New Scoring Standard

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

If your masterpiece reminds me of FINEGANS WAKE it gets a ONE BOMB. It must be lucid and coherent and cohesive to rise above ONE STAR. That is, it must be recognizable as SOMETHING. If I'm clueless it gets a ONE. If its schizophrenic word salad it gets ONE STAR. See FINEGANS WAKE.

If it isn't a real story it gets TWO STARS. If it has no premise or point, TWO STARS. If its a PC scold or lecture in disguise TWO STARS.

If the story reminds me of a Milton Berle routine (he stole material from everyone) it gets THREE STARS. If the writing is tepid and timid, 3 STARS. if the characters wont say SHIT, tho they have a mouthful, 3 STARS.

4 STARS is for the REAL DEAL minus a decent edit to correct typos, spelling, etc.

5 STARS is for something new that's well made.

I read an effort this morning that's quite popular with the AH All Starz. But what I saw is a tub of static verbs and THATS. As I like to say, theres nuthin wrong with girls, and nuthin wrong with spinach, but a girl with spinach stuck in her teeth is something else.

 

[patientlee]

If your masterpiece reminds me of FINEGANS WAKE it gets a ONE BOMB. It must be lucid and coherent and cohesive to rise above ONE STAR. That is, it must be recognizable as SOMETHING. If I'm clueless it gets a ONE. If its schizophrenic word salad it gets ONE STAR. See FINEGANS WAKE.

If it isn't a real story it gets TWO STARS. If it has no premise or point, TWO STARS. If its a PC scold or lecture in disguise TWO STARS.

If the story reminds me of a Milton Berle routine (he stole material from everyone) it gets THREE STARS. If the writing is tepid and timid, 3 STARS. if the characters wont say SHIT, tho they have a mouthful, 3 STARS.

4 STARS is for the REAL DEAL minus a decent edit to correct typos, spelling, etc.

5 STARS is for something new that's well made.

I read an effort this morning that's quite popular with the AH All Starz. But what I saw is a tub of static verbs and THATS. As I like to say, theres nuthin wrong with girls, and nuthin wrong with spinach, but a girl with spinach stuck in her teeth is something else.

You have an interesting way of looking at things, JBJ.

 

[Hypoxia]

Whatever happened to pass/fail?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Whatever happened to pass/fail?

As in PASS GAS?

 

[StrangeLife]

I totally agree


Wait - did I just agree with JBJ???


http://geekshumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/The-end-is-near.jpg

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Well, Jim, if I could write something that made you think of Finnegan`s Wake - that abstract expressionist novel of the circular theory of history involving word play and philosophy play in a dozen different languages - I would be honored to receive your One-Bomb.

You really can`t understand it? Your loss.

Here's a far simpler one of mine, easy to understand, to help get you started on a higher plane of thought than might be found in your trailer...

Confession

Blessé me Mither fer I have grinned. It’s bin a forthright of ages and aeons since me last confusion, end long I’ve bin led down the primrosest path tween devilfish and their deeperbluesea.

Yea, 13 times hath that audacious Ausustrian girl dared me heed the longpast participles of her audeamus et gaudeamus and risk readying meself for the sin and din of battled sexes reviberating in untolden measures of unfolden pleasures when thighs will be undone. And yes, me trice-holied Mither, it was meself who did the dark deeds in thought and word and meself alone who bends in blame while yet inflamed by her sways and bends. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxwellhouse cuppa, and by Java! By Joe! I’ll take her in tow to the theater’s back row at the end of the show to atone her with a very-firm-purpose of Amen-meant as we strive and scrive and shrive for a simultumultuous organum!

And what then, Mother-confessor, wouldst thou have of penisance from me, a most denoted pairisonher?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Any book that requires an Official Chalky Perfesser Decoder Ring to decipher the text is #2.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Any book that requires an Official Chalky Perfesser Decoder Ring to decipher the text is #2.

Don't need no chalky perfesser de-cod-r ring, JBJ, just a half-way decent mind.

But, tell me, have you just raised Finnegans Wake from a one to a two?

 

[AMoveableBeast]

While I may not always favor the sparse, no-frills approach that JBB routinely champions, I feel the necessity to point out that many, many people--authors and literary critics alike--of great intelligence find Finnegan's Wake to be overly convoluted and purposely obscure. To the point that it has been hypothesized, more than a few times, most notably by Joyce's own brother, that the book is little more than one big literary joke.

As an experiment in wordplay and an exercise in simply loading each sentence and word with more meaning and possibility than was typically thought possible, the novel, all 628 brain-stabbing pages, is a fascinating creation--a Frankenstein's monster of meandering intellect and untold discovery, but let's not pretend that it was, is, or even should be universally loved. The work is a travesty against accessibility. Written by an author with rapidly failing eyesight and a legendarily perverse mind (read his "love letters" to his wife sometime), the story, if it can be called that, is so bogged down in deliberate confusion--we're talking quintuple entendres here--as to be perfectly illegible. The end result is a book that teeters constantly between the grotesque and the ingenious. Where it finally lands on that scale is firmly up to the reader. There is support for any conclusion.

