LI Writing Contest 2012: Feedback/Comments

Yayyy JazakAllah akhi

gng to read them tonight inshaAllah.

Just read the first entry, 'The Tramp'

I love the style and simplicity of the writing, and I love how despite it being simple, the detail and description is still brilliant. If I was to vote for this story I'd probably vote for it because the writer has managed some aspects of writing really well, aspects that I struggle with. For example I can never get dialogue right in a story, which is why I don't usually have any in the pieces I write. I like the short sentences and the fact that it's 'straight to the point'. The story tells itself without trying too hard or having to delve too deep into descriptions.

This entry kinda struck a chord in me because recently I've seen a lot of homeless people, just last week I was walking past one and he dropped down right in front of me and started having a fit; the point is, this story could be real and I can actually see it happening in this part of the UK. Hmm well maybe not this part since people are not friendly enough to talk to a tramp but I can see it happening, somewhere.

Thumbs up to the author, well done!

Haha just read 'A monster that snores'

Cute read short and sweet masha'Allah, I should have entered my short piece too, silly me :skeleton:

I think I like Snorry, he's a pretty old chap and you'd have thought he'd be tired of eating old socks, but apparantly not...since I've lost 20 pairs over the last few months

Well done author, you made me laugh!

Ok, just read 'Searching for Allah's love'

Before I write my thoughts I just wanna say that I'm 99% certain I know who wrote the story, so in advance, please don't be offended by any criticism <3

This is going to be a close competition I think!

I didn't enjoy reading this story as much as the others because the grammatical mistakes and words missing were distracting, however...This didn't take anything away from the story at all! The story is fantastically written and the story of friendship extremely refreshing, the theme of loving Allah and the Qur'an is so relevant, masha'Allah...well done to you for writing about it, it reminds me of my own Qur'anic and Tafseer studies and the love for Allah and His word that you feel afterwards.

Well done author, I still don't know which entry I'm voting for! Btw a mod can feel free to merge all my posts at the end.

Also, I'm only replying like this because if I had entered I'd want feedback on my entry too

Perhaps I should have done this before but better late then never. A member(jazakAllaah khayr) suggested we have a separate thread for comments and feedback for the entries as overwhelming the actual entries thread with comments will make it confusing for some members. So to avoid all of that please post your wonderful comments and feedback about the stories on this thread and not the other one. JazakAllaah Khayr.

I read bits of 'unity' and it slightly resembles killzone, specifically the first few sentences where they're sitting in the van with all their gear. A change of setting would've been nice instead of staying, for the most part, in and around the warehouse. All in all, it's a good story, well written, and it has lot's of small dialogues. I'm not sure if it's something that will appeal to the ladies(unless it's brother ghazali) but i certainly enjoyed it.

8/10.

Killzone =

http://www.islamicboard.com/creative-writing-art/134317228-li-writing-contest-2012-fe

just so there are no hard feelings, since I really despise the fact that our names show on the voting poll almost tempting me not to vote- there are two stories tied for me and a third comes in a close second.. I can't makeup my mind between them but I am not making istikhara or losing sleep over it!
The one I chose reminds me of a movie I once watched (Bruce Willis) ...

Read the stories

I liked longevity and the monster that snores and all of them lol MashaALLAH all of them were really good.

Re: LI Writing Contest 2012 - The Entries !

We have 2 voters so far.....and its a tie! lol.....MashaAllah : )

I had not realised that the vote was not anonymous......what kind of a poll is this?

Is there any way that we can conceal the voters identities? It somehow does not feel right this way :/

If members wish to reveal their vote at a later stage (after the count is taken), then this should be fine.....

Good job everyone! : )

Re: http://www.islamicboard.com/creative-writing-art/134317228-li-writing-contest-201

^ Yeah!

شَادِنُ;1560508 said:

I am not making istikhara or losing sleep over it!

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I feel a bit nervous before voting. It's always difficult to choose.

Just finished reading longevity and mash'Allah it's my type of story, an esoteric and abstract micro-novel. I read it all in one go which say's a lot about it's ability to captivate a reader. It's a story where you have to read it a number of times to put all the pieces of the puzzle together, in order for you to get a deeper understanding.

8.5/10

Here's my two cents, (I hope this doesn't come off cocky, giving advice. hopefully people while find my comments constructive and usefull)

Ephemeral bliss
My personal preference.I would have enjoyed a few more twists though. As soon as the breaker was explained, the ending was kind of obvious and predictable. But all in all it's a very good story.


The Tramp
It's a nice story, and I like that it has a message, I try to put some dawah in my stories to. Only, in my opinion you're laying it in a little too thick. It reminded of the sort of stories you read in school as a kid to learn morality. I think in general most people will find that off-putting. You have to be much more subtle; allow for the reader to reach his own conclusions instead of spoon-feeding it.

A monster that snores
Enjoyed reading this, A pity you didn't take it a further; made a story out of it. I mean, I feel there's allot more potential there.

