COMMENTS FOR HALLOWEEN STORY 2016

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cat in a bag

Well-Known Member
Aug 28, 2010
12,038
67,827
wyoming
I was behind on reading the story, but just caught up and finished it all at once!

Great job, Leif, ( where I left off in the story) Garriga, shoesalesman, Tery, Flake, mal, Demeter, Kurben and Leif, again!

It was a good story! Leif, you did an excellent job of tying everything together and giving us an ending! I really enjoyed reading everyone's parts.

Thank you to everyone who took part in giving us this year's story!

:clap:
 

Rrty

Well-Known Member
Jun 4, 2007
1,394
4,588
Just finished the conclusion to this year's story, The Graylands. I loved it. Leif, you wrote another superlative entry into the journal of this mini-saga.

I was captivated throughout the entire chapter. There was a lot of suspense to go along with the wrap-up exposition (I know exposition sometimes has a bad reputation, but I myself have always liked it, particularly as one gets toward the climax; Leif handled this part perfectly). The atmosphere was exactly as it should have been. The buildup of all the forces coming together for the final transaction in the ongoing exchange between good and evil kept me quizzical in terms of how everything was going to turn out.

What I also appreciated was the fact that Leif did not rush through the ending. He made sure to corral enough words to create an appropriately sizeable herd of letters for what has been a great story thus far. We all know endings can be tough to execute, but this chapter made it look easy (which I assure you, it was not; takes work to write something like that). The ending gave the tale the balance it needed. And I have to reiterate: too bad someone out on the west coast didn't have an extra $100 million lying around in a production budget...this would make a memorable reel of moving pictures. Nevertheless, the fact that exists as a short story on my screen is fine enough, because I can obviously make the movie in my mind any time I choose; indeed, my imagination had a ball with Wesson, Lucy, Jerry, etc. And Nebiros the wicked, of course.

Another point to make about the final chapter: the unexpected details created a lot of value to the reader. What a great idea to have Lemmy make an appearance (to the best of my knowledge, he was not mentioned previously; as far as I can tell with another look throughout the story, he was not); he and Garcia went well together. The army from beyond is one heck of a sight to my mind's eye, fleshed out with help from the author. The last lines were satiating, with a humble tone that completed the emotional journey. The entire plot, all the characters, the descriptions, settings, all of it, came together to present a Halloween story that I can honestly say I enjoyed from start to finish; it made the season.

This is also me being honest: I don't know what to say except there were a lot of great lines in the last chapter. I haven't read other comments yet, but even if this wasn't mentioned, I'm sure most will agree that this was such an awesome sentence:

"Tobit massaged the myocardial muscle like he was testing the ripeness of an avocado."

This as well:

"Wesson turned to Rachael and said, “I want to go home now.” She released his hand, and he did." Bittersweet.

There were others, but I won't continue quoting; I invite any one who hasn't done so to read The Graylands.

Thanks to all the authors for writing this.
 

FlakeNoir

Original Kiwi© SKMB®
Moderator
Apr 11, 2006
44,082
175,641
New Zealand
A hugely satisfying ending, thank you Leif for the wonderful hard work you put into the conclusion to our story, you did an amazing job!

Thank you Dana Jean for the fantastic work and time you put in with each writer, whilst also moderating the board during after hours.
Thank you Spideyman for your constant support on the project.

To the writers... you guys were so good to write with and everybody did a fantastic job, thank you!

To nate_watkins... I hope we did you proud dear friend.
 

Nomik

Carry on
Jun 19, 2016
3,973
22,555
47
Derry, NH
Ah, but did they double as a detective agency? :) There used to be a Pinkerton Agency office here in Mobile, but it disappeared, or changed locations, or went to a universe next door, or something ......
Not that I know of. They've been around since the 1700s. Frost taught there.
https://instagram.com/p/BFOpXwGQftF/ This was the chapel building, we attended foreign language (Latin for me), as well as the occasional chapel detention. This was only one of fourteen campus buildings.
https://instagram.com/p/BBhgyFhwfnZ/
 
Mar 12, 2010
6,538
29,004
Texas
Leif
Ohmygosh, you pulled it all together! Beautifully! And the ending could not have been any better. It was perfect! :)

I love your descriptions :) From the very start, your comparison to Soylent Green's atmosphere put me right into the scene. "It's People!" lol.