Anthony Burgess, who himself knew a tiny bit about playing with language, called it, "one of the most entertaining books ever written."

Ezra Pound wrote, "Nothing so far as I can make out, nothing short of divine vision or a new cure for the clapp can possibly be worth all that circumambient peripherization."

Agree with either wordsmith you like. We're all friends here.

 

[AMoveableBeast]

Don't need no chalky perfesser de-cod-r ring, JBJ, just a half-way decent mind.

But, tell me, have you just raised Finnegans Wake from a one to a two?

Also, speaking of multiple meanings, I believe he was calling it shit.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Re: Joyce and Here Comes Everybody.

If it ain`t fun, why bother. I rather enjoy Joyce`s funferal fer Finnegan, but, thenagain, I`m no hotsy-totsy literalist when it comes to reading fiction. Did ya know that JBJ thinks Little Red Riding Hood is about talking wolves and girls who don`t listen to their moms?

 

[walkerlong]

I generally don't rate anymore. The scale seems to be 4.7 - 5.0: excellent, 4.5 - 4.69: very good, 4.2 - 4.49: good, 4.0 - 4.19: fair, and 0.0 - 3.99: crap.

 

[BurningMonkey]

I read an effort this morning that's quite popular with the AH All Starz.

Sorry to display my ignorance, but what is/are the 'AH All Starz'?

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Also, speaking of multiple meanings, I believe he was calling it shit.

Yes, but better shit than he had called it before. Of course, I'm presuming that he misspelled the title rather than meaning some other work with a one-"N"ed Finnegan, something, perhaps, for the illiterate as well as the uneducated.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Sorry to display my ignorance, but what is/are the 'AH All Starz'?

Theyre a mysterious Star Chamber at AH who rate stories as to homo worship and esteem for Islam.

 

[BurningMonkey]

Um, displaying more ignorance here, but what is "AH"?

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Um, displaying more ignorance here, but what is "AH"?

Author's Hangout - the forum you're in now.

 

[BurningMonkey]

D'OH!!! Obtuseness strikes again...

My sheepish thanks.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Author's Hangout - the forum you're in now.

No. Allahs homos.

 

[R. Richard]

If your masterpiece reminds me of FINEGANS WAKE it gets a ONE BOMB. It must be lucid and coherent and cohesive to rise above ONE STAR. That is, it must be recognizable as SOMETHING. If I'm clueless it gets a ONE. If its schizophrenic word salad it gets ONE STAR. See FINEGANS WAKE.

"Three quarks for Muster Mark."

 

[SamScribble]

I'm thinking of writing a new story just for you, JBJ. I'm thinking it should start something like this:

Came a furlong, camomile, from caterpillar to past, double-crossing – dare and black – the sweet adder line that snakes along the veil of secrecy, and striding up the garden bath with a bunch of pop eyes for her to police on the mentalpiece.

What do you reckon, JBJ? Five stars?

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I'm thinking of writing a new story just for you, JBJ. I'm thinking it should start something like this:

Came a furlong, camomile, from caterpillar to past, double-crossing – dare and black – the sweet adder line that snakes along the veil of secrecy, and striding up the garden bath with a bunch of pop eyes for her to police on the mentalpiece.

What do you reckon, JBJ? Five stars?

More! Writing like that deserves the prestigious TIO AWARD with Ass Antlers.

 

[MSTarot]

I freely admit to being a work in progress writer (mind the construction please) so feel just as free to score my stories as you will. From 1 to 5, good or bad as you feel I deserve.

I will accept all criticisms of my ability to write, tell a story, or to entertain with words. Point out mistakes to me and I will try to fix them in future stories.

I also promise that if such criticism is delivered in a polite fashion I will respond with a thank you.

And then I will keep writing.

 

[lovecraft68]

I generally don't rate anymore. The scale seems to be 4.7 - 5.0: excellent, 4.5 - 4.69: very good, 4.2 - 4.49: good, 4.0 - 4.19: fair, and 0.0 - 3.99: crap.

Part of the average score hear being high is that according to sweeps there does not seem to be any one votes that are considered legit.

 

[lovecraft68]

I freely admit to being a work in progress writer (mind the construction please) so feel just as free to score my stories as you will. From 1 to 5, good or bad as you feel I deserve.

I will accept all criticisms of my ability to write, tell a story, or to entertain with words. Point out mistakes to me and I will try to fix them in future stories.

I also promise that if such criticism is delivered in a polite fashion I will respond with a thank you.

And then I will keep writing.

Ditto to the above.

Although nasty feedback and telling me I suck tends to be motivational for me.