Searching for Allah’s love
As far as the story is concearned, love it. As far as writing style is concearned I'd advice the following. When you write a story, obviously you already have an idea of where you're going, right? you have a storyline lined out in your head, in this case something like: "Girl meets friend, then loses her, but learns a valuable lesson thanks to her" The problem is then, will you just tell all the events from beginnning to end? every storyline will have it's dull moments which are unavoidable. The key is to work around it. For example, say you wanted to tell the exact same story, but by writing only about the events that take place on their last day toghether. What they say, what happens, ond so on. All the other information that is relevant (events of previous months, the school assignment, studying qur'an together and so on) could be refered to in flashbacks or just refered to as memories during the events of their last day. The story you've told then is exactly the same, only allot more fast-paced. It's like, rather then first giving a few paragraps to introduce the characters, start right into the action, and explain everything that needs to be known as you go along. Otherwise, most people will quit reading before you get to the action (=any event of major relevance in your storyline). As an added bonus to this, you will be able to put allot more emotion into the story, and talk about the characters thoughts and feelings as events come along since the more condence form allows for that better. whereas in the curren style, if you add thoughts and emotions, they would stand out as odd among the "list of events".

Unity
It was nice, but perhaps not really my cup of tea. there's this thing in hollywood, where each action movie that comes out rather then trying to be original just tries to trumph the previous by being bigger, faster, louder and what not. Basically your standard: "look how epic this is!". But honestly it just gets boring and dull very quickly. As far as your story is concearned; I felt like you have the potential to bring originality, but were sidetracked by getting sucked into that competition of theirs."

Longevity
Nice story. Your beats are sometimes a little of cue. Rather then anchoring the story they seem to make the writer's presence noticable. As if I can hear you thinking, what else could I say about this cat to break up the dialogue. Only afterwards it turned out it weren't just beats, but relative events to the story-line. I can't quite put my finger on it, but the pace just seems off. Also, I don't know if you did this intentionally to make people curious, but it took me a while to figure out who's who as characters are introduced. For example with Syed and Janus, even though you say right from the get go that they were in a cab I got confused and thought that they knew each other afterall (cabdrivers have family too ). It took me a while to figure out, and when I did I had to go back and re-read some parts. Maybe it's just silly old me, and that I haven't slept enough these last few days, I dunno.

Oh also, wasn't there an episode of Doctor who, with a very similar monster that had the exact same catch-phrase?

Re: LI Writing Contest 2012 - The Entries !

B

~Zaria~ said:

We have 2 voters so far.....and its a tie! lol.....MashaAllah : )

I had not realised that the vote was not anonymous......what kind of a poll is this?

Is there any way that we can conceal the voters identities? It somehow does not feel right this way :/

If members wish to reveal their vote at a later stage (after the count is taken), then this should be fine.....

Good job everyone! : )

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I can't see who voted for wht maybe the mods changed it.

Voting is panning out the way i thought it would. Oliver Bierhoff didn't want to take the same route as Syed Qutb and maybe if they were friends things would be different.

Just read the monster that snores and i can say that it was written by a female 100%. It's something i would read to my children if i had children - nice, short and simple to understand.

6/10

Searching for Allah’s love
I had to team up with a girl named Khadija who joined school yesterday. She came and sat next to me as my friend stood up and left to sit next to her partner who I didn’t like at all.

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Searching for Allah’s love
I thought I’d take an advantage and ask Khadija if she would like to come to my house tomorrow so that we complete our poster. I just felt attached to her;

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Another story by a female, no brother can get away with what is occurring in the second quote, nonetheless it's a nice emotion-filled story written by a super emotional being, and i like it's message at the end - forget about people and care only about having love for Allah.

7/10

Also, stories were presented by Yanal in the order that they were submmitted, that should tell us that the first 3 were by woman, and the the last ones bu guys

ps: Periwinkle18, to see who voted for which story click one on of the blue numbers indicating the vote count, it wil lonly show then.

Reading the above comments, for some odd odd reason, I think the 1st 3 and ephemeral paradise were written by girlies.

Anyway, for me it was a very tough choice between Longevity, unity and Ephemeral paradise.
Unity was a very fast paced story, I liked the way it went from one situation to the next and the action scenes. (I have eclectic taste in stories, you read the Alex Rider series? They're awsome!)
Ephemeral Paradise to me feels as though it's describing what's already happening in the world now, albeit with other methods of intoxicants. The story was very well written.
The one that clinched it for me was Longevity. The way the story was going back and forth from the Scenario in Syed's head, relating to the current situation, where the old man was getting younger. I just can't explain it, it was my kind of story. Hats off to the author.
Basically, it was a very very tough choice.
A

It's between Longevity and Unity...I can't decide

Re.TiReD said:

It's between Longevity and Unity...I can't decide

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Very tough decision to make in between those, I can't vote but if I could my vote would be for either of those two stories as well.