# Literary Maneuvers Oct 2018: "Cloud Riders" - scores (1 Viewer)



## bdcharles (Oct 30, 2018)

Alright, alright. Settle down. They're here. Quiet at the back.

Let me quickly thank my predecessor in this comp, Sir Mr. Lord Kilroy the 214th, for coming out of retirement and assisting me in the judging of these stories. Let me also thank yourselves, the competition entrants, for donating your time, your words and your effort, to make this contest what it is. Month on month I'm very honoured to have the chance to curate your stories, and every time I stamp out the words "Literary Maneuvers" on my old typewriter, I am very proud. I just hope I do your work justice.

Straight to it, then. Scores are (hopefully) embedded in the hidden tags for clarity:

[spoiler2=kilroy214's scores]
Even in Dreams
Sue C.

SPaG: 5
Tone: 3
Effect: 5
Total: 13

In my own opinion, I think you have an incredible eye for pacing, this story chugs along at a nice clip and dwells on the things and should and doesn’t on the things it should not.

Spelling and Grammar look superb, no faults that I can see there. There are a few uses of the word ‘had’ that I think could be cut. There are also a few instances that I felt the story slip into passive voice. “Putting the brakes on then, I finally managed to bring the vehicle to a halt.” Would carry a lot more authority in active voice with “I put on the brakes and brought the car to a halt.”

I’m not a 100% sure, but there were also a few instances that I felt a tense shift occur, “…drinking too much, driving when I shouldn’t have.” I think should use ‘drank’ and ‘drove’. Again, I’m not sure about tense usage in this spot, but to me, as it is written, it read a little awkward to me.

No offense to the writer, but this story did not do much for me. I have judged many LM’s and the guilt-ridden drunk driver has been a reoccurring trope, and while this story is well written, it did not do quite enough to set itself apart from the others.


The Rider
Velo

SPaG: 3
Tone: 3
Effect: 4
Total: 10

This story did a good job at drawing me in. And I have to give it to the storyteller that a decent job of setting was told without burning away too much of the word count.

However, phrases like “argent potency” and “insouciant aplomb” make me think someone got a little carried away with a thesaurus.
Many of the passages feel passive, I didn’t quite understand why ‘the scav’ wasn’t capitalized while ‘The Rider’ (which wasn’t consistent, either) and ‘The Elites’ were. I also couldn’t help but imagine that use of the word like ‘Kennit’ paired with the image of a revolver toting gunman, pursuing someone felt a little more than homage to me.


Rocky Mountain High
Euripides

SPaG: 5
Tone: 4
Effect: 5
Total: 14

I have to say I was disappointed that this story ended with nothing but a joke. It still made me laugh, though. The first couple paragraphs feel a little info-dumpy and I think a lot of the ‘fog’ talk shows a little too much of your hand, but I think this story has decent potential. All it needs is a little polishing and without the restrictive word count, this could make for a entertaining short story.


Skyward – Candervalle

SPaG: 5
Tone: 4
Effect: 6
Total: 15

I like this take on the prompt, very fresh and not really what I was expecting. With such a small amount of word usage, you paint a vivid picture, fleshing out setting and character quite well. I have to say, though, that there were a lot of parts that were kind of confusing, mostly with dialogue, as lines lack dialogue tags but then show another character’s reaction to that speech, I was left wondering who was actually doing the talking throughout most of this story. An easy fix, now, without the word count limitation. Cleaned up a little, this is a fun little jaunt in the world of looney. I like it!


I Slapped William Faulkner and I Like It
Ibb

SPaG: 4
Tone: 5
Effect: 6
Total: 15

Very strong narrative voice throughout. This is the best feature of this story, and good one for a writer to have. The humor was spot on, and character had a vibrant life to him.
That being said, I think there were a few times the narrative got a little carried away with itself. The second paragraph only consists of two sentences. The second one is great. Perfect in fact, it keeps the story going while keeping the reader entranced. The first sentence of that paragraph is 67 words long, all of it unnecessary. This tale is so insane and over the top an explanation on what kind of time travel we’re looking at her can only hinder this story. Don’t try to bring reason or logic into this tale, this story defies reason and logic, and I love it for that.

There was also a very long sentence in the first paragraph, the last sentence, clocking in around 61 words, and it was missing a word. I also think that ‘Crickets’ of Jimminy Crickets is capitalized. I felt it was also a very liberal take on the prompt, but I can appreciate your effort.


