this place one day," he’d say after running away, "This is just temporary." With 'after running away' placing this in time already, 'he said' works, I think and is more immediate and gritty. Even with passive syntax, the power and authenticity come through.

************************

#03 15/20: apple: Me and Bobette's Strange Afternoon

Good job on the colloquial language. Front end is pretty long, maybe break it up with a dialogue quote? The twist seems out of the blue and too quick, even with the previous two musical referents. I think using both the musician twist and the only-eating-purple-people shtick doesn't work that well so far. Makes a double ending. But even with so much out of sync here that voice manages to make a delightful presentation. Add a little better flow (whatever THAT is) and it's a winner.

************************
#04 14/20: Katastrof: Just Words


Very weird effect from all the negative definitions and the unaffected narrator. Guess I liked it. I do like the antiquity references but I'm again with the Chekhov, you can't just abandon these things halfway through, you're stuck with them for the duration, so figure out how they're pertinent or skip them. My biggest difficulty here was that the paragraph embodying the central problem, where he hears her complaints, is by comparison generic and not memorable. So it took me like three reads before the ending followed from the story.


*************************
#05 14/20: STAYCALM49: Every Breath You Take


This is actually a lot of back and forth and story development in a short space. And there's nothing like naked conflict, as generations of genre writers have proved. I never managed to enter into the voice of the long denseness of the first paragraph although I suspect it exists in the author's mind. Maybe breaking that up with J's quoted thought providing most of the detail would make it more accessible. I think this should move closer to the POV of the characters and away from the mind of the chess match analogy narrator. Maybe they'll get naked there?

*********************
#06 14/20: InsanityStrikenWriter: Wheels on the Bus


This is a crazy voice which initially attracted me but when it didn't connect to anything, ended up only confusing. The 'it was all a dream' conclusion is almost always a cop out and especially when there's no time for advanced characterization. Should 'a had 'em bite the head off the kid or something, nursery rhyme style. Seriously.

*********************
#07 14/20: spider8: Could you be the most ...


A good story here but maybe the twist comes a little out of nowhere, might be possible to subtly tie onto it beforehand. I think a good twist reaction is more "I should have seen that," rather than, "I didn't see that coming."

An odd tendency in spots to an extremely passive voice which doesn't seem to be calculated. For instance:
"Ten seconds passed before he felt he could risk another glance." Why not "Ten seconds later he risked another glance." It seems the piece might prefer the immediacy of the latter?

**********************
#08 13/20: Jodie LK: Separated


This story feels the most like a song, in a sort of personal performance way. There are flashes here of the poetic; "on that I won't dwell," but I don't think the piece ever finds its true voice. It could be written less timidly. Still, the narrator comes through with a definite twang. I like the contrast of the very short paragraphs, but they'd be a lot more effective if the piece was properly formatted for a web presentation. Hesitations are better indicated by a double dash than by ellipsis.

*********************
#09 13/20: Richard.E.Craig: WHERE I AM LYING


The story here is way bigger than the space and ends up being told summarily, with almost no immediate action, i.e. "Mary had made Danny promise to catch his Ship in the harbor at Larne." might become; "The ship's at Larne Harbor now," whispered Mary, "promise me, Danny ..."

The elements of Irish lyricism almost pull it off anyway but the imagery is just too haphazard and needs something central to pull it together. Not sure what to make of all the extraneous ellipses.

*********************
#10 05/20: Kayt: Highway to Hell


For a low rent toss off this is strangely evocative. Jan and Dean for me though. But it's not at all a story.



Kat’s scores


Insanity StrickenWriter-16/20
You tried to create anxiety where there isn't any and I couldn't find the reason behind it. I do give you props for use of song. In the end the story reminded me of the same annoyance you get after listening to your kids singing that song over and over again during a three hour drive.


Kayt-5/20
Not even a story. It doesn't seem like you took this at all seriously.


Richard E. Craig-17/20
Too many ellipses overall, could have done without any of them just fine. Some errors in capitalization. A little full for the length. Lacking the richness of the song. The plot is great for the story, think that you could work this into a full fledged story. Started out good but fell into summary.


Jj1027-17/20
Cute and funny. Good use of song. Liked the bit about Arizona.


Jodie LK- 16/20
Reads very honestly. Little errors throughout. Many fragments, run-ons. Partly that makes the emotion ring true, desperate. Liked the interpretation of the song. Rather hard for me to judge, hits close to home.


Apple- 18/20
Wonderful consistent tone, fun use of slang. Some mistakes with quotation marks. A fun read over-all.


Katastrof-19/20
Just a great story. The details were fitting. Laughed at the dramatic foreshadowing bit.


Spider-17/20
The opening was really wordy. Odd spacing after dashes. The mc just turned me off, I couldn't get into the story.


