Silver’s Scores
Author's Note:
Thank you so much to all the judges who helped out with such a large LM, and thank you to all who participated.
Krim: One-Sided Discussions with Lucifer
This one made me chuckle at the end, but I would have like to have been given a stronger impression of the narrator being annoyed or at least daydreaming earlier. I think that would have given it a touch of more humor. I think you focused a lot on fancier language and description when you could have punched up the dialogue and more of the actions of the characters as they’re walking along. With this piece, I think you could have done a lot of expanding, given the number of words you didn’t use. There were minor mistakes, but nothing a thorough proofread wouldn’t take care of and nothing that put me off completely from reading the piece.
Score: 14
Rboy27: The Tortuous Plane Of Torture (And The Tortured Souls Who Live There)
This one had me smiling almost right from the beginning. What I call the “yada, yada, yada” tone has been done many times, but you make it work for you. I especially like the line “unbecoming for a deity of His standard.” The ending also made me chuckle, though by the tone I saw something like that coming. Overall, I don’t have much to say other than good job.
Score: 16
Savia: Instrumental Conditioning Or, Different Solutions to the Same Problem
Humor is a hard thing to write well, and I can understand a lack of wanting to do so, but it’s still one of the criteria for this LM, so I had to take points off for that. Even as a serious piece, this doesn’t really do it for me. The repetition along with the general tone gave me the impression of someone reading aloud with no natural highs and lows of natural human speech. The piece is interesting, but it could use some work for it to hook in the reader.
Score: 7
cacafire :Hell: (610 words)
Hate to say it, but before I even read your piece, I will deduct from your score because you went over the word limit. Way over the limit. However, since I didn’t state it as a disqualifying factor, you’re still in. J I’m not quite sure where to begin. There are quite a few mistakes in both grammar and spelling that it makes me wonder if the proofreading process came into play. Otherwise, the piece is confusing, at least to me, so I couldn’t let go enough as an editor to find any humor in it.
Score: 5
kagechaos: My Hell
I actually spent a good amount of time debating the possible meanings for this with another judge, which didn’t bode well for your score. Admittedly, it took me a couple of reads to understand what was going on because it took me that long to realize the sign was behind you, so you were coming from hell instead of stepping into it. I understand the humor in that, but I had spent so much time trying to understand (as well as the time spent discussing the possible meanings of the piece with the other judge) that it took away from any humor or enjoyment. An expanded piece could have helped, I think.
Score: 9
Wyndstar: Getting it Done
You had me smiling all through it and I even chuckled at the end. Your voice was clear throughout, and I could have almost sighed when I read that your Sunday was over. I’m not a mother, but I can identify with parts of this being a significant other – especially with the tone in “Poor baby.” Good stuff. The one thing at the end is I’m pretty sure what the last line would sound like coming out of his mouth, but it could be interpreted a couple ways. I know it would be pushing it with the word count, but giving a clue like a body language gesture – raised eyebrow, frown – would have done it better for me, even though ending with a single line of dialogue is definitely a punch.
Score: 18
Glfralin: Satan What Are You Doing Now?
I’m afraid this one didn’t do it for me at all for humor and not really in general either. The paragraph structuring definitely needs work. A dialogue alternating between people should have paragraph breaks each time a different person speaks. Not doing so makes it harder to read. That could also be why you missed the quotation marks at the beginning of one of Satan’s replies. I think with some work and expansion you could turn this into quite a nice piece, but as it stands, it evokes little emotion in me.
Score: 9
Quillpen: The maze of annoyance
I copy the submissions into Word when I judge so I can double check on word counts, and I have to say this entry stood out for the red on the screen before everything else. At a glance, it looks like you forgot to put in a space after every punctuation mark. There are also extra commas in there that you don’t need at all. This also wasn’t on the mark for humor. However, barring one possibly confusing reference (Pillsbury doughboy) you paint a strong scene of hell. As I said, it strays away from the humor criteria and has quite a few spacing errors, but I’d encourage you to work on this and expand it.
Score: 7
JK Wannabe: Am I dead?
This has high school written all over it. Admittedly, that’s just the way it goes in high school, but… The fragments and the quick pace of the piece are jarring to me, and I found it hard to slow myself down enough to pay enough attention to do some accurate judging. I like that you’re doing thoughts from the mind of the narrator, but I would have liked more from the outside of his head. Even some more description. As it is, I feel like I’m in the narrators head, but I’m blind and mute, subject completely to the narrator’s rapid stream of consciousness. I think you could do some work on this so I feel less blind and less like I’m on a rollercoaster.
