Hellfire Eyes - Results and Feedback

I received feedback on my story, Hellfire Eyes, which I submitted to the Iron Writer last week. The ratings from the three judges, on a scale of 1-5 where 5 was the highest, were:

Spelling and Grammar: 4, 4, 5 (highest of contestants)
Story Arc: 4, 4, 4 (tied for highest)
Use of Elements: 3, 5, 4 (second place among contestants)
Total: 37

Dani J Caile's story Uncle Terence scored 34 points and got second place.

The feedback was:

Judge One:

Grammar: 5 - No problems here, from what I saw.

Use of Elements: 4 - Plutonium by nature is radioactive. By saying a plutonium-crafted weapon is on display in a museum pulls the reader out of the story. But

Story arc: 4 - The end of the story seemed rushed, but there was a definite arc.

Judge Two:

I wish the author provided more specific ages of the main character at the different points in the story before the MC was an adult. 

I really liked the twist at the end. I didn't see it coming

Judge Three:

Interesting but dry narrative. Good grammar and flow

Good description of elements but the elements were not integral to story, except astigmatism.

It's hard to tell, but it looks like Judge One's feedback was cut off or incomplete. They also said there was a solid plutonium weapon on display, thinking it's dangerous. I wasn't saying there was a plutonium halberd on display, just that the main character's perception turned it into such. To quote the story, "making it seem as though it was cast of solid plutonium." (Should that have been "were" for subjunctive?) But it's fine. Getting feedback is better than no feedback and no clue where the ratings came from.

Thanks to the judges for their efforts, and the other worthy contestants who wrote strong stories!

Hellfire Eyes

About two weeks after Artemis Returns, I was pulled into The Iron Writer again. This time it was for the seasonal playoffs. Here is my piece. I don't have any feedback on it yet. The elements were: astigmatism, magma, a solid plutonium halberd, and a picture of the canals of Venice.

Hellfire Eyes

My eyes have always been a source of curiosity. Severe astigmatism plagued me from an early age, accompanied by blurry vision, frequent headaches, and lower grades. My parents would not allow modern medicine to intervene. Disease was caused by the devil, they said. Only prayer could save me. They cared about me, though, so they prayed all the time.

As a teenager, a secondary condition called phoenix crystal nucleation had taken hold. With it came the coloration seen in every science journal photograph of me - the crystalline striations of red, gold, and orange reminiscent of the legendary creature’s birth flames. Through my eyes I perceived rivers of hellfire everywhere. Where you see a street covered with gently falling rain, I see Hell’s rivers overflowing their banks, unleashing evil across the land. Where you see gondoliers on the canals of Venice, I see Charon ferrying down congealing lava flows from some unseen magma chamber below.

One year I accompanied my parents to Washington, D.C., where we visited the Smithsonian Institute for a conference of religious scholars. I still remember the Institute’s stylized yellow sun on a blue field, which could have represented God, science, art, technology, or even heraldry. An adjoining exhibit held a variety of medieval weapons recently unearthed, ironically enough, from the excavated foundation of the Center for Peace in Rouen, France. While my parents were distracted with their conference, I made my way in, careful to avoid the fountains and pools throughout. It was to no avail, though. My hellfire eyes always saw more.

At the display, the light from a bare fluorescent bulb cascaded downward over a particularly tall halberd, making it seem as though it was cast of solid plutonium. I was transfixed! I must have stared for fifteen minutes. It was while I stood there that I met acclaimed ocular surgeon Dr. Eklund. We spoke at length about science, technology, developing surgical procedures, and even theology. 

We stayed in touch. When later I became an adult he provided a comfortable place to live at his manor in Baltimore where he studied my condition and developed what we both hoped would be a cure.

On the fateful day, I was awakened early and brought by limousine to the George Washington University Hospital. A wheelchair carried me to the pre-op room where nurses transferred me to a hospital bed and prepared me for my procedure. My next stop was an impressive operating suite full of machines, monitors, and people. A gallery above was open and packed with onlookers. I envied them their ability to see from that vantage. The anesthesiologist at my side asked me to count backward from one hundred. I said a prayer to my newfound faith in science and slipped into unconsciousness.

When next I was aware of my surroundings, I could see with perfect clarity. The bright lights of the surgical suite brought out the tiniest details, from the sweat on Dr. Eklund’s brow to the frantic movement of the doctors and nurses, trying in vain to revive my body below.

---

It was about five days after submitting this story that I saw Daredevil, and the way the special effects team chose to visualize (no pun intended) the way the main character sees things around him. It was quite similar to what I described here for how my character sees things that flow in some way.

Screenwriting for Dummies - reading

Finished "Screenwriting for Dummies" by Laura Schellhardt. I went into this looking for a book that would explain the various formats used in scripts, but like many of the "for Dummies" series books, it offered so much more detail on screenwriting, constructing a story, writing dialogue, creating characters, and everything you would need to, well, write a screenplay.

In other words, it was far more than I was looking for.

As a result, I ended up skimming a couple of the later chapters, impatient to get through the book. But that's really how these books are designed - look for what you want to get out of them, and get that. It was pretty good for that, though some of the information in my version was a bit dated according to people I've talked with about screenwriting since. Then again, the edition I was reading was a little old, too. Perhaps they've updated it to keep up with changes in the industry since. One can only hope.

