~Hakurei Shrine~ > Patchouli's Scarlet Library
Weekly Writing Challenge Thread 2 - The Morning After (Deadline December 31st)
Sect:
Time for judgment:
Schwer-Muta: You have solid writing skills, but your narrative seemed to be unintentionally confusing and incomplete. Your story was unique among the three entries in that it wasn't about a party, but it didn't really seem to have a focus as to what exactly the aftermath of the destruction of Parsee's bridge was. The story also just kind of stops as opposed to ending. I would like to see a rewrite and continuation of this: the connection between Parsee and the bridge has been commented on a lot, but few have explored the ramifications of the bridge being destroyed and how Parsee would be affected.
Hungrybookworm: You also have solid skills in writing, and your story is complete and self-contained. The major faults in your story are that it relies on exposition from characters to complete the story (show, don't tell), and the fact that you included "sexual content and drug references" half-heartedly. The first is kind of a lazy way to complete a story, especially when the beginning of the story was interesting and amusing with how Reimu was trying to piece together what had happened. As for the drug and sexual references, if you're going to feature drugs and sex factor in a story, either swing for the fences or change the idea: shock factor doesn't work as well when there's barely any juice in the shock.
Also, "tweeking" doesn't mean what you think it means, if Google serves me right. Your description of the act does clarify what you thought it meant, but you still need to be correct in word usage, even if it's slang and especially if the punch line involves Marisa tripping out on drugs.
By process of elimination, that means that this month's winner is:
Himiko: Of the three stories yours was the most solid. The imagery of Konngara being the sole point of calm among the storm of heavily sick and hung-over party goers and an ongoing, mostly unseen mini-incident is highly amusing. However, that doesn't mean your story was a shoo-in for the winner: your ending stumbled very hard with the lackluster conclusion and the sudden vulgarity, which was out of character with Konngara and your own writing style. If lead up to properly or placed carefully in the scene, sudden out-of-characterness can be very effective, but it wasn't properly utilized in this case.
Congratulations to all contestants this time around: despite the criticism, all three of you have written stories that were enjoyable, and I hope to see more from all three of you in the future. There are currently no plans to conduct another WWC at this time, so thank you for your entries!
SchwerMuta:
The idea was that even though the bridge is gone, she has no idea what to do with her new-found freedom and still feels just as stuck. Once I settled on that reaction, I eventually realized that I couldn't fix that problem in the length of story that I planned to write. So I just stopped at the end of the night. I felt if I continued after that I would be committing to at least doubling the length of what I had, and at that point it'd balloon to a point where I couldn't post it in this thread. So it came out kind of half-assed, really.
Honestly I should have scrapped it, but I scrap everything. I wanted to post something.
hungrybookworm:
Congrats to Himiko for winning! And thank you Inubasectri for writing such a long critique of my silly booze up story (seriously I love concrit). Might as well address a few of the things you brought up.
Firstly, don't worry, I do know what twerking actually is and how it's spelt. I just figured it'd be funny if Aya said it wrong, what with it being this wacky thing from the outside world and Aya's journalism not always being spot on. I assumed her follow up comment where she says 'chicken fillers' instead of 'chicken fillets' would make it obvious it was her making the mistake but I guess I should've maybe made it more obvious or just cut the joke (or chosen something less obscure than slang for bra pads...)
Secondly about the sex and drugs references... I'm sorry if I upset anyone by including them. I wasn't aiming to shock anyone or anything. This is going to sound quite strange, but we have a really, really, really bad binge drinking culture where I'm from, so people throwing up everywhere, mixing drugs and doing strangers in other people's beds is actually not all that unusual, to the point where most people expect it (from other people) when going to a house party or a night out (though ofc the clubs will kick you out if you're caught doing any of that, as some of my friends learnt the hard way). Rereading my fic from an outsider's perspecive, I can see why those elements might seem like I was going for shock value rather than just a 'oh man, the things we get up to when we get drunk...' slapstick story, and why they might seem halfhearted when they're presented the way I wrote them. I think I definitely learnt something from this. (Also the best advice my mother ever gave me was 'if you're drinking and you start going blind, it's time to start throwing up'. It's never failed me yet.)
I'm a little worried about the 'shock factor' thing actually. There's more stuff written on my hard drive with sex, drugs, some adult themes... though they have a more serious tone and I age everyone up (well, the humans) if things get a bit extreme. I guess I'm worried people will think I'm just trying to shock rather than do a darker, more adult touhou story. If I work on my storytelling technique a bit more I might avoid that naturally, but I wonder if the story being a comedy didn't help it? Should I mark them as NSFW in the future just to be safe too?
(Oh right, my first draft of this had Reimu waking up with a hangover at the Moriya shrine wearing Sanae's clothes. She'd then follow a trail of her own clothes over to the Hakurei shrine, and discover Sanae... wearing Marisa's clothes. Then Marisa would show up totally naked riding on Kasen's Tiger. Yeah, I dunno what I was thinking either.)
Tamashii Kanjou:
You thought it was a silly bump for no reason...
BUT IT WAS ME, KANJOU!
Here I am, invading parts of MotK I normally wouldn't. And why, you ask? Because I aim to kick a gear or two into the minds of those who have been writing... or taking breaks... or just lurking. You get the idea : I am to get a special writing session up and running! (And also so WWC doesn't sit here gathering cobwebs for a whole year.)
So what really brings me here? Well... today is the day of silly songs, and old consoles. A day of frozen frogs, and black holes. A day of, oh I think you get it by now~
In the blue corner, we have the impressive non-human; whose mind is phenomenal, and her very ability can crush puny humans into a pile of tears and despair...
And in the lighter blue corner, we have Cirno~ :3
For those who may remember, 3 years ago, I started a thread celebrating Cirno Day (09/09) as was the norm. A certain someone decided to shove the Dreamcast into the thread; and Yuyuko entered the fray. The next year (that's 2012), I ran a thing where Cirno & Yuyuko had a bit of a 'fight.' Now the issue here was not just the fact they didn't get along... but also because it was limited to those in the Idiot Hierarchy.
Now, present day, 2 years after all that, it's time to step things up a bit. It's time to lend a hand...
CIRNO + YUYUKO-TOO COOL FOR SCHOOL-
The aim here is simple. Create a story featuring Cirno AND Yuyuko. Sounds easy enough? Not quite. The goal is to have them working together in one way or another. The partnership can be short-lived, or could go through the entire story. It could be Yuyuko pushing the fairy's buttons, or could be Cirno 'forcing' Yuyuko to do something. Want a third party to get the two doing something or tell them off? Go for it. But whatever happens, they must attempt to do something together at some point.
But wait! I have another rule. You are allowed to dip into alternate settings (as in, genres outside of the official Touhou-verse); but the characters must keep their defining personalities, etc. You know, just in case you want to do something outside of Gensokyo. Speaking of which, current Touhou Fanon settings (and characters, for that matter) can be used in this if your name is, for example, Sango (hehe); but do remember that it does need to focus on Cirno & Yuyuko just as much~
In short : Cirno & Yuyuko find themselves working together for whatever reason. But what will it be about it? And will this 'friendship' even last the story? {Minimum word count : 1,000. No real maximum limit; just please keep it limited to a single post.}
This contest will run till the 16th of September! If enough people enter, maybe it can spark a bit of a thing again. Enter if you can; and remember : have fun~ XD
And Happy ⑨ Day, you silly ghosts~
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