The Unfortunate Fraternity of Attempted (and Failed) Applications

[Frost]

Good morning, winners and...not winners. Readers, all around!

Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom! ...well, maybe not that dire, but still!

Alas, the voting is over and some applicants received too many votes, and like a round of golf, the higher score ends up sweeping up the confetti from the celebration party. Don't fret, however! There is solace and encouragement here, so if you feel up to it, acknowledge your application and maybe we'll get some good feedback from the other readers/judges. As Dirgecallers once said, 'This thread is for those of us who failed to make it into the contest. Display your unsuceesful apps, so that they can be reviewed by the kind people who do such things. Let no shame be shown, we tried our best, but it wasnt good enough.'

I am Frost, and no stranger of failed applications. My dismal entry of Ferrill Cedartail for QBII still stings. However, for this contest, I was the writer of Grainger, hereforthwith to be known as KING OF THE NPCS. Let me have it, y'all. ;)

[Vizon]

Oh good I was thinking everyone had suddenly jumped ship or something. It's been so quiet!

Grainger was a well-written character, Frost, and I think if I hadn't put in my votes early on, I'd have changed my mind about putting him last. In the end I was thinking that really he would have been a great addition to the survivors as a responsible leader. He was definitely a good guy - he'd be more comfortable to be around than Istvan for sure!

I posted Ben Slider, and to be honest, I'd originally planned for him to be "recovered" by the time he reached Yew - perhaps not even contagious. He has infectious canine hepatitis, which dogs at least can get over after the initial illness (though they are contagious for at least a year afterward).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infectious_canine_hepatitis
So depending on how long it's been since the app, he might or might not have been a danger to the others. The important thing was that he would THINK he was, which would make him really sensitive about being touched. The healers of course wouldn't have been studying the disease enough to know that it wasn't communicable after a year.
I admit I made a mistake in calling it icterus instead of jaundice. I wanted to use the word they would have called it back in medieval times and I read that "icterus" was Greek and so I thought it seemed more ancient. But it's not. "Jaundice" would have been the more accurate term: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22475661

Anyhow it doesn't matter. I realized when I saw the other Yew guard posts that Ben was in trouble. They were all really great!



[EDIT: ...and I don't know how I missed something as obvious as "saliva" either.]

[Balmafula]

Grainger ;O;

Oawoo I really liked him. I was hurting inside that he didn't make it in.

[TNT]

YOU were Grainger?? I never would have guessed! Boatload of NPCs aside, I did like Grainger's character, and thought he would have made a great hero figure in the story. I was almost hoping Grainger and Istvan would get in together, because that would have been a crazy pairing. Both are dedicated beasts, but in very different ways! Guards were a tough category though. I think that overall it was the strongest one.

And Ben, like I said in my review, was an interesting concept. You should've kept him sick if he'd gotten in, though! That was his whole thing. :P

[frog eyes]

I was rather hoping that Ben would get in with Istvan, because Istvan might have seen his disease as a sign from Mother Nature and used it to wipe out all the unpure.
Maybe that's just me, though.

Um, I wrote the unfortunate and evidently mediocre Pollux.

(do the word counts that the judges use count contractions as 1 word or 2? because one of the reviews said something about how i had a lot more to write.)

[Vizon]

Um, I wrote the unfortunate and evidently mediocre Pollux.

You had great descriptions - I especially thought that little bit about the pure white flower was genius. I don't think Pollux was mediocre.

And Ben, like I said in my review, was an interesting concept. You should've kept him sick if he'd gotten in, though! That was his whole thing. :P

Yeah I realized that after all the reviews. I do wonder how it would have played out. Oh well. The players that made it in are a pretty interesting combo as is.

