Now, this may be a bit like the short story contest, except it's not really a contest, so no pressure there. Of course, I suppose that lowers the amount of people who will want to join...
Whatever the case, this will be just like writing short little, oo, exercises, I suppose. No set word length, one or two paragraphs will do, but if you can make it long, great!
If you write a segment, I or someone else may critique your work, if you so want, but if you don't want to be critiqued, just say the word.
All of the rules of the Art, Music, Writing section apply; that means NO sex, NO excessive cursing, and NO excessively disturbing scenes.
There will be a theme every so often, so try to keep the piece pertaining to that theme.
This time, the theme is: Write a death scene. You know the type, an important or beloved character is on his deathbed, or laying on the ground mortally wounded, and another main character is talking to him, or the dying character is fighting with himself to stay alive, that sort of stuff.
Knowing the amount of writers we have on AG, I don't see this being too active, but you know.
1. Please don't double post. 2. Your story was very short. Could you please delve deeper into how the man has the power to kill someone? 3. People probably wouldn't judge your stories if you didn't judge theirs. But judging from your writing skills, your comments probably wouldn't make much of a difference in my mind.
Besides that, if you want it to be a contest, at least put in the effort to make your story, I don't know, good. Ernie's story was better than yours. Not that Ernie's was bad.
I will judge anybody's story IF THEY WANT IT TO BE judged. Again, If somebody wants to do their OWN contest, cool, good, go right ahead, but it warrants no prize except the satisfaction of owning everybody else at writing.
So far, good pieces from everyone that has taken the time to make a good story.
And since it seems Whimsyboy is the first person who wants to be critiqued (heh), then...
@whimsyboy: Very good. I like how it seems like it came right out of some kind book about agents or spies. I don't really have any gripes about it.
Around him he saw and felt the warm, crimson liquid pool around him.
You see what you did there? Yeah. Happens to all of us. Proofread more.
He looked to his side, feeling horrible, unimaginable pain as the javelin stuck out.
I dislike cop-out descriptive text. Don't describe something as indescribable (or unknowable, or whatever). Makes you look like HP Lovecraft. Oh, and the soldiers shouldn't have pulled the javelin out. Leads to more blood loss.
On less tangible notes, your tenses seemed a little akward.
Also, I'm not sure how to describe this, but: Your simultaneous action is weird. When you have two or more things happening at once, your diction and syntax doesn't quite show it right. I notice this because I have a lot of trouble with this myself.
I did like the weather twist at the end. To me, it added an emotional connection that I think we can all understand. The ending was a little forced, but all in all, good work.
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I may write my own one of these. I have an idea, but I might not get around to writing it. In the meantime, I guess I'm a willing enough critic, so does anybody else want criticism?
Also, if you would, my little poem/song/thing would like to be critiqued.
Sure:
And as the hangman's noose slips o'er their necks,
I'd lose the "and". It adds an extra syllable that sounds wrong to me. Also, this would make it parallel with this line:
As the lever is pulled sending men to their doom,
Speaking of that line, I think it's the biggest problem The diction, beats, and rhyme scheme seem out of place.
I also think rhyming pride and cry is a bit of a stretch If that's what you were doing. If not, rhyme more.
All in all, I dug this one. I liked the sort of folk song take on the death scene idea, and the meter and rhyme scheme was mostly good. It sounded nice to read aloud, which I consider very important to poetry. That one line (mentioned above) is hurting you most, in terms of reading aloud.