And "like a hoard of killer bees" made me cringe! I can't think of a better description for troops attacking - killer bees terrify me :(

"like he was testing the ripeness of an avocado" I'm glad we don't shop at the same grocery store. Do not come to my store and bruise the avacados!

"cacophony of desperate cries, moans, and wails too horrifying to describe" Very Lovecraftian! :) I could hear those cries, moans, and wails inside my head while reading the passage :)

Thanks to all y'all for this year's Halloween story. All y'all are very talented!
 

Shoesalesman

Well-Known Member
Aug 12, 2010
1,814
4,093
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Leif! Leif! He's our man!
If he can't do it...
...Well, HE DID!!!
:m_starstruck:
More than just well done!! You rounded up the pegs and tied 'em in a nice bow, under some significant pressure I might add. Skill, my good man. Skill in both holsters is what you gots!!!

Thanks to everyone: writers, readers, DJ, Spidey, everyone else behind the scenes who took the time to set us up and kept us from going afoul.

...Another tale finds its way into the Book of Stories. :reading:
 
Mar 12, 2010
6,538
29,004
Texas
Leif I also like that 'little' detail about the guitar amplifier in there...

I liked that too. The engineering behind it was over my head but I was convinced that Chris and Wesson knew how to adapt the amplifier to create a cell signal booster :)

I guess that's like a behind the scenes thing. I think it would be interesting if all y'all who wrote the Halloween story would share behind the scene thoughts. Example: One of the passages you wrote made me screech with delightment... "Some have lost control of their veil-materializations and in some cases have solidified stuck in walls, moving automobiles, one right in the front of a jetliner, it’s legs wiggling out of the nose under the cockpit, its head trying to bite the co-pilot’s ankles." How did you come up with that?
 

Leif

Expose yourself to your deepest fear.
Aug 11, 2015
450
2,260
Leif, way to finish this off. And yes, you were my hero. You hit it out of the park!

Leif-- you are the dream-weaver, thread weaver, and wordslinger! Amazing how you managed to pickup every thread and weave it into a spectacular ending. The tapestry is complete. Magnificent job, Leif.

Great ending Leif.

I am so tickled so many were willing to try this style of writing and just have fun with it. THank you for being a stand up man and doing the job.

Leif thank you so much for ending a great story. Thanks so much to all who contributed to this story.

I was behind on reading the story, but just caught up and finished it all at once!

Great job, Leif, ( where I left off in the story) Garriga, shoesalesman, Tery, Flake, mal, Demeter, Kurben and Leif, again!

It was a good story! Leif, you did an excellent job of tying everything together and giving us an ending! I really enjoyed reading everyone's parts.

Thank you to everyone who took part in giving us this year's story!

:clap:

Leif lives up to his namesake, the discoverer of unknown and fantabulous story endings!

...again I want to thank everyone for a fantastic experience and I am extremely humbled to have been chosen to lead off such a stellar group!...and Leif? You were just flat out incredible...nuff said....

Just finished the conclusion to this year's story, The Graylands. I loved it. Leif, you wrote another superlative entry into the journal of this mini-saga.

I was captivated throughout the entire chapter. There was a lot of suspense to go along with the wrap-up exposition (I know exposition sometimes has a bad reputation, but I myself have always liked it, particularly as one gets toward the climax; Leif handled this part perfectly). The atmosphere was exactly as it should have been. The buildup of all the forces coming together for the final transaction in the ongoing exchange between good and evil kept me quizzical in terms of how everything was going to turn out.