[Frost]

Hey Vizon:

I liked the "icterus," actually. It reads more exotic than jaundice, and having doctors/healers puzzled at conditions that we're familiar with now is always a good thing. I really liked Ben, and his sense of loyalty and love for his family is touching; you wrote probably the most emotional app for this contest, so don't throw Ben away! I'm confident he'll live to see another adventure, and hopefully be cleansed of the disease (if you so choose). I'd also be interested to see what else you have planned for him, because I know you've got more development behind him than the simple "He's the sick guy" schtick.

frog eyes:

Pollux wasn't mediocre to me. As Vizon pointed out, your handling of descriptions is wonderful, and I like the voice of your writing. I can feel how tired Pollux is, and the burden he bears almost seems overwhelming. It's a true telling of a terrible situation that's romanticized by poem and song, but there's nothing romantic about war, especially the battlefield...and Pollux is a nice reminder of that. The only thing I can guess (and this is spitballing) is that your app was subtle...which isn't a bad thing! In fact, good stories need moments of subtlety to give the reader a chance to come down from various climaxes and build a simmer for the next one (like every other chapter in Grapes of Wrath). I think you did a terrific job, and if you'd like to join us, we'd love to have you write Pollux in our RP thread!

[TNT]

To be honest, I thought Pollux had the most beautiful writing of any of the apps we got. I gave him full marks for the writing and wanted to give him more. And this is coming from someone that normally grumps at flowery prose. So don't feel too bad, frog eyes! I definitely want to see more of your writing. I think it's just that the merchants were another loaded and strong category, so it was harder to stand out.

[Rousseau]

Frog Eyes, I figured you were Pollux after I kinda ranted about him in my thread, and you jumped to his defense, but I'll tell you that he certainly wasn't mediocre. Pollux became my number 3 in Merchants when I voted. My opinions changed based on how crazy the discussion got on here and I ended up realizing at how much development potential he actually had. He could have lost control and gone murder happy, become a full out hero, or just a loner. I still think you should have put at least one thing about being a merchant in the app, but I did end up liking the character by the end of the week.

Now, onto my failed application.

I doubt it's a surprise to any of you, but I was Alder Flint. And in response to some of the confusion regarding if Alder left his kid or not, it was meant to be ambiguous, because even I didn't really know what I was doing with the character yet. I had his backstory and character down, how I kind of wanted him to develop over the course of the story, but I wanted to wait to see the responses to his application before I decided if he abandoned his kid or not. After the responses... I decided he WAS going to abandon his son with the excuse that he needed more time to think, as he had just been brought to the abbey with the ruse of a funeral for his wife when all they really intended was to shove his son on him and was too confused and startled to make a good decision, with the promise to the abbot that he WOULD be back. The abbot in turn lets him leave, but doesn't tell him his son's name in exchange which plagues his mind more and more as does the question of "did he make his wife hate him for what he did to her." He naturally regrets his decision every step of the way and drinks out his sorrows. And after thinking about it, I figured I could make a lot better character with this in mind, as I could have taken a page from my previous character Rousseau, and made Alder desperate for survival in order to get back to his son and fix his mistakes.

[TNT]

I LOVED Alder.

I. LOVED. HIM.

XP

But seriously, your writing has come so far, you should be proud of him. And thank you for writing a mouse! Not many people do these days. Again, merchants were a loaded category.

[Balmafula]

For what it's worth, I also really liked Alder. Like Tara said, there were a lot of good merchant apps and it was really close at the end.

[Rousseau]

I LOVED Alder.

I. LOVED. HIM.

XP

But seriously, your writing has come so far, you should be proud of him. And thank you for writing a mouse! Not many people do these days. Again, merchants were a loaded category.

