GFF Literary Workshop: Trial Week 2

Trial Week 2: Closed

Welcome to the trial run of a rotating literary workshop here at GFF. Each week will feature a new piece of member-written literature for you to critique and constructively criticize. Download and read the work at the bottom of this post, and offer your comments!

Depending on the status of this trial run, this may become a permanent fixture of the Creators' Café.

Comment Rules
There are no rules per se, but all comments are expected to be mature and within the bounds of common decency. The key is to be as helpful as possible to allow the author to improve their work.

Each work will be open for comments for one week, starting on Monday and ending on Sunday.

Submission Rules
The workshop is open to any and all GFF members; simply post in the thread and ask to be added to the queue. New participants are automatically placed at the top of the queue to allow them a week to prepare a submission.

Please send all submissions to orion_mk2@yahoo.com. Be sure to include your GFF username, preferably in the subject line. Submissions can be sent at any time, and will be held until your next turn in the queue.

Length
For now, submissions are limited to prose.
Prose: 500-5000 words

This is just a guideline; submissions slightly over the limit may be allowed. Sections of longer works are also permitted.

Format
Submit work in .doc, .txt, .rtf, or .pdf format.

Queue:
The Wise Vivi
Phone
Ayos
Helloween
Dark Nation
Lycanthrope
Pyromaniac
Matt
RainMan
orion_mk3
Acro-nym
Ozma

People in bold have submitted work for their week. If you have not submitted anything by the time your week begins, you will be moved to the bottom of the queue and the next participant who has submitted will go.

This Week's Submission
Witness Fallacy by Ozma
Poetry, 36 lines

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I have to say I'm disappointed at the lack of responses so far. C'mon, everyone! Let's not let this event die in only its second week!

That said, here's my analysis of Witness Fallacy:

At the outset, the poem has a very interesting, very concrete structure. Each line save the last begins in exactly the same way, which draws attention to the ending (as it's different) and the second part of the lines (since readers quickly tune out the first few letters). There's real potential inherent in the form you've chosen.

However, I think that for various reasons this potential remains largely untapped. First, it's simply too long for the form you're chosen. Seeing the same line beginning thirty-five times is a bit much; there are probably at least 10 lines that can be safely cut. As it was, I found myself wanting to skim over some of the later lines to get to that final, different ending.

More important than that is the issue of what you're trying to convey. The last line indicates that the speaker is trying to view everything with a neutral eye; this is clearly not the case in the writing (many of the lines use very opinionated language like "lying" and "sneaking"). Is the speaker trying, and failing, to be neutral? If so, why? It's not clear what the overall point is meant to be, or what we as readers are supposed to feel. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the individual lines; for example, we move from a clock to a hacker and a paparazzi to an egg. There's no sense that the poem is building to something, or even that the lines are connected (or if there is it was too subtle). As such, the piece seems more like a list than anything else.

I would say, working within this form, that you should cut down on the number of lines and really work at connecting them to each other and the idea that you're trying to convey. Ask yourself what you're trying to say with the poem, and then try to bring that out (or make it more accessible). I'd very much like to see another draft of this, since the form is something that's not seen often.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Helloween

Will the event close up shop after one bad round orion?

Well, there are people in the queue that I feel like I owe something to, but I think things might need some tweaking.

Perhaps I'll have to remove poetry from consideration, since no one seems to want to read it, and focus on prose, which got a much better response, though that would mean cutting out a few submissions that have already been turned in.

I'll contact a mod and see about getting an announcement, too, to see if it can drum up some more interest, and we'll see how things go over the next two days.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Ozma

Sorry about the bland poem. I'll try better prose next time.

It's not so much your poem as the fact that potential participants in general (myself included) have less to say about poetry, since they have less experience with it.

I'm going to tweak the format for next week to see if we can regain some participation. Poetry is now temporarily banned from submission, as is drama. We had a good response to prose and I think it's what most potential participants are best equipped to critique. I've also asked the mods to make an announcement on behalf of the project.

Luckily, there is only one piece of poetry in the pipeline, from The Wise Vivi. He's very graciously agreed to submit a piece of prose instead, either this week or next; I'll move him to next week if the sudden turnaround is too punishing and he can't make the submission in time.

Most importantly, the event will continue so long as there are writers in the queue, even if I'm the only one commenting on them. We'll see how things work out from there.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Dark Nation

Well, I onto part 3 then (or part 1 if y'think I should bother).

I think everyone should, but that's not neccessarily a widely held opinion

I was speaking idiomatically.