What I also appreciated was the fact that Leif did not rush through the ending. He made sure to corral enough words to create an appropriately sizeable herd of letters for what has been a great story thus far. We all know endings can be tough to execute, but this chapter made it look easy (which I assure you, it was not; takes work to write something like that). The ending gave the tale the balance it needed. And I have to reiterate: too bad someone out on the west coast didn't have an extra $100 million lying around in a production budget...this would make a memorable reel of moving pictures. Nevertheless, the fact that exists as a short story on my screen is fine enough, because I can obviously make the movie in my mind any time I choose; indeed, my imagination had a ball with Wesson, Lucy, Jerry, etc. And Nebiros the wicked, of course.

Another point to make about the final chapter: the unexpected details created a lot of value to the reader. What a great idea to have Lemmy make an appearance (to the best of my knowledge, he was not mentioned previously; as far as I can tell with another look throughout the story, he was not); he and Garcia went well together. The army from beyond is one heck of a sight to my mind's eye, fleshed out with help from the author. The last lines were satiating, with a humble tone that completed the emotional journey. The entire plot, all the characters, the descriptions, settings, all of it, came together to present a Halloween story that I can honestly say I enjoyed from start to finish; it made the season.

This is also me being honest: I don't know what to say except there were a lot of great lines in the last chapter. I haven't read other comments yet, but even if this wasn't mentioned, I'm sure most will agree that this was such an awesome sentence:

"Tobit massaged the myocardial muscle like he was testing the ripeness of an avocado."

This as well:

"Wesson turned to Rachael and said, “I want to go home now.” She released his hand, and he did." Bittersweet.

There were others, but I won't continue quoting; I invite any one who hasn't done so to read The Graylands.

Thanks to all the authors for writing this.

Leif that was one grand finale. Great way to end the story! :lol2:
I'm a bit sad our little writing adventure is at an end. Hope to see you all again next year for the next story. :go:

A hugely satisfying ending, thank you Leif for the wonderful hard work you put into the conclusion to our story, you did an amazing job!

Thank you Dana Jean for the fantastic work and time you put in with each writer, whilst also moderating the board during after hours.
Thank you Spideyman for your constant support on the project.

To the writers... you guys were so good to write with and everybody did a fantastic job, thank you!

To nate_watkins... I hope we did you proud dear friend.

Leif
Ohmygosh, you pulled it all together! Beautifully! And the ending could not have been any better. It was perfect! :)

I love your descriptions :) From the very start, your comparison to Soylent Green's atmosphere put me right into the scene. "It's People!" lol.

And "like a hoard of killer bees" made me cringe! I can't think of a better description for troops attacking - killer bees terrify me :(

"like he was testing the ripeness of an avocado" I'm glad we don't shop at the same grocery store. Do not come to my store and bruise the avacados!

"cacophony of desperate cries, moans, and wails too horrifying to describe" Very Lovecraftian! :) I could hear those cries, moans, and wails inside my head while reading the passage :)

Thanks to all y'all for this year's Halloween story. All y'all are very talented!

Leif One more thing lol. I'm currently reading a post apocalyptic saga and the battles between the humans and the mutants are boring. I didn't realize why they were boring until I read your descriptions of the battle in the Halloween story. Your descriptions made the battle interesting :)

Leif! Leif! He's our man!
If he can't do it...
...Well, HE DID!!!
:m_starstruck:
More than just well done!! You rounded up the pegs and tied 'em in a nice bow, under some significant pressure I might add. Skill, my good man. Skill in both holsters is what you gots!!!

Thanks to everyone: writers, readers, DJ, Spidey, everyone else behind the scenes who took the time to set us up and kept us from going afoul.

...Another tale finds its way into the Book of Stories. :reading:

Leif.... What can one say when words are not enough..?? Beautifully done, Suberbly executed. Thank you!

Leif I also like that 'little' detail about the guitar amplifier in there...

I'd fallen well behind on this (say sorry), but I've just read the whole thing in one go and...wow. Great work, one and all! Got to give a shout out to Leif, though, for bringing it all home...and in style!

I liked that too. The engineering behind it was over my head but I was convinced that Chris and Wesson knew how to adapt the amplifier to create a cell signal booster :)

Whoa! We had a lot of fun with this. Thanks to everyone who took the time to read the story and post all the great comments. I am overwhelmed with all of the positive comments I received on my parts as well. I really appreciate it. I am glad everyone liked the ending. It was scary at first to be faced with the task of writing the ending, but everyone had written so well and provided so much to go on that it became exciting and a pleasure. It was fun writing "on the fly" without much time to think about it.