Boys to Men
Teb

SPaG: 3
Tone: 3
Effect: 3
Total: 9

To me, a story is not a story without a beginning, a middle and an end. This did not feel like a story to me. I didn’t really feel anything for the characters, the two pilots called to scramble their fighters. I’m guessing their the two boys at the beginning of the story, the part that is written in italics (for some reason), but it would be very easy for to confuse this scene to not be a flashback and be jarring to suddenly see the story go from the two boys to two men on the airfield, much like it’s jarring towards the end to see the POV go from the two pilots to the POV of the crew chief’s.

The second to last paragraph, the one that starts, “As one both figures…” that line is so confusing I still don’t know what it was originally supposed to say. Most of the story reads in passive voice and suffers from poor syntax. The line in the second to last paragraph that starts, “Seconds later both engines…” have so much going on in them, engines ‘give a hacking cough’ and ‘smoke burst from exhaust’ and ‘blades became a blur’ and engines roared with power’. That many things going on in one line overwhelms a reader and causes confusion. At its heart, I think that is what the problem here is. This feels like a story that should be 1000 to 2000 words long that had to be trimmed down to 650.


CloudRider
Anonymous

SPaG: 4
Tone:2
Effect: 0
Total: 6

There are really some major issues going on in this story. Some on a technical level and some that go much deeper.

First, on a technical level, this was a very confusing piece to read once it got to the introduction of the other characters. There is an instance where 4 female characters are in the scene and the word 'she' is attributed to dialogue, as if we the reader are just supposed to somehow know which 'she' us talking.

Two goblins surprise the girl. We're never told they're in costume, so the reader has the jarring experience of figuring out what genre this is, only to have it flipped back when the boy arrives. Jarring as much to the reader as it is to the main character, which is strange.

A very weak attempt to tie in the prompt. If you're going to put in such a minuscule effort I don't know why you would bother at all.

On the deeper level, to tell us about this girl's malady only to then tell us the only thing she only way she really suffers is from being ugly is so superficial it's offensive. This unknown disease that won't go away is only detrimental to her because she looks hideous to others?

And she has no qualms about letting the boy touch her? She's not contagious? Does she not care she could infect him?

All that aside, the story ends with her propositioning the boy for sex under the guise that she's wearing makeup. This is seduction under false pretenses, also known as rape by deception. The main character is going to rape someone. I don't believe is what the author's thought it was, but there's no other way to cut it, and it was the last nail in the coffin for this story. 


[/spoiler2]


[spoiler2=bdcharles said]
"Even in My Dream..."
SueC

SpaG 5/5
TV 3.5/5
Effect 8.5/10
Total 17/20

Again, your style is so readable, so ... it doesn't even seem like writing, it just kind of happens. I think you really do excellent "charater in action", where we learn about characters by what they do, which is exactly how we learn about real people, ergo these characters must be real, this logic is flawless, n'est-ce-pas? This line "I tried opening the car door and putting my foot out on the pavement to stop the momentum." was great. Who can't relate to that? You practically triggered a sleep twitch.

I would just pay attention to the voice; you have a slight tendency to overwrite which can occlude the voice, particulary if you are in first person POV and using phrases like "not at all aware of my responsibility". We are the person here - but who thinks that wordily? Same with "but I was captivated by what I was seeing." - just "I was captivated" will do, because we are already seeing what you are seeing; we are right there. Trim that excess and see what happens to the personality in the story.

Some fantastically immediate writing. "So much blood, it was hard to imagine a head that full of it." - brrruh! You really capture the disbelief, the terror, the please-let-this-be-a-dream of the incident. It's quite uncomfortable actually.

The prompt was a little-tacked on. Conceptually it works, but stylistically why not motif it up a little? Make "clouds" a "thing" for example. Yes, she "looks" at the clouds immediately following the impact, but elsewhere, there's not much else to tie it in. Something near the opening line, foreshadowing disguised as whimsy, could work: "She was coming across the Commons, walking as if she were in love, practically skipping along beneath the clouds from which she must have descended. That’s what I thought as I watched her from my moving car; there’s a girl in love." Maybe "her CLEAR-AS-SKY eyes looked past me toward the night clouds. Just gives it that extra meaningfulness imo. There are undoubtedly better ways. But great, all in all. Thanks for the read.


"The Rider"
velo

SpaG 4.5/5
TV 3/5
Effect 6.5/10
Total 14/20

Good, atmospheric opening to this piece. I really got a lot cinematically and visually out of it. The scav's voice is great, like some Oliver Twist-ian, ill-educated little I-dint-mean-nuffink-by-it-sir oik. And the Rider himself - I can feel that basso rumble deep in my own chest. When he whizzed up to that lad - great!