Rodney and Jean - 48HFPP

April 10th, 2015 was the first team practice for 48HFP. Instead of trying to create a film with two people, we had six! Let me tell you now - it makes a big difference.

On Friday all six of us got together and we got the specifics we had to work with:
Name: Rodney (male)/Ranee (female) Herring
Occupation: Tax Preparer
Prop: sandals
Line of Dialogue: How does that prove it?
Genre: Tragedy

We brainstormed several ideas, one involving a Boulderite who lost it all because of a corrupt tax preparer, a sign spinner who witnessed road rage, and a tax accountant who's too busy during tax season to recognize a romantic interest. The discussion around which direction to go went longer with six people (as expected), and we didn't share the first version of the script until 1 AM Saturday.

Five hours later we were up. We got everything ready, loaded the truck, and headed to our first location - a house in Westminster - by way of Santiago's breakfast burritos. We arrived and unloaded, then set up the first shots of the day. After that, we printed the scripts (d'oh!) and did a read-through with everyone.

Shooting continued at the house until about 4:30. In that time we did the front door, living room, office, and bathroom scenes. Then we left the house for a nearby park for one outdoor scene. Then back to the house, we loaded up and left at 6:00. By about 6:30, we arrived at our third location - Strange Grounds coffee shop on Broadway. We were here until about 7:00. Finally we went to a nearby park and recorded ADR in the truck. At 7:40 we drove back to the apartment arriving at 8:00. We ordered Chinese from Empress of China and started the edit.

On Sunday we continued editing, gathering music, fixing sound, and put together a safety at 6:00. We made a few more tweaks and had the finished product ready at 6:30 for an in-house premiere before Game of Thrones!

Here is the weekend's finished product:

If you thought that was depressing, you'll want to watch this now. On Monday we put together outtakes:

Artemis Returns

I wrote a piece for The Iron Writer again. The elements were: Artemis; A Dilettante; Jello Wrestling; A Moon Rock.

Something I remember from growing up with my sister is, "it's not Jell-O, it's Gelatin. Jell-O is a brand name." That apparently stuck with me for this round. On the other hand, I used "Spongebob."

Artemis Returns

by Brett A. Paul

Artemis made her way around the studio, taking care not to step on any of the piles of discarded clothes and trash. Her flowing robes snagged the corner of a pizza box, pulling it open to reveal sickly-colored crusts. She exhaled in disgust, tugged her robes free, and positioned her bow tight to her body.

She paused to look at sketches tacked to the wall at odd angles. There were women in various states of undress, with blotches of blue and red haphazardly applied.

“These are terrible,” she said, glancing up at the ceiling. “You want me to play muse to a hopeless dilettante? How am I to do that?”

Over the insubstantial blare of distant drunken cheering, she heard the hollow sound of an empty can bouncing off the wooden floor in another part of the apartment. She sighed and headed down the apartment hallway toward the sound.

Though the studio she left was well lit, the rest of the apartment was in shadows. In the living room she located the source of the noise: the television. Here it was unbearably loud, the drunken cheering joined by distorted club music. Light from the idiot box flickered across the living room, and across the man sitting on the couch, alone, watching intently. He gulped from a can of beer, belched loudly, and cheered, vicariously joining the scene.

Artemis stepped into the room unseen, and crossed to see what was so enthralling. On the screen, the camera panned across the crowd of drunken revelers, then focused on two scantily-clad women in an inflatable pool filled with red and blue gelatinous chunks. They wrestled awkwardly against each other. Artemis turned away, disappointment showing deeply.

“Is this pale imitation of a man why you sent me here? If I am to be his muse, this will take something extreme.”

With an arm reached skyward, Artemis concentrated. “Stone of Luna, come to me!” Light flickered at her palm, and she closed her hand around a summoned stone. From her belt she withdrew a sling, loaded the moon rock into it and spun it at incredible speed. With one last glance at the waste of meat and his drunken half smile, she loosed the stone and destroyed the television.

Sparks exploded out from the pulverized electronics. A buzz built up, culminating in a pop, and the room went dark. The man stood up from the couch, unable to comprehend what had just transpired. Into the silence, Artemis giggled at his Spongebob boxers. He spun around, trying to take in the whole room at once, trying to make some sense of what just happened. He looked near her, through her, but she was invisible to him. Then as though waking from a dream, he seemed to see the state of his apartment for the first time. He picked up the empty beer can and took it into the kitchen.

“Remind me never to kill your prize buck again, father,” said Artemis, looking up once more.

Zeus's face appeared above her. He smiled, nodded, and vanished.

---

The feedback I received is:
1) Great story – Overall, I can feel the depth of disbelief Artemis is feeling with her current assignment. Well put together. Excellent visuals in the apartment and the jello wrestling television program.

2) I didn’t get this story at all. There were a lot of repetitive words, and I just didn’t feel like the story made any sense. The elements were all used, the language was okay, but the repetitive words stuck out, the characters were likable enough, but Artemis wasn’t really a muse, and she was the protector of deer so, the comment at the end about her killing her father’s prize buck, didn’t gel. Your imagery was well done; I could picture myself in the room with Artemis and the man at the television. I didn’t really feel there was a beginning, middle and end in this one… it kind of fell flat for me.

3) Good use of elements. Integral to the story. Good flow and fun to read.