Again, thank you all for the kind words and comments. Also a special thank you to Rrty for taking the time to so eloquently give thoughts on my sections as well as the others. It was a pleasure reading those comments and when I put together my hard copy, all those comments will be included.

This is truly a great group. Thank you GNTLGNT, for the awesome beginning, Ebdim9thn for Tobit and the visuals I'll never forget, niro, for Lucy! Nomik, for inspiration and Rachael! Dana Jean, for managing this whole thing, her excellent writing and the squirrel, Garriga, for Nebirous, Shoesalesman, for the acid trip Tery, for the acid trip 2 and the coolest part of the story. Bipeds, twisted seeds!, FlakeNoir, for Nebiros kryptonite mal, for Alf and the heart, Demeter,for the most exciting scene and Kurben for his masterpiece that just set up the ending perfectly.

You guys are the best!

Leif
 

Ebdim9th

Dressing the Gothic interval in tritones
Jul 1, 2009
6,137
22,104
I liked that too. The engineering behind it was over my head but I was convinced that Chris and Wesson knew how to adapt the amplifier to create a cell signal booster :)

I guess that's like a behind the scenes thing. I think it would be interesting if all y'all who wrote the Halloween story would share behind the scene thoughts. Example: One of the passages you wrote made me screech with delightment... "Some have lost control of their veil-materializations and in some cases have solidified stuck in walls, moving automobiles, one right in the front of a jetliner, it’s legs wiggling out of the nose under the cockpit, its head trying to bite the co-pilot’s ankles." How did you come up with that?

When I write it's like a blender...I dont know which of my influences, or how many are going to pour out all mixed together, mutated into something else ....does that help?

Whoa! We had a lot of fun with this. Thanks to everyone who took the time to read the story and post all the great comments. I am overwhelmed with all of the positive comments I received on my parts as well. I really appreciate it. I am glad everyone liked the ending. It was scary at first to be faced with the task of writing the ending, but everyone had written so well and provided so much to go on that it became exciting and a pleasure. It was fun writing "on the fly" without much time to think about it.

Again, thank you all for the kind words and comments. Also a special thank you to Rrty for taking the time to so eloquently give thoughts on my sections as well as the others. It was a pleasure reading those comments and when I put together my hard copy, all those comments will be included.

This is truly a great group. Thank you GNTLGNT, for the awesome beginning, Ebdim9thn for Tobit and the visuals I'll never forget, niro, for Lucy! Nomik, for inspiration and Rachael! Dana Jean, for managing this whole thing, her excellent writing and the squirrel, Garriga, for Nebirous, Shoesalesman, for the acid trip Tery, for the acid trip 2 and the coolest part of the story. Bipeds, twisted seeds!, FlakeNoir, for Nebiros kryptonite mal, for Alf and the heart, Demeter,for the most exciting scene and Kurben for his masterpiece that just set up the ending perfectly.

You guys are the best!

Leif

Once again you pretty much summed up everything at the end....
 

Dana Jean

Dirty Pirate Hooker, The Return
Moderator
Apr 11, 2006
53,634
236,697
The High Seas
And where are my manners?

I have to give a huge shout-out to Scott for starting us off so strong, with such a clear concept and characters.

With everything he is dealing with in his personal life, he came right through for me, and stayed positive and encouraging all the way through to all the writers. I can't thank him enough for his support.

I do so hope all the writers enjoyed this different experience.
 
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Dana Jean

Dirty Pirate Hooker, The Return
Moderator
Apr 11, 2006
53,634
236,697
The High Seas
And I just want to say, we all were a bit shaky on going back to the roots, some not understanding how it would work, but once everyone realized how this was progressing through the individual writers, they jumped on board with both feet and just rode this thing to the end.

The fact that no one even knew what we were going to be writing about was mysterious and a challenge in its own right. Scott told me what he wanted to do and I said, "Don't tell me! Just write it!"
 
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