I love this little tidbit, "pulsed with argent potency." I have to confess I don't actually know what "argent" means but that's not going to stop me using it VERY SOON in conversation. "Sling me a beer, barkeep; I'm thrumming with argent potency."

That said I would advise you to watch for shopworn phrases; "sure purchase", "scrambling desperately", "roughly tied", "the boy glared at the pursuer with straightened back and squared shoulders." Just try and rethink these. Make a habit of cliche-watching in the same way you might make a habit of watching for bikes when pulling out of a side-road. The phrase "insouciant aplomb" kind of falls between these two extremes; I like to think I exhibit it but I am not sure I'm able to do much with it as an expression.

Watch those overwrites that get in the way of experiencing your text: "calmly spinning the cylinder to put the proper chamber in position." could be "calmly spinning the cylinder into position." Gauge how familiar your readers will be with what you're writing. Trust us - we've been around!

There is a little saminess in the sentence structure, particularly around the start of paragraphs: "Pre-condition firmly in place, the sentence locked home, delivering its meaning." "X-ing to the Y, Z, a placeholder, took place."

My main issue was that there was not too much by way of emotional payoff. What really "happened?" No real issues with the writing - couple of tiny grammar spots but very minor, like not keeping a single speaker's lines in the same paragraph, which can lead to confusion. There are some knockout phrases in here: "a casual grace born of long centuries in the wild.", "etched with intricate filigree outlining ancient runes", and in the main this was a cracking read, with quality world-building. I can see that mist and that rider still. 


"Rocky Mountain High"
Euripides

SpaG 5/5
TV 3/5
Effect 7/10
Total 15/20

This had me intrigued from the start. I wanted to know what the guys had seen up there. The writing was decent enough, with no noticeable errors. I like the way you used power of three as a device. 

I particulary liked "he climbed the clock tower clad in nothing but school-spirit body paint for Homecoming" - great image and words!

The voice is a bit flat though. No new or different perspective. Watch for filler words like "just". Got a few of these, and they don't add much. I get that they make the voice but the voice is fairly generic and these words may well be the reason why.

I did also find the end was not fully there. It seemed as if the last line had been tacked on perhaps because nothing more dramatic presented itself. Conceptually, as an idea, it's fine but then why not seed the idea of the bear up there earlier. Make it a motif, a thing. Let the whole bear culture inform the piece, something. At the very least it may kick off some new ideas. 

But in general not bad. I could see all the scenes and the characters and their doings perfectly clearly.


"Skyward"
Candervalle

SpaG 3/5
TV 3/5
Effect 4/10
Total 10/20

Right out of the gate, you've got me. Why? Airships! Sky pirates! Can I expect some cloud-kraken? Any drama that involves that third up-and-down dimension is up/down my alley. And you've got a well-populated world. I like the name Turk. Proper swashbuckler. Some quality word choices: I'm thinking primarily of "Ms. Dermont erupted from the recliner". "erupted"  That's opening-line material, that is.

Challenges for me were that, firstly, you have a lot of names. A couple of them - Bernie and Borne - were so similar that coupled with the amount of them, I thought it was either a typo or confusion layered onto an already stuffed cast heading in an unclear direction.

Next a lot of the writing is filler-heavy. This: "... but soon went back to whatever it was that they did. They weren’t technically part of the crew so Turk paid them no mind." - is the sort of thing I mean. Try picking just one. Also "...slurped her coffee loud enough to drown out his voice." That would have to be pretty loud. If you are playing for comedy or if Turk is a figment of Ms. D's imagination then okay. As it is it seems slightly random for the sake of filling space.

The prompt is in evidence in a clever way. You could call these patients "cloud riders" as a term for psychiatric patients. It could work. But in the end it's not super-developed, and ultimately, little happens. Some guys goofing about in hospital but I am not sure what I should get from it. A "dogpile" (whatever that is) appeared out of nowhere and I had no idea what that piercing shriek was.

That said I did like this line: "They sat in silence as the minutes passed and clouds drifted by." You handle the passage of time very well because you pace it right and also you reference the prompt and the central theme which is very neat. These seemingly small touches are your strength here.



"I Slapped William Faulkner and I Liked It"
Ibb

SpaG 4.5/5
TV 5/5
Effect 9.5/10
Total 19/20

Well I love the title! Katy Perry pop culture smashes into American literature heavyweights. And the voice - manic, crazy, intense. I simply cannot fault this, and wish I could write like it. If only I knew what the significance of the letter was. 

The things that did it most for me: the piece opens right at the moment of import. There's no backstory, no shoehorning in a voice, no setting other than "time portal" but that's all we need; it all comes clear as we whizz through. What else? The word choices - "ceasless and globular", the bit about the astronauts - that imagery of their skin peeling conveys just what it must be like. The sentence structure is really varied and contribues totally to the voice and the feel of the writing. There's definitely an emotion here and the prose effortlessly nails it.

