Unruly Stories and Other Scoring Adventures

[kailhofer]

Tao,

I fed this into my Babel Fish and it came up with nothing. What are you trying to say? You lost me.

[Lester Curtis]

I fed this into my Babel Fish and it came up with nothing. What are you trying to say? You lost me.

Any time I've fed the babelfish, all it did was puke. Still, I sympathize. Like, what the flaming fuck is a fifth-glyph, anyway?

Tao -- all I've got to say is, good luck with that.

[Lester Curtis]

But writing to fill the scorecard doesn't sound like the best way to write anything.

I couldn't agree more.

Tao's story delighted and enthralled me at the beginning -- sadly, it seemed to gradually lose the mythic power it started out with, and I think some of its weakness, especially toward the end, was from its attempt to have a dialog (of sorts) between the non-character alien narrator(s) and the newcomers (presumably us). So, less dialog would have given it more strength (in my opinion). If it had finished with the same strength it started with, I'd have given it an overall 10.

I'm a solid fan of ancient mythology of all sorts; these stories are the deep roots of our modern literature, but many of them would fail miserably if scored strictly on the metrics we use here. Think about it; most of them are strongly plot-based, with little attention to setting, and paltry dialog. The characters often seem to self-assemble from a few words, mostly concerned with their motivation. Try finding characterization in the Old Testament . . . good luck with that! (But, wouldn't you love to have copyright royalties from that lousy literature?)

The point being, there are cases in which judgment by categories loses a great deal of its relevance. Should we throw out the categories? No, but we should give ourselves the ability to cheer for the things that work, the things that move us, even if they fall short of some of the metrics.

My suggestion? Assign double weight to the Overall score (or maybe triple). No changes to hardware, software, or anything would be needed; just count zero to ten as before, but know that the number is multiplied.

[Lester Curtis]

I identified no 'character' (so ie: no characterization) in your story. I identified no 'dialogue.'

But I gave you a very low score on both. . .a three.

So what's a zero?

Which I'm hoping the four or five folks following this can understand.

I understand it -- I did much the same (though I don't recall what scores I gave).

I'm really loving this discussion, btw.

[kailhofer]

I see a lot more information on the scores than anyone else, obviously. Since I know who exactly voted and what they gave, I have a different perspective on this.

These were your average scores for each voter:

Of the Blood that Froze
6 5 5 3 5 4 5 5 5 7

Superconductor
7 8 5 4 5 6 5 9 6 6

Hielo
7 7 7 2 7 6 8 9 8 7

Sacred Icy Pole on the Hill
5 5 6 2 5 6 6 6 7 7

Dolly
8 4 4 6 6 5 6 8 7 6

Burn Out the Day
6 5 8 2 6 5 7 6 9 8

Phase Transitions
6 6 2 5 6 6 6 8 8 7

And so the Wheel Turns
8 7 2 2 4 6 6 7 6 8

I removed the void where each author was, so that moves some of the scores to the left. You can't line up the scores vertically and say it was any one voter that killed your story's chances.

Now, I posted this to illustrate a point: audience and the voting criteria are everything if you want to win. Bill, your story would have been in pretty close to a dead heat with J.B., except for three voters, or 30% of the voting market. Lose 3 people, and you're out of the running. Heck, lose one and you may not recover.

If 30 people voted, it would be different, but they don't. If you want to win, you have to write for your audience, we writers. We're more critical. We're harder to please. We're not an easy sell. The occasional vote from someone who doesn't enter generally isn't enough to overturn the result.

I mean, if you want to try something experimental in the safety of your brethren, that's another story. We'll tell you what we really think, good or bad, but don't expect to win.

Personally, I've given 2 zeroes since the contest began. Honestly, and I guess it sounds a little small of me, but I used them punitively, against the weakest element when I thought an author was being lazy or deliberately doing their own thing instead of trying to follow the challenge. More or less, the story ticked me off, because I thought the author was better than that, so I picked on the element I thought poorest. It's not really right or fair comment on the story, but when you're in the ballot booth, you have to go with your gut feeling and stick with it.

I felt Tao's story deserved to do better. I was impressed at the verse. However, when I matched it up to the criteria for judging, my score averaged only a 5: 7 3 4 6 1 7. Dialog was a stated criteria for the challenge so it's absence mattered to me, but it had a kind of narrative "voice" so I gave a 1.

Nate

[kailhofer]

I'm diggin' this discussion, too. . .but I think Nate just killed it.

...

Cool Stuff. So what's the next Challenge?

Bill (Say No To Blue Bunnies) Wolfe

I hope I didn't kill it, but I probably did.

Well, I have to admit Blue Bunnies from Outer Space is frightfully appealing...

Honestly, there are still a few hurdles. First, how to reword the rules to keep you or anyone else from doing like you did again. Second, I have a couple challenges figured out, but no example written yet. These 60 hour weeks are killing me. I can still do the challenge, but I feel guilty without an example.

I had one request for crazy person turns out to be right... one for space bunnies... or I could do "you're hated by the world", "I want my flying cars and robot maid"... or I've been contemplating one where you have to try to copy each other's writing styles and see if people can guess who you're supposed to be...

I dunno. Any consensus on what you'd like?

Nate

[Lester Curtis]

I had one request for crazy person turns out to be right... one for space bunnies... or I could do "you're hated by the world", "I want my flying cars and robot maid"... or I've been contemplating one where you have to try to copy each other's writing styles and see if people can guess who you're supposed to be...

I dunno. Any consensus on what you'd like?

Out of those choices, I'd go for the first one . . . even that has its dangers, though, and I can't think of an alternative of my own right now . . . maybe I'll think of something later.

[kailhofer]

Heh, I'm terrified of what happens if GentleSentients decide to copy *me* ...

In order for it to be fair, you'd need a lot of source material to draw from. There are 11 people with more than 10 stories each in the Flash Index. We seldom get that many entries, so what I'd do is put their names in a hat and when you signed up, I'd draw the name for you of whom to emulate. And just because it's harder, it would be a two-month challenge.

Nate

[Lester Curtis]

I'm always wrong - I never can tell who writes what!

Me too, except sometimes with Sergio -- but not always.

Besides, I have a hard enough time writing anything in my own style! So, I'm voting against this idea (if this can be counted as a vote).

[kailhofer]

As someone pointed out to me, if we do this for two months, then we wouldn't be doing horror at Halloween, and that's just not right. If I go Nov.-Dec., then we'd skip holiday stories, and I've had the December one figured out for almost a year.

I'll have to rush one of these others out and save this notion for January, maybe.