Thank you for these compliments, when I read your review of him I was very happy when you said that it had good writing. I've been very down in the dumps lately as my father died about two months ago, and so I've just felt completely depressed. I've lost interest in a lot of my hobbies and have been criticizing myself pretty harshly about everything (I've been reading my current writing and wanting to vomit because I keep telling myself I'm not good enough to write this novel idea I have floating around in my head). To be honest, Alder is partially based on my father (or at least my opinion on my father) as... well... he wasn't the most perfect man in the world. He didn't abandon my mother and wasn't a drunk or anything, but he made his fair share of mistakes, and every time I visited him (my parents were divorced) I could always tell he regretted everything he did. I heard him cry at night sometimes, and to be honest, he was really the only person in my life who told me to follow my dreams and be confident in myself (you can easily see where I came up with the idea for Cecil Sassafras here as well). When he died, I naturally didn't know what to do and wished someone would get me out of the situation, which of course was the inspiration for his son. I wanted to write him because I needed to make peace with myself about everything that had happened, I wanted to write a version of my father where he did fix his mistakes in the end, but I'm actually happy that I didn't make it. For one, I don't think I would have been able to have made the deadlines. Two, I don't think writing a character based on my father who had just died in a survivor contest would have been good for my mental stability. And three, just thinking about what I wanted to do with the character was enough to give me the peace I needed. I'm drawing again (I drew Alder >.<). I've written a chapter of my fanfiction without criticizing myself. And I think I'm actually very happy again, just to have gotten this far. And of course, because he didn't make it in, I can still use the character anywhere else (though maybe not in a survivor) and develop him however I wish without having to worry on contestant interactions, though I was practically dying to write an Alder/Nyika scene where they were talking to his dead wife. But oh well.

EDIT: I forgot to mention btw. Someone made a comment that it was strange Alder felt Redwall was cramped, I can't remember who. But yeah, Alder was very outdoorsy like my dad, and so he was meant to be absurdly claustrophobic to the point of having to drink to get over it. I think I had an idea for part of the first post if I had gotten in, where when the merchant cart got pulled over the cliff and crashed, Alder was going to get trapped underneath it and completely panic.

And yeah, I made him a mouse because in the books Mice are like ... perfect... they don't ever really have flaws, and so I wanted to change that and write a mouse who instead was completely flawed and wanted to correct his mistakes.

But yeah, thank you again, I'm glad you liked him, he's my dad. :P

For what it's worth, I also really liked Alder. Like Tara said, there were a lot of good merchant apps and it was really close at the end.

EDIT: Yeah I was actually curious what you thought about him the whole week, as you really never said much about him. But I'm happy you liked him :)

[Magical Fish]

Just wanted to say how sorry I am to hear about your loss, Rousseau. That's a terrible thing to have to deal with, and I'm so glad to see you say you've been able to feel better. Here's wishing you further peace and clarity.

I could really feel the care and emotion put into Alder, if that makes any sense at all. He just seemed....very lovingly crafted, flaws and all.

[Clutus]

As I said in my review thread, I really enjoyed Alder.  You shouldn't doubt your writing skills.  Your writing for Rousseau was outstanding, as it was for Alder.  I'm more than a little disappointed that he didn't make it in.

I really liked Grainger too, I just really liked Istvan and Maxine too.  The use of NPCs didn't bother me, I thought your characterization and writing was great.  Ben was good too, and I thought the writing was just as good as any of the others.  There were just a few details that pushed him below the others for me.  For me, the Yew Guards were the strongest category, so it's tough to see who didn't make it in.

Anyhow, I wrote Shortstack.  The poorly planned stoat.  After reading the reviews, I agreed with the problem of a stoat runt carrying a full-grown otter's tail.  I hadn't really thought of that  :-\.  I was hoping to use the scene to show that Shortstack was capable despite his size, but it just didn't turn out well.  I'm not too disappointed by Shortstack's failure though, as he was a last minute app anyway.

[Magical Fish]

I liked Shortstack! I was unsettled by his violent encounter with the otter, but in a good way. Here's this character that I'm all ready to feel sorry for, "Awww, wee grumpy Shortstack; buck up, chum!" and then rather than deal with stupid Francisco and the root of the problem, he takes it out on some other poor beast. I love sympathetic but not necessarily likeable characters. I really could have gotten behind a character who finds himself in a crappy situation and then makes the wrong (and violent!) decision on how to deal with it. I also thought your app provided some great visuals and had an excellent sense of setting and character.

(

After reading the reviews, I agreed with the problem of a stoat runt carrying a full-grown otter's tail.

I didn't really read a lot of the reviews, but...really? That was a sticking point? Seems nitpicky to me.)