So yeah. What a breath of fresh air. I docked you half a SPaG point for repeating "flailed", and half an effect for not elaborating on the mail as I feel that would have rounded out the whole thing, but trust me when I say that even there I was reaching.


"Boys to Men"
Teb

SpaG 3/5
TV 3/5
Effect 6/10
Total 12/20

I feel for the older characters, and how their dreams have failed them. And you have some really gorgeous descriptions of the aircraft leaving the ground. There's something very evocative about that.

Couple of SPaG blobs:
Repetition of "boys" - why not "their constant chatter"
"Your on." -> should be "You're on."
"it’s corner" -> "its corner"; "it's childhood promise" => "its childhood promise"
Watch for "X happened as Y occurred" and "The A's B'd to the C as D happened nearby" structures

Elsewhere there were some nice turns of phrase, eg: "brace of biplanes"

I suppose the biggest issue for me was that I wasn't sure what the story was. Are these old timers part of the air force? Is them being scrambled allegory for something? You could cut down on alot of the extraneous chatter (as it were) and reinforce what it was you wanted to say.

For example:

"They levered themselves from their deckchairs and folded them before leaning them against the tail wheels of their Hurricanes then began to stroll towards the small cabin that served as their ready room."

Could free up 5 words as

"They levered themselves from their deckchairs, folded them, leaning them against the tail wheels of their Hurricanes then strolled towards the small cabin that was their ready room."


"CloudRider"
Anonymous

SpaG 4/5
TV 4/5
Effect 7/10
Total 15/20

Right off the bat I feel for the character, particularly in that opening line. Her situation and challenges are made clear, which pulls us right into her story. There's an erotic charge to this, to be sure,  which seems to make up the bulk of the essential "what" of the story. Stylewise, the sentences are quite short and choppy but it almost forms a voice, though I'm not quite sure what. Kind of childlike, like Vonnegut. Given that the protagonists are teens, I guess that works, in a roundabout way. I really liked the almost magic-realism feel to this, with the sense of accepted strangeness. What is this fungus? We don't know. It's just a fungus.

I would cut the few extra words:

She was 17 years old and a fungus was growing in and on her face 
-> could easily be ->
She was 17 years old and a fungus was growing on her face
simply because faces are 

And maybe smooth this over a bit:

Because of the fungus, she needed mist in the air. So misting machines ran continuously in every room. She could go outside only in a thick fog; her internet nickname was CloudRider.
-> to something like ->
Because of the fungus, she needed mist in the air, so misting machines ran continuously in every room, and because she could go outside only in thick fog, her internet nickname was CloudRider.

Pretty novel take on the prompt. There's really no limit to what one can do with the prompt, as long as it is integral to the plot in some way.

No big SPaG issues here although the style was not overly demanding. I enjoyed the message of this piece, namely how to deal with the outsider, from the outsider's point of view. It's much needed. The only other thing that got me was that the second half was mostly dialogue. The story, literally, changed shape for me, which wouldn't be so bad had I not noticed. Maybe consider adding more dialogue tagging, body language etc into the second part. Oh, and well done for landing this right around Halloween 

[/spoiler2]

Meaning (in submission order):


kilroy214bdcharles*Total*"Even in My Dream..." - SueC1317*15
*"The Rider" - velo1014*12
*"Rocky Mountain High" - Euripides1415*14.5
*"Skyward" - Candervalle1510*12.5
*"I Slapped William Faulkner and I Liked It" - Ibb1519*17
*"Boys to Men" - Teb912*10.5
*"CloudRider" - Anonymous615*10.5
*


Aaaaaaand...

...it's




*Ibb*
_with_
_"I Slapped William Faulkner and I Liked It"_​
Followed by:

_"Even in My Dream..."_  by *SueC*​
And:

_"Rocky Mountain High"_ by *Euripides*​


Champagne for everyone! :champers: 

Remember: don't be put off by a sharp crit or a score you feel you didn't deserve. Just keep these stories precious to you and keep writing them. Everything's subjective and we all have our tastes. November comp to go up Thursday the 1st but, till then, it's over and out  Thank you all again, thank you.

_o/


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## SueC (Oct 30, 2018)

Congratulations, Ibb - good job, and well deserved!


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## Harper J. Cole (Nov 11, 2018)

Congratulations - you deserve to win for the title alone! :coffeescreen:


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## bdcharles (Nov 12, 2018)

Last few days to get your unreliable narrators in


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