Staycalm-17/20
The beginning was confusing, took me awhile to realize that Jennifer was the Mobile Police. The dialog was realistic and the whole exchange kind of half smirk funny.


Sleepyhead- 16/20
Some spelling errors, crueler, shriveled. Too many sentences start with and. The story works well with the song. Some great details.


K3ng-no score
Funny little rant. Really laughed at the bit about tearing off their facial hair.




Anna Buttons’s Scores

K3ng (judge)
It needs to stop raining already (Raindrops keep falling on my head - Hal David/Burt Bacharach) - 532 words.

I liked the visual of tearing peoples facial hair off. Did you mean ‘That man sure was enthusiastic’ instead of ‘was sure enthusiastic’?


Spider8
13/20
Could you be the most beautiful girl in the world? By the artiste formerly known as Prince.

I think you fit a lot of narrative into this piece. You create some really great visuals; I particularly liked ‘patting him boisterously’, ‘boastful cleavage’, ‘delightfully protesting against the strain’ and ‘poured forth their white mist’. I think you have a tendency to overdo some of the descriptions which can take away from the impact of your writing. For example the description ‘a redolent hue; whispering of magic, illicitness, and wonder’ is a bit over the top of me. I think your writing would benefit from you picturing exactly what you want to describe and doing it in the most simplistic way you can. I liked the ending but I think it would pack more punch if you deleted the last line.


STAYCALM49
14/20
Every Breath You Take - Sting and the Police

I read the first line three times and I’m still not sure I get it. It is entirely possible that I am being completely stupid but I thought I should mention it. I love the line ‘or more likely engrossed in avoiding her gaze’ - it is fantastic. I like your use of dialogue; it comes across as very natural and believable. Overall I thought this was a great interpretation of the song.


Sleepyhead
18/20
On the bus mall - The Decemberists

Great song choice, the lyrics give you so much to work with. I really think you did the song justice. You packed narrative and character and emotion into it. I loved the lines ‘armed with naïve smiles to throw at the real world’, ‘The girly looking one’, and ‘my beautiful boy walked crooked to the SUV and turned back and smiled that resilient smile’. I loved the ending. I would consider losing the last line and leaving it a bit more ambiguous but I understand if you would prefer it to be more final.


InsanityStrickenWriter
14/20
Untitled
Based on the dreadful nursery rhyme, the Wheels on the Bus

I like the specificness (if there is such a word, spellcheck seems to think not) of the original happy place description. I would change ‘suddenly being assaulted’ to just suddenly assaulted. I liked the phrase ‘shushing incessantly’. The voice is quick and peculiar in this piece, which I also like. I thought the last line was a bit confusing, ‘I decided not to follow them on and chose to walk instead’ – maybe if you changed ‘on’ to onwards it might be a bit clearer. I could be missing some subtlety here. I thought the use of the prompt was interesting and threw a new light on an old and long laboured through ‘classic’.


Kayt
Highway to Hell
10/20

I think the language you used and the tension you created in such a short piece was an admirable representation of the song. I think you should concentrate on thinking of original ways to say things.


Richard.E.Craig
16/20
WHERE I AM LYING [Danny BoyI]

I loved the phrase ‘a shroud of frigid winter snow’ – awesome imagery. I also liked ‘a retched gaol of death’. I like the emotive yet detatched voice you used throughout the piece. A beautiful homage to the song that inspired it, you writing is eloquent and textured. As a reader I could have used a few more personal observations specific to the characters, perhaps something that made Mary and Daniel’s relationship different or special.


jj1027
15/20
Story inspired by London Bridge is falling down. I personally apologize to anyone from England, and would have it known that this story is just for fun.
The Collapse
By John Juliano

I like the lines ‘stone crashing against stone’, ‘ascertain the situation’ and ‘leaned on his haunches’. I liked the comedy and pomposity of this story. I really pictured Eliza Doolittle (post makeover) talking to a royal guard then popping off for a cuppa. I think a series of these based on similar songs would be really interesting. Just a suggestion.


Jodie LK
15/20
Seperated
Inspired by 'I Will Always Love You' - Dolly Parton
(468 words)

Firstly I am impressed by anyone who knows this song is by Dolly Parton. I think you meant ‘I don’t know how I can tell’, small oversight obviously. I love love loved the line ‘Your face is your father's though...on that I won't dwell.’ At first I thought this was a mother talking to or thinking about her pregnant sixteen year old daughter. If you don’t want that to be ambiguous you may want to spell it out earlier on. I liked the line ‘I've never been one to be sloppy or sentimental.’ I really hope you didn’t mean to write soppy because sloppy is great.


Kat – Judge
Breathe Me-Sia
Judges entry- 441 words

I really liked this; it was an explorative way to use the song. I liked ‘Both of us pretended that we couldn't hear a thing and stared straight ahead at the stars.’ I also liked ‘Sickly yellow streetlight(s) puddled at the corners, illuminating the trash as if it was a work of fine art’.