Score: 10
murdershewrote2005: A letter Home
Paragraphs are definitely needed. This piece is good enough to keep me reading, but better readability would have helped my overall mood as your reader. There are a couple errors that I noticed on the technical side, but nothing major. I like the originality in putting this in the form of a letter. That sort of relaxed me on a certain level. There are funny parts in this definitely; many made me smile. I like the voice in this definitely. She sounds like one of those people who would complain even if she did end up in heaven. I did expect hell to be a bit more… hellish versus just hanging out in paradise with a lack of sex.
Score: 14
Fantasy of You: Creative Writing 101 666
With the exception of a couple spelling mistakes, the piece looks good overall for the technical aspects. I loved the part about the collars and what if they sneeze. I had to laugh because I knew a lot of people back in high school who fancied that fashion statement. However inappropriate it might be, your frequent use of lesbian breast made me laugh because I can easily imagine the narrator sitting in the back of class, grumbling about lesbian breasts. I like this piece all over. You can’t help but laugh at the people who take their lives way too seriously. Hell, indeed. Well done.
Score: 18
k3ng: ~
As for the technical side of things, this piece looks good. In the effect category, I didn’t really get into it all that much. True, it is something pretty much any student can identify with, but it seems rather bland, in my opinion. I think some expansion and some playing with other elements could make this more humorous and more hellish. Right now, upon reading it, I’m left feeling just…bland.
Score: 11
Aeris: Empty
The first thing that struck me after I finished reading was that you said there was no way of tracking time, followed shortly after by asking if it could have been days. Also, there is no humor present. There were mistakes here and there on the technical side of things (punctuation and grammar) but nothing that detached me completely from the story. I like how you start to work in a panic feeling at the end, but I feel that could have been shown more than told. What do you do when you start to panic? How does your body react? I would have liked to see the panic in action rather than just thought. Also, I think you could have played up the isolation part to put in humor. What kind of odd things do people do when they’re alone?
Score: 9
mike z.: Hell after a fashion
This was clever and funny in a fashion. It’s not my usual, but it did make me smirk here and there. I admit I got lost a couple of times and had to go back and pay closer attention to what was going on. All said and done, it’s an interesting take on the theme.
Score: 14
Swift84: I am blind
I didn’t like this line - “I could feel and smell his imagination…” – because I think you don’t need to tell that your senses have been heightened. I would think most people know the blind have heightened other senses. If your reader doesn’t, it’s still not absolutely essential for him or her to know, so again you don’t have to tell. I didn’t find this humorous at all, and I think you could have portrayed just as much, if not more, anger at the end by using something other than cursing. I can definitely see how that is a hell, but I feel a bit bad for the narrator and nothing else.
Score: 7
eggo: Bus Stop at Purgatory
I love the first line because it reminds me of one of my favorite movies. (Can I think of the name of it? Of course not. But I love the movie.) How the narrator died made me laugh out loud. (You can ask Journyman.) I remember hearing that was a deadly combination over and over when I was a kid. I went on to laugh quite a few times when I was reading. This was very well written, and I loved every bit of it.
Score: 19.5
Itsaboysname: Seven Minutes In
The punctuation associated with the dialogue along with capitalization as well is incorrect. There are periods where there should be commas, and there is capitalization where there should be lowercase. I found this somewhat amusing in the narrator’s obvious discomfort. Also in that where they are could possibly be hell in itself. The technical aspects need work, and the humor could use work and polishing. I’d like to see this expanded.
Score: 12
Magitek Angel: Hell/noHell
I like the conversational tone of this. Even if I don’t find it particularly funny, I am interested and feel drawn into what you’re saying. The narrator’s voice is consistent enough to keep me reading and enjoying it as well. This would do nicely as a piece out on its own, even if it doesn’t quite fit into what I was aiming for with this LM. I can see how the body fits the title, but given that I was going for an actual hell, that kind of takes away from things. Is immortality hell?
Score: 10
Off Topic:
IMPORTANT NOTE: Part of exercising your skill in the LM is to achieve being at or under the imposed word count. That is part of the difficulty and an element that adds to the competition environment. All further LMs conducted by yours truly will now have a disqualification feature for those who go over their word count. The word count WILL NOT include the title, only the body of the piece.
Off Topic:
Given the oddities of word programs’ word counting, I can understand one or even five words over, but I feel more than that isn’t just giving some room for oddities. I'd say going ten words over the word count is grounds for being disqualified. As I said, I know people who work quite hard to get to that exact 500 mark.
I have a thought that people might think slamming down on rules this way might make LM a bit less fun or enjoyable, but I do know people who grind away at their submissions to make it under the mark. To have someone come along who is over and only get a few points knocked off (if that) can be a bit disheartening. I only enforce this rule because I feel it’s necessary and will to the LM some good. Thank you.
P.S. Feel free to PM me if you disagree.
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