Before I even start breaking down these verses, let me say that I can respect that both of you managed to keep showing up to this horribly dragged-out tournament. I checked in on it a few times, and your performances stood out.
Also, let me say that my man @
NYCSPITZ is actually wrong about the topic. It's part of Cormac McCarthy's
All the Pretty Horses, and it's a commentary on the world as it is vs. the world as we wish it were.
The full quote brims with cynicism. But I really like this as a topic because it's so open-ended. One person could interpret it as another phrasing of "means to an end," while another could take NYCSPITZ's version and aother could see the intended meaning. Just because McCarthy used the quote in one context does not mean he used it in its only or best context. All topics should be judged in vacuums, outside their understood relevance. Last week in this league, topics were famous paintings, and the best verses transcended the paintings' contexts in favor of creating new backstories.
Anyway, I'm in the mood to talk about writing. So I'm going to talk about your writing. And I'm probably going to talk about it more than you're used to having your writing talked about because battling doesn't really lead to real feedback beyond whether a punch is original or played, worded effectively or sloppily. But I hope you both will consider writing more outside of battles, be it for a league or in the Open Mic forum.
Cashius: This is about as direct as storytelling gets. You came up with an original story and set about telling it from beginning to end with no frills or experimentation. It's probably the safe route in this situation, as most of your experience is in battling and you're going against a veteran who has succeeded in topical leagues.
You have a heavy hand in your writing. Nothing is left to the imagination, and there really isn't much poetry here. You tell instead of showing a lot with lines like, "Makes a mint, but down to earth...his closet full of nothing but sneakers." I love the second part of that as a character trait. It's original and says a lot. But you could have set that concept into the story instead of the backstory, something like describing his crisp, new sneakers coming to a halt when he sees her. You do the same thing again at the end of the first stanza. Instead of saying "months of courting, meet the parents, a platinum link and a locket," build on the images and create a scene of how she wore the locket the first time she met his parents. This is something you seem in the habit of doing throughout the verse ("perfect homemaker," "start the name discussion"), and it's redundant and cuts into the creativity of some of those details. You don't need to set every line up when you're writing a story the way you do with a battle.
I thought you could have done more in general to make your verse interesting. I read your swag-and-flow verse, and it was obvious that your ability with rhyme schemes is excellent, but you pulled back here. That makes sense in a story format because it's so easy to get lost in the rhymes, but there are other ways to get creative. I liked "nothing up his sleeve" line, which sort of felt like a good display of what your style could be. You're a creative thinker in terms of wordplay and punchlines, and there's no reason not to translate that ability across styles a little.
Because you opted to tell your story straight, the onus was on how good that story was. And it wasn't great. Your characters were a little vague, but you gave them some background, with her rushing the marriage and demanding the gaudy honeymoon and him wearing sneakers and being wealthy but humble. But we didn't get enough about them to really become emotionally invested. Names can go a long way in humanizing characters in a story.
I also had a pretty big point of contention with the plot: Cutting the brakes is a pretty horrible way to attempt to kill someone. Even high-speed car accidents aren't fatal that often, and if your brakes were cut, wouldn't you notice pretty quickly? You're either backing out of the driveway or stopping at a sign or making that first turn. The questionable nature of that murder weapon was more obvious because of how abrupt the shift came. In one couplet, he went from getting into his car to dying, and in the very next couplet, we find out she's behind it. There's more you could have done, perhaps a return to the same hospital where they met as he's on his death bed? Perhaps she didn't cut his brakes but instead he got into an accident and when she found out he'd be paralyzed and decided to smother him in that hospital?
I am not trying to rewrite your story, just to rethink it a little. The truth is that you told this story very directly, and you handled yourself in that style perfectly fine. You really shined with the last line, which brought home the connection to the topic (in the intended McCarthy sense). In the broad sense, I thought your approach to the topic was very strong. But I think you have more in you as far as the writing of the story itself.
Rocket Ninja Pirate Slayer: This tournament is the only place I've read any verses from you, and if memory serves, you were no-showed in the storytelling round. So I haven't seen this side of your writing ability before. I'm not completely sure how to react to this, then.
You took the McCarthy quote even more directly to its intention. My reading was pretty clear, that this was the story of you going to work and putting on rap music to escape the inane existence of a day job with fat bitches like Doris clogging up the elevator. There was some humor with the Doris stuff, and I was glad to see that shine through from your general boarding personality. The frustration with the idiots around you felt very real.
The general cynicism did not. There was a long stretch in the middle of the verse where you were trying to establish motivation for escapism, but it rang mostly hollow. you were vague and mostly even metaphorical, with the talk of demons and capitalism and religious beliefs. None of it was fleshed out enough to feel genuine, particularly not in the context of an elevator ride with Fat Doris on your way to the 10th floor where you work. You could have created a few more elevator-riding characters to symbolize those frustrations and bring it all home because as is, this didn't seem like a very natural train of thought.
The "I bus yo head" stuff was an interesting way to approach the escapism angle, and I didn't mind it at all. I had sort of a "Whoop That Trick" vibe going in my head the whole time. But that context pretty much only existed at the very beginning and very end of the verse, without any fleshed out details. That's not a major problem, though, because I think the idea was that the concept would be relatable for pretty much your entire audience. We know the context for listening to rap music to escape the world because we live that life as much as you do. You could have done more, but I don't think you had to. I do predict some people will dislike that part immensely.
But what stood out about this verse was the use of sounds. You had a lot of assonance and a wide variety of rhyme schemes that were admirable. In some spots, they probably carried the verse a little more than is ideal, taking away from the content. But you mixed that in with some standout thoughts and concepts. The concept of wish fulfillment being a curse is nothing new, but you executed it well in a quit hit right as the verse was winding into the escapist part for maximum impact.
Basically, what I found here was a very good writer who didn't put his whole heart into constructing the verse with care. You had a good concept and approach to the topic, then let the rhymes and a few vague outlines of a concept carry you to the finish line. It's not what it could have been, but you managed to outwrite Cashius' more fleshed-out story because you showed more deft writing ability. And frankly, I thought your approach to the topic was slightly better, if less creative. This was a very relatable effort that built on your audience well. If you'd spent more time constructing it, it could have been something special.
Vote: Rocket Ninja Pirate Slayer