Apple
16/20
Sheb Wooley - Purple People Eater
Me and Bobette's Strange Afternoon


Love your style, it works so well with the song. The dialogue is brilliant too. I loved the invasion and retreat dance between your main character and Bobette, and the anecdote about the guy in the corn field. Overall I thought this was well balanced and paced. My favourite line is ‘Good, cuz the drunker you get, the more I start to look like James Dean.’



Katastrof
17/20
Just Words (649 words)
Inspired by: Slow Dancing in a Burning Room by John Mayer

This is great; you’re a good judge of what not to say. ‘how much money he still owed’ tells the reader exactly the right amount. I loved the lines ‘His success here would be his last failure’ and ‘He had always been good at destroying things: like careers, bank accounts, and the hearts of those he cared about’ though I would consider changing the latter to ‘He had always been good at destroying things; careers, bank accounts, the hearts of those he loved’.

Congrats Katastrof. Was it worth the wait? Ahem...the long wait?
I must say I kinda lost enthusiasm due to the delay. But I understand Australia was losing The Ashes and getting flooded, so it's understandable, I suppose.

btw Kat, you do realise that, in judging, you are allowed to spend more than just your coffee break in responding, don't you? Judging doesn't have a word-limit like the competition, you know. Perhaps you just got carried away with the spirit of the thing, and so economised with your words and thoughts.

So perhaps that's okay, after all

Kat has had a lot going on at home too, spider8. Next time it takes ages, if anyone wants to put their hands up to judge - I'd love to hear from them, because getting judges is the hardest part, and people commit to it without knowing what's going to be happening on their end 2-4 weeks down the track.

It can also take a really long time. I always set aside at least four hours to compile it all.

So let's not be sarcastic, it's pretty great that people are offering up their time to judge at all.


And congratulations to the winners. I really enjoyed reading these entries.

Originally Posted by Like a Fox

It can also take a really long time. I always set aside at least four hours to compile it all.

Then how come it takes several weeks? Okay, sarcasm aside, man to man (so to speak). I've enjoyed entering and judging on these things (and will continue to do so). But can't you see how such a long break between the competition closing and getting the scores devalues our efforts, and detracts from our enthusiasm? It's not just me, I'm sure. (actually, perhaps it is).

As I said in the coffee shop: people are getting too interested in the new challenge before the current one has died. In fact that's not accurate. People were getting interested in the new challenge to the extent that the new challenge is practically old news now, and it's not even started yet because of the delay in the scores for Song Into Story.

I want you to know that I appreciate your efforts. But I think something is letting you down. If one peruses the Workshop, it shouldn't be too hard to find judges quicker off the mark. But, as I've said before, ask don't wait.

No, I do get it. Before I was a moderator I used to hate how long it took between entering and getting scores.

Anyway, I do mine pretty early on, it's just waiting to receive the judging from the others. And people have real lives going on away from the computer, finding four hours to read and comment and be in the right frame to do so can be difficult if you have a demanding job, or kids, or uni work, or a sick parent, or you're moving countries, or house, or flying interstate.

So let's stop complaining about this, it is how it is. I endeavour every round to have scores up within a week, it just doesn't always pan out like that.
I hope the next round will turn around quicker.

As I said in the coffee shop, although I'm out of kilter with the other judges, I'm available when you're desperate (isn't that nice for a woman to hear from a man!.)
And you'll get a quick response.

Originally Posted by spider8

I'm available when you're desperate (isn't that nice for a woman to hear from a man!.)

I hear that more often than I care to admit. Hahaha.

And thanks, next time I'm stuck you're my first call.

Congratulations to the winners!

Hi Writey People, I'd be happy to judge again; i squander many a four hour time block on less interesting endeavours. Hope some of my comments were helpful. Xx.

Well done Katastrof, I liked this one too.

I must admit though, I also lost interest a bit...................... I submitted my story about two weeks before close so with the delay in getting the scores it's been about 5 weeks to get the critique and well, I am not in the mood now to rework it.

Yes I am also willing to judge if you need judges.

Thanks for the positive criticisms though, they are very helpful. Anna Button and PPSage, you are both spot on with your critique. If I had spent more time on the thing I would have removed the first paragraph altogether, it did not merit the limited word count and I could have used the valuable words elsewhere in developing the story a little further. When I re-read it about a week after submission, I thought the opening para did not sit well with the tone of the rest of it.

Personally my favourites were:
1) Spider8, which I thought was an incredibly powerful little piece. It is rare to see such a transparent demonstration of the emotional thought processes of a man; and

2) K3ng’s which epitomised the song perfectly. I thought this piece was written smoothly, with lovely flowing prose, like rain dropping musically! I loved it.

Really don't have much to say, except that it was fun getting back into the LM scene. Congrats to the other winners, and thanks to everybody who wrote; all excellent pieces.