You both put in a lot of work (perhaps too much, but we'll get to that) this week, and on top of that still managed to have the first open battle. Here, have an in-depth vote:
YDK: Your improvement over the past three weeks has been obvious and tremendous to see. I was excited from the jump to see you putting more into your rhyme schemes, and you showed a lot of confidence throughout this verse, which I think was a problem for you in weeks past. But I think you were too into it this week.
Here's the summary of your story: A writer is becoming frustrated with his writing and takes it out on his wife, only to realize that she is his true inspiration. That's a fine story. But it felt strained at 50-plus lines. This part was by far the weakest section but speaks to the issue as a whole:
Quote:
A weak base meant the speech faced criticism and backlash,
And with a cynical take on the rap he decides to trash that.
Scratch it and step back,
Let the piece lead him to where his pens at.
Started as a love story; ended as a brag track.
"...the fags wack!"
Is all he can finish with as he sees a verse that he laughs at.
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I'm not sure how to feel about the writer being a textcee, but I do know that there were better ways to broach that (mostly irrelevant, anyway) issue. Ending on the rotting root would have been a stronger structural conceit and allowed the story to push forward more. You spent a lot of time developing this protagonist, which was less relevant because the protagonist was us. Most of us will relate to him on some level.
The third stanza might have been the strongest writing of the story, but it made evident the reduncancy issue because it did so little to advance the story. In general, more details about the marriage or the wife would have been helpful to lay the groundwork for the ending. But I did like this bit of rumination on the writing process:
Quote:
He tries in vain to hide disdain for his own emotionless pieces,
Unbeknownst to him,
his idols prospered in writing about love because they never achieved it.
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There was really eloquent writing in parts of this verse, and the thoughts on the writing process were probably the highlight of the verse for me. When the verse was at its best, the story line seemed secondary. Unfortunatetly, that's because the story line was not particularly effective.
I've gone back and forth on the ending. Let me say upfront that I thought ending on a genuinely happy note and not using your topic ironically was the bolder and more interesting decision. It's fucking hard to write happy verse. I almost never do it, though that's more because I'm an unhappy person than anything else. And when you're given a topic like this one, the feeling is that you're stuffed into this happiness box. So I give you credit for doing what you did.
What I'm having issues with is whether it feels earned. From the perspective of the surface-level story of marriage, it doesn't. We just don't get to know the wife or the couple enough. It's difficult to understand her pain without understanding her. But I don't think this verse was really about the marriage as much as the writing. And from that perspective, the ending was perfect, all the way down to him writing
while kissing his wife. He loved her more because she was his muse than anything else. The relationship is built on the foundation of his inspirations. It's kind of fucked-up from that perspective, and I can dig that. So I think ultimately that I really liked the ending for what it was.
From the writing perspective, you showed you can get out of the way and let the story tell itself when necessary in the fourth stanza and produced some eloquent lines in the first and third. The second stanza felt like filler, adding little and featuring the weakest section of the verse. The rhymes never returned to the level they seemed to be headed toward in the first stanza, but they were consistently effective. The were some awkward wording choices here or there, such as, "The woman he married exits after making his entrance." But mostly this was a major improvement. I think more careful consideration toward story structure and pacing would help you quite a bit, but you really aren't far off.
Frank: I'm not sure I've ever seen a longer verse for a topical battle. So that's impressive, I guess. But did you pull it off? I'm leaning mostly toward yes, but there were some issues that needed fixing in the process.
You almost have to write long. It's in your style. In switching from YDK's verse to yours, the difference in smoothness is ridiculously evident. It makes your verses exceptionally easy to read, but it also means you end up writing long almost every week because you simply don't pack enough in every line to go short. That actually serves as a breath of fresh air to a degree because your sense of pacing is strong enough that it never feels laborous to read your verses.
That laconic writer's voice makes it very easy to tell complex stories, as you did last week for example. But I still think this one had a little too much going on, and the biggest issue probably was Uncle P.J. He simply added nothing to the story and felt extraneous in every way. It was a bit distracting when you brought him up in the climax of the story because it didn't really seem relevant, unless you mean Jay gave a blowjob to the other guy. Beyond that, his individual section was the worst of the four.
Steve's was the best, and as a whole, your use of Steve worked the best. I didn't think much of the stuff about the mom and how Jay was interracial, and I'm glad I didn't because it seemed pretty irrelevant. I understand the purpose of characterization to provide depth, but Uncle P.J.'s felt too stereotypical and seemed to go for some sort of shock value about homosexuality, while Mom's verse was a bit too focused on the biracial aspect of it all.
The climax had the same sort of feeling of Jay-Z's "Meet the Parents," one of my favorite songs. I really liked the direct tie-ins showing nuture and nature. But the end somehow felt rushed, given that so much of the space was spent developing Jay and the family. (Aside: The intro stuff could have ben cut down to two lines, or even none.) We didn't get many details about the assailant or the circumstances, anthe clarity of the writing begins to peter off at about that time.
Then again, that's part of the cycle in these scenarios. Kids die without warning. We at least had that in this verse.
I liked the bleekeness of it, and I liked the slight twist on the topic. This verse was exceptionally straightforward, paricularly on the topic. The approach was that of a documentarian, and the take on the topic was very clever. The writing was in your signature style, with very, very few bumps along the way.
And that's why I'm siding with you. YDK had all his ducks in order and wrote a very good verse. Neither of you completely earned your lengths. But I do think Frank did more with his verse witht he flashbacks and familiar relations who ended up involved in this story. Frank wrote something memorable (albeit flawed). You both did.
Vote: Frank